“Are you around the bend?” Bill asked dully from where he sprawled and read a tattered copy, of Real Ghoul Sex Fiend Shocker Comics with Built-in Sound Effects. A ghastly moan was keening from the page he was looking at.
“Don’t you know?” Tembo asked. “Don’t you KNOW That’s mail call, my boy, the grandest sound in space.”
The rest of the watch was spent in hurrying up and waiting standing in line, and all the rest. Maximum inefficiency was attached to the delivery of the mail, but finally, in spite of all barriers, the post was distributed and Bill had a precious spacial-postal from his mother. On one side of the card was a picture of the Noisome-Offal refinery just outside of his home town, and this alone was enough to raise a lump in his throat. Then, in the tiny square allowed for the message, his mother’s pathetic scrawl had traced out: “Bad crop, in debt, robmule has packing glanders, hope you are the same-love, Maw.” Still, it was a message from home, and he read and reread it as they stood in line for chow. Tembo, just ahead of him, also had a card, all angels and churches, just what you would expect, and Bill was shocked when he saw Tembo read the card one last time then plunge it into his cup of dinner.
“What are you doing that for?” he asked, shocked.
“What else is mail good for?” Tembo hummed, and poked the card deeper. “You just watch this now.”
Before Bill’s startled gaze, and right in front of his eyes, the card was starting to swell. The white surface broke off and fell away in tiny flakes while the brown insides grew and grew until they filled the cup and were an inch thick. Tembo fished the dripping slab out and took a large bite from one corner.
“Dehydrated chocolate,” he said indistinctly. “Good! Try yours.”
Even before he spoke Bill had pushed his card down into the liquid and was fascinatedly watching it swell. The message fell away, but instead of brown a swelling white mass became visible.
“Taffy-or bread maybe,” he said, and tried not to drool.
The white mass was swelling, pushing against the sides of the cup, expanding out of the top. Bill grabbed the end and held it as it rose. Out and out it came until every drop of liquid had been absorbed and Bill held between his outstretched hands a string of fat, connected letters over two yards long. VOTE-FOR-HONEST-DEER-THE-TROOPERS’-FRIEND they read. Bill leaned over and bit out an immense mouthful of T. He spluttered and spat the damp shards onto the deck.
“Cardboard,” he said sadly. “Mother always shops for bargains. Even in dehydrated chocolate …” He reached for his cup for something to wash the old-newsprint taste out of his mouth, but it was empty.
Somewhere high in the seats of power, a decision was made, a problem resolved, an order issued. From small things do big things grow; a tiny bird turd lands on a snow-covered mountain slope, rolls, collects snow, becomes bigger and bigger, gigantic and more gigantic until it is a thundering mass of snow and ice, an avalanche, a ravening mass of hurtling death that wipes out an entire village. From small beginnings … Who knows what the beginning was here, perhaps the Gods do, but they are laughing. Perhaps the haughty, strutting peahen wife of some High Minister saw a bauble she cherished and with shrewish, spiteful tongue exacerbated her peacock husband until, to give himself peace, he promised her the trinket, then sought the money for its purchase. Perhaps this was a word in the Emperor’s ear about a new campaign in the 77sub7th Zone, quiet now for years, a victory there-or even a draw if there were enough deaths-would mean a medal, an award, some cash. And thus did a woman’s covetousness, like a tiny bird’s turd, start the snowball of warfare rolling, mighty fleets gathering, ship after ship assembling, like a rock in a pool of water the ripples spread until even the lowliest were touched by its motion …
“We’re heading for action,” Tembo said as he sniffed at his cup of lunch. “They’re loading up the chow with stimulants, pain depressors, saltpeter, and antibiotics.”