The Metallic Muse

Title: The Metallic Muse - UY1115

Author: Lloyd Biggle

ISBN: 0879971150 / 9780879971151 USA edition

Mass Market Paperback: 220 pages scanned to ebook

Publisher: DAW; 1st PB edition June 18, 1974

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0879971150

ISBN-13: 9780879971151

In THE METALLIC MUSE are seven science fiction stories, written over several years, all of which in some way relate to the arts.

*** A biggles scan ***

Contents

“The Tunesmith” - If 1957

“Leading Man” - Galaxy 1957

“Spare the Rod” - Galaxy 1958

“Orphan of the Void” - Fantastic 1960

“Well of the Deep Wish” - If 1961

“In His Own Image” F&SF 1968

“The Botticelli Horror” - Fantastic 1960

“Orphan of the Void” was originally published as “The Man Who Wasn’t Home.”

page 09

The Tunesmith.

(Introduction)

The question is so inevitable that Science Fiction writers learn to wait expectantly for it. It comes variously phrased, sometimes administered with the practiced skill of the physician who distracts one’s attention while aiming a needle at the buttocks, sometimes thrown out with the subtlety of a professional football lineman blitzing a quarterback, but it forms an important if not irreplaceable prop for almost every TV, radio or newspaper interview. Not infrequently it encompasses the entire Science Fiction knowledge of the interviewer. So where do we get those crazy ideas?

From the same place that you get them, gentle reader. The Science Fiction writer’s ideas, or at least the experiences that give rise to them, are no different from anyone else’s. The difference lies in his ability to recognize a crazy idea when he sees one and to make use of it. Anyone who has watched—or attempted to watch— the Late Late Show on television has been irked by the number as well as the placement of TV commercials. Many who have consciously noted this unabashed greed with which a TV station will push commercials at its viewers must have entertained the fleeting thought that the station would show nothing but commercials if it thought it could get away with that. Few of these viewers take the next logical mental step and ask themselves, “What would happen if it did show nothing but commercials?” This is fortunate; otherwise, the Science Fiction profession would be far more crowded than it is at present.

Among their other sterling virtues, Science Fiction writers are inveterate viewers-with-alarm, in which role they perform an important public service. Their speculations frequently fix upon genuine dangers to our civilization that are ignored or unseen by others. Long before atomic tests in the atmosphere were a subject of public concern, a card was circulating in Science Fiction circles that read, “The Atomic Energy Commission wants to give every school child a hot lunch.” Such dangers as DDT in the environment, or strontium 90 in our milk supply, or voter apathy, or atmospheric pollution, or crime in the streets have long been viewed with alarm by Science Fiction writers, and these writers have asked themselves, “What will happen if this goes on?” They have supplied speculative answers. Please note that they do not predict. They are not saying, “This will happen.” They are saying, ” If something or other continues, this is what could happen.”

I viewed with alarm that trend toward more numerous TV commercials. Obviously if this is projected without faltering it has an inevitable end: programs that consist entirely of commercials. I also detected a companion trend, well worth noting, in that the dramatic content of some commercials was vastly superior to that of the programs that carried them.

I wrote “The Tunesmith.” It describes a future where there is no entertainment except the TV commercial— which thus must constitute the only surviving form of artistic expression in music, art, literature and the drama. At no time did I anticipate that the human animal would ever tolerate such foolishness. I was not predicting.

