Natural State

V

MANAGER Wytak had his feet on the glossy desktop. So did the Comptroller, narrowfaced old Mr. Greedy; the Director of Information, plump Mr. Kling; the Commissioner of Supply, blotched and pimpled Mr. Jackson: and the porcine Mr. McArdle, Commissioner of War. With chairs tilted back, they stared through a haze of cigar smoke at each others’ stolid faces mirrored on the ceiling.

Wytak’s voice was as confident as ever, if a trifle muted, and when the others spoke, he listened. These were not the hired nonentities Alvah had seen; these were the men who had made Wytak, the electorate with whose consent he governed.

“Jack,” said Wytak, “I want you to look at it my way and see if you don’t think I’m right. It isn’t a question of how long we can hold out―when you get right down and look at it, it’s a question of can we do anything.”

“In time,” said Jackson expressionlessly.

“In time. But if we can do anything, there’ll be time enough. You say we’ve got troubles now and you’re right, but I tell you we can pull through a situation a thousand times worse than this―if we’ve got an answer. And have we got an answer? We have.”

Creedy grunted. “Like to see some results, Boley.”

“You’ll see them. You can’t skim a yeast tank the first day, Will.”

“You can see the bubbles, though,” said Jackson sourly. “Any report from this Gustad today, while we’re talking about it?”

“Not yet. He was getting some response yesterday. He’s following it up. I trust that boy―the analyzers picked his card out of five million. Wait and see. He’ll deliver.”

“If you say so, Boley.”

“I say so.”

Jackson nodded. “That’s good enough. Gentlemen?”

IN another soundproof, spyproof office in Over Manhattan, Kling and McArdle met again twenty minutes later.

“What do you think?” asked Kling with his meaningless smile.

“Moderately good. I was hoping he would lie about Gustad’s report, but of course there was very little chance of that. Wytak is an old hand.”

“You admire him?” Kling suggested.

“As a specimen of his type. Wytak pulled us out of a very bad spot in ’39.”

“Agreed.”

“And he has had his uses since then. There are times when brilliant improvisation is better than sound principles ― and times when it is not. Wytak is an incurable romantic.”

“And you?”

“We,” said McArdle grimly, “are realists.”

“Oh, yes. But perhaps we are not anything just yet. Creedy is interested, but not convinced―and until he moves, Jackson will do nothing.”

“Wytak’s project is a failure. You can’t do business with the Muckfeet. But the fool was so confident that he didn’t even interfere with Gustad’s briefing.”

Kling leaned forward with interest. “You didn’t …?”

“No. It wasn’t necessary. But it means that Gustad has no instructions to fake successful reports―and that means Wytak can’t stall until he gets back. There was no report today. Suppose there’s none tomorrow, or the next day, or the next.”

“In that case, of course … However, it’s always as well to offer something positive. You said you might have something to show me today.”

“Yes. Follow me.”

In a sealed room at the end of a guarded corridor, five young men were sitting. They leaped to attention when Kling and McArdle entered.

“At ease,” said McArdle. “This gentleman is going to ask you some questions. You may answer freely. He turned to Kling. Go ahead―ask them anything.”

Kling’s eyebrows went up delicately, but he looked the young men over, selected one and said, “Your name?”

“Walter B. Limler, sir.”

Kling looked mildly pained. “Please don’t call me sir. Where do you live?”

“CFF Barracks, Tier Three, McCormick.”

“CFF?” said Kling with a frown. “McCormick? I don’t place the district. Where is it?”

The young man, who was blond and very earnest, allowed himself to show a slight surprise. “In the Loop,” he said.

“And where is the Loop?” The young man looked definitely startled. He glanced at McArdle, moistened his lips and said, “Well, right here, sir. In Chicago.”

Kling’s eyebrows went up and then down. He smiled. “I begin to see,” he murmured to McArdle. “Very clever.”

IT cost Alvah two hours’ labor, using tools that had never been designed to be operated manually, to get the inspection plate off the motor housing in the floater. He compared the intricate mechanism with the diagrams and photographs in the maintenance handbook. He looked for dust and grime; he checked the moving parts for play; he probed for dislodged wiring plates and corrosion. He did everything the handbook suggested, even spun the flywheel and was positive he felt the floater lift a fraction of an inch beneath him. As far as he could tell, there was absolutely nothing wrong, unless the trouble was in the core of the motor itself―the force-field that rotated the axle that made everything go.

