Cargrew shook his head. “It s a physical impossibility.”
Van Vogel stood up. “I can see,” he said distantly, “That I should have taken my custom to NuLife Laboratories, I came here because we have a financial interest in this firm and because I was naive enough to believe the claims of your advertisements.”
“Siddown, young man!” Gargrew ordered. “Take your trade to those thumb-fingered idiots if you wish — but I warn you they couldn’t grow wings on a grasshopper.
First you listen to me.
“We can grow anything and make it live. I can make you a living thing-I won’t call it an animal — the size and shape of that table over there. It wouldn’t be good for anything, but it would be alive. It would ingest food, use chemical energy, give off excretions, and display irritability. But it would be a silly piece of manipulation. Mechanically a table and an animal are two different things. Their functions are different, so their shapes are different. Now I can make you a winged horse — ”
“You just said you couldn’t.”
“Don’t interrupt. I can make a winged horse that will look just like the pictures in the fairy stories. If you want to pay for it; we’ll make it-we’re in business. But it won’t be able to fly.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not built for flying. The ancient who dreamed up that myth knew nothing about aerodynamics and still less about biology. He stuck wings on a horse, just stuck them on, thumb tacks and glue. But that doesn’t make a flying machine. Remember, son, that an animal is a machine, primarily a heat engine with a control system to operate levers and hydraulic systems, according to definite engineering laws. You savvy aerodynamics?”
“Well, I’m a pilot.”
“Hummph! Well, try to understand this. A horse hasn’t got the heat engine for flight. He’s a hayburner and that’s not efficient. We might mess around with a horse’s insides so that he could live on a diet of nothing but sugar and then he might have enough energy to fly short distances. But he still would not look like the mythical Pegasus. To anchor his flying muscles he would need a breast bone maybe ten feet long. He might have to have as much as eighty feet wing spread. Folded, his wings would cover him like a tent. You’re up against the cube-square disadvantage.”
“Huh?’
Cargrew gestured impatiently –“Lift goes by the square of a given dimension; dead load by the cube of the same dimension, other things being equal. I might be able to make you a Pegasus the size of a cat without distorting the proportions too much.”
“No, I want one I can ride. I don’t mind the wing spread and I’ll put up with the big breast bone. When can I have him?”
Cargrew looked disgusted, shrugged, and replied, “I’ll have to consult with B’na Kreeth.” He whistled and chirped; a portion of the wall facing them dissolved and they found themselves looking into alaboratory. A Martian, life-size, showed in the fore — part of the three-dimensional picture.
When the creature chirlupped back at Cargrew, Mrs. van Vogel looked up, then quickly looked away. She knew it was silly but she simply could not stand the sight of Martians-and the ones who had modified themselves to a semi-manlike form disgusted her the most.
After they had twittered and gestured at each other for a minute or two Cargrew turned back to van Vogel. “B’na says that you should forget it; it would take too long. He wants to know how you’d like a fine unicorn, or a pair, guaranteed to breed true?”
“Unicorns are old hat. How long would the Pegasus take?”
After another squeaky-door conversation Cargrew answered, “Ten years probably, sixteen years on the guarantee.”
“Ten years? That’s ridiculous!”
Cargrew looked shirty. “1 thought it would take fifty, but if B*na says that he can do it three to five generations, then he can do it. B’na is the finest bio-micrurgist in two planets. His chromosome surgery is unequalled. After all, young man, natural processes would take upwards of a million years to achieve the same result, if it were achieved at all. Do you expect to be able to buy miracles?”