Prescription for Chaos

by Christopher Anvil

  Banner looked at her coolly. "I appreciate that, Miss Hemple, but—"

  "I just love every minute here. And I think you're just the kindest employer. There, I had to say it. Thank you so much, Mr. Banner, for everything."

  The door shut, and Banner stared at it.

  "Is that what you mean, Mort?"

  "That's how it starts. It gets worse when everyone tells everyone else how he enjoys having him for a co-worker. You take half-a-dozen people, and the permuta—"

  "The what?"

  Hommel paused. "There are thirty different ways they can congratulate one another on being good co-workers. At least thirty different ways."

  Banner said soberly, "I've heard of the world ending by disasters. It never occurred to me it might end in a handshake."

  Hommel started to reply, but was interrupted again, this time by a woman's scream echoing down the hall outside.

  Banner and Hommel were on their feet at once. Banner seized a heavy cane he used for occasional bouts of rheumatism, and they went through the outer office, and reached the hall door just as there was a louder scream.

  Hommel threw the door open, to see Viola Manning, one of his assistants, rush past.

  Right behind her came Peabody, Hommel's promising young research chemist. Peabody's eyes were lit up in a kind of greenish murky light. Both his hands were stretched out after Viola Manning.

  Hommel shouted, "What is this? Stop!"

  Peabody didn't stop.

  Banner shot out his heavy cane, entangling Peabody's legs.

  Peabody's arms flailed, he hurtled forward off balance, and hit the floor with a crash.

  Banner recovered his cane, and watched Peabody alertly.

  Peabody groaned, sat up, and felt cautiously of his nose and face. He staggered to his feet.

  Hommel eyed him coldly. "And just what the devil were you doing?"

  "I . . . ah—"

  From somewhere came a sound of sobbing, and a reassuring feminine voice giving words of comfort.

  Peabody glanced around nervously. "Did I—"

  Hommel said angrily, What were you doing?"

  "I . . . I was dissolving some powdered Nullergin-200 in ethyl alcohol, and I . . . it occurred to me to wonder what the physiological effect—"

  "You drank it?"

  Peabody stared at his toes. "Yes."

  Banner said, "How much?"

  "Just a little . . . a few milliliters . . . hardly any—"

  Hommel said, "You were dissolving it in pure ethyl alcohol?"

  "Yes, but I diluted it. I poured in some water, shook in a little . . . er . . . sucrose . . . and—"

  Banner said, "How many pills did you grind up in this punch?"

  "The . . . the dissolved Nullergin-200 couldn't have been the equivalent of a tenth of a pill."

  Hommel said grimly, "Then what happened?"

  "I . . . ah . . . Viola—She had just come in, and—All of a sudden I saw her in a different light—" His face reddened. He said helplessly, "It was like friendship—only a lot more so."

  Hommel said disgustedly, "Next time, stick a little closer to the planned experiment."

  "Yes, Dr. Hommel. I will."

  "Does Viola realize what happened?"

  "I—No."

  Banner said, "Did you drink up all of that stuff, or is there some left?"

  "There's some left."

  "Save it."

  Hommel nodded. "And write it down, as accurately as possible, the quantities you used. Then you'd better take a few minutes to decide what you'll say to Viola Manning."

  Peabody nodded grimly.

  Hommel said, "I'll try to explain to her that it was a . . . er . . . toxic effect. Possibly you can find some better explanation."

  When Peabody had gone off, pale and shaken, Banner went back into his office, and Hommel had the job of explaining to Viola Manning.

  That evening, when Hommel got back to his apartment, the daily paper told of a town in the mid-west that had found the way to peace and friendship—through putting Nullergin-200 in the water supply.

  When he got up the next morning, the news broadcast told of two daring bandits who, late the previous afternoon, had walked into a bank in a friendly town in the mid-west, and cleaned it out. The bank guard explained, "I just felt too friendly to stop them."

  What riveted Hommel's attention was the bank president's comment: "The trouble with those boys was just that they haven't been drinking our water. I wonder if there's any way to spray the friendship medicine in the air?"

  "'Friendship medicine,'" muttered Hommel. Then he headed out into the morning traffic jam. This business of waiting out delays at intersections, while drivers politely waved each other ahead, was getting on his nerves.

  Late in the week, Banner called Hommel to his office.

  "How's the antidote coming, Mort?"

  "Assuming there is an antidote, we might find it faster with . . . ah . . . fewer complications in interpersonal relationships."

  "How's Viola Manning taking it?"

  "She looks around with a start when the door opens."

  "How about Peabody?"

  "He's drowning himself in work," said Hommel.

  "Good." Banner picked up a newspaper. "If you'd just glance over the items circled on the front page, Mort."