The core casing had an “easily removable” segment, meaning to say that Alvah was able to get it off in three hours more.

Inside, there was no resistance to his cautious finger. The spoolshaped hollow space was empty.

Under Motor Force-field Inoperative the manual said simply: Remove and replace rhodopalladium nodules.

Alvah looked. He found the tiny sockets where the nodules ought to be, one in the flanged axle-head, the other facing it at the opposite end of the chamber. The nodules were not there at all.

Alvah went into the storage chamber. Ignoring the increasingly forceful protests of his empty stomach, he spent a furious twenty minutes locating the spare nodules. He stripped the seal off the box and lifted the lid with great care.

There were the nodules. And there, appearing out of nowhere, was a whirling cloud of brightness that settled briefly in the box and then went back where it came from. And there the nodules were gone.

Alvah stared at the empty box. He poked his forefinger into the cushioned niches, one after the other. Then he set the box down with care, about-faced, walked outside to the platform and sat down on the top step with his chin on his fists.

“You look peaked,” said B. J.‘s firm voice.

Alvah looked up at her briefly. “Go away.”

“Had anything to eat today?” the girl asked.

Alvah did not reply.

“Don’t sulk,” she said. “You’ve got a problem. We feel responsible. Maybe there’s something we can do to help.”

Alvah stood up slowly. He looked her over carefully, from top to bottom and back again. “There is one thing you could do for me,” he said. “Smile.”

“Why?” she asked cagily.

“I wanted to see your fangs.” He turned wearily and went into the floater.

HE puttered around for a few minutes, then got cold rations out of the storage chamber and sat down in the control chair to eat them. But the place was odious to him with its gleaming, useless array of gadgetry, and he went outside again and sat down with his back to the hull near the doorway. The girl was still there, looking up at him.

“Look,” she said, “I’m sorry about this.”

The nutloaf went down his gullet in one solid lump and hit his stomach like a stone. “Please don’t mention it,” he said bitterly. “It was really nothing at all.”

“I had to do it. You might have killed somebody.”

Alvah tried another bite. Chewing the stuff, at any rate, gave him something to do. “What were those things?” he demanded.

“Metallophage,” she said. “They eat metals in the platinum family. Hard to get them that selective―we weren’t exactly sure what would happen.”

Alvah put down the remnant of nutloaf slowly. “Who’s ‘we’? You and Bither?”

“Mostly.”

“And you ― you bred those things to eat rhodopalladium?”

She nodded.

Then you must have some to feed them, said Alvah logically. He stood up and gripped the railing. “Give it to me.”

She hesitated. “There might be some―”

“Might be? There must be!”

“You don’t understand. They don’t actually eat the metal―not for nourishment, that is.”

“Then what do they do with it?”

“They build nests,” she told him. “But come on over to the lab and we’ll see.”

At the laboratory door, they were still arguing. “For the last time,” said Alvah, “I will not come in. I’ve just eaten half a nutcake and I haven’t got food to waste. Get the stuff and bring it out.”

“For the last time”, said B. J., “get it out of your head that what you want is all that counts. If you want me to look for the metal, you’ll come in, and that’s flat.”

They glared at each other. Well, he told himself resignedly, he hadn’t wanted that nutloaf much in the first place.

They followed the same route, past the things that chirruped, croaked, rumbled, rustled. The main thing, he recalled, was to keep your mind off it.

“Tell me something,” he said to her trim back. “If I hadn’t got myself mixed up with that farmer and his market basket, do you still think I wouldn’t have sold anything?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, why not? Why all this resistance to machinery? Is it a taboo of some kind?”

SHE said nothing for a moment.

“Is it because you’re afraid the Cities will get a hold on you?” Alvah insisted. “Because that’s foolish. Our interests are really the same as yours. We don’t just want to sell you stuff―we want to help you help yourselves. The more prosperous you get, the better for us.”

“It’s not that,” she said.

“Well, what then? It’s been bothering me. You’ve got all these raw materials, all this land. You wouldn’t have to wait for us―you could have built your own factories, made your own machines. But you never have. I can’t understand why.”

“It’s not worth the trouble.”

He choked. “Anything is worth the trouble, if it helps you do the same work more efficiently, more intel―”

“Wait a minute.” She stopped a woman who was passing in the aisle between the cages. “Marge, where’s Doc?”

“Down in roundworms, I think.”

