Read The Nail and the Oracle Online
Authors: Theodore Sturgeon
The Nail and the Oracle (37 page)
“So you joined them,” she accused.
“I used them,” he said flatly. “I used every road and path that led to where I was going, no matter who built it or what it was built for.”
“And you paid your price,” she all but snarled. “Millions in the bank, thousands of people ready to fall on their knees if you snap your fingers. Some price. You could have had love.”
He stood up then and looked at her. Her hair was much thinner now, but still long and fine. He reached for it, lifted some. It was white. He let it go.
He thought of fat Biafran babies and clean air and unpolluted beaches, cheaper food, cheaper transportation, cheaper manufacturing and maintenance, more land to lessen the pressures and hysteria during the long slow process of population control. What had
moved him to deny himself so much, to rebel, to move and shake and shatter the status quo the way he had, rather than conforming—conforming to long hair and a lute?
You could have had love
.
“But I did,” he said; and then, knowing she would never, could never understand, he got in his silent fuelless car and left.
Having reached that stage in his career when he could have a personal private washroom in his office, Henry Mellow came out of it and said into the little black box on his desk “Bring your book, please.” Miss Prince acknowledged and entered and said “Eeek.”
“ ‘Ever since the dawn of history,’ ” Henry Mellow dictated, “ ‘mankind has found himself face to face with basic truths that—’ ”
“I am face to face,” said Miss Mellow, “with your pants are down, Mr. Mellow, and you are waving a long piece of toilet paper.”
“Ah yes, I’m coming to that … with basic truths that he cannot see, or does not recognize, or does not understand.’ Are you getting this, Miss Prince?”
“I am getting very upset, Mr. Mellow. Please pull up your pants.”
Mr. Mellow looked at her for a long moment while he put his thoughts on “hold” and tuned them out, and tuned her in, and at last looked down. “Archimedes,” he said, and put his piece of toilet paper down on the desk. Pulling up his pants, he said, “At least I think it was Archimedes. He was taking a bath and when he lay back in it, displacing the water and watching it slop over the sides of the tub, the solution to a problem came to him, about how to determine how much base metal was mixed in with the king’s gold ornaments. He jumped out of the bath and ran naked through the streets shouting Eureka, which means in Greek, ‘I have found it.’ You, Miss Prince, are witnessing such a moment. Or was it Aristotle?”
“It was disgraceful is what it was,” said Miss Prince, “and no matter how long I work here you make me wonder. Toilet paper.”
“Some of the most profound thinking in human history has come about in toilets,” said Henry Mellow. “The Protestant reformation was begun in a toilet, when Luther was sitting there working on his—am I offending you, Miss Prince?”
“I don’t know. I guess it depends on what comes next,” said Miss Prince, lowering her hands from her ears, but not much. Warily she watched as he arranged his pennant of toilet paper on the desk and began tearing it, placing his hands palm down on the desk and drawing them apart. “You will observe—Miss Prince, are you getting this?”
She picked up her notebook from where she had flung it to cover her ears. “No, sir, not really.”
“Then I shall begin again,” said Henry Mellow, and began to dictate the memo which was to strike terror into the hearts and souls of the military-industrial complex. Oh yes, they have hearts and souls. It’s just that they never used them until Henry Mellow. Notice the structure there. Henry Mellow was more than a man, he was a historical event. You don’t have to say “Wilbur and Orville Wright and their first successful experiment at,” you just have to say “Kitty Hawk.” You can say “Since Hiroshima” or “Dallas” or “Pasteur” or “Darwin” and people know what you are talking about. So it is that things haven’t been the same with the military-industrial complex since Henry Mellow.
The Mellow memo reached the Pentagon by the usual channels, which is to say that a Bureau man, routinely going through the segregated trash from the Mellow offices, found three pages done by a new typist and discarded because of forty-three typographical errors, and was assigned, after they had gone through all the layers of the Bureau to the desk of the Chief himself, to burglarize the Mellow offices and secure photographs of a file copy. He was arrested twice and injured once in the accomplishment of this mission, which was not reported in for some time due to an unavoidable accident: he left the papers in a taxicab after stealing them and it took him three weeks to locate the taxi driver and burglarize
him
. Meanwhile the memo had been submitted to the
Times
in the form of a letter, which in turn formed the basis for an editorial; but as usual, appearance of such material in the public media escaped the notice of public and Pentagon alike.