  Hommel glanced over the front page, to notice to his horror that practically every news item was circled:

  NO STRIKE, SAYS UNION

  Accept Voluntary Pay Cut

  RACE WAR ENDS

  "We Love Each Other" Say Rival Gang Chiefs

  PEACE FORCE ENDS STRIFE

  "Friendship Bombs" End Long-Drawn War

  Guerrillas Emerge From Jungle Hideout

  COMMON COLD LICKED BY RESEARCHERS

  Nullergin-200 Gives Double Dose of Blessings

  No Sniffles No Snarls

  URGE NULLERGIZATED CITY WATER SUPPLY

  Ends Colds, Strife With Same Method

  PETTIBO STORES HEIRESS FOUND

  Eloped With Garbage Collector

  Class No Obstacle To True Friendship

  IS PEACE PACT REAL?

  Soviets Claim Treaty Sprayed With Superdrug

  Hommel looked up dazedly.

  Banner said, "Things are picking up, Mort."

  "But is it better, or worse?"

  "Take a look at the folded page."

  Hommel turned back to a page with the corner folded, to read:

  INDUSTRIAL OUTPUT DROPPING AGAIN

  Productivity Per Man-Hour Hits New Low Again This Month

  Hommel read the article, certain comments standing out boldly:

  ". . . Blamed on on-the-job socializing and increased hesitancy of supervisory personnel to force the pace . . . 'After all, we're all one happy family,' says the superintendent of the Boswah Corporation's East Steelport plant . . . claimed it is possible to keep production lines moving but only by slowing them further . . . 'There is a much nicer atmosphere around here,' comments one worker, sipping her coffee as the line idles by, 'It used to be hurry-hurry-hurry' . . . Executives agree, 'Our competitors have the same problem. Why would we want to hurt their business by stepping up productivity. They're basically very nice people.' . . . Dissenter is the crusty, hard-lining president of Kiersager Corporation, who insists, 'We will fire every one of these pooped-out friendship addicts that turns up for work. This mess of flabby hand-shakers is so much clotted blood in the arteries of commerce.'"

  Hommel looked up. "Is it like this all over the country?"

  "Can you think of anyone who doesn't want to avoid colds?"

  "No. Everyone wants to avoid them," Hommel said.

  "And how many people are there now who are against taking drugs on principle?"

  "Not many."

  Banner nodded. "This was bound to come along sooner or later. If people would only use the stuff in moderation, there'd be no problem. But they figure if two pills are good, four pills are twice as good."

  Hommel said
glumly, "At least it isn't habit-forming."

  "No, but if you take two pills before breakfast long enough, you've got the habit whether the pills themselves are habit-forming or not. And if without the pills you snarl at people, and with the pills you feel friendly, which way will most people want to feel?"

  "Friendly."

  "Right. And if things get so exasperating they stop feeling friendly, they take more pills. And it's a little hard to regulate it, when the friendly authorities are using it themselves. Worse yet, supposing every factory on earth stopped making the pills tomorrow? First, the stuff is somewhat cumulative, and second, consider the uproar when it suddenly wore off. What we need is something so we can come out of this slowly."

  Hommel stared at the paper. "But it's doing some good."

  "So does a dose of castor oil. But one dose is enough. Keep hunting for that antidote."

  Time passed, and more and more money and effort went into finding an antidote. Peabody, driven by a compounded sense of humiliation, seemed to think he could only justify his existence by finding the antidote, and was working day and night with every sign of being close on the trail of something.

  Meanwhile, in case their attempt to find an antidote should prove useless, Hommel in desperation was following up an improbable project designed to produce some natural antidote. The drug overcame hay fever, the argument went, so maybe a stronger causative agent for hay fever might overcome the drug. Since anything seemed worth a try, some two hundred isolated acres of unsettled land were given over to ragweed culture. Some fields were studded with the housing of potent radiation sources, while others were sprayed with special chemicals. While a desperate watch was kept for promising mutations and hybrids, the mere sight of these fields, with dark-green monster ragweeds looming twenty feet tall, and others creeping mosslike along the ground, was enough to give chills to anyone who remembered when hay fever had been a real complaint.

  At present, of course, only the stubbornly individualistic suffered from hay fever. These sneezed their way through life, observing with acid contempt the deterioration in quantity and quality of goods and services. Where others offered an eager handshake, this minority shoved its way past with a snarl.

  Banner and Hommel, one summer afternoon, drove toward town to send a telegram. They cautiously detoured cars stopped by motorists who just wanted a little talk for friendship's sake, and stopped warily for traffic lights that didn't work, and were flagged down by friendly truck drivers who wanted to share their cargoes.

  Laden down with watermelons, hundred-pound boxes of nails, a five-gallon can of asphalt roof-coating, two crates of chickens, and a tin of frozen blueberries, they finally made it to the telegraph office, and stepped inside, to find a woman clerk chatting on the phone.

  A tall thin man wearing a green eyeshade got up as they came in.

  Banner said, "We've got a carload lot of chemicals we want to trace. We haven't been able to reach anyone by phone. What's the chance of a wire getting through?"