“Tell him I have to see him, will you? It’s urgent. We’ll wait in here.” She led the way into a windowless room, as small and cluttered as any Alvah had seen.

“Now,” she said. “We don’t make a fuss about machines because most people simply haven’t any need for them.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Alvah argued. “You may think―”

“Be quiet and let me finish. We haven’t got centralized industries or power installations. Why do you think the Cities have never beaten us in a war, as often as they’ve tried? Why do you think we’ve taken over the whole world, except for twenty-two Cities? You’ve got to face this sooner or later―in every single respect, our plants and animals are more efficient than any machine you could build.”

Alvah inspected her closely. Her eyes were intent and brilliant. Her bosom indicated deep and steady breathing. To all appearance, she was perfectly serious.

“Nuts,” he replied with dignity.

B.J. shook her head impatiently. “I know you’ve got a brain. Use it. What’s the most expensive item that goes into a machine?”

“Metal. We’re a little short of it, to tell the truth.”

“Think again. What are all your gadgets supposed to save?”

“Well, labor.”

“Human labor. If metal is expensive, it’s because it costs a lot of man-hours.”

“If you want to look at it that way―”

“It’s true, isn’t it? Why is a complicated thing more expensive than a simple one? More man-hours to make it. Why is a rare thing more expensive than a common one? More man-hours to find it. Why is a―”

“All right, what’s your point?”

“Take your runabout. You saw that was the thing that interested people most, but I’ll show you why you never could have sold one. How many man-hours went into manufacturing it?”

Alvah shifted restlessly. “It isn’t in production. It’s a trade item.”

She sniffed. “Suppose it was in production. Make an honest guess. Figure in everything ― amortization on the plant and equipment, materials, labor and so on. You can check your answer against wages and prices in your own money―you’ll come pretty close.”

Alvah reflected. “Between seven-fifty and a thousand.”

“Compare that with Swifty’s Morgan Gamma―the thing you raced against. Two man-hours― just two, and I’m being generous.”

“Interesting,” said Alvah, “if true.” He suppressed an uneasy belch.

“Figure it out. An hour for the vet when he was foaled. Call it another hour for amortization on the stable where it happened, but that’s too much. It isn’t hard to grow a stable and they last a long time.”

Alvah, who had been holding his own as long as machines were the topic, wasn’t sure he could keep it up―or, more correctly, down. “All right, two hours,” he said. “The animals feed themselves and water themselves, no doubt.”

“They do, but that comes under upkeep. Our animals forage, most of them―all the big ones. The rest are cheap and easy to feed. Your machines have to be fueled. Our animals repair themselves, like any living organism, only better and faster. Your machines have to be repaired and serviced. More man-hours. Incidentally, if you and Swifty took a ten-hour trip, you in your runabout, him on his Morgan, you’d spend just ten hours steering. Swifty would spend maybe fifteen minutes all told. And now we come to the payoff―”

“Some other time,” said Alvah irritably.

“This is important. When your runabout―”

“I’d rather not talk about it any more, said Alvah, raising his voice. Do you mind?”

“When your runabout breaks down and can’t be fixed, she said firmly, you have to buy another. Swifty’s mare drops twins every year. There. Think about it.”

THE door opened and Bither came in, looking more disheveled than ever. “Hello, Beej, Alvah. Beej, I think we shoulda used annelid stock for this job. These F₃ batches no good at―you two arguing?”

Alvah recovered himself with an effort. “Rhodopalladium,” he said thickly. “I need about a gram. Have you got it?”

“Not a scrap,” said Bither cheerfully. “Except in the nests, of course.”

“I told him I didn’t think so,” B. J. said.

Alvah closed his eyes for a second. “Where,” he asked carefully, are the nests?”

“Wish I knew, Bither admitted. It’s frustrating as hell. You see, we had to make them awful small and quick, the metallophage. Once you let them out of the sacs, there’s no holding them. We did so good a job, we can’t check to see how good a job we did.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Of course, that’s beside the point. Even if we had the metals, how would you get the alloy you need?”

“Palladium,” said the girl, “melts at fifteen fifty-three Centigrade. I asked the hand bird.”

“Best we can get out of a salamander is about six hundred, Bither added. Isn’t good for them, either ― they get esophagitis.”

“And necrosis,” the girl said, watching Alvah intently.

