Prescription for Chaos (17 page)

Searching through the owner's manual, we found that, "the Powercat not only makes its own fuel from ordinary organic farm wastes, but its high-efficiency processing unit is biomechanically scavenged at regular intervals to eliminate the tedious task of cleansing the conversion tank."

Now, putting this description together with what had actually happened, it began to dawn on us that we were in worse trouble than we'd realized. The most innocuous-seeming passages in this manual could cover who-knew-what actual reality? There was, for instance, on page sixteen, the following:

"To maintain operative functioning efficiency, the Superbiometal Powercat must be maintained with adequate in-tank fuel level at all times."

On glancing over this owner's manual, I had supposed that this meant that you couldn't use the thing without putting fuel in it. But that was obvious to begin with. Moreover, the foghorn reminder was there for what purpose? What did "operative functioning efficiency"
mean?

Could it be that this tractor would
die
if it wasn't fueled?

Just so that you'll have a fair idea what the background was like as we studied this owner's manual, I suppose I should mention that your dealer here took in around twenty of your worthless Servall models, in trade, all in the same week as he sold these Superbiometal Powercats for replacements. So there must have been about twenty new Powercats sold around here.

So, from the distance, as we were reading your manual, we could hear hootings, fire-siren howlings, low keenings and moanings—all these things have "individualized aural recognition coding for owner convenience"—and there must have been around a dozen different kinds of this noise to add to the way we felt ourselves.

Well, we finished the manual finally, and we were in none too sweet a mood as we went back to the shed amidst the moanings, hootings, and howlings from the distance, moved the Powercat to the barn and got it positioned so the glop from the conversion tank could at least land in the trough, made sure there was plenty of hay and corn stalks in the tank feed, and then we went to bed still trying in the backs of our minds to work out some of the passages in this owner's manual.

I realize you have to sell your products to keep from going broke. But would it be too much to ask that you put the Biotank model back in production and sell
it?
Progress isn't necessarily making things more complicated, and Progress isn't everything, anyway. If the only way forward is to progress downhill into a swamp, you may be a lot better off to stay where you are, or even back up. The "Tank" model we could
understand
, at least.

Anyway, around two in the morning, there was a noise outside, and a frantic barking from the dog—not a warning, and not a threatening bark at an intruder, but the kind of desperate bark that signifies some kind of disaster that scares the dog himself.

Outside, we could see a kind of vague unrecognizable huge moving shape in the very faint moonlight, with low dark clouds passing across the sky so that, from time to time, it was impossible to see anything at all.

Our car was parked beside the house, and our daughter-in-law's car was parked beside it. Our car is a standard model, four years old. Our daughter-in-law drives one of your new "Biostreaks." This huge shape, whatever it was, was moving toward the cars.

About the time this much was clear, the dog let out a frantic yelp in a higher pitch, there came a rumbling from back toward the barns, and a sort of low hoot from around the cars at the side of the house, and then a threatening foghorn rumble from beside the big barn. I say "threatening" because that was what it was.

Thanks to the noise, we were all up by this time, and things happened so fast it's hard to say what came first.

Someone turned on the outside light by the house, the phone rang, a shot went off somewhere, a horn beeped, and the looming shape by the cars turned out to be one of your competitors' "Nucleogenic Workhog" tractors, with no one driving it. This monstrosity was wheeling itself around the Biostreak car, which was no longer beside our car, but about fourteen or fifteen feet away. From the direction of the barn came the Powercat, which was now emitting a noise like a fire siren on the prowl, and if that isn't clear to you, come on out here and we'll do our best to clear it up.

The Powercat now went for the Workhog, the Biostreak coyly went
beep-beep
, our dog decided which side was which and got the Workhog by the tire, and Ed Cox asked me over the phone if I'd seen his Workhog tractor, which he said had a tendency to "start up and wander off at night."

