Prescription for Chaos (39 page)

"But the details you can follow?"

"Well—it depends. There is one aspect of this, Doc called it 'the remote resonance force' I think, that could make special trouble. You see, the touchstone not only reacts to the original inspired plans for a device, but to later reproductions of the device, very possibly made by not especially inspired people routinely following the plan. How do the alpha-psychons radiated in March of one year, in Boston, create qualitons in Savannah, Georgia, two years later, when the blueprints are turned into reality? There's a problem there. Doc may have four pages of mathematics and two special theories between Boston and Savannah; but there are going to be people who skip all that, and intuitively reject the idea."

"The 'remote resonance force,'" said Muir, "explains how this could happen?"

Allen glanced helplessly at Kenzie. Kenzie smiled. "With Doc on the other end of the theory, the 'remote resonance force' is like a sixteen-inch gun aimed at the critics. Most of them wouldn't want to face the monster projectiles Doc could fire from that cannon. Unfortunately, we don't know how to load the thing."

Allen said exasperatedly, "And Doc very evidently was dissatisfied with something about the theory."

"Yes," said Kenzie, "or he wouldn't have put an 'X' across it and tossed it in his bottom drawer."

Muir said, "But, the touchstone works."

Allen nodded. "All told, the mathematics is baffling but very possibly valid; the theory of matter to which the math is applied is anyone's guess; the device itself works. But the idea behind it all is going to be just as nice to put across as Galileo's original argument."

"Yes," said Muir. "I can see that."

Kenzie said, "But your suggestion about marketing the touchstone is a help, Muir. We're going to have to think that through. It's the first progress we've made with this thing in quite a while."

"But how does it fit in with that patent application?"

"As far as I can see, it doesn't. But don't worry about it. Ah—You said you were going to see Gloria Griswell—?"

"Yes, for dinner tonight. And I'll ask if she's agreeable to marketing it that way. But—" He paused, baffled at Kenzie's wistfully hopeful expression.

"Don't worry," said Allen, following Kenzie's thoughts easily enough. "It's like a jigsaw puzzle, Muir, and you've just given us a good-sized piece. You've had very little time to work on it, but it's a pleasure to see how you've taken hold of the problem. It's a relief to see this . . . ah . . . this last work of Doc's moving again."

Late that day, with the sun at the horizon, Muir was in the little clearing with Gloria when Marius spoke:

"Felix?"

Muir looked blankly around.

Overhead, something moved against the deep-red sky. Muir glanced up, to see Marius, apparently floating face-down by the tops of the evergreens. Marius said, "Why don't we write out our ideas about the touchstone, then use the touchstone to judge them?"

Muir heard the words, but didn't answer as he stepped aside, eyes narrowed, to look up at Marius from a different angle. Muir had the impression of looking up from the bottom of a pool at a swimmer on the surface. Obviously there had to be something holding Marius up, but so far all Muir could see was the thin pale-blue thing Marius was lying on, and it appeared to be unsupported from any angle.

The slender tops of the evergreens moved in a light breeze, and Marius, looking down at Muir's face, grinned suddenly and slid sidewise in the air, gathered speed, and shot off to the side out of sight, streaked back from a different angle, much higher, then dropped like a rock to brake to a stop, and hover motionless, overhead.

Muir, looking at the pale-blue something Marius was lying on, belatedly recognized Marius's "flying carpet," a gift from his father, Doc Griswell. Next he remembered the feel of fine wires when Marius had pressed the "blanket" to his fingers.

It dawned on Muir with a shock that the idea of taking care of 'Doc's last work' was premature. Here was another of Doc's working models. Like the others, it came with no warning, with no one knew what complications to follow.

For the first time, Muir felt sympathy for people who had bet against the incandescent light and snorted at the thought of a carriage with no horse. Progress was fine, but the touchstone had yet to be worked out, no one dared say whether Doc's asterator would save humanity or wreck it, and here was this thing.

And why would Doc Griswell make a toy of an invention that, on a large scale, could lift man off the earth and truly begin the Age of Space? Why, for that matter, had Doc just used the touchstone himself, when he could have got it into production? Legal uncertainty might stop Kenzie and Allen, aware they didn't understand Doc's device; but would it stop Doc?

