Prescription for Chaos

by Christopher Anvil

  "Are you planning to stay here?"

  "I've just finished paying for this car, and if I leave it, I don't know what will happen to it." She stared at him. "Your car's moving!"

  Cardan nodded. "I'd pull you if I had a chain."

  "I've got a tow strap."

  "Fine. Now, tell me what happened. I take it you've been in this from the beginning."

  She nodded. "I was going about fifty when the engine coughed and quit. I put on the brake, then for just an instant I thought I must be mistaken about the engine, because I wasn't falling behind the rest of the traffic. We all rolled to a stop more or less at the same time. I tried to start the car, but I couldn't do it."

  "Did you see a flash?"

  "Not then. Earlier."

  "About how much earlier?"

  "Oh, I'd say five to ten minutes."

  Cardan nodded. He got out of the car and looked thoughtfully in the direction from which he thought the flash had come. He could see nothing unusual but only flat land with brown strips where the ground showed through a layer of snow. To the other side of the road here, the ground rose in a long hill that grew steep and was cut away by the road ahead. But nowhere did he see anything unusual.

  "O.K.," he said. "Let's have that tow strap."

  He towed the girl out, and down a slight downgrade at the head of the traffic jam, then watched as the engine of her little sports car caught with a bang. She jumped out, ran back, threw her arms around him and gave him a big hug and a kiss. The police grinned as Cardan wiped off the lipstick, and the sports car buzzed off into the northbound traffic. A few minutes later, Cardan followed, having parried questions as to whether he was working for the Defense Department or the Atomic Energy Commission. When he pulled into the parking lot of the Milford plant, he noticed that it was less than half-full.

  He parked, went up to his office, and found a small crowd packed around Donovan and Maclane, who were seated at the long table, wearing headsets with one wire at each earphone cut, bent back, and taped. Somebody glanced up, and murmured, "Morning, Chief," and Cardan grunted a greeting. The crowd momentarily broke into individuals, who looked around to say a brief "good morning," and then went back to watching Maclane and Donovan, both of whom were leaning forward, their elbows on the table, their hands at their temples and their eyes tightly shut.

  Cardan looked at the crowd, and wondered exactly what Maclane and Donovan had found. No one seemed anxious to let him in on it, but Cardan, studying their tense expressions, felt an uneasy premonition.

  "Gray," said Maclane in a low voice. "Taller and more strongly built then usual. Dressed in a kind of coverall, with what I guess are insignia pinned on the chest. They're apparently working some kind of launcher. There goes another one. Can't judge direction at all because the sun isn't visible, and I'm not familiar with the place."

  Cardan scowled, took out a fresh cigar, and worked his way around behind his desk. He pulled open a drawer, got out a match, and puffed the cigar alight.

  "Listen," said somebody in the crowd around Maclane. "I don't quite get that. Does it slide on rails, or what? Is there a rocket blast? Is it catapulted out by steam? How is the thing launched?"

  Donovan said, "When the thing—missile—whatever you want to call it—is dropped into the launcher, it travels up a half-cylinder shaped like a . . . oh . . . a piece of half-round guttering about a foot across at the top."

  "You mean, this launcher is like half of a cylinder that's a foot in diameter?"

  "Yes. A cylinder split lengthwise, so as to form a sort of trough. The whole thing looks about six feet long, and it's mounted on a tripod. There are a couple of wheels on the side, I suppose to set azimuth and elevation, there's a set of graduated scales, and several locking levers. The missile is set in at the lower end, and slides up the cylinder with no means of propulsion I can see."

  Maclane said, "You may think I'm nuts, Don, but I can influence this picture."

  A plaintive voice said, "How about another look, Don?"

  "It's Mike's turn," said Donovan.

  Maclane said, "If you think I'm going to let go of it at this point after two days and a night wrestling with the circuit, you're crazy."

  Cardan, his curiosity growing by the minute, stepped forward, said "Excuse me," and "Let me through, please," and got no result from the tier of intent backs between him and the table. He grunted, puffed his cigar to a red glow, and angled it so that it heated the back of first one neck and then another. In a few seconds he was at Maclane's shoulder. He studied what was visible of the circuit, and noted that the modified headphones had wires that ran to two contacts like those he'd touched when Maclane had demonstrated the device on Saturday. Cautiously Cardan touched the contacts.

  His view of the room vanished, and he was looking at the back of what seemed to be a powerfully-built man in coveralls, who bent at a kind of half-round guide tube mounted on a heavy tripod. The man spun two small wheels on the mount, yanked a cylinder about a foot long out of an almost empty case, nearby, and put the cylinder down at the base of the guide tube. The cylinder slid up the tube, picked up speed like a falling stone, and streaked out into the distance. Cardan tried to follow its path over the snow-covered lowland, but without success. Then the man was again spinning the wheel on the side of the tripod, and someone else came over carrying a fresh case of cylinders. When this second individual set the case down, Cardan's gaze was riveted on his face.

