onnaii JULY 1981 EDITOR & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE PRESIDENT: KATHY KEETON '. .1, :.., ..,. r, MANAGING Q H» ANDERSON DGRMAN " " r -' - -- - . = - 3H£C<. - - =_'.'-_- 5l.fma-:c; l'ixc:i\ -'" " -: - - -"- --= '.:"HiAM\f -G'A'ATSON "fi.VJj,- -= UHzL ; lii;,G BEVERLEY WARDALE
CONTENTS PAGE FIRST WORD Opinion Ben Bova 6 COMMUNICATIONS Correspondence 10
FORUM Dialogue 12 ' EARTH Environment Karen Payne 14 LIFE Biomedicine Raymond M. Lane and Shirley M. Nagelschmidt 16 SPACE Comment Ben Bova 18 MIND Behavior Robert Kail 20 FILM The Arts Jeff Rovin 24 MUSIC The Arts Scott Cohen 27
BOOKS The Arts Jack Williamson 28
EXPLORATIONS Travel Nick Engler 30 UFO UPDATE Report James Oberg 32,
CONTINUUM Data Bank 35 HIGH-WIRE ACT Article Robert L. Forward and Hans R Moravec 44 THE ONCE AND FUTURE TING Bruce Schechter 48 THE PALACE AT MIDNIGHT Fiction Robert Silverberg 52
SUBMERSIBLES Pictorial Anthony Wolff 56 BLIND SPOT Fiction Jayge Carr 62 ALBERT HOFMANN Interview David Monagan 68 BIRTH ON ICE Article Michael Jeffries 76 TOUR OF THE UNIVERSE Pictorial Robed Sheckley 82 BRAINBUSTER: OMNI'S NEW I.Q. TEST Article Scot Morris 96
PHOTO CONTEST Competition Geoffrey Golson 107 COMPETITION RESULTS Unconfirmed Rumors Scot Morris 110 STARS Astronomy David K. Lynch 124 "^ WELDED ELEMENTS ^^ ^H Phenomena Karoly Buday 126 GAMES Diversions Scot Morris 128 LAST WORD Humor Jeff Rovin 130
"Yjvey- an for tft/s month's Omni /s '---, --.-'.- siart, surrealistic image by P:J=|iS,'l,'j -, _ ,,i -
. crman artist L/te OsterwaW. 1 ngether with her husband, Hans, :e creates net conceptual artin ; •e design studio the couple hare in Hamburg, West Germany. i^r^r^5;^nT^ir ("nr'tran"" 7 heir viork has been published in 1 the major magazines of Europe. .
Suppose that the DC motor with its com- wna' it costs to put a man on the 'rujon.
. mutator and brushes had .not been Ask only what the chances are of bringing invented in 1832 and that the induction hirnback. But as soon as success tsift '". " ; : :,! sight, :: . the man with the cash-flow concept general use. Now suppose that some .moves, . in and asks, "Now how well can 'you bright person were to come up with the perform the undertaking?" '.idea of acbmmutatorin1981 and. take his Trie-climate for innovation in Britain has idea to British industry, tothe National neve;- been chillier. Established [allures, Research Development Corporation, and from the groundnut scheme of the late to-the Science Research Councii. Aii 1940s to the tracked hovercraft df the would escort the inventor to the door as 1970s, are held up as classic examples to soon as they ' had heard him out, The those who would brave the unknown. Mo •" ; development of such an idea, they wouEd one wants to learn real lessons, other than insist, . would require far too much money, it those iavoi-ed Dv accountants. could.never be cost-effeciive, and if it had' Whether we like it or no', we British any merit at ail, the Germans or the individual!/ and collectively are answer- .-
Japanese would have done it anyway. able Io the accountant. This is not to be Still, the commutator motor thrives in ' attributed to our polities! system. Nor industry throughout the world. This fact is i* the result, of our having become civi- highlights two profound problems that lized earlier than those who now .possess. hamper invention in Great Britain. First, more wealth than w.e-do>. We have allowed invention takes an absurd second place the accounranfs to get into: the driver's- to science. Second, there is no direct seat, and they know it. Like other dictators.
.connection between ' anyone's scientific accountants will succeed for. a while FIRST education and his or her knack for until human nature moves io overthrow invention. The history of technology them. But it will take time. proves this. Meanwhile there are some things that Technology began some 10.000 UUDRD years can be done to improve the ciimatefor ago. Science is a relatively new luxury, adventurers. There are 3000 and bad By Eric Laithwaite bom-out of technology. No other nation has accountants, just as there are good and surpassed, the United Kingdom in terms of bad engineers. Lei those who are em- sheer ^The climate for ingenuity The fruits of our country's ployed by firms that do not 00 well take
- inventiveness 1 have appeared, ' 'i more often ' : i. i ::, :.:,i; innovation in Britain Ipoens v has than not, as technology zations thai, are successful and try to never chillier been We have, of course, an excellent record toll- a Failures are held.up in science, too. Sir Isaac Mewton. Joseph large firm mass-produces a product, Priestley, Sir.Humphry Davy. Michael die-cast metal toys, that has constituted &s examples to Faraday,-. James Clerk Maxwell, and more for years past, In , • recently Ernest Jhose who would brave Rutherford, Oliver 1981 that industry will have a toss for the Heaviside,,Henry G. J. Moseley, the unknown: 9 and Sir first time in 50 years. What policy does :mi William Bragg and his son, Sir Lawrence, company now pursue? constitute a most impressive assemblage The obvious remedies, such as Gutting of scientists. However, since the 1920s a down waste, reducing the number of decline has set in. employees . and raising the price of the Science depends on wealth. Wealth, product, are all rejected. The company in turn, depends on much more than prunes its production program drastically technology it is interwoven with com- and diverts the money it had.earmarked merce, industry and politics. Since (or anew plant into the research depart- the beginning of this century we British ment. Does this -sound crazy? Not have been losing ground in world trade at all. To make twice as much of the- and world politics. .!.;. ir, ; .i|. i. ;.;.. ;.-.;, !_ ,v.;:;.k-f- ry.'ic? The .climate that existed when Sir Marc the loss next year that you madethis year Isambard Brunei and his son. Isambard Change the product instead. Make ex- Kingdom Brunei, were digging tunnels pensive executive toys in much-smaller under the Thames and holding banquets quantities. You will iead in a new fashion. underground to celebrate their success To cio it. however, you will need research-, has long passed. If the railway r network in lots of it :V1o e than thai you will need men Great Britain had not been laid when it of Courage, men who.can ride a failure or was. no accountant today - would have. emerge like a phoenix from their- own. first, authorized its construction. Thisbrings near-disaster. us to the very heart of the present-day One thing should be made crystal-clear inventor's problem: live in We the Age of to us all. Raising the price Is an almost the Accountants. certain loser And what shall it profit a man When it comes to real exploration, and if his increased prices promise him a . pioneering -activities thai continue fortune, but he lo.se his company?00 unabated whatever the financial state of '-': .' '• '.,; ; trical the world -The firs! question always is. f;r:c DRJ1RJIBU! a myth about Nobel Prize "I kept pedaling There's . harder and harder and vive because of a new technique. Kail, winners. Some think people the thought I was locked into one spot. Finally an inventor and a consulting editor of Nobel is the kiss of death. I got home. Everything had changed, be- Behavioral Medicine, is director of the pain' Samuel C. C. Ting has exploded that come terrifying. My neighbor came in and stress management program at the myth," says writer Bruce Schechter. and looked like a horrible witch." This is Growth Opportunity Center, in Huntingdon When Ting received the Nobel Prize, he what Albert Hofmann, the chemist who Valley, Pennsylvania. The U.S. Olympic ski was only forty years old. Schechter, an MIT discovered LSD, recalls of his first ex- team has asked Kail to advise team mem- graduate student when Ting's discovery of perience with the hallucinogen, in 1943, bers on how to use biofeedback methods the J particle was announced, wanted to the earliest recorded in science. Hofmann to improve their Olympic performances. find out how a person who made a major tells David Monagan in this month's Omni The year is 3000. A couple have discovery just and won the coveted Nobel at Interview (page that 68) he happened won the prize to end all prizes: a voyage so young an age can continue to do first- upon the potent drug quite by accident through the universe. What might they rate work. Read "The Once and Future while studying fungus applications. see? Robert Sheckley, our fiction editor Ting," on page 48, to learn how Schechter Formerly an editor of Archaeology tells us in "Tour of the Universe" (page 82). believes Ting achieved success. magazine, Monagan is a free-lance writer The illustrations are from the Mayflower Going up? Perennial Omni contributor whose articles have appeared in Science book of the same title, by Robert Hold- Robert L. Forward and Hans P. Moravec, Digest, the New York Times, and the Medi- stock and Malcolm Edwards. who studied at Stanford University's Arti- cal Tribune, a weekly newspaper 200,000 Three months ago Columbia landed ficial Intelligence Laboratory, speculate physicians subscribe to. at Edwards Air Force Base, in southern on the possibilities ot stretching cables Science-fiction award-winner Robert California. Ben Bova was present for that from orbiting satellites to Earth, creating a Silverberg returns with "The Palace at historic event. In this month's Space col- theoretically simple skyhook. In "High-Wire Midnight" (page 52). In June Bantam umn he reminisces about what it was Act" (page 44) we see why elevators to published the paperback edition of his like to see America's latest accomplish- might space easily supplant rocketry by book Lord Valentine's Castfe, which was ment—one that all of us can celebrate the middle of the twenty-first century. nominated this year for a Hugo Award. during Space Week, July 13 through 20. Forward, a physicist whose specialty is Jayge Carr, whose story "Malthus's Day" What number logically follows in this gravitation, works full-time for the Hughes appeared in our November 1979 issue, series: 2, 3, 5, 9, 17, — ? This question and Research Laboratory, in Malibu, California. contributes another story, "Blind Spot" 38 others like it are part of the Omni- Ballantine/Del Rey Books released the (page Two 62). new Carr novels are soon Mensa I.Q. test, created by Games editor paperback edition of Forward's first novel, to published: be The Space Reivers Scor Morris with the help of Alice Fixx Dragon's Egg, this past February. Moravec {Playboy Press) and The Treasure in the public relations director for Mensa, the is a research scientist at the Robotics Heart of the Maze (Doubleday). worldwide high-I.Q. society Turn to page Institute, Carnegie-Mellon University. His Robert Kail's Mind column, "Resurrec- 96 to test consuming yourself against Mensans who interest in robotics began tion," on page 20, raises some disturbing completed the examination in little more when, at age ten. he put together tin cans, questions about how we cope — psycho- than half an hour. Next month Omni will batteries, lights, and a motor to con- logically and emotionally— with our loved provide the answers and will help you struct his first "serious" robot, ones who, diagnosed as terminally ill, sur- make sense of your score.OQ s OMNI ; MiTilillI BOBGUCCIONE . editor & publisher B| KATHY KEETON president OMNI PUBLICATIONS INTERNAT:ONA'. L C LETTERS. THE CORPORATION Bob Guccione (chairman at the board) Kalhy Keeton (vice-chairman) Mark Meagher (president) Anlhcny J. Gucclone (secretary-treasurer) connnnuruiCMTiorus Marianne Howatson (senior vice-president) Benson Saks (chiet financial officer) EDITORIAL ': Bob Guccii : '::!-.: J. «*:' ing Edlto. The Mummy Makes It Omni, but I disagree with Alexei Panshin's Three cheers for Ray Bradbury! mt Managing Editor- Paul Hill His story comments about Heinlein's "misplaced ieoffray Golscn, Marc Kapl, "Colonel Stonesteel's Genuine Home- morality." Boylan; Copy Editors: Ch Made Truly Egyptian Mummy" [May Panshin finds McKernan; Editorial Ass, Heinlein's definition of ! 1981] is a splendid — j. example of tall-tale morality Laslis Epstein . jayneGass "behavior that tends toward - Ccmributing Editors: St telling in the spirit of Mark Twain. Please survival"— false, because it is based on Raoert Matone. Dr. Patrick give lis more. examples of individual behavior. William R Roeder But Heinlein's work treats survival as a State College, Pa. group concept, not solely an individual one. Where the clam or shark will suc- The Spice of Life cumb to the gene pool of its species Reading the Donald Symons Interview in through heredity, Heinlein understands ADMINISTRATIVE the March 1981 Omni was exasperating. that man will direct his actions toward How can one person hope to extrapolate survival of the human race. the true nature ot modern man from a Radford C. West study of primitive and homosexual social Mew York, N.Y behavior and from the copulation patterns of caged bulls and monkeys? Human Zap Appeal beings have long ' since risen above the I would like to clarify a few points raised in level of baboons! "Rape Zapper," featured in Continuum Symons drowns in his own arrogance [May 1981], when he assumes that human females Several design improvements have have little need for It variety. is human been made, including a snap-on pro- ".; nature to be curious Prod. Mg Berlins and to crave diversity tective cover, and Personal Security Marketin Cultural brainwashing g Servic as: Carole and societal intim- Devices, Inc., Suite 7967, One World Trade idation are ADV inconsiderate of women's Center, New York, NY 10048, now manu- . OrttniPufc sexual preferences, including variety. factures and sells the Zapper worldwide. ValaCliffton 3301 ri- Edward R. Koenigsfest ll Francisco, 1 San East Calif. New York, N.Y 1707 H Si If we pursue Donald Symons'slineof Attention Science-Fantasy Artists : biological fatalism to its logical end, we In October 1981 the World Fantasy Art must conclude that there is no future for Exhibition will be held in Berkeley, W^l'-VOLM art, music, or higher mathematics, be- California, 90024. Te (213) 834-9831 in conjunction with the seventh cause such initiatives Bramb break the natural World Fantasy Convention. The exhibi- - -:'., Ian a Tel. i iS!Os law and confer (01 no apparent selective tion will feature paintings, drawings, and EDITORIAL OFFICES sculpture, with a bizarre, chimeric twist. 909 Th Yet our society has prized and has Send twenty 35mm color slides of your . - legitimized these inventions, just as the work, 934 West wood Blv a resume or cover letter, and a feminist rejection of sexual determinism :90024. Ta (213) 82 4-9B3! ondon 2 Br postpaid return envelope to: Will Stone should be prized. Darwin's is a brilliant 560 Sutter Street, Suite 201 , San model for explaining the morphological Francisco, CA 94102. The deadline is and behavioral differences between Homo August 1,1981. sapiens and other mammalian species. JackRems Applied incauliously within our species, Chairman, WFC however, it leads to a downgraded view of Berkeley Calif. the human potential, James Morrow In Defense of Privilege Westford, Mass. I wish to reply to a letter written by Robert Bailey [Communications, February 1981], For the Good of the Group We live on a planet with differing ideo- I enjoyed the balanced review of Robert logical factions. Although the idea of Heinlein's Expanded Universe in the April working together for the common good is a FDRURn In which the readers, editors, and cor- SOLARES will not. They are mistaken. (U.S: patent respondents discuss topics 4,151,431). arising out SOLARES mirrors can illuminate moon I believe of Omni and that the source of energy for theories and speculation of mining operations, concentrate solar the general interest are brought machine is- something worth forth. The energy in space furnaces to process ore, consideration by even views published are not necessarily those and the most hardened concentrate heat to run turbines to skeptic. Think about it; of the editors. Letters for publication produce two doughnut- electricity. shaped, should be mailed to Ornni Forum, permanent magnets with a metal Omni It is time for a strong dose of economic rod through the middle, with Magazine. 