around and people wouldn’t know they were from the Co-from us. Things to make them feel discontented and wake them up.” “That’s a very interesting idea. Give me an example.” My brain was chugging nicely. “Start a rumor going around the mess hall that they’ve got a way of making new protein. Say it tastes exactly like roast beef and you’ll be able to buy it at a dollar a pound. Say it’s going to be announced in three days. Then when the three days are up and there’s no announcement start a wisecrack going. Like: ‘What’s the difference between roast beef and Chicken Little?’ Answer, ‘A hundred and fifty years of progress.’ Something like that catches on and it’ll make them think about the old days favorably.” It was easy. It wasn’t the first time I’d turned my talent to backing a product I didn’t care for personally. Bowen was taking it down on a silenced typewriter. “Good,” he said. “Very ingenious, Groby. We’ll try that. Why do you say ‘three clays’?” I couldn’t very well tell him that three days was the optimum priming period for a closed social circuit to be triggered with a catalytic cue-phrase, which was the book answer. I said instead, with embarrassment: “It just seemed about right to me.” “Well, we’ll try it at that. Now, Groby, you’re going to have a study period. We’ve got the classic conservationist texts, and you should read them. We’ve got special publications of interest to us which you should follow: Statistical Abstracts, Journal of Space Flight, Biometrika, Agricultural Bulletin, and lots more. If you run into tough going, and I expect you will, ask for help. Eventually you should pick a subject to which you’re attracted and specialize in it, with an eye to research. An informed conservationist is an effective conservationist.” “Why the Journal of Space Flight?” I asked, with a growing excitement. Suddenly there seemed to be an answer: Runstead’s sabotage, my kidnaping, the infinite delays and breakdowns in the project. Were they Consie plots? Could the Consies, in their depraved, illogical minds, have decided that space travel was antisurvival, or whatever you call it? “Very important,” said Bowen. “You need to know all you can about it.” I probed. “You mean so we can louse it up?” “Of course not!” Bowen exploded. “Good God, Groby, think what Venus means to us-an unspoiled planet, all the wealth the
race needs, all the fields and food and raw materials. Use your head, man!” “Oh,” I said. The Gordian knot remained unslashed. I curled up with the reels of Biometrika and every once in a while asked for an explanation which I didn’t need. Biometrika was one of the everyday tools of a copysmith. It told the story of population changes, IQchanges, death rate and causes of death, and all the rest of it. Almost every issue had good news in it for us-the same news that these Consies tut-tutted over. Increase of population was always good news to us. More people, more sales. Decrease of IQ,was always good news to us. Less brains, more sales. But these eccentrically oriented fanatics couldn’t see it that way, and I had to pretend to go along with them. I switched to the Journal of Space Flight after a while. There the news was bad-all bad. There was public apathy; there was sullen resistance to the shortages that the Venus rocket construction entailed; there was defeatism about planting a Venus colony at all; there was doubt that the colony could do anything if it ever did get planted. That damned Runstead! But the worst news of all was on the cover of the latest issue. The cutline said: “Jack O’Shea Grins As Pretty Friend Congratulates With Kiss After President Awards Medal Of Honor.” The pretty friend was my wife Kathy. She never looked lovelier. I got behind the Consie cell and pushed. In three days there was a kind of bubbling discontent about the mess hall chow. In a week the consumers were saying things like: “I wish to hell I was born a hundred years ago … I wish to hell this dorm wasn’t so Goddamned crowded … I wish to hell I could get out on a piece of land somewheres and work for myself.” The minute cell was elated. Apparently I had done more in a week than they had done in a year. Bowen-he was in Personnel- told me: “We need a head like yours, Groby. You’re not going to sweat your life away as a scum-skimmer. One of these days the assignment boss will ask you if you know nutrient chemistry. Tell him yes. I’ll give you a quickie course in everything you need to know. We’ll get you out of the hot sun yet.” It happened in another week, when everybody was saying things like: “Be nice to walk in a forest some day. Can y’imagine all those trees they useta have?” and: “God-damn salt-water soap!” when it