nnrui ARTHUR C. CLARKE'S "2010" THE FILM AND BEYOND onnrui VOL. 7 NO. 3 DECEMBER 1984
EDITOR IN CHIEF & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE PRESIDENT: KATHY KEETON
EDITOR: GURNEY WILLIAMS III GRAPHICS DIREC"0-:- F^Af-.K DEVINO MANAGING EDITOR: PAUL HILTS
CONTENTS PAGE FIRST WORD Opinion Senator Spark M. 6 Malsunaga
OMNIBUS Contributors 10
COMMUNICATIONS Correspondence 14
FORUM Dialogue 18
LIFE Biomedicine Bill Lawren 20 SPACE Comment Ben Bova 22
BREAKTHROUGHS Technology Dick Yost 26 FILM The Arts Bill Moseley 28 BOOKS The Arts Ben Bova 34 EXPLORATIONS Travel Edward 0. Wilson 38 STARS Astronomy Terence Dickinson 44 CONTINUUM Data Bank 47
VATICAN SCIENCE Article Bill Lawren 56 THE SERRATED EDGE Fiction Edward Bryant 64 NASA'S MASTER PLAN Article Thomas 0' Toole 70 2010 Pictorial Arthur C. Clarke 76 TROJAN HORSE Fiction Michael Swanwick 88
MATTHEW S. MESELSON Interview Douglas Starr 104
ROBOTGNOMICS Fiction Robert Sheckley 112
TEST BY FIRE AND ICE Article Patrick Tierney 116
INNER VOYAGE Pictorial Kathleen McAulitfe 124
HOME IS WHERE THE WORK IS Article Doug Garr 132
ANTIMATTER UFOs, etc. 143 GAMES Diversions Scot Morns ard Pn I Wiswe I 172
COMPETITION Future Etiquette Scot Morris 188
WA":ERY GEMS Phenomena Robert Nugent 190
LAST WORD Hum™ James Gorman 194
Artist Kari Brayman's painting Saturn's Eyes fe a surreal depiction of explorations leading to the far reaches of space and the deepest- recesses of our souls. The cosmos, cradled in our hands, is a reflection ol our inner selves. 4 OMNI : ' '
i ,. W msilncts. Arthur C. Clarke, tor example, has' of peace or; Earth' any goodwiil among' written that we must replace trie "techno-
; wa!i' pecp!a is profoundly relevant tober"- logical obscenities" of a star-wars defense dawning Space Age. with the "technological decency'' of an
" ' I first learned aboi.it such values from my Internationa' space o- Sort. !n the same vein, ;
raih©! s : \rvr o pr?e: : ru ! 1a I S! em Isaac Asimov carls orgiobalisfri rather reirrforcedwhenl later the embraced . than' tribalism In the Spaces' Age. These Christian faith. The fol'owyr of any other literary prophets know that even as fantasy tradition— Jew, Moslem, Hindu; Buddhist— toe star-wars program Is a second-rate. would. recognize these beliefs i as well. rvei ;fon of ti un-'q lely For they are'embodied in the universal - story iu- . i ! ; r iEii . " |;a
' of the 'divine birth- -the 1 joyously received 1 lOf'Vi; inn; 1 r 1 v entry in'toihe wor'rj ! ...... ,,. ..:,!:., bring to . to salvation a sufienng humanity. Ti.:' il .. I iUCi Dti li . ; ! I Will this The; diyinely conceived child personifies a natrcn on a new and more o remising course. uniquely human capacity tor spiritual I: should be e course that future genera- transcendence. Other soecies accept and Dns, can ;ive out then- Darwinian fates. Bur humanity pursue with wonder and zeal. !! ditton by in n, I s.o- n:w . ;. .r,. ,. inspired fears o- the irnaghal thai the .<.., ,.,,! on pre j reasoning mind translates into working consisting o- soace missions of gradually
!:.; : '. .i,;|i: : ., , .-.. i , . ;ql | Increasing complexity linker to a morato- :n space: although we lack g :is. we swim num en space -weapons test.rig. These bottom to the of the sea; when our heads fsif. ventures would ouiki lowaro an lute' national :-3 them. o twenty-
if But science is-an active partictpantin first century The program wculo untold in the the same time frame as star warstburt at ' rs the spiritual imouise UIORD loaf defines the goaf. far loss cos- an-:; with far more promise. In the of .-.,: purpose human striving, . and Die on'ra . wai -v n i < mxe: By Senator SoarkiVS. Matsunaga aivatron. ' scientific inquiryoJi the frontier of space, an The one goal "hat inspires human ty s interna: onal Mars •The : mission—a 16-month "custodians of greatest schlavemems is to my mind, unity - age ,n! - > e.nlisr the .vortd's
' . Einstein's the real world will dismis;s-:at7. From search for a unified-field '! ;nl id eng neem in a united theory. to Mozart's sublime harmores. enterprise, international to the the rnosi stirring undertaking in Mars ' exquisitely balanced architecture- of the human history, indeed, while pursuing mission proposal as. naive, Parthenon, humanity s most inspired this new path of exp-oraiicn and discovery, ' acl Americans but I -hope- they- and Soviets might even. redis- transcendent unty By contrast, our cover their common humanity wii! pause first and recall Darwinian "real world" continually succumbs No doubt the administrators and eu'stddP ',.; ..;.' " "„-" to primitive impulse:-; '..the universal - \ for dominance ans o- our seb absorbed "real world" will .ijMsivensse. and war which i !. wc hc.c its pied I' li ; aii International story of the newborn chiid3* . rationalize and romantic ze. mission Mars proposal as naive- but I hope . So I wo antithetical impulses smuggle for either' legal oads ascendancy within each individual, briefing ' each and papers aside and recall'. (tie : Culture, One, deterministic and bestial,.' universal sfory of the newborn child.
; drives' us to disunity; the oilier, transcendent What was thai brought the th'ee wise' spiritual, 1 and Inspires us to unity " i i .. no u i . fShrisimas Day'
,".. : And now, I :. bcteve. the ace-old S;rugg e- Was <,:; hear yet another lecture on tne
' between these two forces. enters what seli-pci-peruarmg complex ties o' the "real
i ; ' ' .'::,: I"':. ; world'"' Of course not. They carne.io behold '.. , mo; Itself our tin; .. Here " ,: -. on '.. . . a ,i oe o? o: selves, we are 'i •: ' ., .:: „, ... doomed. , JSap, ; , : That is the context r which currently An l!Ve::ia;iona' Mars mission would fast i'. : > birth of the a -new transcendent age. '. examined. Any that our greats > 'i :i '. i.U suggestion i . |l:e :: pi| u In an, est scienlific mines shouic be mobilised -In -a science, and religion would oe finally national -efforf dedicatee' to finding newer reall'ze.d.'Thebe'asiot'div'isivehess : would-be- . . ano ;azzier cutlets -or base, primitive facta- '' ..' w WW i ! ! II I sic-s, rationalized In a iou-mey Into the cosmos unified at iast.OQ denies the nobiest aspirations of American sec imagination. Seen thinking i.' .', ".'': ,'.,.;,...';, feiif/i . Semitic strikes-fat the very essence of our religious ...... ideals. We cannot atian iransc-endem unity w'e-f space- wlth.a video- mo mi ,;.. 'i.i . ,. . , . . :'; ;. , . ready the i i8 ro lapse ir- :982, /u//ewwe me cieclaraton Space Age have rejectee man's base or i-n-ii'iiai is------in Poland — NTRIBUTOR.c Dnnruii ^^\ t the end of the movie 2001: A reason and those of faith have long been in Future space colonization may greatly M^^^Space Odyssey, mission conflict. Now the scientists who make up benefit from the results of ongoing experi- # m commander David Bowman the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences ments in the Antarctic. Argentine and ventures forth from the spaceship Discovery. are choreographing a new, respectful Chilean families who relocate for one- to Swallowed by the mysterious monolith of dance thai pairs science and sanctity, In two-year stints on the frozen continent face lo, he metamorphoses into the Star-Child, "Vatican Science" (page 56). Bill Lawren many of the same obstacles that space from human to Uberkind. Many viewers goes inside the academy and explains how families will encounter— isolation, harsh remained baffled by the significance of taboos are being broken. The topics under environmental conditions, and limited food those final sequences. Wow 16 /ears after consideration include nuclear war, supplies. "Test by Fire and Ice" (page Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick genetics, artificial n-elligence, and even 116) is an in-depth look at this experiment. coauthored the original screenplay, the creation itself, all with the Pope's official Writer Patrick Tierney explains why interna- sequel, 2010: Odyssey Two, is finally and influential— blessing. "Given the kind of tional brotherhood is an important compo- reaching the screen, And its makers say it openness and dialogue between the nent of such colonization efforts. will clear up some of the mysteries. scientists and the papacy," Lawren says, We offer three science-fiction stories this The plot takes a joint Russian-American "the academy can't help but have a healthy month. In Trojan Horse, on page 88, a crew on a second voyage to Jupiter, to influence on the Church." hard-science novelette about an audacious the Discovery, whose orbit is decaying. This As Church leaders seem poised to and dangerous series of experiments on "2010" month's major pictorial, (page 76), engage in a whole new range of earthly the human brain, Michael Swanwick raises features sensational stills from the new film. matters, other pioneers are planning new controversial questions about the scope are The photos accompanied by Clarke's forays into space. Thomas O'Toole, space of scientific experimentation. His first novel, of own account how 2010: Odyssey Two correspondent for The Washington Post, In the Drift, will be published in February developed from an impossible idea to a story has interviewed more than 200 experts in 1985 by Ace. originally intended for Omni and then to a the aerospace industry, NASA, and the Angle Black is a contemporary witch, best-selling hovel. scientific community. "When I started, I one of author Edward Bryant's favorite Bringing 2010: Odyssey Two to fruition thought I'd have a hard time getting people creations. In "The Serrated Edge" (page was an odyssey in itself, according to to talk," O'Toole says. "To my surprise, 64), Angie performs an exorcism to help a ' Bill Moseley's report (Arts/Film, page 28) however, the hard part was getting them to successful woman haunted by a nightmare from !he closed set of 2070. He gives a stop talking." Their responses are the she cannot remember. backstage view of the special effects, sets, basis of "NASAs Master Plan" (page 70), a In Robert Sheckley's "Robotgnomics" and plot. With audiences accustomed to . year-by-year calendar predicting the (page 112), Edmond Ives, bored with science-fiction films like Star Wars and E.T, events of the next 50 years in space. his present circumstances, leaves his family director Peter Hyams is taking no chances. According to O'Toole, there were "no major and moves to New York City. There he Every effort has been made to assure disagreements among people in the acquires a collection of sinister but that 2010 is not only realistic but plausible. business." Omni's projections begin with a strangely comforting household robots. Theoriginal'200J, fusing science and . robot rendezvous with Halley's Comet Holt. Rinehart and Winston has just religion, resulted in a film that is both and end with the arrival of the first colonists published a collection of Sheckley's stories, emotional and cerebral. But the forces of on Mars in 2035. entitled Is That What People Do?OQ 10 OMNI Ulilililll LETTERS - KATHY KEETON OMNI PUBLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL LTD. THE CORPORATION Bob Gueoit-ne icharw <:< (»:s fx-,.-Vj CDnnnnuruiCMTorus Kathy Keeton (preadew) Economical Dining video television, one can only wonder what Wassily Leontief's economic theories [Inter- has inspired the current trends in music. view, July 1984] sound plausible enough Admittedly, there are a few random groups if they are swallowed quickly, without of considerable talent, but let's face it— thought, the way a Midwesterner might eat the majority of the black-leather, metal- his first raw oyster. But the more one looks studded exhibitionists and spike-haired, at either raw oysters or theories in Leontiei's multicolored ragbags seem to be relating pseudoscience, the less appetizing both suggestive messages of sex, violence, tend to become. drugs, and flights of insanity to their It seems to me that many economists, audiences. The abnormal is becoming especially the academic types, live in normal in our society, due largely to a world of their own, where rain doesn't fall rock's influence. on picnics and where people always do Are corporations unleashing this devil what they should and never do what they upon us? Perhaps. After all, .the public should not. is being ottered the opportunity to escape The idea of a shortened work week has such real and present threats as Soviet i popped up periodically since the Depres- expansionism and the Mideast crisis simply sion. Among other practical problems, by tuning in to musical fantasyland. "any manager who suggests cutting workers' Julia Casper hours without cutting their pay will quickly Baton Rouge, LA find himself being led away by large men in white jackets. Crude Cartoon? Our nation has a plethora of information. in the June 1984 issue, you published a What we seem to lack is the will, the ability, cartoon depicting the marriage of a resident and the organizational methods to use of Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, and a this information effectively. For years, Detroit resident of Love Canal, New York. The in- automakers had witnessed the increasing dividuals featured were anything but normal. popularity of imported cars, but it took While our group realizes that this was a financial disaster to provoke a constructive spoof, we are offended by its publication. We reaction from them. are concerned with the health problems ADVERTISING As for Congress, it would be a miracle to arising from chemical pollution, and we can get a bill for new fire extinguishers passed witness thai the harmful effects of pollution without first setting afire most of the coattails are real, serious, and personal. It is not in both houses. a humorous subject, nor should it ever be I am sure Leontief is a brilliant scholar, depicted as such. and it is hard to disagree with his complaints Picture a child who lives in one of these about "the way things are" or his perception communities seeing this cartoon and asking' of the probable impact of increasing his parents, "Because we live here, will I technology 'on our society. But we must look like this when I grow up?" work to correct some ol the causes of our Franklin A. Furl, Jr. national malaise before any solutions can be Citizens and Laborers for considered. Environmental Action Now, Inc. James Caldwell Lock Haven, PA Aurc i, CO Humor Editor Bill Lee responds: As artists i, Chiyocfa-kij. Tokyo 101. Tel. (i Bedeviled Public and writers, we spoof the Tele* J35472 good news and FOREIGN EDITIONS I am writing in response to the letter "Demon the bad. The bad news in this case is Rock and Roll" [Communications, August that the so-called civilized world is drowning 1984], in which Andrew Eide scoffs at in its own industrial waste, a fact to which the idea (hat rock music is an inspiration of the media should give considerable the devil and is a corporate tool of mass attention. Irreverent or not, I've given it DECEMBER delusion. Perhaps I can enlighten him. attention. God help us all if this subject ever In view of the prsscni ailraclions on music- goes unmentioned.OQ DIALOGUE FDRUfUl Omni we/comes speculation, theories, of history know ihal such a:he s:ic, totalitar- Governale's harangue against religion commentary, dissent, and questions from ian regimes as the Soviet Union and Nazi seems typical of those who cling to outdated readers in this open forum. We invite you Germany have been the cause of torture, philosophies. The "age of reason" will to use this column to voice your hopes murder, and the generation of emotional, arrive when men decide to scrutinize all about the future contribute and to to the mental, and moral cripples. Students of facets of any given issue and when it is kind of informal dialogue that generates history know that the medieval Arabs took recognized that many if not most situations breakthroughs. Please note that we cannot the science of the ancient Greeks, added arise from a variety of sources. return submissions and that the opinions to it, and then passed it on to medieval Religion has done its share of killing, but expressed here are not necessarily those of Europe. Were this not so, the Renais- it has killed no more than secularists have. the magazine. sance might never have occurred. Unfortunately, science, by producing Govemale quotes the philosopher David weapons, has also done its own killing. God and Science Hume to prove that all rational arguments Wynnsil and Lorine Glen again, I salute Once Omni for its willingness for God's existence have been destroyed. If Knoxville, TN to publish varied opinions. It requires there were a rational argument for the some daring to publish religious opinion in existence of God, then God would demand Religion has no more "caused more brutal a science magazine. our worship and there would be no choice torture, murder, emotional tyranny, and I refer to an angry and self-centered in'the matter. As it is, we are free to choose. mental stultification" than money has been diatribe issued by Jeffrey Govemale in the Steven Martin the root of all evil. Don't throw the baby letter "Religious Furor" [Forum, September Colorado Springs out with the bathwater, Jeff. It is the misuse is 1984]. Religion a bar to progress? I of religion and the love of money that has suggest that Governale's irrational anger is Individuals who continue to rely upon the caused the evil you describe. more ot a bar. reasoning of past philosophers seem Thomas Feeney I applaud Omni for the publication of oblivious to the fact that those rather naive North Brunswick, NJ James Gorman's "Righteous Stuff" [May fellows didn't live in the age of nuclear 1984], to which Governale's letter refers. I weaponry. Had David Hume witnessed the wish I knew a perfect way to refute Gover- Thai article was merely a chronicle of the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nale's letter. But all I can say is that I believe spiritual beliefs of three former astronauts. he might have sung a ditferenl tune. in God and his promise of salvation, My The magazine expressed no opinion on interest in science has only proved to the subject. To say that Govemale overre- me the glory of creation. If rationality were acted would be an understatement, His the only thing humankind needed, we tirade shows how emotional and intolerant would be much lesser beings. atheists can be. Contrary to Governale's I'm glad that Omni is open-minded belief, "as any student of history knows," enough to let both believers and atheists religion is not responsible for brutal torture express their opinions. That is just the kind and the like. Man himself is responsible. of world that God wanted for us. Man interprets and uses religion, and if Lans Alexis "man's only divinity lies within himself," we Pittsburgh are in a great deal of trouble. Keep it up, Omni. As a futurist who also The views expressed by Govemale are happens to be a Christian, I applaud any abhorrent to me. His naive, narrow-minded effort to balance the scales. It's comforting rationalism is as superstitious as the most to know that there are some responsible bigoted religionist's. While it is true that scientific minds in who do believe God. some religions have repressed the arts, it After all, who gave us science? is equally true that many religions have .Nick LaVecchia patronized the arts for centuries. The same Dallas longing for truth that motivates the best scientists also motivates the best religionists. I was greatly annoyed by the letter "Religious finally, the synchronicities between Furor,"- in which Govemale insisted that religion and science suggest that the two "articles of evangelism" be kept out of disciplines are not as incompatible as publications "dedicated to progress." Govemale suggests. Boorish, self-righteous atheists are an Alexander Duncan insult to thinking men everywhere. Students TorontoOQ !B OMNI ARMADILLO LEPERS By Bill Lawren since he was nine years old, The correlation, Ever however, doesn't establish disease in Norway and Germany, feel that Rick Turner—like most Texas definitively that leprosy can be transmitted the bacteria can live and thrive on their schoolboys—had wanted to make from armadillos to humans. At first glance, own in boggy soil. A more spectacular his high-school football team. But Turner Lumpkin's six cases and a seventh Texas theory traces the origins of the disease in took a novel approach to practice: He case reported by South Carolina research- armadillos to the Gulf South Research frequently went ouf into the bogs near his ers seem to be medical curiosities when Institute, where armadillos have been small Gulf Coast town, where he chased compared with the national total of more than inoculated with M. leprae in the laboratory and caught the nine-banded armadillos that 4,000. But a closer look is revealing. All since 1969. One of these animals, contend lived there. Once cornered, the small seven Texas cases were reported between the proponents of this theory, may have mammals become feisty, making them 1981 and 1983. During that same period, escaped and transmitted the disease for worthy opponents Rick's extracurricular according to Meyers, the total number to other armadillos in Louisiana. Meyers wrestling matches. of new leprosy cases reported in Texas was rules out the escaped-armadillo theory, In early 1983, when he was seventeen, only about 30 This means that as many since recent findings indicate that some Rick noticed that red welts were erupting all as 23 percent of new leprosy patients from armadillos showed evidence of M. leprae over his body. Tests by his doctor indicated Texas had had extensive contact with antibodies as long ago as 1961 . "That that he had developed of leprosy a type armadillos. "That starts to look like a pretty pins it down," Meyers says. "It couldn't have called Hansen's disease, a diagnosis significant figure," Meyers says. Lumpkin had anything to do with improper handling confirmed by the National Hansen's Disease agrees. "No one can actually prove that of infected animals at Gulf South." Center, in Carrville, Louisiana. these people got leprosy from armadillos," Meyers and several other researchers Rick's was also one of six cases reported he says, "but as far as I'm concerned, think that the most likely explanation for to Lee Lumpkin, a dermatologist then two plus two equals four" leprosy in armadillos has to do with a circular working at Baylor College of Medicine, in Researchers are also trying to figure out disease path. Armadillos, he believes, Houston. found the He six had three things how the armadillos contracted leprosy in first got leprosy from humans, in the form of in common: They all lived along or near the first place. Some investigators think M. /eprae-rich nasal secretions from human the Gulf Coast of Texas, they all had what Microbacterium leprae, which causes the leprosy patients. "People in rural areas Lumpkin calls "chronic and extensive disease, may be carried by insects. Others, sometimes blow their noses directly onto contact with armadillos," and they all particularly those who have studied the the ground," Meyers says. "Well, M. leprae eventually contracted leprosy. can live in the soil for up to a week, and There are 4,000 leprosy patients in the armadillos do a lot of rooting around in the United States, with a high percentage soil. In other words, we gave it to them, of the indigenous cases (as opposed to and now they're giving it back to us." those brought into the country by For Charles Shepard, chief of the leprosy immigrants) concentrated in southeastern division at the Centers for Disease Control, Louisiana. Texas and In 1974 scientists in Atlanta, the evidence for the armadillo at the Gulf South Research Institute, in New connection is convincing. "When we handle Iberia, Louisiana, found a wild armadillo armadillos in the lab," he says, "we wear who also had the disease. In the next year, protective gowns, masks, caps, and gloves. leprotic seven more armadillos were We even control the air supply." Several captured. Since then, researchers at the years ago the Louisiana State Health Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, in Department issued an armadillo warning, Washington, DC, have examined tissue and authorities in Texas—where the animal samples Irorn more than 1,000 Louisiana is chased, raced, wrestled, and cooked armadillos and found that the rate of leprosy with such enthusiasm that it amounts to a infection in the animals ranged from 4 to rural institution —have recently followed 29.6 percent. suit. As far as Lumpkin is concerned, More evidence for an armadillo-human the warning came not a moment too soon. connection is offered by the Armed Forces 'Anyone," he says, "who has a lot of Institute. "The with the areas highest contact with armadillos in the coastal region number of leprosy cases— Louisiana and of Texas and Louisiana stands a good southeastern Texas —were also the sites of chance of contracting leprosy." the highest incidence of leprosy . infection Shepard agrees. "We've been saying for in wild armadillos," explains Wayne a long time that people should avoid Meyers, of the institute. The armadillo: cute.and contagioi contact with armadillos. "DQ STAR BLAZERS By Ben Bova physicist Gerard K. O'Neill Princeton Centauri, is situated four and one third half a century; they have yet to produce one. predicts that by the middle of miles from the sun. But assuming that a fusion rocket can be the twenty-first century, thousands Translate this distance into time. NASA constructed eventually, it would still take of families will be living in space. Certain launched the Pioneer 10 spacecraft on the ship approximately 50 years to reach its provisions must be made for gravity, zero March 3, 1972. Eleven years later, it crossed destination. and the climate in the colony will have to be the orbit of Neptune to become the first Part of the problem is that nothing in the controlled, but by and large, the pioneers man-made object to leave the outermost universe travels faster than light's 186,000 will conduct their lives much as they did on limit of our solar system. (Pluto, normally the miles per second. By traveling at 90 percent this planet. Colonies will be "close" enough planet farthest from Earth, moved inside the speed of light or better, however, you to Earth to allow for journeys to the mother- Neptune's orbit in 1979 and will remain there can "slow down" time and make trips land now and again. until 1999.) Using the scale on our giant of a thousand light-years in what will appear But what about colonization efforts that map, Pioneer 10 has covered a little more to be only a few years. extend beyond the confines of our solar than inches in 30 just over a decade. No Unfortunately, during these few years in system? Is there a way for us to seed propulsion system exists that is capable of space, thousands of years will have the stars, to people galaxies that are ages driving a starship quickly enough to allow elapsed on Earth. The explorers on such away from our own? human explorers to reach the stars within journeys can never go home again to the A recent advance in medical technol- their lifetimes. world as they knew it. Most likely, star ogy—freezing human embryos in a nitrogen Some years ago, the British Interplanetary voyages will be one-way trips. solution for indefinite periods —may allow Society published Project Daedalus, a On these missions, it would be impossible us to send forth a generation of pioneers study of interstellar flight. This study called to send enough people to populate a who are conceived on Earth, born in space, for an unmanned, one-way probe to new world. And colonization is a risky and raised on stars that are light-years' Barnard's Star, six light-years away. A business, as history has shown us. The from our own planet. hydrogen-fusion rocket would propel the Donner party succumbed to cold and Distance is a primary obstacle to reaching 54,000-ton spacecraft, which would be 20 starvation; the colonists at Jamestown, the stars. On a map where the 93-million- times larger than the Saturn V of the Apollo Virginia, were annihilaied by Indians. Space mile gap between Earth and the sun is program. Scientists have been trying to pilgrims will encounter a whole new set shrunken to one inch, the nearest star, Alpha create a controlled-fusion reactor for almost of physical risks. One solution, it seems, is to send a few dedicated men and women starward, along with a supply of souls on ice. (It would be easier and more economical to send a skeleton crew than to send a group of colonists.) During the flight, a few embryos could be brought to full term in artificial wombs. Men, women, and children, then, would arrive at the destination. Depending on environmental conditions, the amount of supplies available, and prospects for immediate food production, more embryos could be gestated. It's possible that members of this first generation born in space would share a strange nostalgia for Earth, a place they would never have seen and may never visit. A planet-wide cataclysm, natural or man- made, could destroy the entire human race. But spaceflight allows us to detach the fate of the human race from the fate of this planet. Star flight means that we can escape the boundaries of the solar system. On the planets of distant stars, the human race can endure, regardless of any d that might occur on Earth, DO — SAFER ATOMIC POWER BREAHTHRDUEH5 By Dick Yost Maglich, a former MIT and the lightest Bogdan metal. To create an aneutronic of aneutronic energy could also reduce the Rutgers physicist and discoverer reaction, Maglich had to find a way of spread of nuclear arms, since migma of the omega meson and other overcoming the mutual repulsion of the cells are incapable of producing weapons- subatomic particies, is on a promising quest protons and positively charged lithium grade material. And the process produces for a new—and safer—form of nuclear nuclei. His solution was to invent what he no nuclear waste. energy. Dubbed aneutronics, the process calls a migma ceil—a reaction chamber that Pointing out the near total lack of research has similarities to both fission and fusion, it measures two meters by two meters. A into aneutronic fusion and fission, involves the splitting, fissioning, or of collection (or plasma) of positively charged Lawrence Lidsky, an associate director of atomic nuclei with light elements, as in fusion lithium nuclei and protons is injected into MIT's Plasma Fusion Center and editor reactions. But unlike fission and fusion, the migma cell, where a magnetic field of the Journal of Fusion Energy , says, aneutronics produces no neutrons. Acting whips the particles into motion and guides "Nuclear reactions such as the fusion and as subatomic gremlins, neutrons infiltrate them along various patterns that force fission of protons and lithium produce the nucleus of atoms and create the problems protons and lithium molecules to collide either fewer neutrons or none at all. A reactor ranging from radioactive waste to the with one another. The course resembles based on these fuels would be far prefera- threat of reactor meltdowns. a figure eight. At the point at which the ble to existing fission reactors. Neutron-free Until 1974, when Maglich and six intersects, figure Maglich found that the energy is a quintessential example of a colleagues formed United Sciences, in energy ot the particles was enough to high-risk, high-gain area of physics that Princeton, Jersey, New aneutronic energy overcome their mutual repulsion. They might also provide a guarantee that an had been on the back burner of atomic began slamming splitting together, the answer exists. If it does, it can meet the research. Nuclear scientists, spurred by lithium nuclei and releasing energy. original goal of the fusion program military nuclear-weapons research, had Aneutronic energy has a number of universally available, inexhaustible, concentrated on the elusive promises of important advantages over conventional environmentally benign power." cheap, safe energy from fission and fusion. types of nuclear power. Migma cells are Maglich is sure aneutronic power can Maglich decided to experiment with small, easy to mass-produce, and inexpen- meet that goal. "We are starting on the final something besides the neutron chain sive, The low cost would allow communities stage of the migma program, which, we reaction of uranium and began using or even small housing units to become think, will demonstrate by the end of 1987 positively charged protons to split lithium. independent of large power grids. The use that net electric energy can be produced in an aneutronic- energy system," Maglich says. "If this succeeds, and I have no doubt it will, aneutronic energy will be commercially available by 1991." MEW PRODUCTS Some high-tech help is on the way for baseball players who are always running into the outfield fence. The Wall Sensor is a series ot electronic detectors that sound a high-pitched alarm wheneverja player gets too close. Although the noise may not help fielding skills, it's certain to cut down on grand slams. (Available for $800, from Mizuno Corporation, 25 Okawa-cho, Higashi-hu, Osaka, Japan.) Now computer owners can get their revenge with the Bit Banger, a toam-headed mallet designed as a stress-reduction tool for online frustrations, if you can't get your machine to do what you want, give it a few sharp raps and watch the bytes fall into place. (Available for $9.95, from Bits & PC's, 1850 Union Street, number 490, San These diagrams show the basic design for the product i of nonradioactive r.uolcar p-cwei Francisco, CA94123.)DQ 26 OMNI FILM THE ARTS ByBillMoseley If it ^^^ rttiiir C. Clarke never intended to no a priori knowledge of 2001 . doesn't magorically—in holographic form— as Mm^L write a sequel to 2007; A Space work on that level, it won't succeed." mission commander David Bowman. And § \ Odyssey, the novel based To prepare for my infiltration ot the closed Douglas Rain returns as the voice of the on the screenplay he coauihored with set of 20JO, near Los Angeles, I pored heuristically programmed algorithmic Sianley Kubrick in 1968. But eventually he over copies of both odysseys. I wondered computer. Hal 9000. Joining them are Roy put his shoulder to the task and created whether 2010 would turn out to be a Holly- Scheider, as Heywood Floyd; and Bob 2010: Odyssey Two, published in 1982. (See wood exploitation like Jaws /// or a true Balaban, as Dr. Chandra, Hal's creator. Clarke's own account, on page 76, of sequel, wherein the story line is expanded Rounding out the cast are six Russians and how the sequel came to be published.) and enriched, as in Godfather II, I discov- a Czech, emigres all, who needed no Now MGM, who brought you Kubrick's ered that, if anything, there was an effort work on their accents. masterpiece, is gambling $20 million that afoot to separate the sequel from the The story line of 2010 picks up nine director Peter Hyams's screen adaptation of original, partly out of homage to Kubrick years after Bowman ventures forth from the Clarke's novel can pack the theaters with and partly io counter the negative reactions Discovery, is swallowed by the monolith the original fans of "the ultimate trip." as to 2001 , as detected by MGM's market on Io, undergoes a psychedelic tour of well as those moviegoing pups who have - research. Some respondents in that study inner space, and emerges in what appears been weaned on the likes of Darth Vader, had. complained that the original was too io be a hotel suite. There, Bowman's brain Indiana Jones, and a certain extraterrestrial. long and thai it was intellectually intimidating. is picked by an alien force, after which While the stakes are high and the competi- Most of its younger critics had seen 2001 he ultimately metamorphoses into the Star- tion rugged, Hyams might well be playing only on network television, chockablock Child, depicted as a fetus floating in a with a stacked deck. with commercia irteruptions. ils Cineramic placental sac as large as a planet. Consid- What can we expect of 2QJ0; Odyssey glory squashed to fit the small screen, ering the speed with which those events Two, the film? Hyams says: "It's not a 'think Thai is not to say, however, that 2010 will transformed Bowman from human to movie' in the traditional sense. Its vantage have nothing in common with its predeces- Uberkind, nine years might seem an eternity, point is visceral; it's a very emotional story, sor. Johann Strauss's Also Sprach but that's how long it takes the Earthlings told emotionally. It's a hot movie as Zarathustra will once again lend its majesty to prepare for a second voyage to Jupiter. opposed to a cool movie. For the film to to the opening and final sequences; Keir Although Hyams refused to reveal the succeed it has to work for ihose who have Dullea will reprise his role, albeit phantas- plot of his screenplay, we know from the novel that both the Russians and the Americans are engaged in a race to reach the Discovery and its data banks, which are brimming with invaluable information about the mysterious monolith. The Russian ship, the Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. is standing by for the voyage, but space law prevents the cosmonauts from boarding the Discovery, still legally American territory. The Americans, meanwhile, are three years from completing Discovery II, which means that they will miss the next launch window to Jupiter, thus losing the race to the Russians. Overriding the competition is the reality that the parking orbit in which Bowman left his ship is steadily decaying. I he solution, taking a page from the Apollo-Soyuz mission, is a joint Russian- American venture aboard the Leonov. While some scenes were shot on location, 9.0 percent of 2010 was filmed in two hulking sound stages on the MGM/UA lot in Culver City, California. Stage 15, the largest sound stage in the Western world (the Russians apparently have a bigger one), The derelict spaceship Discovery spins end housed most of the interiors of the Leonov, 28 OMNI . while Stage 30 held the interiors and showing a moon-slu.i-.lle light attendant steal-lrame car oullec by winches along a exteriors of the Discovery, as well as the laboring up the ship's aisk; :n gripper shoes, rail 40 feet above the soundstage floor. Leonov's pod bay. The interiors of Dolphin and again when Gary Lockwood jogged The. car's steering wheel controlled the House, Dr. Floyd's Earth residence. up the spinning drum ol the Discovery's rotation of a crossbar below it, to which the complete with dolphins, were constructed centriuge. Kubrck so convinced the wires suspending the actors were over a 285,525-gallon tank used previously audience of zero g that we overlooked a attached. This enabled the driver to spin in Jaws. Before he would allow his pets few glaring inconsistencies. On the moon the actors as they moved. Although no into the tank "for the Dolphin House shoot, a shuttle, when Floyd sipped his drink, how effort was spared to ensure that this effect "cetacean physician" from Marineland many ot us noticed that the liquid wenl was as comfortable as possible, the demanded plastic bubbles over the raised back down the straw? spacewalkers were required to hang upside camera ports to protect his animals, and While Kubrick fooled us, Hyams was down like bafs for the duration of the takes. 25 tons of salt added lo the water. taking no chances with an audience 14 years "We have to convince the audience The first thing that struck me as I walked wiser. In the spacowalKng sequences of that what they're looking at is real. Unfortu- onto Stage 15 was the smoke. The vast 2010, helium bal oons were al:ached lo the nately, the better wo go: al wnal we do, interior of the building in a astronauts' lifelines hung haze to counteract the the better they get at criticiiirc whai I hey of voodoo juice, a special- effects liquid natural sag. Brenner made sure that there see. The Houdim principle applies here: We smoke that is heated and vaporized in was no guard rail along the raised walkway knew that we could fool ninety percent of hand-held loggers and wafted throughout of the Leonov's steep ppd bay. In fact, the people and that the ten percent we the set by fans. Although noncarcinogenic. the entire set oi that pod bay was stretched couldn't fool could never convince the ninety the smoke does produce side effects: by steel cables between winches.and percent thai they were "coied. We're trying Some crew members, I was told, developed iron brackets in the soundstage walls to to stretch that ninety into one hundred skin irritations; others got the runs. Hyams make the bridge extend: rig f-om the Leonov percent," Thus spake Oscar-winning ordered the voodoo juice to suggest a to the Discovery appear as though it were Richard Edlund, whose Boss Film Corpora- murky, layered look befitting free-floating the recycled in space. But these touches tion- Entertainmen I Effects Group (EEG) atmosphere of the Leonov. created the optical illusions lor 2010. And Production designer Al Brenner look an who can dpubt the man who once headed impish delight in walking me around the Industrial Light & Magic, the company interiors ot the Leonov and Discovery, George Lucas founded to do the eifects for Working Irom skjtcnes he had developed his Star Wars movies? 4/ demand every in conjunction with Syd Mead, of Blade Bringing the Star-Child to life was one of Runner fame, as well as from photographs sprocket hole, every single EEC's greatest challenges, "it's such a of the interiors of the Mercury and Apollo mammoth problem :c element must coats a human- space capsules, Brenner fashioned the looking thing." remarked Edlund. This decks and bays of the Leonov from objects have a Polaroid taken of sentiment was echoed by some of the 38 he picked up at hardware stores. * people working on the pr* loam-rubber , it. They were The floors were made ol industrial freezer skins of the superbaby in the EEG mpnster given a set of plans and pallets. The vacuum-formed plastic walls shep. The real task. :hcugh. was not so were studded with garbage disposals, told they could much creating a believable- coking Star- paper-towel-dispenser lids, auto battery Child as perfecting the mechanisms not deviate one millimeter.^ casings, covers for lawn-mower engines, old controlling the puckering of its rnoulh, the telephones, and even a kiddie pool. Every- blinking of its eyelids, and the 'oiling and fhing was then painted gray to capture converging of its eyes. Brenner's "das spaceship" look and covered Relations between the special-effects with Russian graphics describing each team and Hyams got a bit testy at times, object's imaginary function. On closer were mere child's play compared io the usually over croa-ivo c lloionces. Said : inspection, however, the wording over the simulation ol human wordlessness. Hyams o EEG: "They are not used to being of of "Tan door one the Leonov's space pods When David Bow entered Hal's so closely scrutinized. I demand that every read, in English: if the red light above this weightless core in 2001 Kjbrax lu-neu the single sprocke' ho ! e every single element PANEL IS ON, THE TOILET IS IN USE. WHEN THE set on its side and lowered Keif Dullea in must have a Polaroid taken of it and that LIGHT IS ILLUMINATED, GREEN YOU MAY ENTER. by means of a cable attached to his back. i must look at those photos" and check the Brenner confessed that he had appropri- Hyams went Kubrick one- better when lighting. Every model that was built for ated this zero-g toilet-instruction sheet from Bob Balaban was called upon to enter the this film was originally a drawing given to the few artifacts remaining irom 200) same nerve center. The prop builders EEG to fill Put and interpret. They were Incredibly enough, nearly all of the models, molded a fiberglass cast of Balaban's chest, given a set of plans and told that they could sketches, and blueprints used in the movie then secured it to the end of a 40-foot not'deviate one millimeter. After all, these were either lost or destroyed after the pole mounted on a truck nicknamed the are characters in my movie." Spoken like a film was completed at MGM's Lpncton war wagon. Once Balaban was hoisted onto true auteur, and indeed, Hyams is listed studios. Thus, most of the elements of the the cast, his space suit was slipped on, in the credits of 2010 as producer, director, Discovery used in the sequel had to be giving him the appearance, as he dangled screenwriter, and director of photography. re-created tram blowups of actual film in the air, of a hot dog on a stick. The war Hyams ooints out, however, that in the of distorted frames 200 1, which were by . wagon was then rolled forward, inserling the movies of Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, and Kubrick's wide-screen lensing. actor into the set, and angled in such a Ridley Scott, "you sense a hand, not a lot of Great care was taken to make 2010 as way thai the pole was directly behind him hands." Edlund downplays the tensions scientifically accurate as possible, except and therefore invisible to the camera. as routine, but they do indicate the growing when the science conflicted with the For the spacewalking sequences,flying power and importance of the special- moviemaking. The models of lo, Europa, expert Bob Harmon, whose credits include effects trade in the Hollywood hierarchy, and Jupiter were fashioned from the Superman movies, Alien, and the vine especially considering its contributions to photographs taken by the Voyager space work |n Greystofa. designed the rigging from the top-grossing movies of all time. While probe. But sticking to science also meant which the actors and their stunt doubles sparks are bound to fly when two creative having to wrestle with the most demanding hung like interste lar ma'onotles. The powers collaborate or collide, says Hyams: problem of the production: weightlessness. spacewalkers' forward and lateral motions "II you want lo win the race, you have to Kubrick established zero gravity by were ccntrplled by the "dog house," a have big, strong. horses. "CO 32 OMNI BOOKS THE ARTS By Ben Bova This has been a banner year for much deeper, roaming through our solar sun for months and bring global tempera- books about science and scientisls. system, our Milky Way galaxy, and even tures below freezing. Crops would freeze, There are good books for every peering at distant pinwheel galaxies of stars. and all animal species— including man- taste and interest, and tops on any gift Volcanoes on another world, fields of could die out before the sun shines on list are two knockoul picture books that bring stars scattered across the black void Earth's surface again. the wonders and beauties ot space to of space as thickly as grains of sand on a Weapons and Hope, by Freeman Dyson every enthusiasf. beach, the extraordinary and multicolored (Harper & Row), offers a more encouraging Entering Space: An Astronaut's Odyssey, beauty of Jupiter and Saturn, the intricate view. Dyson, a professor of physics at the by Joseph R Allen with Russell Martin lacework of the Andromeda galaxy's spiral Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, {Stewart, Tabori & Chang), contains 200 arms— it's all there to behold in Ferris's New Jersey, believes the human race full-color plates that take one's breath latest masterwork. will survive the threat of nuclear annihilation. away. Astronaut Alien, who made his first Meanwhile, back on Earth, the human "Tragedy is not our business," Dyson flight into space in 1982 aboard the space race is becoming increasingly worried says. After examining the arms race, the shuttle Columbia, tells his own exceptional about nuclear war—and justly so. Two very antiballistic-missile problem, and the possi- story, which is accompanied by startling different books deal with two very different bilities of a star-wars type of space-based photographs taken from the shuttle. aspects of this terror. defense agams: nuclear missiles, he Seeing our world from space, watching The Cold and the Dark: The World Alter concludes, "The real future, if we are wise, astronauts working against the of War, Paul backdrop Nuclear by R. Ehrlich. Carl will probably lie somewhere . . . between our lovely blue and white-clouded planet, Sagan. Donald Kennedy, and Walter Orr the arms controllers' and the defense- rival can the pleasure of looking at some of Roberts (W. W. Norton), describes the dominated extremes. If we are unwise, the the world's finest paintings. nuclear winter that may kill all life on Earth. technical-follies future is there, waiting Spaceshots, by Timothy Ferris (Pantheon Basing their ideas partially on studies of for us to stumble into it." Books), takes our delighted eyes much the planet-wide dust storms that rack Mars But enough about the possible end of farther into the mysterious, mesmerizing periodically, the authors show that if the world. universe. Whereas Entering Space deals enough hydrogen bombs are exploded, The Coevolution ot Climate and Life, by mainly with the work that astronauts have the dust and soot raised from the explosions Stephen H. Schneider and Randi Londer done near the earth, Spaceshols goes and the resulting fires could blot out the (Sierra Club Books), is a gem that makes a point we often tend to overlook: The air we breathe has helped to shape the creatures we are. More than that, living creatures have helped to create the earth's atmosphere, changing it over the eons from a noxious mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen to today's oxygen-rich air. But living creatures— particularly we human ones— are loading the air with chemicals and pollutants that are decidedly harmful to life on this planet. The Coevolution of Climate and Life. however, is more than a finger-pointing environmentalist lecture. Schneider and Londer have written a meaty, fascinating book about the interrelationships between those of us who breathe and the stuff that we are breathing. And then there are computer books. Thousands of how-to computer books are now flooding the market, and 1985 will undoubtedly be the year of the great fallout among such titles. But this year has produced a trio of books about computers that bear serious reading. The Second Self: Computers and the CONTINUED ON PAGE 166 % me Season to beJolly. ' You'd better nol poul. You'd belter r or VK films can lurn L K^ivcM^KroiifeiTTTiieuls like these into r i. They're the sharpest, brightest, mosl dazzling print liltns Kodak has ev lor Christmas magic that lasts m all year long. ^Because time (joes m SNAKES AND PSYCHE EXPLDRATIDfUS By Edward O. Wilson grew up in the panhandle of northern their prey. You can't just go out on a stroll head the size of a fist. It was the largest Florida and the adjacent counties of and point to one snake after another. But I snake I had ever seen in the wild. I later I Alabama, in circumstances that eventually can testify from personal experience that calculated it to be just under the published turned me into a field biologist. Like most on any given day you are ten times more size record for the species The snake boys in that part of the country set loose to likely to meet a snake in Florida than in Brazil now lay quietly in the shallow, clear water roam the woods, I enjoyed hunting and or New Guinea. completely open to view, its body stretched fishing and. made no clear distinction I found my serpent on a still July morning along the fringing weeds, its head pointed between these activities and life at large. in a swamp, while working toward higher back at an oblique angle to watch my But I also cherished natural history for ground along the course of a weed-choked approach. Moccasins are like that. They its own sake and decided very early to stream. Without warning, a very large don't always keep going until they are become a biologist. I had a secret ambition snake crashed away from under my feet out of sight, in the manner of ordinary water to find a real serpent, a snake so fabulously and plunged into the water. Its movement snakes. Although no emotion can be read large or otherwise different that it would startled me even more than it would have in in the frozen half-smile and staring yellow exceed the bounds of imagination. other circumstances, because I had grown cat's eyes, their reactions and posture Certain peculiarities in the environment accustomed through the day to modestly make them seem insolent, as if they see encouraged this adolescent fantasy. That proportioned frogs and turtles silently their power reflected in the caution of part of the country had been covered, four tensed on mudbanks and logs. This snake human beings and other sizable enemies. generations back, by a wilderness as was more nearly my size, as well as violent I moved through the snake handler's formidable in some respects as the Amazon. and noisy—a colleague, so to speak. routine: pressed the snake stick across the The Gulf Coast has a greater variety and It sped with wide body undulations to the body in back of the head, rolled it forward a denser population of snakes than almost center of the shallow watercourse and to pin the head securely, brought one hand any other place in the world, and they came to rest on a sandy riffle. It was not around to grasp the neck just behind the are frequently seen. quite the monster 1 had envisioned but swelling masseteric muscles, dropped the Of course limits to the abundance and nevertheless unusual, a water moccasin stick to seize the body midway back with diversity exist. Because snakes feed on (Agkistrodon piscivorus), one of the the other hand, and lifted the entire animal frogs, mice, fish, and other animals of similar poisonous pit vipers, more than five feet clear of the water. The technique almost size, they are necessarily scarcer than long with a body as thick as my arm and a always works. The moccasin, however, reacted in a way that took me by surprise and put my life in immediate danger. Throwing its heavy body into convulsions, it twisted its head and neck slightly forward through my gripped fingers, stretched its mouth wide open to unfold the inch-long fangs and expose the dead-white inner lining in the intimidating cottonmouth display. A fetid musk from its anal glands filled the air. At that moment the morning heat became more noticeable, the episode turned manifestly frivolous, and I wondered why I should be in that place alone. Who would find me? The snake began to turn its head far enough to clamp its jaws on my hand. I was not very strong for my age, and I was losing control. Without thinking I heaved the giant into the brush, and it thrashed frantically away, this time until it was out of sight and we were rid of each other. I . sat down and let the adrenaline race my heart and bring tremors to my hand. How could I have been so stupid? What is there in snakes anyway that makes them so repellent and fascinating? The answer in retrospect is deceptively simple: their — —' ability lo remain hidden, the power in their In the chaste idiom of scientific discourse, screamed and collapsed to the ground sinuous limbless bodies, and Ihe threat we are permitted tc conclude only that sobbing. Her husband dashed to his pickup from venom injected hypodermically through the evidence is consistent with the proposal. truck to get a sholgun. But black racers sharp, hollow teeth. II pays in elementary Neither this nor any comparable hypothe- are among the "astest snakes in the world, survival in to be interested snakes and sis can be settled by a single case. and this one made it safely to cover. The to respond emotionally to their generalized Another line of evidence comes from onlookers probably did not know that image, lo go beyond ordinary caution studies of Ihe chimpanzee, a species the species is harmless to any creature and fear. The" rule built into the brain in the thought to have shared a common ancestor larger than a cotton-rat. form of a learning bias is: Become alert with prehumans as recently as 5 million Halfway around the world, at the village quickly to any object with the serpentine years ago. raised in Chimps the. laboratory of Ebabaang, in Mew Guinea, I heard gestalt. Over/earn this particular response become apprehensive in Ihe presence shouting and saw people running down a in order to keep safe. of snakes, if even . they have had no previous path When I caught up with them they Other primates have evolved similar experience. They back off to a safe had formed a circle around a small brown rules. When guenons and vervets, the distance and follow the intruder with a fixed snake that was siitnonrg leisurely across common monkeys of Ihe African forest, stare while alerting see companions with the the front yard of a house. I pinned the a python, cobra, or puif adder, they emit Wah! warning call. More important, the snake and carried it off to be preserved in a distinctive chuttering call lhat rouses response becomes gradually more marked alcohol for the museum collections at other members in the group. The monkeys during adolescence. Harvard. This seeming act of daring earned in effect broadcast a dangerous-snake This last quality is especially interesting either the admiration or Ihe suspicion of alert, which serves to protect the entire .beings because human pass through my hosts— I couldn't be sure which, The group and not solely the individual who approximately the same developmental next day children followed me around encountered the danger. The most remark- sequence. Children under five years of age as I gathered insects in the nearby forest. able fact is that the serpent alarm is feel no special anxiety over snakes, but One brought me an immense, orb-weaving evoked most strongly by the kinds of snakes later they grow increasingly wary. Just one spider gripped in his fingers, its hairy that can harm them. legs waving and the evil-looking black fangs The idea that snake aversion on the part working up and down. I felt panicky and of man's relatives can' be an inborn trait sick. It so happens that I suffer from mild is supported by other studies on rhesus arachnophobia. To each his own. macaques, the large brown monkeys Why should serpents have such a strong ^Throwing its of India and surrounding Asian countries. heavy influence during mental development? When adults see a snake of any kind, body into convulsions, the snake The direct and simple answer is that they react with the generalized fear response throughout history a few kinds have been a twisted its head of their species. They variously back off major cause of sickness and death. Every and stare (or turn away), crouch, shield their and neck through my gripped continent except Antarc:ica nas poisonous faces, bark, screech, twist and their faces ' snakes. Over large stretches of Asia and . fingers and into the fear grimace, in which the lips Africa the known death rate from snake stretched its mouth wide open are retracted,' the teeth are bared, and the bite is five persons per 100,000 each year, ears are flattened against the head. to unfold or higher. The local record is held by a Monkeys raised in the laboratory without province in Burma, with the deadly inch-long tangs3 36.8 deaths per previous exposure to snakes show the 100,000 a year. The number of people same response—although in weaker form bitten in such improbable places as Swit- as those brought in from the wild. During zerland and Finland is still high enough, control experiments designed to test Ihe running into the hundreds annually, to keep specificity of the response, the rhesus outdoorsmen on a sort of yellow alert. monkeys failed to react to other, nonsinuous or two mildly bac yxpe.