909 Thud Avenue New York like poles realism and political savvy in the NY 10022. facing, and thereby repelling, each other. space-interest communitv. lis time to The rod will be held up straight, support and one SOLARES. nagrciwi,' Support for SO LARES be held suspended in Max Gordon Phillips air, by magnetic repulsion I read with keen interest Douglas alone. Sunnyvale', Calit. Coiligan's interview with Peter Glaser Dave Martell [April 1981 Bay City, Mich. ] on the subject of the Solar Correction Power Satellite. Unfor'anatciy the botiom In Omni's May 1981 issue [ noted. a repro- Dr. Paul iine on the SPS is Nahin, an associate professor of that it costs too much. duction of a painting by Rene Magritte, electrical engineering, But (here is an replies : I have read alternative space-based- ope half on page Sb ant; the other half on the material system with even more energy-generating on the "permanent magnet page 87 ["Renl-a-Conscience"]. This motor" as carefully as I potenlial than : can read any SPS and with a substantially pahnrg s none other than Deca/- patent, lower price tag than SPS's. and I have several reactions: This system is - (1) comanie. I deplore the reproduction of this SOLARES, The conseivaticn oi energy is such a basic developed primarily by- Dr. work of art in pieces and without proper cornerstone Kenneth Billman. of physics that it's going to W at NASA-Ames credit or copyright. take more than a few Research Facility, in Mountain View, claims to shake my Also, this 1966, oil'on-canvas, 31 x W faith in it. (2) The inventor California. Studies conducted at Ames is careful never 39%" painting was stolen from the from 1977 through 1979 show SOLARES to claim perpetual motion in his patent to Brussels home of its owners, Professor be superior disclosure (the Patent Office has a policy to SPS in ail vital areas, and Mrs. C. Perelman. in August of 1979! of including capital investment requesting a working model to per unit of I would appreciate it if persons -having accompany power, total capitai investment, and any claims of perpetual information concerning this painting would busbar electric motion). (3) Physicists long ago energy cost in mills per contact gave up this office. looking kilowatt hour The studies show SOLARES for magnetic panicles line Harry Torczyner "magnetic monopole"). to be the only energy system that can be Maxwell's Attorney for the competitive Estate equations for the electromagnetic with the fossil-nuclear mix of field of Rene Magritte conspicuously lack energy sources by the 1990s. such a particle. If they 521 Fifth Avenue had one, The SOLARES system consists we would have to explain why the of York, New NY 10017 equation? work so well extremely lightweight mirrors that reflect (they're even relativistically correct! sunlight onlo photovo'laic collectors on without the We would like to apologize for reproducing the ground. monopole particle. These lightweight mirrors are the painting Decalcomanie/n two parts. It As far as the primary reason why SOLARES costs the conversion of Science and is a single work and should be viewed as so much less than the SPS. Mechanics goes, a good fraud can easily Each of the 60 such. The correct credit for the painting is mislead the silicon-cell units in the SPS susceptible, Look at how Uri weighs as O seal coma n:e.. Dv Rene Magritte, Getter utter much as a Midway-class aircraft made fools out of supposedly copyright by A. D.A.G.P., Paris, 1981. Also, intelligent carher-55,000tons. scientists, and all he had to By contrast, the he credit for do the; painting on page 26 was cheat entire space component of SOLARES, at bending spoons. [Mind, May 1981 ]should read Le Mois des which puts out nearly three times as much- Vendanges, by Rene Meannc. copyright power as SPS, weighs only We Stand Corrected? as much as by A.D.A.G.P, Paris, 1981. -Ed. i just received my of one of the 60 SPS units. Recent studies copy Omni. To my have also shown surprise, I found this very nice article that SOLARES puts out Perpetual Search that for Perpetual Motion Allan Maurer wrote 200 times as much power as the SPS, per James about Jake Men- Randi's Last Word [May 1981 delssohn unit of orbiting mass. ] and Robot Eggs [Continuum, mentions the refusal of the Stanford May 1981 Most space-development enthusiasts ]. Unfortunately the article con- Research Institute to investigate a favor the SPS tained some mistakes. The over SOLARES because perpetual-motion greatest of machine thai was these was the they believe the SPS will provide statement that Jake was energy endorsed by Science and Mechanics for both founder of Intergalactic Robot Earth and space, and that magazine Eggs, Inc. I and has even been patented the 12 OMNI am founder, not Jake. In the Robot Egg CONTINUED ON PAGE TO ~HE VARMN EARTH By Karen Payne Orie L. is Ecologist Loucks proud evergreens that are yellow and brittle scientific pioneer, one of the first to apply of the self-sufficiency he's and plants that are dying." systems methods — a holistic approach- achieved with his little urban The is garden merely one link in a chain to environmental science. garden, In the 1960s he but lately the garden isn't healthy. reaction that begins with emissions thrown was the first "environmental systems Corn yield is way down. The cucumber into the air by the tall smokestacks of scientist" to testify against DDT. is dried patch up, yellow, dying too soon. coal-fired power plants. Slowly drifting Loucks thinks that the way to combat There is a greatly reduced yield of rasp- eastward, a cloud picks up pollutants low-level pollution is through what he calls berries, beans, and asparagus. Insect- from urban areas along the way In Illi- "the new Renaissance science," that is, eating birds, such as warblers and nut- nois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky the research that unifies the isolated scientific hatches, have left the area and aren't cloud's ozone destroys up to 15 percent of disciplines. Since the 1950s Loucks has around to help with pest control. the corn, wheat, and soybean crops. In the specialized in forestry, soils, atmospheric At the root of the trouble are the ozone Northeast sulfur nitrogen and compounds sciences, and botany-all the tools and sulfur compounds now widespread drop out of the cloud as acid dust or acid needed to trace toxic substances through over the Northeast and the Midwest. The rain, damaging wallpaper, paintings, and the air and soil to their harmful effects on garden is slowly being killed by low-level clothes, and converting lakes and streams living organisms. pollution. Loucks, science director of the into vinegary fish graveyards. Collaborating with experts in univer- Institute of Ecology (TIE), considers this "These subtle stresses , have become sities, government, and industry, TIE the major environmental challenge of the almost a way of life now," Loucks says. coordinates interdisciplinary sciences in 1980s. Environmentalists of the 1960s and "It is different from the ' environmental the study of stressed ecosystems. "With 1970s wrestled over toxic and radioactive problems of the 1 970s, Then solutions this holistic approach, and by working "hot spots." But today low-level pollutants could be identified and people could within an invisible college that spans large are "warming" vast geographical regions. commit themselves to persuading society areas," Loucks explains, "we can work In his garden, Loucks laments the to embrace proposed solutions. Much of with modern science in the same way subtlety of the environmental effects: the population seems willing to live with Renaissance thinkers dealt with the "What makes me saddest of all is that the warming trend to let and their kids whole body of science in their time." people get to think this is how cucumbers solve the problem." So far, Loucks says, society pays scant grow. In the cities, we've come to accept The Canadian-born Loucks is a rewards to those who cut across disci- plines and dedicate themselves to under- standing large bodies of relationships. "Scientists are rewarded for isolated breakthroughs," he says, "not for inte- grated findings. But as people begin to understand the implications of en- vironmental disruption, the long-term view will become increasingly important. Once more integrated findings are known, our environmental choices may change." The danger of conventional problem solving is illustrated by the 1960s solution to urban traffic problems: building freeways. With freeways In place, more cars traveled to downtown areas. New parking garages had to be built, leaving less space for stores and reducing the number of downtown shoppers. Loucks fears that such problem solving, without regard for consequences, is pushing us to use coal for its cheap energy A recent TIE study of the Ohio River valley demonstrates the danger of our shortsighted rush to coal. The total crop loss caused by coal-fired power-plant For the 1980s, ecologists forecast a pollutant warming trend," crippling U.S. crop production emissions Is expected to exceed $3 billion 11 OMNI RAGE 109 ISTICULAR THREAT By Raymond M. Lane and Shirley M. Nagelschmidt no apparent reason there has college-educated professionals have four men who wear tighter-fitting underwear. Forbeen a nearly 70 percent rise in times as much a chance of developing it Ten years ago testicular cancer was one cancer of the testicles in the as laborers do. Tall, thin Caucasian men of the rarest cancers United and one of the most States since 1972. seem especially susceptible; nonwhite fatal kinds. Surgery and drugs have made Compared to lung or breast cancer, men almost never develop it whatever their ' itoneofthe most testicular curable. Once the cancer is still quite rare. Of the class or occupation. cancer is confirmed, the cancerous 403,000 estimated new cases of cancer No one has been able to explain the testicle is removed and is closely among American men this year, only about increases in testicular cancer, why it examined by a pathologist. A plan of 5,200 will involve the testes. But it is now occurs in some men but not others, or, for radiation and/or the drug therapy is then most common tumor in men from the that matter, why or how the cancer devel- devised for the patient. ages of twenty to thirty-four, causing 13 ops. American scientists have learned that Most who have undergone the surgery percent of all cancer deaths in this group. men born with an undescended testicle can even maintain an active sex life. Even more disturbing, the incidence of suffer up to 40 times greater risk than the Fertility may be reduced by the loss of the disease seems to be growing. The general male population. But while this a testicle, but American those who want to have Cancer Society expects 200 group has become more numerous in children later on often bank their sperm more cases this year than last. recent years, the cause of their high before the operation. The same trend can be seen in Great .vulnerability remains a mystery. As in breast cancer, early detection Britain. There were and 762 cases of testicular Doctors say testicular cancer is not treatment are crucial. "Unfortunately, cancer there in 1 975, the last year for caused by venereal disease, sports ' public ignorance of the disease is over- which figures are available. Ten years injuries, or even vigorous sexual activity. whelming," says Dr Marc earlier onfy 493 cases were B. Garnick, detected. The Some Danish researchers suspect that the of the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute of increase appears to be continuing, espe- increase is caused by jockey shorts or Harvard Medical cially School. "There's a among males from fifteen to bikini briefs, which may press the scrotal startling lack of awareness even thirty-four years old. among sac too close to the body's heat. They're physicians. No one Testicular seems to give a damn cancer is most common trying to determine whether men who wear about male sexual health, among white middle- and upper-class loose-fitting boxer shorts, or none at all. "By comparison, this society is perfectly men. One recent study found that young. have a lower incidence of cancer than at ease talking about breast cancer in women. We put up billboards on it, train girts still in pigtails in how to check their breasts, and find the topic sooner or later in every newspaper and magazine and on every in TV show the country. I hardly mean to criticize this growing public awareness of breast cancer— it is an essen- tial tool in fighting the disease — but if people are mature enough to talk freely about breast cancer then we are ready for men to do something just as important for themselves." Because there is no early pain or dis- comfort, self-examination is the key to detecting testicular cancer early At first, the cancer manifests itself as a pea-sized or larger bump on one of the testicles. Though it rarefy affecls both glands, the tumor can spread into the body, notably the abdomen or the lungs, and eventually cause death. The best time to make the examination is after a warm shower or bath, when the scrotum is relaxed. The normal testicle is smooth, egg-shaped, and somewhat firm. Testicular cancer (magnified 500 limes) has aged twenty to thirty -four Underneath the testis is a that 16 OMNI tube carries CONTINUED ON PAGE 123 1TWAS.WORTHIT" By Ben Bova the early morning sunlight thousands launch from the Kennedy Space Center? line against the base of the distant Inof us searched the empty sky, waiting in The loudspeakers that NASA had set up mountains: thousands of visitors, the desert like religious pilgrims, waiting for the visitors awaiting Columbia's return glittering in the sunlight with cameras for a sign from above. were silent for long, agonizing moments. and binoculars around their necks, America's space shuttle Columbia had Then, abruptly, the morning air was Columbia announced her arrival over reeniered the atmosphere, halfway across shattered by the voice of the mission Edwards Air Force Base by a double clap the world, and was going through radio controller in Houston: of thunder, like a goddess coming out of blackout— bathed in a sheath of air so hot "We have fix radar on you, Columbia. the sky to visit her worshipers. The sonic that radio waves could not penetrate it. You're looking No good." boom rang across the Mojave and pulled one spoke much, out there on the desert Young's reply was drowned out by the another cheer from the vast crowd. at Edwards Air Force Base, next to the cheers of thousands. Mission control: "Columbia, you're seven-mile-long dry lake bed. We all knew "Columbia," mission control reported, coming right down the track. The tracking that this was the critical time, the real test "we 1 show you at 51 K [1 51 ,000 feet al- data, map data, and preplan trajectory are of Columbia , her reentry-heat-shleld tiles, titude] now, 8.4 Mach, looking good." all one line on our plot boards here." and her two-man crew. "What a way to come to California!" We knew Columbia was overhead, but She had been launched two days ear- Crippen exulted. we could not see her. At an altitude of more lier, after years of delays and frustrations. • The pilgrims on the desert expanse than 40,000 feet, she was an invisible Launched, by happenstance, exactly on surged expectantly now By the tens of speck in the bright blue California sky. But the twentieth anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's thousands they had come, in campers, in we strained our eyes anyway, searching, ' pioneering one-orbit spaceflight. The buses, in limousines, in dust-covered glancing at the maps NASA had provided spaceship and the two astronauts piloting family cars. Children, grandparents. to show the long, sweeping course the her, John Young and Robert Crippen. had businessmen, pensioners, college kids spaceship was taking out over the dry performed magnificently so far. But those — most of them had come out to the lake, peeking every few seconds at the heat-shield tiles were a questionable item. desert the night before and camped out television sels that had been positioned Had really they stayed put on Columbia's while waiting for the return of first the around the visitors' area. High up in that underside, or had significant numbers of space shuttle. Across the dry lake from crystalline, cloudless sky we could see the them peeled off during the thundering where stood, we we could see a long, dark thin white scratches of vapor trails from the T-38 chase planes that were ushering Columbia earthward. And then we saw her! A speck of white coming in low over the distant, bluish blur of mountains, the word made flesh— and metal, She grew before our widening eyes into a stately machine with wings, seem- ingly suspended above the shimmer- ing floor of the ancient lake. She was coming in nose-high, regally, her wheels down, her white flanks agleam in the sunlight. A puff of dust as the wheels touched the landing strip. "Welcome home, Columbia ."1 mission control said for all of us. "Beautiful!" And she was. We screamed, We laughed. We shouted and hugged one another in our joy. People wept. Some danced. Some made a brief, silent prayer of thanksgiving. At the controls of the world's first true spaceship, Young quipped coolly, "Do you want us to take it up to the hangar?" Mission control; "You got a lot of people smiling back here. Good to have you back." Columbia; America' achievement will set oft incendiary budgetary discussions on Capitol Hill. Astronaut Crippen: "This is really the 18 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 114 RESURRECTION ruiiruD By Robert Kail thought Everyone Lisa would die. situation, to refer to the patient's reentering prognosis, the pajsnt's relatives reject him Her illness was supposed to be the world of the living after the relatives or and treat him as if he's dead. They may fatal; the chances of recovering family have written him off for dead." even sabotage medical from last-ditch treatments or drive brain surgery were slim. Patients with terminal diseases are now Ihe patient to suicidal attempts, And yet, through as in the application of new routinely snatched from death's grasp by Lisa's case. Parents reject or ignore their medical techniques, Lisa survived wonder drugs or advanced surgical tech- unimpaired children, Children abandon their parents. and went home. niques. When they return home, often Spouses leave each other But what she found there wasn't joy. following extended periods of hospi- "This syndrome "Damn you!" cursed is far more common her husband, Steve. talization, the families of these fortunate than one might think," David declares, "Why don't you drop dead? You're a patients treat them as if they should have "Millions of people every year suffer from walking zombie," After two weeks Lisa died. During the illness, family members life-threatening took illness. And they are all his advice and gobbled a handful go through the preparatory stages potential victims of of pain pills. the resurrection syn- of coping with death. The syndrome arises drome. It could even explain why so The story of Steve and Lisa is a com- when they experience anticipatory grief many elderly posite drawn are put away in old folks' from cases studied by Dr. too early. They accept their loved one's homes and why some people, Charles David, associate professor including of death as a fact and suffer ihe tumultuous children, are put away in menial psychiatry at Dalhousie University institu- Medi- emotions this resignation carries with it. tions or state homes for their whole lives. cal School, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It Then, when a new or experimental it's a way for the family to bury is an example of a social them while new syndrome procedure is trotted out at the last minute they're still living," caused by rapid advancements in clinical to save the patient, family members go David suggests science that that some denial is have outstripped' our ability to into a complex form of shock. They resent normal and healthy cope with them. during the dying the suffering they have endured need- process- a gentle refusal to believe that "Modern medicine," Dr. David states, lessly, and they feel guilty about the resent- "has the