The Aluminum Man

by G. C. Edmondson

  Rudolf pulled fifty dollars from his pocket and tossed it. The bandit’s face lit up. “I’ll split,” he promised. “You’ll never see me again.”

  “Do that,” Flaherty said. “As soon’s we’re dead they’ll pick you up.”

  “Jesus!” the young man wailed. “What can I do?”

  Flaherty checked the safety and tossed the pistol back into the hippie’s lap. “You might learn how to use that,” he said. “You’ll have to notice who comes in or out of this place. If you’re busted I never heard of you, so don’t go murtherin’ the Fuller Brush man.”

  The young man picked up the pistol gingerly. “Jesus!” he murmured. “Me a bodyguard!”

  “It’s your body,” Flaherty said. He produced another fifty dollars. “Get some clothes that’ll keep the locals off your back.”

  “It’s what semanticists call a double bind,” Flaherty said as the would-be bandit exited. “Damned if you do and double damned if you don’t. I muchly doubt if a rent-a-cop would have the kind of motivation that young dipshit has for keeping us healthy. Meanwhile, dear boy, you’d best gather up the money before we have another visit.”

  “Right,” Rudolf said. “But I’d like to see what made that water so slick our young friend slipped in it.”

  “Ah,” the Flaherty said. “So you noticed that too?’

  “Tuchi!” Rudolf called. “We’re alone. You can come out now.”

  Nothing happened.

  “Maybe we’re imagining it,” Flaherty said.

  “Pamela too?” Rudolf felt a pang at the realization that he would never again plant his seed in Pamela St. Audrey’s gorgeous garden.

  They stared at the sink for several moments. When nothing happened Rudolf gathered up the money and they got into the dump truck.

  The gravel pit had been thoroughly gone over too, but the envelopes full of mailed currency were intact. Wondering how many culture samples had been stolen and how many biologists were quietly going nuts trying to figure why the culture refused to live longer than eight days, Rudolf drove back to the village bank and bought traveler’s checks. He drove on to a larger town and bought more, spreading his purchases around banks and travel agencies in a faint hope of not attracting attention.

  It was afternoon when he got back. Flaherty was still fiddling around in the laboratory he had rigged up out at the gravel pit. “Nothing new on the aluminophage,” he said, “but I think I’m onto something with the high tolerance yeast.”

  “That’s a great help. How’s the crop doing?”

  “Ready for sowing. You got the—” Suddenly Flaherty stopped himself and pantomimed caution. He made hand-to-ear gestures until Rudolf realized the place was bugged.

  “The house too, I suppose?” Rudolf asked.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

  Rudolf went out to the pit. Flaherty had scraped up the top two inches of muck with the dozer blade on the truck. Rudolf was reaching in his pocket for the incubator when something caught his eye. He looked again. Nearly a minute passed while he moved aimlessly about, twisting his head this way and that but not taking his eyes from a certain spot. Finally he was rewarded with another glint. He wondered if it was the reflection off binoculars or a telephoto lens. Disgustedly, he went back into the lab. With his mouth to the wild Irishman’s ear, he whispered his discovery.

  They stood silently staring at each other while Rudolf felt an idea germinating. “Let’s go home,” he said out loud. “I’ll do it tomorrow morning.”

  “I do wish to the holy St. Potluck that this benighted bailey had a restaurant,” Flaherty groused as he prepared an evening meal. “Dear boy, what’re you doin’ with that feather duster?”

  Rudolf raised a finger to his lips and shook his head. They ate silently, wanting to talk but remembering the bugs. “I suppose you’ve found one,” Rudolf said.

  “Aye. They’re so damned small you’d never find them all.”

  “There’re companies that’ll clean them out for a price.”

  “Aye,” the Flaherty gloomed, “but whose price?”

  They sat over empty plates and finally last night’s bus ride caught up. “I’ve had it,” Rudolf said. “Good night.”

  “Good night,” Flaherty said absently.

  Rudolf was performing solemn rites enthroned when he felt something cold and clammy contact an extremely sensitive area. For an instant he was tempted to shriek louder than Pamela, then he got control of himself.

