In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the senator’s indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be properly made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed.
The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the silver habiliments of a radiation suit. The helmet and face of the mask which concealed the visage was made up so nearly to resemble an actual suit of the type used in hellish high-rad environments that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revelers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to begrime his suit and tear it to tatters, as if he had been up on the surface where the fires of death still burned. His vesture glowed with an unnatural light—and it was sprinkled with the scarlet horror of blood.
When the eyes of Senator Prosper fell upon this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked uncertainly, almost staggering, to and fro among the dancers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder of either terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.
«Who dares?» he demanded hoarsely of the group that stood around him—«who dares thus make a mockery of our woes? Uncase the varlet—that we may know whom we have to expel to the surface. Will no one stir at my bidding?—stop and strip him, I say, of those reddened vestures of sacrilege!»
It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood Senator Prosper as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly—for the senator was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.
It was in the blue room where stood the senator, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first as he spoke, there was a slight rushing of movement in the direction of the intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate, slow steps, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the senator’s person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centers of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same halting and nearly staggering step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple—through the purple to the green—through the green to the orange—through this again to the white—and even thence to the violet where a decided movement had been made to arrest him.
It was then, however, that Senator Prosper, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of the deadly horror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn pistol, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned slowly around and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry—and the pistol dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death Senator Prosper. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revelers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall black figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the ripped cerements and bloodied face mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by a living form.
And now was acknowledged the presence of the Rad Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with the last of them. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay of the Rad Death held illimitable domination over all.
(With gratitude, and apologies, to Edgar Allan Poe.)
THY KINGDOM COME
In 1991 Charles Sheffield, Frederik Pohl, Jerry Pournelle, and I were commissioned by The World & I magazine to write nonfiction scenarios depicting what the world might look like in the year 2042. The scenarios were to be based on reports written by world-recognized leaders in various technological fields such as transportation, energy, space exploration, oceanography, etc.
Each of us was asked to slant his scenario either positively or negatively. I was given the «slightly pessimistic» slant. The scenario I wrote is included in this book, after the story that follows this introduction.
«Thy Kingdom Come» is a work of fiction based on my scenario for The World & I assignment. Charles Sheffield got the idea of combining our nonfiction scenarios with four novelettes by the four of us and packaging the whole shebang in a book titled Future Quartet. Fine idea, and a good example of how professional writers use the materials they generate to develop new markets (i.e., money) for themselves.
While the original scenario was based on a global view, and inputs from top technologists, I decided that the story would work best if it showed the same world of 2042 from the bottom of the heap: a worm’s-eye view, if you will. For that, I returned to my roots.
I grew up in the narrow streets and row houses of South Philadelphia. Born at the nadir of the Great Depression of the 1930s, I saw as early as junior high school that there were some guys who preferred stealing to honest work, preferred violence to cooperation.
We return to what I told you earlier in this book: Write about what you know. «Thy Kingdom Come» is about some of the wiseguys I grew up with. Most of them are dead now; most of them died young. More than that, though, the story is about the longing that even the snottiest of these wiseguys have for a normal, decent life. And it’s about how some of them struggle to break free of the vicious circle of ignorance and violence, to climb out of the cesspool and into the sunlight. A few succeed. Very few.
«Thy Kingdom Come» is about two of those kids: one who succeeds (maybe) and one who comes close, but misses. In a way, it’s a true story. At least, it’s as true as I could make it.
Audio transcript of testimony of Salvatore (Vic) Passalacqua
I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I figured I hadda at least try. Y’know? The [deleted] Controllers had grabbed her in one of their swoops and I hadda get her back before they scrambled her [deleted] brains with their [deleted] sizzlers.