His Masters Voice

10

Although Frog Eggs and Lord of the Flies were the same substance, only preserved in different ways by the biophysicists and biologists, in each territory it was de rigueur to use the local name exclusively. This, I thought, illustrated a certain small but characteristic feature of the history of science, because neither the fortuitous bends in the road of research nor the accidental circumstances assisting at the birth of a discovery ever completely detach themselves from its final form. Indeed, it is not easy to recognize these relics, for the reason that, fossilized, they become embedded in the heart of all later theories and formulations, like a print of a coincidence which turns to stone, to an iron rule of thought.

Before I could see Frog Eggs for the first time at Romney’s lab, I was given the now standard initiation required for all arrivals from the outside world. First I listened to the brief, taped lecture for VIPs, which I quoted earlier; then a two-minute ride on the subway took me to the chemical-synthesis building, where I was shown a thing towering in a separate hall beneath a three-story glass dome, resembling the skeleton of a dragonfly larva blown up to the size of a brontosaurus; it was a three-dimensional model of one molecule of Frog Eggs. The individual atomic groups were represented by grapelike spheres of black, purple, violet, and white, connected by clear polyethylene tubes. Marsh, a stereo-chemist, pointed out to me the ammonia radicals, the alkyl groups, and, looking like strange flowers, the “molecular dishes” that absorbed the energy from nuclear reactions. These reactions were demonstrated by a machine that lit up, in turn, the fluorescent tubes and bulbs hidden inside the model, which gave the effect of a cross between a futuristic billboard and a Christmas tree. Because it was expected of me, I showed admiration, and then continued on.

The actual processes of the synthesis took place in the lower levels of the building, under the supervision of programming computers, in cylinders insulated with heavy shielding, because at certain stages fairly penetrating radiation was given off, though the radiation would subside when the synthesis reached its conclusion. The main synthesis hall occupied an area of four thousand square meters. From there the path led to the so-called silver vault, where — as in a treasury — lay the substance dictated by the stars. There was a round, windowless chamber there, with silver walls polished like mirrors; I once knew why this was necessary, but have forgotten. Bathed in the cold light of fluorescent tubes, atop a massive pedestal, stood a glass tank, like a large aquarium, empty — except that on the bottom of it rested a layer of a highly opalescent, motionless, bluish fluid.

A sheet of glass divided the room in half, with an opening opposite the tank. Mounted at the opening and heavily fortified was a robot manipulator. Marsh first lowered the beak of an instrument resembling surgical forceps to the surface of the liquid; when he lifted it, from the end hung a sparkling thread that did not at all resemble a sticky fluid. It looked as if the viscous substance had discharged from itself an elastic but sufficiently hard fiber that oscillated lazily like a string. When he lowered the manipulator again and shook it deftly so that the fiber fell off, the surface of the liquid, shining with reflected light, did not accept it. The fiber contracted, thickened, turned into a kind of gleaming larva, and began inching its way along like a caterpillar; when it touched the glass, it stopped and turned. This lasted about a minute. Then the curious creature blurred, its outlines dissolved, and it was sucked back into the parent.

This “caterpillar trick” was of little significance. When all the lights were turned off and the experiment was repeated in the dark, I observed, at a certain moment, a very weak but clear flash, as if between the bottom of the tank and the top there blazed, for a fraction of a second, a small star. Marsh told me later that this was not luminescence. When the thread was broken off, in that place a monomolecular layer resulted, which was no longer able to keep the nuclear processes under control, and one had then a sort of microscopic chain reaction — but the flash was a secondary effect, because the activated electrons, knocked into higher energy levels and leaving them instantaneously, gave off an equivalent amount of photons. I asked if they saw any chance of practical application of Frog Eggs. They had fewer expectations now than right after the synthesis, because Frog Eggs behaved like a living thing in the respect that, just as living matter utilized the energy of chemical reactions exclusively for itself, so did Frog Eggs not allow any expropriation of its nuclear energy.

On Grotius’s team, which had manufactured Lord of the Flies, the protocol was quite different. There, one took extraordinary precautions to go down to the lower laboratory. I honestly do not know whether Lord of the Flies was placed two floors underground because of its name, or whether it had been so christened because it originated in subterranean quarters that brought to mind a kind of Hades.

First, one put on protective clothing: a large transparent suit complete with a hood and strap-on oxygen container. This involved a little trouble, which, for all its realism, had an element of ritual. As far as I know, no one has yet studied the behavior of scientists in the laboratory from the anthropological point of view, although there is no doubt in my mind that not everything they do is necessary. The same preparations and experimental activities can be carried out in many different ways, but once a certain procedure is established it becomes, in a given circle, in a given school, a custom with the force of a rule — of a dogma, practically.