patient will actually die. This denial brought us miraculous cures, but it ment. The result is anger and dental of provides also has brought a measure of hope that sustains us resurrection of the their resurrected dear one. who by patients and families through dead syndrome. Resurrection means the painful cheating death has, in a sense, also anticipation of loss. But the people most the coming back to life after death. cheated them of their grief. At this point, susceptible "Resurrection to the resurrection syndrome, of the dead is used, in this David says, after the turnaround in David believes, don't have as much capacity for denial. They bury them- selves in pessimism. "It's important that the families under- stand the implications of the illness. And It's very important that the doctor convey a sense of hope." For physicians, encouraging hope in what may be a hopeless case is con- troversial. Do they ease the family's pain and prepare them for impending death, or do they raise false hopes for a barely possible breakthrough cure? There's no simple, black-and-white answer. It demands ihe highest interpersonal communications skills. More important, the situation emphasizes the powerful effect that hope can have on people. The resurrection syndrome is an extreme example of why believing in a positive future can be good for you. Problems tend to develop when people put either too much or too little faith in the future. The answer appears to be a balance of hope and a healthy understanding of future expectations.OQ THE ARTS By Jeff Rovin playing General Zod taught me any- is quite a different fellow. There is no tions of flight. "I was on a trampoline for Ifthing," says actor Terence Slamp of bombast or sizzling autocracy, only the hours every day, so that after I was rigged his role in Superman II, "it is that when quiet intensity of his alter ego. The on the set, I didn't you're creating just hang there, which special effects that involve British-born Stamp is one of the acting was the temptation. On a trampoline people flying, there's you no possible way to profession's most serious and selective can simulate the fact that the air is your avoid pain. This means either you have to artists. His screen credits include Billy new surrounding be very and get into a frame masochistic or you must love a Budd, The Collector, and Far from the of mind to fly" project whose shooting schedule offers Madding Crowd; onstage he has per- This preparation was vital, forty weeks of sheer physical Stamp agony. In my formed in plays as diverse as Dracula contends, since he is airborne during case, it was the latter. The two Superman and The Lady from the Sea . Yet nothing in much of Superman II, either films were personally very suspended gratifying," the actor's eclectic twenty-year career from wires or locked in a body mold — One would hardly expect such un- prepared him for the difficulty of making a solid cast grudging in which the performer is words from the Kryptonian Superman films. swooped and turned against prefilmed supervillain who comes to within a hair- Stamp had only a few scenes in the first aerial breadth footage. What he could not drill for of conquering Earth in this movie, being banished at the outset to the was the torment these methods caused. sequel to 1978's box-office powerhouse Phantom Zone as punishment for crimes Superman. "When you're flying," Stamp explains, Aided by those grueling but of sedition against Krypton. He returns for "every rigging that can possibly impressive special effects, be used Zod and fellow the sequel in grand fashion when Super- involves the whole body aliens Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and Non weight resting on man averts the atomic destruction of Paris something, somewhere. No matter how > (Jack O'Halloran) murder astronauts on a by deflecting a terrorist bomb into space. you lunar pad yourself, your weight is always mission, use their heat-vision to torch The blast rips open the Phantom Zone hitting something. an Earth community, It's just a question of decimate the army, and liberates the criminals, simultane- where you take the pain. If bring a president you're strapped to his knees, kidnap Lois ously burdening the performers with into a flying harness and dangling from Lane, and in a climactic battle with Super- the very real horror of having to fly. wires, it hurts between your legs and on man all but raze Metropolis in some of the Long before Superman It commenced the front of your pelvis. If you're in the body most spectacular footage ever filmed. shooting, Stamp spent weeks getting his mold, you take Off-camera, however, the pain in your chest. Not the almighty Zod body accustomed to the unique sensa- that you mind the pain during a take, because you're being afflicted for something worthwhile. But you are dressed over the harness or body mold so that it doesn't show, and then they take away your ladder, leaving you, literally, to hang around for hours while the crew sets up the shot. It's an ordeal that saps your energy and makes you irascible." This regimen was especially taxing for Stamp and for Christopher Reeve, since, as Zod and Superman, their every flying position had to be dramatic and self- assured. "It's an even greater strain to keep yourself in that sort of commanding posture, with your body straight and your legs rigid. Most of the weight falls upon the stomach muscles. The only comparable exercise I can think of is holding a yoga pose, interminably" And then there were accidents. Stamp admits, "A number of people were injured by mishaps with the flight equipment. The only way to prevent them is to keep ex- traordinarily alert when you're flying. If a wire breaks and you're totally there, you've got a chance. You can roll on your back when you fall, or try to tumble toward your the science-fiction novels I like best are world, and he points to one event that almost mattress. But If your mind is wandering, as those with an allegory, I one that stumble made him feel as if he were living out a happened with a couple of people, you upon maybe months afterward. I don't science-fiction novel while filming the haven't a chance." really like it when the message is too Superman movies. Despite the aches and chafing it took apparent, as in Stranger in a Strange "There was an extraordinary harbinger to defy gravity, Stamp maintains that the Land, which is nevertheless an interesting associated with the project, one that anguish offered practical dividends. "In novel, I'm also fascinated by the different affected me deeply," Stamp recalls. "The my case it helped the performance by creative winds that seem to blow over minor planet Chiron was discovered in putting me in an absolutely vile mood, science-fiction writers from time to time, October of 1977 by astronomer Charles making me want to spread some of that more so than with mainstream writers. The T Kowal. This coincided with the com- suffering around. Also, [f you're playing Frank Herbert who wrote Dune is themat- mencement of shooting the first film, a villain, you have to bring an incredible ically very different from the man who and in terms of credibility it made that degree of consciousness to the part. If wrote The Dragon in the Sea some years remote world of Krypton seem more you watch films of Hitler for example, he earlier, and to some extent the latter Dune plausible to me. Even more significant clearly has a greater sense of presence novels. I think science-fiction authors are is the fact that the planetoid was named find than you in an ordinary soldier Zod keenly of aware change, and their writing after a centaur, a great teacher in Greek needed that kind of wicked charisma, .and reflects this. mythology As knowledge and hope are the concentration it took to dangle safely "Philosophy, too, is something I enjoy for' the legacy of Chiron, so they are also the in the air helped that. There was never a the much same reason. In fact, it is the legacy of Krypton. The sole surviving stray thought in my mind; as a result you subject that has helped me to recognize artifact of that planet is the green crystal know, just watching Zod, that this is a man an amusing but compelling parallel through which Superman speaks with his to whom accidents do not happen." between movies life. and If you watch a long-dead parents. It's a self-perpetuating of the One pleasures of observing film, you realize it's that a transient thing, source of energy and immortality, an ex- Stamp's performance is his ability to that only the light of the projector is ample of the ultimate power of science: make the power-mad Zod more than just constant. A person's life is also ever- wisdom, biology, and technology func- a posturing icon, which was no mean changing, a shadow play of flesh in tioning as one, as the neighbors they accomplishment. "Zod, like Superman, is transit, made perceptible by the light were always intended to be. unplayable really," the actor confesses. inside us. I won't label it 'the soul' or 'the "I also wondered whether, in a larger "He was a destructive force on Krypton, consciousness,' because of the way those sense, the discovery of Chiron might where he had the same power as every- terms have been made superficial by signify a new surge in human knowledge, one else. On Earth, with his expanded overuse, but that light is present when the same way that Pluto heralded a abilities, he really becomes the per- we're young and is with us as we grow. seismic era of learning: atomic power, the sonification of evil. But there is still a Whether the images before it are romantic growth of Freudianism. the astonishing man at the center of him, and I tried or terrifying or illuminating, it reveals them strides taken by the communications to define and relate to that. Zod was impartially for us to interpret just like a media, and so forth. It was a timely reachable to me when I thought of him as movie. I it think would be quite interesting moment in which to be shooting a a fire elemental, as all things that burn. So and fitting for our media-oriented society science-fiction film, and I hoped these what burns in me are what he is: anger, to evolve a philosophy or religion inspired abstractions would infuse the two movies ' fury greed, and envy He was always be- by the cinema. We already have our idols, and affect audiences on that same ing consumed, though there's very little the Brandos and the Hepburns; symbol- personal, philosophical level," actual demonstration from him— only this ism of this sort may be the philosophy Whether audiences have recognized incessant furnace. He seems alwaystobe of the future." these subtle substrata in Superman II or thinking of a way that he can tear off some- Fascinated though he is by abstrac- are merely responding to the film as the one's head and crap on it, particularly tions, Stamp describes himself as no less marvelous entertainment it is, they're in the scenes with Gene Hackman affected by what on goes in the real heading to the box office in record num- [repeating his role as Lex Luthor], bers. One result of this is that Stamp's "Zod is also very vain," Stamp confirms. following has swelled beyond its previous "Though he doesn't knowingly show it. cult appeal. The actor is of two opposite there are moments when it sneaks out, like minds regarding his newfound popularity. when he is confronted with a television "What pleases me is that people are camera for the first time and realizes that reacting to the character of Zod. Chris and there's a world audience. The staggering I agreed at the very beginning that it was power of the character is layered upon up to us to take this movie seriously, these very apparent areas of instability, however extreme certain aspects of it which gave him a handle for me and, I might have seemed to us. By fulfilling think, some dimension in the film." people's expectations, as we appear to Aside from the challenge of interpreting be, we have done our jobs and that is so arch a figure. Stamp was anxious to always a rewarding feeling." play Zod for another reason: to increase As for the negative aspects of his suc- his slim body of work in the science-fiction cess, Stamp sighs, "Well, I'm prepared genre. "Except for The Mind of Mr. Soames to be offered a lot more villains, I'll tell you [made in 1970], I have acted largely out- that. But what concerns me even more is side the realm of science fiction, although Superman III. It won't trouble me to play reading it is something of a hobby with Zod again, if the public is interested me. I totally identify withthese charac- enough for the producers to resurrect him. ters who are trying to gain a greater, With a good script, there is still a lot we more profound cognition of the universe can explore. There is, however, one thing in which they move." Stamp cites as his I would absolutely insist upon." favorite works of science fiction More Top billing? A love interest for Zod? The than Human, byTheodore Sturgeon, downfall of Superman? Frank Herbert'sOune, and Walter M. "No," says Stamp, utterly serious. "Only Miller's A Canticle forLeibowitz. 'As a rule, Stamp; "Zod, like Superman, is unplay that I remain on the ground a lot more. "00 26 OMNI THE ARTS By Scott Cohen merely coincidental that his name is cemetery in Rio de Janeiro; and even in wires, General Squire's method was It'sMuscio and he's chairman of the board the reptile house at the Bronx Zoo. Neil obsolete before he started. All changed when the fledgling at Muzak Corporation. Before coming to Armstrong heard Muzak before stepping that acquired in 1941 by William Muzak as president in 1966, Bing Muscio, onto the moon. company was of Benton and Bowles fame, for whose total musical background consists Muscio heard Muzak for the first lime Benton, £100,000. If was Benton who ex- of the operas on which he was brought up, the way most people of his generation about playing Sousa marches was the chief operating officer at Fedders did. "We went to a restaurant, and music perimented by during War II to see Corporation, an air-conditioner manu- was being played, but there weren't any in factories World whether it increased workers' productivity. facturer "I went from cool air to cool commercials," he recalls. "At the tables tents It did. Using more sophisticated pro- music" is how he puts it. were cards— we called, them table gramming, he discovered certain Muzak is cool, nonentertainment, — that showed the selection being played productivity in the functional music. Entertainment music is that night. At 8:02 it was 'Goodnight, music increased years well. Benton turned meant to be listened to; functional music is Irene.' At 8:02:45 it was something postwar as could tell Muzak to a nifty profit when he sold it to not. It's music you notice when it's not on else. I was wondering how they played on the Wrather Organization in 1957. Now and don't notice when it is. Muzak's got a exactly what was going to be TelePrompter, which scientific beat that stimulates work interest the radio, and then someone said that Muzak is owned by radio: it Muzak, Most of us in turn is owned by ITT. > while increasing muscular activity. It's it wasn't was came to Muzak in 1966, music to work to. thought of it as radio without commer- When Muscio Muzak scientifically More than 80 million people in 125 cials coming over the telephone, which-; his job was to make to Age. Muscio is a now countries around the world hear Muzak. It is how it began." attuned the Now contracting the kind of guy. Together with some industrial also is heard in the White House, where Muzak got its name by Kodak. Muzak was psychologists, M.D.'s. and Muzakolo- it was installed by President Eisenhower; words music and Squire, gists, he created the New Muzak. in the Pentagon, in the headquarters of invented by Major General George General Motors, Te.xaco, and the Bank of who pumped recorded music into better "What we attempt to do is mirror your productivity curve, so that at that point America, and in the Houston Astrodome; restaurants and the homes of wealthy your spirits are we try to bring in Lloyds' of London, Japanese police people by playing it piggyback on utility where down stimulating stations, and a 39-story high-rise lines. But since Marconi did this without them up. You have your most music around ten or eleven in the morning and at three in the afternoon. You take your uppers when you're down. We give you the uppers without worrying' about the prescriptions." According to Muzak engineers, when the average worker arrives on the job, he's in far better spirits than he is at around 10:30 a.m., when his energies are at the lowest. It picks up again around lunchtime and dissipates until 3:30 p.m., when it's at the day's lowest. Muzak is programmed. to counter these depressions by becoming increasingly stimulating inversely to the "workers' efficiency curve," moving from moderate to bright in the morning, restful around lunch, and brighter as the day goes on. By midnight the tunes are almost bouncy. "Muzak arranges, records, and produces all of its own music." says Muscio, who's pretty bright and bouncy himself, like the brass section around 1 1 p.m. "We claim to be specialists in the nonentertainment uses of music- psychological/physi- Same 80 million people listen ;.. Muzsk aaiiy, and its franchisers specialists in the CONTINUED ON PAGE 118 . THE ARTS By Jack Williamson n a clear day you can see to- The paperback advance on his new novel, fiction and to let his ideas run wild. As morrow. Maybe even the year The Number of the Beast, was 5500,000. Wells did, he ignores art for the sake of 2000. The New Worlds of Robert But Starship Troopers, though il earned his message in ways a professional editor A. Heinlein; Expanded Universe (Grosset him another Hugo, miffed his editor at would never permit. and Dunlap, $12.95; Ace. $8.95) clears Scribner's and touched off criticism that Scores of able new writers have the day It's a long view from a very special has never subsided. diversified science fiction enormously mountaintop. The real target, I suspect, is his Dar- since 1940, but Heinlein did much to "The make Manana Literary Society" was winian philosophy He sees evolution it what it is. Any writer might still find useful Heinlein's