-iences, such as a For hundreds of thousands of years, time objects placed in their cages. garter snake seen writhing away in the enough for the appropriate genetic Grant for the moment that snake aversion grass, a playmate thrusting a rubber model changes to have occurred in the brain, does have a hereditary basis in at least at them, or a counselor telling scary stories poisonous .snakes have been a significant some kinds of nonhuman primates. The at the carnpfire, can make children deeply source of injury and death to human possibility that immediately follows is that and permanently fearful. Other common beings. We need not turn to Freudian theory the trait evolved by natural selection. In fears, notably of the dark, strangers, and in order to explain our special relationship other words, individuals who respond leave loud noises, start to wane after seven years to snakes. The serpent did not originate more offspring than those who do not, of age. In contrast, the tendency to avoid as the vehicle of dreams and symbols. The and as a result the propensity to learn fear snakes grows stronger with time. It is relation appears to be precisely the other quickly spreads through Ihe population possible to turn the mind in the opposite way around. Humanity's concrete experi- or, if it was already presenl, is maintained direction, to learn to handle snakes without ence with poisonous snakes gave rise thereat a high level. apprehension or even lo like them in some to the Freudian phenomena after it was biologists How can test such a proposition special way, as I did. Bui the adaptation assimilated by genetic evolution into the about the origin of behavior? They search takes a special effort and is usually a little brain's structure. The mind has to create for species historically free of forces in forced and self-conscious. The special symbols and fantasies from something. It the environment believed to favor the sensitivity will just as likely lead to full- leans toward the most powerful preexistent evolutionary change, to see if in fact the blown ophidiophobia, the pathological images or at least follows the learning organisms do nor possess the trait. The extreme in which the mere appearance of rules that create the images, including lhat lemurs, primitive relatives of the monkeys, a snake brings on a feeling of panic, cold of the serpent. For most of this century, offer inverted opportunity. such an They sweat, and waves of nausea. I have perhaps overly enchanted by psychoanal- are indigenous inhabitants of Madagascar, witnessed these events: ysis, we have contused the dream with where no large or poisonous snakes exist At a campsite in Alabama, on a Sunday the reality and its psychic eflect wilh the to threaten them. Sure enough, lemurs afternoon, a four-foot-long black racer ultimate cause rooted in naturo.OQ in captivity, when presented with snakes, glided out from Ihe woods, across the tail to display anything resembling the clearing, for and headed the high grass Reprinted with permission trom Biophilia, by automatic fear responses of the African along a nearby stream. Children shouted Edward O. Wilson. Copyright & 1984, by and Asian monkeys. Is this adequate "proof? and pointed. A middle-aged woman Harvard University Press. 40 OMNI QUASAR'S ENGINES By Terence Dickinson Since their discovery in 1963, Canada swinging from his ankles. quasar. Consuming matter at this rate quasars have remained one of For all their power, though, black holes would eventually inflate the mass of the astronomy's supreme enigmas. are relatively small compared with other black hole to millions—and possibly The most baffling of all their characteristics cosmic objects. It the earth were condensed billions—of times that of the sun. According is that a typical quasar's radiation surges to a black hole, it would be approximately to Rees's calculations, a one-billion-solar- from a compact region iarge enough for the size of a hazelnut. mass black hole would be small, about the only a few dozen stars; yet a typical quasar Cambridge University's Martin Rees was diameter of Pluto's orbit. generates the energies of tens or even one of the first astronomers to promote This is a tremendously significant finding, hundreds of galaxies. the idea that large black holes are the as astronomers now estimate there are The quasar is a starlike object— its name engines that drive quasars. "Black holes well over 600 of these mysterious, super- is a contraction of quasi-stellar— hut its are one hundred times more efficient at bright sky objects. Astronomers and astro- prodigious energy output places it in a class producing energy than the thermonuclear physicists have suspected for more than all its own. Now new evidence strongly burning at the core ot a star like our sun," 20 years that black holes were the engines suggests that the engine that drives these he explains. that power the quasars. Until recently, titanic fountains of radiation may be nature's Long before matter sucked into the hole however, the model scientists postulated ultimate force: the black hole. reaches the point of no return, suggests involved no galaxies, just a disc of intensely Black holes are gravity whirlpools that Rees, the monstrous gravitational field hot gas that collected around the edge of can swallow a beam of light, stop time, and accelerates it to nearly the speed of light, a black hole. This is the first time a cosmic curve space. An object that falls into a generating an enormous amount of energy. collision between galaxies has been sug- black hole is forever removed from our This energy is eventually released as gested as the source of black-hole power. universe. The hole absorbs any intruder and radiation before the doomed matter reaches One of the most important pieces of adds the intruder's mass to its own. the maw of the black hole. evidence supporting Rees's scenario has Close to the "edge" of a black hole, the Feeding a giant black hole one star— or been gathered by astronomer John Hutch- gravitational force would be so strong its equivalent in dust and gas— every ings, of the Dominion Astrophysical that it would be roughly equivalent to year would form a blazing, doughnutlike Observatory, in Victoria, British Columbia. that experienced by someone hanging whirlpool around the hole that could churn Using Hawaii's fvlauna Kea Observatory, an from a bridge with half the population of out enough energy to equal that of a international facility, Hutchings has closely examined 80 quasars, which until recently had been seen as mere shimmering dots through most other telescopes. The clear air above the summit of Mauna Kea has allowed Hutchings to distinguish the zone immediately around the quasar from the light ol the quasar itself. Concen- trated around the heart of the quasar, Hutchings has found what he calls fuzz. His delicate examination has shown that the fuzz is the light of billions of stars similar to those found in normal galaxies. "The evidence points to quasars being hyperac- tive nuclei of galaxies," he reports. In recent months, Hutchings's research has revealed that some quasars are formed from two colliding galaxies. "The gas from one is stripped away and tunneled to the center of the other to fuel the quasar engine." Hutchings speculates that during such collisions a galaxy can become a quasar. And since astronomers are almost certain that all galaxies have black holes at their centers, these collisions could become "feeding time" for galactic black holes lurking in every galaxy.OQ — coruTiruuunn SEX ON THE COUNTER The white-coated scientist stares gravely at the numbers verse, and the signal must be jiggled, played with, and optimized emerging from the clacking radioactivity counter. So ab- until meaningful data can be tuned in. Many experiments "don't sorbed in the data that he scarcely notices his nubile as- work" unless precisely correct decisions have been made at every sistant, he pronounces in a voice entirely devoid of emotion; "Well, single choice point (100 cells or 1,000 cells? 10 minutes or 30 Ms. Jones, I think we may have discovered something here." minutes?) If just one step out of 63 is performed incorrectly, the For some reason, people find this stereotype of a scientist— the numbers flowing out of the counter can be totally meaningless. passionless, purely logical being —to be comforting. But it is a lie. To believe in an idea with no hard evidence for it goes against Scientists are as emotional as most people, perhaps more so. Of our notions about science, Yet that kind of strongly held, irrational course, these fellow human beings have the usual mood swings; attachment to an idea be/ore it has been proved correct provides like any other humans, they will grow angry or blissful with the the driving energy to stay with it. Almost the same experiment same colleagues on different days. As beings on the planet, sci- with just one or two things varied —must be repeated day after entists display the usual neurapeptidergic biorhythms that some- day to find the magic combination of variables to make it "work." how create our moods. Okay, but on top of this, it is not unusual Passion for the idea keeps the scientist going until that unforget- for them to become so emotionally involved with their work that table moment when reality crystallizes out of fantasy. The transition their moods are affected by it. can be sudden—a column of numbers gushing from a counter or Sexual arousal often accompanies the ecstasy that occurs when a colorful image of receptors in a living baboon brain lighting up delicious results come off the radioactivity counter. As one bach- a screen. "That rush is the ultimate," says one chemist who has elor-scientist joked, "Nothing beats sex on the counter, especially seen more than one of his passionate scientific ideas borne out when the data are good." But if the highs are high, the lows can eventually by hard evidence. be a drag. "Never look at data [new results] on a Friday night," The great scientists are madly in love with their own ideas long warns this same researcher. "It can spoil your weekend." Some- before they have been proved and even before the methods for times the coldly "rational" scientist begins to get crazy. How many testing them have been developed. If an experiment doesn't work, flourishing love affairs have been wrecked when a scientist's ex- the idea behind it could be wrong (God forbid!), or something periments have stopped "working"? could be wrong in the fine tuning so that there is "failure to find" Shouldn't every experiment be designed with dispassionate proof for the hypothesis. The great scientists are the ones so madly calmness? No! Real science—science at the forefront, where in- in love with their wild ideas that they will continue to fiddle with the tuition meets reality— is a wildly passionate affair. Experiments either variables in their experiments, in hopes of detecting positive evi- work or they don't work. Whoever said that every experiment should dence for their ideas, long after others have given up and gone be designed to get an answer regardless of whether it supports after meat-and-potatoes projects. the scientist's working hypothesis was a liar— or worse, a very No one can change the nature of the real universe by sheer boring scientist. II is indeed ironic that science draws upon a group force of will. If an idea is wrong, 100 consecutive days of experi- composed (predominantly) of men who pride themselves on the ments will never be able to prove it right. A correct idea can remain ability to suppress, or even deny, an emotional involvement with unproved, however, even after 100 attempts. The great scientists expected experimental results. try to prove only those ideas that they are madly in love with, since The truth is that all scientific discovery begins purely in the realm the work is so difficult and tedious. Are scientists emotional? Yes. of imagination, where daydreams and fantasies hold sway. No sci- The good ones are.—CANDACE PERT entist, no matter how brilliant or technically skilled, is able to im- mediately translate a pure idea from the mental realm into a real- Candace Perl, a neuropharmacology, is chief of the section on brain world experiment that logically and conclusively proves the idea biochemistry at the National Institute of Mental Health, in Bethesda, is right. Experiments are a window on the real world of the uni- Maryland. She is writing here, however, in an unolticial capacity. " CDruTinjuunn ROBOT HEALTH ance industry, and we INSURANCE couldn't get full coverage." Tuliy solved the problem A sure sign that the Age of by forming a subsidiary to Automation is advancing: his firm. Robotic Mobilization For the first time, owners of Insurance Group, which, in industrial robots can insure coordination with several the brain as well as the brawn insurance companies, now of their intelligent machines. underwriles policies for Until recently, insurance personal robots. companies had treated the What's next? Maybe a control computer, or "brain," suicide clause. Denning Mo- of the robot separately from bile Robotics Inc., of Woburn, its purely mechanical parts. Massachusetts, will soon But now an Illinois-based begin manufacturing roving Dwarfism is believed to be caused by a defective collagen gene; group of insurance underwrit- robot guards for prisons. efforts are under way to develop a prenatal test for the conditio;-; ers has extended full cover- Besides patrolling prison cor- age to the whole robot. ridors with its infrared and DWARF GENE clone remained unbound, "It's a little bit like health ultrasonic sensors, a special thus proving the dwarf's insurance," explains Forrest version of the robot, Geneiic engineering has gene to be mutated, with a Paddock, boiler and machin- equipped with a television uncovered the submicro- large part of it missing. ery underwriting officer for camera, could be sent on a scopic gene mutation re- "We will now try to develop the Kemper Group, of Long suicide mission during prison sponsible for achondroplasia, a prenatal test to diagnose Grove. "We replace the riots. "If prison officials wani the most common form of a lethal form of this disease, sick parts." to throw away thirty thousand dwarfism. Researchers Strom says, "which often Owners of personal robots dollars to find out what's Charles Strom and William occurs in babies if both par- have also faced difficulties going on, they might send in Upholt, of the University ents are achondroplasts." in obtaining insurance, attests a robot," says Ben Welling- of Chicago Medical Center, Further in the future, Strom Gene Tuliy, of the Robotic ton, marketing vice president actually engineered the says, infant dwarfs could People Corporation, which for Denning. "But the life discovery. be implanted with healthy demonstrates robots in expectancy would fail from Achondroplasia, which type II collagen genes, thus shopping malls. "We're lo- years to a matter of minutes." affects 10,000 American spurring normal growih. cated in Hartford, Connecti- —Rob MacGregor and dwarfs, occurs when the "Certain problems have to be cut, the capital of the insur- Trish Janeshutz body produces too little car- overcome," he cautions, tilage, a tissue vital lor nor- "before this type of gene mal bone growih. Strom and therapy ever gets off the Upholt had suspected the ground."— Eric Mishara genetic cause of the condition to be a possible mutation of "Without lies humanity would the type II collagen gene, perish of despair and bore- " which plays a crucial role in dom. cartilage production. Follow- —Anatole France ing up on their hunch, they created a radioactive clone of "Dragging out life to the last a healthy fype II collagen possible second isn't living to gene, then combined this the best effect." clone with the type II collagen —H, G. Wells gene of a dwarf. Once the clone and the dwarf's gene "Where the telescope ends, intertwined into a natural the microscope begins. genetic (or DNA) sequence, Which of the two has the Sick robol: Until recently, it was impossible for the average industrial radioactive emissions re- grander view?" robot to obtain insurance for his brain as well as his brawn. vealed that a large part of the —Victor Hugo 48 OMNI NEW BEAR A MURDER Pynoos soon discovered the IN THE FAMILY problem was widespread, Daniel Taylor-lde, director and they requested referrals of the Woodlands Institute, in Each year in the United from public agencies of Spruce Knob, West Virginia, States, several thousand other children who had wil- will spend his winter in Ne- children are helpless wit- nessed such murders. The pal's remote Barun Valley, nesses to the murder of one psychiatrists counseled trying to gather conclusive of their parents. Unfortu- and evaluated 45 Los Ange- proof that he has indeed nately, prompt attention to les-area children, ranging discovered a brand-new their psychological and in age from three to eighteen. species of bear. emotional needs is the ex- In some cases, they began His shy quarry is an elusive ception rather than the rule. their work with the child little fellow that builds deli- Spencer Eth and Robert within hours after the murder. cate nests from three to Pynoos. assistant professors Thirty percent of the children 50 leet up in the oaks that of psychiatry at USC and had seen one parent kill grow in the Makalu foothills, UCLA, respectively, report the the other. 20 miles east of Kathmandu. trauma experienced by Predictably, Eth and Py- The new bear, if such it is, merely a deviant raccoon.) these children is immediate, noos found that most of weighs about 150 pounds Taylor-lde doubts his bear intense, and often long these children did poorly in and is formally called Ursus is a dwarf Himalayan, one lasting. "The children we've school and became anxious. nepalensis. stunted by the nutritional seen are very much like In addilion, a number be- For years, natives in the shortcomings of the Barun Vietnam veterans who are came depressed, and some Himalayan villages of Shak- Valley, where droughts, shell-shocked after seeing a will become violent later in shila and Hatia have com- landslides, and floods have buddy killed on the battle- life, they believe. Among their plained to Taylor-lde and oth- reduced the menu to leeches field. But they are being other findings; ers that their ancient muzzle- when it rains and ticks when neglected," says Eth. • Children are not likely to loaders couldn't keep ma- it doesn't. He thinks that The pair began their study receive much help from other rauding bands of these little comparative anatomical in 1980 after a child who family members, who are bears out of their cornfields. studies will prove that "what had witnessed a parent's usually too busy dealing with They even furnished skulls we have here is not a freak, or murder was referred to Eth their own emotions. and paws to prove it. an aberrant, one-of-a-kind for treatment. He was aston- • Many youngsters said they Hunters from the royal bear. We have two separate ished that the child had felt guilty that they didn't palace at Kathmandu have species sharing the same gone lor months without psy- do more at the time to prevent also bagged a few, says environment." chological help Eth and the murder, although they Taylor-lde, the son of medical What he doesn't know, missionaries in India. Taylor- even after a trip last year, is lde will be joined on his much about the bears' diet, expedition by John Craig- hibernation, migration, total head, arguably the world's population, or even how leading bear expert. much of their leisure time They are convinced that these bears spend in the theirs is a new bear, not just a treetops. One other mystery distant cousin of the ill- remains to be cleared up: tempered Himalayan black It seems that Ursus nepalen- bear, which is much larger, sis leaves distinctly horn i no id though he has the same tracks in the snow, which black fur and white chest. If may finally solve the riddle of they are right, Ursus nepa- the yeti, or abominable lensis will be the first new snowman.—GeorgeNobbe bear since the discovery of \ the Kodiak in the 1890s. "Learn from a dog, not Irom a (Most ursinologists now dis- Every year, thousands o! children witness the murder of one of their miss the giant panda as —Bulgarian saying parents; 30 percent see one parent kill the other — " — conrnruuurui probably could have done lit- of coronary deaths are due tle to change events. to this enzyme," says Olster, a • Some children fear retalia- Bridgeport cardiologist. tion, worrying that they His colleague Ross is profes- may become the murderer's sor of biology at nearby next victim. Fairfield University. Eth blames the structure of Homogenization, which the judicial system for not Olster and Ross decry, providing routine mental- reduces the size of fat parti- health care to child witnesses cles in milk (so cream can't of murders and other violent rise to the top of the con- crimes. "Kids fall between the tainer), but, they claim, it also cracks of the system," he renders XO capable of says. "The system is con- passing through the stomach structed to apprehend the wall and into the blood- suspect. Police interrogate a stream. The researchers state child, but their interest does that XO then attacks the not go beyond collecting cell membrane that lines ar- evidence. A suspect in a tery walls, making arteries murder case is much more susceptible to cholesterol Conventional hologram (above) is a three-dimensional image ol the likely to get psychiatric care buildup and arteriosclerosis body; now there's a hologram ol the inside ol the body. than a child witness is. (hardening of the arteries). "Immediate psychological Deaths linked to arterio- BODY HOLOGRAMS and nuclear magnetic reso- attention can't undo what's sclerosis are highest in nance (NMR) machines: been done, but it can mini- the United States and Finland, Radiolmager, the newest "Radio waves are safer than mize potentially serious where virtually all milk is member of a growing family X rays because they bounce consequences for the child," homogenized. They claim to of medical imaging devices, off tissue, depositing much he explains.—Joel Schwarz have discovered the largest uses safe, cheap radio less energy in the body." blood concentrations of XO waves, rather than X rays, to The patient stands or lies "7b these elementary laws in heavy milk drinkers and scan the human body in the six-foot machine and is there leads no logical path, have identified XO in hard- and yields holographic pic- exposed to brief bursts of but only Intuition, supported ened arteries from autopsies. tures for diagnosis. coherent radio waves. As they by being sympathetically But many researchers With athree-dimensional, bounce off the body, the in touch with experience." dismiss the Oster-Ross the- head-to-foot portrait of a waves are picked up by an- —Albert Einstein ory as pure bunk. "Their patient, doctors can scan and tennas lining the shell. After methodology is faulty, and diagnose spinal, cranial, processing these signals, the KILLER MILK the conclusions are not dental, or obstetric problems computer generates an up- based on the data," says more quickly and cheaply. to-the-moment image of Homogenized milk should Andrew Clifford, professor in Radiolmager uses coherent the patient's body. display a health warning the nutrition department at radio waves, propagated in Besides being three- like those on cigarette packs, the University of California at phase like the light waves dimensional, the resulting insist Connecticut research- Davis. Clifford, who has emitted by lasers, to create images will be higher in ers Dr. Kurt Olstar and Donald received National Dairy an image in much the same resolution and detail, claims Ross. In their book, TheXO Council research funds, says, way that a laser creates a Siczek. A physician will be Factor, they claim that be- "Incidence of heart disease hologram. Holographies, Inc., able to view them from differ- cause of homogenization, an in the United States has of Boulder, Colorado, ex- ent perspectives simply by enzyme in milk, xanthine decreased since the intro- pects to introduce the device rotating the device. "Coherent oxidase (or XO), causes duction of homogenized next year, radio waves directed at the hardening of the arteries milk."— Eric Mishara Holographics's president, body from different angles an acknowledged precursor Aldona Siczek, claims can reveal extremely fine of heart attack. "We need more search and Radiolmager has several detail," claims Siczek. The "This process begins in less research. advantages over the earlier waves are scattered, and infancy. A vast number — Walter Gropius computer tomography scans their phase and amplitude are 50 OMNI " measured as they pass chemist Terry Acree, is methyl for detection by smelling) ACUPUNCTURE through the patient. jasmonate, a widely distrib- 1,000 times as small as the FOR AIDS Very small shifts in phase uted chemical that is found least active isomer. reveal minute variations, a no! only in the fruit moth, According to Acree. the Now there's a new treat- principle borrowed from but in jasmine flowers, perfume companies, which ment for AIDS: acupuncture. radio astronomy. Astronomers pumpkin seeds, and lemon use a less powerful deriva- At the Substance Abuse typically measure small peel. It is also found—per- tive called dihydro methyl Division of New York City's phase changes io determine haps more than coinciden- jasmonate, have already Lincoln Hospital, Dr. Michael the structure of astronomical tally— in many of man's most begun to gather around. Smith has been using the objects emitting radio waves. exotic perfumes, where it "They're all quite fascinated ancient Chinese technique Developed entirely with is so prized as an ingredient by these results." he says. since December 1982 on existing technology, Radio- that it goes by the name of "If you apply this knowledge more than 30 patients suffer- Imager promises to be the queen of aromas. by shifting the relative pro- ing from acquired immune relatively low in cost: less Acree and his colleagues, portion of the isomers in deficiencysyndrome. than $100,000, or one tenth Cornell's Wendell Roelofs the direction of ( + )-z-methyl- Treatment of Dr. Smith's the price of NMR units. and R. Nishida. of Kyoto epijasmonate. you may get first AIDS patient was appar- —Connie Zweig University, were able to break as much as a threefold ently successful. His | symp- methyl jasmonate down into increase in activity." toms— night sweats and "Contentment is the smother its four component isomers. Whether or not this will extreme fatigue—disap- of invention." Human volunteers then lead to irresistible superper- peared, and his blood tests, —Ambrose Bierce sniffed solutions containing fumes remains to be seen. which previously revealed each of the four components. For the moment, says Acree, low T-cell (white blood cell) OF MOTHS AND MEN One of them, known as "the benefits are so substan- ratios, improved. Smith is ( + )-z-methy1-epijasmonate, tial that it's worth investigat- quick to point out, however, use of smell The as a was found to be by far the ing further, and I think the that no one knows exactly sexual come-on is as com- most powerful of the four, perfume companies are how to evaluate the success mon in the animal kingdom as having an "odor threshold" going to do just that." of AIDS treatment. it is among users of Old (the minimum amount needed —Bill Lawren On the other hand, there is Spice and Chanel. Indeed, one case in which acupunc- sweet- smelling, sexually ture seems to have halted altractant chemicals —known the spread of cancerous as pheromones—are almost Kaposi's sarcoma lesions, as widespread as sex itself. which are considered among Now a new piece of re- the more terrifying and search by chemists in Japan lethal results of AIDS and at Cornell University's Smith is extremely cautious New York State Agricultural about offering an analysis Experiment Station, in Ge- of how the acupuncture neva, has shown that at least mechanism operates. "I'm one of these pheromones not pushy about theory," is shared by two species that he says. "I am pushy about have little else in common: results." Smith has applied for the oriental fruit moth, and a research grant to the New Homo sapiens. York State AIDS Institute When the female oriental to do a thorough evaluation fruit moth goes courting, she of acupuncture's effective- broadcasts her interest by ness in the fight against the issuing a set of pheromones disease. —Julie fvlotz from special glands in her abdomen. The male re- "Happiness goes tike the sponds by releasing his own wind, but what is interesting setofattractants. One of stays. these, according to Cornell —Georgia O'Keeffe — — coruTiruuurm THERAPEUTIC "it's like a workout room. ONE-ARMED BANDITS The slot program uses es- sentially the same techniques Occupational therapy for as other occupational thera- handicapped patients has pies, but wilh a little kick." crabappie taken an exciting new twist at Indeed, that kick seems to r two Pennsylvania rehabilita- be what it's all about. The tion centers. Instead of slots still spin, the little lemons tediously stacking blocks or and cherries still pop up, punching pegboards, the and when the jackpot strikes, And now. . .an angry carnrjuie: club, aedicefed !c ~:arnping out guilt, alienation, and offensive PC television commercials. traditional regimen for occu- the machines still pay off pational therapy, clients of in tokens. COMPUTERS, GUILT, :i no Ice-nth -century Luddite Allied Services for the Handi- But even that has aroused AND NEO-LUDDITES bal::irg England's Industrial capped, in Scranton and some local controversy. "I Revolution, an angry Stroum Wilkes-Barre, are preparing think it's a subtle way of It was one day last winter checked with his lawyer themselves for the job market making gambling more ac- that Steven Stroum, a nor- and founded (he Crabapple by playing slot machines. ceptable," says one church mally placid fellow who owns Anti-Computer Club to vent Allied Services took ten leader. "It's very, very de- a high-technology sales- some rage and to combat machines donated by Resorts vious." But as far as Aronica promotion firm in Wellesley, what he calls "the irresponsi- Internationa] Casino, in and his patients are con- Massachusetts, first noticed a ble ladies" of the personal- Atlantic City, and set about cerned, the controversy has gnawing irritation —that computer industry. modifying them for therapeu- been overblown. "The only > soon turned to outright dis- "At first I wasn't so s„ tic applications. First the payoff," says one patient, "is gust—wilh television com- what sort of people I'd hear one-armed bandits were out- in the exercise." mercials plugging personal from," says the Northeastern fitted with a second lever — Bill Lawren computers. Umvcrsily graduate, whose so that they could be pulled "/ "I was really offended by club gained instant notoriety. with either hand. Then have not a word to say what I was seeing," Stroum "Most of the inquiries have weights, springs, and pulleys against contented people, so recalls. "Like the one where come from computer com- were added to raise the long as they keep quiet. the little child is sitting on pany executives or math amount of force needed to But do not, tor goodness' his father's lap. or the one that professors—obviously bright, pull the levers. Finally, se- sake, let them go strutting shows the college student sophis- caied people. One lected patients—stroke and about, as they are so fond of flunking out of school be- was clearly typed on a dot- multiple sclerosis victims, doing, crying out that they cause his parents wouldn't matrix printer. I haven't gotten as well as several arthritics are the true models for the buy him a PC [personal any hate mail, and I haven't were given handfuls. of to- whole species." computer]. They were imply- been sued." kens and turned loose on the —Jerome K. Jerome ing that you're an inferior The curious call daily and, machines. parent, or neglecting your at last count. Crabapple "The whole idea of occu- child, or condemning him to a had more than 50 subscri- pational therapy," explains menial life if you don't own bers. They pay $19 a year for Allied vice president Michael a home computer. memberships and subscrip- Aronica, "is to get the upper "They were mass-mer- tions to a bimonthly newslet- !".:.: Tc-ni tics working again. chandising PCs the same ter called Living and Com- The acf of grasping and way they mass-merchandise puting, which examines how pulling the handle works on cosmetics. Only an idiot computers affect our every- the hands. But in order to would deny that home com- day lives. Upcoming are grab you've got to be able to puters are marvelous tools computer widow T-shirts for reach out, and this gets in their place, but their place the irredeemably alienated. the elbow and shoulder in- isn't in everyone's home. ' —George Nobbe volved." Some machines, There's no legitimate reason Aronica says, have been set why every single American "It's what I've never seen up so that specific muscle must own one." before that I recognize." and joint groups can be So like some vengeful —Diane Arbus targeted. "In effect." he says, 52 OMNI " DANGEROUS FOLK frostbite, warns Dr. Ruth SPACE POTTY REMEDIES Uphold, emergency-medicine PROBLEMS specialist at the University Folk remedies have gained of Vermont medical center. NASA has spent $12 million recent popularity with anti- "The snow delays thawing, trying to perfect the space- medical -establishment types. which results in greater tissue shuttle toilet, which has But beware, here are four damage," she cautions, malfunctioned on eight shuttle such supposed remedies that "and friction from the rubbing missions. Astronaut Robert' are actually dangerous. worsens the injury." Rapid "Hoot" Gibson used a crow- "Drinking whiskey as an warming in 104°F water is the bar to unplug the cantanker- antidote for snakebite is ideal method for thawing ous commode on one mis- a myth that can kill you," ad- frostbite, she says. sion, feces have spewed vises Dr. Sidney Shindell, If ulcers are the problem, all over the cabin on another, WORLD'S DEEPEST chairman of the preventive you can forget about drinking and there has been a foul- HOLE medicine department at supposedly beneficial conv odor problem. the Medical College of Wis- frey tea as an antidote. It "It has been very disap- The deepest hole in the consin. "Whiskey increases contains cancer-causing al- pointing," concedes Dan world is not in Oklahoma or heart rate and dilates blood kaloids, warns James Rob- Germany, shuttle crew Saudi Arabia. It plunges vessels," he explains, "ac- bers, professor of pharma- equipment manager at John- more than 12 kilometers be- tually accelerating the spread cognosy at Purdue University son Space Center, in Hous- low the surface of the frigid of deadly venom through School of Pharmacy and ton. "Nobody likes to think the Kola peninsula, not far from the body." A well-placed Pharmacai Sciences. 'right stuff' guys can't go to the Soviet city of Murmansk. tourniquet and the serum an- "We have many effective the bathroom up there," On their way to this record tivenin, says, he are the drugs that have been care- he says. depth, Russian drillers and only antidotes for known fully studied," Robbers says, The shuttle toilet, or waste geologists have struck some snake venom. "but many people in our collection system (WCS), surprises. Treating an inflamed insect society believe that because is the collective design The Kola hole passed bite with a mud pack is also there are many good things of NASA and contractors through a body of copper- ill advised, Shindell says. in nature, science and tech- Rockwell International and nickel ore some two kilome- Although the soil might con- nology must therefore be General Electric. In appear- ters deeper than such ore tain antibiotic microorgan- bad."— Eric (vlishara ance, the WCS looks roughly bodies supposedly exist. isms, he says, there is also similar to accommodations • The earth's internal temper- the danger it contains spores "All good writing is swimming on an airliner, but the WCS, in ature supposedly increases carrying tetanus, a poten- underwater and holding deference to the zero gravity 1°C for every 100 meters tially latal infectious disease. your breath. of space, uses air suction of depth. The temperature And don't rub snow on —E Scott Fitzgerald to draw human waste down increase in the Kola hole into the bowl. Major design jumped to 2 5°C per 100 me- flaws, Germany says, are ters below three kilometers. that the feces do not stay The temperature at ten stuck (but instead float about) kilometers was 180*C, rather after the WCS slings them than the expected 100°. against the side of the bowl, • Strangest of all, the Rus- and the toilet filter becomes sians have found circulating clogged with waste. gases and mineralized In desperation, NASA has water as deep as 11 kilome- scrapped the high-tech ters below the earth's sur- "slinger motor" from inside face. The pressure at that the bowl, replacing it with a' depth is more than 3,000 no-frills, disposable liner times what it is at sea level, bag. 'A camper-type toilet," a and no one expected frac- dejected Germany says, "is tures to exist that would allow Drinking whiskey as an antidote for snakebite can kill you. It what it amounts to." fluids to circulate, increases heart rate and dilates blood vessels to spread the venom. — Eric Mishara —Joel Davis 53 coruTiruuuRji CHERRY SNAPPERS commercially less polyploidy, which produces a clients, colleagues, and su- than fish with more familiar fish iha" stays sexless for periors. Goldner's growing Diners at certain Florida coloration, life. "All the energy that would roster of pronoids are all restaurants have been raving A second commercial go into sexual functions," men; he suspects that women lately over a new entry on drawback is that up to now, explains Smitherman, "goes are not prone to pronoia. the menu, a tasty red fish most tilapia species could be into growth instead." Symptoms of pronoia in- that's sometimes called the found—or grown— only in For the present, scientists clude ignoring negative cherry snapper. warm, tropical waters. So have already produced a reactions from others or dis- In reality, this fish bears no Smitherman and others neatly fish that is not only attractive, torting them to seem posi- relation to the more familiar solved both problems by tolerant of cold, and faster tive, taking polite silence red snapper that is found creating a hybrid of Tilapia growing, but one which, as approval, and dropping in the waters off both Ameri- mossambica, which has in Smitherrnan's words, "has into conversation the names can coasts. In fact, the the attractive red coloring, tasted just as good as snap- of influential people as if cherry snapper does not and Tilapia aurea, a Mediter- per from day one." The they were intimate friends exist in nature at all. It's the ranean variety that has a new red tilapia is already very when in reality they're mere product of standard breeding far greater tolerance for cold popular in Taiwan, Israel, acquaintances. techniques and some so- than its tropical cousin does. and Japan, and there are Goldner notes that to be phisticated new genetic ma- But the researchers have plans to grow it in Jamaica pronoid you don't need an nipulations. not stopped there. Tilapia are and the Bahamas for export excessively high opinion Researchers at Alabama's essentially sexless at birth, to markets in New York. of yourself (which would be a Auburn University and Flori- so that by dosing the new- —Bill Lawren delusion of grandeur); you da's Natural Systems, Inc., borns with the hormone need only be blindly overop- have successfully crossbred met hyltestoste rone, Smither- PRONOIA timistic about the opinions two distinct species of tilapia, man and his colleagues others hold of you. It's a a tropical fish found mostly can produce a tilapia popu- The discovery of a new misperceptioncompounded, in African waters and in lation that is exclusively twist in the world of delusions he says, by the general re- the Mediterranean. Some male. Since males grow 40 began during what Fred luctance in our positive- tilapia species, says Auburn percent faster than females, Goldner recalls as a "kidding thinking society to openly aquaculturistR. O'Neal the commercial advantages cocktail party conversation" criticize others. Smitherman, have darkish are obvious. Another manip- about possible opposites "Once you name some- gray-brown skin and a gut- ulation is the induction of a to known psychological thing, people begin to notice cavity lining, making them genetic characteristic called conditions. As an opposite to it. and this [pronoia] has paranoia, the delusion that struck a chord," Goldner others intend to hurt you, says. Unfortunately, he has Goldner suggested the "de- no remedy to recommend for lusion that others will think pronoids, who are likely to well of you." He named it, of plunge into paranoia when course, pronoia. their rosy dreamworlds It might have remained just are shattered. a humorous concept, but If you know a pronoid, Goldner, a sociologist at however, it might be nice of Queens College, in New York you to be nasty now. If you City, whose work focuses are pronoid, you probably on problems of uncertainty in won't know it until it's too organization, soon began late.— Frank J. Zoretich to encounter full-blown pro no ids. "You cannot light against She " All were suffering severe future. Time is on our side. career setbacks, such as —William Ewart Gladstone getting fired because they had acted in the mistaken "Everything is at the same The so-called cherry snapper: It's belief that they enjoyed the time; nothing is vice versa," species, alfmale. fast-growing, not wholehearted support of —Zen saying 54 OMNI Jtf jjjp The guardians of faith If ...... meet the forces of reason in the hallowed world of 1 WICAN SCIENCE BY BILL LAWREN — ^Genesis is a myth. It's not a scientific statement of how the world came to be, but a statement that God had something to do with it3 sion? design? a sudden sus- icance, a resonance" available pension of disbelief?—every- to no other scientific organiza- thing in the room seems to draw tion in the world. the eyes up. That resonance is particu- Now there is a rustling of larly fierce because the acad- robes as a group of Argentine emy's illustrious members bishops passes behind us. more than 20 are Nobel laure- Then silently, as if to take us by ates—adhere to rigorous sci- surprise, Pope John Paul II entific procedure, with nary a steps into the room. He is ex- reference to- the Book of Gene- traordinarily handsome—far sis, seven-day creation, or Ad- more so than his pictures would am's rib. Even the recent study indicate—with a thick, powerful group on leprosy, which in the body contrasted by skin that is minds of many remains a "bibli- so perfectly white as to be al- cal" disease, was remarkably most translucent. He takes the free of references to scripture. throne and motions quickly for How can a church that re- everyone to sit, as if impatient cently insisted on literal inter- with the formalities of office, the pretation of the Bible now turn mandatory deference. so dramatically in the direction There is an address by one of pure science? Part of the an- of the scientists. Then the Pope, swer is rooted in the evolution speaking in labored but effec- of the Church and the history of tive English, gives his reply. He the academy itself. recalls Father Damien de Veus- Founded In 1603 as the ter, the Belgian cleric who de- Academy of Lynxes (the lynx voted more than half his life to was considered a symbol of in- treating the lepers of Molokai, tellectual farsightedness "sur- only to be consumed by the disease himself; and Gerhard Han- passing that of all humans"), the independent academy was sen, the Norwegian biologist who discovered the elusive lep- soon at odds with the Vatican. At the center of the controversy rosy microbacterium. As the Pope concludes, he speaks di- was the academy's most illustrious member— Galileo Galilei. rectly to the .scientists, an international array of experts on Galileo ran afoul of the Church when he used his telescopes to leprosy. There is no mistaking his sincerity. observe the planets of the solar system, claiming that his data "Ladies and gentlemen," he says, "continue your research proved—in contradiction to Church dogma—that the earth re- and your therapy, and be assured that the Church fully sup- volved around the sun, not vice versa, ports your work. Be dispensers of love and justice to all those Galileo might have escaped condemnation, for recent evi- who, in the most desolate corners of the world, are waiting to dence indicates that his chief persecutor, Cardinal Bellarmine, receive from today's society a message of hope." was willing to consider his arguments and had actually ab- After the address the Pope greets everyone personally, say- solved him at one point. But in 1632, Galileo published Dia- ing something to each in his own language. Flashbulbs flare logue Concerning Two Chief World Systems, in which he used madly as Vatican photographers snap pictures, providing the a simpleton to argue for the old, geocentric belief, thus incur- scientists with hard evidence that all this is really happening. ring the wrath of Pope Urban VI 1 1. Urban, who had been a friend Indeed, it would seem that hard evidence is necessary, be- of Galileo and the Lynxes, was infuriated by what he saw as an cause for most of the course of history, the forces represented unforgivable indiscretion; so he turned on his former colleague, in this room—those of faith and those ot reason—have been insisting that Galileo publicly disavow his heliocentric ideas. in bitter conflict. But this group of scientists and the Pope who For five months the scientist was virtually imprisoned at the has received them are actors in the drama of reconciliation, Villa Medici, in Rome. Finally, on June 16, 1633, Urban rendered part of what one observer has called the "closest collaboration what may be the most famous decree in [he history of Church- between science and religion in over a century." science relations; Dialogue Concerning Two Chief World Sys- The group orchestrating this remarkable encounter is the tems would be banned, and Galileo would recant his heliocen- Pontifical Academy of Sciences, a little-known body that oc- tric theory under threat of torture. cupies an increasingly influential position both in and outside Old, sick, and nearly blind, Galileo took back his position the the scientific community The academy serves as the Vatican's following year, begging forgiveness of his old ally. The subse- "scientific senate." advising a Pope whose interests range from quent sentencing included not only imprisonment but a man- the interaction of proteins to the aitereffects.of nuclear war. When date to recite the seven penitential psalms once a week for the the Pope makes a speech on any subject with a scientific con- rest of his life. After the sentence was handed down, however, tent—and those speeches are increasingly frequent—infor- Urban showed a trace of mercy. Galileo was allowed to return mation supplied by the academy provides the underpinnings to his home near Florence, and the task of reciting the psalms for his words. The Pope's worldwide audience thus becomes was relegated to his sister Maria Celeste, a Carmelite nun. Sur- the academy's audience, giving the group what MIT physicist reptitiously returning to work despite his failing vision, Galileo and academy member Victor Weisskopf calls '.'a special signif- was able to complete a summary of his life's labors, including 58 OMNI " — a thoroughly heliocentric view of the solar devout Catholic and the son of a world-fa- missions machinery well lubricated, the system. This time, though, the once-bitten mous expert in tropical diseases, Chagas academy under Chagas quickly moved to Galileo stayed clear ot Urban and the Vati- had entered medical school at the age of replace members who had retired or passed can, publishing his summation in Leiden, the fifteen. Five years later he was directing a away. American Nobel laureates Severo Netherlands, under the aegis of the Univer- hospital in the Brazilian interior. On his return Ochoa, Marshall Nirenberg, and George sity of Vienna. to Rio de Janeiro he took degrees in phys- Palade were some of the earliest of the new The Lynxes were not as staunch in their ics, chemistry, and math, somehow finding entries, and they were later joined by such determination, Though they initially at- time to piay on a championship basketball notables as MIT biologist David Baltimore, tempted to support their embattled col- team—a feat he speaks of proudly some 50 Danish physicist Aage Bohr (son of the leg- league, they were quickly beaten back by years later. In his lab he did early work on endary Niels Bohr), and Italian biochemist Vatican pressure. From that point forward, ATP (a coenzyme that produces basic en- Rita Levi-Montalcini. By 1981 at least 32 va- the academy essentially lost its independ- ergy for the body's cells) and maintained his cancies had been filled, two of them by ence. It managed to sustain its existence, lifelong interest in parasitic diseases. members from communist countries. though, and in 1847 it was officially put un- As the years passed, he took on the role With the membership shored up, Chagas der the aegis of the Vatican by Pope Pius IX. of scientitic administrator and diplomat. He moved to increase the scope ot academy In 1936, Pius XI chartered it in its current has served as director of Ihe University ot activity. His chosen tool became the study form, allowing it to elect members without Rio's Institute of Biophysics— a position he group, a task-force approach in which ex- regard to origin, race, or religious belief. {To- still holds—and as secretary general to the perts gather for a week to collate the latest day new candidates, are still nominated and first United Nations conference on the ap- findings in their field and to coauthor a doc- elected by secret ballot of the full member- plication of technology to the problems of ument that summarizes those achieve- ship.) But despite this show of support from the Third World. He was also president of the ments, In a rapid and ever-expanding se- the papacy and despite the leadership of World Health Organization's Committee for ries, academy study groups were held on an such respected priest-scientists as physi- Medical Research. impressive array of subjects, including ge- cist Gian Francesci and astronomer Georges A compact, handsome man with almond netic engineering, parasitic diseases, men- Lemaitre (one of the early proponents of the tal retardation, the nuclei of galaxies, and Big Bang theory), until the Seventies the nuclear winter. (This last meeting featured academy remained essentially an honorary, Carl Sagan, Weisskopf, and two Russians: and inactive, body. physicist Victor Velikhov and meteorologist "In fact," says one recent scientific asso- Vladimir Alexandrov.) Researchers who at- QThe Pope sent ciate, "it was my distinct impression that since tended these meetings were surprised and the time oi Galileo, the academy had basi- delegations of academy impressed by the quality oi the information cally been asleep." exchanged there. members to That slumber came to an abrupt end about "I went expecting nothing but a visit to the 12 years ago. The break with the past in- the heads of state of Vatican Museum and St. Peter's," says Har- volved a renaissance man and scientist five nuclear vard geochemist James Anderson, who at- named Carlos Chagas. tended an academy session on chemical powers, thus creating Chagas set out one fine fall day in 1972 threats to the atmosphere. "But there were for a leisurely drive from Geneva, where he a new form real advances at that meeting. In fact, I was had been attending a scientific meeting, to stunned at the quality of the presentations." of international diplomacy^ his small hideaway apartment in Paris. He Recalling the same meeting, Butler Univer- used the drive as an opportunity to unwind, sity climatologist Thomas Malone says that to temporarily escape his duties as Brazil's German meteorologist. Paul Crutzen's ex- representative to UNESCO, stopping here traordinary presentation on the radiation ef- and there to chat with his wife and enjoy the fects of a nuclear holocaust was "one of the delicate wines of the Cote d'Or, He arrived eyes that even now, al age seventy-three, most impressive I've heard in the last forty- in Paris at 2:00 a.m., pleasantly exhausted. look capable of mischief, Chagas has the three years." At eight the next morning the phone rang. vocabulary and the sweeping mind of a sci- Scientists who were exposed to the acad- It was the Parisian papal nuncio (a Vatican entist, in combination with the subtlety, the emy and its work quickly began to praise emissary), asking to see Chagas at noon the pin-striped bearing, and the accomplish- Chagas for his energetic leadership. 