The Great Gray Plague Part 3

Baker felt the color rising in his face, but he forced himself to remain calm. After a moment of silence he said. "Your emotional feelings are understandable, but you must remember that the Index permits us to administer accurately the National Science Development Act. Without the scientific a.s.surance of the Index there would be no way of determining where these precious funds could best be utilized."

"You'd be better off putting the money on the ponies," said Fenwick.

"Sometimes they win. As it stands, you've set it up for a sure loss. You haven't got a chance in the world."

"You think Clearwater College could make better use of some of our funds than, say, MIT?"

"I wouldn't be surprised. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the boys at MIT or Cal Tech or a lot of other places couldn't come up with a real development in the way of a fermodacular filter for reducing internucleated cross currents. But the real breakthroughs--you've closed your doors and locked them out."

"Who have we locked out? We've screened and fine combed the resources of the entire country. We know exactly where the top research is being conducted in every laboratory in the nation."

Fenwick shook his head slowly and smiled. "You've forgotten the boys working in their bas.e.m.e.nts and in their back yard garages. You've forgotten the guys that persuade the wife to put up with a busted-down automatic washer for another month so they can buy another hundred bucks worth of electronic parts. You've remembered the guys who have Ph. D.'s for writing 890-page dissertations on the Change of Color in the Nubian Daisy after Twilight, but you've forgotten guys like George Durrant, who can make the atoms of a crystal turn handsprings for him."

Baker leaned back in his chair and smiled. He almost wished he hadn't wasted the effort of trying to show Fenwick. But, then, he had tried.

And he would always have regretted it if he hadn't.

"You're referring now to the crackpot fringe?" he said.

"I suppose so," said Fenwick. "I've heard it called that before."

"One of the things, above all else, which the Index was designed to accomplish," said Baker, "was the screening out of all elements that might be ever so remotely a.s.sociated with the crackpot fringe. And believe me, you'll never know how strong it is in this country! Every two-bit tinkerer wants a handout to develop his world-shaking gadget that will suppress the fizz after the cap is removed from a pop bottle, or adapt any apartment-size bathtub for raising tropical fish."

"You ever heard of the flotation process?" said Fenwick abruptly.

Baker frowned at the sudden s.h.i.+ft of thought. "Of course--"

"What would the world be like without the flotation process?"

"The metals industry would be vastly different, of course. Copper would be much scarcer and higher priced. Gold--"

"A ton of ore and maybe a pound of recovered metal, right?" said Fenwick. "Move a mountain of waste to get anything of value. Crush millions of tons of rock and float out the pinpoint particles of metal on bubbles of froth."

"That's a rough description of what happens."

"You've heard of high-grading."

"Of course. A somewhat colloquial term used in mining."

"The high-grader takes a pick and digs for anything big enough to see and pick up with his hands. He doesn't worry about the small stuff that takes sweat and machinery to recover."

"I suppose so. I fail to see the significance--"

"You're high-grading, Bill," said Fenwick. He leaned across the desk and spoke with bitter intensity. "You're high-grading and you should be using a flotation process."

Fenwick slowly drew back in his chair. Baker felt overwhelmed by the sudden intensity he had never before seen displayed in John Fenwick. Any reaction on his part seemed suddenly inadequate. "I fail to see any connection--," he said finally.

Fenwick looked at him steadily. "Human creativeness can be mined only by flotation methods. It's in low-grade ore. Process a million stupid notions and find a pin point of genius. Turn over enormous wastes of human thought and recover a golden principle. But turn your back on these mountains of low-grade material and you shut out the wealth of creative thought that is buried in them. More than that, by high-grading only where rich veins have appeared in the past, you're mining lodes that have played out."

"An ingenious a.n.a.logy," said Baker, recovering with a smile now. "But it's hardly an accurate or applicable one. The human mind is not a piece of precious metal found in a mountain of ore. Rather, it's an intricate device capable of producing computations of unbelievable complexity. And we know how such devices that are superior in function are produced, and we know what their characteristics are. We also know that such a device does not 'play out'. If it is superior in function, it can remain so for a long time."

"High-grading," said Fenwick. "And the vein is played out. You'll never find the thing you're looking for until you develop means of processing low-grade material."

