EVIL EARTHS, page 3
machine stopped.
Claude moved toward the portal. "Well," he said, "the
twentieth century, if I'm not mistaken!" He glanced at the
temporal indicator.
He was mistaken.
The long red arrow trembled slightly at 3042 A.D.
Claude frowned. "Damned strange," he muttered.
The machine could not be set into operation agahl
until it had properly cooled, of course.
Claude activated the door. It wheezed pneumatically
inward, colliding with a rather shapeless object in the corner,
that Claude knew instantly, had not been there before.
"Eve!"
She rose stiffly from her cramped position.
"I stowed away," she said. "Was it very wrong of me,
dear?"
11
Claude sighed. "What is wrong? What is right? Anyway,
we're here."
They stepped out the cabin door.
The day was a riot of sunshine and crisp breezes.
Claude sniffed and examined his surroundings.
He was in a city. Tall, lean buildings rose all around
him. The buildings were girdled by insect swarms of tiny
'planes, and crowds of people stood on mobile sidewalks.
Claude watched the people. They seemed strangely alike,
as if there were only one person, reflected and reflected
again, thousandly. They were, without exception, expressionless.
They stared at tiny antennaed boxes, which
depended from their necks.
"Do you love me?" Eve asked.
"Yes and no," Claude answered, evasively, and con-tinned
at a brisker gait.
Then he stopped. At his feet was a clump of dandelions.
He plucked one ofthe healthier specimens.
Instantly, a plane dropped from the sky and landed at
his side.
The door of the plane opened. There was no one
side.
"Name?"
"Claude Adams. And yours?"
"Address?"
"At the moment, I'm afraid that I am not permanently
located."
"You are under arrest. We're booking you on a
703 -A."
"A 703-A?"
"That's right. A 703-A. Curiosity."
Claude was suddenly unable to control his feet. They
marched him into the cabin. He sat down. The door
closed. The plane lifted.
"I'll get you outl" Eve called from far below. "Don't
worry. I'll talk to someoneI"
Her voice faded with distance.
Tamping down a quantity of strong shag tobacco---the
last of his supply--Claude stretched out on the fibrous
pallet and attempted to think.
Undoubtedly this was a jail, although it did not
re
12
semble a jail. there were no bars: only a shallow moat,
easily leaped, and a decided ascetic touch in the
furnish
ings suggested the concept of imprisonment.
There was a baffled sob.
Claude turned and saw that he was not alone. A youngish
man in a far corner sat disconsolately, twirling the
knobs of a blank TV set.
"What's the difficulty?" Claude asked democratically.
'q'he TV," the man groaned. "It doesn't work. You
understand? It does not workl"
At this moment there came a hollow laugh.
From another corner an older man arose. He was
bearded. "It'll never work, either," he gibbered.
The young man turned on the bearded gentleman angrily
and Claude turned away, wondering. After the commotion
died down he addressed himseff to the bearded
man.
"Tell me 'something about this civilization," he said. "I
seem to have a touch of amnesia."
"What's to tell?" the bearded man shrugged. "when the
Overmasters arrived fifty years ago, from Mars, they dim-inated
all war, suffering, crime, disease, and work. It
seems that this was in payment for a favor an Earthman
once did them. Since then we've lived off the fat of the
land. The Big Machine runs the show---"
"The Big Machine?"
"A highly Complex Mechanism," the bearded man
said, warming to his topic. "Cybernetics and all that. It
has taped the neural indices of every human being on
Earth--it can steam your brains out if you step out of line.
Not only that, but it serves as the electronic matrix of
every structure on the planet. Without the Big Machine,
friend, there wouldn't be a manufactured molecule around
here big enough to spit on."
"Hmmm," said Claude.
He continued to think.
Eve came to him the following day. He spotted her
moving slowly across the smooth green lawn.
"Eve!"
She stopped at the water and did not look up.
Claude rushed to the edge of the moat. "Eve," he cried.
"What news?"
13
"I got through," Eve said. '5 spoke to it. The Big Machine."
"Ah! It's here, in this very city?"
"Yes."
"Well, then. I am going to be released immediately?"
Eve toed at a daisy. She seemed to blush. "No," she
murmured. "It has extended your sentence to ninety
years."
Claude reeled. "You're angry," he groped. "I left you
and this is your revenge---"
"No." Eve raised her head. Of her two prime expressions,
she did not use ioy. "You must try to understand,
Claude. I went to the Big Machine. My intentions were
excellent. Then . . . something happened. Chemical
affin
ities, meshing circuits--oh, I don't knowl"
"Meshing circuits?"
Eve smiled, remembering. "I am mechanical," she said
slowly. "The Big Machine is mechanical. It was one of
those things. He's been lonely, Claude."
"That's enough. Do not go on."
Claude leaped the moat. He grasped Eve's shoulders.
"Where is he?" he rasped. "Come on, I know he's around
here somewhere."
"There. The domed building on the corner. Oh,
Claud"
Claude moved fast. His blood was up now. The Big
Machine, since it had the neural indices of every person
on Earth, had no need of guards. Claude entered the Central
Rotunda without difficulty.
The Big Machine, resembling an immense dynamo,
hummed.
"Machine," Claude murmured, "say your prayers."
Claude inspected the machine. It was forged of heavy
materials. It appeared to be impenetrable. It hummed
and banks of lights flickered in its cavernous recesses.
Somewhere, it must have an Achilles' heel.