The impact of the memo on the Pentagon, and most especially
on its target point, the offices of Major General Fortney Superpate, was that of an earthquake seasoned with a Dear John letter. His reactions were immediate and in the best military tradition, putting his whole section on Condition Red and invoking Top Secret, so that the emergency would be heard by no one outside his department. What then followed was total stasis for two hours and forty minutes, because of his instant decision to check out Mellow’s results. This required toilet paper, and though General Superpate, like Henry Mellow, had a washroom at the corner of his office, he had enough respect for tradition to stifle his impulse to get up and get some, but instead summoned his adjutant, who snapped a smart salute and received the order. From the outer office the adjutant required the immediate attendance in person of the supply sergeant (remember, this was now a classified matter) who was on leave; the qualifications of his corporal had then to be gone into before he could substitute. Requisition papers were made out, with an error in the fourth copy (of six) which had to be adjusted before the roll of toilet paper, double-locked in a black locked equipment case, was delivered to the general. At this point he was interrupted by a Jamestown gentleman named (he said) Mr. Brown: black suit, black tie, black shoes, and a black leather thing in his breast pocket which, when unfolded, displayed a heavy bright badge with eagles and things on it. “Oh damn,” said the general, “how did you people find out about this?” which got him a smile—it was the only thing these Mr. Brown types ever really smiled at—while Mr. Brown scooped up the photocopy of the Mellow memo and the locked equipment case containing the roll of toilet paper. He left, whereupon the general, realizing with a soldier’s practicality that the matter was now out of his hands, restored Condition Green and lifted Secrecy, and then felt free to step into his own washroom and do his own toilet-paper procurement. He returned with a yard or so of it, spread it out on his immaculate desk, placed his hands palms down on it and began to pull it apart. He turned pale.
The injection of the Mellow Memo into the industrial area is more of a mystery. Certainly it was the cause of Inland Corp’s across-the-board
six-percent reduction of raw material orders, and when a corporation as big, and as diversified as Inland cuts back six percent, the whole market shakes like a load of jello in a truck with square wheels. This is the real reason for Outland Industries starting merger talks with Inland, because one of their spies had gotten the word to Outland, but not the memo, and the big wheels at Outland figured if they bought Inland, the memo would come along with the deal. Imagine their surprise, then, when the Chairman of the Board at Inland not only agreed enthusiastically to the merger, but sent along a copy of the memo for free. There is no record of the midnight meetings of the top brass of the two industrial giants, but when they broke up they were, it is reported, a badly frightened bunch. The dawn came up on many a wealthy suburb, estate, club, and hotel suite to the soft worried sound of tearing toilet paper.
And paper towels.
And checks from checkbooks.
As for the merger, it was left in its current state of negotiation, neither withdrawn nor pursued, but waiting; meanwhile, Inland’s order to reduce raw materials purchases was lowered to a compromised three percent while the world—the little, real world, not the mass, sleeping world—waited to see what would happen.
The Mellow Memo’s most frightening impact, however, was on the secret headquarters in Jamestown. (It’s probably the most secret headquarters in the world or anywhere else. No signs out front, unmarked cars, and everybody’s named Brown. Sometimes twelve, fourteen lunches are delivered to the front office for “Mr. Brown.” Nobody knows how they get sorted out. Everybody in town keeps the secret.)
They had done everything they could; Henry Mellow’s home, office, person and immediate associates were staked out, tailed, and bugged, his probable movements computed and suitable responses by the Agency programmed, and there was nothing to do but sit around and wait for something to happen. On total assignment to the Mellow affair were three top agents, Red Brown and Joe Brown and a black-power infiltrator called Brown X. Due to the extremely
sensitive nature of the Memo, Red Brown had sent Brown X off on an extremely wild goose chase, tracking down and interviewing Henry Mellow’s ex-schoolteachers, kindergarten through fourth grade, in places like Enumclaw, Washington and Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania.
Red Brown rose from his pushbuttoned, signal-light-studded desk and crossed the room and closed the door against the permeating susurrus of computers and tapes and rubber footfalls and hand-shrouded phone calls: “Brown here.… Ready. Scramble Two. Brown out.” Joe Brown watched him alertly, knowing that this meant they were going to discuss their assignment. He knew too that they would refer to Henry Mellow only as “Suspect.” Not The suspect or Mr. Suspect: just Suspect.
Red Brown regained his saddle, or control tower—nobody would call it a chair—and said: “Review. Brainstorm.”
Joe Brown started the tape recorder concealed in his black jacket and repeated “Review. Brainstorm,” and the date and time.
“Just who is Suspect?” Red Brown demanded. Comprehending perfectly that this would be a fast retake of everything pertinent that they knew about Henry Mellow, with an aim of getting new perspectives and insights, no matter how far out; and that he, Joe Brown, was on trial and on the record in a “have you done your homework” kind of way, Joe Brown responded swiftly, clearly, and in official staccato: “WMA, five ten, unmarried, thirty-six years old, eyes hazel, weight one seventy—”
“All right, all right. Occupation.”
“Writer, technical, also science fact articles and book reviews. Self-employed. Also inventor, holding patents number—”
“Never mind those or you’ll be reeling off numbers all day, and besides you’re bragging, Brown: I know that thing you have with numbers.”