It was then that Muir thought of the patent application with the question mark and the X across it.

What if Doc didn't understand it, either?

From time to time, someone uncovered something really new, perhaps just as everything seemed finally explained and systematized. The results could turn civilization on its head. To most of the survivors, it might some day seem perfectly clear, one of life's familiar certainties. But those who had known other certainties tended to be more cautious.

Now, looking up from below at something really new and revolutionary, Muir winced.

Looking down from atop it, Marius grinned.

Julia Ravagger watched her husband, Nelson Ravagger, pay off the deliverymen. Nelson's somewhat predatory profile, the workmen's uneasy glances at the chandelier, marble floor, sunlit conservatory, and other details of the lavishly furnished apartment, taken together with the aggressively prosaic look of the object they had just delivered, all added up to something Julia had felt too often since marrying the famous—or infamous—stock speculator.

"Ummm, Nels—" she said, as the door closed, leaving them alone, "why do I again have this feeling of total perplexity? What, precisely, is that thing?"

Ravagger grinned, creating an unfortunate effect like the surfacing of a shark that is in the process of eating a swimmer. He patted the curving metal top of the object, which was enameled a sickly shade suggestive of dog droppings.

"This, my dear, is a product of the Cartwright Corporation's Fuels Sciences Division. This is the 'business opportunity of a lifetime.' Specifically, this is a 'solid-fuel converter, designed to eliminate the dependence of our nation on foreign oil producers, and thereby return control of our fuel destiny to these shores.'"

She stared. "That's a quote?"

He nodded. "From one of the company's brochures."

"Is it true?"

"If you strain out the high-tech wordage, this is a coal stove. And if it's the kind of coal stove I think it is, it's a bomb."

"Meaning—"

"That after you install it and use it, it won't be long before you'll do almost anything to never have to use it again."

"Then, why are you putting it in our living room?"

He opened a large cardboard box near an elaborately simple white sofa, and pulled out a quivering rectangle of curving black metal—a section of stovepipe not yet locked into a cylinder. He smiled at her.

"Remember the wood-stove craze?"

She glanced covertly at her left wrist, where the burn scar had almost disappeared.

"I couldn't forget that."

Nelson delivered himself of a grisly chuckle.

"No. Me, either. But it was educational."

She glanced up at a small decorative snow scene nearly hidden behind a spray of imitation pussy willows in a tall pearl-colored vase. The snow scene was painted on a circular brass flue cover; the flue openings in the old building had been unplastered and put to use during the time of the Oil Embargo, then thankfully covered up again afterward.

"Well," she said, "but what connection—"

"I'm not sure," said Ravagger, "but we just might have a coal-stove craze next. Cartwright is convinced of it. And as it happens, I'm on their board, and the management has a tiny little flaw that we will have to live through somehow, preferably without bankrupting the company in the process."

Cyrus Cartwright II, at the head of the long table, winced as Nelson Ravagger settled into his chair near the far end. Beside Cartwright, W. W. Sanson of the Machines Division—former head of Superdee Equipment before its near-bankruptcy and merger with Cartwright—growled, "Ravagger doesn't look too cheerful."

"No," said Cartwright uneasily. "It's nicer when he's just bored."

"Damn it, he's got that blowtorch look." Sanson dropped his voice to a murmur. "Remember, you're the chairman."

Cartwright squinted at him side-wise. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Keep him in line. Use your authority."

"I'm chairman because he doesn't want to be stuck with the job. If he wanted it, he could take it any time."

"It's your name on the door. Remember, your granddad founded the company."

"Granddad isn't here. And just incidentally, which one would be worse to get along with, I don't know." He glanced at his watch. "Well, time to get started."

The meeting commenced with boring routine, and proceeded in its accustomed groove until, just as Cartwright had almost forgotten Ravagger, the speculator's voice reached across the table. This voice had a peculiar resonance, 10 percent of it made up by the construction of Ravagger's chest and voicebox, and 90 percent by the listeners' awareness of the number of shares of the company the voice represented.

Ravagger said, "We haven't heard from the head of our new Fuels Division yet."

