“Meanwhile . . . I’d like to keep posted on Bob, but we have less than an hour to finish up here, before the thing slingshots. So on with it.”
He went to the other side of the table and picked up the scalpel Willard had dropped. “Now I don’t claim to know half the invertebrate anatomy that Bob does. Is there anybody here who thinks they can do a better job?”
Nobody responded. “Speak up, God damn it. I’m not puffing rank here. How about you, Modibo? You did that damn slug last month.”
A big black man in the front of the crowd shook his head slowly. “Not out of any special expertise, doctor. I was just on deck at the right time.”
“You go ahead, Phil,” another said. “If we see anything, we’ll shout it out.”
“All right.” To Carol and Jacque: “You two grab hold of the thing.
“Now. Dorsal incision.” He brought the blade down and hesitated. “Hm. Dorsal.”
He looked up at Jacque and shook his head violently. Then he carefully raised the scalpel and slit his own throat.
24 – Geoformy II: Access to Tools
To: Public Relations, Westinghouse International
From: Black & Morgenstern
Date: 11 November 2075
Subject: Text and Preliminary Camera Instructions, Four-Minute Public Interest Spot (for mid-point insert, Don Loft Show, 17 Jan 76)
SETTING: Craters of the Moon National Park
REQUIREMENTS: Animation lab; three (3) available-light holo cameras, three (3) actors, two (2) simulated GPEM suits, one (1) Westinghouse mass spectrograph.
Spot begins with a 30-second animated cartoon. First you have a simplified alien landscape, strange music. Five Tamers pop into existence, get out of formation and mill around, waiting.
The place they appeared from goes pop again, this time producing a pile of bricks, mortar, bricklaying tools. Music segues into a soft jissto as they start building a house. Tempo increases as they work faster and faster. New piles of bricks appear pop as they need them; it takes four piles to finish the house.
The Tamer-figures sit around the house, panting. Suddenly the music stops and the bottom layer of bricks disappears. The top three-fourths of the house falls with a resounding crash. This is repeated three more times, as each successive layer disappears.
The Tamers stand there scratching their heads. Then they also disappear. Fade into Craters of the Moon sequence.
(Camera positions given in conventional Cartesian style. Primary origin is ground level, centered underneath mass spectrograph, which will be placed on a level area 1250 meters NNW of benchmark 1728 (permissions bought from Park Service, Inc.). X-axis oriented 29° E of N. initially.)
time origin skew X Y Z
030 31,00,3 00 8.5,8.5,3.0 Shattered landscape.
035 31,00,3 00 8.5,8.5,3.0 VOICE OVER:
SLOW X-AXIS DRIFT TO (t = 33) “Nothing made on
045 10,00,2 00 8.5,8.5,3.0 the Earth can stay on
050 05,05,1 00 8.5,8.5,3.0 another planet.”
055 00,00,0 00 7.5,7.5,3.0
TIGHTEN TO (t=55) “This is the
065 00,00,0 00 2.0,2.0,2.0 machine that gave humankind the stars.”
SKEW ROLL (t = 70) “The Westinghouse
075 00,00,0 -180 1.5,1.5,2.0 . . . Mass Spectrograph.”
HOLD THIS (t = 72) “The two Tamers,
CONFIGURATION TO walking together, approach
101 00,00,0 -180 1.5,1.5,2.0 the machine. They are carrying
great armloads of
SLOW rock, which they dump onto
SQUEEZE/SKEW/DROP an already-large pile beside
102 00,00,0 175 1.4,1.4,1.9 the machine
103 00,00,0 -170 1.3,1.3,1.9
104 00,00,0 -166 1.2,1.2,1.8 VOICE OVER:
105 00,00,0 -163 1.1,1.1,1.8 (t = 88) “They don’t use
106 00,00,0 -161 1.0,1.0,1.7 the Westinghouse Mass
107 00,00,0 -159 0.9,0.9,1.7 Spectrograph to build brick
108 00,00,0 -158 0.9,0.9,1.6 houses. They use it to
109 00,00,0 -157 0.9,0.9,1.6 isolate pure elements . . .
110 00,00,0 -156 0.9,0.9,1.6 to build the machines . . .
111 00,00,0 -155 0.9,0.9,1.6 that will turn this sterile
112 00,00,0 -154 0.9,0.9,1.6 world. . . into a paradise
113 00,00,0 -153 0.9,0.9,1.6 for future generations.”
BLUR SKEW: (t = 114) “This bank of
114 00,00,0 -098 0.9,0.9,1.6 dials and switches is a thing
that ancient alchemists sought for
all their lives:
the Philosopher’s Stone.
HOLD THIS (BEAT to t = 125) “Our
CONFIGURATION TO interest is not in changing
122 00,00,0 -098 0.9,0.9,1.6 base metals into gold, the