I visited Lord of the Flies escorted by two people; the leader was little Grotius. We set out only after oxygen, with the turn of knobs, was let into our transparent outfits, so that each of us resembled a gleaming balloon with its own personal pit inside. Also before departure, the suits were checked for seal — very simply, by running the flame of a candle over particular spots where the pressure was a bit higher. The operation brought to mind some act of sorcery, with the burning of incense.

All this, taken together, formed a stern, solemn whole, a scene as if in ceremonial slow motion, caused no doubt by the fact that one could not move quickly in that shining balloon of polyethylene. Moreover, it was not particularly easy to converse, enfolded in such an envelope, and so communication by pantomime added to the growing impression that I was taking part in a religious service. One could of course argue that the suit offered protection against beta rays, that, while it may indeed have impeded movement, at the same time — being transparent — it allowed one to see well, etc., but I believe that I could have thought up, without much difficulty, another procedure, one less picturesque, perhaps, but at least free of subtle allusions to the symbolic sense of the name of Lord of the Flies.

In a special room with a concrete floor, a kind of stonework casing surrounded a vertical well. One by one we descended into it, down an iron ladder embedded in the stone, our suits rustling unpleasantly. Unpleasant also was the heat that built up inside those oversize fish bladders. At the bottom was a narrow tunnel, a little like a passageway in an old mine, illuminated at regular intervals by lamps with grates. But Grotius’s people, I must admit, did not supply these trappings; the research team had simply made use of the underground part of the building, which at one time was to have served a more military purpose, connected with the thermonuclear explosions of the testing ground. After sixty or seventy yards the walls began to gleam; they were covered by a silver sheet metal, mirrorlike — the only detail the same as in the “silver vault” of the biophysicists. But this was not noticed, just as one does not notice the erotic aspect of nudity in a doctor’s office: our perception is governed by the totality of the resultant effect and not the nature of its individual elements. The silver of the walls of the biophysicists evoked the sterility of a kind of sanctum of surgery, but in the underground corridor it took on a more mysterious character. As in some carnival funhouse, the reflections of our bladdered forms were multiplied and altered.

In vain I looked around; the corridor ended in a wide but blind recess. To one side, at the height of my head, I saw a tiny iron door, which Grotius opened, revealing a sort of embrasure or loophole in the thick wall; both my companions stepped aside, so that I might have an unobstructed view. The aperture was covered, on the other side, by a reddish slab, something in the shape of a slice of meat, pressed tight against the thick glass. Through the hood that went over my face, through the even blowing of the oxygen from the bottle, I felt, on the skin of my forehead and cheeks, a pressure that seemed to come not only from the heat. As I watched longer, I noticed a movement, extremely slow and not completely even, as if of the foot — skinned and glued to the glass — of a giant snail trying to crawl by futile contractions. The mass behind the glass seemed to push against it with unknown force — crawling slowly, but incessantly, in place.

Grotius politely but firmly moved me away from the opening, shut the small armored door, and took from the bag slung over his shoulder a flask, inside which were several common houseflies clinging to the sides. When he brought the flask near the closed hatch — and he did this in a measured, grave way — the flies at first froze, then opened their little wings, and in the next moment were whirling in the flask like black bullets gone mad. It seemed to me that I could hear their furious buzzing. Grotius moved the container a little closer to the hatch, and the flies beat with even greater violence. Then he returned the flask to his satchel, turned, and headed back to the kitchen.

Finally I learned the origin of the name. Lord of the Flies was Frog Eggs — but in a quantity exceeding two hundred liters. This transformation, however, took place by degrees. As for the truly remarkable effect with the flies, no one had the foggiest notion of its mechanism, particularly since, apart from the flies, very few hymenoptera displayed it, and spiders, beetles, and a multitude of other bugs carried patiently by the biologists down to this cavern showed no reaction whatever to the presence of the substance heated by the processes within it. There was talk of waves, of radiation — at least not, thank God, of telepathy. In flies whose abdominal ganglia were pharmacologically paralyzed the effect did not take place. But this finding was, after all, trivial. The poor flies were narcotized; every possible thing was removed from them in turn — now their legs were immobilized, now their wings — but all that was learned, in the end, was that a heavy layer of a dielectric effectively shielded the effect. This was, then, a physical, not a “supernatural” phenomenon. Well, of course. But what caused it remained unknown. I was assured that the thing would be explained — a special group of bionicists and physicists were working on it. If they discovered anything, I have yet to hear of it.

But Lord of the Flies presented no danger to the living organisms found in its vicinity. Even the flies, in the end, were not harmed.