Baker watched Fenwick across the desk. He was weary of the whole thing.

He certainly had no need to prove himself to this man. He had simply tried to do Fenwick a favor, and Fenwick had thrown it right back in his face. Yet there was a temptation to go on, to prove to Fenwick the difference between their two worlds. Fenwick belonged to a world compounded of inevitable failure. The temptation to show him, to try again to lift him out of it was born of a kind of pity for Fenwick.

Baker's own life had arrowed decisively, without waver, to a goal that was as correct as the tolerances of human error could make it. He often permitted himself the pride of considering his mind somewhat as a computer that had been programmed through a magnificent gene inheritance to drive irresistibly toward the precise goals he had reached. But Fenwick--Fenwick was still fumbling around in a mora.s.s of uncertainty.

After years of erratic starts and stops he was now confusedly trying to make something out of that miserable little inst.i.tution called Clearwater College.

It wasn't particularly friends.h.i.+p that urged Baker to show Fenwick.

Their friends.h.i.+p was of a breed that Baker had never quite been able to define to his own satisfaction. It seemed to him there was a sort of deadly fascination in a.s.sociating with a man who walked so blindly, who was so profoundly incapable of understanding his own blindness and peril.

"I'm going to show you," Baker said abruptly, "exactly what it would mean if we were to do as you suggest. I'll show you what it would be like to give attention to every halfwit and crackpot that comes begging for a handout." He switched the intercom and spoke into it. "Doris, please bring in the Ellerbee file. Yes--the crackpot section."

He switched off. "Doris has her own quaint but quite accurate way of cataloguing our various applications," he explained.

In a moment the secretary entered and placed the file on the desk.

"There's a new letter in there," she said. "Dr. Pehrson initialed it. He said you didn't want to be bothered any more with this case."

"That's right."

Baker opened the file and shoved it toward Fenwick. "This boy has a gadget he wants us to look at. Doesn't really need any money, he says.

That's the kind we really have to be on guard against. If we looked at his wonder gadget, we'd be pestered for a million-dollar handout for years to come."

"What's he got?" Fenwick asked.

"Some kind of communication device, he says. He claims it's nothing but a grown crystal which you hold in your hand and talk to anybody anywhere on Earth."

"Sounds like it wouldn't take much to find out whether he's got anything or not. Just let him put on a five-minute demonstration."

"But multiply that five minutes by a thousand, by ten thousand. And once you let them get their teeth into you, it doesn't stop with five minutes. It goes on into reams of letters and years of time. No, you have to stop this kind of thing before it ever starts. But take a look at some of this material in the file and you'll see what I mean."

Fenwick picked up the top letter as Baker pushed the file toward him.

"He starts this one by saying, 'Dear Urban.' Is that what he calls you?

What does he mean?"

"Who knows? He's a crackpot, I told you. Who cares what he means, anyway. We've got far more important things to worry about."

Fenwick scanned the letter a moment, then looked up, a faint smile on his face. "I know what he means. Urban--Pope Urban--was the one responsible for the persecutions of Galileo."

Baker shrugged embarra.s.sedly. "I told you he was a crackpot. Delusions of grandeur and of persecution are typical."

"This boy may not be as crazy as he sounds. You're giving him a pretty good imitation of a Galileo treatment--won't even look at his device. He says here that 'Since you have previously refused to examine my device and have questioned my reliability as an observer, I have obtained the services of three unbiased witnesses, whose affidavits, signed and notarized, are attached. These men are the Fire Chief, the Chief of Police, and the Community Church Pastor of Redrock, all of whom testify that they did see my device in full operation this past week. I trust that this evidence will persuade you that an investigation should be made of my device. I fail to see how the bull-headedness and c.o.c.ksureness of your office can withstand any more of the evidence I have to offer in support of my claims.'"

"A typical crackpot letter," said Baker. "He tries to be reasonable, but his colors are soon shown when he breaks down into vituperative language like a frustrated child."

Fenwick thumbed through the large pile of correspondence. "I'd say anybody would likely blow his stack a good deal harder than this if he'd been trying to get your attention this long. Why didn't he ever send you one of his gadgets in the mail?"