'There's next day. "I was astonished," Chagas re- ments of a diplomat. At his first meeting with no doubt about it," says Malone. "Chagas calls, "because no one except my wife and Paul VI, when asked what he wanted to do has brought a breath of fresh intellectual vigor daughter knew my Paris phone number." with the academy, Chagas made his goals to the academy." Chagas couldn't imagine what the nuncio exquisitely precise, Weisskopf agrees. "Chagas is a very ac- wanted, because although the scientist had "Your Holiness," he said, "what I want is tive man," he says, "a man who likes to do been a member of the Pontifical Academy really quite clear. I would like to see the exactly what he wants. Since he became for 11 years, he had had very little contact academy change from a body of prestige to president, the academy has become infi- with the Vatican hierarchy. one of action:." nitely more alive." The nuncio came directly to the point. The With the Pope's approval. Chagas imme- If Chagas's appointment to the presi- most recent president of the academy had diately set out to make good on his word. dency marked a turning point in the history just died, and Pope Paul VI wanted Chagas The first challenge came when an academy of the academy and its influence on Church to take his place. administrator balked at the new president's policy, the ascension of John Paul II in 1979 "It was the shock of my life," Chagas says. ambitious plans for infusing the group with was an equally important benchmark. "First of all, I was instantly ashamed of my- vigor. "He-was too enchanted with the status A populist leader with an acute aware- self because I had been so busy in my lab- quo," Chagas says. "He wanled the acad- ness of the world, John Paul knew that sci- oratory that I hadn't attended the last two of emy to remain an honorarium." When the ence and technology would continue to rev- the academy's biennial sessions. But the administrator seemed unable to shift gears, olutionize society for years to come. The new most surprising thing was that in the history Chagas fired him. Pope quickly made known— in the most di- of the academy, I was the first nonpriest to Then he began to ensure that the acade- rect and dramatic way possible—that he be appointed president. my's ranks—which included such vener- wanted a close relationship with his scien- The Pope must have known that Chagas ated scientists ss British physicist Paul Dirac tists, no matter what their religious points of was a near-ideal candidate for this .impor- and American biochemist Edward Doisy view. "Immediately after he was elected," re- tant but potentially controversial change. A stayed full and prestigious. Keeping the ad- calls Weisskopf, "he came to one of our 62 OMNI CONMNU. DON PAGE 13S — FICTION Two women from different worlds—one haunted by the past, the other afraid of the future—face the dark together THE SERRATED EDGE BY EDWARD BRYANT Love is a kind of sorcery of which snatched out of my life." Her soft I've learned to be leery. It always contralto rose and cracked slightly. seems so inexacl. so unpredictable "God help me, I lose lha! time, Angie," in this lime of microprocessors and She reached across the table and cloned insulin. It's even a wild card in tentatively set her hand on mine. the world of powers and necromancy. I put my free hand on hers. Delia's It When I first met Cordelia Calvin, I skin radiated heal. was the color thought I had never before encountered of my morning coffee. Delia's beauty so contradictory a woman. Part of it made me ache. "Maybe it's a fugue was her background — or lack of it; slate." I said to her. "There could be all another portion, her behavior; and a sorts of causes. Whatever triggers it, third, her interaction wilh me. She you're just stuck until something in confused me. II was always hard to your brain clicks and you come out. get a reading. Are there any clues afterward?" "My dreams terrify me." Cordelia- "Do I go anywhere or do something Delia—said. "So horrible, Angela weird?" she said. I nodded. "Not They give me worse nightmares in turn." that I can tell." at table, I must have looked blank. "How do She looked down the you mean, worse?" considered her hand fiercely sand- "! can't remember [hem later, and wiched between my hands, with- yet 1 can—almost." She leaned closer, drew it. Delia looked back at my face. her rich, dark eyes only inches from "Do you love me?" she said. mine. Her perfume held an undercur- We both sat still for several seconds, rent of musk. "I wake up screaming two abruptly self-conscious women, and somehow know that something far I twisted noncommittally in my chair. worse than my nightmare preceded "Why are you asking?" I feeling." said. it. I know that, but just don't know the "It's a Delia "Some- details, you know?" She smiled humor- thing someone— is systematically lessly at the linguistic muddle. "I culling all the love out of my life, The simply know that something happened, warmth's leaving." She said the words Whatever it was. I don't remember with a tone helpless and hopeless. it— not the detail, not even the general "There's going to be nothing left." The shape. Sometimes it even happens strain settled in the lines of her face. thirty, in the light. I lose an hour. Suddenly I'm Delia wasn't much past but there somewhere, and time's been her features suddenly took on another PAINTING BY MARSHALL ARISMAN — " — " this silver caught Ihe light from decade. Two decades, I amended. The skin vous. I reservec judgment. But woman and hammered tightened across her skull. Light limned her didn't seem like one to deal in hasty deci- the candle, reflect icnsdancng in her hand. cheekbones like ihe edges oi daggers. They sions or to panic easly Witch was not .a word The knife was the length of her fingers, a pricked a delicate terror. As nearly aflame to terrify her. razor-edged rephca of ne sturdy original that It fishers to gut and slice their as Delia's skin had felt, now I felt a bone- "We will talk more later," was both ques- Senegalese use hilt, the blade's under- I catch. to the marrow chill. I started to shiver, tion and statement. nodded. She nodded Close divided into series oi serrated barbs "Can you help me?" Delia said. It could as well, smiled, and let go ot my hand. 1 sud- side a have been a child pleading. "Will you?" denly missed the heat of her skin, Delta It was a beaulitul and utilitarian instrument of death. Do you truly want my help? I though!. turned and moved into a group that had it times Leave yourself some ignorance. It might be formed'. Those people paled into insignifi- I had seen her toy with many be- clLSiersd her. " fore. knife did not nervous. It a mercy. I wanted to help her, and yet cance as they around The make me — place of worry beads. I to. take the "II I can." I finally said. Then I hesitated. "Who the hell " said, almost inaudibly seemed Ripples of ice water washed through my ab- "You don't know real estate?" said a sandy- "It's a family heirloom," she had said, "One of great-grcals it with her in the domen. Everything in me tightened. I felt I haired young man' who'd come up beside my brought was close to death. Geographically close. my elbow. 1880s. My ancestors didn't come over here with slavers," "They were I shook my head. 'Uust enough to make the she added. I Africa well-meaning Lu- I had met Cordelia Calvin at a networking mortgage payments on my house," said. transported from by session in my neighborhood. As the cliche "You really don't know her?" The young therans." goes, our eyes had met across the crowded man—anyone obviously under thirty has Now Delia turned the knife hypnotically, room. The room was very crowded. The net- started seeming young to me—seemed and we faced each other across an ebony workers had obtained Ihe clubhouse of a amazed at my ignorance. "Cordelia Calvin table. The shadows of carved tribal art set high-rise condo complex. The pool looked deals in some of the priciest properties in along the walls wavered in the light of the flame. oryx, a giraffe, an elephant inviting, but. I had been informed at the door, the city. Mostly residential, though she's moving An swimming was off-limits. A businesslike ap- swung some heavyweight developments. moved in the semi-darkness. I noticed the predators absent. pearance above all else. . . . The man at the were door had looked suspiciously at my Bette "Lovers or not," she said, "we still can't Davis T-shirt and my jeans. The denims were have children." I heard infinite wistfulness. clean, but apparently nothing else recom- "Obviously not." I shrugged slightly. "We could adopt." mended them to these people. Tough, I '•Delia's features thought. Most of the sixty or sevenly men Candlelight flashed in her eyes, and she and women in the room had dressed in suddenly took on another said nothing. I saw moisture gleam on her with designers' names stitch- lower lip. clothes decade. The skin scrawled on hip pockets—upsc a le profes- "The world's full of unwanted kids," I said. ' — sionals was probably the apt term. tightened across her skull. "If we— or you " I amended, "want one, with there shouldn't be much trouble. We've both I stood around a Tuborg in my hand . Light limned her and watched the action. The idea of net- gel a bas c res oect ability." cheekbones like the edges working was to get together a rich mix of I realized I was trying lor an element of professionals, mainly young, and let them of daggers. They lightness. /, at this point, emphatically did kid cluttering up my life. But De- I had been told beforehand that not want a interact. pricked a delicate terror.^ many of these folks were software people, lia, on the other hand dealing in consulting firms and information She stared at me, trancelike. brokerages. Fine. My consulting work was "The world is full of children," she said, ones who live freelance. Customarily the. networking ses- "the— ones that survive, the — sions took some formal program and sub- to " she hesitated. "The ones, the one sequent discussion as a core. Tonight was The woman's up in ihe ten-million club." drawing Ihe word out. She shook her head more of a .mixer. "High powered," I said. wildly. "Angle!" I around the table before the echoes 1 "Especially ior her- was Then I saw the woman across the room. someone who clawed didn't know how I'd missed her. Maybe she way out of the ghetto ne said. "At least that's- died. Delia's arms tightened about me. and had been sitting surrounded by suppli- Ihe story. She's a self-developed realtor. she pressed her head between my breasts. I stroked her hair I close-cropped mur- I and cants. 1 could understand that, now seeing gathered was supposed to laugh. The mured things. 'Angie," she said again. "The her stand alone. I couldn't think of a better young man appeared to take my silence for single adjective than regal. Slender, black, either obtuseness or stupidity. "Uh, you want teeth. Sharp, so sharp." And then nothing. I austere of decoration, wearing the solid another beer?'' he said gamely. stood there; she sat. Pressed together against the darkness, that presence of finely carved ebony, she I shook my head and stared past him at we remained way seemed to drink in the light. She turned her the distant queen. for at-least thirty minutes. I stroked her and head, looking above the heads of those Malice crept into his voice. "She's a tough watched the candle burn down. Delia said standing near her, and smiled slightly as she babe. Got where she ,s by doing anything nothing. Her eyes opened wide and stayed started getting that way, blank. caught my stare. She nodded, and I parted she -had to dot-Word s. she dark and half hour, Delia shivered violently. the crowd like Moses. big ! stings by sleeping her way up." After an sharply. "You're in real es- though with a fever. Then she cried out, "My name is Cordelia Calvin," she said I turned on him as when I approached. "Delia." She extended tate, too?" her right hand. He spread his hands apologetically "I in- I had heard that sound before, after the 'Angela Black. Angie." stall business communications systems.'' I party at Roz's house. Rosalind Co.rman had Our hands remained joined comfortably saw .something regretful and Irustrated in his business dealings witn De;;a, something to with land titles. very the for many more seconds than the perfunc- eyes. I continued to stare at him until he said, do Roz looked much of build, fair. tory. Her eyes held perfectly steady. "You're "Te'ephones. I put them in." opposite of Delia; short, slight . a woman of powers," said Delia Calvin. "I That night I went home with Delia Calvin. Reddish chestnut curls cascaded around other. all. her face. Full on, looked the vivacious, am a woman, and I have power; but you deal We talked and held each That was she with the world beyond the natural." cute stereotype. In profile, you could see the strength in chir I'd seer hoi i-'iioi- I Four twenty-eight nights later, nose and I inclined my'head slightly. wasn't sure I., weeks, De- was being complimented. Recognition and lia pushed her chair back from the table, viewed on a local morning talk show, A! thirty- talk of powers sometimes made me ner- leaned back, and played with the knife. Steel two, Roz had achieved !he tind of success. S6 OMNI — — Ihat coasting looks. great r ve. scric needed no on Have a t Got interesting folks tion in northern California. I didn't catch his Her home was comfortably Deco, set at tonight. Talk to you both later." name. the end of a cul-de-sac that terminated at New guests arrived; we shuffled toward "Party games," Delia said into my ear. the Botanic Gardens. Most traffic never sus- the kitchen and the drinks. A Moosehead for Party games, indeed. The therapist talked pected this part ol the city existed. I lived in me, white wine for Delia. The people at Roz's about Esalen, and then said nasty things a cheaper, more modern part of town. That party looked just like the people who had about Synanon. compiling more cliches than this residential history, these memories, were been at the get-together the night before. I'd heard in a month of Sundays. "What is well so preserved seemed comforting, Some of them I even thought ! recognized. this crap?" I said-io Delia. it Sports and economy cars filled the curb Maybe was just the types. I shouldn't be "Roz is bored." in space front of Roz's, so I parked the Audi one to get sanctimonious. I wore my usual Tonight's game, it turned out. was going in front of the next neighbor jeans south. I had — clean and pressed, of course. To- to be an exercise in self-disclosure. The known Delia less than twenty-four hours. We night's T-shirt was Dorothy Sayers. therapist would ask various of the party had spent virtually no time apart. Sy all ap- Delia and I circulated, and she introduced guests to address the question: What's the 7 pearances and indices, we liked each other. me to a number of people I didn't know. Most worst thing I ever did 1 had seen this sort of Yet I felt complex reaction of interesting. At point, a approach and were one we found our- crap before, and I didn't like It. I was sitting 'run. Not every distance had broken down. I selves trapped in a corner by a Seventeenth on the arm of a sofa, with my legs straight the isolation separating her Irom Street banker. saw me. but His tweeds were impeccable. out in front of me. I had a pretty good idea I didn't understand the why of it, and I couldn't His pipe reeked. His previous conversa- of how the therapist would pick victims to get a feel for the possibility of the gulf ever tional partner had ducked out with an evi- badger; so I made sure my legs were not closing. Worse, something whispered to me dent expression of relief. crossed, my arms were not folded, and my I that didn't it Delia I maybe want to. and had apparently inherited him chin did not tuck into my chest. I didn't feel like a pharaoh's curse. The topic had some- strongly enough about all this simply to leave "People don't stick around me for very thing to do with news accounts of summer- the room, which would have been difficult later long," she had said that night, a tinge solstice ceremonies in a local park. because of the crowd: so 1 concentrated on of what seemed to be melancholy in her looking calm and together. No terrible se- voice. "They leave. They always leave. Or crets here, doc. . . . sometimes they are taken." The first several confessions were not tre- The sense of aloneness in her voice mendously revelatory. The most startling slowed and chilled to desolation. It was not came from a pleasant-laced woman who I wanted to question that. I stared sleepily voice cycling up a primal childhood incident in which her brother and from my end of the couch. Delia looked back, she had been assigned to dispose of four scale that could mute. I got up and walked around behind unwanted kittens. The idea had been to where she sat. have been a dirge for drown them in the irrigation ditch. Instead, When I started to knead the back of her every person who the two children took the sack of kittens into neck, the muscles felt like hardwood. the bunkhouse. There the brother pinned ever died. I withdrew "Angie, something's missing." had each of the soT. c/ay kniers beneath the leg "[ think lots ol things are," I said. "Like my hands of a kitchen chair Then the little girl jumped what?" and covered my ears$ onto the seal. "Gone. Taken." I saw people across the room wince at the I feeling integral had the an part of the payoff. I looked at the face of the woman conversation had passed by without touch- who had told the story and saw a slick of ing me. Something is missing. "Can it be tears form across her eyes. She not only re- brought back? Do you want it obviously back?" membered, she still felt. I won- She twisted around and looked at me "Summer silliness," the banker said. dered if this would serve as a catharsis. Or oddly,."No." She seemed to reconsider, eyes "Witches? Magic?" Delia watched me side- whether this would only trot out demons she out of going focus a moment. "I don't know long with obvious amusement. "Crap: All would rather forget. I thought about it as now." crap. It's just an excuse for bored suburban "The tall, black woman," said the thera- I if it played a hunch. "And you did get housewives to dance around naked and pop pist, pointing beside me. Delia. I sensed her back? Whatever it is?" psychedelic drugs." stiffening. "I believe you can handle this. Tell Her reaction was to tremble slightly. I This point didn't seem worth arguing with me, please, what is the worst thing you have thought of aspen at the dying end of sum- the man, I looked for an escape. ever done?" mer. Delia remained silent, her eyes still out He breathed gin fumes into my face and At first Delia held silent. of focus, starting to show the whites said, "You lock h, Five minutes had passed. I said, "Delia?" you think of this trash?" done lots of things." chin quivered. I "What?" Her "What did you "Terrible," said. 'Just plain awful." I made "But the worst," said the therapist. "The say?" a mental note to slip into the bathroom at my no-holds-barred, very worst." I sensed distance. And I thought, wtoe next opportunity and fashion a quick impo- Time again elapsed. When she spoke, her have' you been? lency charm. Not worthy of me. I sighed. "Go voice sounded almost puzzled. "I don't to hell," I said to him sweetly, with a sweet know," said Delia. "I don't remember." Roz's party was rather more social than smile on my lips. The therapist heard that, stared back at the networking session. Roz Corman'had The banker smiled acknowledgment in the her,'' then seemed to accept the answer. He emigrated from somewhere back East; so face of the party furor. For a moment, he hurried on to someone who had stolen her there was little need for either Delia or me to looked unsure. "Pardon? What did you say?" dying g say anything at first. "Excuse me-," I said. Roz was using her We bid our good-byes to Roz and left soon "Delia, hi." A quick handshake and a kiss. loudest, shrillest voice to call us all into the after. We were not the first to leave. Once in living I "Hello? You must be Angela. "Another quick,- room. piloted the way, and Delia fol- the car, both of us said nothing as I negoti- firm handshake. "No coats? You girls hun- lowed. People took every available space ated the quiet neighborhood streets and gry? Food'sjn the dining room. Darcy's ru- on chair and couch, and then filled the door- turned onto the one-way that would take us maki is heaven". Want a drink? Soft stuff ; s in ways to halland kitchen. back to Delia's home. the kitchen, on the counter. Hard stuffs on Roz introduced a tall, thin man as a certi- Alter several more minutes of silence, I the right. Delia, you know where the loo is. fied therapist irom the Windstone Founda- turned on the radio. Delia looked apologetic CON1INULUONPAGL128 69 " Travel along the road to the stars and humanity's future on distant planets with NASA'S MASTER PLAN BY THOMAS OTOOLE Gerald J. Wasserburg, and that the moon is the first the man whose analy- logical place to do that." Was- sis of the first moon serburg went on. "And if we live rocks put the age of the solar off the earth, well have children system at 4.6 billion years, off the earth. When the first child pushed his notes away from him is conceived and born off the and sat for a momenl, staring earth, it will be a magical mo- out his office window. He ment, an enormously important paused for elfect. Ihen looked event in the course of history." straight at his visitor. "We're Over the next 50 years, men going to build a house on the and their machines will con- moon," Wasserburg declared tinue to explore every frontier of with total conviction. "We're the solar system, with one ex- going to have a mommy and a ception; Pluto. (Too small, too daddy there, and someone in far, and too uninteresting.) Re- New Jersey will be able to say pairing satellites in space will to someone else, 'Hey, I've go! become routine. So will space a cousin living on the moon.' industry, which will yield new Wasserburg is a professor of vaccines, lifesaving pharma- geology and geophysics at the ceuticals, genetically engi- California Institute of Technol- astronomers can set up an ob- neered drugs, and exotic met- ogy, in Pasadena, and his look servatory that's invulnerable to als and alloys, all for the first into the future is no Aesop's fa- city lights and electronic pollu- time. Man will settle in space ble. The professor's preview of tion? Why hot make it possible aboard space stations, colo- what lies ahead in space is for geologists to mine the moon nize the moon, travel to Mars. rooted soundly in what has al- for minerals the earth has never Not all the major missions will ready happened—and in what had, as well as for any earth- involve humans. There will be a can happen in the twenty-first bound minerals that are about robot rendezvous with a comet, century. Why not build a lunar to be mined into extinction? spaceflights to asteroids and home for the moon's first fam- "There's no doubt in my mind comets in which robots will dig ily? Or a lunar workplace where that people will live off the earth out samples to return to Earth, PHOTOGRAPHS BY PETE TURNER field in July 1987. Then it will zoom and a robot mission to Mars thai will bring but the experts hope it will culminate in 2036, tational back a sample from the red planet. Both with the arrival of the tirst astronaut colonists back toward the sun. By December 1989, encounter the sun's north missions are likely to provide clues about how on the surface of Mars. "If we don't go," warns the spacecraft will solar in July the cosmos began. Wassefburg, "the Russians will go. But if pole. It will overfly the equator south pole in In drawing up a space calendar tor the we're all smart, we'll go there together." 1990 and then pass over the spacecraft future, Omni began with 1986 and looked Here's a calendar of the next half century October of the same year. The will give our first glimpse of the solar poles, ahead 50 years, to 2036. It seemed wise to in space: us the start with 1986. That's when Halley's Comet 1986. January 24: We'll get our closest look whose magnetic activity complicates still of the sun. Ulysses will also give sci- will appear to Earthlings ior the first time since ever at Uranus, a planet that is a mystery. study view of 1910. That's also when Voyager 2 will en- Currently, scientists don't know even the entists their first Ihree-dimensional than 90 counter Uranus, and when the S1.2 billion length of its day. Voyager chief scientist Ed the middle latitudes, where more occur. Space Telescope will be placed in orbit to Stone guesses: "It's somewhere between percent of solar flares spacecraft Gal- begin a ten-year mission that will bring ce- sixteen and twenty-four hours." What does May 21: A silvery named lestial objects closer to us than ever before. Uranus look like? "The best pictures we have ileo will be launched from the payload bay of the shuttle on a trip to Jupiter. It will "If Olympus Mons [at 15 miles high, the make it look like a tomato," he says. In the space in and orbit largest volcano in the solar system] were to first close encounter ever with the seventh reach the planet August 1988 Jupiter and its four largest moons in a pho- erupt on Mars, " says Caltech's James West- planet from the sun, Voyager 1 will fly by Ur- to the phal, a principal investigator on the Space anus just beyond its outermost rings, a scant tographic mission that promises be productive planetary mission ever Telescope, "we'll see it with the Space Tele- 29,000 kilometers from Miranda, the inner- most 9 are flown. the most productive It will linger scope. It will be an event unparalleled in most of its five known moons. So dark Why space-observation history." these moons (Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Ti- near Jupiter for more than 11 months, in- that allotted to Ending our space calendar in 2036 tania, and Oberon) that some experts sus- stead of the few days were seemed equally appropriate. The world's pect they are made of the most exotic ices predecessor spacecraft like Voyager. In that Callisto, space scientists have a plan for space ex- in the solar system. Uranus is circled by nine time, Galileo will pass by lo, Europa, ploration that takes us through the next 50 and Ganymede at least 1 1 times before being years. Beyond 2036, the vision grows fuzzy. destroyed by the intense radiation fields planet. In drawing up our 50-year calendar, we around the in the space shuttle will talked to people in all areas of the space Sometime August, Telescope business. People like NASA administrator release the $1.2 billion Space ^There's no instrument ever James M. Beggs; "star wars" General James (ST), the most expensive orbit at A. Abrahamson; former astronaut and U.S. doubt that people will live sent into orbit. The ST will stay in Harrison H. ('Jack") Schmitt; Voy- least 10, and perhaps as long as 20. years. Senator off the earth ager project scientist Edward C. Stone; Jet Space-shuttle astronauts will periodically visit Propulsion Laboratory scientists Arden Al- and that the moon is the the ST to make repairs and refurbish it. The the heav- bee and Albert Hibbs; the University of Par- logical place ST will peer ten times farther into any earthbound telescope, mean- is's Jacques Blamont, the world's only sci- ens than to do it. And if we live entist allowed to have instruments flown on ing it will view cosmic events that happened American and Russian spacecraft; Gerry off Earth, we'll almost 14 billion years ago. The ST will also Neugebauer, director of the Patomar Ob- be used to study local solar system events. have children off EarthJ servatory; and Maarten Schmidt, the dis- "We're being given an observatory that will the coverer of the quasar and president of the allow us to do the meteorology of whole American Astronomical Society. We asked solar system," James Westphal, ot the Cali- Institute of "We'll these men to look ahead and tell us what will fornia Technology, says. happen, what could happen, and what never fully understand Jupiter's giant red should happen. We asked them to be con- dazzling rings of dust, within which scien- spot, but we will get the longest and closest the solar servative with their budget projections but tists hope to find the same kinds of tiny sat- look ever at that magical region of not with their imaginations. ellites that they believe keep the rings from system with the Space Telescope." What they said formed the essence of this colliding and disappearing. 1988. April: The space shuttle will release space calendar, which we have divided into February 8: Halley's Comet swings around from its bay a space robot with an enormous size of the space- four epochs. The first might be called the the sun just as it has every 76 years since at radar dish, three times the it first chronicled craft itself. The craft's name: Venus Radar Era of Nuts and Bolts. It starts in 1986. when least 240 b.c, when was by it should arrive in orbit robot spacecraft will explore Uranus and the Chinese. Waiting out in space to greet Mapper. By July, through the Neptune for the first time and revisit Jupiter the comet will be a Soviet spacecraft carry- around Venus and begin to peer acid clouds of the planet. Using its and its four large moons; when other space- ing French cameras; a European spacecraft sulfuric radar, of "photographing" features craft will give us our first look at. the sun's named Giotto; and a Japanese spacecraft capable north and south poles; and when the Space that will follow the comet from a distance and as small as one kilometer across, it will gen- almost the entire sur- Telescope begins its observations of the photograph its 100-million-mile-long tail. The erate a global map of heavens. U.S. space shuttle will also photograph Hal- face of the torrid (almost 1000°F) planet. Epoch two starts in 1992, the five hun- ley's Comet on at least two missions, using August 24: Voyager will encounter Nep- dredth anniversary of Columbus's discovery ultraviolet telescopes developed just for the tune, eighth planet out from the sun and the last to explored in this century. The of America. It will be commemorated with occasion. The best pictures should be those be the closest planetary the launch of the first U.S. space station. From taken by the Soviet spacecraft, which will spacecraft will make to Explains French fiyby ever attempted in an attempt to solve it we will launch several missions to the moon, come closest the comet. Mars, the outer planets, the comets, and the scientist Jacques Blamont, developer of the some long-standing mysteries. Neptune' has asteroids. Satellite repair and the commer- cameras: "We.expect to photograph the a puzzling internal-heat engine that radiates it from the sun. cialization of space will begin in earnest then. surface of the nucleus, estimate its size, and twice as much heat as gets orbiting it is Triton, which Epoch three is the Age of Space Coloni- understand its nature, all for the first time." Also a moon named around the planet. Voy- zation, an era that will begin when the first May 15: A German-American spacecraft moves backward American colonists settle the moon. The era named Ulysses will be released from the ager will have to fly extremely close to Nep- look at its peculiar moon. will end with the first mission to orbit Mars" cargo bay of America's space shuttle and tune to get a good the and return to Earth. sent on a curving path toward Jupiter, where Says Stone: "Triton is the only moon in besides Titan [which belongs Epoch four is the least easy to forecast, it will be caught by the giant planet's gravi- solar system 72 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 14S r >•; *£' THE ODYSSEY OF A MASTERFUL WRITER DETERMINED TO BUILD A SPACE-ADVENTURE STORY ON A SOLID FOUNDATION OF SCIENCE FACT '' ''.,~ : W<> ^L This may be quite a surprise lo the editor, but Omni bears at least part of the blame for 2010: Odyssey Two. The story is somewhat convoluted and begins way back in 1957; so please be patient. Half a year before Sputnik J opened the Space Age and for no particular reason thai I can now recall, a five-word title popped into my brain and kept hammering away like the obsessive theme from the last movement of Sibelius's Second Symphony, The only way to get rid of it was to write the story. This took no less than 12,500 words, and in May 1957. I sent "The Songs of Distant Earth" to my agent, Scott Meredith. It appeared in the now-defunct science-fiction magazine IF in January 1958, and a' What happened to the spaceship Discovery near Jupiter in 2001? A joint U.S.- U.S.S.R. mission is ordered to tind out. Star Roy Scheider helps John Lithgow suit up (lelt) tor his and llya Baskin's float to the Discovery {opening spread; below). Once inside (tarlelt) they switch Hal, the computer, backon (below left). in my collection The Other Side of the Sky. That, I thought, was the end years. of the matter, and I forgot all about the story for the next 20 Now cut to 1979. Picture a typewriter spinning around and around the sky, suddenly turning into a word processor. Star Wars and Close En- counters have appeared, and it seems that three or even four people are interested in science-fiction movies. Though I've stated over and over again that a sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey is totally impossible I in- and that I haven't the slightest intention of writing one, find myself trigued by a fascinating problem. Star Wars and its contemporaries are delightful fantasies, but as no one has yet exorcised the ghost ot Albert After aerobraking—parking into an orbit— around Jupiter (bottom right), Scheider (top right) discusses the importance of She monolith (above left), if the monolith is indeed controlled by a higher intelligence, it may be the key to unraveling the slory ot the Discovery (right), now spinning above the moon lo. Einstein, it's 99 percent certain that no material object can ever exceed the speed of light. Note the choice of words; there are plenty of "things" that travel faster than light, but they're not things, if you see what I mean. It follows, therefore, that no Luke Skywalker or Han Solo is ever going to zap from star to star in a couple of hours, and Captain James T. Kirk would be lucky to meet a single extraterrestrial culture in his entire career, let alone once a week during prime time. So in the spirit of the philosopher who bravely stated, "I accept the if it universe." I said to myself: "Okay, that's the way things are, is still possible to write an exciting interstellar adventure that could actually IBflgHBBnaHEHBiBD happen and that doesn't defy the laws of physics?" And I suddenly re- membered "The Songs of Distant Earth." I also remembered something else. Years ago, Stanley Kubrick said to me, "A movie consists 61 sequences averaging a couple of minutes in length. Each can be described in a single sentence. Arthur, all I want from you is a mere sixty sentences. Is that asking too much?" So with these noble words ringing in my ears, I sat down and wrote a movie outline, about the length of this article, developing and extending the ideas in the 22-year-old short story. That, I decided smugly, would finally get it out of my system, I also discovered that movie outlines, ® tor equipment appearing on screen, like a hibernation suit (left), and settings aboard the spacecraft (top and bottom, far left) drew heavily from the look of hardware in use today The outer skin of space suits (above} was made with the same material that NASA uses to protect its astronauts in space. . . '•This may be the first occasion in history that author and filmmaker collaborated in real time on opposite sides of the worid.^ virtually though scarcely works of art, I am happy to say that it is. (Shut are quite fun. In a few pages one everyone agrees that can create a whole universe, up, the rest of you.) sketch characters, and de- I was also happy, of course, scribe epic adventures, leaving when MGM decided to film it Stanley Kubrick (who all the tedious details to the and when imagination. There is no need was busy on other projects and for hundreds of pages of man- who never, but never, repeats the choice of uscript; one can get almost all himself) approved writer-director. of the enjoyment at a fraction of Peter Hyams as the drudgery. Although Peter is entirely re- Well, "The Songs of Distant sponsible for the script, I was Earth" duly appeared in Omni able to discuss many of the de- with in 1981, with nice illustrations by tails and problems him on a daily basis through our com- Robert McCall. I did not know puter-modem link. The suitably it, but I'd been hooked. A few expurgated record of our elec- months later, I found myself tronic correspondence will be wondering if it were possible in Odyssey File. This after all to write a sequel to 200? found The the first occasion in in the form of a movie outline. It may well be history that author and film- wouldn't take long to find out . , real time just a few pages of typing. maker collaborated in Seven, actually. Happy to on opposite sides of the world, have cleared up this bit of un- it will certainly not be the last. finished business once and for And now something has happened that takes me right all, I mailed the outline to Scott, assuming that once again he'd back to the beginning of this story. Indeed, it gives me an pass it on to Omni. The wretch this-is-where-l-came-in sensation, if I'm one of those did nothing of the sort. He sent it straight back, with a long letter uneasy, as saying, "You can't do this! You've got to write the whole novel! unfortunate time travelers who has gotten stuck in a loop. I'd finished Odyssey Two, the movie outline of And if you'll sign a contract, I'll get you a nine-figure advance." As soon as of Distant Earth" started nagging at me. There was After cursing for a while, as I always do when Scott suggests "The Songs no escape; almost with the force of a revelation, I suddenly I admit, that writing the I get down to some real work, had to It that this the book I really wanted to write. had taken whole, novel was not a bad idea. I really did want to write the knew was novel. The advance had not the slightest influence on my de- me only a quarter of a century to face that fact getting along very nicely cision, but it certainly didn't do any harm. "The Songs of Distant Earth" was wouldn't know, produced a contract for Od- Despite the fact that its germ was a movie outline, I deliber- when Scott, you to say, at a considerably larger ad- ately ignored this angle as soon as I started to concentrate on yssey Three (needless I it straight with the following comments; I vance). sent back writing the novel. I was determined to write the best book batter- could, and the hell with anything else. Indeed, at one stage I 1) After 2001 it had taken me 15 years to recharge my younger; I'd to wait went around telling people, I'm writing a novel that even Stan- ies, and I wasn't getting any and 2) have I could steal any ley can't film, though I'd love to see him try." until the new movie was out to see whether fiction. ideas from Hyams. Those were the trivial reasons. The I had reason to hope that as a work of Odyssey Two good would be superior to the original 2001. The latter had been important ones were: 3) If all went well, the Galileo space probe of written for the sole purpose of generating the movie. It had would begin the first detailed exploration the moons of Ju- therefore concentrated on visual aspects of the subject- and piter in August 1988, so I couldn't possibly write anything more ignored matters that didn't lend themselves to being filmed. about Ihem until the new facts came in; and 4) Come hell or of Distanl Earth Odyssey Two would be under no such constraints. high water, I was going to write The Songs project. I thought of taking any other It also had several other major advantages over its precursor. before even on When 2001 was conceived, the Apollo program was just be- When the contract came back for the second time, I tore it I in Sri but I to ginning, and the satellites of Jupiter were mere points of light up. I could do this safely while was Lanka, had I that in even the most powerful. telescope. Odyssey Two was written visit the United States in May 1984, and knew Scott would preemptive strike. I would in a totally different intellectual climate; most of the human race be waiting for me. So I launched a had watched men walk upon the moon, and the fantastically be prepared to sign a contract for both novels but on my terms. successful Voyager missions had surveyed the Jovian system There was some haggling, but I stuck to my guns. I'd write 1 start 20 years ahead of my schedule. The new book would .be based Songs first and deliver it by December 1986. would work 1988, Galileo began send- on firm realises, not speculation; so it ought to be a better novel. on Odyssey Three in August when ing back its picture postcards from the moons of Jupiter. As it, would be (gulp) sev- The bridge from the Leonov to the Discovery allows actor Bob Bal- only fate could have delivery date my aban to cross over and explore the spacecraft abandoned in 2001 enty-second birthday, December 16, 1989.DO 86 OMNI Elm loved playing God, until she discovered the dice were loaded TROJAN HORSE .„„ ..lie. A chimney swifl flew i through her mind. A firefly landed on her knee. II pulsed cold - fire, then spread its wings ar 1 to talk too much." The wetware lech lightened a cinch ' The lawyer in orangeface nodded. The terminal in hand. "One minute," he said. "I'm "That'll be Chanty. You?" he asked Elm. one in purple said, "Can't her original per- on direct flex time— got to wrap up what I'm "What's good?" sonality be restored at all?" working on first." He laughed. "There's no such thing as a Drawing a briefcase from his pocket, the "Oljay. " The lawyer sat down on the grass. good lunar wine, The air's too moist. And wetware tech threw up a holographic dia- Elin watched, fascinated, as the woman tow- even if it weren't, it takes a good century to gram between himself and the witnesses. eled the paint from her face, and a new pat- develop an adequate vineyard. But the The air filled with intricate three-dimensional tern of fine red and black lines, permanently Chanty is your basic, drinkable glug." tracery, red and green lines inlerweaving and tattooed into her skin, emerged. "I'll take that, then." meshing. "Hey!" Elin said. "You're a Jesuit." "Good. I'll bring a mug for your friend, too." "We've mapped the subject's current per- "You expected IGF to ship you a lawyer "My friend?" She turned and saw a giant sonality." He reached out to touch several from Earth orbit?" She stuck out a hand. striding through the trees, lowering over junctions. "You will note that here, here, and "Donna Landis, S.J. I'm the client overseer them, pushing them apart with two enor- here we have what are laughingly referred for the Star Maker project, but I'm also avail- mous hands. For a dizzy instanl, she gog- to as impossible emotional syllogisms. Any able lor spiritual guidance. Mass is at nine, gled in disbelief, and then the man shrank to one of these renders the subject incapable Sunday mornings." human stature as she remembered the'size of survival." Elin leaned back against the cliff. Grape- of the saplings. A thin waterfall dropped from the dome vines rustled under her weight. Already she He grinned. "Hi. Remember me?" condensers to a misty pool at the topmost missed the blissed-out feeling of a few min- He was a tall man, built like a spacejack, terrace, a bright razor slash through reality. utes before. 'Actually, I'm an agnostic." lean and angular. An untidy mass of black face that was not quite hand- It meandered to the edge of Ihe next terrace "You were. Things may have changed." curls framed a and fell again. Landis folded the towel into one pocket, un- some but carried an intense freight of will. ." 'A straight yes or no will suffice." folded a mirror from another. "Speaking of "I'm afraid . . The tech frowned. "In theory, yes. In prac- which, how do you like your new look?" "Tory Shostakovich. I reprogrammed you." tical terms, it's hopeless. Remember, her Elin studied her reflection. Blue paint sur- She studied his face carefully.Those eyes. personality was never recorded. The acci- They were fierce almost to the point of mania, dent almost completely randomized her but there was sadness there, too, and—she emotional structure— -technically she's not thought she might be making this up—a hint even human. Given a decade or two of ex- of pleading, like a little boy who wants some- tremely delicate memory probing, we could thing so desperately he dare not ask for it. 4 She saw a in analyzing the nu- maybe construct a facsimile. But it would only She could lose herself of she said at last, resemble the original; it could never be the giant striding through the ances those eyes. "Yes," primary Elin Donnelly." "I remember you now." trees, towering Elin could dimly make out the equipment "I'm pleased." He nodded to the Jesuif. for five more waterfalls, but they were not in over them, pushing them "Father Landis." him skeptically. "You don't seem operation at the moment. She wondered why. apart with two She eyed The attorney made a rude noise. "Well your usual morose self, Shostakovich. Is enormous hands. For anything wrong?" then, go ahead and do it. I wash my hands morning." of Ihis whole mess." a dizzy instant, "No, it's just a special kind of The tech bent over Elin to reposition a bone He smiled at some private joke, returned his she goggled in disbelief. 9 inductor. "This won't hurt a bit," he prom- attention to Elin. "I thought I'd drop by and ised. 