  “Tuchi!” he exclaimed. “What’re you doing here? Was it you making all those bangs and killing the fish? I thought you’d be gone by now.” Rudolf finished raising his half masted pants. “By the way,” he continued, “a lady doesn’t grab a gentleman there.”

  “A gentleman doesn’t swindle a lady with adulterated aluminum,” Tuchi said exasperatedly. “My ship’s drive is clogged. It will take months to repair. I must have the—”

  “Shhhhhhh!” Rudolf suddenly remembered the house was bugged.

  “Don’t shush me!” Tuchi snapped. “Thanks to you I’m stuck here! In a month’s traveling your waterways I have found pike, perch, horse mackerel, crawfish, hagfish, minnows — everything on this polluted cesspool of a planet shares one characteristic: They all find me irresistible. I’ve been gouged, chewed, bit, pecked, sucked, nibbled, and gummed. Nothing that swims, flies, or crawls can refrain from trying to eat me. Now I want that—”

  “Quiet, for Christ’s sake!” Rudolf begged, “You’ll have the golden horde here in minutes!”

  Tuchi’s triangle-spaced black dots reared up through the seat of the john. “Now!” the alien threatened.

  There was a pounding on the door downstairs. “Already!” Rudolf moaned. “If they ever find out you exist you’ll never see home again,” he assured the alien. “This house is bugged — wired for sound. They’re listening to everything we say.”

  Flaherty was growling blasphemies in his transit-mix baritone as he bumped and stumbled down the stairway. Rudolf heard the door open. There was a moment’s muffled conversation, then Flaherty called, “Dear boy, there’s a young lady here who’ll just die if she doesn’t see you.”

  “Oh Christ!” Rudolf moaned. He was torn with the desire to see her again, to get her upstairs and… But Pamela St. Audrey’s arrival just now had to be more than coincidence. If she saw Tuchi again — if the golden horde ever discovered where Rudolf had gotten the process… Then he calmed slightly. Tuchi didn’t have another incubator. Rudolf still held the only one in this solar system. He intended to keep it, no matter what the cost.

  The voices were growing louder. Good god! Rudolf thought, he’s bringing her upstairs! Hastily, he zipped up his trousers.

  “I want it back now!” Tuchi’s three-dotted face reared higher. Flaherty pounded on the bathroom door.

  “Lady to see you!” he boomed.

  “And they talk about wild Indians!” Rudolf muttered.

  Tuchi was starting to flow up over the edge of the seat. Suddenly Rudolf wondered how the alien had killed all those fish. “Be right with you,” he yelled. Breathing a silent prayer, he flushed the toilet.

  CHAPTER 8

  There was a sound which was to recur in nightmares for the rest of Rudolf’s life as water rose to the brim of the bowl, then suddenly disappeared, taking an outraged extraterrestrial with it.

  Rudolf checked his fly and studied his face in the mirror. He braced himself and tried to smile as he opened the door.

  There was nobody there. Finally he realized he had only imagined Flaherty was bringing her upstairs. He went down to the living room where the wild Irishman stood, bending gallantly over a well-rounded bosom in the moderate decolletage of a traveling suit.

  It wasn’t Pamela St. Audrey’s. Rudolf stared a moment at the dark-haired, vaguely Indian looking girl on the sofa. Finally he realized he had seen her yesterday at Northumber.

  “Any axe murders today?” she asked.

  Rudolf gave a guilty start and wondered if flushing the toil
et had done the alien any permanent damage.

  “Don’t ever let Lars take your picture,” the girl warned, “unless you want to be immortalized picking your nose.”

  “Who?” Then abruptly Rudolf realized she meant the aging longhair in the mod threads. What the hell was this girl doing here — as if he couldn’t guess!

  “I’m Lillith Lasky,” she said. “I’m with Life.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  She began fumbling in her purse.

  “Anybody can fake credentials,” Rudolf said. “I just don’t believe your name’s Lillith.”

  “My father believed most devoutly in God’s malevolence,” Lillith explained. “That’s why he named me for a lady who lived prior to the time God started looking after us Jews.”