name tor the little group of still at work, selecting the fittest for sur- models in Heinlein's early work: his vigor writing friends who used to gather on vival. His fiction is about survivor types. and his clarity his strong imagination and Saturday evenings In his Hollywood home In the nonfiction he warns us of hazards his respect for fact, his quiet literary com- to sip dry sherry and discuss fiction, the and begs us to become survivors. petence, his fighting courage. future, sex, or whatever Heinlein was an Most people don't listen. They prefer This new book is a mix of fiction and inspiration to us then, and this big book something warmer: TV the largess of the prediction, some of it unforgettable, some is better than those evenings were. It's welfare state, the comforting notion of of it unsaleable when he wrote it. All of it is a whole weekend. special creation. Bishop Wilberforce tried, more or less unified by new comment and He's a quiet man. neat, reserved, very but failed, to demolish Darwinism in 1860. one strong theme: survival. Heinlein is sharp. Scrappy, too, though polite about it. William Jennings Bryan lost again in 1925 disturbed by the kind of future he sees. He likes ic : cha'lsnge s!se assumption at the Scopes monkey trial. For him, as it was for Wells, tomorrow is ' and stupid error but his military code Now the California creationists are back something real. Darwin had revealed life includes a very formal sort of courtesy. in court. The new academic critics gen- as evolutionary process. Wells, extrapo- He was the most civilized person I had met. erally neglect or attack Heinlein. As lating the process into the future, invented Never arty, he claims to write for easy liberals or Marxists, they want softer futurology. Heinlein knows the art. money. Yet his plain style conceals an ex- answers than Darwinism gives. This book is filled with some of his most traordinary skill. Look at his opening for Another attack on Heinlein may be frightening forecasts. Five years before "Delilah and the Space Rigger": more valid. His novels often appear Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he foresaw "Sure, we had trouble building Space undisciplined, sometimes willful. He the horrors of nuclear war and the appalling Station One- but the trouble was people." seems to neglect the basics of good problem of nuclear disarmament. Forty His future world is there, factual and felt. years later a sane solution still eludes us. This easy-seeming art of making some far The critics call Heinlein an elitist and a tomorrow as familiar as today was new to militarist. Perhaps a Darwinian has to be the genre, and it made him an instant these things. If evolution operates through model (or serious science fiction. selection and survival, the elite are those Through the early 1940s— with time out who select themselves, and sometimes for research with the Navy during World they must do battle. That is Heinlein's War II — he was Campbell's top writer at . message. It is a humane message, more Astounding/Analog. After the war he bracing than gloomy. Starship Troopers, carried science fiction out of the pulps which set off the storm, does not praise and into the popular magazines and the violence. It's a blueprint for survival. It visual media. He began his long series pictures a state ruled by those who serve of juveniles forScribner's. it, in peace as well as in war, not by those They are my own favorites. Never who hope to live off it. condescending, these books ring true. This new book makes the message Generally optimistic, they dramatize the urgent. It's Heinlein himself, as close to an human expansion to the stars. The pro- autobiography as he's likely to come. In tagonists are young people, growing spite of the critics, it will be— and indeed up. finding their roles in human society deserves to be— another best seller. The This is the pattern of the "juvenile," as well pity is that those who need it most will as of James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist remain as a Young Man blind to it.OO Through most of the 1960s Heinlein led Jack Williamson has written severs! the pack. Stranger in a Strange Land science- fiction novels. His newes; bcr.y--. is The Human- (1961} made him the top seller he still is. oid Touch (Holt, Rinehart 6 Winston, 1980). 28 OMNI EXPLORMTIDRJS ByNickEngler ^^~ aluga is three hours from Moscow attitudes, took an \ interest in Tsiolkovsky's By many accounts, both Russian and l^^» by train, a rambling ride through theories. The aging schoolteacher was American, Korolev was unique as an I I birch forests and storybook vil- granted a pension and was encouraged to aerospace designer. His methods are lages. The city appears io be much like continue work in "cosmonautics." Before legend: Working under tight deadlines, many other stops: he a blend of wood and Tsiolkovsky's death in 1935, the Soviet would sometimes discard the formality of concrete and decidedly Russian. But on Union had an active rocketry program. blueprints. Instead he would bark precise a hill overlooking Kaluga rests a Vostok A few weeks after the celebration of his orders at the technicians who were rocket. Behind as- that towers a silvery dome. hundredth birthday in 1957, the first sembling the spacecraft, anticipating . This is one of the Soviet Union's proudest Sputnik was launched. design problems and solving them in monuments: the Tsiolkovsky Museum of The engineer who presided over this his head. Korolev died in 1966. having the History of the Cosmos. launching was Sergei Koroley known in designed three manned spacecraft— For someone from the West, a visit to the West as the USSR's Chief Designer, an Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz— the last the Tsiolkovsky Museum or to any of the ominous figure in the cold war. Korolev's of which isstill in use today. space-science memorials that dot the home in Moscow, like Tsiolkovsky's in The experimental results of Tsiol- offers USSR a revealing look at the Soviet Kaluga, is preserved as a dom-muzyei. kovsky's theories and Korolev's engi- Union's space program. Since the first Inside, it's filled with Korolev's lifework; neering are on display in many places Sputnik, we've dissecfed the reports models of manned and unmanned throughout the USSR. Not far from the of each new Soviet launch, anxiously spacecraft, remembrances from Korolev Home-Museum, at the end of the compared it with our own, and wondered cosmonauts (whom he called his "little tree-lined Avenue of the Cosmonauts, is what it might mean to us. There's no new eagles"), and a library of books about the towering Monument to Space Con- information to be gleaned here, perhaps, aeronautics and cosmonautics gathered querors. A bas-relief set in its base but if you look closely at (or just beyond) from all over the world. (One title that shows Lenin and the Russian people the displays of hardware and eulogies of catches a Westerner's eye is Guided looking forward to a future unfamiliar filled with the heroes, you can begin to sense Missiles, by the U.S. Air Force.) Hung on benefits of space technology Inside are what the Russians' accomplishments in the wall near a bust of Lenin, a back issue examples of that technology outer space mean to them. The events Of Pravda details another of his triumphs, But remembered the largest and most extensive by monuments, the dreams the first manned spaceflight. collection of Soviet aerospace hardware is enshrined in museums, are candid clues housed under the silvery 'dome in Kaluga. to the direction of a culture. The Tsiolkovsky Museum of the History of For Soviet citizens, Kaluga is where the Cosmos consists of two large halls. the Space Age began. One house in the The first presents a history of rocketry rocket's shadow, gray with white trim, and cosmonautics. Such familiar names plainer than most, was the home of Kon- as the Wright brothers, shown in their first stantin Tsiolkovsky, the Father of Rus- airplane, appear alongside names like sian space science. As a resident of Nikolai Kibalchich, who in 1881 built a Kaluga, Tsiolkovsky taught geometry and flying platform lifted by rockets. Unfor- physics and read Jules Verne in his leisure tunately, he also exploded a bomb under time. Verne's ideas so captivated him that the czar's carriage, which shortened Ki- he began to work out the mathematics of balchich's aeronautical career and partly spaceflight. He calculated orbits and explains his obscurity in the West. escape velocities enc p-oposed ways to The second hall shows the end result attain them. Tsiolkovsky's manuscripts are of this history: Yuri Gagarin's Vostok 1, on display amid the rustic furnishings of a Soyuz space capsule, the Mars, Venera, his home. Though he wrote many of his and Luna landers. High overhead hang works before the turn of the century he scientific satellites from the Cosmos describes with uncanny accuracy the series. There is a proud display of the future of space technology: multistage Apollo/Soyuz test project (though here, rockets, spacecraft operating on solar quite understandably, it's oilled as power, and the artificial Sputnik. Soyuz/Apolio), along with several gifts Czarist Russia ignored Tsiolkovsky. His from NASA and the Smithsonian Insti- visions might/have withered in Kaluga. tution. Taking up one vast wall is a rep- But In the 1920s Lenin's new Bolshevik resentation of the cosmos. Earth, and government, anxious to adopt progressive the planets, showing the paths and orbits 30 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 120 HOAX. UFD UPDATE By James Oberg question of hoaxes presents One particular experiment was But no one seemed to notice (and no Thean interesting aspect of the UFO performed on the evening of March 28, one even interviewed the photographer). phenomenon. It can test the 1970, while a group ot British UFO enthu- After two months of study by top UFO adequacy of UFO investigations and siasts near Warminster, in Wiltshire, experts in Europe, the photographs were measure the powerful "will to believe" of were watching for UFOs that reportedly declared by Flying Saucer Review editor many UFO investigators and authors. Only frequent the region. Simpson installed a Charles Bowen to be "genuine beyond all when, and if, these lessons are fully appre- purple spotlight on a neighboring hill. As reasonable doubt." ciated will serious UFO investigators be it suddenly flashed on and off, a phony One consultant reported that "there is able to the escape suspicion that they "magnetic detector" sounded an alarm at nothing about these photographs that are often victimized, willingly or unwillingly. the observation site. An accomplice with suggests to me they have been faked in hoaxes. by a camera containing preexposed film any way whatsoever" English physicist I. David Simpson (which already showed UFO images) Ufologist Dr. Pierre Guerin, director of engineered very some revealing "UFO made several exposures of the horizon research at the Astrophysical Institute of controlled experiment" hoaxes several and then handed the camera— the film the French National Center for Scientitic years ago. According to his report pub- still inside— to a prominent UFO researcher. Research, reported that "there is no lished in the Spring 1980 issue of the Simpson prepared the hoax film so question that the object photographed Skeptical Inquirer, the tests "compared that the photographed direction and was the result of faking." known details of fabricated 'UFO' stimuli appearance of the "UFO" were grossly at An artist's impression of the UFO ap- with the issued statements of investi- odds with what observers actually beheld. peared on the cover of the July-August gators." In addition. Simpson wanted to He also saw to it that the first two pre- 1970 issue of Flying Saucer Review; it test the abilities of researchers UFO exposed frames (taken almost a year showed the "object" with an angular by leaving clues that could suggest earlier) showed background scenes diameter ten times too large (the experts a practical solution. The hoaxes "were significantly different from the two had computed that the flying saucer was designed to present substantial incon- subsequent real exposures (which of 60 feet long and 30 feet in diameter). sistencies thai would allow any moder- course did not show any UFO). This Eyewitness accounts described how the ately critical investigator to cast strong should have been evident even to UFO — purple, fringed with white, having suspicion on their authenticity." the least experienced investigator. a crimson light in the middle— hovered for a moment and then moved toward War- minster before stopping again. All estimates of direction and- duration were significantly erroneous, and the errors accumulated as time passed. (Later the object was described as giving off ultraviolet light and being surrounded by a "ruby-red halo.") Simpson's critique of the "investigation," which he allowed to continue for two and a half years before revealing the hoax, was devastating: "My experiences in the UFO field have shown that the investigative incompetence demonstrated by this particular experiment, far from being exceptional, is typical. . . . Occasionally individuals with relevant technical backgrounds become involved; it is disturbing to witness the abandonment of their mental disciplines and common sense. ... If ever there is subtle evidence suggesting extraterrestrial visitation, it is unlikely that it will be discovered by a typical ufologist." Some UFO hoaxes start out as Fac! or fantasy? This UFO photo from Pennsylvania type commonly a. impulsive pranks rather than as carefully 32 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 1'<* canjTiruuunn Edited by Dick Teresi FEMINISM AND THE BRAIN so long ago a prestigious psychology journal im- males at the visual, spatial right-brain side of life. But Witelson is hackles. "The people who are motmortalized this strange theory: Sex hormones exert clearly fearful of raising feminist mysterious effects on the balance between our upset by this are those who think males and females are the sympathetic (active) and parasympathetic (inhibi- same. It would be very surprising if they were the same." Barbara, anthropologist tory) nervous systems. Womanly estrogen, the article claimed, University of California, Santa Donald (avors the sympathetic nerves, and that explains why females Symons wanders even further into choppy waters: "I'd expect with nurtur- are so good at "simple, overlearned perceptual-motor skills," like parts of the brain — like those concerned sex and typing. Testosterone, the macho hormone, boosts parasym- ing—to be as different in men and women as their genitals." his theory of pathetic activity; so men are at their best with "perceptual- Anticipating feminist glares, he points out that 1981 Inter- restructuring tasks." Read: all higher intellectual functions. male-female mating strategies (see the March Omni That was in 1968, more than two millennia after Aristotle pon- view) is less flattering to the fickle, sensation-seeking male. dered whether women had souls and concluded they did not. Why should gender creep into our brains? Well, we've learned Since females consistently outshine males at verbal ability, the that the developing human fetus responds to its own sex hor- authors of the sympathetic/parasympathetic manifesto were mones early in uterine life, and that it is these hormones, not an forced to dump readin' and writin' into the simple-motor-skill XX or XY chromosome, that turn us into girls or boys by the time basket (penning Pride and Prejudice must have required exquis- we're born. And the prenatal chemicals don't just sculpt our brain. this ite manual dexterity, we assume). In that same year a male writer genitals. They also shape the We know because in are born wondered in print whether woman might be the missing link in female monkeys exposed to male hormones ulero evolution — midway, presumably,, between Java Man and a Green with masculinized genitals, and — here's where the brain comes Bay Packers fullback. in— they also act like males with their unladylike rough-and- with This is an old and sorry tale. In the days when women were tumble play. This sex-changeling behavior also happens believed to possess diminutive frontal lobes, articles surfaced hormone-treated rodents. And. yes, even with Homo sapiens. extolling these parts of the brain as the headquarters of human Girls born with a condition called adrenogenital syndrome-. are reason. Later, females turned out to be in no way unendowed in flesh-and-blood examples of the handiwork of sex hormones. the frontal-lobe department, and scientists shifted to the parietal Masculinized before birth by a hereditary chemical defect, these nowadays with lobes as the locus of all smarts. Today the notion that sex differ- girls are given a completely feminine appearance behavior betrays the ences lurk in our brains makes many a feminist cringe. And why surgery and cortisone injections. But their not? Mo matter what data are unearthed, brain research has had prenatal male-hormone influence on the brain, says medical a long, inglorious history of coming up with the same conclusion: psychologist John Money of Johns Hopkins University. Though expectations as other . sugar-and-spice . with the Men are superior, and women are . well, women. raised same turn out to Yet this is not a rallying call for an end to sex-linked brain American girls, adrenogenital girls nearly always be research. There are differences between the male and the hard-core tomboys, preferring rowdy sports to dolls, and dream- female brain. But because of brain research's male-chauvinist ing of careers rather than of Tupperware. past, some conscientious scientists are feeling a subtle but So how do we handle all these new data? We shouldn't use unmistakable pressure: Their work runs the risk of being judged them to shore up ancient male-supremacist doctrines. Neither sexist, even though they themselves may be feminists. should scientists be inhibited in their research by feminists fear- For instance, Sandra Witelson, a psychologist at McMaster ful of the results, for it will serve neither sex to deny the growing University, in Hamilton. Ontario, has observed