On Cartwright's left, R. J. Schwenk of the Fuels Sciences Division said cheerfully, "Nothing to report, Mr. Ravagger. No problems. Everything proceeding according to plan."

Cartwright smiled. "Nels, Schwenkie is a source of real comfort, but demand for our solid-fuel products, as yet, is just starting to perk up."

On the other side of Cartwright, W. W. Sanson cleared his throat. "As vice-chairman, Mr. Ravagger, I have made it my job to follow the progress of our new Fuels Sciences Division with particular care. Our statistical analysis shows everything on plot."

" 'On plot'?"

"Everything proceeding according to plan."

"Meaning what?"

"Aah—meaning that the—ah—that expenses are under control, sales are about where we expected, the market for our products is developing as forecast, we have the appropriate number of dealers signing up. Everything is fine."

"How about quality?"

Sanson chuckled. "Well, you know our slogan: 'Quality First, Quality Last—Our Name Is Quality.'"

"OK, you've made a special study of the Fuels Division's products, then?"

"Yes, precisely. Ah, no, wait a minute."

"Of course, you haven't had time to do everything."

A soothing purr was suddenly present in Ravagger's voice, and Sanson broke out in a sweat. "What I'm saying is, I've studied the results. That's what counts. I haven't examined each individual product. We have quality control experts, inspectors—I wouldn't intrude that far down the ladder. Our people do their jobs."

Cartwright spoke up hastily. "Nels, if you're thinking of checking up on our workers, the union wouldn't like that."

Ravagger glanced at Sanson. "Which products have you studied, then?"

"Well, as I said, it's the
overall
results that count."

"You haven't examined
any
of the products?"

Sanson said, "What difference—"

"None
at all?
Even though you're making it your job to follow the division's progress 'with particular care'?"

Cartwright stared down the table at Ravagger, then glanced to his left at R. J. Schwenck.

Schwenck said at once, "That's my job, Mr. Ravagger. I'd be offended if Mr. Sanson felt it necessary to check me up on that."

"Oh, I see." Ravagger looked back at Sanson. "You were scared to check any products for fear Schwenck might get mad at you?"

Sanson blew out his breath. "No, I just trust him to do his job."

"All right. Now, Mr. Schwenck—"

"Yes, Mr. Ravagger."

"You've just heard our vice-chairman say he's not afraid of your taking offense. Naturally, I'm not afraid either. As a matter of fact, I don't think there's anyone here who would hesitate to check on anything because someone might take offense."

"Well, all I meant—" Schwenck hesitated. Before he could find some way around his own comment, Ravagger's words trod on his heels:

"You meant what?"

"Oh, we don't want to interfere further down in the hierarchy, or in each other's territory. It's bad manners. It assumes the other man doesn't do his job. An organization is built on mutual trust."

Ravagger purred, "An excellent defense of your comment, Mr. Schwenck."

Schwenck looked relieved. Sanson looked alarmed.

Ravagger said, "So
you
have checked the products in your own division, then?"

"No, that's what I just—"

Ravagger glanced around. "Then who does check on them? Are we selling stuff we don't know anything about?"

Schwenck said, "As we've said, Mr. Ravagger, we have quality-control inspectors to see to that. Really, you shouldn't criticize what you don't understand."

Ravagger slowly turned his head to look directly at Schwenck. The effect on Schwenck was like having a machine gun take aim at him. Schwenck began to perspire, but kept his mouth shut.

Ravagger said quietly, "In the final analysis, Mr. Schwenck, who is the ultimate authority in this company?"

Schwenck said carefully, "I guess you are, Mr. Ravagger. But that doesn't mean you necessarily understand it."

Cartwright said nervously, "Gentlemen—"

Ravagger shook his head. "I'm not the final authority. What I have to do is make you aware who is. And if I have to smash heads or look like a jackass to do it, I will do it anyway. Now, just consider—Who is not in the company, but controls the destiny of the company—any company? Who, because he can make the company succeed or fail, influences the destiny of everyone in it? Who is below the bottom of the organization and above the chief executive at the top? Whose opinion is often ignored or unknown, and whose favor is almost universally courted?"