The State of the Art(27)

just been arrested make models of the planned

bomber from the papers of the Alternative

Resources Project.

He didn't know why he bothered staying, but what

the hell



' so you see when you're producing so much

material from a factory ship that size you have to

maximize the optimum output both in terms of real

numbers and as a viable proportion of total units

produced.With the high rates of production

attainable using light atoms and dust to build up or

break down to basic molecules which then go to

construct artefacts, naturally you have a certain

proportion that fail to meet the quite perfect

standards we set.

'All such material is dumped onto the surface of a

nearby star or, in the case of high heat-resistance

articles, dumped somewhere inside it.The material

cannot be recycled economically because as a rule

even the shoddy goods that we produce are very

difficult to break up, and the Transmuters are tuned

only to accept matter in comparatively small

quanta.In this case there seems to have been rather

a serious leak.The new machinery we've just

installed has made a mistake in the relevant

coordinates, and well, you know the rest.'

'You mean all this stuff is RUBBISH?' said Cesare

from the bathroom.

'Yes, I'm afraid so.There shouldn't be any more

after a little while.I've already contacted the

factory ship.Please accept our sincere apologies.'

'Wait a minute,' Fosse said as the alien turned to

go. 'Have these things been arriving just anywhere

? I mean is it a random thing?'

'Yes.The Transporter got that right, at least.They've

been distributed fairly evenly over the globe.Most

of them have sunk in the oceans of course, and

quite a few are still undiscovered in rain forests

and deserts and in the Antarctic and so on, but

we'll locate those through their coverings and get

rid of them once we get another new machine on-

line.' It held up three paws as Fosse started to

speak again. 'I know,' it said, 'you'd like to keep the

things, but I'm afraid that isn't possible.We do have

a responsibility, after all.Now you must excuse

me.Goodbye.'

The alien disappeared out of the window and went

straight up into the sky, narrowly missing a passing

S.S.T.

Suddenly the alarm started sounding.Five armed

guards rushed into the room and began restraining

Fosse.Cesare succeeded in stopping them before

Fosse had anything worse than severe bruising and

a broken jaw.He shooed the guards out and closed

the door.

'You realize what this means?' he said to Fosse.

'I'll tell you what it means; we're using junk ; that's what it means!'

'It'sh worsh than that, shir,' Fosse said. 'That shing

shaid the Gi - rubbish wash appearing all over the

surfashe of the Earth; that meansh the bigg - ow! -

the bi'er the country the more of thoshe thingsh

they're going to get; and rubbish or not they can

probably all be ushed.'

'So?'

'Do you know what country hash the greatesht land-

area in the whole world, shir?'

Cesare nodded confidently. 'The good old U.S. of

A.'

'No, shir,' Fosse said shaking his head slowly.

Cesare looked into Fosse's eyes.His own eyes

gradually widened and his upper lip trembled.

'Not'

'Yesh!'

'Hot-damn!'



The Gifts kept appearing for two more weeks,

which they guessed was the time it took for the

Alien's message to get to the factory ship, and/or

the time it took for the rubbish to get from the ship

to Earth.

They kept testing the equipment but if there was

anything wrong with it they couldn't find out what it

was.The aliens must be really fussy.

The very last Gift to arrive, as far as they knew,

was the most interesting of all.The New

Technology Project was racing ahead, budget

vastly increased now that it was known the

Communists probably had the same stuff.The spy

satellites hadn't spotted anything, but then they'd

managed to keep pretty tight security themselves,

so that didn't prove anything.



They were near Alamogordo, where the last, very

large Gift had appeared.They had had to construct

a special building around it to do the business with

the covering.Cesare looked up at it.

'OK.But what does it do?'

'It's a matter transmission machine,' said one

scientist.

'No, it isn't,' said another. 'Whatever it is it isn't

that; it doesn't leave an original behind.I think it

uses continua to-'

'Rubbish.It's a true matter transmission machine,

Mr Borges.We can't hope to recreate this with our

own technology, but we can certainly use it;

shifting commodities, urgently needed drugs,

disaster aid'

'There's nothing wrong with it?'

'Wrong with it?Why, this is the most perfect piece

of machinery in existence on the planet.We've

already shifted two hundred brand-new Cadillacs

from here to Tampa and back again just as a trial.It