that the sexes evidence of masculinity and femininity within the brain. After all, seem to make unequal use of the two halves of the brain: as UCLA neuroscientist Roger Gorsky put it, "I've always said the Females tend to shine at verbal, analytical left-hemisphere skills; brain is a sex organ anyway"- JUDITH B. HOOPER CDRjTiruuunn REAGAN'S JELLY eat candy when the Presi- the bases, have hardly Prototypes have been devel- BELLIES des flaunts if?" And the changed in 50 years. oped for all these products; American Society of Den- Things not may remain sc they were displayed to major Now another chapter in tistry for Children asked much longer. A the fracas Japanese leaguers during spring caused by Presi- Reagan to "go easy." sporting-goods firm, the training this year. dent Ranald Reagan's jelly For the savants, jelly bei- Mizuno Corporation, has bean habit: The American On the drawing board are some Medical Association has en- even more futuristic designs: dorsed the Chief Executive's a strike-zone sen- sor to distinguish automati- candy, saying it poses "no cally .. between a strike and a harm . in moderation." Philip L White, the AMA's bail, and an electronic foul line ioteil nutrition expert, said the a fair ball from a foul. Working candies contain sugar, corn in tandem with the syrup, dextrose, and corn- Japanese electronics in- dustry, Mizuno starch— all carbohydrates, a expects to produce basic dietary component. workable models during the White admitted that many coming year Mizuno has people already eat too many been demon- strating carbohydrates. But he noted its standard prod- ucts at spring training that the President eats "jelly bellies," which are about camps for the last five years. half Some the size of jelly beans. Each 400 pro ballplayers have already has only five to ten calories: switched to its Thus, eight or ten candies long-lasting soft-leather and jelly bellies: Flavoring in the daily will center as well as the shell - glove, which needs no add little lo one's and an endorsement from the American Medical Association. calorie intake. breaking in. This year's look at the future of baseball The AMA endorsement lies are more expensive than taken a new look at old pleases the candy indus- equipment was unveiled as jelly beans, with flavoring in products and come up try—jelly bean sales part of the Japanese com- are the soft center as well as in with some new designs. pany's booming — but it $3 million R&D displeases the shell. Often sold in Start with its clear plastic program, some dental and nutrition gourmet — Dan Ross stores, they come in catcher's mask, which experts. "It's self-indicting three dozen flavors, includ- doesn't have to be flipped "We all live that the nation's largest med ing under the same cotton candy, tangerine, off when a catcher goes ical association makes a sky, but we don't all have the boysenberry, mango, baked after a pop-up. Or its six- same horizon." special effort to endorse apple, and cream soda. In a fingered glove that fits on candy," —Konrad Adenauer Michael Jacobson, published report, one den- either hand (perfect for head of the Center for Sci- tist, Dr. Leonard Weiss, of budget-cutting school dis- ence in the Public Interest, a Freehold, Mew Jersey, tricts). Or its electronic bat- nutrition group, charges. viewed the debate this way: ter's helmet, which broad- "When was the last time they "Frankly, I don't care, nor do I casts the manager's ii endorsed a nutritious food think the rest of the nation tions directly into the I like collard greens or cares, about what the Presi- ear, eliminating the chicken?" tt dent eats for treats." base coach's obfusc„„. The AMA counters that — Stuart Diamond Or its automatic warning any sugar-laden food, in- track: an outfield wired with cluding raisins, can cause FUTURE BASEBALL an alarm that cavities, goes off when and it urges candy a fielder approaches the eaters "to brush thoroughly If Ty Cobb were to come wall. Or its glove after with polar- consuming." White back life to and step onto a ized, see-through webbing calls Reagan's habit "innate- baseball diamond, he'd still to allow better viewing of fly ly human." Jacobson retorts, feel right at home, Baseball balls. Or its base that lights "How can you tell Mizuno's new polarized, kids not to gloves and shoes, and even up s when a runner touches it. through 36 OMNI fielder's glove. ANIMAL REVENGE and clearing of forests. are CRIME'S TIMELY ons in the twenty-first cen- forcing the birds to feed, in DEMISE tury, punishment would take For centuries Homo sa- the habitat that people have the form of having person- piens has been ravaging his created for themselves. One hundred years from al transport and communi- habitat. Now the world's Perhaps taking a cue from now the world's police forces cations systems shut off, animals are striking back. Alfred Hitchcock, some of the might well be superfluous, thereby imprisoning a crimi- In Cambridge, Maryland, most common spring birds last year seagulls dented — including robins, larks, cars by bombing a new grackles, and crows parking lot with oyster shells. — are on the attack. The lot had replaced their Individual insults also nests. Near the Japanese is- bring retribution. In Virginia a land of Iki dolphins forced prankster put an opossum in fishing boats back to port a public mailbox, and the after the crews had killed animal reacted by chewing 200 ot the. sea mammals. In up 40 letters. In Tokyo a crow Bangladesh 1,000 poison- became tangled in power ous vipers invaded a village. cables, electrocuting itself sending people rushing for but also causing a short cir- safety. A road crew had dis- cuit that halted 20 trains for turbed the snakes' nests. an hour. Each spring half a billion But some people are try- blackbirds cause damage ing to make amends. Last amounting to millions of dol- winter; for example, a woman lars by eating corn, grapes, from Kennebunk. Maine, and other crops, as well as persuaded Delta Airlines !o fly according to a report by two nal at home. The ultimate top English policemen who punishment would bea claim thai rapid advances in withdrawal of life-support technology will end crime as systems. we know it. Hellawell and Charles- Chief Superintendents worth also predict that infla- Keith Hellawell and Alan tion and devaluation will ruin Charlesworth claim that most people's commodities, people will do all their work thereby precluding theft. at home, using computers Personal weatth will be and closed-circuit television measured bytheamount so that they'll hardly ever of leisure time someone need to go outdoors and possesses. subject themselves to the At the end of the report, criminal element, And when Hellawell states, "Perhaps they do leave their homes, historians will see our pres- they'll be surveyed by scan- ent stage ol existence as a ning devices and orbiting very early development satellites that will spot any stage of technological criminal activities. man,"— John Glatt suburban and urban plants. a shivering robin all the way Those enterprising crimi- In Pennsylvania the sortie to Florida. —Stuart Diamond nals who do manage to "A Potpourri of Bullous caused $15 million in crop break the law despite such Eruptions" damage in 1979 alone. The "The crisis of today is the handicaps can expect se- — Title of paper delivered National Wildlife Federation joke o! tomorrow." vere penalties. The report at a dermatologists says drainage of wetlands -H. G. Wells forecasts that, with no pris- convention 37 " coruTiruuunn FERTILITRON occur during ovulation. Right On one level, Dr. Rozin the body by causing the now they have to take their says, the hot chili is part of face to sweat. A watch-sized device that temperature regularly during Mexican food's identity, what Also, Rozin suspects, the will tell a woman when she the period in question, read he calls traditional flavoring, kick of the hot pepper may can become pregnant is it, and so on." Beyond this, chili peppers trigger the release of en- being developed by a New Either instrument will sell are rich in vitamins A and C, dorphins— natural opiates in York firm. for about $100 apiece. otherwise not present in the the brain— into the system of Richard Lester, president — Allan Maurer Mexican diet to any signifi- the chili eater of intersonics, Inc., said the cant degree. They aid diges- Finally, Rozin points out still-to-be- tested device, "The enemies of the Future tion by stimulating gastric that Mexican cuisine has called the Fertilitron, would are a/ways the very nicest secretion and salivation and, one thing in common with monitor minute changes that people. in the torrid Mexican climate, others that use hot spices: It occur in a woman's body — Christopher Morley even help out in cooling off uses chili peppers to give when she ovulates. By some zip to otherwise bland pressing the back of the in- staples, — Douglas Cotligan sulated watch against her wrist, a woman would obtain KITE FREEDOM a reading from a microcircuit sensor. The Fertilitron would Many kites went up into flash a red or green light, in- the attic instead of into the forming her she is either fer- air after the publication of tile or infertile. several stories about the 'Apparently no one knows trouble some kite flyers got why, but a woman's body volt- into for allegedly flouting age changes slightly, as does Federal Aviation Administra- the polarity of the charge," tion (FAA) regulations. Lester said. "Accurate sen- Despite these stories., it's sors can detect this almost all right to fly a kite almost infinitesimal change. It's an anywhere. "All of those sto- automatic way of telling her ries are in error," said an FAA when she can become preg- spokesman. 'A sheriff in nant, and it would still give California arrested some kids herthetime." for flying kites near an While the Fertilitron is still HOT TAMALES airport, saying it's against being developed, Lester FAA regulations. It's not. said, another device invented There is more than what "FAA regulations don't by his company may be meets the palate when it prohibit a kid from flying a ready this year Called comes to spicy food prefer- normal kite for recreational Safetime, it is a tampon with ences, says one psycholo- purposes anywhere. Section a microprocessor sensor gist. Why some cuisines like 101 of the Federal Aviation that reads a woman's body- it hot is partly a matter of cul- Regulations applies to temperature change when ture and partly a matter of moored balloons and kites she ovulates. "It will let a biochemistry. weighing more than five woman know when she can- Fascinated by why any- pounds. Those can't be not become pregnant," one would deliberately eat flown in restricted areas Lester said. uncomfortably spicy food, without permission, higher The idea for both devices, Dr. Paul Rozin, chairman of than five hundred feet, or he noted, came from a con- the University of Pennsylva- less than five hundred feet versation he had with a nia's psychology depart- from the base of a cloud." gynecologist. "He said it ment, has been studying Large kites of this type also would be nice if women had cultural food preferences require bright lights if they a quick, automatic way to in general, and the chili pep- are flown at sunset or sun- monitor the changes that per in particular. rise.— Allan Maurer 38 OMNI a ENERGY-INTENSIVE He added that the 30 million bushes, resembles the Afri- tablish dominance over the LAWNS acres of U.S. lawns totals an can savannah, where some animal by training it to as- area the size ot Indiana— anthropologists place the sume submissive positions; An intensive study of tenth as large as all farmland origin of the human race. stay, sit, lie down, etc. lawns in Maryland has come under cultivation. — Stuart Diamond To solve other problems, up with a surprising result: It Falk, who has studied Voith may work with the ani- takes twice as much energy lawns for a decade, traces "The effort to understand the mal itself. For the nervous and resources to keep a typ- their proliferation to "afflu- universe is one of the very sheepdog she used the ical lawn green as it does to ence, technology, and con- few things that lilt human life classic desensitizing grow farm crops, such as spicuous consumption" in a little above the level of methods developed to treat corn and tobacco. the last 100 years. Advances farce and give it some of the human phobias. She played John Falk, a scientist at in farm technology liberated grace of tragedy." progressively louder record- Ihe Smithsonian's Chesa- soil for other uses. And sci- —Steven Weinberg ings, rewarding the dog for peake Bay Center for En- entists, spurred bythegolf vironmental Studies, found industry, developed grass PET NEUROSES that a well-kept lawn 1 1 me- strains that satisfied the aes- ters square requires 173,000 thetic desires of the bur- Dr. Victoria Voith has had calories of food equivalent in geoning middle class. a 90 percent success rate labor, water, fertilizer and But he also found that, in treating her-neurotic pa- other resources each year, though lawns for ihe masses tients, yet not one has said With half as much energy in are new, the desire for lawns so much as thanks— mostly the same space, a house- is ancient and has a place in because they're ail animals. hold could grow 150 pounds evolution. He said there is Dr. Voith is director of the of tomatoes, 87 pounds of evidence the hanging gar- Animal Behavior Clinic, part cucumbers, and 208 dens of Babylon were actu- of the University of Pennsyl- pounds of potatoes, accord- ally a lawn. The village green vania's Center for Interaction ing to government figures. was the traditional site of of Animals and Society, and "A lawn produces more tournaments and many cul- tor the past two years has new plant material each year tural events. The lawn's been working with people than a tall grass prairie or smoothly rolling contour, sur- (the clients) and their pets coniferous forest," Falk said. rounded by Ifees and (the patients) to solve the animals' behavior problems. The two most common neuroses are biting and eliminating when they are not supposed to. And there are other tolerating the noise each more peculiar problems, time, until she built up to the like the Old English sheep- real thing. : i dog that was terrified of Since roughly one fourth :hk^. thunderstorms and would of animals brought to local crash through closed win- pounds to be destroyed dows and glass doors at the each year are turned in first thunderclap. because of behavioral prob- Therapy usually consists lems, Dr. Alan Beck, the cen- of three one-hour sessions ter's director, points out that with as many of the family the clinic is a humane members participating as idea, — Douglas Colligan possible. One solution, in the case of a Doberman "Science clears the field on - pinscher that kept snarling which technology can at its owner, involved teach- build." ing the person how to rees- — Werner Heisenberg coruTiruuurui LAUGHING GAS hazards. The anesthesi- GRASSOHOL each year in incineration HAZARDS ologist's results indicate costs, because the utility that up to 12 out of every Florida A utility company does it free. Dentists Florida Power who are too lib- 1,000 dentists and their as- now burns oil worth $37 a and Light eral with laughing and its customers gas may sistants who have adminis- barrel and marijuana worth save more than $60,000 in be endangering their own tered more than 3,000 hours $220,000 a barrel. imported oil. health. And a lot of A Stanford University of laughing gas may suffer Florida Power and Light people don't get stoned. study of 42,000 dentists and neurological impairment. Company has agreed to take Ms. Linden dental assistants has said the utility found Sustained exposure to a few tons 600 of marijuana con- has received inquiries from that heavy dispensers of parts per million of laughing fiscated in that state each nitrous oxide are four times gas in the office air, however, year by the U.S. Customs more likely than its nonusers is far less damaging, Dr Service, shred it, and mix it to feel neurological after- Brodsky cautions, than the with oil at the utility's Port effects: numbness, muscle massive doses that night- Everglades generating sta- weakness, or tingling jitters, ly abusers absorb. tion. The drug produces Some earlier medical de- the Stanford And physi- power thai is then fed into tective work by San Fran- cian also emphasizes that the southern Florida cisco's Dr, Robert Layser on there's no cause for patients electrical grid. "laughing gas junkies," den- to worry unless they've been "It started out as a big tists who end each day with in the chair for more than joke," said utility spokes- long chuckles instead of dry 3,000 hours. In that case. woman Mary Ann Linden. martinis, prompted the mass they've got other problems. "People referred to it as investigation. But Brodsky does feel that grassohol. But we look at it Stanford's Dr. Jay Brodsky some dentists might stop as a service to the taxpayer began his recent huge study unwarranted use of nitrous We're happy to help as not as a dragnet tor laughing oxide in cleaning teeth, for muchas we'can." gas abuse but as an attempt example, and make sure And, in fact, the dope to assess the anesthetic's that their air scavengers are helps. At the first burn this more general occupational working. — David Monagan past January, five tons of Customs agents toad bales of marijuana, with a $3 million marijuana into power plant. street value, produced as much energy 13.66 as bar- power officials and legal au- rels of oil. The utility's en- thorities throughout the gineers calculated that 732 world who want to duplicate pounds of pot yields the en- the procedure. She said ergy in one barrel of oil. there is no pot smell, be- Thus, the January burn cause the power plant's packed enough energy to 400-foot stacks propel the power all of southern Florida smoke ten miles out over the for 4.4 seconds. On a yearly ocean. But U.S. Customs of- basis the 600 Ions of the ficial Mark McCormack had stuff confiscated will replace a warning for marijuana enough oil to power southern growers who claim they were Florida for 8.8 minutes. just growing their own Of course, for equivalent power; "We would consider energy, the marijuana costs that an illegal use. Marijuana $219,619.33 barrel, per but is not a legal product at this no one pays it except the point."