It's to your credit, at least, that the Powercat ran the Workhog off the place, but what this necessarily involved was that this expensive piece of biomachinery was now running around loose, at night, on what errand we didn't know, and for all we could tell, it might end up wrecked. Naturally, we had to go hunt for it.—Besides, the Workhog could have been laying for it somewhere along the road, and the Workhog is a vicious-looking piece of machinery if we ever saw one, and we didn't care to have that thing win the fight.

Naturally enough, considering the circumstances, we saw no sign of the Powercat, got back worn out, and finally found the Powercat back in the barn contentedly connected up to its feed mechanism; the Biostreak car was demurely parked where it had started the night, and the whole shambles obviously was a figment of our imagination—if it hadn't been for the tracks all over the ground.

Now, that was some time ago, and since then we have kept our eyes and ears open, examined these biogenetically engineered machines, further studied the owners' and so-called "shop" manuals, and come to certain conclusions.

First, we don't think you know what you're actually doing.

Second, you may
think
you've got "the substance of Life itself" warped into the "Service of man," but we think the "substance of Life" is using
you
, not the other way around.

Third, we think we can live with this present generation of Powercats, etc., but there are plenty of disadvantages to a tractor that gives a noise like a foghorn when it's hungry, tomcats all night, and, last but not least, chooses a
car
to mate with.

Fourth, kindly do not tell us there is no possible way a farm tractor can mate with a sports car, as we are bringing several dozen reporters out here tomorrow to see what results. And we further want to advise you that neither we nor anyone we have talked to can think of any use for a low-slung streamlined tractor with four bucket seats and a power take-off.

Fifth, we want to advise you to kindly watch out in your gene-splicing-and-altering to keep your civilian and military applications separate, as, between the lot of us out here, we have had to have no less than six different military tank, groundcrawler, and doomsday-type hybrids "humanely put to sleep" shortly after "birth" (what else can we call it?) because there was no possible way we could let these things grow to full size. And I might mention that these are not exactly the easiest kinds of things to "humanely put to sleep," either.

Lastly, let me once again ask you to kindly inquire of yourselves, do we really
want
all this wonderful progress?

Faithfully, but frankly worn-out,

J. J. Wildner
Riveracre Farms

Dave Martinson eased shut the door of the magnetics lab, and stood still, listening.

In the shadowy silence, with the engineers and technicians gone home, the lab was an unearthly place. Its concrete floor stretched dimly out to the distant walls, making Dave feel like a fly standing on the corner of a table. Overhead, thick loops of heavy black cable branched and rejoined, like the web of a spider woven between the looming bulks of silent equipment.

In the daytime, with the lab blazing with light, and with the cheerful greetings of friends, Dave hardly noticed the strangeness. It was no worse, certainly, than his own lab, where he worked as a cryogenics engineer. But it wasn't just the silence, the darkness, or the strangeness of the lab at night that bothered him.

What really bothered Dave was that, despite the air of emptiness and silence, he knew he was
not
alone.

Somewhere in the dimness, there was someone else.

And, remembering his conversation several days ago with Sam Bardeen, Dave knew the reason—Sabotage. What Bardeen had said had made that clear.

Bardeen, president of the research corporation, was a mysterious figure. Unknown ten years ago, he and his advisor, Richard Barrow, had risen till they headed one of the biggest, and most successful, private research outfits in the country. Bardeen made it a point to meet everyone who worked for him, and several days ago, he'd sent for Dave. He shook hands with a firm grip, then motioned Dave to a chair. They talked about the research center, and Bardeen asked, "How much do you know about Project 'S'?"

Project "S" involved the most secret work in the research center, and Dave wasn't supposed to know a thing about it.

He said, "I know it's secret. I know a great amount of material has been brought in there, but I have no idea what it was. Naturally, I've wondered about Project 'S'. I suppose we all have. I've heard it said, on good authority, that it's a new process for the purification of sea-water. All I'm really sure of is that it's
not
'for the purification of sea-water'."

"Why do you say that?"