I was satirizing a contemporary trend by projecting it, exaggerated, into the future. This is a venerable literary device. An eighteenth-century writer of Science Fiction, Jonathan Swift, satirized his contemporary Englishmen by transposing them to Lilliput or Brob-dingnag; in the succeeding 250 years the Earth has become almost too crowded for even fictional societies, and the modern Science Fiction writer is more likely to place his satires in the distant future or in outer space. “The Tunesmith” was published in the magazine IF, it was included in T. E. Dikty’s The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels, Ninth Series, and translations appeared in several foreign countries, including (without my consent!) the Soviet Union. In the meantime I took my non-predicting to other areas. And within the next few years I saw an impressive picture story in a nationally-circulated magazine concerning European television stations that were offering highly artistic programs consisting of nothing but commercials, and I happened onto a small but equally terrifying newspaper item about a new Los Angeles FM station scheduled to broadcast nothing but commercials twenty-four hours a day.*

Predictions, in our society, have become so authoritative and so widely publicized as to constitute a peculiar kind of menace. Consider the sinister implications of the joke, “Tomorrow has been cancelled due to lack of interest.” Lately there have been expressions of concern that predicting a thing may actually make it happen. If all of the leading economists were unanimous in their prediction of a business slump, for example, corporation presidents would tend to hold back—just a little—on expansion plans and inventory build-up. Wholesalers and retailers might delay their orders—just a little—until they could find out what was going to happen. Workers might postpone installment purchases until they could find out for certain that they would be able to go on working. The economy would turn downward—just a little—and this would be viewed by everyone as the beginning of the predicted slump. More cutbacks would follow, and in very short order the slump would be a reality with the economists attempting to explain why it arrived ahead of schedule.

Predicting it made it happen.

I didn’t mean to do it

* The Los Angeles radio station, KADS (FM), gave up the all-adVertising format after losing $86,393.02 in a six-month period. The failure was not blamed on the incessant advertising, just on the fact that the station failed to discover a mode of presentation that would make the ads palatable.

page 12

CHAPTER ONE

THE TUNESMITH

Everyone Calls it the Center. It has another name, a long one, that gets listed in government appropriations and has its derivation analyzed in encyclopedias, but no one uses it. From Bombay to Lima, from Spitsbergen to the mines of Antarctica, from the solitary outpost on Pluto to that on Mercury, it is—the Center. You can emerge from the rolling mists of the Amazon, or the cutting dry winds of the Sahara, or the lunar vacuum, elbow your way up to a bar, and begin, “When I was at the Center—” and every stranger within hearing will listen attentively. It isn’t possible to explain the Center, and it isn’t necessary. From the babe in arms to the centenarian looking forward to retirement, everyone has been there, and plans to go again next year, and the year after that. It is the vacation land of the Solar System. It is square miles of undulating American Middle West farm land, transfigured by ingenious planning and relentless labor and incredible expense. It is a monumental summary of man’s cultural heritage, and like a phoenix, it has emerged suddenly, inexplicably, at the end of the twenty-fourth century, from the corroded ashes of an appalling cultural decay. The Center is colossal, spectacular and magnificent. It is inspiring, edifying and amazing. It is awesome, it is overpowering, it is—everything. And though few of its visitors know about this, or care, it is also haunted. You are standing in the observation gallery of the towering Bach Monument. Off to the left, on the slope of a hill, you see the tense spectators who crowd the Grecian Theater for Euripides. Sunlight plays on their brightly-colored clothing. They watch eagerly, delighted to see in person what millions are watching on visiscope. Beyond the theater, the tree-lined Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard curves into the distance, past the Dante Monument and the Michelangelo Institute. The twin towers of a facsimile of the Rheims Cathedral rise above the horizon. Directly below, you see the curious landscaping of an eighteenth-century French jardin and, nearby, the Moliere Theater. A hand clutches your sleeve, and you turn suddenly, irritably, and find yourself face to face with an old man. The leathery face is scarred and wrinkled, the thin strands of hair glistening white. The hand on your arm is a gnarled claw. You stare, take in the slumping contortion of one crippled shoulder and the hideous scar of a missing ear, and back away in alarm. The sunken eyes follow you. The hand extends in a sweeping gesture that embraces the far horizon, and you notice that the fingers are maimed or missing. The voice is a harsh cackle. “Like it?” he says, and eyes you expectantly. Startled, you mutter, “Why, yes. Of course.” He takes a step forward, and his eyes are eager, pleading. “I say, do you like it?” In your perplexity you can do no more than nod as you turn away—but your nod brings a strange response. A strident laugh, an innocent, childish smile of pleasure, a triumphant shout. “I did it! I did it all!” Or you stand in resplendent Plato Avenue, between the Wagnerian Theater, where the complete Der Ring des Nibelungen is performed daily, and the reconstruction of the sixteenth-century Globe Theatre, where Shakespearean drama is presented morning, afternoon and evening. A hand paws at you. “Like it?” If you respond with a torrent of ecstatic praise, the old man eyes you impatiently and only waits until you have finished to ask again, “I say, do you like it?” But a smile and a nod is met with beaming pride, a gesture, a shout. In the lobby of one of the thousand spacious hotels, in the waiting room of the remarkable library where a copy of any book you request is reproduced for you free of charge, in the eleventh balcony of Beethoven Hall, a ghost shuffles haltingly, clutches an arm, asks a question. And shouts proudly, “I did it!”