— Stuart Diamond smugglers who had brought it in. The Customs Service, 7 hold that man is right who which for years struggled tc is most dosely in league with Does your dentist knock you into surreal giddiness with heavy hits find a suitable disposal thefuture." of laughing gas? As it turns out, the joke may be on him. method, now saves $25,000 — Henrik Ibsen 40 OMNI " KITE SAILS lieve that sophisticated kite vice (FWS) and the U.S. De- 1080 is still banned except sails, using modern aero- partment of Agriculture for research, the collar can't by livestock owners. Flying a kite may become dynamic principles and re- fUSDA) have been looking be used There are no restrictions a routine duty for erews of mote control, could add as for more selective weapons. and there large, oceangoing tankers. much as 40 percent to a Now they think Ihey've found on the Komondor, Professor Glen Schaefer ship's speed. two of them: a rubber collar are about 1 ,000 of them in doing and Keith Allsopp, of Cran- The two scientists have containing 1080 and a this country, most against coyotes. field Institute of Technology, used a 50-square-meter kite shaggy, 100-pound dog from guard duty In Hungary they're used to in England, calculate that to fow a 10-meter cabin Hungary, the Komondor from wolves. big ships could increase cruiser in the English Chan- (plural, Komondorok). guard sheep A collars are not put on survey of Komondor owners speed and save fuel if they nel— 77 years after the The sheep exper- were towed by vast kites, giv- Texas-born aviation pioneer the Komondorok but on a by the USDA's station in Dubois, ing auxiliary power to their Samuel Cody used a box small number of sheep or iment most give main engines-. goats in a herd. When a Idaho, shows that Shipowners bedeviled coyote bites any of these their dogs high marks. "There are dogs that are lit- by rising energy costs are livestock on the neck, which erally keeping people in the warming to the idea of rig- is its usual target when it at- says ging ships with masts and tacks, the rubber pouch con- livestock business," Jeffrey S. Green, of the sta- sails to save fuel. A Japa- taining 1080 is pierced and tion. Research at the Dubois nese, tanker rigged in this, the predator receives a lethal tested installation indicates thai for way is already undergoing dose. The FWS has the best results Komondorok her trials. the collar on Western ranch- Schaefer and Allsopp es with results that range should be raised with their Barbara Ford argue that masts and sails from fair to spectacular. clutter useful deck space "The collar is a sort of tool resort," E. "In the final analysis, and make ships roll, some- of last says Guy randomness, like beauty, is times dangerously. One so- Connolly, of the FWS. "You already in the eye of the beholder. lution is to do away with use ft when you've masts and transfer the tried everything else." Since —ft. W. Hamming sails up into the sky as Sailing snip: Pretty, but m diamond-shaped kites — as are bulky and dangerous. large as 3,000 square me- ters—made of tough new kite to low him across the materials at the end of Channel to France in a strong towing lines. four-meter-long dinghy. The kite should be more — G.lyn Jones effective the higher you fly it, because wind speed in- COYOTE DETERRENTS creases with altitude. Winds also veer with height: At Can collars and Komon- some altitudes the trade dorok keep coyotes away? winds blow in exactly the Coyotes usually dine on ro- opposite direction from dents, but occasionally a which they blow at sea level. coyote lakes a liking to lambs So increased energy, better or other livestock. Stability, and greater flexibil- Western farmers and ranch ity await the kite flyers, who ers fought the coyote with can probe the heights with bait laced with a poison pilot kites, to find a favorable called 1080 until 1972, when wind just as sailors once the use of the substance plumbed the depths of the was banned on federal sea with a lead. lands. Ever since then the Sheep models the latest poisonous rubber collar. Coyotes are in for Schaefer and Allsopp be- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser- a rude surprise when they go lor the necks of these animals. CDruTiruuunji AIR FORCE SHUTTLE orbit manned spaceship. SATELLITE TAX AUDIT as wine grapes, fruits, and Working independently, both grains. These images are The Air Force is already aerospace companies came The Chilean government later transmitted to a receiv- planning a second space up with a small, delta- has found a new use for ing station in Brazil. The shuttle, a smaller version winged vehicle with a pro- Landsat satellite images: magnetic tapes are for- that could take off like a jected lifetime of 500 to tax collection. warded to Canada for in- According to recent dis- terpretation and then are closures by the director of returned to Chile. Chile's National Revenue The Chilean tax men ex- Service, the satellite's re- pect to recover at least $200 mote sensing is being used million from undeclared to maintain surveillance on taxes in the agricultural sec- an area of some 650 square tor, and this will more than miles in one of Chile's richest cover the $200,000 annual agricultural regions. fee that a foreign country The authorities believe must pay the United States that farmers are evading for using the satellite. Direc- some S300 million in taxes tor Felipe lamarca also dis- each year. Agriculture repre- closed that the use of Land- sents nearly 10 percent of sat was pari of a pilot project the Chilean economy yet it currently being tested. If the accounts for only an esti- data supplied by the satel- mated 4 percent of total tax lite don't quite match the sf from the past: Subject revenues. readies himself for rocket-sled ride: Mow amount of taxes declared by ~g wants to use a simitar sled for launching a minishuttle. The sensors of Landsat 3 the farmers, special teams of cover the same spot more every investigators will be sent to conventional aircraft. 1.000 missions, versus the 18 days, photographing var- the area and severe sanc- Lt. Gen. Thomas Stafford. 100-mission life of NASA's ious crops, fields, and for- tions will be imposed on USAF (Retired), a former space shuttle. The Rockwell ests. The color-coded im- those caught cheating. deputy chief of staff, re- minishuttle would takeoff ages identify such crops — Antonio Huneeus cently told the Senate Armed from an ordinary runway, Services Subcommittee that using air-turborockets while the Air Force is "projecting still in the atmosphere. Boe- the shuttle from now to the ing would launch its space- year 2000. We are looking craft from a rocket sled. After down the road with a small the initial stages, both craft amount of research and de- would rely on advanced ver- velopment money at a reus- sions of the space shuttle's able space vehicle that is main engines to reach or- smaller than the shuttle, bital velocity and altitude-. will carry eight thousand to When can we look for this ten thousand pounds into newest addition to our space orbit, and could launch from fleet? Probably not much be- a standard air base." Colum- fore the year 2000. if then. bia carries a cargo of The Air Force wants to exam- 65,000 pounds, but it re- ine other alternatives and quires enormously complex study the possible usesfor launch-support facilities. such a vehicle. — Nick Engler The money that General Stafford mentioned went to 'Religions die when they are Boeing and Rockwell Inter- proved to be true. Science is national " to develop concepts the record of dead religions. for a single-stage Earth-to- | - Oscar Wilde 42 OMNI ; WHY DOES THE WORLD'S MOST INNOVATIVE SCIENCE MAGAZINE THINK SCIENCE FICTION IS SO IMPORTANT? BECAUSE FACT IS A PLACE FICTION HAS ALREADY BEEN. Sc ence ;s not facts it is perspective. It is not history, but the key to unlocking the door to tomorrow J ly 3 8 Toddy, the powerto conceive has become the power to croce. Tomorrow, our only boundaries will be the DMNI limits of imdginat ion. O'VNI reveals science as it -eally is: ideas harnessed to 'For Unrted Kingdom j the. needs of men, hopes becoming happenings. one year to 2Brarnbt I fiction becoming fact, 9 SubscrbetaOivN. explore living science I Mail the attached coupon with your payment today D Please exrend or renew my currer- subscription at the i ana receive c year of OV:Ni for $18— $6qffthe some low raTe. | newsstand price Or, for faster service, call ourtoli-free D Checker monev order enclosed American Express | number and charge your subscription oraer. Dal GVI5A D Mastercard I 1-800-331-1750 and ask for operator OP57. Acot # M I I Exp. Date _ Interbank #C 1 'Mos"e'caro on y) onnrui jr J.5..APO.FPOandL BECAUSE THERE'S NO COMPETITION FOR THE RIGHT IDEA. HIGH WIRE ACT Really cheap space transport won't use rockets; for that we need a cable car to the stars BY ROBERT L FORWARD AND HANS P MORAVEC t isn't going into space that has you reaching for the Drama- mine. Before NASA retired the shuttle, it had gotten to be almost routine. There's just some- thing about being dropped by the cargo plane in midair. Those moments of free fall before the cable catches you for the real trip to space are nerve-racking, not like being in orbit at ail. The loud metallic clashings don't help. The passenger capsule is being locked securely to the flatbed SST that will carry it to the edge of space; the streamlined fairings are being latched into place. It still sounds as if the cap- sule is being battered apart. At the front of the 20-meter-long capsule, the crew sit in their tiny control room; they won't have much to do until the transport plane falls away and they maneuver to meet the cable's grapple-craft when it drops in from space. Around you, the 29 other passengers in the full capsule sit and fidget. The Mach-3 trip to the space elevator is about to begin. It was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the Russian space pioneer, who first understood that mul- tistage rockets could carry us into space. Years after his death, this insight brought him fame as the Father of space travel. But few people remember Tsiolkovsky's second idea; Someday he said, we might erect a skyhook, a cable into space, and climb PAINTING BY DEAN ELLIS it as we would a beanstalk. Years later Yuri Each car would consume only a few dol- clubs, and the like. And the space shuttle's Artsutanov suggested that a shorter cable, lars' worth of electricity per kilogram — far main engines are extremely light because rotating around its midpoint, might hurl ob- less than the cost of rocket fuel, If a car they were built using graphite fibers wher- jects into space like David releasing a traveled beyond the central station in geo- ever the temperature would permit. stone with his sling. Now that we are accus- synchronous orbit, it-would be pulled along A crystalline graphite cable one centime- "~tomed to rockets, these concepts sound the cable by centrifugal force, like a skater ter square would weigh about 220 kilo- outlandish at best. Yet practical-minded at the end of a crack-the-whip. The cars grams per kilometer of length. A piece engineers are starting. to take a closer look would have to brake to keep from flying out nearly 1 ,000 kilometers long could support at them. too fast. If the brakes were used to turn a its own weight in Earth's gravity field. If the Trouble is, rockets are expensive and generator they could provide energy to cable were built with a taper, thicker at its wasteful. Most of their'fuel goes to prevent raise the next cable car. supporting end, it could be much longer. them from falling; relatively little actually And you would want to go out beyond the With a taper of ten to one, a graphite cable carries them farther from Earth. The space central station. As the cars climb, the ca- could be built all the way to synchronous shuttle is reusable, and so it cuts our ble's rotation would carry them horizontally orbit and beyond. equipment costs. Still, it uses up a lot of through space at ever higher velocities. An But for the moment we don't know how to fuel. For really cheap space transportation, object dropped from the cable during the weave large graphite cable with the we'll have to do away with rockets entirely. first few kilometers of the trip would fall strength of tiny whiskers. Today's graphite The skyhook, or the rotating space elevator, nearly straight to the surface. As the car- fibers are strong, but only one tenth as could be what replaces them. climbed higher, the impact point would strong as theory postulates. Even at that, Some 36,000 kilometers out, we have put migrate eastward. Dropped from 25,000 however, they are more than strong enough dozens of satellites into so-called geosyn- kilometers or beyond, the object would to build skyhooks on the moon and Mars. chronous orbit. At that distance, it takes a shoot past Earth's horizon and go into orbit. A skyhook for Mars would be far easier. satellite 24 hours to complete its orbit, At the central station, 36,000 kilometers Mars rotates nearly as quickly as Earth, exactly as long as it takes our planet to out, skyhook payloads could simply be once every 24.5 hours, but its gravity is less rotate underneath it. On Earth, it looks as than four tenths as strong as Earth's. A though the satellites stay fixed in the sky skyhook at Mars capabe of ifting 100 tons above the equator while the stars slowly would mass only 4,200 tons. Mars even pass from east to west. offers a 21-kilometer-high mountain, Mons Suppose one of those satellites carried a Pavonis, on the equator, and a small moon, lunar elevator cable-making machine. If the cable were * A space Deimos, in almost the right orbit to act as a strong enough to support its own weight, it could be built coui'lerweight. could extend all the way to the surface. For And the new version of the skyhook, the of plastics now in use. balance, the satellite would extrude anoth- space elevaton uses a much shorter cable er cable upward. The cables would be ta- It would weigh that should be still easier to build. The pered, thin at the ends and thicker near the only 3,700 tons and be space elevator rotates in orbit, the ends of satellite, to support the weight below and the cable touching down near Earth's sur- counteract the centrifugal force above. At able to lilt or face. One design calls for a cable 8.500 full length, the upper cable would kilometers its central portion be deliver a 100-ton payload long, circling , 110,000 kilometers long. the earth every 183 minutes, in an orbit every 20 minutes. 9 If the extrusion rates were carefully con- 4,250 kilometers high. trolled, the pull of the cables on the satellite The long cable would rotate once every would cancel out and the cable machine 122 minutes, like two spokes on a bicycle would remain in synchronous orbit. The wheel, with the imaginary rim rolling along bottom end would eventually be attached the surface below. Three times each orbit, to the ground, the outer end to a counter- floated out of the car to become synchro- once every 61 minutes, one end of the weight, probably a small asteroid. Gravity nous satellites. cable wouid touch down into the upper at- and centrifugal force would hold the cable But move still farther out: At the ballast mosphere. These entry points would be the exactly vertical. stone, the cable car would be 150,000 elevator's ports of departure. Theoretically that's all there is to a sky- kilometers from the center of the earth and The bodies involved are so large that the hook. But an Earth skyhook would be an moving horizontally at 11 kilometers per ends of the cable would seem to Come engineering marvel. Building the 36,000- second. Let go of the cable, and the ear- down nearly vertically, without wandering kilometer-long segment down to the planet now turned spacecraft — could coast all horizontally But there is more to it than a would be equivalent to- erecting a suspen- the way to Saturn on a minimum-energy rigid cable. Under maximum load, graphite sion bridge around the equator. To finish the orbit. The trip to all the nearer planets would could stretch by nearly 2 percent of its total section in five years would mean building be much quicker. length — about 80 kilometers for the section 20 kilometers of cable each and every day. It may be a long time before we can build of cable out to the midpoint. This means And to lift appreciable loads, say, 100 tons a skyhook here at Earth. The skyhook that a coupling vehicle could fly the cable's at a time, the skyhook would have to weigh would require an unusual material, some- end to the rendezvous ahead of its nominal 600,000 tons. thing both strong and light, Even the best touchdown time and delay its return to or- To get up the cable, we'd use electric steel would be too heavy for an Earth- bit. This would allow almost a full minute to cars. For smaller cables, they would climb based skyhook. But crystalline graphite meet the transport and to exchange cap- up the outside. For a greater carrying ca- could handle the load. In theory, it is 20 sules carrying cargo and passengers. pacity, we might arrange several cables in, times as strong as conventional steel, yet The three-touchdown space elevator say, a hollow square. The cars would then only one fourth as dense. A cable one cen- would need a taper of about 12 to 1 . A cable climb inside the structure like a standard timeter square with the strength of crystal- with a mass of only 7,500 tons could lift a elevator inside its shaft. To make their trip in line graphite whiskers could lift 210 tons 100-ton cargo into space, At touchdown, six hours or less, the cable cars would have here on Earth. the end of the cable would approach and to travel at 6,000 kilometers or more per Partially crystalline graphite fibers in leave Earth at 1.4 gravities— not comfort- hour. At that speed, rubbing or rolling con- plastic are the wonder material of aero- able, but a much gentler ride than as- tact would cause an instant catastrophe; space and sports-equipment manufactur- tronauts endure on the shuttle. the cars would ers. be propelled by magnetic Their high strength and low weight It would be even