"To begin with, the security precautions are too tight. We already have a lighted, well-guarded fence completely around the whole research center, which itself is far out of town, isolated, and set well back from the road. But in addition, there's the so-called 'inner security compound,' with its own gate, guardhouse, and lighted fence, around the Project 'S' building, the cryogenics and magnetics labs. The people in those labs can't go into the Project 'S' building, but Project 'S' people can go into the labs. Everyone who works on Project 'S' lives here with his family, goes to the doctor kept here especially for him, goes to the dentist here, and goes to the movies here. He does his work in the
inner
compound, yet it's necessary to go through four gates and past three guardposts merely to get into the
outer
compound."

Bardeen laughed, but said nothing.

Dave said, "With due respect to the people who say they're purifying sea-water in there, I just don't believe it."

"Well," said Bardeen, "you have to remember, there's a severe water shortage developing in this country. Whoever can develop a fast, cheap process for purifying sea water can expect to make a sizeable profit. Naturally, we'd want to keep our process secret."

"If there were need for
that
much security, the words 'sea-water' would never be mentioned around here. As it is, it's the quasi-official explanation. But I've hardly begun to mention what's wrong with it. For instance, there's the fact that the cryogenics and magnetics labs obviously tie in with Project 'S,' since they too are in the inner security compound. And in the cryogenics lab, we've been doing a great deal of work close to absolute zero. Now, on the everyday Fahrenheit temperature scale, that's around four hundred and ninety degrees below the freezing point of water. At these temperatures, sea-water would long since have been frozen into one solid chunk."

"New processes—" said Bardeen.

Dave nodded. "Granted. But there are other things wrong with the sea-water idea. For instance, the superconductivity work that's been done? Where does that fit in? And the magnetics lab's work to produce powerful magnetic fields of large cross-sections? And the fact that the cryogenics lab is turning out volumes of low-temperature liquids and slushes, which are piped next door to the magnetics lab and run through huge units called 'Blocks,' which obviously are a part of Project 'S'?"

"How do you know?"

"The magnetics lab uses cryogenics products and equipment, and naturally they need our help from time to time. It's impossible to work on that equipment without noticing things. For instance, that the Blocks in the magnetics lab are shaped as parts of some larger structure. But there's no provision to join them or even get them out of the lab, so it follows that they're full-scale models, with the unified, finished device—which would be very large—somewhere else. The Project 'S' building is huge, and it's right next door. The connection is obvious."

Bardeen looked at Dave wonderingly. "I had no idea our cover was as thin as that."

"It might not be to an outsider."

Bardeen thoughtfully massaged his chin.

"What
is
Project 'S'?"

"In my opinion, it's a thermonuclear reactor."

Bardeen glanced out the window. His hands lay calmly on the desk, but for an instant he was biting his lip. Then he shrugged, and he turned to face Dave frankly.

"You're close enough. I can't tell you just
how
close, but it's enough to explain the security precautions we're taking. I'm concerned about the security aspect myself, and my partner, Mr. Barrow, thinks there may be trouble with saboteurs or industrial spies." Bardeen looked at Dave as if making some point, then he smiled and said, "Now I wonder if you'd tell me about your work. I understand you've developed a highly effective new cryostat. How did you lick the problem of conduction losses?"

And the rest of the conversation had been technical. But the idea had been firmly planted in Dave's mind that what was going on in the Project 'S' building was something that might readily attract industrial spies, eager to seek out the secrets of a competitor—and it might even attract saboteurs.

It was this thought that had made Dave glance more sharply at the dimly-seen movement near the magnetics lab tonight, when ordinarily he was not at all security-minded. That he should see anything was sheer chance. The three buildings in the inner security compound happened to lie in a straight line from north to south. The cryogenics lab, where Dave worked, was farthest north, connected by an enclosed walkway with the magnetics lab in the middle, which was connected by another enclosed walk to the overshadowing bulk of the Project 'S' building. The labs had their own individual parking lots, separated only by a swath of green grass, and it had been from the northernmost parking lot that Dave, just driving out after working late in the cryogenics lab, had seen the intruder.