Erlin Baque sensed her presence behind him, but he did not turn. Instead he leaned forward, his left hand tearing a rumbling bass figure from the multichord while his right hand fingered a solemn melody. With a lightning flip of his hand he touched a button, and the thin treble tones were suddenly fuller, more resonant, almost clarinetlike. (“But God, how preposterously unlike a clarinet!” he thought.) “Must we go through all that again, Val?” he asked. “The landlord was here this morning.” He hesitated, touched a button, touched several buttons, and wove weird harmonies out of the booming tones of a brass choir. (But what a feeble, distorted brass choir!) “How long does he give us this time?” “Two days. And the food synthesizer’s broken down again.” “Good. Run down and buy some fresh meat.” “With what?” Baque slammed his fists down and shouted above the shattering dissonance. “I will not rent a harmonizer. I will not turn my arranging over to hacks. If a Com goes out with my name on it, it’s going to be composed. It may be idiotic, and it may be sickening, but it’s going to be done right. It isn’t much, God knows, but it’s all I have left.“ He turned slowly and glared at her, this pale, drooping, worn-out woman who’d been his wife for twenty-five years. Then he looked away, telling himself stubbornly that he was no more to be blamed than she. When sponsors paid the same rates for good Coms that they paid for hackwork … ”Is Hulsey coming today?“ she asked. ”He told me he was coming.“ ”If we could get some money for the landlord—“ ”And the food synthesizer. And a new visiscope. And new clothes. There’s a limit to what can be done with one Com.“ He heard her move away, heard the door open, and waited. It did not close. ”Walter-Walter called,“ she said. ”You’re the featured tunesmith on today’s She Case.“ ”So? There’s no money in that.“ ”I thought you wouldn’t want to watch, so I told Mrs. Rennik I’d watch with her.“ ”Sure. Go ahead. Have fun.“ The door closed. Baque got to his feet and stood looking down at his chaos-strewn worktable. Music paper, Com-lyric releases, pencils, sketches, half-finished manuscripts were cluttered together in untidy heaps. Baque cleared a corner for himself and sat down wearily, stretching his long legs out under the table. ”Damn Hulsey,“ he muttered. ”Damn sponsors. Damn visiscope. Damn Coms.“ Compose something, he told himself. You’re not a hack, like the other tunesmiths. You don’t punch out silly tunes on a harmonizer’s keyboard and let a machine complete them for you. You’re a musician, not a melody monger. Write some music. Write a—a sonata, for multichord. Take the time now, and compose something. His eyes fell on the first lines of a Com-lyric release. ”If your flyer jerks and clowns, if it has its ups and downs—“ ”Damn landlord,” he muttered, reaching for a pencil. The tiny wall clock tinkled the hour, and Baque leaned over to turn on the visiscope. A cherub-faced master of ceremonies smiled out at him ingratiatingly. “Walter-Walter again, ladies and gentlemen. It’s Com time on today’s Show Case. Thirty minutes of Commercials by one of today’s most talented tunesmiths. Our Com spotlight is on—” A noisy brass fanfare rang out, the tainted brass tones of a multichord. “Erlin Baque!” The multichord swung into an odd, dipsey melody Baque had done five years before, for Tamper Cheese, and a scattering of applause sounded in the background. A nasal soprano voice mouthed the words, and Baque groaned unhappily. “We age our cheese, and age it, age it, age it, age it, age it the old-fashioned way…” Walter-Walter cavorted about the stage, moving in time with the melody, darting down into the audience to kiss some