'Just pretend that you're at the den- get acquainted with my former patient." He tleetingly shy, tist's, having your teeth replaced." glanced down at the ground, She ceased to exist. and then his eyes were bright and auda- cious again. The new Elin Donnelly gawked at every- rounded her eyes, narrowing to a point at How charming. Elin thought. She hoped she had to thing —desk workers in their open-air of- the bridge of her nose, swooping down in a that he wasn't too shy. And then fices, a blacksnake sunning itself by the path, long curve to the outside. It was as if she glance away herself, Ihe thought was so un- Ihe stone stairs cut into the terrace walls. Her were peering ihrough a large, blue moth or like her. "So you're a wetware surgeon," she lawyer led her through a stand of saplings a pair of hawk wings. There was something said inanely. of no higher than she and into a meadow. magical about it, something glamorous, Hans reappeared to distribute mugs Butterflies scattered at their approach. Her somcihing very unlike her. wine, then relreated to the cave's mouth. He in gaze went from them to a small cave in the "I feel like a raccoon. This idiot mask." sat down, workboard in lap, and patched stiff the cliffs ahead, then up to the stars, as jumpy "Get used to it. You'll be wearing it a lot." the skull-plugs. His face went as and random as the butterflies' flight. "But what's the point?" Elin was surprised wetware took hold. " "I work —So you'll be stuck on the moon for a full by her own irritation. "So I've got a new per- 'Actually," Tory said, very rarely as like is rare, I awetsurgeon. accident yours lunation—almosl a month— if you want to sonality; it's still me in here. don't feel any An year. Mostly colled your settlement. I. G. Feuchtwaren weird compulsion to run amok with a knife you know—-maybe once, twice a will carry your expenses until then, drawing or walk out an airlock without a suit. Nothing I work in wetware developmeni. Currently I'm against theirfinal liability. Got that?" to warn the citizenry about, certainly." on the Star Maker project." And then—suddenly, jarringly— Elin could "Listen," Landis said. "Right now you're like "I've heard that name before. Just whats- focus again. She look a deep breath. "Yes," a puppy tripping over ils own paws because it anyway?" she said. "Yes, I— okay." they're too big for it. You're a stranger to Tory didn't answer immediately. He stared "Good." The attorney canceled her judi- yourself—you're going to feel angry when down into the lake, a cool breeze from above cial-advisory wetware, yanking Ihe skull you don't expect to, get sentimental over ruffling his curls. Elin caught her breath. / plugs and briskly wrapping them around her surprising things. You can't control your hardly know this man, she thought wildly. He briefcase. "Then let's have a drink—it's been emotions until you learn what Ihey are. And pointed to the island in the center of the lake, thin, stony finger that originally the a long day." . until then, the rest of us deserve—" a was They had arrived at the cave. "Hey, Hans!" "Whal'll you have?" Hans was back, his crater's thrust cone. the lawyer shouted. "Give us some service forehead smudged black where he had in- "God lives on that island," he safd. "' here, will you 7 completely wiped off his facepaint. Elin laughed. "Think how different history " if A small man with the roguish face of a —a little warning. Oh, I don't know, Hans. would be He'd only had a sense of direc- comic-opera troll popped into the open, work Whatever you have on tap." tion!" She wanted to bite her tongue when 90 OMNI ~ she realized that he was noi joking. "Nipping heresy in the bud," Tory said "What happened was that we had rewired "You're being cute, Shostakovich," Landis sourly. her to absolute consciousness. She was not all in warned. She swigged down a mouthful of "That's a good part of it. This set of wet- only aware of her mental functions but wine. "Jeez, that's vile stuff," ware .will supposedly reshape a human mind control of them— right down to the involun- Tory rubbed the back of his neck ruefully. into God. Bad theology, but there it is. They tary reflexes, which also put her in charge of "Mea culpa. Well, let me give you a little want to computer-model the infinite. Any- her own metaprogrammer." for background. Most people think oi wetware way, the specs were drawn up, and it was ''Metaprogrammer is just a buzzword as being software for people. But that's too tried out on—what was the name of the test a bundle of reflexes_the brain uses to make simplistic, because with machines you start subject?" changes in itself," Landis threw in. out blank—with a clean slate—and with "Doesn't matter," Tory said quickly. "Yeah. What we didn't take into account, people, there's some ten million years of "Coral something-or-other." though, was that she'd like being God. When mental programming already crammed into Only half-listening by now, Elin unobtru- we tried deprogramming her, she simply their heads. sively studied Tory. He sat, legs wide, star- overrode our instructions and repro- "So to date we've been working with the ing into his mug of Chanty. There were hard grammed herself back up." natural wetware. We counterfeit surface lines on his face, etched by who knew what "The poor woman," Elin said. And yet— / first what glorious experience, to be God! traits— patience, alertness, creativity—and experiences. don't believe in love at a package them like so many boxes oi bone- sight, Elin thought. Then again, who knew Something within her thrilled to it. /( would meal. But the human mind is vast and un- what she might believe in anymore? It was a almost be worth the price. it. with thinks mapped, and it's time to move into the inte- chilling thought, and she retreated from "Which leaves us a woman who glad rior, for some basic research. "So did this Coral become God?" she's God," Landis said. "I'm just we to "that's the Star Maker project, it's an ex- "Patience. Anyway, the volunteer was were able to hush it up. If word got out ploration of the basic substructural pro- plugged in, wiped, reprogrammed, and in- some of those religious illiterates back on gramming of the mind. We've redefined the terviewed. Nothing useful." Earth—" overstruciure programs into an integrated "in one hour," Tory said, "we learned more "Listen," Tory said. "I didn't really come system we believe will be capable of es- about the structure and composition of the here to talk shop. I wanted to invite my for- sence-programming, in one-to-one congru- universe than in all of history to date." mer patient on a grand tour of the Steam ence with the inherent substructure of the "It was deranged gibberish." Landis Grommet Works." ." universe." tapped Elin's knee. "We interviewed her and Elin looked at him blankly. "Steam . . "What jargonistic rot!" Landis gestured at then canceled the wetware. And what do you He swept an arm to take in all of Magritte, Elin's stoneware mug. "Drink up. The Star think happened?" the green pillars and gray cliffs alike. There his gesture. Maker is a piece of experimental theology "I've never been big on rhetorical ques- was something proprietary in that IGF dreamed up. As Tory said, it's basic tions." Elin didn't take her eyes off Tory. Landis eyed him suspiciously. "You two research into the nature of the mind. The "She didn't come down. She was stuck." might need a chaperone," she said. "I think Vatican Synod is providing funding so we - "Stuck''" I'll tag along to keep you out of trouble." said. can keep an eye on it." Tory plucked a blade of grass, let it fall. Elin smiled sweetly. "Fuck off," she Ivy covered Tory's geodesic trellis hut. He led the way in, stooping to touch a keyout by the doorway. "Something classical?" .,. "Please." As he began removing her jumpsuit, the holotape sprang into being, surrounding them with rich reds and cobalt blues that coalesced into stained-glass pat- terns in the air. Elin pulled back and clapped j fc/pk3?) her hands. "It's Chartres," she cried, de- lighted. "The cathedral at Chartres!" wnSffl ^^^DlJOS^yF^^" "Mmmmm." Tory teased her down onto the grass floor. The north rose swelled to fill the hut. It was Ipfir all angels and doves, kings and prophets, fcp xo with gold lilies surrounding the central ro- if i sette. Deep and powerful, infused with tfii ARTIFICIAL I gloomy light, it lap-dissolved into the lancet of Saint Anne. ™PHE5£WAT1«F5 The windows wheeled overhead as the f holotape panned down the north transept to the choir, to the apse, and then up into the "^H ambulatory. Swiftly, then, it cut to the wounded Christ and the Beasts of Revela- tion set within the dark spaces of the west rose. The outer circle—the instruments of the Passion — closed about them. Elin gasped. The tape moved down the nave, still - brightening, briefly pausing at the Vendome chapel. Until finally the oldest window, the Notre Dame de la Belle Verriere, blazed in a ~^m_ frenzy of raw glory. A breeze rattled the ivy, and two leaves fell through the hologram to mm Wf\ tap against their skin and slide to the ground. The Belle Verriere faded in the darkening light, and the colors ran and were washed " away by a noiseless gust of rain. upward. New Detroit and New Chicago rose There was no getting around the fact that Elin let herself melt into the grass, drained from the floor. Bright industrial satellites shewasnoithemcta.urgisilfcrn Wheel Lab and lazy, not caring if she never moved gleamed to every side of the twin residential 19, not anymore. That woman was alien to again. Beside her Tory chuckled, playfully cylinders. her now. They shared memories, experi- tickled her ribs. "Do you love me? Hey tell A bit of motion caught Elin's eye, and she ences— but she no longer understood that me you love me." swiveled to follow a load ci cargo drifting by. woman, could not sympathize with her emo- "Stop!" She grabbed his arms and bit him It was a jumble of containers lashed to- tions, indeed found her distasteful. in the side—a small, nipping bite, more threat gether by nonmagnetic tape and shot into At a second-terrace cafe that was than harm— ran a tongue over his left nip- an orbit calculated to avoid the laser cables crowded with ofl-shift biotechs, Elin rented ple. "Hey, listen, Ihitthesackwithyouahalf and power transmission beams that inter- a table and briefcase. She sat down to try to hour after we met. What do you want?" laced the park. trace the original owner of her personality. "Want?" He broke her hold, rolled over on A man was riding the cargo, feet braced As she'd suspected, her new persona was top of her, pinioning her —wrists above her against a green carton, hauling on a rope copied from that of a real human being; cre- head. "I want you to know " and suddenly slipped through the lashings. He saw her and ating a personality Irorn scratch was still be- he was absolutely serious, his eyes unblink- waved. She could imagine his grin through yond the abilities of even the best wetware ing and glittery hard "—that I love you. With- the mirrored helmet. techs. She was able to 'race herself back to out doubt or qualification. I love you more The old Elin snorted disdainfully. She IGF's inventory bank and to determine that than words could ever say," started to look away and almost missed duplication of personality was illegal—which "Tory," she said. "Things like that take time," seeing it happen. presumably meant that the original owner The wind had died down. Not a blade of In leaning back that fraction more, the was dead. grass stirred. cargo hopper had put too much sfrain on But she could not locate the original owner. "No they don't." It was embarrassing look- the lashings. A faulty rivet popped, and the Selection had been made by computer, and ing into those eyes; she refused to look away. cargo began to slide. Brightly colored car- the computer wouldn't tell. When she tried "I feel it. I know it. I love every way, shape, tons drifted apart, and the man went turn- to find out, it referred her to the Privacy Act and part of you. I love you beyond time and Of 2037. barrier and possibility. We were meant to be "I think I've exhausted all the resources of lovers, fated for it, and there is nothing., ab- self-discovery available to me," she told the solutely nothing, that could ever keep us Pierrot when he came to collect his tip. 'And apart." His voice was low and steady Elin I've still got half the morning left to kill." 4S/ie floated couldn't tell whether she was thrilled or He glanced at her powder-blue facepaint scared out of her wits.— in blackness, soothing and smiled politely. "Tory, I don't know and relaxing. "Then wait," he said. "It'll come." "It's selective black." She felt good. She had "Huh?" Elin turned away from the lake, Lying sleepless beside Tory that night, Elin found that an agtech carrying a long-han- needed this little thought back to her accident. And because dled net had come up behind her. vacation from the tensions it was a matter of stored memory, the im- "The algae— it absorbs light into the in- ages were crisp and undamaged. and pressures frared. Makes the lake a great thermal sink." It at of shift woman dipped her net into the water, happened the end her on other new personality^ The Wheel Laboratory 19, Henry Ford Orbital In- seined up a netful of dark-green scum, and dustrial Park. dumped ft into a. nearby trough. Water Holding theta lab flush against the hub drained away through the porous bottom. cylinder, Elin injected ferrous glass into a "Oh." There were a few patches of weeds molten copper alloy. Simultaneously, she on the island, where drifting soil had settled. plunged gamma lab a half kilometer to the bling, end over end, away. "It's funny I never used to be very touristy. end of its arm, taking it from fractional One end of the lashing was still con- More the contemplative type, sort of home- Greenwich normal to a full nine gravities. nected to the anchor carton, and the free bodyish. Now I've got to be doing some- Epsilon began crawling up its spindly arm. end writhed like a wounded snake. A bright thing, you know?" Using waldos, she lifted sample wafers from bit of metal—the failed rivet— broke free and The agtech dumped another load of al- the quick-freeze molds in omicron. There flew toward the juncture of the wheel lab's gae into the trough. "I couldn't say." She were a hundred measurements to be made. hub and spokes. tapped her forehead. "It's the wetware. If you Elin felt an instant's petulant boredom, and The old Elin was sfill hooting with scornful want to talk shop, that's fine. Otherwise, I the workboard readjusted her wetware, laughter when the rivet struck the lab, crash- can't." jacking up her attentiveness so that she ing into a nest of wiring that should not have "I see." Elin dabbed a toe in the warm leaned over her readouts in cool, detached been exposed. water. "Well, why not? Let's talk shop." fascination. Two wires short-circuited, sending a mas- Someone was moving at the far edge of The workboard warned her that the inter- sive power transient surging up through the the island. Elin craned her neck to see. The facing program was about to be shut off. Her workboard. Circuits fused and melted. The agtech went on methodically dipping her net fingers danced across the board, damping board went haywire. into the lake as God walked into view. down reactions, putting the labs to bed. The And a microjolt of electricity leaped up two "The lake tempers the climate, see? By wetware went quiescent. gold wires, hopelessly scrambling the wet- day it works by evaporative cooling. Ab- With a shiver, Elin was herself again. She ware through Elin's skull. sorbs the heat, loses it to evaporation, ra- grabbed a towel and wiped otf her face- An hour later, when her replacement fi- diates it out the dome roof through the con- paint. Then she leaned back and transluced nally showed, she was curled into a ball, densers-" the wall—her replacement was late.. Cor- rocking back and forth on the floor. She was Coral was cute as a button. poration regs gave her fifty percent of his alternating between hysterical gusts of A bowl of fruit and vegetables had been missed-time fines if she turned him in,- It. was laughter and dark, gleeful screams. left near the waterline. She walked to the ' easy money, and so she waited. bowl, considered it. Her orange jumpsuit Stretching, she felt the gold wetware wires Morning came, and after a sleepy, roman- nicely complemented her caie-au-lait skin. dangling from the back of her skull. She la- tic breakfast. Tory plugged into his briefcase She was so small and delicate that by con- zily put off yanking them. and went to work. Elin wandered off to do trast Elin felt ungainly. Earth bloomed underfoot, slowly crept some thinking. "We also use passive heat pumps to move How a world-famous molecular biologist, skilled in the jungles of germ-warfare research, blew the whistle on the government's yellow rain scam and won a prize at the same time IRJTERV/IEUU In saying so, he became a Three and one hall years ago the U.S. government leveled inconsistent, the results inconclusive. some extraordinary charges- against the Soviet Union, The lightning rod for growing domestic opposition to the government's State Department said thai the Soviets were waging bio- theory. Reporters interviewed him; the State Department closed of blind to the logical warfare, producing a deadly new biotoxin and distributing him out of briefings; officials accused him being it, the government insisted, and there it to their allies in Southeast Asia. The toxins were contained in a facts. Refugees had seen yellow powder. As the Communist governments allegedly dropped were laboratory lindings of toxins in yellow rain. But Meselson per- charges could only the na- a "yellow substance which fell like rain" on primitive villages, thou- sisted, saying that unproved damage of jabbing at the gov- sands of victims suffered bizarre symptoms and death. Tile charges tion's credibility. Finally, after many months 1983, announced his own provoked an international storm. If they had proved accurate, the ernment's case, in May Meselson Soviets would have been violating all norms of civilized behavior— explanation: Yellow rain was bee dung. it proposed not to mention the 1925 Geneva Protocol against chemical warfare The theory was not as flaky as seemed. Meselson of careful consultation with world and the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. it only after months study and in 1984; in Into the furor stepped a mild-mannered but outspoken scientist. experts in tropical biology. His efforts climaxed March caught in Matthew S, Meselson. fifty-four, an expert on biochemical warfare, an expedition to Thailand, during which Meselson was said that "the charges just didn't sound right—the evidence was a shower of bee-produced yellow rain. Stung by a cascade of PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY GUCCIONE 9 evidence against their case, the State De- Similar care has marked Meselson's gov- tissue from the same soldier turned up nei- partment diplomatically backed off on some ernment work. Recruited as a government ther T2 nor HT2! Most puzzling of all is the contrast Mirocha's results and those of its accusations. consultant in the Sixties, he became one of between Labo- The yellow rain debate propelled Mesel- the nation's foremost experts on biochemi- of the U.S. Army Chemical Systems reported analyzing total of son to national attention, but he was hon- cal warfare. He has used thai position to be- ratory. Mirocha a other materials from ored among scientists long bolore that. Open come an outspoken critic on the issues of five yellow powders and any molecular- biology textbook and you'll herbicides in Vietnam, germ weapons, alleged chemical -attack sites. He reported lab analyzed more find his name along with those of James chemical weapons, and the government's toxins in all five. The Army finding tox- Watson, Francis Crick, and others who un- case for yellow rain. than sixty such sanfples without very serious doubts, raveled the secrets of DNA. Meselson Meselson is a slender, curly-haired man ins in any. This raises of munitions. showed how the double helix, the structural of average height, and his enthusiasm read- as does the comniclc absence where know that arrangement oi DNA, self-replicates and ily slips into his speech. His office at Har- From the Iran-Iraq war— we mustard has used- a small mu- passes on its information to subsequent vard displays row after row of biochemistry gas been — mustard generations. In the early Sixties, he demon- texts, world atlases and "ransiations of Greek seum of bombs contaminated with were gath- strated how DNA encodes proteins, in the plays. Fingerpaintings by his two daughters gas has been amassed. These few of the reports ot cell. In his recent work, he identified the self- compete for wall space with photomicro- ered within a weeks repair system that prevents mutations as graphs of yellow rain. chemical warfare. Yet, with more than five reports trickling DNA replicates itself All that has earned him Writer Doug-as Starr interviewed Mesel- years ol chemical-warfare has re- prestigious sc:enlT.o awards, including an son at Harvard, where he is professor of bio- in from Southeast Asia, nobody : canister, artillery shell, or shell frag- election to Groat Britain's e ile Royal Society, chemistry and molecular biology. For parts trieved a which accepts few Americans. of four days they talked, sometimes in Mes- ment containing traces of the chemicals. the sub- Last spring he was once: more in the news, elson's office and sometimes on the con- Omni: What made you suspect when he received a $256,000 no-strings-at- crete stoop oulsidc the biochemistry build- stance might come from bees? State tached award from the MacArthur Founda- ing, where leaves rustled in the breeze. Meselson: In November 1982, the U.S. announced that the yellow rain tion. He used some of the money to fund his Department contained a large quantity of pol- trip to Thailand. samples len; "the a honeybee would take from As a child, in Los Angeles, Meselson was, type they said, Officials always mixing chemicals or sinking matches flowers." is just what pollen as a underwater to see whether they would light. claimed the communists added '•Suddenly spots carrier in the yellow rain, to help disperse it. While still a teenager, he converted his par- doesn't sense, if you depos- ents' garage into a lab and manufactured began to fall directly on Now that make ited the stuff in a sticky form, it would be very rare-earth chemicals —such as cerium, sa- the car and on to redisperse it. This just doesn't marium, and neodymium—to finance the difficult setup. .Years later the owner of the supply Tom Seeley's glasses. We happen that way. rocks in 1983. 1 got some samples of house he sold the chemicals to offered him couldn't see any Early government. The rocks (he business. "My one and only business from the Canadian 'bees. All we could hear were had spots of the alleged chemical-warfare deal," laughs Meselson. He turned it down. I took them to Dr. Joan Now- Instead, he studied chemistry at the Uni- the spots coming agent on them. and she versity oi Chicago, where he earned a de- icke, of the Smithsonian Institution, down: plink, plink, plink. identified the pollens. I showed her gree in liberal arts in 1951. Then he went to some of others to Dr. the Caliiornia Institute of Technology, where results and similar results from Harvard, he studied with Nobel laureates Linus Paul- Peter Ashton, tropical biologist at consisted of pollens ing and Max Delbruck. Pauling taught that a who said the substance to Asia. They came from good scientist is bom -oirodical and bold: common Southeast insects to dis- that once he's sure of his science, he should Omni: What is yellow rain? plant families that depend on insect con- state his conclusions fearlessly. Meselson: The State Department has said it tribute their pollen —hence the Pauling's advice served his student well. is'a substance..thal contains mycotoxins— nection. Ashton called Professor Tom See- Meselson's experiments have been cited as fungal toxins— such as the chemicals known ley, at Yale, a bee expert who has worked Thailand. immedi- paradigms of elegance and precision. In his as T2, nivalenol, and deoxynivalenol. Gov- with bees from Seeley yellow rain sounded like bee famous DNA work, he and co-worker Frank- ernment officials contend that it has- been ately said that in feces. Whereupon we went into high gear, lin W. Stahl took a few simple steps to solve dropped on villagers Southeast Asia, teces in one of the most pressing biological prob- causing vomiting, diarrhea, hemorrhaging, collecting samples of bee Cam- wild bridge. It's funny I've lived here for nearly lems of the day. Scientists had models of and death. I say it's the feces of bees. — DNA's double-helix structure but could not Omni: What made you suspect that yellow twenty years and have never seen it before. grass, I leaves, even show how DNA perpetuated itselt through rain might not be toxins? fqund yellow spots on the rear window of my car. It turned up successive gcrcaiions Meselson and Stahl Meselson: I was puzzled by the chemical on of center, where invented a new laboratory technique in which analyses, which suggested the possibility of on the skylights the science they labeled DNA with a heavy isotope ol contamination or laboratory error. The initial each pane is about one meter by two. We counted bee feces per nitrogen, then let the bacteria that contained sample, analysed by Chester Mirocha [of the stood below and the DNA reproduce. After several genera- University of Minnesota], was divided into square meter. con- Omni: Would you clarify the link between the tions they extracted the DNA, put it in a spe- two parts. Each part was reported to pollen the feces? cial salt solution, and cenlrifuged the mix- tain nivalenol and deoxyniva'.enol, but 1 was and bee collect pollen and put it into ture. The DNA separated into "heavy" and puzzled by the tact that the ratios of these Meselson: Bees their nest. Later, nurse bees, "light" bands. The pattern revealed thai the chemicals were very different in each half of storage cells in two sirands completely unravel and repro- the sample. No one knows what caused that. who make jelly to feed the larvae, come along partly digested in duce, each eld strand now pairing with a new Then there were Tie issue samples from and eat it. The pollen gets one. That mechanism—called semiconser- a dead Pol Pot soldier. Both Mirocha and the gut of the bee. She digests the inside of Now, vative replication—was one of the major so- Joel Rosen, of Rutgers University, con- the pollen grains but not the shells. don't defe- lutions to the riddle of DNA. When a journal- ducted independent analyses. Mirocha's bees are very scrupulous. They in their nests, but instead fly out en ist asked Watson to comment on Meselson's lests revealed T2, plus hundreds of times cate excrete the pollen shells. These experiment. Watson summed it up in one more of a toxin called HT2. Rosen found T2 masse to most word; "classic." but no HT2 at all. A Canadian evaluation of cleansing flights are common, although 106 OMNI 1 people don't notice them. If you were stand- Meselson: The r<;!ugee ropo ts are the most the drama about DNA itself took place at the ing under a shower of this stu'f you woiJcir't complex part of the issue. In Southeast Asia Cavendish Lab, in England. see or hear the bees. All you'd notice would the illness rates are spectacular. For vil- Omni: What was it like at that time, being be a slow drizzle of small, yellow drops- lagers living in that part of the'world, vomit- Linus Pauling's student? yellow, sticky drops. ing, diarrhea, and sk'in rash are common. Meselson: It was marvelous. He was easily Omni: During the time of your research you These people often associate illness with available, always interested in your ideas, had been the target of steady abuse. The something from the sky. If I went out and and ol course he had so many interesting State Department froze you out of chemical- asked Americans how many of them haven't ideas of his own. Before the DNA structure warfare briefings and critcized you in off- telt the same since fluoride was introduced, was discovered, it was hard for a young per- physics, mathematics, the-reco.rd briefings. And then The Wall I'm sure I'd find some. So I believe a plausi- son who liked chem- Street Journal referred to you as "someone ble explanation is that existing and rumored istry, and biology to know what to do. I was engaged in an abuse of science." illness is linked in the minds of the refugees planning to return to the University of Chi- striking this to study called mathemati- Meselson: That didn't bother me. I knew we with a event from the sky. And in cago something were right: The samples were bee feces. case, fhat event may actually be the defe- cal biophysics, when one summer, while I There was no other explanation we could cation flights of large numbers of bees. was home in Los Angeles. Peter Pauling in- all in his dad's pool. Suddenly come up with; had there been another, 1 Omni: For the evidence you've unveiled, vited me to swim would have gladly revised my position, But it's not indisputable that yellow rain isn't a Linus came by, wearing a jacket, tie, and we still had some questions, and to solve toxin. If there's one chance in a thousand vest. I felt really naked—here was this ex- -them we had to go to Thailand to collect that it is, shouldn't our government err on the traordinarily great scientist standing over me samples. S'Ce of standing up for the victims7 in the pool. And he said, "Well, Matt, what Omni: Just then the MacArlhur Foundation Meselson: li we really were concerned about are you going to do next year?" "I'm going awarded you a quarter of a million dollars. the victims, you would have seen many more to the University of Chicago to study math- How did you react? full-time people assigned to study the prob- ematical biophysics," I answered. Linus highly qualified and then Meselson: I remember the morning the foun- lem in the field. We'd have looked momentarily nonplussed said, "That's lot of baloney! Come to Cal- dation called. I was astonished. I kind of fell a tech student!" I did. off my chair. I put my hand over the phone and be my graduate So and told my secretary one word: "Money!" Omni: Many people say Linus Pauling would structure if Then I called Tom Seeley. at Yale, and said, have discovered DNAs he had "We're going to Thailand!" attended a crucial conference in 1952 in <»The time We went lo Khao Yai Park, a huge, for- London, in which Rosalind Franklin dis- ested, mountainous area n central Thailand, is coming when we will played her X rays of DNA—the most impor- clue the helix's structure. in quest of Apis dorsata, a giant honeybee manipulate tant to Meselson: But of all damn things, his visa about half again as big as ours ; with nests hanging up about one hundred feet in the the life processes and was denied! trees. We found some of these nests and guide our Omni: For speaking oui against nuclear- could see yellow spots on vegetation on the bomb tests and the cold war? genetic destiny. Science ground. There Was a big swath about forty Meselson: Yes, on the grounds that he was meters wide and one hundred sixty meters will modify some kind of subversive. Omni: What did you and his other students long, where there were perhaps a thousand moods and even values.^ spots per square meter. It seemed to be think about that? some sort of bee target area, Meselson: We were all Pauling's boys, so to A few days later we' went to a village that speak, and our attitude was that this couldn't had a famous bee free with about eighty hurt Linus. We thought that the poor govern- nests in it. We were watching that tree from ment had gone off its rocker. Linus would a distance of one hundred fifty yards, when physicians in reljgee camps irying'to get to say, "Look how ridiculous this is. What am I 7" suddenly spots began to fall directly on the the bottom of this. We've never done that. going to do, harm the United States Don't forget distinguished record of hood of'the car and on Seeley 's glasses. We There's a principle here that I feel very that he had a couldn't see any. bees. All we could hear strongly about. Scientists have an obligation research during the war. It seemed a case were the spots coming down: plink, plink, to evaluate evidence- according to scientific of government mindlessness. plink, plink, We were delighted— as- standards and methods. These are hard-won Omni: How did you become involved in the tounded! Alter saying some very funny standards that developed over hundreds of study of DNA? I talk Delbruck, I priest- to to Max things, which I can't remember, switched years, in the face of opposition by Meselson: wanted on the tape recorder, and Tom put out pieces hoods and stoning by villagers. As soon as of the division of biology at Caltech, who had of paper to catch the spots. The shower a scientist begins lo larrpor with his conclu- this reputation for being exceedingly fierce. lasted about five minutes, no more. Then we sions for political reasons, the whole system When I finally got up my courage to see him, looked around at the leaves. Well, with eighty begins to totter. In the case of yellow rain as one of the first things he asked me was, nests in the tree, you can imagine. I understand it, the scientists involved ad- "What do you think of the structure of DNA After the shower, we went to the Ban Vinai vised government officials not to go public, proposed by Watson and Crick?" I said I'd refugee camp, where people had told sto- but the political advisers said, "Go ahead." never heard of it. Well, Max just blew up. He ries of poisonous yellow rain. We showed Once that was decided by the Secretary of picked up a stack of reprints of Watson and branches ol leaves :o Iho iclugecs and tape- State and the Presidenf, nobody wanted to Crick's lamous paper and hurled them at me. recorded the interviews. We asked, "What is say, "Boss, you got" it wrong"' saying: "Get out of here, and don't come this? Have you seen it before?" Of the six- Omni: In the early Fitties, you helped unravel back until you've read thai!" After that my life teen groups we interviewed, thirteen couldn't the mysteries of DNA. What was the scien- became much more interesting. identify these spots. Two said it was tific climate like at that time? Omni: You later worked with James Watson. "chemie," communist chemical warfare. Only Meselson: It Was very exciting. There was a What is he like? one man said it was insect feces, and after group around Linus Pauling who were think- Meselson: Jim was very exuberant, always discussing it with friends, changed his mind ing about molecular structure, especially of talking in half sentences and concerned with to "chemie." It's pretty, clear that the refu- proteins! Pauling had come out with his the latest bits of information from different gees don't know what this stuff is. model of the -alpha helix [the first protein labs. He was very competitive, tending to Omni: Are you saying we shouldn't listen to whose structure was revealed], but there leap to conclusions, and not hesitating to tell the refugee reports of yellow rain? , wasn't much talk 01 U\A at Caltech. Most of you what they were. It's good to have people 110 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 174 FICTION The machines did all the dirty work for free—so what was the catch? ROBOTGNOMICS BY ROBERT SHECKLEY Miagic is not to be found in the desperate suburbs. The split-level home, once so eagerly desired, has become oppressive to Edmond Ives's spirit. Here he is. propped up in the superfirm king-size bed. watching a rubber- faced comedian on the bedroom TV. His wife, Marissa, lies beside him. satin sleep mask in place," mouth tense, awaiting her nightly journey to oblivion on the good ship Valium. Is this what life is all about? Marissa isn't fun anymore. She isn't even cute anymore. She's no longer right for Ives, a man hungering for a new spirit and a new life. For these and other vague but compelling reasons, Edmond Ives left his wife and moved back to New York City. Ives was an account executive at Smith, Levy, Durstin & Tamerlane, an advertising agency looking forward to better times. Ives was thirty-four, of medium height, with hazel eyes, iight-brown hair, and smalt, even features. He just missed being handsome without the compensation of looking interesting. In a TV drama, Ives might have played the star's PAINTING BY DONALD ROLLER WILSON : old college friend who killed the blond Bardsley opened his shiny black suit- he who hesitiin > nd-mn joc-n liv- hitchhiker in the first act for reasons that case. What he took from it looked like an ing like a slob. never become entirely clear, expensive toy, one of those cunning dolls that "Think it over," Bardsley said. "I'll come In New York, Ives looked at a few apart- children like so much, perhaps because the around next week." ments, all unsatisfactory for one reason or dolls lack any resemblance to humans. It was "Never mind," Ives said. "I want it." another. Then he was shown a multilevel a hemisphere of chromed metal about the Bardsley produced a short typed agree- place in the East Sixties. The broker who size of half a cantaloupe. ment that Ives read and signed. Bardsley accompanied him had the air of a man ex- From its underside there depended two put the paper away and touched the switch plaining divine mysteries. "It's unusual to flat feet with prehensile plastic toes and rub- on the Kitchen King's base. Antennae find a place like this on today's market, "he ber sucker disks. On its rounded carapace twitching, the Kitchen King climbed to the pointed out. "Dustin Hoffman once sublet were two slender antennae, each with an eye sink and attacked the pile of dirty dishes that here, you know." at its end. Behind the antennae were coiled had been accumulating all week in hopes of Ives looked at the apartment's dramatic metal arms terminating in a variety of small a miracle. It washed, rinsed, and dried them, curves and angles, its steps, eccentrically instruments. and stacked them away in the pantry. After placed and of varying heights, leading to Bardsley touched a switch at its base. The scrubbing Ihe sink until it glistened, the an upper level of fanciful shape. The apart- little robot's antennae twitched, and it ran up Kitchen King stowed itself in a closet to await ment was pleasing but cold, impersonal in the side of the stove. First it went at the skil- further tasks. its fashionable eccentricity. Ives liked it. He let, scraping out the blackened sausages "It's only fair to lell yoi i," Bardsley said, "the signed a lease that afternoon. with a squirt of detergent from an internal King doesn't do floors or windows or any- In this apartment that Dustin Hoffman reservoir. Then it dissolved the ranchero thing like thai. Just kitchen work." had once sublet, between work and phone sauce and disposed of the charred sau- Ives didn't care. He was experiencing calls to his lawyer, Ives waited for Manhat- sages. When it finished, Bardsley turned il something like an epiphany, tan's famous magic to begin. off and returned it to his suitcase. New York, as usual, was long on prom- Ives gave this performance the minute of When Bardsley came by a few days later, ises and short on deliveries. The famous he found Ives delighted with his household magic must have been lost in transit; it robot. He had only one complaint. never seemed to reach Ives. Months later, "It works perfectly," Ives said, "but only in on an otherwise perfect summer evening, the kitchen. I know you told me about that. Ives realized that nothing great was ever But look: Say I eat in the living room. When '•Magda looked going to happen to him. Maybe not even I'm done, I have to load everything onto a anything good. His life was a bore, and his like a group of expensive tray and bring it back to the kitchen myself. apartment an ever-growing mess If the King will lake stuff off the dinette, why was de- audio components spite the perfunctory efforts of a succes- not off the coffee table or nightstand?" sion of short-tempered cleaning ladies. - arranged on a white metal "Well, it may seem arbitrary to you," Then the doorbell rang. cabinet and equipped Bardsley said. "But in fact, appropriate limits No matter how bad things are in New are fundamental to a humanistic philosophy with eight small feet. She was York there's always the possibility that one of design." day the doorbell will ring and something covered with dials "Come again?" Ives said. strange and wonderful will come in. Usu- "We could program the Kitchen King to and liquid-crystal displays.** ally it's just a mugger or a process server. mow lawns, drive cars, walk dogs, tutor you Swahili, taxes. possibilities But sometimes . . . in figure your The Ives opened the door. A small, middle- are endless. But where do we stop? Carried aged man stood outside, dressed in a well- to its logical conclusion, multipurpose ro- worn brown suit and carrying a shiny black bots could rival and even replace man him- suitcase. respectful silence it deserved. At last he said, self And that is wrong." it, it's said. "But it really "I'm Bardsley," he said, "representing Ihe "Okay, I admit incredible. What do you "Well, okay," Ives would principles if Kitchen Robotgnomics Corporation. If I could have get for a gadget like this?" violate your my King a moment of your time—" "The Kitchen King, as we call it," Bardsley came out once in a while and emptied the "I'm not interested," Ives said. He started said, "is free." ashtray?" to close the door, but Bardsley was block- "What's the catch?" Ives asked. "I'm afraid it would," Bardsley said. "But ing it with the edge of his suitcase. "There is none. You will not pay one cent since you've been so cooperative, the com- "Don't be ridiculous," Ives said. for the use of this miracle of humanistic en- pany is prepared to lease you another of our "I may be persistent," Bardsley said, "but gineering." household robots on the same terms as be- fore." his shiny black suitcase. I am not ridiculous. I am introducing a new Bardsley explained that the Robotgnom- He opened exploit Valet, rec- line of household robots. And 1 smell ics Corporation had been set up to Rudy the new machine, was a something burning." some recent breakthroughs in home-ser- tangular metal box with a gray crackle finish, Ives smelled it too, and dodged around vice technology. As a promotion, the com- three teet long by a foot wide by three inches the stacks of old Sunday Timeses to get to pany was placing machines in certain deep. It walked horizontally or vertically on the kitchen. His Mexican sausages had households throughout the country. Those two, three, or four spidery arm/legs. Rudy turned into a charred black mess, the Eng- selected could use the robots for an indefi- sorted and folded laundry, hung up clothes, lish mulfins had burned in the toaster oven, nite period, free of charge. The company made beds, and set out clean towels. Rudy and the ranchero sauce was annealed to would retain ownership of the machines and also emptied ashtrays and brought plates, the sides of the saucepan. Ives had never could use lavorable comments in its upcom- cups, and glasses from around the apart- really grasped food's inability, to take care ing advertising campaign. ment to the domain of the Kitchen King. of itself. So much for another adventure in- "Letrr /essaid. That helped. But clean ashtrays can seem creative cookery. Bardsley took out the Kitchen King. Ives a little silly when there's a permanent black As he switched on the exhaust fan, he studied it intently, a man caught between ring, in your bathtub and a year's supply of became aware that Bardsley had followed paradigms. On the one hand, he knew that dust on the Venetian blinds. Bardsley sym- him intOjthe apartment. Ives turned, en- nothing is free, everything's got a catch, and pathized. A few days later he brought Tilly raged, but the little man said, "I know, you're caveaf emptor is a fundamental law of the the Toiler, an aluminum machine resembling not interested. But this was my fault. Let universe. But it is also true that fortune favors a large, segmented worm. Tilly did floors, me clean up the mess." the bold, opportunity knocks but once, and carpets, windows, blinds, curtains, bath- 114 OMNI COM'l\IJFD ON PAGE 1S4 The Antarctic missions could teach us about living in space was almost a dress re- Ithearsal for trie space race. Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen sacrificed his dogs one by one to cross the frozen wasteland ot Ant- arctica in a drive for the Soulh Pole. His British counter- part. Robert Scott, betrayed by breakdowns in his motorized vehicles and slowed by the death of his pack animals, lost the race, his crew, and his life. He froze to death. Today Aniarctica is the site of a radically different enter- prise; a human-relations experiment that may someday help other pioneers in their effort to colonize space. Today, a new type of explorer is stamping footprints into the icy Irontier. Amundsen and Scott would have been amazed at the scene; Two young South American boys, snug in their orange thermal suits, run and jump under a sign pointing to the South Pole. The children belong lo two of five Chilean families who have temporarily turned this continent, once the battleground for national honor, into a colony. To this day, the colonization of Antarctica remains, in part. an international status game, TEST BY FIRE AND ICE BY PATRICK TIERNEY PHOTOGRAPHS BY FRANZ LAZI 3 — its own well-in- although the children don't know it. Inde- ston Cope, the U.S. South Pole Station base since 1977. Each family has pendently, Chilean and Argentine govern- doctor in 1973 and 1974. sulated home. Children—attend classes in a ments have sent families to Antarctica for Dr. Cope, a member of the L-5 group big red schoolhouse "the southernmost one- to two-year stints. But the families which* dreams of putting a free-enterprise school in the world." Entertainment comes themselves symbolize a new synergy, a spirit manufacturing station in orbit—finds the Ar- from Esperanza's own Archangel Gabriel ra- —"the southernmost radio station of camaraderie, tf societies are to survive in gentines' activities encouraging. The L-5 dio station the harsh environs of space and Antarctica, group intends to send families into space. in the world." Children are allowed to walk the lone competitive hero oi old must be re- Cope went to Antarctica in hope of being only 55 yards from the base, a necessary weather. placed by a more cooperative settler. The selected by NASA for a voyage to Mars. precaution given the unpredictable life here sight of children playing in the Antarctic Antarctica's hushed, unearthly world of ice Again, there are parallels between life For example, the rookie snows conjures up a vision of Arthur C. makes it seem like another planet. A few and in space. of Clarke's Star-Child in the movie 2001: A black, hollowed-out volcanoes jut up above cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko, a member Space Odyssey— man's rebirth to cooper- the ice mass of the white continent. The the Satyut 6 mission, had heard that the stars to ation instead of confrontation. ocean appears to stop suddenly, and the ice in space were a lovely sight. He decided take a "What the Argentines and Chileans are pack begins, then cracks into hundreds of poke his head through the hatch to Grechko doing strikes me as a highly relevant anal- compositions in white and gray, which peek while cosmonaut Georgiy was Unfortunately, be- ogy to space colonization, "says psychiatrist change to shimmering blue-green tones as making a spacewalk. fastened his safety Jay Shurley. The senior author of a paper on the ice reflects the morning sky. cause Romanenko hadn't floating the psychological problems in the first space At the Argentine base of Marambio—one tether, he wound up through Grechko colony, he believes the best way to simulate of Antarctica's two year-round landing hatch and away from the capsule. safety. a space colony would be to place 500 can- strips—the temperature is -12°G "This is grabbed his toot and yanked him to children have been lost in Ant- didates in the Antarctic peninsula—the Palm summer weather for us," says the com- So far no well to their Beach of Antarctica. There, "colonists" could manding officer. Major Luis Maria Ocampo. arctica. And most seem to adjust carry out space-manufacturing functions for He laughs at the shivering visitors and gives new surroundings. sociologist. I fot.ind.lhat the in- six months. Subjects in the study would also "As a most provide scientists with valuable data on how teresting thing to observe wasthe children," Bilbao, the wife ot Major humans react to life in a hostile environment. says Adriana "One-year-olds, two-year-olds, "It would be a good social laboratory to Ocampo. outside and determine what those first five or six months children ot whatever age played the least populated of all continents, the most settlement called Bahia Esperanza (Hope Because families and crews spend only a U.S. gnawing concern at an Antarctic base is lack Bay), which can be reached by ski plane year or two in Antarctica—and crews of privacy, from Marambio. More than 50 Argentine spend only a few weeks in space—the tem- "Living in a space station is more or less families, including eight pregnant women porary weakening of the immune system nuisance. like living in a tin can, which is pretty much who gave birth to Antarctica's first native represents little more than a minor the way we lived in Antarctica," says Win- children, have spent a year at Esperanza But for children born and raised in germ- 110 OMNI s like Antarctica or outer space, coicnizaiior s choosing families who will Antarctic conditions arc re;ect people who the immunological dilferences could make survive the pressures of forced intimacy are not suited," says Jorge Bernaldes, a contact with Ihe mainstream culture as dec- without going crazy. Psychiatric screening middle-aged M.D. who has worked for 20 imating as it proved for the native popula- is supposed to help winnow out those show- years in Antarctica and inspires the confi- tions of the New World. ing signs of menia and emot oral instabilty. dence of a family doctor. He has seen a lot Along with medical problems, there are But results of standardized tests may not be of people come unhinged in Antarctica, and psychological disorders and social ten- good indicators. "We recently had the case he feels encounter groups, which have not sions. Crews spending a winter in Antarctica of a twenty-eight-year-old man," says Mario been used systematically by any country suffer from insomnia, depression, slowed Carrera, an Argentine M.D. with 12 years of other than Argentina, help in selection. "It's cognitive abilities, paranoia, and aggres- Antarctic personnel experience. "If you speak incredible," he says, "how people will ac- sion— a gestalt collectively called the win- to him. he's an excellent sort— educated, well cept the decisions of the group as natural." scientists will- tering syndrome. Some scientists' blame it disposed, well prepared. But in Antarctica, Bernaldes and Argentine on Antarctica's long, dark winter, which dis- he 'suddenly had a mental episode, at- ingly dispense information that other coun- rupts the body's 25-hour circadian rhythm, tacked everyone around him, and ran out- tries wouid guard as a state secret or would first four just as space crews' body rhythms can go side naked. It was necessary to give him never gather in the place. "Three to berserk outside the earth's 24-hour cycle of injections and put him in a straitjacket." percent of wintering personnel develop se- light and dark. Others say the stifling envi- Many feel that anyone willing to take his vere maladjustments," says Bernaldes. ronment of Antarctic stations, coupled with children to Antarctica must also be out of his These individuals are flown out of Marambio inadequate social structures, intensifies mind. An individual returning to a second or given drug treatment if the weather for- stress. All of these problems have been wit- tour of duty at a US. base is called Qfvl— bids flying. Because only 1 to 2 percent of nessed on the six- to seven-month Soviet quite mad. But Chilean and Argentine fami- the adult population develop psychotic Salyut space missions. lies insist that everyone else is crazy. The symptoms during their lives, a 3 to 4 percent Until the Salyut missions, most research crazy people, ihey claim, live in crowded cit- incidence during a year of duty is shocking- on space adaptation focused on weight- ies like Santiago, where they are. caught in ly high. "It's not just Argentina," Bernaldes lessness, Now it's clear that isolation and economic crises and breathe polluted air. says. 