more practical on the levitation instead of by wheels. make them ideal for tennis rackets, golf moon. A lunar space elevator could be 46 OMNI made with materials like the superplastic Kevlar, which has about five times the strength to weight of steel, Keviar is now used in such products as bulletproof cloth- Y)u never forget ing, radial tires, and parachutes. A 3.700- to.n space elevator at the moon could lift and deposit 100 tons every 20 minutes, subjecting payloads to a maximum accel- yourfirstGirl. eration of only 0,66 gravity. Rotating space elevators could be used on any of the solar system's mogns. Jupi- ter's Ganymede and Saturn's Titan are larger than Earth's moon, but a Kevlar space elevator with a- taper of six to one could serve either of them. Spinning cables orbiting the sun be- tween the planets could act as shuttle points, cutting the travel time between any two places in the solar system. Instead of going slowly off to a distant planet on a path calculated to save -energy, the capsules would head at high speed to the nearest transfer cable. Approaching the cable, they would attach themselves to the point along the spinning thread that matches their approach velocity, then move along the cable to a point with the velocity needed for the next leg of their journey. After a short wait fpr the cable to rotate toward the departure point, the capsule would release itself from the cable, flying into space toward its goal. The trip would be free. The cable would slow a bit as its energy was carried off by Ihe disappearing capsule, then regain the speed when the capsule returned. As long as more mass dropped inward toward the sun than went out into space., the space elevator would need no energy source once it had been set in motion. Graphite fiber technology is developing so rapidly that a rotating space cable will soon be feasible. Shortly after that, we may be able to make cables strong enough to weave a stationary skyhook. Scientists are planning some shuttle experiments with tether cables up to 100 kilometers long. Alter that, longer cables will come. Some- day we may even see an international race to spin the first cable into space. Well beyond the 50-kilometer altitude that once separated airplane pilots from astronauts, the cargo plane releases its latches and drops away as the passenger capsule soars on. If anything goes wrong, the capsule's parachutes will get you safely back to Earth. Overhead, the grapple-craft at the end of the space elevator dives downward to rendezvous, its control jets flashing to position it for pickup in order to exchange an incoming capsule for yours. Carefully, taking their time, the crew at- tach the grapples to the lifting lugs atop the . passenger capsule, Upward acceleration slowly replaces free fall, and the weight comes back onto your belly— just in time. In half an hour you are 260 kilometers up and moving at 9 kilometers per second. The grapples release, and again you are in free fail. It will be 12 hours before you get to the moon. DO OMNI PROFILE The mandarin of subatomic experimentation can make or break a theory in less than five billionths of a second ^#lose your eyes ann think physicist. Chances are you sec Albert Einstein: rumpled sweater, saggy pants, double-domed forehead, distant gaze. This image of the ab- sent-minded theoretician today coexists with another breed of physicist: !he experimentalist, surrounded by the apparatus of his laboratory, who craves hard facts rather than airy speculations. Samuel C. C. Ting is the mandarin of modern experimental physics. His 15 /ears oi experiments rewrote textbooks and produced a new map of the subnu- clear world. In 1974, for instance. Ting performed a dazzlingly complex and daring experiment at Brookhaven Na- tional Laboratory, in Upton. New York. His work revealed the existence of an utterly unexpected particle, the J, which had no place in the accepted structure ;if the world. The experiment sent theorists rushing back to their black- boards. When the chalk dust settled, a r:ew model for the structure of matter emerged, with the J padicle as one of its r.ornerstones. Ting shows an uncanny ability to de- vise experiments that ratify or destroy fie constructs of theorists. He blazes traits through the confused, complex na2e of subatomic fragments where the differences between energy and matter PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN WHITE THE ONCE AND FUTURE TING BY BRUCE SCHECHTER . grow murky and time can run backward. tube. The inevitable head-on crash is ar- converted into another particle that con- Each of his experiments sends a thrill of ranged to occur inside Ting's experimental sists of a quark and an antiquark bound anticipation through the scientific world. apparatus, affectionately dubbed the together by a gluon. The particle lives Harvard University Nobel Prize winner M.ark-J by those who work the accelerator, briefly, then decays, throwing fragments Sheldon Glashow declares, "Frankly, ex- When these b'eams collide- with one everywhere. Sometimes these fragments perimental physics was prelly damned dull another, electrons sometimes bounce concentrate in two narrow jets, indicating for a number of years before Ting's experi- harmlessly off positrons. More often an that the parent particle had consisted of ment on the J." electron and a positron annihilate each two components. But what Ting and others So important was the J particle's discov- otherinaburstofenergythatcanreemerge at PETRA saw was somewhat different, ery that many physicists now refer to "Be- into different kinds of matter. Other mas- Mixed in with two jet events and other fore J" and 'After J" as historical eras. In sive, unstable particles may be created phenomena were very rare, three-jet 1976, only two years after he discovered only to decay, forming still more particles, events. The fragments of the decaying par- the J particle, Ting received the Nobel which in turn decay. tides arranged into three narrow prongs, Prize. He had just turned forty. All this is noted by the Mark-J as a flood pointed away from one another like the of particles BIG MONEY SMALL TARGET rushes by in about four bil- spokes of a Mercedes-Benz insignia, One lionths of a second (a light beam travels spoke was presumably caused by a quark, Sam Ting neatly dresses in conservative only 12 feet in that same time). Each event the second by an antiquark, and the third, blue business suits, white shirts, and ties must be sifted, recorded, and interpreted, smaller spoke by a gluon. . that sport regimental a stripe. No fuddy- It's like re-creating the : blueprints for a hand Ting exp air S t.nafihis is only one possi- duddy physicist he! You could easily mis- grenade after having observed only the ble interpretation. "I don't think you can take him for a successful Chinese busi- pattern of its exploding fragments. guarantee that in a few years there won't be nessman. And you wouldn't be totally That any of this is possible remains a a different explanation for this phenome- wrong, either, because at Ting's level ex- mor technological miracle, but Ting's ex- non." he says. In dealing with subatomic perimental physics is a multimillion-dollar periment at DESY is already posting s experimentation, he says, the explanations enterprise, a big business in its own right. one chooses derive from current mythol- There is someihing paradoxical about ogy. Einstein once said, "It is theory that the enormous expenditures of money and decides what we can observe," . manpower the gargantuan experimental Still, Ting is highly skeptical of theory and engines required for Ting's brand of mod- of theorists. He likes to remind us that ern physics. It is strange that such huge iSam Ting is a "theorists are useful people to talk to. As investments are required to study the most trailblazer through the long as you don't believe them, you'll be all minuscule workings of the universe, "ret right." physicists have long since accepted such compiex maze If it holds up, Ting's discovery of the reciprocity: the tinier the treasure, the big- of subatomic particles, gluon will be an event of first importance. ger the lock. This is' nature's way of guard- where energy There is even talk of another Nobel Prize. ing its dearest secrets. Vast amounts of The physicist is unimpressed with this, as energy, both human physical, matter and must be and grow . murky he is with most other theoretical specula- expended to break the lock, perhaps be- and time can tion. Besides, the discovery of the gluort cause we are not clever enough to pick it. would merely stretch be verification of what But the very best and cleverest locksmith of or run backward.^ theorists have been talking about for years. them all is Sam Ting, So what if it revolutionizes our understand- What does a high-energy physicist like ing of the world? For Ting, this is just busi- Ting actually do? The enterprise has been compared to a motion picture: a big- Some of his discoveries have been spe- budget project with years of planning and very impressive results. cial to him, though none more so than the dozens of experts involved, all working to Last summer, for example, the Ting con- first sighting of The J. When Ting begar express the vision of a single ' auteur "The i " red a stunning clue to the doing his experiments a decade ago, difference is," Ting quickly points out, "that fundamental binding force of nature, the. high-energy physics was still a relatively the motion picture is for entertainment, and power that holds all subnuclear particles modest enterprise. For instance, it took afterwards people forget about it. We hope together. According to current belief- cur- only four people to design, run and inter- that our experiments will have some lasting rent mythology as theorists like to say-all pret Ting's thesis experiment at the Univer- value." particles are composed of a few more fun- sity of California at Berkeley The basic A good example of Ting's work is his damenfal particles called quarks. Combi- ideas and goals then were the same as current experiment at the Deutsches Elek- nations of the five known types of quarks they are now, but the seals of contemporary tronen Synchrotron (DESY, pronounced cua'e the hundreds of subnuclear frag- experiments is vastly larger. daisy), in Hamburg, - Germany. It employs ments 'hat underpin the universe. zr~~ 57 physicists from all over the world, as There T0 CATCH A RAINDROP well _ are two experimental problems. as scores of technicians, and costs "in the First, no one has ever seen a free quark. When Ting went to Brookhaven National tens ol millions of dollars." And Ting's Plenty of evidence exists that quarks rattle Laboratory in 1972 with a proposal to do the group is the smallest, using the giant elec- around inside protons, but so far they have experiment that would win him the Nobel tron accelerator PETRA. at DESY resisted all attempts to be shaken free. Prize, he was greeted with open criticism . The purpose of Ting's DESY experiment ib of hold- The experiment, first of all, was very dtf- is to make careful observations of the trans- ing quarks together, and this brings us to ficult and expensive to perform Tim (ikes formations that matter and energy undergo the second problem. What is the force that to explain the complexity in the following in extreme laboratory conditions. Here new does the binding? Current mythology says way: "During the rainy season in a city like particles can be created, their internal that another particle, called the- gluon, Boston maybe ten billion drops fall structure in one examined, and. their interactive figuratively glues quarks together. It's a second. Say one of them is forces of a different measured. A high-energy beam of nice theory but " until Ting stepped forward, color. We had to find that drop electrons traveling at nearly the speed of there was hardly a shred of evidence The other criticism was more pointed light and another beam of positrons (an- 1 - l&e & Even if Ting could get his experiment timatter to twins of electrons) are run in When oppo- an election and -> oosi'.rcr collide, work, an eminent physicist pointed out it site directions down a narrow vacuum theory says, their energy is sometimes was worthless. Ting's experiment was de- 50 OMNI CONTINUEO ON PAGE 105 FICTION Her diplomatic mission was a pretense to get inside the Emperor's court THE PALACE AT MIDNIGHT BY ROBERT SILVERBERG Iheforeign minister of the Empire of San Francisco was trying to sleep late. Last night had been a long one, a party at the wild if not particularly gratifying Baths, too much to drink, too much to smoke, and he had seen the dawn come up like thunder out of Oakland 'crost the Bay. Now the telephone was ringing. He integrated the first couple of rings nicely into his dream, but the next one began to undermine his slum- ber, and the one after that woke him up. He groped for the receiver and, eyes still closed, managed to croak, "Christensen here." "Tom, are you awake? You don't sound awake. It's Marty, Tom. Wake up." The undersecretary for external affairs, Christensen sat up, rubbed his eyes, ran his tongue around his lips. Daylight was stream- ing into the room. His cats were glaring at him from the doorway. The little Siamese... pawed daintily at her empty bowl and looked PAINTING BY JEAN-PIERRE ALAUX a He fed the cats, showered, shaved, took splendor of the Claremont Hotel, that vast, a couple of pills, and brewed some coffee. antiquated survivor of all the cataclysms. It "I'm up! I'm up! What is it, Morty?" At half past two the ministry called. Nobody was seedy now, the grounds a jungle, ivy "I didn't mean to wake you. How was I had any idea what the ambassador might almost to the tops of the palm trees, and yet supposed to know, one in the afternoon—" want. Relations between San Francisco it still looked fit to be a palace, with hun- "What is it. Morty?" and the Republic of Monterey were cordial dreds of rooms and magnificent banquet "We got a call from Monterey. There's an just now Ms. Sawyer lived in Pacific Grove halls. Christensen wondered how often it ambassador on the way up, and you've got and was a member of the Monterey Senate; had guests. wasn't ' There much tourism to meet with her" -;, that was all that was known about her these days. The foreign minister worked hard at Some briefing, Christensen thought. In the parking plaza outside the entrance clearing the fog from his brain. He was He went downstairs to wait for his chauf- was a single car, a black-and-white Califor- thirty-nine years old, and all-night parties feur. It was a late autumn day. bright and nia Highway Patrol job that had took more been deco- out of him than they once had. clear and cool. The rains hadn't begun yet, rated with the insignia of the Republic of "You do it, Morty" and the streets looked dusty. The foreign Monterey, a contorted cypress tree and a "You know I would, Tom. But I can't. minister lived on Frederick Street, just off sea otter. A uniformed driver lounged You've got to handle this one yourself. It's Cole, in an old white Victorian with a small against it, looking bored. "I'm Christensen," prime." front porch. He settled in on the steps, feel- he told the man. "Prime? What kind of prime? You mean,- ing wide awake but surly, and afew minutes "You the foreign minister?" like a great dope deal? Or are they declar- before three his car came putt-putting up, a "I'm not the Emperor Norton." ing on war us?" venerable gray Chevrolet with the arms of "Come on. She's waiting in the bar." "How would I know the details? The call imperial San Francisco on its doors, The Ms. Sawyer stood up as he entered— came, in, and they it said was prime. Ms. driver was Vietnamese, or Thai. maybe slender, dark-haired woman of about thirty, Sawyer must confer with Mr. Christensen. It Christensen got in without a word, and off with cool, green eyes-and he flashed wouldn't her involve dope, Tom. And it can't be they went at an imperial velocity through a quick, professionally cordial smile, which war. either. Shit, why would Monterey want she returned just as professionally. He did to make war on us? They've only got ten not feel at all cordial. soldiers, I bet, unless they're drafting the "Senator Sawyer," he said. "I'm Tom Chicanos out of the Salinas calabozo, and " Christensen." besides — "Glad to know you." She pivoted and "All right." Christensen's head was buzz- '•These absurd little gestured toward the huge picture window ing. "Go easy on the chatter Okay? Where nations, with their wars that ran the length of the bar. "I just got here. am I supposed to meet her?" I've been admiring the view. It's "In Berkeley." and their alliances been years since I've been in the Bay Area." "You're kidding." and shifting confederations; He nodded. From the cocktail lounge "She won't come into city. the She thinks one it was like could see the slopes of Berkeley, the it's too dangerous over here." a game, bay the ruined bridges, the still-imposing "What do we do, kill ambassadors and it was like playground San Francisco skyline. Very nice. They took barbecue them? She'll be safe here, and politics. Except seats by the window, and he beckoned to a. she knows it." waiter, who brought them drinks. "Look. I talked to her. She thinks the city this time it was real. ^ "How was your drive up?" Christensen is too crazy She'll come as far as Berkeley asked. but that's it." "Mo problems. We got stopped for "Tell her to go to hell." " speeding in San Jose, I "Tom, Tom — but got out of it. They could see it was an official car, but Christensen sighed. "Where in Berkeley the virtually empty streets, down to Haight, they stopped us anyway." will she be?" eastward for a while, then onto Oak, up Van "The lousy bastards. They love to look "The Claremont, at half past four." Ness, past the palace, where at this mo- important." "Jesus," Christensen said. "How did you ment the Emperor Norton VII wasprobably "Things haven't been good between get me into this? All the way across to the taking his imperial nap, and along Post and Monterey and San Jose all year. They're East Bay to meet a lousy ambassador from then Market to the ferry slip. spoiling for trouble." Monterey! Let her come to San Francisco. The stump of the Bay Bridge glittered "I hadn't heard." Christensen said. This is the Empire, isn't it? They're only a magically against the sharp blue sky. A "We think they want to stinking annex Santa Cruz. republic. I Am supposed to swim small power cruiser was waiting for him. Naturally we can't put up with that. Santa over to Oakland every time an envoy shows Christensen was silent during the slow, dull Cruz is our buffer." up and wiggles a finger? Some bozo from voyage. A chill wind cut through the Golden He asked Fresno sharply, "Is that what you came says boo, and I have to haul my ass Gate and made him huddle into himself. He here for, to ask our help against San Jose?" out to the Valley, eh? Where does it stop? stared broodingly at the low, rounded East She stared at him in What kind surprise. "Are you in of clout do I have, anyway?" Bay hills, dry and brown from "Tom—" a long sum- a hurry. Mr. Christensen?" mer of drought, and thought about the "Not particularly" "I'm sorry. Morty. I don't feel like a god- permutations of fate that had transformed "You sound awfully impatient. We're still damned diplomat this morning." an adequate architect into the barely com- making preliminary conversation, having a "It isn't morning anymore. Tom. But I'd do petent foreign minister of this barely com- drink, two diplomats playing the diplomatic it for you if I could." petent little nation. The Empire of San Fran- game. Isn't that so?" "All right. All right. I didn't mean to yell at cisco, one of the early emperors had said, "Well?" you. You make the ferry arrangements." is the only country in history that was deca- "I was telling you what happened to me "Ferry leaves at three-thirty Chauffeur dent from the day it founded. was on the way north. In response to your ques- " will pick you up at your place at three, At the Berkeley marina Christensen told tion. Then I was filling okay?" you in on current the ferry skipper, "I don't know what time I'll political developments. I "Okay," didn't expect you Christensen said. "See if you can be coming back. So no sense waiting. I'll to snap at me like that." find out any more about all this, and have phone in when I'm ready to go." "Did I snap''" somebody call me back in an hour with a Another imperial car took him up the hill- "It certainly briefing, sounded like snapping to will you?" side to the sprawling nineteenth-century me," she said, with some annoyance. 