sedate housewife-on-a-holiday, and beaming at the howls of laughter. The multichord sounded another fanfare, and Walter-Walter leaped back onto the stage, both arms extended over his head. “Now listen to this, all you beautiful people. Here’s your Walter-Walter exclusive on Erlin Baque.” He glanced secretively over his shoulder, tiptoed a few steps closer to the audience, placed his finger on his lips, and then called out loudly, “Once upon a time there was another composer named Baque, spelled B-A-C-H, but pronounced Baque. He was a real atomic propelled tunesmith, the boy with the go, according to them that know. He lived some five or six or seven hundred years ago, so we can’t exactly say that that Baque and our Baque were Baque to Baque. But we don’t have to go Baque to hear Baque. We like the Baque we’ve got. Are you with me?” Cheers. Applause. Baque turned away, hands trembling, a choking disgust nauseating him. “We start off our Coms by Baque with that little masterpiece Baque did for Foam Soap. Art work by Bruce Combs. Stop, look—and listen!” Baque managed to turn off the visiscope just as the first bar of soap jet-propelled itself across the screen. He picked up the Com lyric again, and his mind began to shape the thread of a melody. “If your flyer jerks and clowns, if it has its ups and downs, ups and downs, ups and downs, you need a WARING!” He hummed softly to himself, sketching a musical line that swooped and jerked like an erratic flyer. Word painting, it was called, back when words and tones meant something. Back when the B-A-C-H Baque was underscoring such grandiose concepts as Heaven and Hell. Baque worked slowly, now and then trying a harmonic progression at the multichord and rejecting it, straining his mind for some fluttering accompaniment pattern that would simulate the sound of a flyer. But then—no. The Waring people wouldn’t like that. They advertised that their flyers were noiseless. Urgent-sounding door chimes shattered his concentration. He walked over to flip on the scanner, and Hulsey’s pudgy face grinned out at him. “Come on up,” Baque told him. Hulsey nodded and disappeared. Five minutes later he waddled through the door, sank into a chair that sagged dangerously under his bulky figure, plunked his briefcase onto the floor, and mopped his face. “Whew! Wish you’d get yourself a place lower down. Or into a building with modern conveniences. Elevators scare me to death!” “I’m thinking of moving,” Baque said. “Good. It’s about time.” “But it’ll probably be somewhere higher up. The landlord has given me two days’ notice.” Hulsey winced and shook his head sadly. “I see. Well, I won’t keep you in suspense. Here’s the check for the Sana-Soap Com.” Baque took the card, glanced at it, and scowled. “You were behind in your guild dues,” Hulsey said. “Have to deduct them, you know.” “Yes. I’d forgotten.” “I like to do business with Sana-Soap. Cash right on the line. Too many companies wait until the end of the month. Sana-Soap wants a couple of changes, but they paid anyway.” He unsealed the briefcase and pulled out a folder. “You’ve got some sly bits in this one, Erlin my boy. They like it. Particularly this ‘sudsy, sudsy, sudsy’ thing in the bass. They kicked on the number of singers at first, but not after they heard it. Now right here they want a break for a straight announcement.” Baque nodded thoughtfully. “How about keeping the ‘sudsy, sudsy’ ostinato going as a background to the announcement?” “Sounds good. That’s a sly bit, that—what’d you call it?” “Ostinato.” “Ah—yes. Wonder why the other tunesmiths don’t work in bits like that.” “A harmonizer doesn’t produce effects,” Baque said dryly. “It just—harmonizes.”