'All countries are about the same." confinement play at least as great a role, The Argentines have perhaps the most But officials from other countries dispute making Antarctic data particularly relevant creative and comprehensive screening this, while admitting that elsewhere, Ihe em- to long-term flight. Valeriy Ryumin, veteran process of any nation with an Antarctic pro- phasis on psychological studies is lacking. of two six-month flights, summed up the in- gram. This includes interviews and a battery "We don't have a psychiatric record even terpersonal tensions by quoting O. Henry; of psychological tests, as well as EEG tests approaching four percent," says Com- "All one needs to effect a murder is to lock (studies of elecincai activity m the brain), 15 mander William Weiner, clinical psycholo- two men into a cabin, eighteen feet by twenty, days of living outdoors together for families gist and chief screening officer for all U.S. and keep them there for two months." going to Esperanza. and group therapy. Antarctic visitors. "The nervous-breakdown The key to successful Antarctic and space "In group therapy we manage to simulate concept isn't there from an official stand- point." Yet Weiner acknowledges that there's ousy," he says "You son. what the Navy was There are persistent rumors about one fe- been a "cavalier attitude" in the Navy toward scared to death of down there in Antarctica male cosmonaut who is thought to have suf- these psycho. ogical problems. He seems to was homosexuality. And so they will tell you fered a nervous breakdown during a rough be trying to broaden the Navy's approach. that homosexuality is not a problem, doesn't landing. She'd been given a mild sedative, "We're going to have to get serious about exist down there. That's bullshit. Of course it but with the shock of landing she became this," he concludes. exists in an all-male society." hysterical, vomited, and was placed under No one really, knows what the psychiatric Natani and Shurley claim that the Navy heavy sedation. The rumor is impossible to record lor U.S. personnel in Antarctica, is, and National Science -oundation (NSF) have confirm. But it is known that Soviet capsules though the information would be extremely come to a mutual understanding regarding have landed in half-frozen lakes and in Si- valuable for long-term spaceflight. Antarctic research — essentially, Antarctica berian snowstorms, where cosmonauts' sur- "Those sorts of statistics aren't kept," says is largely a Navy boat that the NSF doesn't vival skills and sanity were challenged. psychologist Kirmach Natani, who lived at rock. Consequently, biologists may get The six-month-long Salyut missions have South Pole Station in 1967. He and psychia- money to produce a TV documentary on the indirectly helped to rekindle NASAs interest trist Jay Shurley traced former Antarctic per- sexual habits of Weddell seals before any- in Antarctica. The successful Salyut mis- sonnel now living in the United States and thing substantial is known about nervous sions were characterized by what the cos- found that several became heavy drinkers, breakdowns during or after Antarctic duty or monauts politely called "psychological which Shurley attributes to the polar expe- about human sexuality in confined groups. problems." This unusual behavior was so rience. In fact, Shurley and Natani say some In the space program, too, psychological reminiscent of what crops up in Antarctic who stay through the Antarctic winter never studies often get short shrift. "There have crews that space sociologist B. J. Bluth drew recover— they become "professional iso- been few psychological problems of what on Antarctic research in an article analyzing lates." Natani claims that the situation is you describe as nervous breakdowns the Salyut missions. NASA was so im- overlooked by the Navy. among U.S. astronauts, because the stays pressed with "Staying Sane in Space" that "There's a subtle denial system operating, [in orbit] have been relatively short," says Bluth was awarded a grant to continue re- in particularly if you speak to officials of the U.S. George Robinson, assistant general coun- search that area. Navy and the National Science Foundation Bluth maintains that many of the symp- Division of Polar Programs," Shurley says. toms fhat develop on long flights may not be "One year at the South Pole Station, one unique to the space environment and "may of the weathermen had a severe nervous be alleviated by training and careful design breakdown after the station closed. He was of social and environmental features." This Wsolated groups a powerful guy, and they physically couldn't would mean creating capsule interiors that handle him unless all sixteen of the station create their own cultures. are more, "humane"— choosing pleasant crew ganged up on him at the same time. color schemes and obliterating unpleasant in a singie year, They seriously considered locking him up in smells— as well as developing techniques a cage. Navy screening -ailed :o reveal that Antarctic crews have for relieving insomnia and tension. first time, NASA is he had a lifelong phobia of darkness. So evolved their "The reason: For the when the sun went down and didn't come engaged in a commercial activity," Bluth myths and fictional back up for six months, he went crazy. You own says. "We can't afford to have the astronauts can see why I'm a little skeptical of the Na- kinships—and get too fatigued and sleep twelve hours a screening process." day, as the Soviets reportedly were doing a! vy's even their own language^ Shurley helped turn the University of the end of the Salyut 7 flight, or get mad and Oklahoma Health Sciences Center into a not send data for two days, as the Soviets major clearinghouse for biomedical re- may have done. Not sending data for two search in the Antarctic. But funds ran out days can do disastrous things fo a commer- before he could study how Antarctic person- cial experiment." nel reassimilate into society, a study he feels sel for the Smithsonian hsitution. "Nervous Soviet cosmonauts, like most test-pilot as- would provide vital information for those se- breakdowns occurred because of pressure- tronauts, earn their entrance into an elite lecting space colonists. He is delighted that put on people when they return — a lot of world through a high-risk training program Argentine scientists confirm much of his data. drinking, a lot of family disruption." that could cost them their lives. But if Antarc- "Your Argentine source is spot on; he's tell- He adds that the United States has had tic researchers are right, one of the reasons ing you God's truth," Shurley says. little interest in psychological studies to de- the cosmonauts may not be getting along is to such The Argentines were also candid about fine these problems. "But if you go to the that the type of person who gravitates sexual tensions experienced by men and Soviet Union, you get gobs of data," he says, a program may not be the kind of person women at Base Esperanza. "There are males on human adaptation to space, Antarctica, who will do well on an extended flight. who are Casanovas, conquerors. These are Siberia, and other exotic regions. Both Shur- A National Academy of Sciences study, people who permanently seek a positive fe- ley and Natani say the Soviet Union used its "Human Factors in Long-Duration Space male response," says one Argentine source. 15,000-foot-high Vostok Station on the South Flight," was based on Antarctic research and The other big problem, he says, is female Polar Plateau, -.the highest permanently in- suggested that test pilots' "active, aggres- jealousy. "When the women aren't chosen, habited place on Earth, as a laboratory for sive, take-charge patterns might be trouble- adaptation. the constraints of prolonged this can lead to friction, to showdowns. I know space some under that in Thule [a former U.S. Air Force base "The Russians are interested in the ef- confinement and inactivity. Here, attributes on the Greenland ice cap], the United States fects of confinement and isolation," says Na- of patience, tolerance of inactivity, and se- had difficulties because of friction among tani. "They also administered prophylactic dentary activities would seem essential." female personnel." drugs and studied their effects." Says Dr. Weiner, of the U.S. Navy Antarctic Shurley adds that anecdotal information, Shurley feels the Vostok experiments in the program, "We tell the aggressive, competi- about the Air Force's Thule base confirms late Sixties reflected the Soviets' determi- tive people, 'We don't want you.' They tend the problem of female jealousy experienced nation to put a permanent space station in to be narcissistic. They get burned out. Peo- by the Argentines at Esperanza. (No one is orbit—as they are now doing, setting new ple aren't going to stand around and praise sure what happened at Thule because the records for space endurance with each day them for having the right stuff." information is high y classified.) But Shurley.. of the current Salyut 8 mission. From Antarc- Another lesson from Antarctic experience rejects the chauvinistic insinuation that jeal- tic studies, Soviet scient'Sts concluded that is to avoid pitting military against scientific ousy is an all-female preserve. confinement, isolation, and lack of activity personnel, a delicate issue NASA is just be- "There's also a problem with male jeal- exhaust the central nervous system. ginning to face. Bluth believes many of the 122 OMNI CONTINUED OM PAGE 163 In the very near future a small group of Americans and Russians set out on the greatest adventure of them all... To see if there is life out there. They find it. <2010 THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT ROYSCHEIDER WORLD PREMIERE ENGAGEMENT BEGINS DECEMBER 7th INNER VOYAGE BY KATHLEEN McAULIFFE Leonardo da Vinci dug up graves to document !he complexity of human anatomy. Vesalius, preferring fresher corpses, hung out at the executioner's block. And twentieth-century medical artist Frank Ar- mitage talked his way into medical dissection classes. "Eventually I ended up.doing the dissections myself," recalls Armilage, whose in- ternationally acclaimed pictures combine aesthetic sensibility with a Clockwise from top: still life of eye pathology; densely packed cerebellum; reticular activating system (yellow) governs aiertness; celt fusion. 47b create intimacy, I provide space for viewers to project themseives into my body landscape.^ meticulous concern lor scientilic detail. Armitage borrows from di- verse disciplines: architecture, mural painting, anatomy, and even from filmmaking (he developed the special effects for Fantastic Voy- In direct contrast to the flat, lifeless quality of most medical art, Armitage's renderings create a dramatic, three-dimensional illusion that invites viewers on a tour of the body's passageways. "My aim," he explains, "is to give the impression that you are there, a lillipu- tian standing amid those colossal nerves, arteries, and tissues. "DO " — "Not the same, thing." Her smile was al- "Not in terms of physical damage," I said. "All I SERRATED most gentle. knew then was ihat I didn't "And otherwise?" I want to live in the city so much as wanted I shrugged. "I can probably handle it." C0NriNUEDFROMPAGE69 it. to own Man, 1 didn't want nobody with "Then do it," said Delia. "Please. For me," turned oif. "I but the radio have to think." she power over me." Unfair, I thought. Don't say It that way. "I'm said. I at her, both noticed glanced glanced back at the We her careful language not convinced you really want it," I said. street, and hit the brakes. slipping. Delta met my gaze ievelly. "You're danc- tires shrieked, The and the front end "So here I am," Delia said, choosing her ing," she said. "Don't worry about sharing slewed slightly as a large, black Doberman words. "I wanted out, and I got out any way responsibility. It's not your concern." scampered across the three lanes in front of I could. Nobody stopped me." "I choose it," I. said. "Whatever happens, me. it safely made the other curb. My car "Maybe," I said, "that has something to do I'm not a disinterested party. I'll have to live stopped, but the shrieking didn't. with your problem now." with it afterward." I turned in my seat and put my hands out "Nobody who knew me then knows me 'After what?" It to Delia. She wailed, her voice cycling up a now. was a clean break," I hesitated. "I don't know." primal scale that could have been a dirge It's never clean, I thought. Always too "Then don't be so afraid for me." Delia took tor every person who had ever died. I with- many threads. I said nothing. my hand tightly. "Love, do it." drew my hands and covered my ears. Then Delia took several deep and deliberate So I did. I exerted control and reached out again to breaths. 'Angie. you said you would help me." her, to touch and stroke and attempt to seek "I said I would if I could." My leather shoulder bag serves as an ef- a path through the thicket of terror and pain "You mean you can't after all?" fective traveling pharmacopoeia. After a I surrounding her mind. "I'm not fencing," .said wearily. "What do short search, I found the salves I needed, She stopped only when she was physi- you think will help you?" the essences, and the talisman. I arranged cally exhausted. "Can you look rside? ' she said. "Can you two kitchen chairs in the living room so that help me see inside the dreams?" Delia and I sat facing, knees touching. I had It was the same this time, four weeks later. lit candles on end tables to either side of us. After a minute of that eerie wail. Delia twisted Delia looked like the carved ebony of the loose from me and stumbled through the hall surrounding efligies. if to her bedroom. As half-blind, she car- "Whatever is within will come out," I said. omed off the dresser and slammed down on She nodded almost imperceptibly. I daubed 4/ felt as if an icy the bed. I'd followed her. salve lightly on her lips, then on mine. I could I sat on the edge of the mattress as she hand had clamped around smell the sweet, cinnamony scent qi mate- curled in a fetal position, with her face my ankle and were rials burning in the candles. Our fingers crushed into the feather pillows. plaited together, we clasped the rough tal- I waited helplessly until she came out of drawing me down through isman within the double fist. it. trying to lever herself upright, straighten- I leaned forward and kissed her on the , a hole too small ing, gasping, wincing, faffing back, ex- lips. I tasted bitterness. to admit me. Pain burned hausted. Her eyes tnafy recused, and at last "Now," I said. she reached for me. "I'm being punished," as though I were The communication was brutal and sud- she said, her voice low and forced. den. I felt as if an icy hand, had clamped impaled on a glowing poker.l "Perhaps," I said, twining my fingers in her around my ankle and were drawing me down hair. "How do you know?" and through a hole far too small to admit me. "The same way I know you possess pow- Pain burned as though I were impaled on ers." Delia turned her head, gently disen- the length of a glowing poker. fingers, kissing gaging my then them. "The I remember screaming. same way I have hunches when the phone's "How abO'jl a nvonct s: or a psychiatrist?' I going to ring or the way know how far to I answered. I awoke and stared into Delia's eyes. Pu- push a client toward closing." "How about a--" she hesitated, "a friend? pils dilated, no longer empty, they stared "Then who's punishing you?" There Is a bond. Isn't there?" back at mine. I felt her fingers, heard the small Her features twisted in pain. The word that I could not deny that. crackling sounds of the bones in my hands - came to mind was tortured. "I don't know. "Shrinks or any o:he orofessional shoul- as she gripped tight. it. Thai's the part of the sheer hell of I don't der aren't my thing," said Delia. 'And I don't I remembered: know who, and I don't know why." think they have any concept of whom— or The proportions of my body were wrong I said, "Do. you have enemies?" What—they may be encountering." Silently I my limbs and my body somehow com- "I suppose." She shook her head. "I don't agreed with her. "Can you do this for me?" pressed out of scale. I scrambled across a know. Every successful businessperson at I still wouldn't commit myself. She wanied slick surface, churned my legs until some- least has professional enemies. I don't think to know why. "It's not just a matter of whether thing wet and hot and sharp took my foot i any of would this If could, don't if I it them do to me. they did, know should. There's prob- and ankle within and pulled me back. I they'd be more direct." She essayed a smile. ably a damned good reason why you don't flailed my arms in blind; unreasoning panic. "I'd find a bomb in my car some morning. remember the primary dream state. Some- The bones in my foot crushed. The pres- Not this dream thing." thing in you is keeping you from recalling sure, the sound of bone and cartilage snap- "Then outside the profession?" whatever happened to trigger the barriers. ping — I cried out. 'At this point, my past's a long way behind To tamper with that—" Something slammed me hard against a me." She gently touched the side of face, interrupted my She me. "It's what I want, Will wall. Then something worried at my genitals. tracing velvet finger one along my jaw. "You you help me?" But my genitals weren't like that, I thought. know what I used to be?" I felt my own brand of agony. I didn't know Pieces of dirty white ivory clamped around all of it." I said. said "Not "You haven't what monster lay within Delia's head, yet I my penis and wrenched. much. I haven't probed." knew it shouldn't be let loose. And I'd begun No pain yet, still the pressure, and the "I never was a hooker," she said abruptly, to suspect, as Del' a suggestec. that it wasn't sensa:ion of tearing loose. "but I might as-well have been. I did any something a psychiatrist could even ap- An eye, a brown eye, triangular teeth, a thing I could to get p'oacn. ectivity goddamn out of the pro}- My ob suffered. Yes, I could jaw gaping, fur. I saw nothing beyond that. ects. I wasn't gentle then." love her—and did. That was clear. In the darkness I felt pressure around my "Are you now?" I said. "To do this. Would it hurt you?" head. 128 OMNI " " . tortured felt. Spin an egg., spinning, spinning. . . . Stop I wanted !o throw my hands over her mouth And what haunted meant. By the shell and Ihe yelk inside keeps turning. to stop Ihe confession. I could not move, the past. By a child. Perhaps even by an ' Pressure. Nails poked through the shell of "I was oul hustling somewhere. I got back unreasoning beast. the egg. The shell was my scalp, and the late." "/ could forgive," she said, words flat and nails were teeth. It was as though my head After a time, I said, "Then what?" dead. "I think so. Anyone else, I could. Just were clamped in Vise-Grips. "I buried him. The pieces. What was lefi. not myself." The words withered across ihe her knowledge. . in city. I eternity living with "No, I struggled, twisted, writhed, and my head There's' no place to bury folks the of - turned even if my scalp didn't move with it. went lo a park." Sharing. No help." Skin tore loose. Haps si d we:ly away. Some- "The dog, Delia, What about the dog?" Just a memory. thing bigger shook its "own head, and my Her words were bleak, factual. "I. used a The knife was useless. I knew she was kill herself. body flopped loosely at the end of a whip. flashlight on him. Broke it all to hell. I sent the damned not to be able to Nor The pressure moved to my cheek, and soft dog to hell in a trash bag. Left him on an- would I kill her. tissue tore away; then to my eye, and fluid other block." Silence threatened to eat us both. I spurted. The small bones in my face started Then, Delia told me, she had left the "Delia. I can take the memory away." saw to crack. apartment and the neighborhood. And that the flicker of hope beneath the ashes. inter- "Forever?" I was being eaten alive. life. Forever. Books and notes- and it." views ncard :os:s for realtor's license I nodded slowly. "If you wish Delia's eyes widened, and I knew she had arc a in small behind De- seen all that I'd seen. It was a gift I regretted. were ahead of her. They belonged in an- Hope burned a pyre life. became that lia's eyes, a flame fanned by the hungry I knew what she now knew: other woman's And Delia us. "I was willing to do anything to get out." other woman, ghosts rushing around Delia said, voice compressed. Everything was ahead of her. "Can you? Will you?" ..." There would be a price, of course, as there I said, The. sick, nau- I listened to her helplessly now, hope- "Delia wracking is. would drawn. lessly sea ran Ihrough me. If only I did feel a cold always A major power be there emptiness. clean mercy- Deliasurely knew ihat. The power that could "I ... I left my son alone because That would be a wasn't money for a sitter. He was two." She Face wooden, she disengaged her hands exorcise such a memory would also nullify- Delia her chair back, all associations and send her back even' paused a long lime. I heard something choke from mine. shoved — in her throat. stood, fumbled for her handbag. further into a- blank past. -. Us. Something is always . . That me. "It was only a year old ... a big pup I started to say. "Love—" meant said. that demanded and always lost. the German shepherd. I lefi my boy alone "Don't." she "You must not use with him." word. NOt with me.'" — I looked at her and loved her and, choos- "1 ing, Delia the to Ihe I matter never gave chance ask I still said nothing. All there was to say. can," said. "No Delia was saying. "No," Delia took something silver out of price. It would be paid in full. I said. "I will." "We didn't have the money. Had nothing her bag and twisted it in her hands. "Yes," * I'd her al another party.DQ to feed the pup for more than a week. I looked in her eyes and knew again how Maybe meet On the pleasures and pains of working in the electronic cottage WORK IS BY DOUG GARR Three years ago, Michael Jones, an executive with New York Telephone, began working at home. The premise was simple: Away from the normal office routine — long lunches, endless meetings, a jangling tele- phone, and time wasted gossiping at the water cooler— he would get more work done. He had invested in a home computer. and he figured he could quickly and efficiently type reports and memos just as easily in his living room as he could among the distractions of his office. His first efforts were disastrous. He discovered a whole new set of distractions. He wasn't that much happier, "I went to work in my pajamas," he recalls, an apt summation of the problem. "I couldn't get to work without going through the ritual of taking a shower, getting dressed, and going to the coffee shop for my morning doughnut." Now he has gone back to following those morning rituals, as if he actually PHOTOGRAPH BY LEE McELFRESH *£(V;*ill BHM . were on his way to the office. "I have my first ures in the days of the Arab oil embargo. people wanl to be with other people." Nais- cup ol coffee out of the house," he says. Nilles's prediction, however, had some bitt's principal researcher, Gavin Clabaugh, Today he's settled into a more successful clear ils thai we; e obscured by telecommut- is himself an excel oni iluslralionof this. Cla- home-work routine. A research director in ing's great promise. First, he estimated that baugh spent most of nine months at home computer-systems sales in a New York Cily it would take 25 years before 10 million peo- working with his computer. His nine-to-five ple we're suburb, Jones spends three or four days in telecommuting — if the idea caught workday gradually stretched nto one lasting a row at home, every two weeks or so. He on. Second, few, if any, would work at home from eight in Ihe morning until midnight. He says he awakens an hour later than he does all the time. realized he needed lo-'ake a fob for the ex- on the days when he commutes (he normal Today there is little argument that those press purpose of maintaining human con- 32 miles to his office, and' he usually works' early projections were overly optimistic. It's tact. "Nobody can believe this," he says, "but only until 3 p.m.. finding that he is about 25 to nearly impossible to make an accurate count I took a weekend job as a doorman in a con- 30 percent more productive. of the current number ol home workers. Nilies dominium to get out of the house. It was His wife, Annie Hallinan, works at home, says there are no hard data, but he guesses great. I was paid just to sit and talk to peo- too, though not when he does; and neither that there are about 30,000 genuine tele- ple." Clabaugh points out that three out of hangs around when the house cleaner is commuters. Electronic Services Lh'mlod. four home computers end up in the office. there. Hallinan began home work .two and a a research company, puts its estimate at Computers that remain at home may be pilot, half years ago as part of a program with around 300,000, with perhaps 50,000 tele- in use night and clay. Upsa s a College soci- New York Telephone. Though she originally commuters in formal corporate programs. ologist Roxanne Hiltz, author of Online Com- i experienced the 'discombobulated feeling" (The J S Federal i 'ese've Bank in Atlanta is munities: A Case Study of the Office of the that her husband did, she now thinks that even bashful about using the word;tetecom- Future, found that almost all those who work working at home is a great idea— as long as mutjng to describe its : experiment with 75 at home put in longer hours (an average ol it's only one day a week. "I'd shoot someone workers, preferring instead Tie phrase time 62.4 hours a week) than they would at an if they suggested I do it full-time," Hallinan and geography independence.) office. When Hiltz taught college courses says. "The problem is that the' rule book for The concept was, and still is to an extent, over a computer network, she fell into the working at home hasn't been written yet," same trap. She spent more time teaching Jones and his wife typify a small but slowly than if she had been in a classroom. Stu- growing number of people known as tele- dents assumed her of fice.hours were "all ihe commuters, people who use microcompu- time" and expected taster leedback. ters or other remote terminals, patched into But what seems to be the biggest psy- ^The concept centra! computers, to work in their homes. chological problem lor telecommuters is Telecommuters arc supposed to be the van- was, and still is, seductively keeping work space and home space dis- guard of a new workforce in the "electronic tinct. A freelance writer in Wisconsin, who sound. Why not a cottage," popularized foi."" years ago by fu- loves his occupation, still complains: "You - turist Alvin Toffler, in his book The Third Wave. nation of Joneses happily don't work at home; you live in your office. His theme sensible enough: the Whatever personal life is seemed As - you have ruined." , telecommuting American labor climate shifts more from in- Recently he moved out of his apartment and at all hours of the day and dustrialization to information processing, it bought a house, just to have a separate work will be less necessary to work in an office. night? Why not space. Now his telephone-answering ma- And with the rise of inexpensive home com- chine is turned on precisely at 5 rm. integrate home and work?^ puters, there would be a propensity for more Nitles, of USC, lists other work-at-home people to start home businesses, cutting situations: One man had to start his day by start-up costs and high overhead. wearing a business suit to "commute" to his The reality of a nation of telecommuters den; another person with a weight problem has turned out to be more complex than couldn't stay away from his refrigerator. And anyone had expected. The practice has seductively sound. Why not a nation of in at least one instance, divorce was the re- been beset by orohlcrns with lew immediate Joneses, happily. cue:ly ieecommuting at sult of one couple's working at home. Tele- solutions in sight. Labor unions are stead- all hours of the. day and night? Why not in- commuters also tend to start their cocktail fastly opposed to. it, and there has been re- tegrate home life and work? The advan- hour on the early side Alcoholism, or at least sistance to the idea on other levels in the tages seemed incalculable. Dual-career excessive drinking, may be a side effect that workforce. And indications are that for most parents, part of an emerging ','ono. cnuro warrants future study. Still, according to the of us, the negat ve social aspects of it would spend more time with their cn-cken and tc-c experts, telecommuting doesn't cause outweigh the benefits. up their .schedules to cope with the mun- obesity, divorce, or alcoholism. It merely in- Though the. practice of working at home dane routines of running a household. Tele- tensifies whatever problems already exist. has been around since the origins of free commuting could provide great opportuni- Corporate America has been slow to en- enterprise, this modern version didn't take lies for Ihe handicapped. dorse telecommuting, which is something of hold until 1973. whan computer expert Jack The corporate appeal was obvious, too. a surprise considering the obvious benefits Nilies, current head of the information tech- Management certainly would embrace the it offers to the balance sheet. The option has nology program at the University of South- idea. After all, why not pay clerical workers been studied by information- inlensive firms ern California's (USC) Center for Futures Re- on a Ireelance. p : ece~eal basis and save like IBM, Xerox, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and search, coined the- word telecommuting. on insurance, office rent, and vacation pay? Citibank, but the traditional stigma of being Now considered one of the foremost author- And there would be the near elimination of away from the office is very much a part of ities on the subject, Nilies was then working absenteeism and lateness from bad weather our work culture. "Managers are still very in the aerospace industry, and he hated the and mass-transit breakdowns. Telecommut- nervous about it," Nilies concedes. "If a idea ol flying from Los Angeles fo Washing- ing seemed Ike a no-iose situation manager calls someone and he's not at ton, DC, for business meetings. This- In practice, that luture is not turning Out home, the manager assumes he's goofing prompted him to begin a study entitled "The quite so rosy. John Naisbitl, author of the off." Ivlarcia Kelly, the president of Electronic Telecommunications Transportation Trade- current best sellei Megatrend:-: uoesn i. ex- Services Unlimited, is a supporter of tele- off." From' this he developed a startling the- actly consider l eleco.""' muling to be a mega- commuting and herself an active practi- ory: If some 10 million people began tele- trend. He spccilioaly predicts that hordes ol tioner.. Yet even her firm bows to tradition. commuting, the "nation could save people won't work at home. Naisbitt writes, "My study team is scattered around the approximately 750 billion gallons of fuel each "The utilization of electronic cottages will be country," she says. "We don't even need an year. II was encouraging to hear such' fig- very limited: People want to go to the office; office. But we have one because compa- 134 OMNI " — ' xing family Shield's. "He was worriec aooul a union; he nies are supposed to have offices. secretarial work while she's the felt it would be easy for the workers to or- One of Kelly's competitors, International dinner, is that exploitation? I'm sure a fifleen- Nilles Now it's the union offi- Resource Development, has done a num- year-pld kid doing typing is illegal in some ganize," says. Occupational cials who feel home workers will be too ber of studies for corporate clients on the slates. And what about the spread out geographically. After ail. the tra- potential of work at home, The firm's presi- Safety and Health Administration? Do you lhat ditional means of organizing involved dis- dent, Ken Bosomworth, has consistently start inspecting people's homes to see industrial-safety stan- inbuting leaflets outside the factory gate. come to one .conclusion: Telecommuting is they comply with the answers. I'm just There is at leas; ine inslance where tele- ideal for only a small minority. "Look at it this dards? I don't'have about commuting in its broad sense—seems to way," he says. "There are forty-five million saying lhat we haven't thought much — work well for all concerned. Three years ago, white-collar workers in the United Stales. the questions." crucial the issue the Best Western hotel chain lound itself with How many of those have jobs that are con- Shaiken points out how safety will become: a shortage of reservation clerks, people who ducive to working at home? Probably about of home occupational aheady are laws man ttie toll-free 800 numbers and make twelve million to fifteen million. Of that figure, "In European courtries here workers are room bookings. Since the work can be done only a quarter or less are psychologically that limit the number of hours prevailed to at their video-display termi- virtually anywhere, Best Western equipped to handle it. That's a maximum allowed be that lo rest on the labor pool at the Arizona Center for potential of three million to five million." Bo- nals," he says, explaining breaks common. "We Women, a minimum-security correctional somworth predicts a total ol only 500,000 the eyes after two hours are here yet." facility. Inside the prison, officials provided 'new telecommuters in the next decade. Still, have nothing like that terminals quite appsreni lha; awmakers at every a special workroom with remote he Ihinks it's a wonderful idea. He'd like to It's for done very little and telephones. In this way, workers pay work at home, but his company is expand- level of government have board with their wages telecommuting. If any- their prison room and ing, and he says he can't manage his staff about regulating appears bo hostility, at least and at the same time learn a trade. There's from his living room. thing, there to direc- a two-week training program and a three- Telecommuting may be a limited option in on the local love . Coralee Smith Kern, National Association for month probation period, The program pro- the upper levels of the corporate hierarchy, tor of the year-old vides for employment in the same capacity but greater opportunities' in the electronic with Best Western after the inmates finish cottage might develop, in whatToffler calls serving their sentences. So far. hotel guests low-abslraction jobs —such low-skilled, have had no idea their reservations clerk is clerical tasks as data entry. Ming, and billing. a prison inmate, and chances are they The case ol Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the ; sity architects have taken a Moor in an old agement will exploit labor much the way it generale ncome. cease-and- garment-center building and have made six did the garment workers of years ago. "For "When the piano teacher got a offices out of it," she says. "We share a re- i .veil. makes clerical workers, the possibilities of abuse clesisl orde-. rnoughl maybe he neighbors," Kern says, ceptionist, equipment, conference room are very greal,' says 'a'oor specialist Harley too much noise lor his differ- couple with and it's delightful. Although we have Shaiken, of the Massachusetts Institute of "But last January, two writers, a ent businesses, we interacl and discuss how 1 processors in their basement, were Technology (M 1'). Ray hla'cesfy, a spokes- their word That outraged me. writer their business and ours affect each other. man for the AFL-CIO, adds that some com- given one, too. A ridicu- And we all save, on overhead." panies now have programs that monitor the not allowed-.td work at home? Thafe all over." Even these sate; Te wok centers may be- output of their telecommuting employees. lous. And it's beginning lo happen to come obsolete as technology improves the The automated watchdogs are built into She says a Chicago suburb is about draft which will provide quality of realism possiole over a computer computer terminals in what amounts to a a "home occupation act," network. Researchers at the Defense Ad- nightmarish version of a lime clock. restrictions similar to the city law, Kern feels vanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Shaiken claims that the Blue Gross/Blue she's providing an impetus for a grass-roots union been work'ny on teleconference tech- Shield experiments may be a grim harbin- business movemerl she'd like to see a have nologies in when animated laces relay not l Work- ger of telecommuting's future. "The com- created—some fi.ng ca'lec Cottage electronic only the words but the nuance of speech puter becomes a tool of surveillance," he er United— rot Ic worry about scientist Craig but to allow individuals the right from each conferee, DARPA says. "It amounts to- an electronic foreman, sweatshops, could make emo- office to choose telecommuting. Fields says a computer and it can set benchmarks that other tional interences from the incoming voice of workers can't match." The union question is a difficult one, and Nilles recalls 1974 a conference participant and use feedback Nilles agrees -that there's a danger of ex- it's mired in confusion. a insurance- Irom special headsets and spectacles worn ploiting the lower ranks of labor, "We'don't conversation he had with an by the conferees to pick up changes o! even know what exploitation really means company president who was against home- like Cross/Blue expression and head motion. The computer here," he says. "If a kid does his mother's keyer-type programs Blue COMTiNULO ON PAGE 166 136 OMNI — —— warfare, the Pope acted with a swift inno- Coyne says, "that it would be better to drive vation. He sent delegations of academy the observatory toward being closed than VATICAN members to the heads of state of five nu- to run it inadequately, as window dressing CONTINUED FROM PAGE 62 clear powers, thus creating whal Chagas for the Church." meetings he came to us, not us to him calls "a whole new form of diplomacy." Instead of giving up on the observatory, and expressed his-great interest in science. in London, academy scientists led by Coyne took a bold approach. He proposed This was remarkable because the previous Chagas and British chemist Max Perutz met to the Vatican that the observatory establish Pope, Paul VI, never made any statement like with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. "She a working link with the complex of astronom- Arizona, that. John Paul told us that he would like to was most cordial," Chagas says, "and most ical facilities at the University of for years. use the academy for information on all ques- interested. She asked a great many ques- where Coyne himself had worked tions scientific and that there would be many." tions. In fact," he says, "it was obvious from That way, Coyne reasoned, the observatory not only to three univer- Chagas is too much the diplomat to deni- her manner that she is deeply concerned would have access National grate Paul VI. but he likens John Paul's effect about the problem." sity-run facilities but to the nearby on the academy to an "explosion." When Academy delegations were received with Observatory, at Kitt Peak. Chagas suggested that the academy spon- similar enthusiasm in New York, where Ochoa Although it meant an unprecedented long- sor a meeting to commemorate the centen- and biochemist Har Gobind Korana pre- distance move away from the Vatican — its Paul II quickly nial of Albert Einstein's birthday, the Pope sented their findings to the U.N. General As- traditional home—Pope John not only agreed but offered with great en- sembly, and in Paris, where French acade- approved the plan. In retrospect, Coyne says proposal no thusiasm to chair the meeting himself. (This micians met at length with President Frangois he would have made the same "Still," concedes, may have represented the first time in his- Mitterrand. But when the delegates com- matter who was pope. he receptive ear, tory that a Catholic pontiff not only chaired pared notes, they were surprised to find that "it definitely helps to have a and its a scientific session but presided at a meet- their most encouraging reception came in someone who understands science ing celebrating the achievements of a Jew.) Moscow, where French geneticist Jerome special problems." The Pope's subsequent statement clearly Lejeune and Italian biologist Bettolo Marini The observatory's complicated move to until next year. defined his relationship to both science and Arizona will not be completed in the interim, its scientists have kept their the academy itself. But "The collaboration between religion and eyes on the main star: a new and amiable relationship researchers and the science is to the advantage of both," he said, between in 1981, the observatory "without in any way violating their respective Church. Beginning ^Many ask how autonomy. Just as religion requires religious joined Chagas and the academy in hosting freedom, science legitimately claims free- an institution that professes meetings on topics that once would have dom to carry on research." been considered too controversial for dis- a deep concern for The statements were more than rhetoric, cussion in the Church. meeting centered on cosmology more than a nod in the direction of Church- Third World problems can The first and fundamental physics, including ques- science collaboration. As if to answer any avoid discussing Char- doubters, the Pope even addressed the is- tions about how everything began. what may be the biggest California at sue that divided science and the Church in acterized by University of astronomer Martin Davis as a the first place. problem of Berkeley of fhe "Galileo." he said, "had to suffer much "gathering of old friends," a group all: population control $ world's top astronomers and physicists got we cannot deny it—from men and organi- sixteenth-century zations within the Church. "Saying that as far together in the academy's Davis as he was concerned, the Galileo affair was luxury. ("If you got tired of the talks," says, "you could always look up at the cu- all but resolved. Pope John Paul initiated an inquiry that may lead to an official exonera- pids dancing on the ceiling.") of challenged the cur- tion, however belated, of one of history's spent more than an hour and a half in lively None the scientists theory, greatest scientists. and animated discussion with Soviet leader rently accepted Big Bang which universe was formed in an In the meantime, John Paul and Chagas Leonid Brezhnev. states that the billion years were establishing a convivial and fruitful re- This cordiality was evident everywhere but enormous explosion some 14 however, over lationship. They toured Brazil together and in Washington, where the academy group ago. There was lively debate, met several times a year to review the acad- was led by Weisskopf. whether the universe is "open" (expanding freeze) or "closed" emy's needs and to establish subject matter "The whole thing was quite strange," forever and doomed to of lor study-group consideration. This quickly Weisskopf recalls. "Firstof all, the President (locked in a cycle expansion and subse- and to death by fire). became a two-way street. John Paul himself didn't even ask us to sit down. Then it quickly quent collapse doomed question wasn't settled at the Rome asked lor meetings on "the effects of radia- became painfully obvious that he had not The thorough exploration of the topic tion, on using nuclear-power plants to meet been briefed on the contents of our docu- meeting, but the energy needs of the Third World, and on ment. So we all said a few words, standing led at least one attending scientist to call the the issue of nuclear winter. Other topics awkwardly all the while, then we were very session a "classic in its field." parasitic diseases, for example, and bio- quickly ushered out." A second landmark session, held in 1982. mass fuel—were advanced by Chagas and Despite this one setback, science at the was expected to be a face-off between two the academy's governing council, an inner Vatican has made steady progress. The Vat- scientific factions long engaged in bitter circle of five members. ican's astronomical observatory, which conflict. At issue was man's evolutionary re- "The Pope," says Chagas, "has never re- shared the Pope's imposing summer resi- lationship to the 7-mi!lion- to 14-million-year- fused any of our suggestions," Perhaps most dence overlooking Lake Albano (about 20 old primate Ramepithicus. On one side were important, the academy's budget, which now miles south of Rome), had grown increas- such primatologists as Elwyn Simons, of stands at $400,000, has been almost tripled ingly crippled'by outmoded equipment and Duke University, who had relied on fossil evi- at the of since 1982. . by light pollution from Rome itself. Father dence to place Ramepithicus head This collaboration between pontiff and George Coyne, an American Jesuit astron- man's evolutionary tree. On the other side led by Uni- scientist was recently strengthened still fur- omer who had just been appointed to direct were the molecular evolutionists, ther when the two men discovered that they the observatory, discussed the question with versity of California at San Francisco re- shared an abhorrence of nuclear weaponry five colleagues who were struggling lo searcher Jerold Lowenstein. The latter group and nuclear war. When the academy issued maintain what Coyne calls "a real research compared proteins found in fossil remains a publication outlining the dangers of fission presence. We agreed among ourselves," with those of living animals; their striking re- 138 OMNI suits showed that Ramepithicus proteins Omni observer) gather for the academy's The leprosy meetings are now over, but bore a much closer resemblance to those of latest meeting, on leprosy. the experience has left an indelible impres- orangutans, gorillas, and gibbons than to Sitting under the frescoed ceilings of the sion on the attending scientists. For Marian those of man. Casino Pio IV, the building that has served Ulrich, who works with Convit in Venezuela, At the end of the week-long session, when as the academy's home since 1922, the sci- the meeting has been "terribly exciting. I think the papers were presented and the data entists conduct their meeting in English. But the work we've done here can have an enor- were in, even Simons admitted—with some the accents are almost Alexandrian in their mous influence on the Catholic Church." reluctance—that the molecular evidence all variety. True to his policy, Chagas has in- Nordeen agrees that the meeting and the but eliminated Ramepithicus from man's vited some scientists— who are not members audience with John Paul were "fantastic. We'll convoluted ancestral derby. Thus, the acad- of the academy "not yet," as one-of them certainly reach a wider audience than we're emy meeting represented the first real con- puts it— but who are leaders in the study of capable of reaching at the World Health Or- sensus among scientists on what had been the subject at hand. ganization." Lechat, the group's most ob- one of evolution's most fundamental and Among those present are epidemiologist vious romantic, prefers to talk about the at- fascinating questions. Michel Lechat, a Belgian whose leprosy mosphere, "the peace, the ancient buildings, it quite . In scientific terms, what was said at these hospital in the Belgian Congo (now Zaire) the beauty of the gardens; was really two meetings carried weight But in terms of served as a model for the leprosarium in inspiring." And to Walsh, the ardent Catho- the growing collaboration between the Graham Greene's A Burnt-Out Case; Ja- lic, the collaboration between science and Church and its newly won scientific allies, cinto Convit, an immunologist who heads religion was not one-sidedly scientific. things left unsaid were even more impor- Venezuela's National Institute of Dermatol- "I think," he says, "that this experience, tant. At neither meeting did the scientists ogy; and Gerald Walsh, a devout Catholic especially the audience with John Paul, make so much as a passing attempt to link who does research with a variety of animal brought out religious feelings in scientisis their subject matter to the origin and evolu- models at Washington's Walter Reed Hos- who never even knew they had them." tion accounts in the Book of Genesis. pital, but who could easily be mistaken for a Within a few days the scientists take their "It wasn't even mentioned," Coyne says of Boy's Town priest. leave, most of them to a meeting of Nor- the cosmology conference. "There was sim- deen's group in Geneva. At the suddenly ply no interest." Nor did the Vatican raise an quiet Casino Pio, at the same table where eyebrow at the scientists' findings. The re- the Latin American Academy of Sciences sults of the meeting on evolution, says Cha- was founded in 1982, an animated Chagas gas, were "very well accepted" by the Vati- talks about the future. 6/ like to think can and were not seen to be in conflict with He hopes to expand academy member- biblical accounts. At a private audience after that someday they will ship from 70 to approximately 100 and to cosmology meeting, in fact, John Paul include for the first time a number of full the say that even stunned the scientists by saying he would members from the Soviet Union In this re- "leave it to the cosmologists to work out the with our small staff, we gard another traditional battleground—the details of creation." have been conflict between the Church and commu- This remarkable tolerance echoes the nism—seems to be softening. able to reproduce the viewpoints of Chagas and Coyne, both fer- "The Pope is in complete agreement," vent Catholics whose religious devotion miracle of the Chagas says, "that we need more members cannot be questioned. Chagas sees the from the Eastern bloc." Chagas would like multiplication of the loaves.^ Book of Genesis not as a literal attempt to to start a separate group for younger sci- describe the origins of man and the universe entists and plans study groups on such sub- but as a profound theological model. "Out jects as artificial intelligence and the devel- of that model," he says, "it is up to us to trace opment of the central nervous system. the details." Of all the academy's upcoming activities, Coyne is even more forthright. "The Book During the course of the meetings, Cha- perhaps the most interesting will be an in- of Genesis," he says, "is a myth. It's not a gas is everywhere, helping a scientist re- ternational meeting on space and satellite scientific statement of how the world came move a tangled neck microphone, asking technology, featuring such notables as Ar- to be but a statement that God had some- probing questions that are usually prefaced thur C. Clarke and University of Maryland thing to do with it." He quotes Galileo: "God by the statement, "I am ignorant." exobiologist Cyril Ponnamperuma. Some 30 gave us the scriptures to teach us how to go Although the group quickly establishes an scientists will consider such topics as use of to heaven and not how the heavens go." air of easy informality (two of the scientists remote-sensing techniques in the Third In fact, the academy now seems to see work with their shoes off), the meetings, un- World and military use of space— including the whole science -versus- religion conflict as der the chairmanship of Albert Einstein a glance at the star-wars weapons systems an anachronism, a philosophical relic from a Medical College immunologist Barry Bloom, that have recently been proposed by Presi- less-enlightened age. Chagas's study move forward swiftly. dent Ronald Reagan. groups have never addressed the sup- Lechat and World Health Organization Why is the Catholic Church, with its nota- posed conflict, and there are no plans to do epidemiologist Sheik Nordeen review the bly earthbound concerns, interested in outer so in the future. "It is assumed," says Weiss- extent and geographical distribution of lep- space? Victorio Canuto, Vatican science ad- kopf, "that there is in principle no contradic- rosy, and the numbers are eye-opening: viser to the United Nations and organizer of tion between the two viewpoints. And some some 10 million to 12 million cases world- the space conference, explains: "Space is a of us think that the best way to demonstrate wide, with the vast majority in Asia, Africa, common heritage of mankind, and the feel- that there is no conflict is through the acad- and Latin America. Convit presents prelimi- ing in the Vatican is that its resources should emy's work. In fact, this may be one of the nary results on a new vaccine that looks be distributed evenly. From the scientific reasons why we don't discuss it. promising. Walsh and Wayne Meyers, of point of view, the less-developed countries "Rather than talk," he says, "we do," Walter Reed, discuss Iheir work on leprosy find themselves at a disadvantage because in armadillos, chimpanzees, and mangabey they can't support the same kind of techni- That impulse is evident during a late spring monkeys, the only nonhuman animals thus cal dialogue as the devebping countries. So week in Rome. Surrounded by the silent far found susceptible to the disease. Stan- afier seeing this frustration, it seemed to us beauty of the'Vatican gardens, whose flower- ford's Richard Young explains how sophis- that a neutral ground was needed to dis- splashed rock fountains and impeccable ticated gene-splicing techniques can be cuss these problems. And that neutral lawns always seem empty and (miracu- used to produce new vaccines and more ground should be provided by an organi- lously?) untended, 14 scientists (and their effective treatments. zation like the Pontifical Academy, which has 140 OMNI no direct interest in the conquest or control of space." Despite the projects and plans, the Vati- can does not endorse modern science and technology across the board. During a re- cent tour of Canada, John Paul spoke out vigorously against weapons research and experiments on human embryos. There often seems to be meager concern, the Pope told his audience, for the "ethical dimensions that underlie and are connected with the prob- lems of society," Though John Paul surrounded himself with the latest in communications equipment, broadcasting his message to millions, he emphasized that even seemingly benign technology, "technology that has the possi- . bility to help the poor, sometimes . . con- tributes to poverty, limits the opportunities for work, and removes the possibility of hu- man creativity." And issuing the harshest condemnation of his trip, he called abortion, "this unspeakable crime against human life." The Pope's stance has thus far discour- aged the academy, which professes a deep concern for Third World problems, from dis- cussing what may be the most important is- sue of all: population control. Chagas says he is not free to address the issue candidly, at least not for the record. Only Weisskopf, who is Chagas's close friend and working associate, gives a response that is opaque enough to raise eyebrows. "There is no offi- cial restriction," he says, "of the subjects the academy can study. Presumably this in- cludes birth control." Whether the academy will use this admit- tedly tiny opening remains to be seen. In the meantime, skeptics see no true reconcilia- tion between science and religion. "I'll be very surprised," says Thomas fvlalone, "if it happens in our lifetime." Others seem cyni- cal about theacademy's impact on the world at large. "I wonder about all this," says Paul Abrecht, director of the department of sci- ence and society for the World Council of Churches. "The scientists are all enamored with the idea that somehow they will ge big platform if the Pope comes to speak to them, and suddenly the world is going to move in the right direction. I think that's merely an illusion." Chagas responds. "I think that's an unfor- tunate statement," he says. "Maybe we are quixotic. Maybe we are naive. But we think it's our duty to try. I think that as people of goodwill—which they are—the Council of Churches would be pleased to see that we have been able to produce so much, espe- cially with such a small staff." In the background, the permanent staff of the academy—consisting in its entirety of a Jesuit administrator and two secretaries- goes quietly about its work. Chagas looks at the three of them for a moment, then his e; sweep the bookshelves that bulge w academy publications. "I like to think," says, "that someday they will say that even with our small staff, we have been able to reproduce the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. "DO JOHN CARPENTER'S ^2/ v \i^ In 1977 Voyager II was launched into space, inviting all life forms in the universe to visit our planet. Get Ready. Company's Coming. COLUMBIA PICTURES PRESENTS A MICHAEL DOUGLAS - LARRY J. FRANCO PRODUCTION JEFF BRIDGES KAREN ALLEN JOHN CARPENTER'S STARMAN CHARLES MARTIN SMITH RICHARD JAECKEL ""SJACKNITSZCHE KSM1CHAEL DOUGLAS C0W0D T BRUCE A. EVANS & RAYNOLD GIDEON T BARRY BERNARDI CE HRECTE ^™ ILARRYJ. FRANCO B?J0HN CARPENTER™^:! OPENS DECEMBER 14 AT A THEATRE NEAR YOU. ^Are your beliefs any more reasonable or provable than a belief in flying saucers?