The State of the Art(28)

did it without a murmur and right on target.'

'Good.'

'Now, as I was saying we could use this thing to

vastly step up the productive capacity of certain

key industries, and make possible the rapid

deployment of emergency supplies in a

disaster/crisis situation -'

Good , thought Cesare. We can use it to bomb the Ruskies.



'What?' roared Matriapoll when he got back and

they told him. 'You told it to junk itself and it

disappeared up its own asshole!'

'It was an honest mistake,' said Matriapoll's

foreman.

'They'll use it!They'll infest every nearby planet

and system they can lay their coordinates on!'

'It'll probably malfunction totally sooner or later;

don't worry about it.By the way, where's your other

Mate?I only see one.'

'Don't talk to me about it,' Matriapoll said huffily.

'The idiot took a Flyer for a joy-ride and collided

with an S.S.T.'



'You're sure this is going to work sir?'

'Sure it'll work,' Cesare said.They were sitting

with a whole load of I.M.C.C. people and military

and political types in the underground command-

post under the matter transmitter. 'We tested it by

sending the same number of dummy warheads right

round the world and back here.They were all bang-

on.It'll be a clean sweep.Nothing can go wrong.'



The Transporter, unduly sensitive to, amongst other

things, radiation, became somewhat mixed up

however, and, to cut a short story shorter, it blitzed

the Eastern seaboard of the United States of

America, messed the Atlantic up a bit, and bombed

Mauritania, Portugal and Ireland.After that it

jammed and never worked again.



Fosse thought that Mr Borges was taking it very

well, considering (there was talk of a law

suit).Cesare was on the phone, trying to trace

somebody.

'Anybody I know, sir?'

Cesare looked up from the telephone, his eyes

reflecting the embarrassing red splotches spread

over the giant world map on the far side of the

room. 'You remember Feldman?Professor

Feldman?'

'No, sir; I don't think I've ever met the person.'

'Doesn't matter; he's dead.But I'm getting hold of

his number two in Chicago; he's all right.I've heard

what it's like in the East.It sounds terrible: famine,

plague, cannibalism, anarchy, flooding, drought;

the works.There's fantastic scope for a pet project

of mine I've been nursing along for a few years

now.Called the Alternative Resources Project.It's

perfect for this situation.We're ideally placed to

take advantage of this.It's a peach, believe me.We

could clean up.'



Piece



Hi kid.Well, there I was about to do some reading

but instead I'm writing to you.I'll explain later, but

first a little story (bear with me - this is partly to

take my mind off things, including the book I was

starting to read, but also to set up the first of a

couple of coincidences.Anyway.)

It was 1975, I think; have to check my diaries to be

sure.I'd finished at Uni that spring and gone off

hitchhiking through Europe over the summer.Paris,

Bergen, Berlin, Venice, Rabat and Madrid defined

the limits of this whirlwind tour.Three months later

I was on my way home, and after staying with Aunt

Jess in Crawley, I'd used the last of my money to

buy a bus ticket from London to Glasgow (hitching

out of London was notoriously awful).Night bus,

and it took ages, staying off the motorways would

you believe.This was in the days before videos

and minibars and hostesses and even toilets on

buses.The old coach groaned and whined through

the rain-smeared darkness, stopping at breeze

block and Formica transport cafes; cold islands of

fluorescence in the night.

Especially then, buses were for the not so well

off.I was the scruffy hitcher with long hair and

jeans.I was sitting beside an old guy wearing shiny

trousers and a worn tweed jacket; thin limbs and

thick glasses.In front of us, an old lady reading

People's Friend ; behind, two lads with

yesterday's Sun . The usual girning baby and

harassed young mother, somewhere at the back.I

watched the sodium lights drift by in droplet lines

of orange, and alternated sitting upright in the

cramped seat, and sliding down into it, aching

knees against the back of the seat in front.And, for

the first couple of hours or so, I was reading some

SF novel (wish I could remember the name, but

can't).

Later I tried sleeping.It wasn't easy; you swung

fretfully in and out, never fully awake or

completely asleep, always conscious of the

growling gear changes and the creaky ache in

folded knees.Then the old guy started talking to me.

I'm one of these anti-social types - well, as you

know - who doesn't like to acknowledge the

presence of other people when I'm travelling; plus

I was quite shy back then (believe it or not), and I

really didn't want to talk to some old geezer I