Joe Brown was crushed but knew better than to show it.
Memorizing numbers was the one thing he did really well and patent numbers were where he could really shine. “Holds patents on kitchen appliances, chemical processes, hand tools, optical systems …”
“Genius type, very dangerous. The Bureau’s been segregating his garbage for eighteen months.”
“What put them onto him?”
“Internal Revenue. Gets royalties from all over the world. Never fails to report any of it.”
Joe Brown pursued his lips. “Has to be hiding something.”
“Yes, not usual, not normal. Politics?”
“No politics. Registers and votes, but expresses no opinions.”
Joe Brown pursued his lips again, the same purse as before, because it was part of the same words: “Has to be hiding something. And what happens if he turns this thing loose on the world?”
“Worse than the bomb, nerve gas, Dederick Plague, you name it.”
“And what if he gets sole control?”
“King of the world.”
“For maybe ten minutes.” Joe Brown squinted through an imaginary telescopic sight and squeezed an invisible trigger. “Not if he had the Agency.”
Joe Brown looked at Red Brown for a long, comprehending moment. Before he had become an Agent, and even for a while when he was in training, he had been very clear in his mind who the Agency worked for. But as time went on that didn’t seem to matter any more; agents worked for the Agency, and nobody in or out of the Agency or the Government or anywhere else would dream of asking who the Agency worked for. So if the Agency decided to work for the king of the world, well, why not? Only one man. It’s very easy to take care of one man. The agency had long known how things should be, and with sole control of a thing like this the Agency could make them be that way. For everybody, everywhere.
Red Brown made a swift complex gesture which Joe Brown understood. They both took out their concealed recorders and wiped that last sentence from the tape. They put their recorders away again and looked at each other with new and shining eyes. If the two of them should come by sole possession of the Mellow Effect, then their superior, a Mr. Brown, and his superior, who was head of the whole Agency, had a surprise coming.
Red Brown removed a bunch of keys from his belt and selected one, with which he unlocked a compartment, or drawer, in his desk, or console, and withdrew a heavy steel box, like a safety deposit. Flicking a glance at his colleague to be sure he was out of visual range, he turned a combination knob with great care and attention, this way, that, around again and back, and then depressed a handle. The lid of the box rose, and from it he took two photocopies of the Mellow Memo. “We shall now,” he said for the record, “read the Mellow Memo.”
And so shall you.
THE MELLOW MEMO
Ever since the dawn of history, mankind has found himself face to face with basic truths that, through inattention, preconception, or sheer stupidity, he cannot see, or does not recognize, or does not understand. There have been times when he has done very well indeed with complex things—for example, the Mayan calendar stones and the navigation of the Polynesians—while blindly overlooking the fact that complex things are built of simple things, and that the simple things are, by their nature, all around us, waiting to be observed
.
Mankind has been terribly tardy in his discovery of the obvious. Two clear illustrations should suffice:
You can, for a few pennies, at any toy store or fairgrounds, pick up a pinwheel. Now, I have not been able to discover just when this device was invented, where, or by whom, but as far as I know there are no really early examples of it. An even simpler device can be whittled by an eight-year-old from a piece of pine: a two-bladed propeller. Mounted on a shaft, or pin, it will spin freely in the wind. This would seem to be the kind of discovery which could have been made five hundred years ago, a thousand—even five thousand, when Egyptian artisans were turning out far more complex designs and devices. To put the propeller on a fixed shaft, to spin the shaft and create a wind, to immerse the thing in water and envision pumps and propulsion—these seem to be obvious, self-describing steps to take, and yet for thousands of years, nobody took them. Now imagine if you can—and you can’t—what the history of civilization would
be, where we would now be technologically, had there been propellers and pumps a thousand years ago—or three, or five! All for the lack of one whittling child, one curious primitive whose eye was caught by a twisted leaf spinning on a spiderweb
.
One more example; and this time we will start with modern materials and look back. If you drill a one-sixteenth-inch hole in a sheet of tin, and place a drop of water on the hole, it will suspend itself there. Gravity will pull it downward, while surface tension will draw it upward into a dome shape. Viewed from the edge of the piece of tin, the drop of water is in the shape of a lens—and it is a lens. If you look down through it, with the eye close to the drop, at something held under it and well illuminated, you will find that the liquid lens has a focal length of about half an inch and a power of about fifty diameters. (And if by any chance you want a microscope for nothing, drill your hole in the center of the bottom of a soup can, then cut three sides of a square—right, left, top—in the side of the can and bend the tab thus formed inward to forty-five degrees, to let the light in and reflect it upwards. Cut a slip of glass and fix it so it rests inside the can and under the hole. Mount your subject—a fly’s foot, a horsehair, whatever you like—on the glass, put a drop of water in the hole, and you will see your subject magnified fifty times. A drop of glycerin, by the way, is not quite as clear but works almost as well and does not evaporate.)
