Julian F. Grow

“ People are entitled to facts. They get facts in the Sun. They know that every item in that sheet is written, checked and checked again by the special media circuits of Congris we call WPA. Those same cybernetic banks that make the laws, trace the lawbreakers, do the thousands of things that make our civilization possible, they filter, sift and sort the news as it comes in from the Scoops. ”

“ Interlinked webs of detection and retaliation or attack, within the webs bombs ... within the bombs targets, mapped and doomed by a spark. Each alliance a network of aimed and armed missiles, in deserts, on mountaintops, hidden deep and in the surrounding seas. Each alliance a pattern of targets, always an instant from obliteration. ”

“ I got up automatically to get our copies of the Sun as the cubeo announcer went into the WPA opening format:
"An informed people is a free people. Read your Sun and know the truth. Stand by now for an official synopsis of the day's happenings prepared by the World Press Association." That was the standard formula. But then he departed from standard, and it rattled him. I sat next to Sara and watched, interested.
"I have been directed," he said, "to call your full attention to the editorial on the front page of your Sun." Good grief, I thought: Church! Surely not the Onlon thing! ”

“ Each chosen by his masters to be the nock of the arrow, the final factor; yet not an arrow, for each network of course was aimed at both the others. A moment's trust is fatal once the truce is broken, the masters reasoned, and so the bombs and the men were trained. ”

“ The written word—the reader's distant experience—was in type: dictatype, teletype, phototype, printer's type ... newspapers, books, advertising, business letters, memoranda, personal letters, everything.
Before, people had tended to believe most of what was handwritten, and almost nothing that was in type. With everything in type, they got tired of deciding which to believe and began to believe either every word, or none. It wasn't good.
It led to the Edict, and of course to the World Press Association and its relentless search for truth.
"Gah," said Sara. "Truth is an overrated commodity. ”

“ If sometimes this present seems to lack a luster that older people say they remember, at least no flaws have been concealed by that luster. At last mankind can see exactly what he is, and where he stands. ”

“ News is a description of events, presented with human intelligence in a manner to interest and stimulate other human intelligence. The Sun is whatever that monstrous washing-machine decides is proper to have happened, presented in a manner to interest no one except other washing-machines. ”

“ Great truths were produced by closer collaboration, as communications improved. But with imperfect regulation, great lies went out too, magnified by the same communications. One man's lies could poison an entire nation, and afflict the entire world. ”

“ Identically, in each network, the white button was a dummy. The real choice was as it always was—red button, kill ... or wait yet a while more. The men in the tombs, unknowing, knew this was the choice.
1 man's brain, whosoever, however carefully masters may mold it, is a fragile thing. Ten thousand years have not fitted man to live with himself; could a single man live with the lives of two billion? ”

“ Life, freed from the phantoms and fairies inspired by spurious children's tales, by adult daydreams, deception and delusion, is less complex, more direct than it was 50 years ago. It permits a far greater attention to the details of present existence; for once you realize how little good it does to dwell on an unknowable future, the immediate and provable present becomes important indeed. ”

“ That's why semi-controlled monthlies like the Argus exist. But for the important stuff, only the exact truth will do."
I thought a minute before going on. Why can't a civilization that will some day land on the moon, calm an angry woman? I started by pulling Sara, struggling, onto my lap.
"You think—hold still!—a Reporter doesn't have to know much," I told her. She nodded violent assent. "You think all he has to do, all day long, is sit by the Scoop and keep Flacks and psychos away. You think I just sit there while news goes in the Scoop and comes out the Fotofax slot. ”

“ Even so, I wondered, if, despite the Edict and WPA, the Flacks hadn't gotten their Crimmus reminder before the public, after all. I stared in at the Scoop.
Physically, the Scoop is just a short, thick tube projecting from a blank wall; it ends in a round orifice covered by a grille, and is adjustable to the height of the speaker. Below it is an ID sensor plate, and above it, the viewer and the preamble to the Edict.
The Scoop isn't large. But it gives man a voice no man ever had before: it could bring his words almost instantly to men throughout the world. ”

“ Stands to reason as long as men are making the laws, a lot of those laws are bound to be stupid, or unfair, or just plain corrupt—like the men that made them.
But electrons don't lie, and they can't be bought, and they don't make mistakes.
So in every community room throughout the UN, there are Senators. Microphones linked direct by microwave to Congris, the biggest cybernetic machine in the world, buried deep in rock somewhere in the Midwest. All you or any other citizen has to do is clear your ID with the Page, there protecting his Senator just like I do my Scoop, and speak your mind. ”

“ Every bit goes to the Greeley and if it's important enough, comes out in the next regional, national or world Sun. All the Fireman or citizen or whatever has to do, is press his ID tag to the sensor, for identity, veracity and authority audit, and have a Second there for corroboration.
"It's the news, straight news, all the news that's important enough to print, and written so it can be understood...."
"By a washing-machine," Sara broke in. "Sterilized, deodorized, dehumanized news—and still it stinks." ”

“ I went in to the Scoop and tore off the dupe of the Onlon report.
The first warning I had was the slug, "CHURCH," stamped at the end of their transmission on signal from the Greeley. It meant the Greeley had evaluated the transmission and referred it to the editorial level.
And that was wrong, way wrong.
Every trade has its vulgar and, some would say, irreverent catchwords. Actual churches had become pretty rare as Congris took over more and more direction of public life. You can depend on advice you get from a cybernetic system that doesn't stop eating if you stop asking. ”

