by Damon Knight
Know what? I get this beautiful dream sometimes where I live in this little cottage I find in a wire. I never come out.
And about faster than light, I hit Tulsa.
THE WINNING OF THE GREAT AMERICAN GREENING REVOLUTION
A Progress Report
Here are all the answers—now what was the question?
Murray Yaco
A Few Weeds of Ignorance in Our Garden of Eden
Almost a generation has passed since a pollution-weary electorate gave its mandate to a revolutionary new political party—the Council of Molecular Biologists—and embraced its brave vision of a biologically engineered America. Yet even today there are superstitious people who believe that “God will punish man” for creating the made-to-order plants and animals we need to heal and transform our environment. Of course, superstition of this sort is rare. In fact, it is usually confined to an ignorant suspicion of experiments conducted by J. P. Holochwost, forty-sixth President of the United States and former molecular biologist who still finds time to “dabble a bit,” as he so aptly puts it. Our President’s recent part-time achievements include three quite promising biological contributions: 1) An erosion-resisting, bland-tasting, liver-colored, hybrid spinach with the aroma of well-cured soft cheese; 2) the sucker-mouthed petroleum whale—a mutant leviathan capable of subsisting entirely on a diet of oil spills—and also, unfortunately, of spouting huge clouds of carbon monoxide; 3) the armored berserker luminous devil elephant—more of a biological curiosity than a biological threat—although malicious rumors persist that the migrations of wild herds in evacuated areas of northern California have registered 8.3 on the Richter Scale.
Rescuing Our Water Wonderlands
Not so long ago, our precious lakes and rivers and coastal tide-lands were fouled by unsightly masses of scumlike green algae. This condition was caused by the chemicals in household detergents which were discharged into drainage systems. Fortunately, molecular biologists have developed a mutant yeast as a substitute for the detergent chemicals which encouraged the growth of algae. This interesting, made-to-order yeast produces an important new enzyme. The metabolic action of this new enzyme has converted all scumlike green algae in the United States into flotillas of iceberg-shaped, luminous mountains of drifting golden mucus which make our precious lakes and rivers and coastal tidelands unnavigable, but algae-free.
A Vanishing Species No One Will Mourn
Who would have guessed, even a few years ago, that the common lightning bug (sometimes known as the firefly) could be genetically modified to help rid us of the ubiquitous mosquito? Today, the tiny on-off blinks of mutated lightning bugs are a common sight on summer nights—each little flash of light signaling the electrocution of another pesky mosquito. It is interesting to observe these new insects performing the work for which they were designed; of course, it is imperative for the observer (or for anyone venturing outside at night) to first tape a ten-foot length of insulated copper wire alongside his or her spinal column, making certain that one bare end protrudes well above the head, and that the other trails and makes firm contact with the ground.
A Consciousness Expander by Any Other Name
Even in ancient times, men used fermented beverages and euphorics to obtain occasional relief from stress. Today, plant geneticists continue to seek a satisfactory replacement for distilled beverages. (No grain-neutral spirits have been produced in the United States since a pair of fast-multiplying, baboon-faced hog locusts escaped from a classified project in Utah and neutralized the Com Belt.) It is hoped that the much-maligned marijuana plant may serve as such a replacement. But attempts to “respectablize” cannabis sativa by cross-breeding it with well-accepted American plants have not been completely successful. A recent cross between cannabis sativa and the long-stemmed American Beauty rose produces lovely red blossoms that smell like marijuana, but when smoked, taste like smoldering bathroom deodorant.
