Albert Teichner

“ Two things are working against us—the supply's easily replenishable and testing equipment's much too common for us to put over any white lies."
"Still hard for you to understand, isn't it?" Chisholm sighed. "Cramer, a terribly big percentage of the population has become passive and bored, just looking for some easy diversion. We have all we can do just to keep this social cancer from spreading without germ-joy. With it, matters can get out of hand. And I don't care how automated and wealthy a society is it can't get by if we develop that big a burden of non-thinking freeloaders." ”

“ Once in a while the bitterly ironic thought came to Cramer that maybe Hartley was inadvertently on the right side. Suppose, just suppose that germ-joy was actually good for humanity! More than ever he longed for some evil effect to become manifest even if it meant he, himself, should be stricken by it.
Eventually he was summoned to Chisholm's office where several scientists were gathered. The feed lines for a Medical Computer had been set up there and he was put through another rigorous checkup. At the end of a half-hour Dr. Jonas threw up his hands and said, "You're in perfect health. ”

“ Chisholm considered Cramer almost resentfully. "You're too damned healthy for our own good! Dr. Phillips here has equally bad news—he's a biophysicist."
Phillips, a skinny, dark-haired man, tried to smile through his look of bewilderment. "We've absolutely run through the testing gamut on the stuff Star-Seeker brought back. Ultra-high microscopy shows no RNA or DNA in our frozen samples, in fact nothing to carry the genetic pattern—yet we know it's alive! We've no way of coping with something so radically different, something that breaks all the way down the atomic scale so peacefully. ”

“ Chisholm gestured for Cramer to remain silent. "All right, while we're waiting for your machine to complete its run, here's a purely hypothetical problem. Imagine a silicon-based bacteria—"
"What?" Dr. Jonas exclaimed.
"I said a silicon-based bacteria. It raises human metabolism when absorbed into the blood stream in the form of a tiny frost flake, a flake whose very atomic structure breaks down the elements scale without the explosive force of nuclear fission or any other kind of serious disruption." ”

“ Hartley joined him and offered to set a bit up for Cramer.
"No," Cramer said, "I don't care what the analyzers say. You can't get something for nothing."
"This is beyond price," Neilson sighed contentedly. He moved to a wall mirror. "Not even a little retinal contraction. The dosage is so small the silicon base couldn't hurt you even if you took one an hour for the rest of your life. And there can't be any hangover."
"No law on the books against it and I don't think the public would tolerate a prohibition. This stuff is actually good for you!" Hartley exulted. ”

“ He recounted their experiences on the asteroid and, despite himself, Neilson began to show real interest.
"And you have a capsule?"
"Yes, want to try a fleck? That's all you need, I think."
"Oh no!" Neilson exclaimed. "Not until I've run the tests."
"Well, that's what I'm here for. You're a biochemist, you have all the equipment."
Cramer looked disdainfully at the man. The type was common enough—probably knew next to nothing about his specialty. But—and this was what made it doubly revolting—he didn't have to know in order to be an expert. Good equipment could do all the work in most cases. ”

“ First I'd see to it that word got out about germ-joy. There are hundreds of craft on the Mars run that can detour into the asteroid belt and pick up a supply once they know what to look for. Look at all the freighters that do a little bootlegging on the side now—there'd be no way to seal off that supply."
"I can see that," Cramer agreed. "I'm not interested in reforming anything. I just don't want to be personally involved."
"Perfectly all right," Hartley said thoughtfully. "Each man to his own tastes." ”

“ How many chips you have?"
"About a dozen."
"How many do you want? Don't be such a glory boy, get in right now!"
As he pulled himself along the line and up through the hatch he realized that not only had he been undisturbed while on the rock but he hadn't even considered the possibility of becoming frightened! ”

“ And we know from Cramer's experience today that the victim only erupts into this when a certain critical intake has been exceeded."
There was one final gasp and Hartley lie dead, his mouth the only remaining recognizable feature. Chisholm steeled himself to look at the human wreckage with the objectivity of the nearby camera. "Horrible, but it would have been worse if it hadn't happened, if we didn't have this proof. A different kind of horror, social and slow, but even worse. This way only a few die, not the race." ”

