WITH AH! BRIGHT WINGS
Originally published in Venture Science Fiction Magazine, August 1969.
Sitting at the conference table, the American delegate noticed a speck of lint on his crossing trouser leg. He picked it off in midswing and carefully placed it in his ash tray. The Soviet delegate was the only one of those who saw the trifling business to smile.
Meanwhile, the Israeli delegate to the Subcommittee on Pollution Control of the Committee on Ecology, UNESCO, inveighed against the reckless use of DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides.
“They don’t break down readily into their constituent elements but linger for years in air and water and build up in the tissues of fish, birds, animals, and humans, while ironically the target pests learn to resist them. Likewise, overuse of artificial nitrogen fertilizers upsets the natural nitrogen cycle, polluting lakes, streams, wells. Instead of mindlessly adulterating our environment, we have to do all we can with what we have. Take irrigation. We in Israel found ways to conserve water and reduced irrigation twenty percent while increasing crop yields sixty percent—”
The American delegate, Barry Killebrew, met the Soviet delegate’s glance, raised an eyebrow, and neatly stubbed out his cigarette. The Soviet delegate, Nadezhda Detzach-Veachab, nodded slightly, dashed off a note, and slipped it to the Bulgarian delegate.
The Bulgarian delegate read the note and broke in on a point of order.
“Really, we can’t let Zionist-imperialist propaganda divert us from the item under consideration, namely document seven stroke fifteen, ‘Preliminary Report on the Advisability of Instituting a Survey to Determine Procedure for Studying the Problem of Pollution’.”
The Indian delegate, chairing the meeting, ruled the Israeli out of order and turned to the next speaker on his list.
The meeting droned on. The only exciting moments came when the American and Soviet delegates read into the record strong statements on the need for doing nothing to upset the natural checks and balances on the biogeochemical cycles. Then the meeting broke up.
The American and Soviet delegates smilingly endured congratulations. They took their time preparing to leave the conference room till the others had vanished into the elevators. They looked at each other and rose.
They walked along the deserted corridor to an unmarked door. Its lock had two keyholes. The American and Soviet delegates each fitted a key in the lock. A double clicking: opening on a small room containing only a pair of chairs, a small table, a phone.
Barry bolted the door. It was still early afternoon, but the smog was nearly thick enough to opaque the window. Nadezhda switched on the lights. Before taking their seats, each pressed a special stud in his/her wristwatch and tested for eavesdropping. Satisfied, each opened his/her dispatch case, sprang the lid of a secret compartment, and took out a sheaf of flimsies crawling with figures.
As they seated themselves, Barry decadently thought the Soviets’ puritanical Party hemline a shame. Nadezhda cut into his musings coldly.
“Shall we get down to business?”
Barry nodded. He tapped his flimsies.
“Together we’ve done pretty good. Earth’s average temperature’s dropped a half-degree since 1950 and the frost line’s about 100 miles further south.” His voice grew hard. “But when it comes to business, my country’s doing more than its share. Lake Erie’s a sump. Lake Michigan’s a septic tank. Lake Tahoe’s fast on its way.” He smiled proudly. “And what about the Everglades? And our defoliation of Viet Nam? Those don’t exactly add up to nothing.”
She winced but her voice came out as hard as his.
“Lake Baikal’s a cesspool, thanks to our paper mills. We’ve boosted the smoke content and air turbidity of our cities twenty-fold since 1950. ‘Excessive zeal’ in draining swampland in Byelorussia drastically lowered the water table and made a great dust bowl. What more could we have done?”
“Nadya,” he said helpfully, “I understand your difficulties, but you’ve got to go in more for consumer products. You’re a long way from matching us detergent-wise. A hell of a lot of phosphorous goes down the drain to encourage algae to choke our rivers and lakes. Slimy stinking algae—so fierce they take the paint off houses and cars.” He shook his head. “Nadya, there’s a garbage gap. Where are your old automobile tires, your cardboard cartons, your beer cans, your bottles?”
She flushed.
“That’s what I’m here to tell you.”
He let out his breath.
“Fine. But before we commit ourselves to anything I’ll D-I-D DOD.”
“Of course.”
He pulled the phone to him, drew security fittings from his case. He fitted a portable scrambler over the mouthpiece and the matching unscrambler over the earpiece. Then he direct-inward-dialed the top intelligence officer of the U.S. Department of Defense.
His mouth moved aside.
“Not that I don’t trust you people.”
“Of course.”
He spoke into the scrambler.
“Killebrew here. Do you confirm the latest Soviet sightings?” He listened, then said, “Say again.”
He held the unscrambler to Nadezhda’s ear.
She heard a hoarse voice say, “Affirmative. The Russkies spotted it first but our tracking is better than theirs. We picked up the saucer as it swung past Mars and followed it in. It looks to be the same purely scouting type as on the last visit.”
She nodded.
He hung up, removed the fittings, replaced them in his case.
“Okay, Nadya. We’ll go ahead with it. I’ll lead off.” He began to tick off items on his list. “Next week a supertanker will break up off Florida. The oil slick will take care of a hundred square miles of beach.”
She nodded, unimpressed.
He aborted a grimace and went on.
“This month alone we’re opening three hundred miles of expressway—”
She shrugged.
“Look,” he said patiently, “it’s not just the air, soil, and water. We’ll be sacrificing the people who live near the expressways. Several hours’ exposure to 300 parts per million of carbon monoxide is enough to cause physical collapse. Even 100 parts causes headaches, dizziness, lassitude, and impaired mental performance.”
She waved that away. “Capitalism produces the same effects.”
He stiffened.
“The agreement was we’d keep ideology out.”
She looked contrite.
“Sorry, Barry. It was a feeble attempt at humor.”
He stared at her. He had never thought of crediting her with a sense of humor. She began to flush under his gaze. He felt himself redden too and hastily returned to his list.
“No, I’m sorry. Okay. Now I come to thermal pollution. We’re having Con Ed build six nuclear generating plants on Long Island Sound.” He looked her in the eyes. Clear blue. “Okay, now you. And I’d like the specifics, if you don’t mind. Our highways now cause a loss of 500 billion gallons of water per year and we’re aiming for a runoff of 1.5 trillion gallons. How much fresh water is your country planning to waste? We fill the atmosphere yearly with 44 million tons of sulphur dioxide, 106 million tons of carbon monoxide, 27 million tons of hydrocarbons, 17 million tons of nitrogen oxides, 21 million tons of dust, coal smoke and soot. How much S02, CO, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, and particulates is your country producing? How much strip-mining, bull-dozing, and blacktopping are you planning?”
“I don’t mind.” And she read off the specifics.
He listened carefully. The new high dam and the sea-level canal impressed him, though he tried not to show it. Then he sat back.
“Fine. That should do it for now.”
She nodded. Suddenly her eyes filled. He sensed it was not all owing to the smog that somehow crept in past the air conditioning. They rose and stood awkwardly. He looked at her sidelong.
“Did you ever stop and think that this might be just what They want—for us to choke to death in our own wastes?”
After a moment she shrugged. “We’ll just have to keep going along on the original assumption. And hope that we’ll be able to reverse this process when They go away for good.”
Silence fell between them. They unconsciously drew nearer each other as though all at once feeling the need for warmth or as though to fill the silence that had fallen between them. They looked out at the smoldering sky.
Maybe the boys in the think tanks of both sides were right. For years now the aliens, whoever or whatever they were, had made no move to take over. But what if the boys in the think tanks had not come up dripping with the thought that the planet’s best defense against an alien takeover was a planet not worth taking over?