Healing Mother Earth
Human life depends entirely on the well-being of the shallow covering of topsoil that blankets our earth. Yet in the past we shamefully abused this heritage. Chemical poisons, man-made fertilizers, and exploitive tillage practices came close to sterilizing irreplaceable agricultural lands, and proved especially inimical to the common earthworm. This lowly creature, almost extinct today, had the function of aerating the soil and fertilizing it by passing it through its digestive tract. Fortunately, geneticists have been able to develop a hardy, fast-growing variety of earthworm which seems to thrive on worn-out topsoil. This made-to-order earthworm has produced a dramatic change in the tillage practices of American farmers, who no longer use moldboard plows which would disturb the newly established earthworm colonies. It has also resulted in a dramatic change in the American diet, since most farmers are reluctant to practice farming while being chased by forty-foot omnivorous earthworms.
Keeping Things in Balance
Today, biologists help maintain a natural balance of competing species by “building to order” any special predators that may be required. For instance, in order to control excess breeding by giant omnivorous earthworms, biologists have developed a new variety of robin. This mutant robin is an albino (white with pink eyes) and is unusually heavy-bodied (specimens exceeding 1,200 pounds are not uncommon). It can also be identified by its song, which differs from the common robin’s early-morning cry of “cheer up, cheer up” in that it only sings at night, making a sound that is often interpreted as the sobbing of dozens of small children consumed by uncontrollable grief. Perhaps because of its long roosting habit, this new predator has not proved completely effective in controlling the giant omnivorous earthworm. The scientific name of this unusual bird is Mobius ornithgigantus. It is popularly known as the slugabed robin, or the night-sobbing brunch bird.
AMMT
An interesting competition between two widely separated teams of American plant geneticists may yet provide us with a substitute for the prohibitively expensive Christmas tree. (Commercial Christmas-tree production declined abruptly when North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois were unexpectedly designated as a National Whooping Crane Swamp.) On the West Coast, experimenters have developed a fast-growing, mutated variety of mistletoe, which has some of the propagating characteristics of the common puffball. Its seed pod “explodes” upon ripening—propelling the seeds at surprisingly high velocities toward the tops of the trees where it prefers to grow. Eastern plant geneticists, not to be left behind, have also developed a mutant mistletoe. Its seeding mechanism is a matter of conjecture, but rumors persist that it is capable of propelling dart-shaped seeds at velocities which enable them to intercept the seeds of the Western variety before they can reach the treetops. Among Western plant geneticists, this interesting Eastern plant is known as the anti-mistle mistletoe.
Stabilizing Our Recreation Playgrounds
The erosion of shorelines and beaches is a natural phenomenon. Attempts to prevent this erosion by building wind and water barriers usually prove costly and futile. Fortunately, these precious recreational resources are no longer threatened by erosion. All of our beaches have been seeded with a made-to-order, deep-rooted sand ivy. This new plant has stopped all beach erosion by anchoring itself so permanently that it resists winds of hurricane force. It has also beautified our beaches by producing an unending profusion of orchidlike blossoms with a memorable fragrance. Most important of all, this new plant has stopped the overutilization of our beaches, since most people have allergic reactions to the plant’s fragrant blossoms. The most characteristic syndrome involves watering of the eyes, a temporary vague itching sensation and a permanent tendency to drool and giggle convulsively when sexually aroused.
Pests No Longer Seen Nor Heard
The Venus Fly Trap is an unusual house plant with the curious ability to snare and digest insects. It does this by emitting a subtle odor which seduces the unsuspecting insect into landing on the plant, where it is quickly enmeshed. Plant geneticists have
attempted to improve this interesting plant and turn it into a “natural insecticide” that would trap houseflies on a much larger scale. By breeding-in selected characteristics of the tropical breadfruit tree, they have created a much larger variety of Venus Fly Trap that emits mouth-watering odors of freshly baked cookies and tutti-frutti. This new plant no longer requires careful indoor culture. It will grow almost anywhere, although it prefers to reside in patches of heavy shade, such as those cast by sliding-boards in school playgrounds.
FORLESEN
What do you expect of an afterlife where they can’t tell feet from shoes?
Gene Wolfe
When Emanuel Forlesen awoke, his wife was already up preparing breakfast. Forlesen remembered nothing, knew nothing but his name, for an instant did not remember his wife, or that she was his wife, or that she was a human being, or what human beings were supposed to look like.