  Two eyes, a nose, and a mouth were present on this face, but the overall effect was that of a bobcat. The face seemed to be no shade of brown, tan, or pink, but a dull gray.

  Cardan shifted his cigar in his mouth, and Maclane sucked in his breath.

  "Chief," said Maclane, "look out with the torch, will you?"

  "What have we got here?" growled Cardan.

  "That's what I'm trying to figure out."

  "Somebody get me a chair. Then I won't be dropping ashes down anybody's neck."

  There was the sound of a chair being slid around, and Cardan, watching the two muscular figures drop another cylinder onto the guide tube, felt the edge of the chair press against his legs. He sat down, slid the chair closer to the table, and saw another cylinder streak out over the snow.

  "Where is this place?"

  "I don't know. I worked all day Sunday on the circuit, and part of last night. I thought I hadn't gotten anywhere, because I couldn't see a thing. When I touched the contacts, they just cut off my vision. This morning, I came in, tried it, shifted some of the settings, and got a flash that blinded me, as if I'd looked into a searchlight. I waited a few minutes, tried again, and got blinded again, though the light didn't seem quite so intense. I tried again, and this time all I saw was a thick dazzling line in the foreground. That faded out, and—"

  "Where was this dazzling line?"

  "It seemed to hang right in the air in front of me—like an incandescent rope or hose."

  "It faded out?"

  "No, it was just—it was gone all of a sudden."

  "Was there any noise—a sound like an explosion?"

  "Sorry, Chief, there's no sound with this thing."

  "I mean, did you hear any explosion later—as you hear me talking now?"

  "Oh, I see what you mean. Did I see it with the circuit, then hear it independently of the circuit? No, I—Now, wait a minute. I think I did hear a sort of low roar some time afterwards. But that could have been anything."

  "Then what?"

  "Nothing particular. At first I thought the flash was some fault in the circuit. Then I wrestled with the focus a little, got it clearer, and noticed that some of the snow in front of me had a glazed look, as if the top layers had melted and settled to form a shallow trough. But I didn't know what to make of it. Then something blurred across my field of vision from left to right. A little later it happened again. I changed the focus on this thing, and after backing and filling for quite a while I got this scene you see now."

  "Is it hard to change the foc
us?"

  "It's an awful job. It isn't enough to just . . . say . . . change the resistance in one branch of the circuit. You've got to change inductance and capacitance, too. And then if you don't change them just right you get some kind of fantastic picture like a surrealist's nightmare. The patterns are almost familiar and three-dimensional, but they just don't add up. Then when you've almost got the scene, everything's fuzzy, and it slops back and forth between the scene you're after, and this other scene I mention, and it's enough to drive you nuts. The actual scene is unstable unless everything is just right. That's why you don't see me trying to change the focus to find out where this scene is located. In the process, we'd miss whatever is going on here. I think what we've got here is the filming of some kind of monster picture, but I don't see how those things get slung out of that half-cylinder."

  Cardan, his hands still on the contacts, watched the powerfully-built figure in coveralls shoot out another cylinder. Cardan grunted, let go of the contacts and looked up at his men crowded around the table.

  Cardan puffed his cigar back to life, and said, "Smitty, go out and see if you can get any news. Try all the stations, and listen particularly for anything about highway trouble, big traffic jams, car engines quitting, lights in the sky, or unidentified flying objects being sighted."

  Smitty, a wiry figure with black hair combed straight back, nodded and went out.

  Cardan glanced at a pugnacious-looking towheaded six-footer, noted his habitual combative look, and grinned. The towhead hesitated, then grinned back. Cardan said, "Consider the mess you got into this morning. You were taking a trip south to finish up a business deal. You tried to drive out on Route 27 and the State police turned you back. You've been thinking it over, and you want to know how there could be a traffic jam on a weekday on both sides of a four-lane highway. You've got a right to know. You're a taxpayer. And if they tell you the cars all stalled, you tell them you know that's not so because you saw a late-model car drive up the mall towing a sports car. How come that car could run if the others couldn't. Give 'em hell. And then demand to know just how you can get out of this place before the middle of next week."

  The towhead grinned and went out.

  Cardan said, "Now, as long as we're dependent on just one of these circuits, we never dare vary the focus, because we'll miss what's going on while we fight with the various adjustments. Mac, why don't we make up a batch of these circuits?"

  Maclane nodded. "Good idea."

  "O.K." said Cardan. Half-a-dozen of the men around the table eagerly volunteered for this job, and Cardan was sending them out when the door opened and a shapely brunette stepped in. "Mr. Cardan, there's a General Whitely on the line. I told him you were in conference, but he insists he has to speak to you right away. And Dr. Crawford was due to get here early this afternoon. He called up and said all flights coming into Milford have been cancelled. I came in to tell you about Dr. Crawford a minute ago, but you were busy and I didn't want to interrupt."