^ Canadian photogra- sickness, and war. pher Doug Curran Curran also photo- does not particularly graphed Orlando To- believe in UFOs. Yet ronl, of Orland, Cali- r [ha fornia, who drives to for ! years, he has criss- the top of a high hill crossed the United each evening and States and Canada, pulls a box of equip- gathering what may ment from his aging be Ihe most revealing Oldsmobile. His goal: pictures and stories to track UFOs hiding ever to come out of the behind satellites. UFO movement. And in Bellaire, Curran 's subjects Michigan, Curran took are not UFOs but the photographs of John people who believe in Shepherd, who has them. "What interests converted his grand- me are people's be- mother's small house liefs and how those into a UFO detection beliefs shape their center, its walls filled lives," he explains. "So with more electronic one day in the sum- equipment than a mer of 1977, I bought NASA tracking sta- an old Renault, threw tion. Shepherd trans- my cameras into the mits signals chosen back, and set out from UPDATE for their "artistic hu- UFD energy" Edmonton, Wherever man day and I went, I'd ask local policemen and newspaper editors night, hoping to lure a UFO with his equipment. whether they knew of anyone building a rocket or trying to Alone or m groups, UFO believers have many things in contact people from outer space. Sometimes they'd say, common, Curran found. "Most have high-school diplomas In 'Sure. Go down to the traffic light and turn left, and about and are the lower middle class, though I met a few who 1 ' three miles on. . . And I'd follow the directions and find a are wealthy. Most are middle-aged, and quite a few cultists rocket in someone's backyard." have seen lights or experienced other phenomena they could Wandering around the continent, in fact, Curran found and not explain. " UFOs. Curran feels, "are a kind of a god for our photographed the UFO movement's most ardent believers. society. They seem omniscient, benevolent, and unconfined He met eighty-two-year-old Ruth Norman, alias Archangel by the laws of space and time, [Psychologist Carl G ] Jung Uriel, head of the Uharius Foundation, in El Cajon, California. said that man could never get away from his need to make Norman (with disciple, above) and her 400 followers believe myths. UFOs are one of the myths that help people deal they have lived past lives on the 32 worlds of the ihtergaiac- with our complex, intimidating world." tic Confederation Earth, they contend, is Ihe "garbage dump Curran's photographs and observations are being pub- of the universe," peopled by those whose past evils have lished in a book called In Advance of the Landing Folk leftthem the lowest possible status of Karma, Ihe force de- Concepts ol Outer Space (Abbeville). Says Curran. I really termining destiny in future lives. Once enough of us adopt want the book to point back at the reader and ask, Are your Norman's teachings and stop transmitting negative psychic beliefs any more reasonable or provable than a belief in i, ihe Space Brothers will tree us all from poverty, flying saucers?' -—OWEN DAVIES " claimed, was Mace But Kirolos believes this official analysis is meant to obfuscate the truth. "The Antiquities Department never produced any evidence to support the claim that a can of Mace had been dropped accidentally by a visitor," he notes. 'And the fact is, the experts who went into the pyramid took disinfectants with them The general consensus is that the whole problem was caused by "My eyes were on fire!" visitors urinating in various cried one tourist. parts of the chamber I imag- "It was my throat." another ined just built up." declared. "I was choking — Pablo Fenjves Every breath of air burned on !he way down." "Sometimes spirits will write For both these tourists, on a blackboard. The board and for another dozen like isn't seen, only the white told that it I I them, a visit to the 4,500- chalk letters. The medium you," the girl's grandmother the judge did. year-old Chephren Pyramid, doesn't provide the black- told Compton could open my cell with mind in Cairo, seemed like a board. It materializes. But Next thing she knew. power and escape scene from Revenge of the then, the medium doesn't Compton says, she was Found guilty of arson last Mummies. The eerie experi- provide transportation tor charged with arson and at- December, the onetime ence prompted Egypt's these spirits. He doesn't send tempted murder. The local nanny, who had already been Antiquities Department to a car or a plane. Spirits authorities threw her in jail, jailed 17 months, was freed. seal off the pyramid provide their own transporta- where she ended up lan- Now back in Scotland, and launch an investigation. tion and their own black- guishing for months. Compton (who had no pre- " criminal pro- In the days that followed, board. At her trial, in Livorno, Italy, vious record) crowds of curious onlookers —Kenny Kingston witnesses testified that claims her Innocence. Eric gathered to speculate on Compton had willed a vase — Mishara the mystery within, to fly, that electrical meters "People were coming from spun crazily when she walked "A few of" the many amazing benefits o! the all over the country," explains Centuries have-elapsed by, and that she ignited the knowledge from Wadia Kirolos, a correspon- since witches were routinely suspicious fires with the already received the dent for United Press Inter- burned at the stake. But power of her mind. "The fam- space people, or promised by if will national They were attracted one twentieth -century court, ily's maid said I turned a them we welcome iriendly by the mystery. They thought in Italy, seems to have resur- key in a lock without touching them m a manner, that there might be some rected witchcraft as a crime it," Compton recalls "I felt would be elimination of trial disease, poverty, and smog- strange force at play." It all began in 1982. when like I was in a witch First an American expert Scotswoman Carole Comp- out of history." solving of the problem of suggested that the peculiar ton took a job as a nanny Indeed, newspaper head- automation and force was merely gas from with a family on the Italian is- lines throughout Europe unemployment; an extended chambers beneath fhe main land of Elba. Almost immedi- labeled the case a witch trial life span: economic security for burial room. And finally, ately, a pair of suspicious But the coup de grace came and abundance, and the Antiquities Department fires started in the family's when one of the judges many living today, personal journeys to other planets came up with an interpreta- home, one nearly injuring a asked Compton if, as alleged, tion of its own; The gas sleeping three-year-old girl. she possessed supernatural beyond the stars." — Gabriel Green that caused the choking, it "You've got the devil inside powers. Says Compton, "I OMNI Police in the British town of life imprisonment. Chester had long suspected "The skull had been pre- that Peter Reyn-Bardt, fifty- served in the peat bog fdr seven, could explain the around sixteen centuries and disappearance of his wife, obviously has nothing to do Maiika, who was last seen 22 with Maiika Reyn-Bardt," years ago, But authorities prosecutor Martin Thomas had no evidence until last told the court. "But its dis- spring, when workers digging covery led directly to the ar- In a peal bog near Reyn- rest of the defendant. It Bardt's home made a grisly was the supreme irony." discovery. They found a — Sherry Baker woman's skull, with hair and an eyeball still attached, 'We look at ine. present and with the yellowing re- through a tear-view mirror. mains of a brain visible inside We march backwards into the the head. future." Convinced they had Mali- —Marshall McLuhan ka's remains, Chester detec- tives confronted Peter Reyn- Bardt, who promptly con- fessed to the murder Maiika, Most hauntings seem to something had to be done." Fagatt contacted the he said, drove him to the take place in ancient castles, Sabatasso secured the apparition mentally, she says, crime by threatening to ex- Victorian garrets, and other services of psychic Nome and learned that he was pose his homosexuality. old buildings with strange and Fagatt (the two are pictured the ghost of a man who Trie admitted murderer perhaps violent pasts. But above), who conducts tours worked in the factory when It was arrested and jailed. But recently in Santa Ana, Cali- of haunted castles in Eng- had been a meat-processing one month before his trial, fornia, a ghost reportedly land for British Caledonian plant. After being killed in the case took a strange turn: wreaked havoc inside a Airways and was a consultant an accident elsewhere, Analyzing the skull, experts pizza-manufacturing plant. for the movie Ghostbusters. he had returned to his place from Oxford University Several employees of Fagatt planned her exor- of employment, only to find a learned it had belonged to a Sabatasso Foods claimed to cism for the very next week, pizza plant in its stead. woman who died around have seen the ethereal but that weekend, before After a massive effort on a.d. 410, when the Romans figure. And all gave the same she could act, the company's her part. Fagatt claims, were still in the region. description: The ghost was burglar alarm was mysteri- the spirit left. "I felt a rush of Even though his wife's real a dark-complexioned man, ously activated. When the energy." she explains. "My body was never unearthed, about live feet four inches tall, plant was opened on Monday, neck was injured, as though I Peter Reyn-Bardt was re- with a mustache, a white workers found huge pallets had received a karate chop " smock, and a hard hat. of frozen pizzas scattered at the back of my head this particular "When I was first told that a around the room, and an Though security guard had seen electronic crane moving back ghost is gone, the hauntings this ghost, my reaction was, and forth by itself. are not completely over. In what's this guy smoking?" To force the spirit to leave, fact, several Sabatasso recalls Louis Sabatasso Fagatt took one of the wit- workers have spotted a president of the company. nesses and Sabatasso Foods shadowy figure lurking on "Then the lights began public-relations representa- top of the building. ing on at night by them- tive Sherrie Kerr into the "There's another ghost up es. And we have a fifty- room-size freezer The three on the roof," Fagatt asserts. thousand-dollar utility bill prayed, spread salt to attract "But I don't really feel like each month under normal "ectoplasmic vapors," and crawling up there after it." circumstances. So I knew lit a candle. —Sherry Baker " #> training al Royal beings around us all the Yale and the time," he says. "They are an- Academy in London, I be- gels, and they reiuvenate When Edwin Gerschefski came part of a movement of our bodies while we sleep. (below) chooses the words for experimentalists. We were They will do our bidding, his songs, he doesn't go ahead of our time. We were typewriters but first we need to get our far: He gels many a lyric right writing music on problems out of our heads off the newsstand, from the and anticipating computer- and write down what we pages of Time magazine. generated compositions." want them to do," When, for example, the Although retired from What do religious leaders University of Georgia Concert the University of Georgia, think of this new technique? Choir premiered Gerschef- where he headed the music for "In Buddhism, they put ski's Man Overboard, their li- department 12 years, prayers on a prayer wheel, bretto told the story of a Gerschefski is still compos- and Catholics place Intentions carpenter who fell off the ing. His most recent piece? A on altars," notes compara- steamship Sante Clara. The musical rendition of a letter in Time, he received from his publish- There is now a direct-mail tive-religion expert James tale first appeared ers, Broadcast Music Inc. service to God, according Hopewell, who teaches at in 1948. "They wrote asking me for to Marge Haley, of Little Emory University's Candler The seventy-five-year-old I've been Rock, Arkansas, and Gerl School of Theology, rn Atlanta. composer began scoring a report on what Nielson and Jerry Goossen, "Out of context, such things 77me articles in 1947. The first doing. [Dear composer,' the letter went, 'your minimum of San Diego. All you have may seem pretty silly But piece he set to music was guarantee has come up to do Is write out your request they can be very meaningful Halt Moon Mountain, a " were say- on a preprinted form and for the people doing them poignant account of a reclu- for analysis.'] They sive determined to ing I had to give an account- place it in a white, "leatherlike" M G. McLuhan, associate man I liked the container stamped with the pastor of the Mount Paran live the life of a pioneer even ing of myself legend goosox. Church of God. In Atlanta, though his home was only letter's conciseness; so I Goossen, Nielson, and takes a harsher view: "The 55 minutes from Broadway. decided to score it. And it the thing I've Haley market the $14.95 box Godbox." he says, "is a Gerschefski has also scored may be best Sherry Baker through A Creative Com- striking example of spiritually letters and editorials, includ- ever written."— pany, based in Carson City, irresponsible gimmickry." ing a tribute to a fellow Yale "the "The poet, the artist, the Nevada, All company profits, But Goossen, who argues classmate who was Goossen emphasizes, are that his critics are "self- world's first hippie." sleuth—whoever sharpens tends to earmarked for an unnamed serving," vehemently dis- Where did Gerschefski get our perception antisocial. . cannot children's charity. agrees "The Godbox could his nonmainstream approach be .He Nielson came up with the put organized religion out to music'' "In New York, in go along with currents and original idea for the Godbox of business," he says. "With the Thirties," he answers. trends —Alfred North Whitehead back in 1982 when, following the Godbox. you just go 'After I received my aseries of personal trage- to God and ask for whatever dies, she decided to stuff her you want And you get it." prayer requests into an —Sherry Baker envelope. Her two friends soon tried the method as well, "Hardly one person in ten and all three say their prayers thousand is aware that he or were answered. she is surrounded by a Haley speculates that the haze intimately connected box works because "it gives with the body, whether asleep you a sense of perspective. or awake, whether hot or You can see your problems cold, which, although invisible in black and white, and it under ordinary gives you a sense of relief," circumstances, can be seen Goossen has a more meta- when conditions are "' physical explanation "I think favorable. there are a bunch of unseen —J. W. Kilner OMNI — members will don space suits and repair a face. Its secondary mission will be to search NASA'S PLAN long-silent satellite. Before the year is out, for the water most scientists believe exists space-station crews will have repaired six as ice in the craters at the lunar poles. If the more communications satellites in geosync Polar Orbiter finds this ice (as many scien- to Saturn] with a liquid-nitrogen sea. Also, orbit. The immediate effect of geosync re- lists expect it will) astronaut-colonists could it's the only moon in the solar system that pair, predicts "star wars" Air Force Lieuten- plan a trek to the shadowed craters to start probably has seasons." ant General James A. Abrahamson, former their first settlements. 1990. August: A spacecraft with the director of the space-shuttle program for 2000. At the start of a new century, two tongue-twisting name of the Mars Geo- NASA, will be to suggest all kinds ot new unmanned missions will leave the space chemical Climatology Drbiter (MGCO) will schemes for the kind ot satellite repair that station Columbus. The first will be sent on a depart from the space shuttle on its way to saved the Solar Maximum Observatory (So- journey that will take it on two near tlybys of the red planet. A year later, in August 1991, lar Max) in 1984. Being able to repair com- Earth-crossing Apollo asteroids, and then on with either Encke, it will be in orbit around Mars. Circling what munications satellites in orbit will double, to a rendezvous comet may still be the most mysterious planet in the perhaps triple, the useful lifetimes of the Pennett, or West, whichever is most acces- solar system, this spacecraft will attempt to newest satellites. The Space Telescope sible. Once alongside the comet, the space- find out why Mars lost all its water eons ago. could be refurbished to extend its lifetime craft will set down on the comet's hard-rock The signs of a water-rich planet are evident. another ten years. Weather satellites could nucleus. Using a drill that resembles a min- Its great canyon, which is three times the be refitted in orbit with new cameras and iature oil rig, the robot explorer will remove size of our own Grand Canyon, was carved electronics, improving the accuracy of a sample of the ice and solids from the com- out by rushing water, planetologists say. To- weather forecasting by 50 percent. Accord- et's nucleus, and then take off, carrying its scientific to Explains Cal- day it is an arid, red desert. ing to Alan L. Parker, president of Ford Aero- gems back Earth. "The climatic history of Mars presents one space, "By the year 2000, these new satel- tech's Wasserburg: "We need to get a sam- of the solar system's most intriguing chal- lites will allow you lo make a phone call from ple of a comet. There are some comets out lenges, " says chief mission scientist Michael New York to London for a nickel, and any- there that are still primeval representatives H. Carr. What the MGCO will try and do is of the deep freeze where it all began, 4.6 help analyze Martian climate patterns billion years ago." The second spacecraft it orbit over the caused by slow changes in the tilt of the will travel to Mars, where will planet's axis over millions of years. Martian grand canyon, scouting for suitable Late 1990: Mariner spacecraft will be landing places for future robot spacecraft. it catastrophic climate four men and four women. They will set. up tan. There it will descend into the only moon and has undergone living quarters, a biological laboratory, a in the solar system known to possess a ni- changes that dried up all its water and left small space factory, and an observatory trogen and methane atmosphere, one that that huge canyon behind. Bringing back whose telescopes and instruments can either is remarkably like the primitive atmosphere Martian rock samples will allow us to date be turned toward Earth or out at the stars. that enshrouded Earth 4 billion years ago. the events that changed Mars forever and 1995. Flying the new "transfer vehicle," a 1997. An instrument aden spacecraft, the tell us' why it did not evolve like the earth. kind of space tugboat, three astronauts will Lunar Polar Orbiter, will be. sent from the Why is there no water or life on Mars? These venture out from the space station, 200 miles space station to orbit over the moon's north are major questions that go to the heart of above the earth, to geosynchronous orbit, and south poles. Its mission will be to make understanding how the cosmos began." 22,400 miles up. Once in geosync the astro- a geological and geochemical map of the 2010. Once the Lunar Polar Orbiter lo- nauts will rendezvous with one of our $100 moon; in other words, to tell Earth's geolo- cates water in the shadowed craters of the million communications satellites. Two crew gists what mineralsiie beneath the lunar sur- moon's north pole, it will be only a question 14B OMNI of time before the first human colonists find asteroids that could conceivably move onto erect giant radio telescopes to study the en- their way to those craters. This is the year a collision course with Earth and destroy tire Milky Way, and listen for intelligent sig- that four astronauts, two men and two much of ils life, just as an asteroid may have nals from distant space. The mission will mark women, will establish the first moon colony, wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. the beginning of an intense space-based planting the Stars and Stripes on the rim of NASAs advisory council has already gone search for other planets in the Milky Way. The a shadowed crater near the moon's north on record as saying that the only way to avoid space station will be expanded to accom- pole. Setting up base under the crater's rim an impending collision would be to antici- modate as many as 16 astronauts at a time and just out of the sun, the astronauts will pate one and to make provisions to deflect and will become a firil space-manufacturing tap into the ice for their water. And just be- the approaching asteroid with a hydrogen enterprise, making pharmaceuticals, exotic yond the rim they will unfold 300-foot-high bomb. metals, and electronic parts in an abun- solar panels to supply their electricity, "The dinosaurs . . . failed to develop the dance not even dreamed of today. The first colonists might be civilian scien- technology to avoid their extinction," the Four American astronauts will set out from lists. But don't discount (he possibility that council said, "but Homo sapiens has. He can the space station Columbus (tripled in size they could be astronauts working for NASA avert any further extinction by asteroid im- since 1992) on a historic flight to orbit Mars. and the CIA, or members of the Pentagon's pact. We think he should." They'll be scouts for the pioneers who will star-wars brigade. A lunar base would be an At the same time, a spacecraft protected colonize Mars in the subsequent two dec- excellent site for military listening posts. This by the largest heat shield ever constructed ades. After circling Mars, the astronauts will is no idle scenario. Already, ai the University will move into orbit around the sun. The ship fly down as close as 50,000 feet above the of California at San Diego, there is a study will fly at the same speed at which the sun planet's surface in a search for the best set- under way to see whether astronauts on the rotates, watching a single sunspot through tlement sites for a colony. Back on earth, hu- moon, using lunar materials as radiation an entire 11-year solar cycle. During the same manity may be deeply divided by the ques- shields, can protect the settlers from space- period, a spacecraft will move out to orbit tion of whether human beings should based Soviet particle-beam weapons. Mercury and maybe even attempt a landing colonize anolher planet. 2010-2015. Scaled-down versions of the on its superheated surface, which may be 2035. The Martian colonists will set sail for Galileo spacecraft that are to My to Jupiter molten enough to swallow any landing the red planet, landing there a year later to and Saturn will land on at least two asteroids spacecraft. Finally, telescopes that see in the set up permanent housekeeping. "The tech- and all four large Jovian moons; lo, Gany- X-ray, gamma-ray, and infrared ranges will nology to make the long journey to Mars al- mede, Europa, and Callisto. These landings be put into orbit. And a second-generation ready exists," former astronaut (Apollo 17) will be strictly for science. But the landings space telescope will be launched, this one and U.S. Senator (Mew Mexico) Harrison on the asteroids could mean the difference twice as large and four times as sensitive as 'jack" Schmitt tells Omni. "The only thing between life and death for our planet. the original. missing is the commitment, which I believe The space agency already has a program 2020. The space station will come of age. will come early in the twenty-first century." called Spacewatch under way. Scientists are Astronauts will be using their space tug to When that happens, the Age of Planetary keeping a close watch on "Earth-crossers," venture far afield in space, where they will Exploration will have arrived. DO deep within the ground. "Now we'll shut off Make the day special. TROJAN the external senses." The world went away, but the illusory peopo remaned, each within CONTINUED FROM PAGE 103 Give her a bridal set a separate hexagonal field of vision. It was the excess heat down to a liquid-storage like seeing through the eyes of a fly. as valuable cavern below the lake." There was a sudden, overwhelming sense Coral picked up a tomato. Her features of Tory's presence, and a sourceless voice as your love. were tinely chiseled. Her almond eyes should said to her. "This will take a minute. Amuse have had snap and fire in them, to judge by yourself by calling up a tew friends." Then the face, bul they were remote and unfo- he was gone. cused. Even, white.teeth nipped a! the food. Elin floated, free of body, free'of sensa- ''At night we pump the heat back up, let tion, almost godlike in her detachment. She the lake radiate it out to keep the crater idly riffled through tec images stopped at a warm." chubby little man drawing a black line across On closer examination— Elin had to squint his forehead. Hello, Hans, she thought. to see so line —the face was as smooth and He looked up and winked. "How's it hang- linetess as that of an idiot. There was nothing ing, kid?'" there; no emotion, no purpose, no detect- Not so bad. What'reyou up to? able intellect. "My job. I'm the black-box monitor this "That's why the number ol waterfalls in shift" He added an orange starburst to the operation varies." band, surveyed the ob critically in a pocket Now Coral sal feet mirror. down on the rocks. Her — "I sit here with my finger on the but- and knees were dirty. She did not move. Elin ton " one hand disappeared below his ter- to wanted shy a rock at to if minal if I her see she — "and get the word, I push. That would react. sets off explosives in the condenser units What now? Elin wondered. She had seen and blows the dome. Pfflft. Out goes the air." the sights, all that Magritte had to.offer, and She considered it: a sudden volcano of they were all tiresome, disappointing. Even- oxygen spouting up and across the lunar no, make that especially—God. And she. still plains. Human bodies thrown up from the had almost a month to kill. surface, scattering, bursting under explo- "Keeping the crater tempered is a regular sive decompression. balancing act." the agtech said. That's grotesque, Hans. "Oh, shut up." Elin took out her briefcase "Oh, it's safe. The button doesn't connect and called Father Landis. "I'm bored." she- unless I'm wetwired into my job." said, when the hologram had stabilized. Even so. ' Landis hardly glanced up from her work, 'Just a precaution; a lot of the research "So get a job," she snapped. that goes on here wouldn't be allowed with- Magritte - had begun as a mining colony, out this kind of security. Relax— I haven't lost back when it was still profitable to process a dome yet." the undifferentiated melange soil. The ^*^V min- The intercom cut out, and again Elin fell ers were gone now, and the crater was Tory's presence. "We're trying aTrojan horse owned by a consortium of operations legally program this time— inserting you into the debarred from locating Earthside. desired rnenta 1 s:a".cs instead of making you From the fifteenth terrace Elin stared down the states. We've encapsulated your surface at the patchwork clusters of open-air labo- identity and routed the experimental pro- ratories and offices, some separated by long grams through a secondary level. So with stretches of undeveloped field, others this series, rather than identifying with'the crammed together in the hope of synergistic programs, you'll perceive them all indi- effect. Germ-warfare corporations mingled rectly." with nuclear-waste engineering firms. The Tory, you have got to be the most jargon- Mid-Asian Population Control Project had half ridden huma a terrace to itself, and it swarmed with 'opmnjng that in English? guards. There were a few off- Swiss banking "Ill Show you." operations. Suddenly Elin was englobed in a sphere "You realize." Tory said, "that I'm not going of branching crimson lines, dark and dull, assc all to be at happy about this development." that throbbed slowly. Lacy and organic, it He stood, face impassive in red and green, looked the way she imagined the veins in watching a rigger bolt together a cot and her forehead to be like when she had a wire in the surgical equipment. headache. "You hired me yourself," Elin reminded him. "That was anger," Tory said. "Your mind I "Yes. but rr i wireo into professional mode shunted it off into visual imagery because it at the moment." The rigger packed up his didn't identify (he anger with itself." tools, walked off. "Looks like we're almost That's what you re going to do then—pro- ready." gram me into the God-state so that I can see "Good." Elin flung herself down on the- cot it but not experience it? and lay back, hands folded across her chest. "Ultimately. Though I doubt you'll be able "Hey, I feel like I should be holding a lily!" to come up with pictures. More likely, you'll "I'm going to hook you into the project in- feel that you're in the presence of God." He tercom so ypu don't get too bored between withdrew tor a moment, leaving her more _ episodes." fhe air about her flickered, and than alone, almos: nonexistent. Then he was K A Y a clutch of images overlaid her vision. Ghosts J E W E L E R S back. "We start slowly, though. The first ses- walked through the air, stared at -her from sion runs you up to the basic metaprogram- [r Tfe© AvU&% © ART CUMINGS Does the- power' ~bo .breathe, iife ir\bo a. line. _^M' ^1 r% I'd be lying if J said r.o — ming level, integrates all your menial proc- laxing. She leu good. She; Had needed this II was God. esses, and puts you in low-level control of little vacation from the tensions and pres- Then Tory was back and the voice, the them. The nontechnical term for this is mak- sures of her new persona: ty Taking the job presence, was gone. Tory? she thought, / ing the Christ. Don't fool around with any- had been the right thing to do, even if it did think I just had a religious experience. thing you see or sense." momentarily displease Tory. "That's very common under sensory dep- His voice faded, she was alone, and then Tory . . . She smiled mentally. He was ex- rivation—the mind clears out a few old pro- everything changed. asperating at times, but still she was coming grams. Nothing to worry about. Now relax She was in the presence of someone .to rely on having him around. She was be- for a jiff while I plug.you back in—how does wonderful. ginning to think she was in love with him. that feel?" Elin felt that someone near at hand, and A lesser love, perhaps. Certainly not the The presence was back again, but not struggled to open the eyes she no longer love that is the Christ. nearly so strongly as ooforo: s'ne could resist possessed; she had to see. Her existence Well, maybe so. Still, on a human level, the urge to chase after it. That's fine, Tory, listen, neatly — opened, and people began appearing be- Tory filled needs in her she hadn't known but I think fore her. existed. It was too much effort to argue with "Let's leave analysis to those who have "Careful," Tory said. "You've switched on herself, though. Her thoughts drifted away been programmed for it, shall we?" the intercom again." into a wordless, luxurious reveling in the / wan! to see! bodiless stale, koo Iron- disliactions, care- The lovers strolled aimlessly through a "There's nobody to meadow, the grass see. That's just your brushing up higher own mind. But if you than their waists. Bio- want, you can keep logical night was the intercom on." coming: the agtechs Oh. It was disap- flicked the daylight pointing. She was switch off and on surrounded by love, twice in warning. by a crazily happy "It was real, Tory. sense that the uni- She talked with me; verse was holy, by I'm not making it up." wisdom deeper than Tory ran a hand the world. By all rights, through his dark, curly it had to come from a hair, looking dis- source greater than tracted. "Well, assum- herself. ing that my profes- Reason was not sional opinion was sufficiently strong to wrong—and I'll be the override emotion. She first to admit that the riffled through the in- program is a bit ego- tercom, bringing up centric — I still don't image after image and think we have to stoop discarding them all, to mysticism for an searching. explanation." When she had run To the far side of through the entire Magritte, a waterfall project staff, she be- was abruptly shut off. gan hungrily scan- The stream of water ning the. crater's pub- scattered, seeming to lic monitors. dissolve in the air. "I Agtechs in the trel- Toshiba's Super Mini KT-AS10 offers features that cassette thought you said she lis farms were har- players many times its size don't. Like Dolby"* MR, auto-reverse, AM/FM was God." inTouch ^thTamon-ow vesting strawberries stereo tuner pack and metal tape "I only said that to capability. Only a first from Toshiba and sweet peas. Elin TOSH,"IRA" bait Landis. I don't could taste them on could improve Beethoven's fifth. :,,.,', ,.^f-*!f . "™ mean that she's liter- her tongue. Some- ally God, just god like. body was seining up Her thought proc- algae from the inner esses are a million lake, and she felt the weight of the net in free and disconnected. years more efficiently organized than ours. callused hands. Not far from where she lay, Nothing is disconnected. All the universe God is just a convenient metaphor." a couple was making love in a grove of sap- is a vast nef'bf intermeshing programs. Elin "Urn, So what's your explanation?" lings and was amused at herself. That had sounded "There's at least one terminal on the is- Tory, I don't think I can take this. It's too like something Tory would say, She'd have land — the things are everywhere. She prob- intense. to watch it; she might love the man. but she ably programmed it to cut into the intercom "You're the test pilot." didn't want to end up talking like him. without the channels seeming to be open." Dammit, Tory! . You worry heedlessly. The voice of God is "Could she do that?" Donna Landis materialized on the inter- subtle, but it is not you' own "Why not? She has that million-year edge com. "She's right, Shostakovich. You haven't Elin started- She searched through her on us—and she used to be a wetware tech; buffered her enough." mind for an open intercom channel, didn't all wetware techs are closet computer "It didn't seem wise to risk dissociative ef- find one. Hello, she thought. Who'said that? hacks." He did not look at her, had not looked fects by cranking her ego up too high." The answer came to her not in words, but at her for some time. "Who's paying for all this, hah?" in a sourceless assertion of identity. It was "Hey." She reached out to take his hand. Tory grumbled something inaudible and cool, emotionless, something she could not "What's wrong with you tonight?" dissolved the world. describe even to herself, hut by the same "Me?" He did not meet her eyes. "Don't Elin floated in blackness, soothing and re- token absolute and undeniable. mind me. I'm just sulking because you took " — r I II tell story." MEDITATION the job. I'll get over it." you mummy and you—a "What's wrong with the job?" "Hey. I didn^ come here The Psychic Bridge . . . "Nothing. I'm just being moody." "Who are .you to criticize the latest tech- She' guided his arm around her waisi, niques in spiritual nurturing, hey?" Landis pressed up against him. "Well, don't be. It's chided gently. "Sit." her nothing you can control— I have to have work Elin did so. Landis put an arm about to do. My boredom tnreshold :s very low." shoulder. "I know thai." He finally turned to face her, "Once upon a time, there was a little girl smiled sadly. "I do love you, you know." named Coral— I forget her last name. Doesn't "Well . . . maybe I love you, too." matter. Anyway, she was bright and emo- His smile barisheo all sadness from his tional and ambitious and frivolous and just face, like a sudden wind that breaks apart like you in every way." She rocked Elin gently the clouds. "Say it again." His hands reached as she spoke. out lo touch her shoulders, her nock, her tace. "Coral was a happy little girl, and she "One more lime, with feeling," laughed and played, and one day she fell in "Will not\" Laughing, she tried to break love. Just like that'." She snapped her fin- away from him, but he would not lei go, and gers. "I imagine you know how she felt." they fell in a tangle to the ground. "Beast!" "This is kind of embarrassing." They rolled over and over in the grass. "Hush. Well, she was very lucky, for as to the "Brute!" She hammered at his chest, tore much as she loved him, he loved her a hun- open his jumpsuit, tried to bite his neck. dred limes back, and for as much as he Inner Mind Tory looked embarrassed, tried to- pull loved her, she loved him a thousand times it away. "Hey, not out here! Somebody could back. And so it went. I think they overdid be watching." a bit, but that's just my personal opinion. Have you ever experienced a sense of fu- The.agtechs switched of! the arc lamps, "Now Coral lived ir Magritte and worked tility— seemed to be thwarted in your ac- plunging Magritte into darkness. as a wetware lech. She was an ambitious complishment? Have you ever strug- Tory reached up to touch Elin's face. They one, too —they're the worst kind. She came gled for a new vital idea or solution to a made love. up with a scheme to reprogram people so problem? Behind your thinking mind they could live outside the programs that run ivcs. Mind may lie the very answer or vision you Physically it was no different Irom things them in iheir everyday you, peo- she had done countless times before with ple are more than the sum of their program- lovers and friends and the occasional ming, but what did she know about free will? You have a tremendous reservoir of stranger. But she was committing herself in She hadn't had any religious training, after mental power waiting to be called a way the old Elin would never have dared, all. So she and her boyfriend wrote up a pro- forth. It lies just beyond your surface letting.Tory past her cefenses. laying herself posal arret applied lor funding, and together thoughts. True meditation is not idle ope'h to pain and hurl. Trusting him. He was they ran the new prog ra~ tnrough her skull. random thinking— or mere concentra- a part of her now. And everything was trans- And when it was all done, she thought she tion which ties the mind to fixed ideas. "ormeo. made new and wonderful. was God. Only.she wasn't Coral anymore It is a techniq ue th at opens channels to Until .they were right at the brink of or- hot so as you'd recognize her." the full power of mind and a realization gasm, the both of them, and half delirious, She paused to give Elin a hug. "Be strong, of self. Every achievement— in any- she could lei herself go, murmuring, "I love kid, here comes the rough part. Well, her one's life—began with meditation. .." want I . didn'i you, love you, God love you . And just boyfriend was b'osenhoartec. He THIS FREE BOOK EXPLAINS as she climaxed, lory sUfened and threw to eat, and he didn't want to play wilh his his head, back, and in a voice that was friends. He was.a real shit to work with. But Meditation is neither strictly an orien- wrenched from the. depths of passion, whis- then he got an idea.- tal nor occidental practice or fantasy. pered, "Coral ..." "You see, anyone who works with experi- It is a natural function of mind power. mental wetware has her personality perma- Let the Rosicrucians (not a religion), with nently recorded in case there's an accident an international society of men and Half blind fury, Elin strode through a residential settlement. The huts glowed softly and it needs to be restored. And if that per- women devoted to the study of natural playing w'thin diffuse, son dies or becomes God, the personality laws, explain this marvelous phenom- from the holotapes — rainbow pa: terns unreadable out- rights revert to IGF They're sneaky like that. enon of meditation to you. Write to- scattered side Iheir fields of focus. She'd left Tory be- "Well, Tory did I mention his name was day for the free book, The Mastery of — this hind, bewildered, two terraces above. Tory?—thought to himself: What if some- Life . It tells how you may use Elin halted before one hut, stood indeci- body were to come here for a new person- technique for a fuller life. Write to: sively. Finally, to talk lo ality? Happens about twice a year. Bound Scribe KAS because she had somebody, she rapped on the lintel. to get worse in the future. And Magritte is The ROSICRUCIANS Father Landis stuck her head out the the only place this kind of work can be done. (AMORC) doorway, blinked sleepily. "Oh, it's you, Don- The personality bank is random-accessed San Jose, California 95191 nelly What do you want?" by computer, so there'd be a chance of his To her absolute horror, Elin broke into tears. getting Coral back, just as good as new.'Only Landis emerged, zipping up her jumpsuit. nol a very gooc chance oecause there's tots Scribe KAS She cuddled Elin in her arms, made sooth- of garbage stuffed into the oersonalitybank. The ROSICRUCIANS (AMORC) ing, noises, listened to her story. 'And then he had a bad thought. Bui you San Jose, California 95191 "Coral," Landis said. "Ahhhh. Suddenly mustn't blame him for it. He was working from I sincerely interested in the practical ap- am everything falls into place." a faulty set of moral precepts. Suppose, he plication of meditation and related natural / that in- "Well, I wish you'd tell me, then!" She tried thought, rigged roe computer so laws. Please send me a free copy of THE to blink away the angry tears. Her face felt stead of choosing randomly, it would give MASTERY OF LIFE. red and raw and ugiy. the wet ware paint was Coral's personality to the very first little girl all smeared. who came along? And that was what he did." ". Address ? "Patience, child." Landis sat down cross- Landis lapsed into silence. Elin wiped sniffle. Ihe City State Zip . .;. legged beside the hut, patted the ground back a "How does beside her. "Sit here and pretend that I'm story end?" 156 OMNI — "I'm still waiting on thai one." And it didn't matter. iment!" The thing was. the underlying noth- "Oh." Elin pulled hersoll together and A great calmness wrappc-o itself around ingness was real— if "real" had any mean- stood. Landis followed. Elin, an intelligent deaci'mer.. co:d and im- ing, if meaning had meaning. But beyond "Listen. Remember what I told you about personal. She found herself identifying with real and beyond —oanhg there is what is. beings-puppy tripping over its paws? Well, it, realizing that ex sronco was simply not im- And she had found it. you've just stubbed your toes and Ihey hurt. portant, It was all things, objects. "Donnelly, you're— treading on dangerous But you'll get over it. People do." She could not see Tory's back, was. no ground. You've " Landis's voice was a dis- longer willing to .assume it even ex:s;eo She traction, and she shut it. off. Elin felt the de- "Today we make a Buddha," Tory said. Bin could look up and see the near side of the sire to merge with what was; one simply had - fixed him with a cold stare, said nothing, even carlo. I he la sice might well not exist, and to stop the desire for it, she realized, and it though he was in green and red, immune. if it didn't, well thai clidT: matter either. was done. "This is a higher-level program, integrating She stripped away the world, ignored the But on this realization, horror collapsed all your mental functions and putting, them externalities. / never realized how depend- upon her. Flames seared and burned and under your conscious control. So it's espe- on: : fini on sonsory input, she- thought. And crisped, and there were: snakes among them, cially important that you keep your hands to if you ignored, it— there was the void. It had great slimy things with d.sgusiing mouths yourself, okay?" no shape or color or position but it was what arc i'cc-c e sharp fangs. "Rot in hell, you cancer." underlies the bright interplay of colors that She recoiled in panic, and they were upon "I beg your par- her. The flames were don?" drawn up into her Elin did not re- lungs, and hot mag- spond, and after a gots wallowed in her puzzled silence Tory Tis the season to brain tissues. She fled continued: "I'm leav- through a mind that ing your sensorium be generous toyour fellow writhed in agony, turning things on operative, so when 1 Bushmills drinkers. and switch you over, I want off. you to pay attention to Dial 1-800-243-3787. Until abruptly she your surround. Okay?" was back in her body, The second Trojan One brief phone call and a holiday gift and nothing pursued horse came on. of Bushmills will arrive at almost any her. She shivered, and Everything changed. her body responded. door in America* It wasn't a physical It felt wonderful. For a dedicated Bushmills drinker, it's the change, not one that " Well, thai worked at best gift imaginable: uncommonly smooth, could be seen with the least," Tory said. Bushmills is imported whiskey from — eyes. It was more as if "What " her voice the names for every- rhe world's oldest distillery. croaked. She cleared thing had gone away. We might also mention that we've rented her throat and tried A knee-tall oak grew this special and rather costly phone number again. "What hap- nearby, very much like for the holiday season. pened to me?" the one she had (We figure our customers arc worth it.) 'Just what we'd crushed accidentally hoped for when your If it's popular enough, we might even sign — in New Detroit when mind was threatened up all year round. she had. lost her vir- with extinction, it pro- ginity many years ago. tected itself by repro- And it meant nothing gramming back down to her.- It was only to a normal state. Ap- wood growing out of parently, keeping your the ground. ego cranked up high A mole poked its works." head out of its. burrow, Elin realized that her nose crinkling, pink eyes were still closed; eyes weak. It was just she opened them now a small, .biological and convulsively machine. "Whooh," closed her hand she said involuntarily. around the edge of the "This is awfully cold." was constantly being destroyed by the gray metal cot. It was solid and real to the touch. "Bother you?" fires of time.,Sh,t:;;r.:nlerripl-.]ledlhe raw stuff Such a good. feeling. Elin studied him, and there was nothing of existence.' "I'll be down in .a minute." Tory said. 'Just there. Only a human being, as much an ob- "Please don't monkey around with your now. you need ;o res;." He- touched a bone ject as the oak, and no more. She felt noth- programming," Tory said. inductor, and Elin fell into blackness. ing toward or against him. "No," she said- The body was unimportant, too; it was only "We're getting a good recording." The the focal point lor her senses. Ignore them Floating again, every metaphorical nerve words meant nothing; they were clumsy, de- and you. could ignore if. Elin could leel her- on edge, Elin found herself hypersensitive to void of content. self fading r the presence or the void. It had outside influences, preternaturally aware, In the grass around her, Elin saw a gray no material existence, no real being. But nei- even suggestible. Still, she suspected llickering, as if it were all subtly on- fire. Log- ther had the world she had always taken for more than sensed— Coral's presence. Go ically she knew the flickering was the firing granted — ft was but an echo, a ghost, an away, she thought. This is my mind now. of nerves in the rods and cones of her eyes, i~age reflec:od in water. I am here, and i am always. You have set but emotionally r. was something else: It was It was like being a p'ogram in a machine foot in my country and are dimly aware of time. A gray fire that destroyed the world and realizing it for the first time. my presence. Later, when you have climbed constantly, eating it away and remaking it Landis's voice Hooded her. "Donnelly, for into the mountains, you will truly know me; again and again. God's sake, keep yourfingers Off the exper- and then you vw.'V be as I. . " Everyone tells me what I'm going to do, Elin thought angrily. Don't t get any say? The thought that came io her was almost WHO NEEDS A amused: You are only a program caught in a universal web ot programming. You will do as your program dictates. To be free of the programs is to be God. WORLD ATLAS? Despite her anger, despite her hurl, de- spite the cold trickle of !ear she tried to keep inter- Students do. Business people do. Everyone who's in the background, Elin was curious. What's ested in the world at large does. it like? she couldn't, help asking. Next to a dictionary, the new desk-sized Rand McNally It is golden freedom. The universe is a bubble infinitely large, and we who are God College World Atlas is the most valuable reference book anyone are the film on the bubble's outside. We in- can own. And a perfect gift. teract and we program. We make the stars Students appreciate its detailed, up-to- shine and the willows grow. We program what date maps and easy-to-use tables.^ you will want for lunch. The programming Business people can use its flows through us, and we alter it and main- tain the universe air distance charts, informa- Elin p.ounced on this last statement. tion on trade exhibition Haven't done a very goodjob of it, have you? facilities and hotel, motel and We do not tamper. When you are one with restaurant listings to save time us, you will understand. and money. And anyone curious This was, Elin realized, the kind ot ques- lion-and-answer session Coral must have about the world will enjoy its gone through repeatedly as part of the Star 200,000 interesting facts. Maker project. She searched for a question And at just $15.95, it's gift- that no one else would have asked, one that priced to please any giver. Look would be hers alone. And after some thought for it wherever books are sold. she found it. Oo you still—personally—love Tory Shos- takovich? At first there was a slight pause, then: The ©Rand M?Nally kind of love you mean is characteristic of lower-order programming. Not of program- publishing. Over 100 years of excellence in atlas ree inieHigence. A moment later Tory canceled all pro- gramming, and she Moated to the surface, leaving God behind. But even before then she was acutely aware that she had not re- Buy Hasbro's ceived a straight answer. "Elin, we've got to talk." G.I. Joe She was patched into the outside moni- tors, staring across Mare Imbrium. It was a straight visual program; she could feel the from a toy store you'll wetwire leads dangling down her neck, the warm, humid air of Magritte against her skin. "Nothing to talk about," she said. feel like saluting. "Dammit, yes there is! I'm not about to lose you again because of a misunderstanding, a— a matter of semantics." When you shop with us, well give you The thing about Outside was its airless prices, a good selec good service, good clarity. Rocks and shadows were so preter- tion, and a convenient location in naturally sharp. From a sensor on the cra- shopping malls across the ter's seaward slope, she stared off into Mare in com- country. So when you're Imbrium; it was monotonous but a forting sort of way. A little like when she had looking for G.t. Joe, made a Buddha, There was no meaning out come to the toy store there, nothing to impose itseli between her will treat that you and the surface. so nice you'll wont "I don't know how you found out about to salute them. Coral," Tory said, "and I guess it doesn't matter. I always figured you'd find out sooner or later. That's not— important. What matters is that I love you "Oh, hush up!" "—and that you love me. You can't pre- tend you don't." BEE Elin felt nails into her palms. "Sure KAY her dig the TOY STORES 1 can." she said She hopscoxhed down crater io the surface. 1 here the mass driver stood, a thin monorail retching kilometers into the Imbrium. its genile slope all but im- perceptible. "You're identifying with the woman who used to be Elin Donnelly. There's nothing wrong with that; speaking as awetsurgeon, it's a healthy sign. But it's something you've got to grow out of." "Listen, Shostakovich, tinkering with my emotions doesn't change who I am. I'm noi your dead lady friend, and I'm not about to take her place. So why don't you just go away and Stop jerking me a'ound, huh?" Tiny repair robo:s p.'owled the mass driv- er's length, slopping cccas onally lor a spot- ' weld. Blue sparks sputtered soundlessly over the surface. "You're not the old Elin Donnelly either, and I think you know it. Bodies are transient, memories are nolhing. Your spontaneity and grace, your quiet strength, your impa- tience—the small lacks and presences of you I've known and loved for years—are what make you yourself. The name doesn't matter, nor the past. You are who you are, and I love you for it." "Yeah, well, what I am does not love you, buster." One of the repairbots slowly fell off the driver. It hit, bounced, struggled to regain its treads, then scooted back toward ils work. Tory's voice was almost regretful. "You do, Ihough. You can't hide that from me. I know you as your lover and as your wetsurgeon: You've let me become a part of you, and no matter how angry you might temporarily be, you'll come back to me." ;;;^:::~..." -^,\y:'\li\..:ll:l;:- Elin could feel her body trembling with rage. "Yeah, well if that's true, then why tell me? Hah? Why not jusl go back to your hut To us, it's an and wait for me to come crawling?" "Because I want you to guil your job." engineering triumph,with "Say what?" "I don't want you to become God. It was a precision sparkwheel a mistake the last time, and I'm afraid it won't be any better with the new programs. II you and an adjustable flame* go up into God and can't get down this time, you'll do it the next time. And the next. I'll spend my life here waiting for you, re-cre- To you, it's ating you, losing you. Can't you see it-^year after year, replayrg :ne same lired old tape?" just a flick of the Bi< Tory's voice fell to whisper. "I a don't think I could lake it even once more." "If you know me as well as you say, then I guess you know my answer," Elin said coldly. She waited until Tory's footsteps moved away, fading, defeat echoing after. Only then did Elin realize that her sensor had been scanning the same empty bit of Magritte's slope for the last five minutes. It was time for the final Trojan horse. "To- day we make a God," Tory said. 