At the time he woke he knew only his own name; the rest came later and is therefore suspect, colored by rationalization and the expectations of the woman herself and the other people. He moaned, and his wife said: “Oh, you’re awake. Better read the orientation.”
He said, “What orientation?”
“You don’t remember where you work, do you? Or what you’re supposed to do.”
He said, “I don’t remember a damn thing.”
“Well, read the orientation.”
He pushed aside the gingham spread and got out of bed looking at himself, noticing first the oddly deformed hands at the ends of his legs, then remembering the name for them: shoes. He was naked, and his wife turned her back to him politely while she prepared food. “Where the hell am I?” he asked.
“In our house.” She gave him the address. “In our bedroom.”
“We cook in the bedroom?”
“We sure do,” his wife said. “There isn’t any kitchen. There’s a parlor, the children’s bedroom, this room and a bath. I’ve got an electric fry pan, a tabletop electric oven and a coffeepot here; we’ll be all right.”
The confidence in her voice heartened him. He said, “I suppose this used to be a one-bedroom house, and we made the kitchen into a place for the kids.”
“Maybe it’s an old house, and they made the kitchen into the bathroom when they got inside plumbing.”
He was dressing himself, having seen that she wore clothing, and that there was clothing too large for her piled on a chair near the bed. He said, “Don’t you know?”
“It wasn’t in the orientation.”
At first he did not understand what she had said. He repeated, “Don’t you know?”
“I told you, it wasn’t in there. There’s just a diagram of the house, and there’s this room, the children’s room, the parlor and the bath. It said that door there”—she gestured with the spatula— “was the bath, and that’s right, because I went in there to get the water for the coffee. I stay here and look after things and you go out and work, that’s what it said. There was some stuff about what you do, but I skipped that and read about what I do.”
“You didn’t know anything when you woke up either,” he said.
“Just my name.”
“What’s your name?”
“Edna Forlesen. I’m your wife—that’s what it said.”
He walked around the small table on which she had arranged the cooking appliances, wanting to look at her. “You’re sort of pretty,” he said.
“You are sort of handsome,” his wife said. “Anyway, you look tough and strong.”
This made him walk over to the mirror on the dresser and try to look at himself. He did not know what he looked like, but the man in the mirror was not he. The image was older, fatter, meaner, more cunning, and stupider than he knew himself to be, and he raised his hands (the man in the mirror did likewise) to touch his features; they were what they should have been and he turned away. “That mirror’s no good,” he said.
“Can’t you see yourself? That means you’re a vampire.”
He laughed, and decided that that was the way he always laughed when his wife’s jokes weren’t funny. She said, “Want some coffee?” and he sat down.
She put a cup in front of him, and a pile of books. “This is the orientation,” she said. “You better read it—you don’t have much time.”
On top of the pile was a mimeographed sheet, and he picked that up first. It said:
Welcome to the planet Planet.
You have awakened completely ignorant of everything. Do not be disturbed by this. It is NORMAL. Under no circumstances ever allow yourself to become excited, confused, angry, or fearful. While you possess these capacities, they are to be regarded as incapacities.
Anything you may have remembered upon awakening is false. The orientation books provided you contain information of inestimable value. Master it as soon as possible, BUT DO NOT BE LATE FOR WORK. If there are no orientation books where you are, go to the house on your right (from the street), do not co to the house on your left.
If you cannot find any books, live like everyone else.
The white paper under this paper is your JOB ASSIGNMENT. The yellow paper is your table of commonly used waits and measures. Read these first; they are more important than the books.
“Eat your egg,” his wife said. He tasted the egg. It was good but slightly oily, as though a drop of motor oil had found its way into the grease in which she had fried it. His Job Assignment read:
Forlesen, E.
To his wife he said, “They got our name wrong.”
