Prescription for Chaos (10 page)

"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
?"

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."

"By a—
what
?"

"And some of the other plants have evidently hybridized."

"Wait a minute. This thing reproduces
how
?"

"To put it plainly, parts of the stalk grow constricted when the plant reaches a height of approximately eight inches, and a blow or moderate wind causes it to break off. The plant has quite a lightweight structure, you see, Morton, and as a result of the construction of the stem, apparently it becomes partially desiccated—that is, dried out."

"I know what desiccated means," snapped Hommel. "Then what happens?"

"Then the . . . er . . . dried-out portion of stem and leaves is carried off a considerable distance, tumbling, rolling, being lifted up by the wind—"

"
Then
what?" The air-conditioner in the room was providing pure, pollen-free air, but Hommel could feel his nose tingle. "What happens when this thing goes tumbling—"

"Why, bits of the leaves break off, somewhat in the manner of—Possibly you're familiar with a plant commonly known as . . . ah . . . the 'lawyer plant,' I believe, or possibly it's called the . . . let's see . . . 'maternity plant,' which—Are you acquainted—"

"No. What does this have to do—"

"Why, essentially the same mechanism, Morton. When the leaf finds a little moisture, a suitable bit of ground—it takes root, and grows. A new plant, you see."

Hommel had a mental image of the world covered with a rolling carpet of ragweed.

"Listen, if you break a piece of leaf off of this super-ragweed,
the piece of leaf grows into another super-ragweed
?"

The reply was cold. "Rather an imprecise way to express it, Dr. Hommel, but—Yes,
essentially
, that is correct."

Hommel got control of himself. "Excuse me, Dr. Schmidt. My excitement at this, ah, this extraordinary achievement—So timely, too—You understood."

"Certainly, Morton, certainly. Forgive me if I seemed a trifle sharp. I misunderstood."

"Will you excuse me now? I want to inform Mr. Banner of the achievement."

"Banner? What does
he
know about it? Oh, he has money . . . but in a scientific sense, he is an ignoramus."

"Yes, of course. But when a piece of research particularly impresses him, he often provides more . . . ah . . . funds, to extend—"

"Yes, yes, Morton. I understand. Yes, I think he
should
know."

Hommel hung up. "My God! Little ragweeds all over the place!" Despite the air-conditioning, Hommel sneezed.

"Dr. Hommel?" said Peabody blankly.

Hommel stared at him, then said abruptly. "You say you have the 'antidote.' You were looking for some chemical that would stimulate the function the Nullergin-200 depressed?"

"That didn't work. I went back to another idea—something that would go right into the body and break up the Nullergin-200. Well, I've got it."

"What are the side effects?"

"That's one of the things that's taken me so long. So far as I can see, there are no noticeable side effects. You see, this is similar to an enzyme. A comparatively small amount will break down any quantity of Nullergin-200, given time. But, in the body, the enzyme is itself slowly broken down. Since only a comparatively small quantity needs to be used, the side effects are negligible, so far as I've been able to find out."

"And the decomposition products?"

"They're excreted."

"Is this enzyme hard to produce?"

"The process is partly biological. Temperature, pH—quite a number of factors need to be carefully controlled to get a good yield. But there's nothing particularly
hard
about it."

Hommel sat back. "Have you thought how we might use this?"

"Well, if for now we put it in the coating of the pills, the pills will still work—but the effect will wear off faster. And the more pills taken the more quickly the following pills will wear off, because the Neutranull, as I call it, will accumulate. By varying the proportion of Neutranull to Nullergin, we determine, subject to individual variation,
the length of time a given daily dosage will be effective
."

"And," said Hommel excitedly, "since hay-fever season lasts only so long,
this is what we need
."

A little work with pencil and paper, with Peabody providing the constants involved, suggested that varied proportions of Neutranull would eliminate the Nullergin-200, as slowly or rapidly as desired, and that the only way to get protection after a given time was to increase the dosage. If this was carried far enough, the effect of the Nullergin could be strung out for a long time—but as a result the Neutranull would build up to such a point that it would still make trouble during the next attack of hay fever.

"Well," said Hommel, "if anyone takes a reasonable dosage, he'll be all right. Good enough. Now, can we market this in time?"

Together, they went over the details. Then they went down to Banner's office.

Before the day was out, Banner Drugs was hard at work on the new process. But, as Banner pointed out, their problems were not solved.

"Even if we get this distributed without any trouble, Mort, there's still Schmidt's improved ragweed. If that pollen is blowing around, how do we stop it?"

"Possibly, it was developed indoors, in a greenhouse," said Hommel grimly. "At any rate, there isn't much of anything I wouldn't be prepared to try to stop it."