'This is a total conscious integration of the mind in an optimal efficiency pattern. Close your eyes and count to three." One. The hell of it was that Tory was'right. She-still loved him. He was the one man she wanted and was empty without. Two. Worse, she didn't know how long'she could go on without coming back to him— and, good God, would that be humiliating! " — THROW A STAR PARTY She was either c.irseu ;y blessed: cursed viewer.! objectively as the wetware was He shivered, eyes wide and unblinking. perhaps for the agonies and humiliations she loaded. Another click as the recorder shut "Tory, what's the matter?" " would willingly undergo for the sake of this off. A moment of silence, and then His terrible eyes turned on her. "Nichevo. one rather manipulative human being. Or Tory gasped. One arm flew up into her' "What?" maybe blessed, in that at least there was field of vision, swooped down out of it, and "Nothing," Landis said, "Or maybe 'it someone who could move her so. deserving he began choking, El n slugged against her " doesn't matter.' is a better translation." or noi. Many went through their lives without. paralysis, could not move. Something broke A wetware tech had taken control, shov- Three, She opened her eyes. noisily, a piece of equipment by the sound ing the crowd back. He reported to Landis, Nothing was any different. Magritte was of it, and the choking and gasping contin- his mouth moving calmly under the interplay as ordinary, as mundane as ever, and she ued. He began thrashing wildly. of green and red. "Looks like a flaw in the ielt no special reaction to it one- way or an- Tory, Tory, what's happening to you? programming philosophy. We were guess- other. Certainly she did not feel the pres- ing that bringing the ego along would make ence of God. "It's just a-grand ma/ seizure," Landis said. God such an unoio-asan: expe-r'ence that the "I don't think this is working," she tried to "Nothing we can't cope with, nothing we subject would let us deprogram without jn- say. The words did not come. From- the cor- weren't prepared for." She touched Elin's terfering —now we know better." ner of her eye. she saw Tory wiping clean his shoulder reassuringly, called back to the Elin stroked Tory's lorehead. His muscles facepaint, shucking off his jumpsuit. Bui crowd huddling about Tory, "Hey! One of you ele'nehed, then loosened as a medtech re- when she tried to sit up, she found she was loopheads— somebody there know any programmed the body responses. "Why isn't paralyzed. programming? Get the lady out of this." anyone doing anything?" she demanded. What is this maniac doing? A tech scurried up, made a few simple "Take a look," Landis said, and patched Tory's face joomeci over her, his eyes adjustments with her machinery, The oth- her into the intercom. In her mind's eye, Elin glassy, almost fearful. His hair was a tangled ers—still gathering, Landis had been only could see dozers o' '-.-vetv-.-a-e techs submit- mess; her fingers itched with the impulse to thethird on the scene—were trying to hold ting program after program. A branching run a comb through it. Tory still, to fit a bone inductor against his wetware diagram filled one channel, and as "Forgive me, love." He kissed her fore- neck. There was a sudden gabble of com- she watched, minor changes would occur head lightly, her lips ever so gently. Then he ment, and Tory flopped wildly. Then a col- as programs took hold, then be unmade as was out of her field of vision, stretching- out lective sigh as his muscles eased and his Tory's mind rejected them. "We've got an im- on the grass beside the cot. convulsions ceased. agery tap of his Weltanschauung coming up," Elin stared up. at the dome roof, thinking: "There," the lech said, and Elin scrabbled some nameless tech reported. No. She heard him strap the bone inductors off the couch. Something horrible appeared on a blank to his body, one by one, and then a sharp She pushed through the people (and a channel. click as he switched on a recorder. The pro- small voice in the back of her head mar- Elin could take only an instant's exposure gramming began to flow into him. veled: A crowd! How strange) and knelt be- before her mind reflexively shut the channel A long wait—perhaps Iwenly seconds fore Tory, cradling his head in her arms. down, but that instant was more than enough, 160 OM'NI . She stood in a room infinitely large and clut- tered with gresi, roi son-it; machines. They were tended by malevolent demons who shrieked and cackled and were ma- chines themselves, and they generated.pain and madness. The disgust and revulsion she felt was ab- solute. It could not be put into words— no more than could the actual experience of what she had seen. And yet—she knew this much about wetware techniques— it was only a rough approximation, a cartoon, of what was going through Tory's head. Elin's body trembled with shock, and by slow degrees she realized that she had re- treated to the surface world. Tory's head was still cradled in her arms. A wetware tech standing nearby looked stunned, her face gray. Elin gathered herself together, said as gently as she could, "Tory, what is that you're seeing?" Tory turned his stark, haunted eyes on her, and it took an effort of will not to flinch. Then he spoke, his words shockingly calm. "It is —what is. It's reality. The universe is a damned cold machine, and all of us only programs within it. We perform the actions, we have no choice but to perform, and then we fade into nothingness. It's a cruel .and noisy place." "I don't understand— didn't you always say that we were just ore-grams "-' Wasn't that what you always believed?" "Yes, but now I experience it." Elin noticed that her hand was slowly stroking his hair: she did not try to stop.it. "Then come down, Tory. Let them depro- 'WHY THIS SHORT PARKA TOOK gram you." He did not look away. "Nichevo" he said. 1-* The tech. recovered from her shock, ^P^WUSSOLONG." reached toward a piece of equipment. Lan- dis baited her hand away. "Hold it right there, 1 I» np,»,,„ techie! Just what do you think you're doing?" • !fer.erBov.e. The. woman looked impatient. "He left in- * jfc She's the President he ufKF Anrla(rcr4/uP3riintpiwi structions that if the experiment H turned out SmJL ^" neermgiheiinesi iuII- badly, I was to pull the terminator switch," length parkas on ihem irliet, sh^'.v.-jri : dxmi "That's what I thought. There'll be no mercy to let a waist-length yen nri.-nrviinslirtrr nj^. killings while I'm on the job, Mac." JHHrJ ? 1 So she kept insistin on improve- jjIftJSi "I don't understand." The tech backed merits (special knit inse away, puzzled. "Surely you don't want him to Velcro® cuffs and colla ho' 1 suffer," make it warmer, and re- Landis was gathering herself for a with- finements (a shell of ,* \ ering reply when the intercom cut them all Gore-Tex® laminated^ off. A flash of red shot through the senso- to nigged but hand- | rium, along with the smell of bitter almond, someAntron® nylon with a double storm a prickle of static electricity, the taste of kim- flap) to make it drier. chi. "Emergency! We've got an emer- Qualloffl* insulation gency!" A black and white face materialized to minimize weight, a in Elin's mind. "Emergency!" unique knit action inse Landis flipped into the circuit. the "What's to maximize flexibility All of which 'iW problem? Show us." "You're not going to believe this." The face There ai'echs',!p'.: :'.va:',t-:a-.jili>iL'k;':\ disappeared and was replaced by a wide- EVoilsblr. Li.x.i'.;hk'ni. But. .is \tom likes angle shot of the lake. to remind us all, this is no jacket. The greenish-black water was calm and It's a park! A Columbia parka. stagnant. The thrust-cone island, with' its scattered grass and weeds, slumbered. And God walked upon the water. Columbia They gawked; all of them. Coral walked Sportswear Company across the lake, her pace determined but not hurried, her face serene. The pink soles . of her bare feet just touched the surface. across the ground and threw her arms Time stopped. Elin hung suspended between moon and I dtdn'tbelieve her.EWn thought wildly. She around Tory. fragments of an in- saw Father Lancis been lo cross herself, her The air was in turmoil. The holes in the death. The shards and : sl-iiic-d. world crys:a l zed and The mouth hanging open, eyes wide in disbelief. dome roof— small at first—grew as more of stant past Halfway through her gesture, the Jesuitical the dome flaked avjsy.s-.iojeclod to stresses became not misty, exactly, but apositional. it and she grew tentative, possibilities wetware took hold. Her mouth snapped shut, it wasn't designed to lake. An uncanny whis- Both and her face became cold and controlled. tling grew to a screech, then a scream, and rather than actual things. Coral said, She pulled herself up straight. then there was an all-encompassing Come be God w$h me now, "Hans," the priest said, "push the button." whoomph, and the dome shattered. but not to Elin. Tory's flooded the soupy uncer- "No!" Elin shrieked, but it was loo late. Still Elin was flung upward, torn away from Tory, presence but wrong hooked into the intercom, she saw the funny painfully flung high and away. All the crater tainty, a vast and powerful thing, of twisted. Bui even as Elin felt this, little man briskly, efficiently obey. was in motion, the rocks tearing out the somehow, within him, a sloughing For an instant, nothing happened. Then floor, the trees splintering upward, the lake there was a change to straighten, bright" glints of light appeared at all of the exploding into steam. off of identity, and he seemed condenser units/harsh and actinic. Steam The screaming died—the air was gone. lo heal. to grow more arid smoke gushed from the machinery, a'nd Elin's ears rang furiously, and her skin stung All around, the world began tugged in five a fraction of a second later, there was an everywhere. Pressure grew within her, the numinous, more real. Elin felt swelled ear-slapping gout of sound. desire of her blood to mate with the vacuum, directions at once. Tory's presence spark, less Bits of the sky were blown away. and Elin realized that she was about to die. briefly, then dwindled, became a Elin turned, twisted, fell. She scrambled A quiet voice said; This must not be than a spark, nothing. Ves. With a roaring of waters and a shattering of rocks, with an audible thump, the world returned. Elin unsteadily climbed down the last flight The Only Amplifiers and Receivers of stone stairs from the terraces to the lake- front. She passed by two guards at the foot with Dynamic Range of the stairs, their facepaint as hastily ap- Wide plied as'their programming, several more on the way to the nearest trellis farm. They were and Low Impedance Drive Capability everywhere since the incident. She found the ladder up into the farm and began climbing. It was biological night, and the agtechs were long gone. Hand over hand she climbed, as far and The Onkyo high as she could, until she was afraid she would miss a rung and tumble off. Then she swung herself onto a ledge, wedging herself Delta Power Supply between strawberry and yam planters. She looked down on the island, and though she was dizzyingly high, she was only a third of the way up. "Now what the hell am I doing here?" she mumbled to herself. She swung her legs back and forth, an- swered her own question: "Being piss-ass drunk." She cackled. There was something she didn't have to share with Coral. She was capable of geldnc; absoli.ue.y blitzed and walking away from the bar before it hit her. It was something metabolic. Below, Tory and Coral sat quietly on their monkey island. They did not touch, did not make love or hold hands or even glance at one another—they just sal. Being gods. Elin squinted down at the two. "Like to up- chuck all over you," she mumbled. Then she squeezed her eyes and fists tight, drawing tears and pain. Dammit, Tory! Blinking hard, she looked away from the island, down into the jet-black waters of the lake. The brighter stars were reflected there. A slight breeze rippled the water, making them twinkle and blink, as if lodged in a Ter- ran sky. They floated lightly on the surface, swarmed and coalesced, and formed Tory's ONKYO face in the lake. He smiled warmly, invitingly. A hand closed around her arm, and she s Drive, Ramsey, NJ 07446 (201) 825-7950 looked up into the stern face of a security guard. "You're drunk, Ms.," he said, "and you're endangering property." 162 OMNI She looked where he pointed, at a young yam plant she had squashed when she sat down, and began to laugh. Smoothly, profession ally the guard rolled up her sleeve, clamped a plastic bracelet around her wrist. "Time to go," he said. By the time the guard had walked Elin up lour terraces, she was nearly sober A steady trickle of her bloodwound through the bracelet, was returned to her body cleansed of alcohol. A sacrilegious waste of wine, in her opinion. In another twenty steps, the bracelet fell off her wrist. The guard snapped it neatly from the air and disappeared. Despair closed in on her again. Tory, my love! And since there was no hope of sleep, she kept on trudging up the terraces, back toward Hans's rath- skeller, for another bellyful of wine. There was a small crowd seated about the rock that served Hans as a table, lit by a circle of hologram-generated fairy lights. Father Landis was there, and drinking heavi- ly. "Tomorrow I file my report," she an- nounced. "The synod is pulling out of this, withdrawing funding." Hans sighed, took a long swig of his own wine, winced at its taste. "I guess that's it for the Star Maker project, huh?" Landis crossed her fingers. "Pray God." Elin, standing just outside the circle, stood silently, listening. "I don't ever want to hear that name again," a tech grumbled. "You mustn't confuse God with what you've just seen," Landis admonished. THE FUTURE BCCORDIHG TO "Hey, come on!" Hans said. "She moved time backwards or something. I saw it my- self. This place exploded— doesn't that SCIENCE FICTIOn CH1EIHR prove something?" An all-star lineup of sf writers [Asimov, Ellison, Pohl, Landis grinned, reached out to ruffle his Silverberg, Bloch...], film critics and film makers hair. "Sometimes I worry about you. Hans. [John Badham, Nicholas Meyer, Stanley Kramer, You have an awfully small concept of God." John Several of the drinkers laughed. Sayles.. J explore sf films from 1900 up to Orwell's 1984. He blushed, said, "No, really."— With hundreds of illustrations, many in color, this book, like "Well, I'll try to keep this " she leaned the movies it celebrates, is a triumph of revelation. forward, rapped her mug rock, against the $17.95 oversize paperback, $35.00 hardcover. "fill this up again, hey?—keep it simple. We had analysts crawl up and down Coral's de- scription of the universe, and did you know there was no place in it anywhere for such innruis- things as mercy, hope, faith? No, we got an SCREEH CREDITS FLIGHTS StREEn FM1TR5IE! Danny Peary ' '::;:: " ':-' ?;'- ,:;:: :;: , , r . ^ome'v^fe ^ c C 3 P ::';:":: to^ Gea rge hfdtS piston™ Olg'a Spiegel: page page 51, Olga Spie ;":*!"?. :' "' : 1 iSSFi : ^^Hast •::. p.igi: l-lu r r p. LI :;;. ;;;= : fS^e" 1 ' i i ' ! . ! Tcherwkott.pBg.1B Isotonic Mb amalgam of substrates, supraprograms, and nowhere, now there, surfacing whenever an She was not half so startled as she would self-metaediting physics. Now what makes individual chanced to look her way. have liked to be. Of course the earlier man- God superior to us is not just intellect—we've She heard a quiet voice say, "We were ifestations of Tory had been real, not phan- all known some damn clever bastards. And fated to be lovers." toms thrown up by her grief. They were sim- it's not just power, or I could go and buy an Go away, go away, go away, Elin thought ply not her style. atomic device on the black market and start furiously, and the hallucination ceased. Still, Elin rose to her feet apprehensively. my own religion. After a moment spent composing herself, "What do you want from me?" "No, by definition God is my moral supe- Elin quietly slipped around to where Landis The loam-and-grass figure beckoned. It rior. Now I myself am but indifferently hon- sat. "I'm leaving in the morning," she said. "Come. is time you join us." est—but to Coral, moral considerations don't The new persona had taken; they would not "I am not a program," Elin whispered con- even exist. Get it?" remove her facepaint until just before the lift vulsively. She backed away from the thing. Only Elin noticed the haunted; hopeless up, but that was mere formality. She was "I can make my own decisions!" light in Landis's eyes or realized that she was cleared to leave She turned and plunged outside, into the spinning words effortlessly, without con- Landis looked up, and for an instant the fresh, cleansing night air. It braced her, scious control. Deep within, the woman was woman's doubt and suffering were writ plain cleared her head, returned to her some caught in a private crisis of faith. on her face. Then the mask was back, and measure of control. "Yeah, I guess." Hans scratched his head. she smiled. 'Just stay away from experimen- A tangle of honeysuckle vines on the next "I'd still like to know just what happened be- tal religion, hey kid?" They hugged briefly. terrace wall up moved softly. Slowly, gently, tween her and Tory there at the end." "And remember what I told you about stub- they became another manifestation, of Coral "I can answer that," a wetware tech said. bing your toes." this time, with blossoms for the pupils of her The others turned to face her, and she eyes But she spoke with Tory's voice. smirked, the center of attention. "What the There was one final temptation to be faced. "You would not enjoy godhood," he said, hell, they plant the censor blocks in us all Sitting in the hut, Tory's terminal in her lap, "but the being you become will." tomorrow—this is probably my only chance Elin let the soothing green light of its alpha- "Give me time to think!" she cried. She to talk about it. wheeled and strode rapidly away, out of the "We reviewed all the tapes, and found that residential cluster, through a scattering of the original problem stemmed from a basic boulders, and into a dark meadow. design flaw. Shostakovich should never have There was a quiet kind of peace here, and brought his ego along. The God state is very Elin wrapped it about her. QThe screaming ego-threatening; he couldn't accept it. His She needed that peace, for she had to her Tory. It mind twisted it, denied it, made it into a thing died—the air was gone. decide between humanity and of horror. Because to accept it would mean should have been an easy choice, but—the Eiin's ears giving up his identity." She paused pain of being without! "Now we don't understand the why or how rang furiously, and her skin Elin stared up at the earth; it was a world full If could reach out and shake of what happened. But what was done is very stung everywhere. of pain. she clearly recorded. Coral came along and all the human misery loose, it would flood all Pressure within her, stripped away his identity." grew of creation, extinguishing the stars and poi- "Hogwash!" Landis was on her feet, bel- and Eiin realized soning the space between. ligerent and unsteady. 'After all that hap- There was, if not comfort, then a kind of that she was about to die.V pened, you can't say they don't have any cold perspective in that, in realizing that she identity! Look at the mess that Coral made was not alone, that she was merely another to join Tory to her— that wasn't the work of member of the commonality of pain It was an unfeeling, identity-free creature." the heritage of her race. And yet—some- "Our measurements showed no trace of how—people kept on going, identity at all," the tech said in a mifted tone numerics wash over her. She thought of Tory, If they could do it, so could she. "Measurements! Well, isn't that just scien- of his lean body under hers in the pale blue Some slight noise made her look back at tific as all get-out?" The priest's face was earthlight. "We were meant to be lovers," he'd the boulder field. Tory's face was appearing flushed with drunken anger. "Have any of said. She thought of lite without him. on each of the stones, every face slightly you clowns given any thought to just what The lerminal was the only artifact Tory had different, so that he gazed upon her with a we've created here? This gestalt being is still left behind that held any sense of his spirit. dozen expressions of love. Elin shivered at is young—a newborn infant. Someday it's It had been his plaything, his diary, and his how alien he had become. "Your need going to grow up. What happens to us all toolbox, and its memory still held the Trojan greater than your fear," he said, the words when it decides to leave the island, hey? horse programs he had been working with bouncing back and forth between faces. "No — think now, by morning I " She stopped, her voice trailing away. when he was—transformed. matter what you you The drinkers were silent, had all drawn away One of those programs, she knew, would will be part of us." from her make her a god, Elin did not reply immediately. There was '"Scuse me," she muttered. "Too much She stared up through the ivy at the domed in her hand—Tory's terminal. It wine." And sat. sky. Only a few stars were visible between small and weighed hardly at all. She "Well." Hans cleared his throat, quirked a the black silhouetted leaves, and these had brought it along without thinking. smile "Anybody for refills?" winked off and on with the small movements A small, bleak cry came from overhead, The crowd came back to life, a little too she made breathing. She thought back to then several others. Nighthawks were feed- boisterous, too noisily, determinedly cheer- Coral's statement that Elin would soon join ing on insects near the dome roof. They were ful. Watching from the fringes, outside the her, merging into the unselfed, autistic state too far, too fast, and too dark to be visible circle of light, Elin had a sudden dark fan- that only Tory's meddling had spared her. from here. tasy, a waking nightmare. "God always keeps her promises," Tory "The price is too high," she said at last. A desk tech glanced her way. He had To- .said quietly. "Can you understand that? I won't give up ry's eyes. When he looked away, Tory smiled Elin started, looked down, and saw that my'humanityforyou." out of another's face. The drinkers shifted the grass to the far side of the hut was mov- She hefted the terminal in her hand, then restlessly, chattering and laughing, like ing, flowing. Swiftly it formed the familiar, half- threw it as far and as hard as she could. She dancers pantomiming a party in some light amused, half-embittered features of her did not hear it fall. opera, and the eyes danced with them. They lover, continuing to flow until all of his head Elin turned and walked away. Behind her, flitted from person to person, materializing and .part of his torso rose up from the floor. the rocks smiled knbwingly.DO 164 OMNI that, when assembled, would make a coher- ent sample of the whole." BOOK^ He succeeded admirably. ThreeDegrees CONTINUED -ROM PAC.L'J-1 Above Zero takes the reader on a fascinat- then delve. into a small library of Human Spirit, by Sherry Turkle (Simon and ing journey through time and ideas and lets would transistor, the expressions stored on a videodisk and dis- Schuster), is an attempt to look at the com- us witness the invention of the with the appropriate puter through the eyes of a humanist, rather development of computers and automation, play an animated face expression. Former MIT researcher Nicho- than a technologist. Turkle is a sociologist/ the discovery of cosmic echoes from the Big system that psychologist and an associate professor in Bang of the universe's origin, and the work las Negroponte has suggested a work projecting faces onto plastic MIT's program in science, technology, and in supercold cryogenics from which the book would by Theoretically, the round-table dis- society. Her self-professed goal is to exam- draws its title. masks. of the future might take place be- ine "not what the computer will be like in the The Man-Made Sun: The Quest for Fusion cussion (Little, one live person and a dozen ani- future, but what we will be like. What kind of Power, byT.A. Heppenheimer Brown tween few bits people are we becoming?" and Company and Omni Press), is a review mated masks, all controlled by a of described as "the ulti- flowing over telephone lines. It's a fascinating idea, using the computer what some have energy People who work at home on computers as a mirror in which we may see ourselves mate energy source." Fusion is the their to combat the iso- more clearly. Turkle plunges into the matter source of the sun and the stars, and if we also use machines networks like with energy and knowledge. Unfortunately, learn to harness it here on Earth, virtually lation problem. Using for all time. CompuServe and the Electronic Information she tends to write like a sociologist/psy- limitless energy may be ours .. enthusiastic scientist and Exchange System (EIES), telecommut- chologist, and it often takes an effort of will Heppenheimer, an words: ers are frequently turning to the "chat" and to keep on reading. The effort, though, is and writer, ends his book with the the key "E-mail" modes to make small talk and cope rewarded in the end. "Fusion is unquestionably one of to $12 an hour, users The A! Business: Commercial Uses of Ar- technologies that will shape the coming mil- with loneliness. For $6 type messages to one another, ex- tificial Intelligence, edited by Patrick H. Win- lennium. Today we see it as a man-made can practical information about their ston and Karen A. Prendergast {The MIT sun about to rise; tomorrow we shall stand changing bright promise. work, or simply wind down. CompuServe Press), is a much more practical and prag- in the radiance of its Those it cottage workers matic book. The authors begin by stating: who say we are in the sunset of bur age are claims has some 3,500 safeiy valve, On one "Some people believe artificial intelli- surely mistaken, but they can be forgiven; using its network as a the as dusk. network, telecommuters even have a "cock- gence is the most exciting scientific and early dawn may look much same users dial up at an commercial enterprise ot the century. Oth- But let us be patient; morning is at hand. For tail hour," during which is appointed time and announce what drinks ers raise distress flags, fearing eventual now it is enough to know that the. sun there, "It's if look they're mixing by their computers. funny misuse. Still others scoft, arguing that the its rise appears imminent, and we thousands of miles . . watching technology will come to nothing." closely we can . see its glow reflecting off somebody terminal," says To see what the best and brightest ex- the distant clouds near the horizon." away getting loose on his real stars: The Anita Graziano. EIES manager of services. perts in the field have to say about it, MIT From man-made suns to country cosponsored a colloquium on the subject of New Astronomy, by Nigel Henbest and Mi- The United States is not the only considering the electronic cottage. Recently artificial intelligence. The Al Business is the chael Marten (Cambridge University Press), management research- record of that colloquium. The book covers is'a superb and richly illustrated survey of a team of Japanese of understanding of ers from an electronic-industry association far more than robotics or computers; it is the state humankind's IMilles to col- concerned with the value and possibilities the starry universe. With 275 color prints of visited telecommuting expert the subject. Japanese busi- ol creating machines that will someday be everything from the worlds of our own solar lect data on prided themselves on as intelligent as human beings—and more system to the farthest quasars, The New As- nesses, which have tronomy optical telescopes, ra- progressive management techniques, are so. It also shows how Al is already becom- shows how enthusiastic about the work-at-home ing an industry with applications in fields dio telescopes, and space-borne observa- quite part of his research, Nilles fore- ranging from medicine to oil drilling. tions of infrared, ultraviolet, and X- and concept. As possible problems peculiar to the Newton ai the Bat: The Science in Sports, gamma-radiation have unveiled many of the saw two First, since the Jap- edited by Eric W. Schrier and William R All- universe's ancient secrets. Japanese experience. smaller apartments, setting man (Scribner's, in association with the Finally, 1984 has some delights in store for anese have could be diffi- American Association for the Advancement Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke fans. aside adequate work space the Japanese are very image of Science), is a delightful compendium of 'X' Stands for Unknown, by Isaac Asimov cult. Second, If is staying at home, the physics, aerodynamics physiology, and (Doubleday), is the latest of the good doc- conscious. someone notice immediately. Since technology involved in sports as diverse as tor's collections of essays about science. his neighbors will stay it could bowling and hang gliding, baseball and bil- Asimov explains: "Because of my belief only unemployed people home, great shame. liards, tennis and pole vaulting. that the true delight is in the finding out, rather be misconstrued and cause in writing One thing is now certain: As the electronic If you want to know what makes a knuck- than in the knowing, my tendency increasingly common, leball flutter, why a boomerang flies back to my science essays is not to describe the cottage becomes will start appearing with greater its point of origin, or what makes Frisbees knowledge flatly, as though it were delivered problems question face is, Will we . . frequency. we do the things they do. this is your book, from some so'urce of all knowledge, but . The around these problems and Any new book by Jeremy Bernstein is well to describe that manner in which what is find detours telecommuting an important part of worth reading, and Three Degrees Above known became known, how it was found out, make Zero: Bell Labs in the Information Age step by step." our future work life? After three years of telecommuting, Mi- (Scribner's) is an especially fascinating study Arthur C. Clarke has become a prophet has he thinks is a realistic of the scientilic research that goes on at one honored in his own country and everywhere chael Jones what its future. "We could have a of the world's foremost industrial-research else in the world. His Profiles of the Future perspective on he laboratories. (Holt, Rinehart and Winston), originally pub- nation of people chained to keyboards," that big business Bernstein confesses thai at lirst the thought lished in 1962, is just as lively and provoca- says. "There's a chance electronic cottage. of writing a book about this mammoth insti- tive in this new edition as it was in the origi- could abuse the degree of self- tution daunted him. But on his first day at the nal. Particularly fascinating are the first two "But it gives you a greater adds. "It's a morale booster that Murray Hill, New Jersey, laboratory' com- chapters, which give ample evidence of how control," he the nine-to-five drudg- plex, "It dawned on me. that the way to write often the "experts" have failed to predict the gets you away from evidence of ery. It's something that's going to have to be about Bell Labs was. . .to break the subject future, even when obvious up into people; to construct a kind of mosaic change was staring them in the face.DO monitored very closely."DO 166 OMNI — tica—because survival depends upon it. Last February the Argentines rescued an in- jured American sailer aboa'o a damaged U.S. Coast Guard ship. This April, a U.S. ship returned the favor. Milton Bradley's An Argentine scientific base, named Al- Buy mirante Brown, burned down on April 12. Al- mirante Brown's eigbt-man crew flew back Bobotixfroma to Rio Gallegos. near the tip of South Amer- ica, five days later. They were depressed, obviously shocked by their sudden loss. the won't treat "I was asleep when the fire started," toy store that base weatherman explains. "We couldn't stop it, In three hours the base burned down. you like a machine. It's hard on everyone. We had a beautiful scientific base. It's ugly when you wake up one morning and find nothing." When you shop with It is the commander of Almirante Brown, a disturbed us, we'll give you good medical doctor, who is most by the telling of the story, "I was in the X-ray service, good prices, room at five a m when I took a match to light selection, and a a good the kerosene lamp," he says. "The X rays in convenient location caught fire, and in front of them was a supply shopping malls across of alcohol and cotton." The alcohol and cot- the country. And the ton burst into flames, which quickly inciner- ated the wooden base. While speaking, the people at our toy stores commander shows the raw, puffy burns on treat like human you his hands, leg, and face. beings. "I owe my life to the US. Hero," says the commander, referring to the Navy's ice- breaker, which was still in the area of Almi- rante Brown only because of flukishly warm TOY STORES weather. "The commander of the Hero came to me from Palmer Station. Then in Palmer Station a good doctor gave me several medications —one for my eyes, oxygen for respiration, and antibiotic injections." ships—with the oldest member called fa- The commander speaks in English, ther—and even theirown eccentric versions sometimes clearly, at other times in an ex- FIRE AND ICE of the English language. cited, disjointed way. Another doctor sits next "You develop an autonomous micracul- to him and talks quietly to him during the problems in Antarctica and jpace, for which ture," says Shurley. "Every year' at South Pole flight. The doctor shrugs and motions not to isolation is blamed, actually stem from poorly Station, by the end of the winter, these men take the commander seriously, - Almirante organized social groups. She mentions that speak an id:osy"icr3:-c argjage I ha: But the commander of Brown certain Antarctic stations formerly had sharp, known only :o the nsiders wio I've there. You insists on taking a notebook in his hands and rivalries -between military personnel and ci- can imagine why' s going io happen in three writing down the names of six medications vilian scientists. years in a space colony." he received at Palmer Station. His swollen dricuiiy. In yoi. r "I've talked to people whose stations were George Robinson thinks we'll have to re- fingers grip the pen with reorganized w.tn just civilian support and ci- define odd behavior for a new species of article, I want you to thank them," he re- vilian scientists," Bluth explains. "The prob- space dwellers. It's the recurring question of peats. Then he writes in large letters: gra- lems were less extreme. There was no heavy who's really crazy. CIAS PALMER STATION THANK DR. KILL. GHACIAS drinking, people knifing one another, riots, Antarctic societies provide us with a HERQCOMANDANTE. or locking the commander up in his office glimpse of space colonies Without the re- There are tears in the commander's eyes, breaks he ex- all of which had happened before. There are straints and supports of conventional cul- and his voice repeatec y as now some missions in which the partici- ture, a small number of inhabitants may flip plains that his clothes —a maroon flannel pants drink less lhan they would stateside out. A few other people may have positive, shirt and blue jeans, both far too big for him— and where thei'wor* s superior. So we think life-changing experiences, such as those were gifts from Palmer Station. "Tell them I'll repeating in a isolation is a catalyst that can make bad described by several astronauts. Colonists return everything," he keeps all have to things worse. But it's not a cause." may awaken to a vision of world unity or de- loud voice, "We are brothers. We Psychologist Donna Oliver, who in 1977 velop new types of tribal parochialism to work together." Air was the only woman living in Antarctica, embroider the us-versus-them theme. The "They were acting crazy," an Force found that "the positive side of Antarctica was Argentines hope that children born in Ant- commodore said of Almirante Brown's crew being in a more honesl community. Down arctica will transcend these pitfalls. "Like and commander after- they had landed in Rio the there we probably lived closer to the. life of Moses, we will have to wait a generation," Gallegos. A local newspaper described small communities hundreds of years ago." usual wars in Lebanon, the Persian Gulf, and It's ironic to think of people trying to re- Anyone heading for these exotic colo- Central America; from the radio came the bombings in a capture the intimacy of rural life in the con- nies—be they or A-itarct ca or Mars— faces news of a spree ot terrorist trived environs of an Antarctic station or a physical and psycholog cai risks. But these neighboring country. And it suddenly space colony- But isolated, endangered risks may help to unify, rather than divide. seemed thai the former commander of Al- groups.create their own cultures with amaz- Right now there is no place on Earth where mirante Brown, in his shell-shocked epi- ing speed. In a single year Antarctic crews people from First, Second, and Third World phany of brotherhood and unity, was okay. have evolved their own myths, fictional kin- countries cooperate as they do in Antarc- But everyone else is crazy.DO 168 OMNI — The 20 best games of the year By Scot Morris and Phil Wiswell For this year's annual picks of the best games of the year, we divide our choices into two categories: the ten best general games and the ten best video/computer games. On both lists the winners are listed in alphabetical order, not by preference. Given prices tend to be on the high side. Shop around for discounts. ~~ TEN BEST GENERAL GAMES 1. Conquest + (Conquest, 1122 West Burbank Boulevard, Burbank, CA 91506; $17.50 plus $1.50 postage). Donald Benges original two-player board game, Conquest, in which players move by land or sea lanes to capture an opponent's pieces or occupy his capital city, was an impressive success. The unique 20-moves-per-turn format, the innovative playing pieces (two soldiers homebuilt can hop aboard an elephant, and all ot them in programmable and can then board a ship or a galleon, for felt-covered example), and the recent tour-player varia- In the simplest game, the object is -to smooth balls do across a surface. They bounce off elastic rails and tion all made Conquest an exciting cross complete a triangle with your markers. between war games and chess. Three advanced games have more complex into sturdy plastic-and-net pockets (not best table, This year, Benge has revised the game objectives: to mark a girdle around the pictured). Too soft to mar Mama's the balls are still just hard enough to board to allow for two new pieces—-a entire structure, to mark a pentagon and its when they strike catapult and a siege engine—that give five spokes, or to mark the end rods of produce a satisfying clack new dimension to the game. The catapult three imaginary rectangles that intersect one another. Omnibot (Tomy; about $295). This is the adds range for firing in all dimensions, one another along mutually perpendicular 4, of line three novelty robots and the siege engine is an extremely axes. Higher levels are more challenging, top the of powerful piece that can be captured only and two-player games are more interesting offered by Tomy this year. The younger by elephants. than the three-player variety. The company siblings are the Dingbol (walking, the Benge also publishes a Conquest calls this game an educational aid. That noisemaking, direction changing) and voice controlled with eight newsletter and a very helpful puzzle book, may be, but we like it as an innovative idea, Verbot (remote its memory, from "move which is carefully constructed to teach as- a challenging set of games, and—when commands in "turn left," to "pick it up"). cending levels of strategy. Conquest itself is you're through playing— a handsome forward," to control excellent; the revised version only gives us geometric sculpture. And this year's mini But Omnibot is the tops. Remote '84." is last year's allows you to send it anywhere on a flat an excuse to include it as a "best of version more wieldy than (forward, back, pivot left, pivot 2. ico (Specialty Brokers, Box 50245, Tulsa, standard. surface with your voice OK 74150; mini version available for $20 3. Nerf Pool (Parker Brothers; under £25). right) or to stop and talk microphone built into the remote postpaid). Fit 12 plastic balls and 30 plastic The Nerf line is of consistently high quality, through a recorder rods together and you've got one of the and new additions have repeatedly controller. The on-board cassette music or a tape five Platonic solids, an icosahedron surprised us by being better than expected. can play prerecorded Just insert a blank a regular polyhedron on which each of the A foam-rubber football or soccer ball that of your own commands. record, and send Omnibot 20 faces is an equilateral triangle. Then won't break windows is one thing, but tape, push it this doorway to play a strategy game on the edges of this who would have expected to praise such through its paces. Stop at then at the next most unusual game board. In each game variations as a soft boomerang, dining- say, "Hey, time to get up!" Just you move by attaching a marker of your room Ping-Pong, and this year, a soft but to ask. "Any mail or messages today? put them on tray, and I'll deliver them." color (red, blue, or green) to any of the three throwable baseball and a poo! game for . my and bottommost rods—the sides of the triangle even the finest dining-room table? Record an entire routine of movements resting on the table. Then you pivot the Parker put a feltlike covering on these sounds, lasting up to 45 minutes, then Omnibot to Ico around that rod to set up a new bottom pool balls so that they roll across a smooth rewind the tape and program entire at any given time face for the next player to play on. surface with much the same "drag" as repeat the sequence 172 OMNI ' within the next seven days, even while pitchers—wins, saves, ERA, and ratio (hits first conceived. You can play it by buying you're gone. plus walks divided by innings pitched), the book and anteing up a fee to the Omnibot is more of a toy than a genuine and four more—home runs, RBIs, stolen inventors. In return, they'll give you their helpmate, and its novelly may soon wear bases, and batting average—on everyone blessings and will compile your stats on their oft, but until the next generation of home else. All teams are ranked according to computer. robots comes along, he is the best you can the aggregate stats of the players: If your 7. RuneQuest (Deluxe edition by Avalon get at a comparable price. Unfortunately, team has more homers than any other, you Hill; about $38). For the best role-playing he doesn't do windows. get 12 points; if you have the fewest game of the year, it was a race among 5. Robotix, Series R-2000 (Milton Bradley; homers, you get one point. The team with Star Trek (FASA), James Bond (Victory about $88). This is similar to Capsela, the most points at the end of the year Games), and RuneQuest, an older game featured on last year's lis!. Both are modern wins. It pays to do your scouting. If you that was revised and repackaged this year versions of the venerable Erector set, but know someone is about to become a star into a new edition. All three games are Robotix has more of a Space Age robot and you can pick him up for a song, you'll excellent, but we finally settled on theme. Various parts can be pieced together gain points in the standings. On the other RuneQuest, based on the depth of its " at your whim—wheels, legs, a monster hand, if you spent $30 on 1983 pitching characters and play, and the new rule book, head, or a pilot's control center—and sensation LaMarr Hoyt, you would have lost which makes the game more accessible powered by four engines. You snap the a bundle when he finished this year with to first-time players. Role-playing games are engines in wherever you want them. One 17 losses and a 4.33 ERA. notoriously complex and can lake several can power the wheels, for example, while At the end of the season the kitty is hours or several evenings of preparation just anoiher raises and lowers the neck, a divided among the four top finishers; 50 to get the rules straight. RuneQuest is third pivots the head left and right, and a percent to the winner; 25 percent to second complex, but its new manuals are very well fourth opens and closes fhe pincers. You place; and soon. written, with many helpful examples given control each motor separately, using rocker The game gets its name from the New to clarify the play. switches that provide forward or reverse York restaurant, La Rotisserie. where it was Set in Bronze Age "fantasy-Europe," the movements. For the younger set or the young at heart, Robotix can provide hours of creative, look-what-l-made fun. 6. Rotisserie League Baseball (Edited by Glen Waggoner, Bantam Books, $5.95). This is your chance to prove that you can run a ball club better than George Steinbrenner can. If you have a passing interest in Major League baseball, this game can make you a devoted fan; if you are already a fan, this can make you a monomaniacal addict. At the start of the baseball season, you and between nine and eleven other players put up about $150 to $300 apiece (the amount doesn't really matter) to buy franchises in your own league. At a heated auction in April, you then have 260 imaginary dollars to "buy" 23 real ballplayers — eight pitchers, one of each of the other positions, and seven subs. Your American League team might include Eddie Murray, of the Orioles, at first base; Willie Randolph, of the Yankees, at second; Ron Kittle, of the White Sox. in the outfteld; and a roster of pitchers ranging from Don Aase to Geoff Zahn. Throughout the season, you check the CounterclOckv,:$e from rap left. Trivia, Shui r! Pool, box scores to see how your players are and Rotisserie League Baseball; The Seven Cities of Gold, Adept, and One-on-One," Operation performing. You keep four stats on your Whirlwind, King's Quest, The Castles of Doctor Creep, Bouoer Dash. Rail; West!, Exodus. scientific advancement has oeen more a irUTERV/IEUU function of new technologies than of people. Does this hold true for the discovery of DNA? Experience the Meselson: You can't separate individual tal- like that. He's s great leader !r molecular bi- ent from the availability q( equipment. The Extraordinary Shave. ology and has assembled a lot of very bright discovery of DNA required good X-ray pho- people to work on important problems. tographs: its structure was discovered very Omni: You've said that DNA imposed its soon after they became available. Yet it was structure on the scientists who discovered not discovered by the people who took the it people or the it. What do you mean by that? photographs. Was the Meselson: Usually science works by a proc- equipment? You could argue either way. ess of serendipity or by asking smaller There were peep o //hose states of mind at questions that lead up to big ones. But the that moment of discovery were ver^ special. study of DNA was dominated by a series of Jim Watson had less work than he wanted, clear-cut theoretical possibilities, each of and because of that he went to Europe, which could be teste c oy experiments, That where he met Francis Crick. Crick, by some was due to the nature of the molecule itself. concatenation of chance, had been thinking DNA has a certain unity and simplicity that deeply about helical structures and was allows you to ask simple questions. How moving from physics to biology. Those two unique. I think that in science does it recombine? Because the molecule people were itself is so simple, there are only a few pos- there is a principle of telefinality: Things must sibilities. DNA is one-dimensional. It's built work out sooner or later. If you believe that of simple building blocks. There was a cer- there is a reality in the world and that sci- tain clarity about the field, imposed by the ence is a way of finding that reality, then no nature of the genetic code. Another advan- matter what path you take, you'll eventually "The tage we had was that DNA is durable. You reach it, No individual scientist can say: without can extract it, hack ft into bits, study it by world needs me, because me won't happen." That's just wrong. X rays, and make it do things in the test tube. something hardly Thai stability is the essence of DNA. Had ft in terms of scientific progress, you'd scientist just disappeared. been less stable, life wouid probably not have notice if any one been able to breed true enough to develop Omni: What is your opinion of recent court highly specialized and adapted forms. decisions restricting what scientists can do Omni: Tell us about some of your own recent with recombinant DNA'' work with DNA. Meselson: In the recombinant-DNA debates Meselson: We tried to design experiments here in Cambridge, some have argued that that gave nature no way out. She had to tell there was a substantial hazard, while others whether DNA replicated conservatively or contended there was no hazard at all. Both semiconservatively; she had to tell whether are incomplete ways of looking at a prob- or not the recombination was by breaking lem. You can't treat molecular biology like and joining. Ail kinds of things could have simple geometry and make absolute pre- gone wrong, but that's what we tried for. dictions about what may or may not happen. variables. I personally Take the case of the restriction enzyme. I There are too many was looking for an enzyme (hat had to be think that to not do this research is danger- there, one that chops foreign DNA when it ous! Each year, most everybody gets a cold. tries to enter bacterial cells. We had a cen- Why? Because we have no cures for any trifuge with six holes in it, so we could run major viruses. We can't stop them. Suppose that instead of giving you the sniffles, influ- six tubes at once. I could think of four ob- vious ways to do the experiment, using four enza were lethal. It's not inconceivable that tubes. But there were two left. One doesn't a virulent, highly infectious virus could arise want to waste two tubes, run them empty; and wreak such havoc as to reduce the hu- I'll man race to barbarism. Understanding the so I thought, well, to these add ATP [aden- osine triphosphate, a compound that sup- rules of viruses and coming up with preven- plies energy for many biochemical cellular tions and cures—now that's the way to go. processes]. Why ATP? For a reason that Research into problems of viral disease is thought if immensely benefited by recombinant-DNA turned out to be invalid. I you if believe in the wanted to kill some DNA that was trying to methods. I don't know you apple bit- get into your cell, you'd do it outside, at the Garden of Eden, but once the was cell's surface. ten, there was no longer a choice of whether Okay, well this DNA was being injected by to go forward. bacterial phages. At that time it was thought Omni: What is the future of DNA research that this particular phage needed energy to and recombinant technology? Meselson: The time is coming when we will inject its DNA, I decided maybe the thing that destroys DNA is actually coupled with be able to manipulate the life processes guide our genetic destiny. ATP in the process that brings it in. So I themselves and intervene in thought, Come in, friend, as the spider said Science will also be able to to the fly—and chomp. That idea was utterly mental processes, modifying moods and wrong! But it turned out that ATP was exactly even values by technical means. Humans will eventually redesign their genes. Let's say what was needed. When I looked at the re- sult, there was this absolutely beautiful, there are certain brain peptides that are en- stunning destruction of the DNA in the tubes coded in our genes and can increase intel- in which I'd added the ATP. ligence. Assume that genetic surgery is Omn/:ThelaleD(rekdo3c. a Price said that readily available. Most families probably Harvard colleague, who was on of germ weapons was a point in their favor. wouldn't dream of having it done, given their in 1963 a com- To me that's the biggest argument against moral and political principles. But suppose