“ Old-time non-machine calculating was one of my hobbies when I was a kid."
"It isn't 'nothing.' Space ecstasy ruins a man's ability to think straight for hours. Plenty of bodies are still drifting around space because in the early days they neglected the proper safety checks." He stared through the magnifier at the asteroid, its flat face now glittering in sunlight. ”

“ Well, the plan for the next few weeks is this, to keep very close surveillance of Hartley's activities without openly conceding we know what he's up to. We have to hope that some defect will show up in a user even though the first report says no one sees how it can happen."
Cramer protested. "You're going to let him get away with it!"
"For the present," President Johnson nodded. "We're not interested in punishing a particular man. We have to give him all the joy-rope he needs and hope that he, as the longest-run user, suffers the consequences." ”

“ The best we can do is keep him uncertain about you. Officially, you've been arrested for insubordinate behavior by a martinet General who's decided to make a horrible example of you. Someone looking like you is going to be seen entering a punishment craft heading for a monotony run to check the automatic satellites around Uranus. That's the stupid best we can do—we're over a barrel." His sharp eyes suddenly dug into Cramer's. ”

“ This stuff's supposed to be so effective, no hangover, no known damage to the system—why didn't you go along with Hartley's reasoning?"
"There has to be some bad long-range effect, nothing comes that cheap."
"I only hope you're right." Johnson's grey eyes seemed to be focussed far off. "Otherwise the social damage will be terrible."
"Everything you told me has been confirmed," said Chisholm. "Scouts had no trouble finding a batch and the tests confirm that it's seemingly harmless, breaks down completely." ”

“ I'd be glad to go out again."
"No, you may have stupidly done a smart thing. But you'll really boggle it this time with the ecstasy clouding your mind."
"I'm thinking clearly, really I am."
"Can't be."
"Okay," he said, "test me. Give me some digits to multiply while you punch them on the computer."
"All right," Hartley muttered impatiently. "38,373 times 14,621 times 322. Satisfied?"
After a few seconds, "1-8-0-6-5-8-6-2-5-8-2-6."
Hartley pulled a strand of tape from the computer. "Repeat it slowly." Eyes widening, he followed the response on the tape. "You've got it right!" ”

“ There he took the capsule from Hartley and placed it in a cryogenic tester similar to the one aboard the Solar Pioneer. After temperature adjustments were made, tiny filament hands began lifting out specimen flecks and shifting them to various test sections.
"Odd stuff," murmured Neilson as he surveyed the preliminary sheet punched out by the reporting machine. "It's a living organism and—and it's silicon-based! That's a real weird one. Its biological action in the human body wouldn't be like any narcotic, completely new. ”

“ And he just did not have the kind of psychological defect for it to be habit-forming any other way.
When he reached Space Pioneer HQ he handed in his card at the Probationary desk. The Major in charge looked him up and down in stony silence, then suddenly barked, "Anything to say, Mister?"
"Yes sir. I want to register a complaint with General Chisholm personally."
"What!" His face turned beet red. "Look, soldier, we're not strictly GI in this outfit out of love of red tape. This is a dangerous service. You have to follow the chain of command every time." ”

“ When the inside temperature matched that within the box itself fine robot fingers unlocked it, withdrew samples and shifted them toward various test compartments. Meanwhile, Chisholm explained about the crystal cloud to the chemist.
"That must have been an exceptional batch," Sommers said, as he studied the response dial. "Very little moisture here. Nothing important to that one way or the other, though. Matter of fact, nothing important to these specimens in general—usual asteroid run."
Hartley impassively considered the shocked expression on Cramer's face. ”

“ This rock makes its crazy wobble into sunlight soon and I'd rather be off it when the surface starts heating up."
Hartley eased the craft upwards, pulling her back a few dozen miles. Then he balanced the power exhausts into hover and took the specimen box from Cramer's belt. "You've got ecstasy of the space deeps, never can tell when that'll strike a man out there." He studied the little slate-blue chips inside. "You notice that white stuff, Will?" ”

“ Then I'd have to proceed on the assumption that the life cycle of the hypothetical form permits it to reach a high threshold of energy storage, part of which energy is smoothly released while the rest achieves a new balance as the silicon transmutes into elements of lesser weight. ”