  "Depends on who's on the other end." The man removed his eyeshade and glanced pointedly at the woman clerk. Her conversation was clearly audible:

  ". . . They're the nicest people. We just told them we couldn't pay it, and they said to forget it. The bank has lots of money anyway, and they didn't need it. . . . Then Howard got his bill from the hospital, and that was two thousand seven hundred, and we were just frightened, what with the plant closing and all—but that nice Mrs. What's-her-name in the office there said she'd just drop our record right out of the file. What does anyone need money for, anyway? Aren't we all friends? So then . . ."

  The three men glanced at each other. Banner cleared his throat.

  "Well, it won't hurt to try."

  The telegrapher slid over a pad of forms and a pencil. "Speaking of lost cars, they're getting fairly common. As I understand it, the solution is to accept a carload lot of whatever happens to be lost in your neighborhood. Somebody somewhere else takes your carload lot which is lost in his territory." He added dryly, "It's the friendly way out. Saves the railroad a lot of trouble."

  Banner tore a form off the pad. "A slight complication in the manufacturing process."

  "Yes, I think that is starting to show up. Possibly you gentlemen can identify this for me." He reached under a counter, and produced a bottle labeled, "Count Sleek—The man's hair tonic that's friendly to your scalp. Invigorates. Refreshes. With RB 37."

  Hommel took the bottle curiously. The liquid inside appeared clear, save for a few black specks drifting around in it. He unscrewed the plastic cap, noted a little whitish crust on the rim, and what appeared to be small transparent grains of some kind on the thread. Frowning, he sniffed cautiously, but noticed no odor. He screwed the cap back on, and stood weighing the bottle in his hand. For its size, it felt heavy.

  The man behind the counter said, "I've used that brand of hair tonic before. This stuff doesn't look right or smell right, and the bottle doesn't even feel right."

  Frowning, Hommel took a piece of tissue paper from his pocket—put there in preparation for the approaching hay-fever season—folded the tissue, unscrewed the cap from the bottle, and poured a few drops of the liquid on the folded paper. The liquid, which had seemed watery in the bottle, looked oily on the paper. The wet paper promptly turned brownish.

  Scowling, Hommel wiped the bottle with an edge of the folded tissue. The paper dissolved away, leaving, one beside the other, four curved blacked edges with a charred look. The large oily drop in the center of the paper sat there as the paper beneath turned black, then suddenly, the paper shrank away in a thin film to expose the next layer.

  From the tissue arose a sharp pungent odor.

  Behind the counter, the telegrapher watched alertly.

  "I've seen hair tonic I liked better."

  Hommel cleared his throat. "My guess is, it's concentrated sulfuric acid."

  Banner said, "They sold it in that bottle?"

  "They did. I suppose a shipment of the wrong stuff reached the place where they make that—or maybe some chemical factory got a load of the wrong bottles. If enough people will just be obliging, practically anything can happen."

  Banner and Hommel went soberly back outside.

  "Are we," said Banner, "near even a partway-workable solution?"

  "We're near half-a-dozen different solutions," said Hommel hauntedly. "But they're completely worthless until we arrive at something actually usable."

  The rest of the month passed with slow breakdowns that roused little notice, because—who would be so unfriendly as to complain?

  Hommel, sneezing violently during hay-fever season, but avoiding Nullergin-200 as he would avoid poison, was among those who did not feel friendly when he bought gasoline and got kerosene, and when he went to a store to purchase some staples, and found a can swollen out at both ends as if packed under high pressure.

  "What's wrong," he asked. "Did they overload these cans?"

  "It isn't that they put too much in the cans," said a clerk, in a friendly way, "it's just that everything inside is spoiled, and that makes gas."

  That night, nothing else having worked yet, Hommel prayed long and earnestly for a solution.

  The next day dawned with an impressive pollen count, and the rest of the week went by with Hommel progressively more miserable. He had scarcely walked into his air-conditioned office one day when Peabody, dark circles under his eyes, came in.

  "Unless I'm completely insane, which is possible, I've got it."

  Hommel stared at him, afraid to speak.

  Peabody said, "I mean, the Nullergin-200 antidote."

  Hommel said dizzily, "That's wonderful. Did—"

  The phone rang. Hommel picked it up, and motioned Peabody to sit down.

  An excited voice demanded, "Hello? Morton?"

  "Speaking."

  "This is Arthur Schmidt, out at the test plot. Look, Morton, we have a plant here that makes everyone sneeze . . . Do you hear me?"

&n
bsp; Hommel stared at the phone. "What is the effect on . . . ah . . . disposition?"

  "Terrible. With that first sneeze, believe me, all that friendly accommodating feeling evaporates."

  "That's wonderful. Listen, you've isolated the particular plant that—"

  "Yes, we know which one does it. It's quite a remarkable thing. A very ordinary, unprepossessing little plant, but it releases veritable clouds of extremely fine pollen. An unusual thing about this—it reproduces also, and I must say prolifically, not only by wind-borne pollen, but also by a kind of tumbleweed layering effect."