His eyes were watering. It was hard to see. “Are you telling―”

“We’re trying to tell you,” she said, “that you can’t go back. You’ve got to start getting used to the idea. There isn’t a thing you can do except settle down here and learn to live with us.”

Alvah could feel his jaw working, but no words were coming out. The bulge of nausea in his middle was squeezing its way inexorably upward.

Somebody grabbed his arm. “In there!” said Bither urgently.

A door opened and closed behind him, and he found himself facing a hideous white-porcelain antique with a pool of water in it. There was a roaring in his ears, but before the first spasm took him, he could hear the girl’s and Either’s voices faintly from the other room:

“Eight minutes that time. Beej, I don’t know.”

“We can do it!”

“Well, I suppose we can, but can we do it before he starves?”

There was a sink in the room, but Alvah would sooner have drunk poison. He fumbled in his disordered kit until he found the condenser canteen. He rinsed out his mouth, took a tonus capsule and a mint lozenge. He opened the door.

“Feeling better?” asked the girl.

Alvah stared at her, retched feebly and fled back into the washroom.

WHEN he came out again. Either said, “He’s had enough, Beej. Let’s take him out in the courtyard till he gets his strength back.”

They moved toward him. Alvah said weakly, but with feeling, “Keep your itchy hands off me.” He walked unsteadily past them, turned when he reached the doorway. “I hate to urp and run, but I’ll never forget your hospitality. If there’s ever anything I can do for you―anything at all―please hesitate to call on me.”

He heard muttering voices and an odd scraping sound behind him, but he didn’t look back. He was halfway down the aisle between the cages when something furry and gray scuttled into view and sat up, grinning at him.

It looked like an ordinary capuchin monkey except for its head, which was grotesquely large. Go away, said Alvah. He advanced with threatening gestures. The thing chattered at him and stayed where it was.

The aisle behind him was deserted. Very well, there were other exits. Alvah followed his nose back into the plant section and turned right.

There was the monkey―thing again.

At the next intersection of aisles, there were two of them. Alvah turned left.

And right.

And left.

And emerged into a large empty space enclosed by buildings.

“This is the courtyard,” said Either, coming forward with the girl behind him. Now be reasonable. Alvah. You want to get back to New York, don’t you?”

This did not seem to call for comment. Alvah stared at him in silence.

“Well,” said Bither, “there’s just one way you can do it. It won’t be easy―I don’t even say you got more than a fighting chance. One thing, though―it’s up to you just how hard you make it for yourself.”

“Get to the point,” Alvah said.

“You got to let us decondition you so you can eat our food, ride on our animals. Now think about it, don’t just―”

Alvah swung around, looking for the fastest and most direct exit. Before he had time to find it, a dizzying thought struck him and he turned back.

“Is that what this whole thing has been about?” he challenged. He glared at Bither, then at B. J. “Is that the reason you were so helpful? Did you engineer that fight?”

BITHER clucked unhappily.

“Would we admit it if we did? Alvah, I’ll admit this much―of course we interested in you for our own reasons. This is the first time in thirty years we had a chance to study a City man. But what I just told you is true. If you want to get back home, this is your only chance.

“Then I’m a dead man,” said Alvah.

“You is if you think you is,” Bither told him. “Beej, you try.”

She looked at Alvah levelly. “You think what we suggesting isn’t possible. Right?”

“Discounting Doc’s grammar,” Alvah said sourly, “that’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

She said, “Doc’s grammar is all right―yours is sixty years out of date. But I guess you already realize that your people are backward compared to us.”

Half angry, half curious, Alvah demanded, “Just how do you figure that?”

“Easy. You probably don’t know much biology, but you must know this much. What’s the one quality that makes human beings the dominant race on this planet?”

Alvah snorted. “Are you trying to tell me I’m not as bright as a Muckfoot?”

“Not intelligence. Try again. Something more general―intelligence is only a special phase of it.”

Alvah’s patience was narrowing to a thin and brittle thread.

“You tell me.”

“All right. We like to think intelligence is important, but you can’t argue that way. It’s special pleading―the way a whale might argue that size is the measuring stick, or a microbe might say numbers. But―”

“Control of environment,” Alvah said.

“Right. Another name for it is adaptability. No other organism is so independent of environment, so adaptable as Man. And we could live in New York if we had to, just as we can live in the Arctic Circle or the tropics. And, since you don’t dare even try to live here …”

“All right,” Alvah said bitterly. “When do we start?”