Short Fiction Fritz Leiber (free e books to read .txt) 📖

“By the by, Racehorse, that was a brilliant piece of work getting the helium out of the government⁠—they’ve been pretty stuffy lately about their monopoly. But first I want to throw wide the casement in your minds that opens on the Long View of Things.”

Rose Thinker spun twice on her chair and opened her photocells wide. Tin Philosopher coughed to limber up the diaphragm of his speaker and continued:

“Ever since the first cave wife boasted to her next-den neighbor about the superior paleness and fluffiness of her tortillas, mankind has sought lighter, whiter bread. Indeed, thinkers wiser than myself have equated the whole upward course of culture with this poignant quest. Yeast was a wonderful discovery⁠—for its primitive day. Sifting the bran and wheat germ from the flour was an even more important advance. Early bleaching and preserving chemicals played their humble parts.

“For a while, barbarous faddists⁠—blind to the deeply spiritual nature of bread, which is recognized by all great religions⁠—held back our march toward perfection with their hairsplitting insistence on the vitamin content of the wheat germ, but their case collapsed when tasteless colorless substitutes were triumphantly synthesized and introduced into the loaf, which for flawless purity, unequaled airiness and sheer intangible goodness was rapidly becoming mankind’s supreme gustatory experience.”

“I wonder what the stuff tastes like,” Rose Thinker said out of a clear sky.

“I wonder what taste tastes like,” Tin Philosopher echoed dreamily. Recovering himself, he continued:

“Then, early in the twenty-first century, came the epochal researches of Everett Whitehead, Puffyloaf chemist, culminating in his paper ‘The Structural Bubble in Cereal Masses’ and making possible the baking of airtight bread twenty times stronger (for its weight) than steel and of a lightness that would have been incredible even to the advanced chemist-bakers of the twentieth century⁠—a lightness so great that, besides forming the backbone of our own promotion, it has forever since been capitalized on by our conscienceless competitors of Fairy Bread with their enduring slogan: ‘It Makes Ghost Toast.’ ”

“That’s a beaut, all right, that ecto-dough blurb,” Rose Thinker admitted, bugging her photocells sadly. “Wait a sec. How about?⁠—

“There’ll be bread
Overhead
When you’re dead⁠—
It is said.”

Phineas T. Gryce wrinkled his nostrils at the pink machine as if he smelled her insulation smoldering. He said mildly, “A somewhat unhappy jingle, Rose, referring as it does to the end of the customer as consumer. Moreover, we shouldn’t overplay the figurative ‘rises through the air’ angle. What inspired you?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know⁠—oh, yes, I do. I was remembering one of the workers’ songs we machines used to chant during the Big Strike⁠—

“Work and pray,
Live on hay.
You’ll get pie
In the sky
When you die⁠—
It’s a lie!”

“I don’t know why we chanted it,” she added. “We didn’t want pie⁠—or hay, for that matter. And machines don’t pray, except Tibetan prayer wheels.”

Phineas T. Gryce shook his head. “Labor relations are another topic we should stay far away from. However, dear Rose, I’m glad you keep trying to outjingle those dirty crooks at Fairy Bread.” He scowled, turning back his attention to Tin Philosopher. “I get whopping mad, Old Machine, whenever I hear that other slogan of theirs, the discriminatory one⁠—‘Untouched by Robot Claws.’ Just because they employ a few filthy androids in their factories!”

Tin Philosopher lifted one of his own sets of bright talons. “Thanks, P. T. But to continue my historical resume, the next great advance in the baking art was the substitution of purified carbon dioxide, recovered from coal smoke, for the gas generated by yeast organisms indwelling in the dough and later killed by the heat of baking, their corpses remaining in situ. But even purified carbon dioxide is itself a rather repugnant gas, a product of metabolism whether fast or slow, and forever associated with those life processes which are obnoxious to the fastidious.”

Here the machine shuddered with delicate clinkings. “Therefore, we of Puffyloaf are taking today what may be the ultimate step toward purity: we are aerating our loaves with the noble gas helium, an element which remains virginal in the face of all chemical temptations and whose slim molecules are eleven times lighter than obese carbon dioxide⁠—yes, noble uncontaminable helium, which, if it be a kind of ash, is yet the ash only of radioactive burning, accomplished or initiated entirely on the Sun, a safe 93 million miles from this planet. Let’s have a cheer for the helium loaf!”

Without changing expression, Phineas T. Gryce rapped the table thrice in solemn applause, while the others bowed their heads.

“Thanks, T. P.,” P. T. then said. “And now for the Moment of Truth. Miss Winterly, how is the helium loaf selling?”

The business girl clapped on a pair of earphones and whispered into a lapel mike. Her gaze grew abstracted as she mentally translated flurries of brief squawks into coherent messages. Suddenly a single vertical furrow creased her matchlessly smooth brow.

“It isn’t, Mr. Gryce!” she gasped in horror. “Fairy Bread is outselling Puffyloaves by an infinity factor. So far this morning, there has not been one single delivery of Puffyloaves to any sales spot! Complaints about non-delivery are pouring in from both walking stores and sessile shops.”

“Mr. Snedden!” Gryce barked. “What bug in the new helium process might account for this delay?”

Roger was on his feet, looking bewildered. “I can’t imagine, sir, unless⁠—just possibly⁠—there’s been some unforeseeable difficulty involving the new metal-foil wrappers.”

“Metal-foil wrappers? Were you responsible for those?”

“Yes, sir. Last-minute recalculations showed that the extra lightness of the new loaf might be great enough to cause drift during stackage. Drafts in stores might topple sales pyramids. Metal-foil wrappers, by their added weight, took care of the difficulty.”

“And you ordered them without consulting the Board?”

“Yes, sir. There was hardly time and⁠—”

“Why, you fool! I noticed that order for metal-foil wrappers, assumed it was some sub-secretary’s mistake, and canceled it last night!”

Roger Snedden turned pale. “You canceled it?” he quavered. “And told them to go back to the lighter plastic wrappers?”

“Of course! Just