  Rudolf stared blankly at the Flaherty. “There seems a thread of some dark theology here,” the Irishman said.

  Lillith smiled. “As my sainted father puts it, ‘How could I squander so much hatred on something that doesn’t exist?’”

  “As your sainted father puts it?” Flaherty echoed. “The poor man is dead, isn’t he?”

  “No. He just turned Mormon.”

  Rudolf wondered if the golden horde’s tentacles reached into Life. He could feel that sullen reservation mentality closing in again.

  “You’re news,” the girl said. “And I’m just the first of the thundering herd.”

  “Just what we need,” Rudolf growled.

  Lillith shrugged. “You can let us take wild guesses or you can play it cool.”

  “How?”

  “You must have some axe to grind. Maneuver and manipulate. Use the news to tell it your way.”

  For a man who had had some experience with the media Rudolf decided he had been remarkably obtuse. “What would you like to have?” he asked.

  “A story about an Indian who’s making it the white man’s way.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “Would you go for the one about girl reporter’s first big assignment?”

  Rudolf snorted.

  “No, I didn’t think you would. Actually, I can do more for you than you can for me.”

  “Sure,” Rudolf said sourly. “You brought us God, taught us how to bow our heads in prayer. When we looked up the land was all gone.”

  “Save it for the WASPs,” Lillith said. “I’m a minority too.”

  “I am a WASP.”

  “Oh?”

  “A Wild-Assed Sioux Prick.”

  Lillith laughed delightedly. “Can I quote you?”

  “Why not? But really, I’m beat. Can’t it wait till morning?”

  “Sure. My camper’s parked outside. Oh, by the way, this belongs to some weirdo out in the bushes.” She tossed a pistol into Rudolf’s lap. Remembering the last time it had bounced, Rudolf made a valiant try for the chandelier. “Relax,” Lillith said. “I unloaded it. Can I use your bathroom?”

  “Most assuredly,” Flaherty said.

  “Be back in a minute.” Lillith disappeared out the front door.

  Rudolf looked at Flaherty. Flaherty looked at the gun. “May as well lock it up before that idiot blows his toes off,” he sighed.

  Moments later Lillith Lasky reappeared in a dark blue robe and carrying a small case of the tools women use to prove they are not men. Suddenly Rudolf realized horrendous possibilities. “You can’t — I mean, uh, be careful,” he finished lamely.

  Flaherty gave him an odd look as Lillith disappeared up the stairs.

  “Tuchi,” Rudolf explained.

  “She’s back?”

  With one ear cocked for a scream, Rudolf told Flaherty what had happened.

  “I see,” the Irishman said gravely. “Not much point in watching our talk if the poor slime’s blown the gaff like that.”

  “What’s going to happen?” Rudolf asked.

  Flaherty shrugged. “You shouldn’t have traded that canoe.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  “I told you then.”

  “I know.” Rudolf thought a moment. “You said once that it was just a matter of time before somebody else works it out. How long do you think it’ll take?”

  “Dear boy, if I knew that I’d know the answer to the problem.”

  “What is the problem?”

  “They die.” Flaherty pursed his lips. “No lad, that’s not all the problem. It’s the energy exchanges. Somebody’s taking money out of the bank without putting any in.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Flaherty sighed. “You were going to be an engineer once. Do you know what ‘heat of formation’ means?”

  “It’s been a while. Isn’t it the energy that goes into or comes out of a chemical reaction?”

  “Aye. Now, d’you know what the solar constant is?”

  “How can it be constant? Wouldn’t it vary with latitude and weather and all kinds of things?”

  “Aye, down here it would,” the Flaherty agreed, “but the solar constant is the amount of radiant solar energy received normally at the outer layer of the earth’s atmosphere. It averages about one point ninety-four gram calories per square centimeter per minute.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Flaherty was on his feet now, pacing back and forth. “The higher the heat of formation, the more stable the compound. This is just another way of saying it’s easier to turn wood into ashes than it is to turn ashes back into wood. One way you’re taking energy out and the other way you’re putting energy back in. Now, what kind of compound would have a low heat of formation?”