Microscopes and their self-evident siblings, telescopes, did not appear until the eighteenth century. Why not? Were there not countless thousands of shepherds who on countless dewy mornings were in the presence of early sunlight and drops of water captured on cobwebs or in punctured leaves; why did not just one of them look, just once, through a dewdrop at the whorls of his own thumb? And why, seemingly, did the marvelous artisans of glass in Tyre and Florence and ancient Babylon never think to look through their blown and molded bowls and vases instead of at them? Can you imagine what this world would be if the burning glass, the microscope, the eyeglasses, the telescope had been invented three thousand years earlier?
Perhaps by now you share with me a kind of awe at human blindness, human stupidity. Let me then add to that another species of
blindness: the conviction that all such simple things have now been observed and used, and all their principles understood. This is far from so. There are in nature numberless observations yet to be made, and many of them might still be found by an illiterate shepherd; but in addition to these, our own technology has produced a whole new spectrum of phenomena, just waiting for that one observant eye, that one undeluded mind which sees things placed right in front of its nose—not once, not rarely, but over and over and over again, shouting to be discovered and developed
.
There is one such phenomenon screaming at you today and every day from at least three places in your house—your bathroom, your kitchen, and, if you have a bank account, your pocket
.
Two out of five times, on the average, when you tear off a sheet of toilet tissue, a paper towel, or a check from your checkbook, it will tear across the sheet and not along the perforated line. The same is true of note pads, postage stamps, carbon-and-second-sheet tablets, and virtually every other substance or device made to be torn along perforations
.
To the writer’s present knowledge, no exhaustive study has ever been made of this phenomenon. I here propose one
.
We begin with the experimentally demonstrable fact that in a large percentage of cases, the paper will tear elsewhere than on the perforation line. In all such cases the conclusion is obvious: that the perforation line is stronger than the nonperforated parts
.
Let us next consider what perforation is—that is to say, what is done when a substance is perforated. Purely and simply: material is removed
.
Now if, in these special cases, the substance becomes stronger when a small part of it is removed, it would seem logical to assume that if still more were removed, the substance would be stronger still. And carried to its logical conclusion, it would seem reasonable to hypothesize that by removing more and more material, the resulting substance would become stronger and stronger until at last we would produce a substance composed of nothing at all—which would be indestructible!
If conventional thinking makes it difficult for you to grasp this
simple sequence, or if, on grasping it, you find you cannot accept it, please permit me to remind you of the remark once uttered by a Corsican gentleman by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte: “To find out if something is impossible—try it.” I have done just that, and results so far are most promising. Until I have completed more development work, I prefer not to go into my methods nor describe the materials tested—except to say that I am no longer working with paper. I am convinced, however, that the theory is sound and the end result will be achieved
.
A final word—which surely is not needed, for like everything else about this process, each step dictates and describes the next—will briefly suggest the advantages of this new substance, which I shall conveniently call, with a capital letter, Nothing:
The original material, to be perforated, is not expensive and will always be in plentiful supply. Processing, although requiring a rather high degree of precision in the placement of the holes, is easily adaptable to automatic machinery which, once established, will require very little maintenance. And the most significant—one might almost say, pleasant—thing about this processing is that by its very nature (the removal of material) it allows for the retrieval of very nearly
100
percent of the original substance. This salvage may be refabricated into sheets which can then be processed, by repeated perforations, into more Nothing, so that the initial material may be used over and over again to produce unlimited quantities of Nothing
.
Simple portable devices can be designed which will fabricate Nothing into sheets, rods, tubing, beams or machine parts of any degree of flexibility, elasticity, malleability, or rigidity. Once in its final form, Nothing is indestructible. Its permeability, conductivity, and chemical reactivity to acids and bases all are zero. It can be made in thin sheets as a wrapping, so that perishables can be packed in Nothing, displayed most attractively on shelves made of Nothing. Whole buildings, homes, factories, schools can be built of it. Since, even in tight rolls, it weighs nothing, unlimited quantities of it can be shipped for virtually nothing, and it stows so efficiently that as yet I have not been able to devise a method of calculating how much of it could be put into a given volume—say a single truck or airplane,
which could certainly carry enough Nothing to build, pave, and equip an entire city
.
Since Nothing (if desired) is impermeable and indestructible, it would seem quite feasible to throw up temporary or permanent domes over houses, cities, or entire geographical areas. To shield aircraft, however, is another matter: getting an airflow through the invisible barrier of Nothing and over the wings of an airplane presents certain problems. On the other hand, orbiting devices would not be subject to these
.
To sum up: the logical steps leading to the production of Nothing seem quite within the “state of the art,” and the benefits accruing to humanity from it would seem to justify proceeding with it
.
