Disguise The Limit

Mr. J. Lundeth leaned back from his telescope with a disgusted grunt. "Ridiculous," he proclaimed. He stuck out his jaw and, as always, seemed to be daring the world to contradict him. "Stupid way to run a universe. Galaxies strewn all over the place - what's the idea?"

Mr. Lundeth had bought this observatory on a whim. He was casting about for something new to stimulate him the way making deals used to. Price was no object for the Chairman of United Enterprises, the first company in history to be declared a superpower. Even so he had already exhausted a huge field of possible hobbies, from zerogee-threedee snooker to marine biology, without anything gripping him. And astronomy was the worst experience yet - not just boring, but positively unsettling.

He didn't like the universe. There were too many stars, for one thing. All that energy going to waste struck him as almost criminal. And the distances involved were just totally impractical. He shuddered at the logistic nightmares that would face an interstellar company, if there ever were one. The unlimited universe made his tidy mind uneasy. Mr. Lundeth, seeking distraction from the panorama whose afterimage still lingered in his vision, rummaged through the orderly pile of books beside him. His attention was captured by one that he hadn't noticed before, a volume describing the long and fascinating history of astronomy. He flicked through it, then stopped at an illustration that caught his eye. He read for a while. "Celestial spheres, eh? Those Greeks had the right idea. Much saner than that mess," he growled, waving vaguely at the other more contemporary books. He continued reading for a while, then yawned, and nodded off to sleep where he sat. And dreamt.

Mr. Lundeth awoke revitalised. For in his dreams he had found a new challenge, and his entire life had been dedicated to realising one dream after another. His own dreams.

***

Mike and Bob were engineers, friends for years, and arguing.

Bob stared at Mike in shocked disbelief. "I can't believe you're okay with this lunacy. You must see that it's total insanity, craziness on an unbelievable scale! Listen to me, Mike," his voice cajoling, "listen to an old buddy summarise the idiotic scheme you seem to have swallowed whole without digestion. Old Loony plans to make like a Greek and build Celestial Spheres around the Earth with stars painted on them and the moon projected onto the inner sphere by a laser spotlight! And you stand there, nodding your head as if this were a perfectly sane ambition! Then you tell me he wants this done because he thinks the universe as it stands is 'aesthetically displeasing'. This from a man with the aesthetic sense of a flame-thrower. He's mad, Mike, and you're mad to go along with him."

Mike had remained impassive throughout Bob's tirade, but was now showing signs of life. He attempted to get a word in, but Bob was having none of it.

"And what about permission for the project?," Bob growled. "The environmental lobby for one would sooner eat whale than let us build these spheres." Mike started to mutter about being able to add chemicals to the sphere to control, say, the level of ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth. "And the military," Bob continued as if he hadn't heard, "they're not going to take too kindly to us building a wall smack through their satellite parking lot. And astronomers might object to no longer having anything to look at. And..."

Mike raised his voice, not angry, but tired of arguing. "Okay Bob, you've made your point. There's going to be trouble, but it's not going to stop the project. Nobody, but nobody says no to Lundeth."

And really that was all there was to be said. That didn't stop Bob from ranting on, but they both knew that in the end Lundeth would have his way. Lundeth was head of a company that controlled governments, monopolised communications and advertising, and dictated the thoughts of entire nations. No-one was likely to refuse him his wishes, so glad were they that he hadn't yet demanded they go into the fields beating cans to frighten sparrows like the Chairman some whispered he resembled.

And nobody did refuse him. Well, some tried. But it is best not to dwell on the fate of those who oppose the Chairman.

***

Mr. Lundeth leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the night sky. The air was chilly but he paid this no heed. His Personal Physicians were hovering solicitously in the background, torn between risking their master's health in this cold, or risking the abuse they would get for disturbing him. Lundeth was savouring the experience of sitting under his own designer sky. He looked up at the full moon and toggled a switch beside him off, then on. He watched the moon disappear then reappear, and gave a pleased grunt. He liked his pure, controlled, unpolluted sky, with those unthinkably messy forces shut safely out from his realm. Of course, sunset and sunrise were a lot less dramatic these days now that the sun's light had to struggle through his spheres, but that was as it should be too. He lay back contentedly, and closed his eyes. Hoping for a dream. Secretly afraid life were going to become dull again. The Physicians waited until his breathing became regular, then carried him gently inside.

For maybe an hour the moon travelled through its perfectly simulated path. Then a faint red blur appeared in the sky. It swiftly became more intense. For an instant it seemed to sharpen, then became unfocused again. Suddenly with perfect clarity a red image was traced across the sky. In towns all over that hemisphere people's faces were raised to the sky to read the words spanning the heavens.

"Eat at Joe's" the skies proclaimed, and from this first simple test message was spawned the first leak - untraceable, unpluggable - in Lundeth's grasp on the media and the minds of his people, and in the fullness of time, the fall of his empire.