  “Something unstable, I guess.”

  “Right. When you find a compound with a low heat of formation it usually takes a lot of roundabout steps to make it. Some compounds even have negative heats of formation.”

  “Like nitroglycerine?”

  “See lad,” Flaherty exulted, “you’re not totally ruined by a liberal arts degree! Now alumina,” he continued, “is very stable. It’s an ash formed from the burning of metallic aluminum in oxygen.”

  “A high heat of formation?” Rudolf guessed.

  “Considerably higher than the solar constant.”

  “Oh.” Rudolf began to see the problem.

  “Our aluminophage can only get energy from the sun. It’s not getting enough to do what we see it doing. Now where’s the extra energy coming from?”

  “The good fairies?” Rudolf asked.

  “They’re all busy out on Fire Island.”

  “I just thought of something.”

  “Yes, dear boy?”

  “Every time we make aluminum we must be making new oxygen to put back into the atmosphere too.”

  Flaherty stopped his pacing to stare at Rudolf. “You turned down the pirates of the golden horde and you didn’t know that?”

  “Yes.”

  The Flaherty shook his head. “Why didn’t you accept their offer?”

  “I’ve been asking myself all day,” Rudolf said.

  The wild Irishman turned his back and blew his nose. “You’re braver and stupider than I thought,” he said. “But in the end I suppose man’s salvation will always depend on love.”

  Rudolf was puzzled. Though he had been around whites ever since a surly individual had kidnapped him and taken him off to a reservation school, Rudolf had always regarded whites as stolid, poker faced dolts who either had no emotions or no skill in expressing them. Yet the wild Irishman was obviously in the grip of some strong feeling.

  “There’s only so much free oxygen around our suffering planet,” he said. “Sure and they’ll tell you plants replace it and algae and chlorella and all the amber waves of grain and the Amazonian jungles and — it’s all bull!”

  “You mean plants don’t absorb carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen?”

  “Oh, aye. They do that. Each plant emits exactly enough free oxygen to take care of rotting or burning that plant when it’s dead.”

  “Then how do we ever get ahead?”

  “Well,” the Flaherty explaine
d, “in small ways we’re still doing it: Peat bogs, for example, where the dead plants pack down but don’t oxidize; wood built into houses that don’t burn down. Back in the carboniferous era we were going great guns but that was before our kind started burning the coal and the oil faster than the plants can make it. In two hundred years we’ve bound up all the oxygen the forests of the carboniferous era managed to liberate in sixty million years. How much longer d’you think we’re good for?”

  “I don’t know,” Rudolf said. “I guess it doesn’t look good.”

  “Oh we’ll survive,” Flaherty continued. “Those of us who can afford it. Gods help the poor sod who drinks up his welfare check instead of buying enough air to last him over the weekend.”

  “You think it’ll come to that?”

  “There’re places now where it’s dangerous to breathe. In twenty years wealthy people will live in airtight houses — or maybe a plastic roof over their grounds. They’ll live twice as long as the poor sod who has to compete with the smokestacks for what’s left.”

  Flaherty was on his feet again, waving his arms. “That’s why I’ll not deal with the golden horde!” he shouted. “Each time I’ve come up with some little thing that might delay disaster they’ve sat on it, lost it, or suppressed it. This one is too big. Aluminum — shit! You want to get rich on aluminum, go ahead. I want air to breathe. Every time we make aluminum we make air. And I’ll not have St. Audrey choking every poor man to death!”

  From the top of the stairs came applause. Wrapped in her blue robe and with her hair in a towel, Lillith Lasky came downstairs slowly. Suddenly Rudolf remembered Tuchi. “Nothing uh—” He decided to shut up. Obviously Tuchi hadn’t showed or this dark-haired young woman would not be so happily applauding Flaherty’s outburst.

  “How much did you hear?” Rudolf asked.

  “I came in during the carboniferous era.”

  “Sure and you don’t look a day over a million,” the Flaherty said.

  Rudolf wished he could say clever things like that.

  “Is it true?” Lillith asked.

  “What?”

  “That you’re making air?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you do it?”