Forlesen, E. You work at Model Pattern Products, 19000370 Plant Prkwy, Highland Industrial Park. Your duties are supervisory and managerial. When you arrive punch in on the S&M clock {beige) NOT the Labor clock {brown). The union is particular about this. Go to the Reconstruction and Advanced Research section. To arrive on time leave before 060. 30.00.
The yellow paper was illegible save for the title and first line: There are 240 ours in each day.
“What time is it?” he asked his wife.
She glanced at her wrist. “Oh six oh ours. Didn’t they give you a watch?”
He looked at his own wrist—it was bare, of course. For a few moments Edna helped him search for one; but it seemed that none had been provided, and in the end he took hers, she saying that he would need it more than she. It was big for a woman’s watch, he thought, but very small for a man’s. “Try it,” she said, and he obediently studied the tiny screen. The words “The Time Is” were cast in the metal at its top; below them, glimmering and changing even as he looked: “060.07.43.” He took a sip of coffee and found the oily taste was there too.
The book at the top of the pile was a booklet really, about seven inches by four with the pages stapled in the middle. The title, printed in black on a blue cover of slightly heavier paper, was How to Drive.
Remember that your car is a gift. Although it belongs to you and you are absolutely responsible for its acts {whether driven by yourself or others, or not driven) and maintenance {pg 15), do not:
1. Deface its surface.
2. Interfere with the operation of its engine, or with the operation of any other part.'
3. Alter it in such a way as to increase or diminish the noise of operation.
4. Drive it at speeds in excess of 40 miles/hour.
5. Pick up hitchhikers.
6. Deposit a hitchhiker at any point other than a Highway Patrol Station.
7. Operate it while you are in an unfit condition. (To be determined by a duly constituted medical board.)
8. Fail to halt and render medical assistance to persons injured by you, your car, or others (provided third parties are not already providing such assistance).
9. Stop at any time or for any reason at any point not designated as a stopping position.
10. Wave or shout at other drivers.
11. Invade the privacy of other drivers—as by noticing or pretending to notice them or the occupants of their vehicles.
12. Fail to return it on demand.
13. Drive it to improper destinations.
He turned the page. On the new page was a diagram of the control panel of an automobile, and he noted the positions of Windshield, Steering Wheel, Accelerator, Brake, Reversing Switch, Communicator, Beverage Dispenser, Urinal, Defecator, and Map Compartment. He asked Edna if they had a car, and she said she thought they did, and that it would be outside.
“You know,” he said, “I’ve just noticed that this place has windows.”
Edna said, “You’re always jumping up from the table. Finish your breakfast.”
Ignoring her, he parted the curtains. She said, “Two walls have windows and two don’t. I haven’t looked out of them.” Outside he saw sunshine on concrete; a small, yellow, somehow hunched-looking automobile; and a house.
“Yeah, we’ve got a car,” he said. “It’s parked right under the window.”
“Well, I wish you’d finish breakfast and get to work.”
“I want to look out of the other window.”
If the first window had been, as it appeared to be, at the side of the house, then the other should be at either the back or the front. He opened the curtains and saw a narrow, asthmatic brick courtyard. On the bricks stood three dead plants in terra-cotta jars; the opposite side of the court, no more than fifteen feet off, was the wall of another house. There were two widely spaced windows in this wall, both closed with curtains; and as he watched (though his face was only at the window for an instant) a man pushed aside the curtains at the nearer window and looked at him. Forlesen stepped back and said to Edna, “I saw a man; he looked afraid. A bald man with a wide, fat face, and a gold tooth in front, and a mole over one eyebrow.” He went to the mirror again and studied himself.
“You don’t look like that,” his wife said.
“No, I don’t—that’s what bothers me. That was the first thing I thought of—that it would be myself, perhaps the way I’m going to look when I’m older. I’ve lost a lot of my hair now and I could lose the rest of it, in fact, I suppose I will. And I could break a tooth in front and get a gold one—”