Page 112 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

Manna 2.0

“Are you being sarcastic?” Perversity was not pleased. “If so,
perhaps you are a bit distressed by the scenario. At any rate, that’s
not a bad way to end it on a positive note. Anyone else?”
Leith Mauker scowled.
“I don’t there can be any other kind of happy outcome, given
the set-up. They get the fermentation tanks bubbling away on their
own, survive long enough to do a Johnny Appleseed distribution,
and that’s it. If they don’t get it done, then that puts paid to
millennia of progress and so forth. If you wanted to put a really
warped twist on this, you could deal with the possibility that the
average anthropophagus wouldn’t find bean curd or corn mush
appealing after developing a rather different palate. So, having set
this hitherto-unknown protein before the cannibal king, the
scientists might be waiting with bated breath for his response.
And…surprise! It’s a big hit. But why? Then the gentle but not too
squeamish reader learns that the bioengineered genetically-modified
bacterial porridge serendipitously tastes just like—human flesh!”
“Ha! Why stop there?” Rutger Schlager had a manic gleam in his
eye. “If these scientists are rushing to market, as it were, with their
product, they probably haven’t tested it. I say it could just as likely
be flesh-eating as flesh-replacing! Yes, the glop bursts out of its
containment vessel and engulfs and devours everyone in sight, good
guys and bad ones alike. Too awful? Well, maybe, after it eats one
scientist, the stuff could be directed exclusively against the attackers,
saving the project to keep on experimenting another day. Poetic
justice, the eaters eaten.”
Fred Feghootsky felt it necessary to intervene.
“People: please. It is getting late. It may well be that silly
questions deserve silly answers, but Perversity presented a serious
idea within our already somewhat absurd genre. If there are no
more suggestions…”
“Oh, too bad,” said Hydrargyrum Diggers. “I was just about to
propose recasting this as a star-crossed romance, the lead scientist’s
daughter and the cannibal chief’s son. It couldn’t end well.”

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