“ All but known truth was eliminated from schoolbooks, to the detriment only of the romanticized, and thus probably false, past. Surrounded by fact, human relationships have become factual. Hypocrisy, deceit, exaggeration are against the law. ”

“ Still, if Vermont were ever zoned Population B, there might be trouble. She wouldn't leave Milbry.
Oho, I thought to myself, locking onto the Nork belt and double-checking the destination coordinates, I am lapsing into speculation—risky ground, for a Reporter. The code expressly forbids speculation, and with reason.
Speculation uses an inadequate number of arbitrarily chosen half-truths to shape conflicting possibilities, all but one of which time must prove to be false. Truth is only what has already happened. ”

“ I take pleasure in thinking, in figuring things out. Sure, I keep it quiet, permanent Civil Service status or not. If I didn't keep my mouth shut I'd never have been promoted from Inaplis to WPA Center Nork.
"Sara, I am in charge of the No. One Scoop in the Northeast Region for the Greeley—all right, the Groves-Rudermann Eidetic Integrator. Top spot in the Guild, Sara! Because I keep my eyes open and my mouth shut, and I tend my Scoop." ”

“ In the days when handwriting was general, a man believed a personal message if it came from someone he trusted. And he'd know it came from that person because he recognized the handwriting, just as he'd recognize the person's voice, or his face. ”

“ But most important, news is expressed—and this you simply cannot see—expressed in basic human terms, designed to arouse the basic human curiosity or sympathy that makes an abstract description palatable to people. ”

“ But the fact I had passed a lie would show on my performance audit, and it wouldn't look good; even so, the treatment I got from Civil Service would be a lot gentler than the things I was thinking about myself. I doubted that Onlon would even get more than a reprimand—he apparently meant no harm. He would be separated from the child, of course.
As for the girl's transmission, it was shocking and stupid. I jammed the dupe in my belt-pouch, and went out without a word to Ron, to start the trip to Sara and Vermont. ”

“ The announcer looked around him rather wildly, then blurted: "I now turn you over to the Orator, for a direct-voice proclamation of this editorial."
The vocal unit of Church, highest level of the WPA and the actual voice of Congris! The last time it spoke, 2 years ago, it was the Pan-asian War—this couldn't be the Onlon thing. The announcer's image faded from the cubeo prism and was replaced by a soft light, and an organ note as the local station engineers patched to the nationwide WPA circuit. Everyone in the room stared into the light, even Sara, waiting for the voice. ”

“ Later, as civilization developed through improved communication—more abstract lingual concepts, systems of writing, methods of transportation—a word could travel faster and farther, and affect more and more people. ”

“ And this wasn't a Scoop-smash.
I didn't think it was a news story, either. But Onlon seemed quite convinced that this pack of animals that left the tracks was rare, not only in Nork but anywhere. The tracks were distinctive, he said. And the girl, whose voice matched her face, grave yet with a kind of ... happiness in it, did seem sensible. So I passed them in, to the Scoop.
Odd, I thought of Sara as I did it.
"I don't think this will make the paper," I warned them. "Children don't make good Sources. And your being her father weakens the Second. ”

“ Then the typewriter, and then the dictatyper. Everybody's writing was just like everybody else's, and there was a lot of it.
Everything was in type, even the identifying name at the end of a personal letter, the autograph ("Signature," Sara snigged) ... signature, then. For a long time businessmen's letters had been signed by their stenographers anyway. ("Secretaries, blockhead," Sara muttered, and she sighed.)
The point is, I continued, that except for a few cases of eccentricity—I glanced at her belt pouch, with the pencil in it—handwriting had disappeared. ”

“ WPA doesn't encourage heavy thought on the job—just that I be big enough and quick enough to keep some fool from hollering fake advertising plugs or obscenities or nonsense into the mouthpiece, or maybe smashing the Scoop the way some try to do. ”

“ I said. "Don't you know a Plant when you hear one? Surely you should recognize a Flack's work, if anybody could," I told him. Maybe it was unkind to talk about Flacks, when his father had been one; but any time the truth hurts, it's the pain of healing.
"It's a pretty elaborate plant, but phony as faith," I said more gently. "That bowl fairly screams 'Gift.' Are you forgetting tomorrow's Crimmus, and that all over the country Flacks are pulling tricks like this?"
Vern, pale, said defensively, "Ben, look. ”

“ Vern was still there when the viewer went blank. Most of us punch in exactly on time and punch out exactly four hours later, to the minute. Vern always comes on early and leaves late because, I think, his father was convicted of advertising under the Edict, and Vern is still trying to clear the family number.
"Quiet night, Ben. Just one accident," he said. I was leafing through the little pile of dupes—simultypes of the stories that had gone into the Scoop, with the ibems of the Source and his or her Second—and was seeing this for myself, so I just grunted. ”

“ In the same way, parents and children assess their true feelings toward each other and, sometimes, rearrange themselves—or on application are rearranged. It makes for a far more practical allotment, often, than the hit-or-miss distribution of children previously. ”