Claude applied his scientific know-how to the problem
and got nowhere. He kicked the Big Machine with something
akin to desperation.
Then he noticed something odd floating directly above
his head.
It was Son.
14
"The plug, Dad," Son said.
"Beg pardofi?"
"The plug. Pull the plugI"
"Of coursel"
The Big Machine sent up sonic Vibrations, It hummed
and quivered as Claude approached the socket. It knew
Fear.
"Damned clever," Claude said, and yanked the plug
out.
".Umph!" cried Son. "Hang on, PopI"
The world began to lose its bearings. Things
effer
vesced. Claude swayed and' was hit by attackg of nausea.
Buildings crumbled, their electronic matrix destroyed.
People dropped in their tracks, their neural indices triggered.
Claud.e fet. himself falling ....
There was d. arkness.
He awoke to find himself in the collapsed ruins of the
city. A sluggish breeze pushed sand through the piles of
junk that had once housed a mighty civilization.
There was silence everywhere.
Son flew over astride a large boulder and ground to a
stop at his father's side. "Mom is here," he said. "She
wants you, Dad."
Side by side, they walked into a clearing, surrounded
by scorched foliage. Eve sat silently on a block of broken
masonry. Her face was moist with tears.
Claude took her hand.
"Eve," he said. "You and I and Son are now
civiliza
tion. Do you understand what this means?"
"Yes."
"And are you afraid?"
"A little. It isn't easy to be the mother of a whole new
"No," Claude conceded, "not easy. The job is too big
for the two of us. We must have a wife for Son. We must
have a female child."
Son smiled.
Claude squared his shoulders.
Together, he and Eve marched into the bushes.
15
Water ts enormously important to man--but the most
important part o[ an ocean is the top ten thousandths oI
an inch!
FILM OF DEATH
by J. Scott Campbell
Text of an address delivered before the Thirty-fifth Anniversary
Banquet of the Federation of American Scien-fists,
December 6, 1980.
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:
We of the older generation hold somewhat of an advantage
over most of the membership of this Association
in that we have seen with our own eyes the tremendous
events which transformed the world into what it is today.
We recall as vivid reality what many of you know only as
history. I am, therefore, sure that you are more interested
in me as an eyewitness than as an astrophysicist of rather
obscure reputation, and so I shall simply tell you, in my
own words, and with the flavor of the times as far as I
can, how these amazing and dramatic events took place.
It began, as you well know, in the winter of 1949-50.
I find difficulty in remembering just what I was doing then,
but you will agree, I am sure, that this was the year when
the great worry over the plutonium bomb, then called
simply the Atomic Bomb, began to subside. The Atomic
Development Authority had been finally set up; all bombs,
and supplies of uranium, thorium and plutonium had been
transferred to it, and all mines, piles and other dangerous
facilities were out of nationalistic hands. Even the Soviet
Union was happy, although there were plenty of critics of
our part in the Iranian affair.
In the United States production was at last under way.
Inflation had been checked, and food and steel were
plea
16
l
tiful again. Strikes were still .occurring, but these were regarded
more as '"after shocks" from the great upset, than
as portents of troubles to come. In fact, for the first time in
many decades, there were no ominous clouds on the horizon.
And yet the danger was there, hidden, disguised even
from the men most intimately connected with it. Schneider,
working patiently with his mass speetograph in Chicago,
laboriously piling up, atom by atom, the rare isotope 204
of lead. And Ordway, here at the Institute in the organic
chemistry lab, mixing fatty acids and hydrocarbon chains,
searching and searching.
Did he know what he was after? What would he have
said, if someone had asked him? Well, I know, because
I asked him.
It was during the Christmas recess of 1949. ! had been
doing some rea.ding in the Chem Library, and dropped
down to.his lab to tempt him into a walk 'and a midnight
cup of coffee. He wouldn't go, but we did talk a little
about his work.
"It's an organic hydropolar acid," he explained. "It
forms chain molecules having a preferential orientation
with respect to water."
"What will you call it?" I asked.
"Well, it really can't be named yet, because I haven't
actually found it," he admitted. "But when I do, it'll probably
be"whe hesitated--"something like, well, zetylsul-fonic
acid."
"I see," I said hurriedly. "Z-acid for short, eh?"
Dr. Ordway nodded happily, evidently visualizing that
monumental name as a title in Chemical Abstracts.
"But, what will it do?" I pursued. "That is, what are
its properties?"
"I'm not sure yet, but I hope that it may have some
practical value. You see, a hydropolar molecule attaches
itseff very closely to water. What I hope is, if I can get the
structure just right, that it will form a thin film, a mono-molecular
film, which will lie over a water surface like a
tough skin and prevent gas absorption, or evaporation, or
any other transfer to or from the water."
I probably looked a little blank, for he hurried to explain
further.
17
'at would lead to most important economic results.
In chemical processes--oil refining or paper making, for
example, or even on reservoirs and irrigation ditches
to prevent evaporation Why, there's no limit to what
it can do---that is, if I get it.'
I thought he ended a little lamely, and so, as it was getting
late, I said good night and headed for my own homo
and bed.
I think it was a month later that Dr. Ordway at last
succeeded in synthesizing Z-acid. I say "think" because it
was ouly a few days after this, on January 5, 1950, that
Schneider announced the fission of lead, and after that,
of course, everything else was forgotten.
The sensation created by the little red-headed physicist's
discovery was simply beyond description- Of course,
it could have been handled in a much less sensational
