Page 93 - Psychoceramics and the Test of Fire

The Vorax

industrial applications. Mass-production of drugs was already a
thriving sector of this new technology; bioremediation of toxic sites
was about to become another. Exposure to the nuts and bolts of
research and development stimulated Avery. But he had had enough
of social engineering: too many variables; better to stick to hard
science.
He next tried promoting a couple of ideas based on his quirky
fixation on worldwide, blanket answers to what looked—only to
him—as simple questions. First was Benebug Saturation, a plan to
cover the non-arable land of the planet with a thin soup of terra-
forming micro-organisms, sprayed from crop-dusting aircraft at low
altitude. No international groundswell of enthusiasm greeted his
amateurishly-produced prospectus of great expectations and
nonexistent proof of safety and efficacy. I suppose if Al Magnus had
come across him earlier, then I would be throwing the great
industrialist’s money at Benebugs instead of a later scheme.
Meanwhile, Avery lost more face, if that were possible on so
already featureless a topography, and a good chunk of cash on
printing, postage and beakers for his liquid panacea. In his defense, it
should be mentioned that the parking strip in front of the rundown
apartment house in which he rented rooms, and where he finally
dumped his abandoned brain-child under cover of darkness, showed
a rather more luxuriant growth of weeds than elsewhere on the block.
I saw that myself when I visited him on a Sunday morning. The
dossier provided by Al Magnus’s sub rosa research agency indicated it
would be the best time to find him at home: Chimeratech locked
everyone out once a week to sterilize the labs, and the guy had
nowhere else to go.
I parked my rental car, an ostentatious sedan, right in front of his
place, donned an ill-fitting and out-of-style jacket, and found Mr.
Goodman at home following a few thumps on the flimsy front door
of his abode. He opened the door, and confirmed my briefing:
paunchy but cherubic, his fifty-odd years sitting lightly upon the
frame of a vigorous man whose indoor life did not leave him utterly
pasty of face, doughy of body and unleavened with humor.
“Yes?” said he, with an air of expectancy. How many times had he
been disappointed by what stood at his threshold? But character, if
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