President Kennedy's science advisory at the them. What if you were the Secretary of De- asked if I would like io work one family on the block does it and their kids' mittee, me into your office with Agency. I fense, and a man came I.Q.'s go up thirty points. Soon the other par- Arms 'Control and Disarmament for making hydrogen bombs that absolutely. I to see things a process ents will say, "Gosh, our kids just never go to said yes, wanted was only cost a nickel apiece? I'd lock him up. the head of the class because the kids from from the inside, to see what the world European Would you want a world in which everyone that family get high marks every time." Soon really like. They put me to work on could afford a hydrogen bomb? Since we nuclear weapons. I knew absolutely everybody will be doing it. It seems likely theater nuclear weapons, and after couldn't do anything with germ weapons that that this all will happen, though not in our nothing about do with nuclear I it. couldn't threaten to titanic trying it for a week, I realized couldrit do we lifetimes. When it does, there will be weapons, I recommended that we not have questions before humanity. What do we do My boss suggested I work on chemical and was any and not risk opening up that dimension about the difference between rich and poor? biological weapons, because the job said that they used to have some- of warfare. What is the essence of being human? open. He Omni: Don't germ weapons have some de- Omni: Do you worry that some members of one, but the subject depressed him so much terrent value? society may want to engineer a perfect race that he killed himself. I took the job. weapons in Meselson: No. If anybody killed ten million at the expense of all others? Omni: Were we making germ including haul the Sixties? Americans by any method— com- Meselson: I imagine that over the long strangling Yes, lots. One of the main weap- ing up with lots of silk rope and . some groups will advocate that. And then Meselson; Tularemia rabbit fe- them what do you think we'd use nuclear we'll need humanitarian principles— our best ons we produced was — — for? ver, lethal bacterium. You spray it in the air, weapons values—to deal with it. Biologists should try a military was also Omni: What is the present-day status of our to build an ethic similar to doctors' Hippo- and it kills people. The nonlethal called biological weapons? cratic Oath. You allow the physician into your making a relatively agent encephalitis. You'd spray Meselson: They were dismantled in 1970, home, to probe your body. Given our ex- Venezuelan equine to to people sick. also after President Nixon unilaterally decided treme vulnerability, we have extracted from it if you wanted make We wheat get rid of them. The laboratories where bio- him certain guarantees and standards of had two anticrop biological agents: logical warfare research had been done behavior. The science of biology bears a re- rust and rice blast. conclude after your re- were changed by presidential order into an semblance to medicine. It's the one science Omni: What did you international center for cancer research. that looks inside us, lhat has the potential to view of these weapons? already Omni: Did this country use germ weapons alter life Meselson: I figured that we had change what it is to be a person, to of made a large investment in nuclear weap- in Vietnam? itself. So it seems to me that this science of chemical kill over huge Meselson: No, but we used a lot biology must be consecrated with humani- ons, which threaten to people Germ weapons. We dropped eleven million pounds tarian objectives, or the world will be hellish. areas and also physically wreck things. over of tear gas and enough herbicide to defo- Omni: How did you begin studying bio- weapons can also wipe out populations kilome- Isn't method enough? liate twenty-four thousand square chemical warfare in addition to work in DNA? vast stretches. one people thought that the cheapness ters. The public was told the tear gas was Meselson: It was a total accident. One day Some used where there were mixed populations of civilians and combatants, to separate the two instead of using explosives. I believe that happened exactly once. In all other cases it was simply used together with explosives in the hope of killing more enemy troops. We organized a petition asking for a review of U.S. chemical warfare policy with about five thousand names and presented it to Presi- dent Johnson's science adviser. The Presi- dent did nothing —tear gas was employed in Vietnam until we withdrew. Omnr-We did stop using herbicides in 1971, however, largely due to a report you pro- duced after visiting Vietnam. for six weeks in Meselson: I was in Vietnam 1970 as part of an AAAS [American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Science] committee on herbicide spraying. I was given a helicopter and pilot and allowed to go anywhere in South Vietnam. We found that herbicides and defoliants actually were helping us lose the war. They made clearings in the jungle, but the herbi- cides took four to six weeks to make the leaves fall off. You might as well drop post- cards telling the enemy you'll be back next month for a closer look. As for crop destruc- tion, the people who were growing the crops were essentially civilians. Apart from hu- manitarian reasons, defoliants were ex- tremely inefficient. commander, General I asked the U.S. Abrams, what he thought about herbicides' military impact. He said, "I think they're worth tell Washing- shit." I asked, "Why don't you ton?" He said, "You don't understand. There's — nobody in charge of stopping anything in of every twenty shells we shoot is a chemi- this war." After returning to the States, we cal round. Any more and we're displacing wrote a letter 1o Ellsworth Bunker, U.S." am- more effective conventional weapons. OMEIN .that off new There's another aspect. Chemical weap- bassador to Vietnam, sparked a review. Later, the White House announced ons are hell on civilians. If civilians don't have FROM that the entire herbicide program would be masks or don't put them on at the right time, rapidly phased out. millions would die in a European war. Euro- THE Omni: You also studied agent orange pean leaders, seeing their populations melt dioxin—at that time. away, would either insist on nuclear weap- COLD Meselson: Yes. We found readily detectable ons or sue for peace. Everyone agrees that levels of dioxin in the milk of mothers who if a war did get started, the main objective lived near rivers that drained the sprayed would be to gel ii i ,nder control before it bal- areas. We also found dioxin in fish. This was loons into nuclear war. You don't do that by directly attributable to spraying, because the forcing your allies to scream for nuclear war residues weren't found in controls from un- or for complete surrender. For this reason, sprayed areas. Yet, we didn't know whether we should get chemicals off the scene. are to agreeing with the it was causing any harm. We found lots oi Omni: How close we sick mothers and sick babies, but that ap- Soviets to do that? plied also to unsprayed regions. Meselson: The United States, even under the Omni: Has agent orange caused the illness Reagan administration, has taken a series of of thousands of Vietnam veterans? steps during the last two or three years to- ever, the So- Meselson: We still don't know, although it ward this end. For the first time could be found out. Say a veteran comes in viets have agreed to on-site inspections of * >' * '*•'""!.. and read and says he's been exposed to agent or- the destruction of their chemical-weapons ange and he has a disease. The best thing stocks. They still have not agreed to let us to do would be to take a small amount of inspect their chemical-weapons production facilities, however, so the agreement is by lSPIOWiJI' body fat and analyze it in a mass spectrom- though, MAGAZINE eter for dioxin. Then you'd match the medi- no means complete. I'm optimistic, histories of hundreds of veterans to see because neither superpower depends on the cal From the Kremlin to chemical for security. The allies in if there's a significant correlation between any weapons White House — and every- medical condition and the quantity of the the middle fear chemical weapons, as do lack gas masks where in between — chemical found in body fat. Dr. Mike Gross, the Third World nations, who and protective equipment. So I think we ESPIONAGE Magazine is of the University of Nebraska, did a small of this and fa md dioxin in the body could get an agreement within five years. best spy study kind bringing readers the States might fat of veterans and even in some nonveter- Omni: Do you believe the United ; stories ever written. Writers ; : ans. When he asked the Veterans Adminis- be developing ;\ b o ogica weapon based Marlowe, recombinant like Hoch, Goulart, tration if they wanted more work done, they on DNA? bunk. I know of noth- Wellen, Asimov, and Gerson, said it's the Air Force's problem, not ours. Meselson: That's pure ing in DNA research that's weapons-ori- as well as others, are bringing The Air Force said no, the V.A. should be field. doing this. So no one's ever done it. ented. And I have feelers in the the cold war to the boiling Omni: How large are our stockpiles of Omni: Many people fear that some of the gripping, true-to- point with chemical weapons? And what are they? recombinant-DNAwork could easily be ap- life fiction. Meselson: The actual amount is classified, plied to biological-weapons research, but unclassified papers generally state that Meselson: I see no incentive for a big power page issue of Each 164 we have enough chemical weapons for a to make biological weapons. Quite the con- is secretly. In ESPIONAGE Magazine few weeks of full combat use. The two stan- trary. And it's not so easy to do packed with fact and fiction. dard U.S. nerve agents are Sarin and VX. the process of developing, testing, manu- On FILE and HISTORICALLY They're chemically related to certain pesti- facturing, storing, and training, the odds of are much more toxic. They enter being caught at it are high. SPYinQ reveal the actual cides but the body by inhalation or by absorption Omni: Do you know whether the Soviets are shaped our events that have through the skin and inactivate acetylcholin- doing DNA-weapons research? world, while our fiction esterase, an enzyme that regulates nerve Meselson: Recently The Wall Street Journal writers rivet you to your transmission. They cause a wide array of published a series of extremely ignorant ar- ticles saying they were. I told the author of favorite reading chair with symptoms: intense sweating, bronchial con- dimming of the vision, uncontrolled the articles that it was undigested intelli- incredible stories of what striction, vomiting, and—finally paralysis and res- gence garbage. Those were my exact words. been and yet — might have piratory failure. Death would occur within a You can look at the activities of any big could be. few minutes' after inhaling a lethal dose. country, and find a lot of work on toxins. To destroy the the best of my knowledge, the evidence thai I do not think that we should For a one-year, six-issue stockpile a! this time. Chemical weapons are was cited in the Journal is based on activi- subscription to ESPIONAGE unique. They're the only major weapons ties that we know about— ordinary research Magazine send your against which you can really protect a sol- that in some cases was done in collabora- I am check /money order for dier without completely taking him from the tion with Americans. Nevertheless, mask and strongly in favor of keeping an even closer $11.70 (Canadian orders add war. Yes, he has to put on a gas protective clothing, but that simply slows him watch on developments ail over the world. $2, foreign add $3), payable down. You won't cause military casualties I'm asking for a system of high-quality sci- in U.S. funds to "Leo 11 with chemicals— not compared to what you ence, not knee-jerk science that always as- Publications, Ltd.," to: could do with machine guns or fragmenta- sumes that our worst fears are true. spending nearly twenty years in ESPIONAGE Magazine, tion bombs. The question is, What do we Omni: After that, for example, enemy troops un- your capacity as a consultant to the govern- Subscription Dept. 02, POB need so der artillery fire are forced to wear their pro- ment, how do you rate the defense and in- 8974, Wilmington, DE 19899. tective equipment? We can do that if one out telligence work you've seen? While Magic from the Black Forest Rumple Minze. Icy, clear persuasion. An enchanting 100 proof drink imported from Germany's Black Forest. Boldly refreshing. Silvery Cool. A genuine old world taste. Stronger than tomorrow. 100 PROOF. IMPORTED FROM GERMANY. ENJOY IN MODERATION. IMPORTED BY THE PADDINGTON CORPORATION, NEW YORK, N.Y. — the discussion'' Meselson: I was amazed at ihe misstate- check? Where is open Once ments of faci and lack ol objective informa- you've criticized the government, it seems, tion, the things some of these people plan the whole bureaucracy closes in and seals CONTINUED FflOM PAGE 173 would jusl raise your hair. Off, It's difficult to maintain high standards of In 1969, for instance, the administralion analysis in a secret enterprise. Secrecy game allows fantasy role playing with an al- wanted to get rid of a lot of excess chemical erects barriers lo compel i-yr. work; it pinches most : mitless varely of characters. weapons. After they had already dismantled off people's energies. Too much secrecy is 8. Shuttles (Shop:auah Games. Inc., 3204 two thousand of them by hand, they hit on a danger to the United States. Mollis Street, Oakland, CA 94608; $10 plus this crazy plan to put the rest in ships and Omni: It you're so opposed to secrecy, why $3 postage). A simple idea with unexpected sink them in the Atlantic. It was called Op- have you kept much of what you could fell complications and good production values. eration CHASE ("cut holes and sink 'em"). us classified and undiscussed? The object is to move your pieces into your the The question was, once you put all these Meselson: I took an oath. It's as simple as opponent's end zone before he does of bombs in a ship, what if they all should go lhat. II one doesn't respect the secrecy ar- same to you. Along the way, instead mov- off? Well, the Army showed us an experi- rangements oi one's government, even ifone ing a piece forward, you may decide to shift ment they had done. They had stacked a thinks there should be less secrecy, then the a row of the game board sideways to com- whole bunch of these bombs together, blew whole system would go to pieces. You can't plicate your opponent's progress or facili- one up, and the whole pile didn't explode. have individuals deciding on Iheir own what tate your own. A board that favored your op- declassify. ponent last turn can suddenly turn to your . -They had forgotten, however, tha! in water to there is strong acoustic coupling. Every- Omni: Do you feel you've been closed out advantage with jusl Ihe right move. A new thing could have doionaled simultaneously. of government circles because oi your op- idea, well produced, and at a reasonable Had the Army gone through with its plan, position to many oi the military's positions? price. you could have had no more New Yorkers. Meselson: Fortunately I'm so well-known by 9. Starz (Arizora Games ?/02 North Yucca, Then there was ihe BZ psychoactive now that my views get across. But yes— I'm Chandler, AZ 85224; $15.95 postpaid). This weapon. BZ was a relative oi LSD that was no longer a consultant to any. part of this original board-game idea for two or four players nicely blends skill chance. With made in the. Sixties, The Army churned out administration. I ceased being a consultant and roll dice, your playing Ihousands of pounds oi this stuff, loaded it on these matters in the second year of the a oi two you move in fashion, combining into weapons, and stored it in bulk. It was Reagan administration. pieces backgammon supposed to be an incapacitating, nonlethal Omni: You recently said you plan to use some boih numbers lor one piece or using them weapon. Only later did' they learn ihal BZ of your MacArihur money to search for lost separately on two pieces. At the start, your only orthogonally, but if one causes extremely unprecicisble behavior. It Greek classics. Why do you have such an pieces can move made some men into fanatical fighters interesl in ancient Greece? lands on a vector space, i: gains diagonal you'd get enemy soldiers who'd fight much Meselson: Because that era was a very short movement, li it picks up a red or blue bead, it the power to move through red or harder in the field. II could also make people time when several incandescent personali- gains on the board. Landing on a in charge oi nuclear weapons irrational. So ties suddenly i amed into existence. These blue spaces death-star gives ihe power to this marvelous scheme, 'ike so many others, pepple said: "Yes, I know my life is brief, but space you fun- stomp on other players and eliminate them I answers was abandoned. It's all sitting in storage, I refuse to buy the accepted to that's the object. think, somewhere in Alabama. damental quesi ons: I m going lo reexamine from the game—and The In 1973. the .sraelis clscoversd hypoder- the basic questions of life." I've beer partic- last player with pieces on the board wins. mic injectors n captured Egyplian'tanks that ularly interested in the possibility of finding 10. Trivia (Avalon Hill; $38). It has been two Egypt had obtained from Russia. The some lost documents or lost dramatic liter- years since we picked Trivial Pursuit as one needles contained an sniiooie for nerve gas. ature. Sophocles wrote over one hundred of our best games of the year; so this year Our chemical-war 'arc scientists looked at the plays, you know, and we have only eight of we have been given a wide variety of trivia from. looked at Trivial chemical, decided it was way ahead oi any- them. There are thousands of papyruses in games to choose We Silver Screen thing we had. and copied it To make a long Cairo. Egypt, covered wTh Greek writings, Pursuit's Baby Boomer and story short, one of the ingredients caused and modern scholars have hardly looked at editions; trivia games from Ripley's Believe It Guide. Pcapin I Magazine, Time extreme hallucinations. Think about it. If war them. When am no longer so active in sci- or Not, TV triv- broke .out in Europe and there was even !he ence, maybe in 2000, I'll invite classical ex- magazine, Isaac Asimov, and others too rumor that chemical weapons were being perts and put to them one question: Your job ial to mention. used, our men would have injected their is to discover Ihe lost plays of Aeschylus, There's a trick to wrifng trivia questions. A thighs with this stuff and been incapaci- Sophocles, or Euripides, or the lost poems good one is interesting even ii you get it tated. The stuff actually wasn't Russian. The of Sappho. How would you proceed, and wrong. The Trivial Pursuit questions in our Russians had given outdated injectors to what would you need? 1982 pick, the Genus edition, have that clever Egypt, who replaced them with commer- Omni: Do you ace pa r aHels between the an- qualify. Oi the games ;n this year's ilood of cially available antidotes from Yugoslavia and cient Greek ihinkers and today's scenlisls^ trivia, we liked People Magazine and Trivia Bulgaria. The Russians never used the stuff. Meselson: We do something similar: We best and picked the latter, based on its va- riety of questions and its relatively low ratio The assumption was that if the Russians have question everything. We want lo know what or blatantly answers. It something, it musi be wortn copying. Finally, is truth, the basis of human existence. It's an of arguable wrong special- in 1980, the Army Chief of Staif ordered Ihal issue that biology will co-tig iace to face with lets you elect "major" and "minor" ties, different kinds of movement de- all of it be withdrawn. What really boihers me when it acquires the ability to alter the hu- allows achieved in these cases is the sheer incompetence. man state. At that point we must have some pending on whether you have Mistakes aren't surprising, but a steady idea of what we value in humanity. freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior sta- 1 stream of errors of this magnilude implies Omni: Your words are those of a humanist, tus, and perm ts every playe lo take a crack di- that the scientilic-inlelligence community in yet you appear to be deeply fascinated by at missed questions in the quest for a the chemical biological weapons field is not war and weapons. Aren't you at cross-pur- ploma from Trivia Tech. funclioning properly. poses with yourseli? TIN BLSI VIDEO/COMPUTER GAMES Omni: What's wrong with the system that it Meselson: No. There's a unity here. I see war Atari encourages such mistakes? and the destruciion of civilization as great LArchon II: Adept (Electronic Arts, for Meselson: "Me too" and "yes sir" are the threats/but the way to deal with them is to computers, Commodore 64, and Apple II). enemies of the Tight answer. Now, however, use our minds. Cursing the darkness will not Adept, sequel to the highly acclaimed Ar- combination of political leaders simply are not seeking in- make it become light. You have to under- chon, is another splendid dependent scientific advice. Where, are the stand whal Iho :ighl sources are. Then you mental and physical action for one or two scientists to check, double- and triple- can build a light. DO players, The rectangular board consisis of 180 OMNI — fire, air, water, and earth squares onto which and doors, some of which require keys. players "summon" their unique pieces by These keys are difficult to reach, often OMNI magic. In turn, players move or summon guarded by electrical charges, trapdoors, pieces or cast one of a. dozen different spells. robot cannons, vampires, mummies, and TIME CAPSULES When iwo opposing piece? meet, a very un- even Frankenstein's monster. "Solving" a chesslike thing happens: The square ex- room means opening all the doors, which in pands to fill the whole screen and the two turn means solving adjacent rooms, and so pieces slug or shoot it out. There's plenty of on, all like a good sliding-block puzzle. action, but the underlying principle for suc- 5. Exodus: Ultima III (Origin Systems, for Ap- cess is strategic— energy conservation ple II, Commodore 64, IBM PC, and Atari and the game ends when one player runs computers). Warning: This, Lord British's out of energy or occupies six special energy most recent addition to his superb Ultima squares. Everything you do costs difficult- series, presents a fantasy role-playing world ^' */&*** io-replenish energy. And this dichotomy is of unparalleled size, complexity, and dan- what makes Adept so intriguing: You can ger. Fortunately, you need not seek adven- have an army ot as many pieces as you can ture alone; Ultima III allows up to four char- Mow the magazine of the future afford to support. acters to travel and fight as a group. You can be kept for the future. Store your 2. Baltbtazer (Atari, for Atari 5200) and One- create your own adventurers by defining their issues of OMNI inanew II, races, sexes, types of being, relative Custom Bound Library Cose made on-One (Electronic Arts, for Apple Com- and intelligence, of black simulated leather It's modore 64, and Atari computers). For the powers of strength, dexterity, built to last, and it will keep 12 issues best one- or two-player sports game of 1984, and wisdom. The cursor keys move your in mint condition indefinitely. we have a tie; we haven't been able to party around the game board in search of The spine is embossed with a gold choose one over the other. Bailbtazer, the iood, weapons, armor, information, treas- logo, and in each case OMNI creation of Lucasfilm Ltd., is best described ures, magic spells, and enemies to battle for there is a gold transfer for recording as futuristic soccer. Each player controls -a experience points. There are 26 actions you the date. ship that glides, like an ice cube on glass, in can take—from (A)ttack, to (L)ook, to (S)teal, Send your check or eight directions over the playing field but that to (Z)tatus, You issue each command by money order (S5.95 each; rebounds off the boundary lines or the other pressing the appropriate letter on the key- 3forS17;6forS30) ship like a pinball ofi a bumper. There is a board. With all there is to explore, Ultima til postpaid. USA orders only. Foreign single large ball and a goal at either end. could eat up a year of dull Sundays. orders add 32.50 for Scoring is never easy, however, because the 6. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (In- postage and handling per case) goals keep moving. A split screen gives each focom, for most home computers). Still un- to: OMNI Library Case. player his or her own view of the action. rivaled in the category of "interactive fic- P.O. Box 5120, Philadelphia, PA 19141 One-on-One is a tense half-court game of tion," or text adventure, Infocom has most Allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. basketball in which each player takes con- recently converted Douglas Adams's spoof trol'of a single dribbler-— Larry Bird or Julius on science-fiction novels, The Hitchhiker's Erving —with slightly different abilities. Bird Guide to the Galaxy, into a riotous jaunt is taller and better on rebounds. Dr. J is (aster. through time and space on the computer STATEMENT Shooting percentages have been pro- screen. The game has no graphics outside OF OWNERSHIP grammed irom eyery spot on the court, with those of your imagination (arguably the fin- help from the real Bird and Dr. J, and the est). And you, not Adams, direct !he plot by result is a thrilling and faithful simulation of controlling the actions of the main character, the street game. Both players make fancy Arthur Dent. The whole thing starts with a moves, easily accomplished with the joy- whopping hangover and a bu 'dozer whose stick, and fantastic plays are shown again orders are to demolish your house to make on instant replay. Okay, it's a gimmick. And way for a new overpass. Not to worry, though; so is the custodial engineer who sweeps up Earth is about to be demolished to make way the bits of broken Plexiglas after a player has for a new hyperspace overpass. If you can shattered the backboard with a particularly find the electronic thumb, a device used to hard slam dunk. But they're fun gimmicks. hitchhike rides on passing spaceships, you And they give you time to towel off, will live to laugh about it. 3. Boulder Dash (First Star Software, for 7. King's Quest (Sierra On-Line, for IBM PC/ ColecoVision, Commodore 64, Apple II, Atari PCjr.). King's Ques; is unquestionably the 5200, and Atari computers). Boulder Dash best graphics/text adventure of the year be- is good enough to be the first home game cause it's the first game to bring true ani- converted into a coin-op. The underground mated action to the genre. Sir Grahame, your action takes place in a maze of tunnels that knight in armor, can be moved Irom scene your character creates as he burrows to scene with keyboard commands of the through the dirt. Your object is to avoid ava- two-word sentence type. But Sir Grahame lanches and to collect all the buried jewels can also be moved around within each on each level in two minutes. This opens a beautiful high-resolution screen to interact door to the next, more difficult level (there with other characters under joystick control. are 16 in all). Many different screens, all nicely Sir Grahame's challenge is to explore the animated and with great sound effects, offer medieval countryside; find atreasure chest, plenty ot puzzling situations. an enchanted mirror, and a magical shield; 4. The Castles of Doctor Creep (Broder- and return them to the king. Mapmaking is bund, for Commodore 64). This campy game essential to solving the many interesting gives you 13 spooky castles to play in—each puzzles of King's Quest. And a knowledge with a different layout ot rooms—for a total of children's stories helps because along the of more than 200 individual screens. Each is way one meets sorcerers, ogres, elves, its own special puzzle. The rooms connect wolves, witches, a fairy godmother, and all in a winding labyrinth of ladders, platforms. the stuff of which classic fairy tales are made. 8. Operation Whirlwind (Broderbund, for Commodore 64 and Atari computers). Board war games are among the most tedious to learn because the rules governing play are so numerous and complex. Computer war A Dutch of Class. games simplify things a bit, but the scope of the battles being simulated often makes them forbidding to the beginner. Until now. Operation Whirlwind is an introductory-level war game that can be learned and played within an hour. The battlefield terrain —open ground, *€=?* woods, streams, buildings, roads, and your final objective, the City— is graphically de- picted. You command a battalion of tanks, 'artillery, engineers, infantry, and reconnais- sance—about two dozen pieces in all. Scouting ahead will draw fire and locate en- emy positions. Ot course, the computer en- emy is no fool; it will take advantage of all terrain, And just to reach the town, much less occupy and hold it against counterattacks, requires exce en! scraggy and efficient de- ployment of units. But mostly what it requires is guts. War is hell, after all. 9. Rails West! (Strategic Simulations, Inc., for /'it Apple II. Commodore 64, and Atari com- puters). Rails West/ is a simulation of She first great corporations in American history—the railroads — for one to eight players. The screen is used to display the map and to call up any of more than a dozen screens of fi- nancial information. If you have a mind for numbers and like calling the shots— million-- dollar shots —you will love trying to pioneer your own railroad. You'll buy and sell secu- rities, stocks, and bonds; apply for loans; charter and build new lines; and much, much more. And you can play according to a his- torical or randomly generated game sce- ut nario. Not for the joystick minded, Rails West! is a slow, patient mental experience that is destined to become a classic. 10. The Seven Cities of Gold (Electronic Arts, for Atari computers. Commodore 64, and Apple II). This is one of the best games of exploration, conquest, and diplomacy you can find. It also has the bonus of being ed- w ucational in that the territory you explore is all of North and South America. Most play- ers use an atlas for help. Sailing west from Spain in 1492, loaded to the brim with men, food, and trading goods, your ships will eventually reach a coastline. Landing parties explore in search of native colonies, food, gold mines, ^ and generally traveling along rivers for navigation. The quest is to establish colonies and, using either diplomacy or force, acquire gold to equip further expeditions. Each expedition that returns to Spain records its travels on a blank map disk; so you can save your charts for future play. And once you are familiar with the New World, you can try a realty new world because the game will also generate ran- dom continents! Why, surrounded by perfection, should he The Kitchen King, Rudy Valet, Billy Bar- ROBOTGNOMICS subject himself to New York's dirty, crime- tender, and Tilly the Toiler were sitting in a haunted streets? Robotgnomics had or- circle on the floor. Lucy the Laundress shared chestrated him into the perfect urban re- one side of the dinette with Shorty the Short- tubs, sinks, and toilets. As a bonus, Bards- cluse, self-sufficient and self-satisfied. Order Cook. Francois the French Chef was ley also brought Lucy the Laundress, an am- Women and friends didn't seem to matter perched on top of Magda, who occupied bulatory gray cube three feet to a side that, much anymore. His apartment was magic, the dinette's other side. Sitting on the slove while Ives was out, crept around the apart- and you can't do better than that. were two robots whom Ives couldn't remem- ment sniffing out dirty clothes, then plug- Marissa, now his ex-wife, came by one ber having seen before. ging into the water system to do the wash. afternoon to discuss the disposal of some "What's going on?" Ives asked. Lucy could also handle dry cleaning and was books and papers he had left behind. Ives "It's him," Magda said. great with delicate fabrics. had Frangois concoct an elaborate French "Of course," Frangois said. "I told you to The next addition to Ives's household was dinner. Billy Bartender produced the proper continue monitoring him." Shorty the Short-Order Cook, who resem- wines, precisely chilled, and Magda cre- "No, it's better this way," Rudy Valet said. bled a medium-size plastic octopus. Shorty's ated a light-and-sound show of utmost art- "It's lime we put Ives in the picture, now that vinyl tentacles, studded with thermal sen- fulness and beauty. At the meal's end, Rudy he's used to us." sors and terminating in taste probes, turned Valet served a rare old Armagnac. 'Actually, Mr. Ives," the Kitchen King said, out a limited but satisfying menu of fried egg Marissa sipped her drink and said, at last, "we're not robots at all. We're members of a ' sandwiches, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, chili, "Edmond, it's all quite perfect, I suppose." race that was old before your planet was and iacos. Ives sensed her hesitation. "But?" born. In the course of our development we of Shorty was soon followed by Billy Bar- "Well, I was wondering where you are in learned how to live without bodies, free tender, a tripodal peripatetic refrigerator with all this." any dependence on matter whalsoever. This a Mixmaster head and high-speed ice-mak- Ives hadn't expected that. He laughed, a was the final stage in the evolution of intelli- ing capacity. Billy had an encyclopedic little uncertainly. "But all of this /s me." gence, and we embraced il eagerly. Our en- knowledge of drink combinations and spe- tire race became disembodied intelli- cialized inmartinis. gences, virtually immortal, floating around This pretty well took care of Ives's crea- the galaxy, blissed out on enlightenment. Are ture comforts. Mext Bardsley introduced him you following this so far?" "Emotional Engineering tor Better Living," "Of course," Ives said, surprised more by to '•Robotgnomics had a hot new development that Robotgnomics his own calmness than by the aliens' reve- was getting into. The basic unit was Magda orchestrated him into the lations. "Bui what are you doing disguised as robots in my apartment?" Ihe Mood Maker. perfect urban Magda looked like a group of expensive "Well," the Kitchen King said, "even though audio components arranged On a smart, recluse. Women and friends disembodied enlightenment is the highest state you can reach, you begin to get rest- white metal cabinet and equipped with eight didn't seem to small feet. She was covered with dials and less after a few centuries. You want to have matter. His apartment was lights and liquid-crystal displays. She looked a body again. For the contrast, you see." cute as she waddled across Ives's beige magic, and you "Makes sense," Ives said. carpeting and plugged info an electrical "The question was, What should we em- can't do better than that3 outlet. Magda took charge of music, light- body as? We didn't see much sense in be- ing, and ambient sound. Within days she had coming human-type creatures again. We'd acquired the necessary data on Ives's emo- been through all that— putting money in tional cycles and was able to create an ever- banks and taking it out again, winning wars changing program of sounds especially for and losing them, falling in and out of love. him. Some mornings Ives awakened to the Marissa considered for a moment. "Yes, I We wanted to do things that needed doing. dolorous- cries of seabirds; other times it suppose that's true." We wanted to help other sentient beings. So would be the crash of surf, the distant bark- "Is there anything wrong with that?" we checked out the inhabited planets in this interest- ing of mating seals, or the steady patter ot "Not if you like it. I guess," Marissa said. part of the galaxy. We found some canned rain. For musical backgrounds, Ives didn't understand her attitude, and ing civilizations, but they were getting along Magda orchestrated his favorite selections she didn't elaborate. He thought about it for fine without us. We were getting pretty dis- in accord with his mood and adjusted the a while after she had left, and decided it was couraged. Mr. Ives. Until we found Earth." lights accordingly. The effect was dramatic. nothing but jealousy. What could possibly be 'A wonderful place, Earth," Rudy Valet Ives's slightest move or gesture seemed to wrong with his life? said. "Here was a planet with several billion take on a heightened significance. It was like He went upstairs to the bedroom. He un- intelligent beings, and most of them were being the star ot his own movie. dressed, dropping his clothes on the floor, miserable because they had to do things For the first time in his life, Ives was happy. knowing that Rudy Valet would be along they didn'l want to do. It looked made to or- When he came home from work, his apart- presently to pick them up. He fell asleep on der for us." ment was waiting for him, its lighting sub- Lucy the Laundress's warm, fresh sheets. "So we got into telepathic contact wilh dued, its mood inviting. His dinner was al- Ives woke up abruptly some hours later. Bardsley and a few others," Ihe Kitchen King ways ready when he wanted it. Sometimes Looking ai his watch, he saw that it was tour- continued. "We offered them enlightenment it was one of Shorty's snacks; other times, it twenty in the morning. Marissa must have in exchange. for their assistance. They ac- would be an elaborate feast prepared by upset him more than he'd thought, because cepted eagerly. Under our direction, they set Robotgnomics' lates: acldrion to his house- he. was wide awake, alert, and apprehen- up Robotgnomics and hired a small group hold, Frangois the French Chef. After dinner, sive. He lay in bed, watching the pro- of technicians to construct our robot bodies drinks would appear beside him as though grammed shadows move slowly across the and offer our services. So far the response by magic, as Magda tuned in his favorite TV ceiling, listening to the silence tape. After a has been overwhelmingly favorable." shows or selected a feature film from the while he heard sounds of faint laughter com- "I find it a little difficult to believe," said cassette library. Mood music would accom- ing from -somewhere within the apartment. Ives, "that you've gone to all this trouble in pany him as he moved around the apart- He got out of bed, slipped on a robe, and order to do laundry and wash dishes." " ment, and would lull him to sleep at night. tiptoed downstairs into the darkened living "That," Lucy said, "is because you are not So satisfying were his evenings that Ives room. He heard a whisper of voices from the an ages-old, free-floating intelligence gifted began to spend all his free time at' home. kitchen. He went to ihe doer and looked in. with perfect enlightenment," 184 OMNI "Maybe not," Ives said. "But if you aliens really want to help, why don't you give us a simple cure for cancer or teach us how to run our cars on water, or something useful like that?" "People would only resent it," Rudy said. 'And anyhow, we're not interested. Scrub- bing sinks and cleaning the drapes—that's what we like, and that's what people want done for ihem." "What happens," Ives asked, "if people find they really don't want you around, no matter how useful you are?" "Then we leave," Rudy said. "We don't stay where we're not wanted. If you want io get rid of us, all you have to do is say the word." "I was just asking," Ives said. "Well, now you know," the Kitchen King The Ihundering roar of Dr. said. "But I see that it's almost five in the Porsche's 250 hp engine told you it morning. You must be tired, Mr. Ives." was a Mercedes SSK. The fastest sports "I could use some more sleep," Ives said. car of its time. This highly detailed 1/18 "But who are Ihey?" He indicated the two tank of scale replica is authentic right down to a gas. unfamiliar robofs silting on the stove. its knock-off hubs and soft rubber tires. "This.one is Charlie Chef," Rudy said. "He's Functional steering system actually turns just moved in with the Barlows in 12C The wheels. Includes two removable spare .... :..! 1 .. I II other is Betty Babysitter, who has recently tires in case of flat. Remove the adjust- ' foil free lines. Order # M828 for the with family the able hood strap, open the hinged taken up residence a down 1928 Mercedes SSK. Or send a check hood, and observe the highly detailed | block. They just came by for a visit." for $29 plus 3.50 del. (Order two for i 7 liter, dual carburetor engine. "You'll be seeing many more of us soon," S49 plus 4.50 del.) ® Comes completely assembled. Die- the Kitchen King said. "It's amazing how cast metal body will last a lifetime. 800 443-0100 ?£ i« many humans want things done for them. in Italy. Beautiful brown, Hand assembled Good night, Mr. Ives." two-tone enamel finish. Weighs 14 ozs. A few minutes later, Ives was back in his 9^2 " iong. One year warranty. bed, watching the programmed shadows Comes with our 30-day home trial, move slowly across the ceiling. Magda the with a prompt and courteous refund if Call Toll Free lot our catalog ol unique pi Mood Maker was playing something cool and melodic, but also tough and mascu- line—the sort of music Clint Eastwood might have slept by. Ives was the star of his own Buy TSR'S movie, the master of his own life. What the aliens had brought was magical, all right. Only one thing bothered him now, and it was just a detail. Why did Robotgnomics Dungeons & Dragons produce only single-purpose machines? It could have nothing to do with what Bardsley had called design philosophy, since the games from a toy store company wasn't producing real robots at all, but rather, robo: bodies - or alien souls. Then he had it. The Kitchen King had told that won't treat you him there was a whole race of bodiless aliens out there, millions of them, maybe billions, all waiting for their chance to serve somebody monstrously. on Earth. By keeping the robot bodies sin- JfMMlto»»— gle-purpose, they were providing them- r\n Yji/i+h 'i When you shop with selves with the maximum number ot jobs. us, we'll give you With five or ten alien servants per human, good service, good that's twenty or thirty billion helpers . . . Ives had a sudden vision of Earth turned prices, a good selec- into a vast zoo. Instead of cages there were tion, dnd d con- houses and apartmenis. They were filled with venient Iccotion in mild-mannered human animals, unaggres- shopping malls sive and content, cared for by their little alien across the country. keepers, who kept them warm, clothed, fed, and amused. The aliens were offering the And we won't treat equivalent of a warm stable and a nose bag you monstrously. tilled with oats. That was their idea of human destiny. But of course, that was ridiculous. The human race wouldn't let matters go that far Surely people would know where to draw KAY BEE the line. TOY STORES Secure in that certainly, Ives fell at last into a deep and refreshing sleep. DO Future etiquette: Requesting the honor of your telepresence CDnnPETITIDRJ By Scot Morris winner will display proper etiquettel) e are now up to Competition • Invitation to a space wedding: "Request- our ." f%: runners-up will each ing the honor ot your telepresence. . . In addition, ten i I #35, and to celebrate, we • writers' receive S50 in cash and a one-year \J \J are making this an exlra-special What nor to say at a science-fiction The Omni games contest with extra-special prizes. convention: "I'm really into sci-fi." subscription to Omni. • editor will choose the grand prize-winner The competition. In the future, you may live What not to say at a lunar eclipse: "Why schedule inese :hings in the and runners-up based on originality, in a brave new world highlighted by don't they cleverness, and humor. wondrous things, marvelous machinery, daytime so the kids can watch?" To be eligible lor the grand prize you and unimagined luxuries, but you'll still be • Space birth announcement: "Place: Over must be a resident of tne contiguous United expected to mind your manners. Even the Atlantic, somewhere between Bermuda ," winner(or,.if minor, that . The a Negligible. . States. at a grand bail at the Mars Hilton, you and the Azores. Weight: person's parent or legal guardian), must wouldn't wear a formal space suit with brown • Whai not to say at a nuclear-power plant sign and return an affidavit of eligibility shoes. Some things are just not done. opening: "Is it soup yet?" within 21 ot notification and agree to Readers are invited to submitan entry • What not to say at a Halley's Comet watch: days Wolper's the uncompensated use of his or her for The Omni Etiquette Book, a suggestion "It pales in comparison to David and likeness for publicity purposes, about proper behavior at some Omn/esque closing ceremonies at the Olympics." name failing which, an alternate winner may event. Such events might include: •What to say when a robot propositions are the responsibility of Comet watches or UFO sightings you: "Not tonight; I've got an oil leak." be selected. Taxes the winner. Cruise winners under eighteen • Uri Geller spoon bending The prizes. The grand prize-winner will ' cruise for years of age must be accompanied by • Arrival of a clone in the family receive a fabulous one-week parent or legal guardian. Prizes are not • Loch Ness monster watch two—to a choice of either the Caribbean or a transferable. The grand prize is subject • A new robot shows up on the block the "Mexican Riviera"—plus $1,000 spend- • Publication party for Isaac Asimov's ing money! Our winner and a companion to availability. prizes. In addition to the top 11 thousandth book will enjoy deluxe accommodations, gourmet And more will award 200 copies of The • Omni's fiftieth-birthday bash meals, and nightly entertainment aboard prizes, we Future (an $8.95 paperback, Pick an event and prescribe what to a luxurious cruise ship, with enough extra Omni Almanac World Almanac) by random wear, say, or do; or what nor to wear, say, or cash to make this the vacation of a lifetime! published by drawings from all entries received by the do. For example: (We assume, of course, that at all times' contest deadline. Odds of winning an Omni Almanac are determined by the total number of entries received. The rules. No purchase necessary. To enter, send a postcard (or a card in an envelope), and print or type on it your complete name and address, along with your suggestion for The Omni Etiquette Book, and send it to Omni Competition #35, 1965 Broadway, New York, NY 10023- 5965. Enter as often as you wish, but mail each entry separately. Entries must be received by January 15, 1985. All entries become the property of Omni for all uses and all media: none will be returned. Employees of Omni Publications Interna- tional, Ltd., their affiliates and subsidiaries. distributors, advertising and promotion agencies, Ventura Associates, Inc., and their families are not eligible. All federal, state, and local laws and regulations apply. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. All prizes will be awarded. For the name of the trip winner, send a stamped, self- addressed envelope to Omni Winner, Box 708, Lowell, IN46356.DO PHEfuonnEruA spring from nowhere and vanish just y. Fine-art photographer Robert upon watery gems while peering into a capture their beauty there, h> .. the transparent clearing the path for new, and a;- ,~. . Refraction of the light ; flash produced the " — COMING IN THE JANUARY .„.. „Lory by Harlan Ellison L «.. ciling publishing event. His newest p ...... Virgil Oddum at the East Pole," is particularly special because it Is the crowning touch to Me- dea: Harlan's World, a soon-to-be-published col- lection of stories from several of the best sci- ence-fiction writers. In "With Vir protagoi stands ankle-deep WIZARD OF OOZE obiologist Lynn Margulis :k as she surveys her favorite shore: bacteria. The Bos- . vath of tangled ton University prof symbiosis, bacteria "> origin. "Basically," she says, **!<•". teria and are containers for bacteria." For years, L. ed by members of the scien- J in this revealing profile by » ' Margulis's symbiosis the- m m be inching toward acceptance. HARDY The Swedish Academy has its Nobel, and .._ LAURELS AND have our Laurels and Hardys, our way of bowing, the- if not scraping, toward the inventions, ideas, ories, and laboratory smells that the world could mbe red for I as the dreaded uoto George Orwell's m j; a zoo in Spain p io Its collection— Url Man—an actor sitting n a cage and dressed ii. — suit: and ai ongressman worried that Ihose who thought that 1984 was forgettable, the January issue of have receded FUTURE SOFTFUN i that Pac-Man and his peers — ~.. ^ phisticated, creative ways to ha„„ , u computers. And they will get it as game designers take us to the next level of computer fun, inter- active play. Rather than just sitting and watching animated figures scurry across a screen, people : n now draw their own, even creatine) th~ mputer-animated movies. Spor play computer basketball against Dr. J and Larry Bird on a game the two athletes helped design. Read about Interactive fun, in January's Omni. . So .you were the .kid who nevar go; a chance- v I'm r '.- to ask Mf, Wizard. now Fizzles worked: ; .afraid; The ceie y could be anything. by Even out answer man,- Mr. Science, would' ' how.;;! mean, .ho* dowe know Pastsdr i , .; : /.,: ... ,;,,.. hard- explain ; .be pressed to the mystery ; :: ".''. ' d'colored-sugar ir-Lb sts. but he doss.nave .lion?. He did an.'awfui lot of work with an explanation tor nearly everything else. wine. And he was French. And tney eat snaits/right'?. . ' Dear Mr. Science: - Fridge Fright drift. I think my wife's isfberhas continental His mind wander, and he can't hold. his ; . DsarFhdge: : - / '?"'; ', ,'; i and. they est snails. Even so, ... . French, yes; do OearQyaking; ? : y : Give -him a bedpan and; cheek- nis plates. If I'd be very surprised if your. celery had ! deep-ocean. worms. They that doesn't help, write o Mr. Health. His . become tube column runs dri Wednesdays. -..-.'. needa'geot ;e. the wouldn't eat it. Just same, | . Dear -Mr. Science:' ' Mr. : I read some ;cieh!ists Dear Science: : think Lamarck was right, i-iaf acquired Like you suggested,. 1. married [he cosme- characteristics can be inherited.. t'm worried tologist. And; there we were on our wedding about my husOand-tc-b.e. I'm.resigned.to- , night, all oon;fy and; cozy .and ! start talking cur kids iiaving his ears, but ihat's'it. What astronomy with. hi-T:. :.' know anything. LMST conc'ernsme is that when ha sits down. Guess what?'He doesn't •::-. '. : . . . is kind : r The man thinks a supernova some i talking .tiller, and if that has gotten into his genes, I of smoked salmon, start about UUDRD wouldrttwan! to have children nebulae and he starts talking eye shadow. Please'tel! me the neo-Darvvmans are' You ruined my life. Thanks a lot. " By James Gorman : iri'Qht and germ-ceil genes are not influenced -Cheesed {Formerly "Stars in Eyes'; by a lifetime o- chewing with your mouth ' • mThe latest ooen and- eating with your fingers. Dear Cheated; ..i. ' I it's hard to keep thinking on ear shape I'm sorry. was w/ong.' so up with those hew disciplines I got a lot . it's is that Dear Naturally of loiters CO; straight something of -a. crapshoot The neo-Darwii'ians arc, ^neeed, right. And beauty shops. Let's- sot ;he recomi' i. can assure you.that in the unending Cosmoiocjisis study the cosmos; cosmetol- whether'-you'll get nature/nurture debate, no one on cither ogists Study the facet flat ; a baby with nice, Side has eve' suggested that tabic manners i. ones or ones' mean it's Dear Mr. Science: , okay ic marry a guy like that. Are n I that look like Dumbo's3 As ibr't'he ears', your own .genes' will get one that already -knows French? It.'.' affect !mr? too. The latest thinking on ear would help me; meet language ; squire- : my i. shape- is that it's polygenic; wTvchrneaiis . , it's something of a c.rapsnooi whether you'll get a baby with flat ones or ones that look like Dumbo's: DearNeeds: Good luck. You're going to need.it. .\y. .-.; .;.- ; ." . Mite answer to everything. I jus: knew this would Dear Ms. Science:' happen once those- pocket Calculators My kid wants a thesaurus., but he's already got snakes and gerbiis: 3es ; des, didn't The; answer is, nct.yet: Brain transplants sill! stage; they go extinct" or something'' . are in the experimental and loo Many Animals Steady scientists are not yet: sure, whether French gets transplanted along wlfh-brain tissue. Dear Too:-' ..- ems " ' it's ali right for your sonto get. a thesaurus'; tot be- host-specific, ' 1 '. Altnough thesaurus—from. the English;. ' the (tor "the) and the Greek saurus {for : Confidential to Calculating: 1 "lizard" !-" means' the lizard, His actually a' i to do .1 th book nonscientists use to do : something angs not with words. -Why it's cated the tearti I have to Avoga.dro, avocado. no s : ' with singularities? .:!: i : trouble Upset . . . coping by the.coilapse of (he :!aws-'of physics? "Living Vv'im Black Dear Mr, Science: . Mrr Science's pamphi&i .'..' ,,','.'.' I read about things' that live on the. bottom ,-' ..,, ,...', .-.. of the ocean- vsithooiair. weird dams and ; tube worms and stuff. : My question is. Could they grow in my-' refrigerator, ico^'There's things in there I