  Cardan nodded. "Put Whitely on the line. If Crawford calls back, tell him to keep out of here till things clear up. He'd particularly better not come by car unless he's got a Stanley Steamer or the equivalent."

  Cardan's secretary looked perplexed. But she nodded. "Yes, sir, I'll tell him that. And I'll put General Whitely on right away."

  "Good."

  Someone handed Cardan a phone, and he heard a voice say loudly, "Hello, Bugs?"

  Cardan winced. He and Whitely had been boyhood friends, but Cardan didn't care for this nickname.

  "Bugs?" The voice jumped out at him.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Cardan could see several of his men glance at each other. Cardan blew out a cloud of smoke, set his cigar on the edge of the table, and growled, "Right here, Tarface. What do you want?"

  "Listen," said the voice loudly, "what's going on up your way? Fill me in."

  Cardan squinted at the phone. "I thought you had an Intelligence section."

  "Never mind all that secondhand stuff, Bugs. I've got an idea you know what's going on. You're right in the middle of it."

  "All right," said Cardan, "I'll trade you item-for-item. About an hour ago, Route 27 was blocked with half-a-mile of cars stalled on the curve about four-and-a-half miles toward Milford from the shortcut over the ridge. You remember how I drove you out last time?"

  "I remember. Now I'll tell you something. About three quarters of an hour ago, a man in a late-model car drove smack through the middle of that jam. The police in charge think he was an official of the Atomic Energy Commission, driving a car with a nuclear engine. I notice, Bugs, their description is such that he was about your height and build, conservatively dressed, smoked a cigar, and had your manner. Also, he looked a little younger than you are, but you look a little young for your age, so I suppose that's natural. Now what is going on up there?"

  Whitely's voice jumped out of the phone like a whiplash, and Cardan grinned. "What you just told me is something I already know, Tarface, so it doesn't count. Now I believe there were one or two trucks stuck in that traffic jam, but I have no way to be sure whether their engines stopped, or they just got trapped amongst all the stalled cars and couldn't get out. Now some trucks have gas engines and some trucks have Diesel engines. You see what I'm getting at?"

  "It hits gas and Diesel engines both. But there's a kind of engine it doesn't hit, and I want to know about it."

  "There are at least two other kinds of engines it doesn't hit. The starters in the cars worked, so low-voltage electrical motors aren't stopped."

  "That's right. What's the other kind?"

  "My turn, Tarface. Is Route 27 the only place this has happened?"

  "Until about an hour ago, yes. But this thing, whatever it is, has also begun moving out along an arc, like a crayon on the end of a forty-mile string. Rail, truck, and highway travel are stopped dead, along a quarter-circle with this forty-mile radius, and the arc is still spreading out with mathematical accuracy. We've had three plane crashes so far, but some planes at high altitudes have gotten over all right."

  "O.K. Where's this forty-mile string centered?"

  "Wait a minute. How about that nuclear car?"

  "Not nuclear. Steam."

  "Steam-propelled, eh? What heats the boiler?"

  "A main burner fired by kerosene, and pilot burner run on gasoline. Where's the center of this forty-mile arc?"

  "Smack in the middle of the industrial district north of Milford."

  Cardan stiffened.

  Whitely said, "You hear me, Bugs?"

  "Yes, and I think that's a blind. Take a look at the low land opposite that traffic jam I mentioned on Route 27."

  Cardan could hear faint voices as if someone had covered the mouthpiece. "All right, Bugs," came Whitely's voice suddenly. "You got anything more? I'm in a rush here."

  "Nothing more yet," said Cardan.

  "O.K. You know how to reach me. Keep away from that traffic jam on 27."

  Cardan heard a click, and he was holding a dead phone.

  Smitty was standing on the other side of the desk, and the belligerent towhead was just coming in the door.

  Cardan glanced at Smitty. "What did you find out?"

  Smitty said, "Pretty straightforward coverage on radio and TV. Motorists are warned to keep off the out-of-town highways, because some unknown effect causes car engines to stall. Travel within town, and between specified points on a map shown on TV, is O.K. The airport is closed, but travel out-of-town by train is all right for now, and emergency travel on Route 34 is permitted, subject to cancellation any time if the trouble spreads. They call it the 'stalling effect.'"

  "What explanation do they give?"

  "They've got some professor from the local college at a blackboard showing how ionized air around the spark plugs can short a high-voltage spark from the plug to the cylinder head. The professor has a very cultured voice, and treats the whole thing as if it were a trivial matter."

  "What causes the ionized ai
r around the spark plugs?"

  "He's a little vague about the exact connection, but bears down heavy on the fact that cosmic rays cause ionization in a cloud chamber. When I left he was saying something about sunspots."

  "What's the conclusion?"

  Smitty grinned, "It would be premature at this time to attempt a definitive characterization of the precise nature of this disturbance. There is, however, no cause for alarm. This is nothing more serious than the slightly irritating situation encountered when the porcelain insulating material of the automobile's spark plugs becomes moist due to fog or mist."