54 OMNI Christensen lock a (leeo puil of his bour- bon-and- water and gave her a long, steady look. She met his gaze imperturbably. She looked composed, amused, and very, very tough. After a time, when some of the red haze of irrational anger- and fatigue had cleared from his mind, he said quietly, "I had about four hours' sleep last nigh!, and I wasn't expecting an envoy from Monterey today. I'm tired and edgy, and if I sounded impatient or harsh or snappish. I'm sorry." "It's all right. I understand." "Another bourbon or two and I'll be prop- erly unwound." He held his empty glass toward the hovering waiter. "A refill for you, too?" he asked her. "Yes. Please." In a formal tone she said, "Is the Emperor in good health?" "Not bad. He hasn't really been well for a couple of years, but he's holding his own. And President Morgan?" "Fine," she said. "Hunting wild boar in Big Sur Ihis week." "A nice life it must be. President of Mon- terey. I've always liked Monterey So much quieter and cleaner and more sensible down there than in San Francisco." "Too quiet.sometimes. I envy you the ex- citement here." "Yes, of course. The rapes, the mug- gings, the arson, the mass meetings; the " race wars, the — "Please." she said gently. He realized he had begun to rant. There was a throbbing behind his eyes. He worked to gain control of himself. "Did my voice get too loud?" "You must be terribly tired. Look, we can isn't confer in the morning, if you'd prefer. It spends a lot of that urgent. Suppose we have dinner and JACK DANIEL'S MILLER not talk politics at all, and get rooms here, " for type of grain and tomorrow after breakfast we can — time just waiting his "No," Christensen said, "My nerves are a to come in. little ragged, that's all, But I'll try to be more civil. And I'd rather not wait until tomorrow to find out what this is all about. Suppose What he needs is young, clean corn with you give me a precis of it now, and if it sounds too complicated, I'll sleep on it and no cracked cobs at a moisture count of under we can discuss it in detail tomorrow, Yes?" 'All right," She put her drink down and sat fourteen. And the surest way to get this kind quite still, as if arranging her thoughts. Ai length she said, "The Republic of Monterey is from farmers way off in Illinois. Of course, maintains close ties with the Free State of Mendocino. I understand that Mendocino he grumbles a bit when and the Empire broke off relations a little while back." these Illinois boys don't "A fishing dispute, nothing major." time. But they do "But you have no direct contact with them arrive on CHARCOAL right now. Therefore this should come as news to you. The Mendocino people have have a good distance to MELLOWED learned, and have communicated to our as as their representative there, that an invasion of come. And long San Francisco is imminent." stays to standard, Christensen blinked twice. "By whom?" corn up "The Realm of Wicca," she said. our miller will always be "Flying down from Oregon on their broomsticks?" waiting. "Please. I'm being serious." "Unless things have changed up there," Christensen said, "the Realm of Wicca is Tennessee Whiskey • 90 Proof Distilled and Bottled by aniel Distillery, 37352 nonviolent, like all the neopagan states. As Lent Motlow, Prop. Inc., Route 1, Lynchburg (Pop 361 lessee I farms Government. understand it. they tend their and Placed in the National Register of Historic Places by the i i States — 70 perceni of the earth's surface, sttc.n .-.... urvival depends on thin-skinned diving . Clad in fiberglass and foam on a titanium frame. tear bomb from the Atlantic off Spain and discovered vents spewing hot lava in the Pacific's •Rift. The embryonic JIM suit (' ' liiili&'j-jiSr1 t il l I li i»i>» idlii Bg JMftrSSiI I'll I i S1 JIM's first in the open as well as commercial interest, pioneer " 'Wishing Oceanic and Atmospheric permanent station above, a life-support boat pumps air through spheres. Air bubbles, trapped under plastic domes moored around the Hydrolab (left) lower the blood's nitrogen level for the eparing for emergent ..j're blind." Lip u caught between his the mirror. "You' incurably, and | iM sail. And the eyes: jewel-faceted~ "nsect's, glittering silver. osthetic eves that could show him in the latest fas : reflective body paint: a S| chrome- ai tears in gold/oranqe/tur blue-gray, showing bet..^. "There's nothing medical PAINTING BY HENRI ROUSSEAU a pattern in thai mode, and replaced two of sons or who had been isolated and had Now— a genius. Unique. Honored and the colors with heat paints. To normal vi- never developed it. And the records adored. And facing the worst of all fates, sion, the heat painls were merely a subtle showed in an amazing number of cases the loss of what made her what she was, in infrared haze; a transparent color unlike that when those low-T people were ex- "I have a reproduction of one of your ...anything '"seen" in normal range. to He made posed high-T procedures, especially works. Did I tell you that?" a few minor adjustments to the pattern and delicate medical procedures, those pro- "Yes," she said, nodding. "You men- his shut eyes. Holding his breath, he or- cedures failed. The mind rejected or disbe- tioned it. Mayflight in the Morning. One of dered the autovalet to spray, and he felt the lieved, and the body followed. Her prelimi- my earliest and best. What size is it?" warmth envelop him. Very goodl The pat- nary tests had not been promising. But he "I hold it in my hand." tern had been faithfully transferred. Only was the best, he'd never failed a patient it ... looked a little . . . incomplete. before. And he wouldn't fail this supremely He remembered his surromother bring- "Prosthetics," he repeated aloud, his important one. ing in the program, crooning. She had said mind still with his Very Important Patient. "What if the grafts fail to — take?" she that the artist would be recognized as a At his mental command, [he holo image asked, her ugly face, with the visual aug- genius, and she had been right. He re- a long added scarf in a complementary menters that made it even uglier, turned membered her inserting the program, wait- cotor. He experimented with various toward him. ing that fraction of a second while the ma- drapes, added a few hundred angstroms "We've discussed that," he replied. -'We'll chine constructed the artifact. The children to ( the shade, and nodded to himself. The have to go to the prosthetics, with a direct had surged forward, irresistibly drawn to- autovalet obediently dispensed a long strip mind interface." ward the strange concatenations of subtle of cloth. He held it up against himself, ap- Her hands clenched. He saw the effort curves and infinite interplays of color and proved the shade, and arranged it care- she needed to unclench them. "Yes." Her texture. But the first child to touch it had fully, with the neat movements of a man who voice was calm, but it was the calmness of jerked back as the piece sang with the splices living nerves. Some preferred to a thin net holding back an avalanche. gentlest tinkling voice. have it the autovalet dp all, but he felt the "We've discussed it. Do you really think "It's a multisense piece," the sur- results, when it to came actual synthetic romother had told them. "You feel it, you materials, were a little- artificial. look at it, and when you touch it, it sings. He ordered true image again and stiff- Here -" She programmed for two more ened his spine. He was ready. copies and passed them around so that The patient in was sitting the solarium, as there was a chorus of fairy voices. "I under- 6 an she always was when she was free of test- She was ugly stand the original had scent and taste, too. ing or therapy, her face turned toward the You it, genius, whose works of could lick but since it was made by sun she could no longer see except as the an off-worlder, whose sensory judgments art were revered palest blur— and not even that for much might be different from ours, those have longer. throughout the galaxy. been suppressed," She turned toward him as he ap- 'An off-worlder?" he had asked, reluc- And it was his proached, the rippling floor carrying him tantly passing the piece along (share- responsibility along with a barely perceptible hum. And to restore and-share) to his neighbor. One day he had despite the fine, downy white hair that cov- that genius so that promised himself, he would have one ' ered her face [and her body, too) he knew of those for his very own. And he had kept it could continue creating. ? that she knew what he was going to say. Her that promise. soft "Well. Doctor," was anticlimactic. "Yes. the artist was discovered by a He ordered a seat, and the floor formed group of missionaries and was brought one. He sat down before answering, "I have here, to be properly trained and to have her the results of the latest test."" works disseminated through our simul- "How much longer?" your artificial eyes will oo usable? Do you taneity projector And quite right, too, Such "Before the deterioration of the optic imagine that I will be able to continue my talent belongs to all worlds. Ironically, nerve .?" is complete and total? Between work, using dead. . She left the sen- though, thanks to the relativistic effects on twenty and thirty days." tence unfinished. the voyage— you do know about relativistic 'Ah!" A deep, shuddering sigh.- She took She was ugly, but she was a genius— time effects at almost the speed of light, the blow well; he had to admire her gallant genius whose works were revered, almost don't you, children? — while she was travel- spirit. He wondered whether she looked as worshiped, throughout the inhabited gal- ing from her world to ours, her own world ugly to her own people as she did to him, or axy. It Was his responsibility to restore that was- able to acquire both a simultaneity was her ugliness merely the product of a genius so that it could continue those projector of its own and technicians to ser- different world, a different culture? She was deathless creations of sublime art. He grit- vice it. But their loss is our gain." short and round, totally covered with the ted his teeth. "I assure you, if it comes to velvety, milk-white fur. She never that, used any you won't even be able to tell the "It sings soprano in that size," the genius kind of body paint. Her nose was broad, difference." who created it told him, as if he hadn't lying against her flat cheeks; the inside of "I will." That utter assurance that ge- heard thesong a thousand times. 'And do her nostrils, the lips, and the naked tips of niuses need to have now turned against you like what it sings?" the huge furred ears were black like an him— future. and her own "I will." "Yes . . . no," he admitted. "It makes me animal's, "Treat the patient as well as the problem," sad sometimes. I don't know why, and yet I "And the other possibilities?" she asked. one of his professors had been fond of can't keep my fingers off it, even though I "We'll try autotransplants first," told he saying. But how was he to treat this strange know its song is likely to make me sad." her patiently if as she hadn't heard it all a off-worlder who;;-;-;- precious eyes were de- She smiled, and her almost blind eyes dozen times before. "We'll control-clone teriorating daily? This primitive from a cul- looked at him and saw something else. new nerves and try to graft them in. It's a ture so degenerate that, had it not been for "When you understand the song, you'll un- tricky procedure all around. It can suc- luck and some determined missionaries, derstand what the difference is, and why I've it ceed. used successfully myself many she would have spent her entire life in the it's so important." times." You're the problem, he was think- wild, grubbing for roots, speaking in "We'll try the grafts first," he said firmly. ing. Many higfi-T- worlds had low-T en- grunts, fighting with every other member of Three times he painstakingly inserted claves, peopled with those who rejected her species she met except, of course, dur- and spliced the fragile nerves, then super- the for technology religious or other rea- ing the rutling season. . vised the slow recovery. And three times 64 OMNI i ON PAGE 90 . The chemist-turned- mystic who discovered LSD talks about the quarter of a milligram that changed his world forever irUTERV/IEUU n a gentle spring day in 1943 Dr. Albert Hofmann, an As it happened, he accidentally absorbed some of it through his eminent research scientist working in' his laboratory at the skin, and the peculiar genie of LSD-25 stepped forth unbidden in a Swiss pharmaceutical firm Sandoz, Ltd.. was stunned by daydream Hofmann knew he shouldn't be having. This was man's the unimaginable: a passage to another world But the terra nova first acid trip. Subsequent experiments by Hofmann and his San- that Dr. Hofmann discovered was within himself. And the route to It doz colleagues confirmed that the substance had an awesome was a fickle, obscure-sounding compound called lysergic acid power to sever the mind from its ego. dielhylamide, which neither he nor anyone else suspected as a But nothing Hofmann learned from his experimental illumina- trapdoor to the self's secret chambers. tions with LSD, psilocybin, and other hallucinogens could have It was the hope of lifesaving medicines, not artificial paradises, prepared him for what happened next. In 1963 he received a Harvard lecturer named Timothy Leary for 3.5 i that prompted Hofmann to turn to the study of the alkaloids of request from a ergot, a parasitic grain fungus or rust, in the early 1930s. The million doses of LSD and psilocybin. Though the request was | • common nucleus of these substances had been baptized lysergic denied, the chemist's vial had already spilled into the streets. The I acid. By isolating and synthesizing lysergic acid derivatives, Hof- result was a decade of chemical heavens and hells. affect his ! mann had developed the basis for crucial drugs to control post- How did the psychedelfcs he fathered 40 years ago ' partum bleeding and cerebral and circulatory disorders. But, in own life — and Western culture? Out of Hofmann's ruminations f 1938, one compound remained perplexing: LSD-25. Something come his book LSD- My Problem Child (McGraw-Hill, 1980) and ; about the drug drew the chemist back to it five years later. the following interview with Omni reporter David Monagan. . Omni: Many people may be puzzled why witch; my assistants features grew twisted leagues at Sandoz doubt the truth of what you would wriie a book about LSD now— I became very anxious because I didn't you were saying? it almost forty years since you discovered know whether I would be able to come Hofmann: Only wilh regard to the amount and a decade since its use, and presuma- back from this strange world. Because it of the drug, because nothing then existed - bly interest in it, peaked. was the first time. . . in pharmacology with effects at a fraction Hofmann: As a scientist, I was trained to Omni: Did you feel that you had left this of a milligram. But then Professor Rothlin. make experiments first and describe the world altogether? Or did you know anything the head of the pharmacological depart- results afterward. The Sixties were really a that would help you explain it; did you have ment, and two of his assistants decided to cultural experiment with LSD. I wailed to any knowledge of mescaline or of Saint An- check it out by taking only about a fourth of watch how it would all-turnout, how it would thony's Fire, when medieval townspeople what I had taken — 0.06 -milligram. They, end, how attitudes would evolve. My book were stricken with wild visions from ergot too, underwent impressive experiences. is an analysis of that experiment. fungus on their bread? Omni; Then you and others at Sandoz fol- Omni: Looking back, many people see Hofmann: I knew nothing about mescaline lowed wilh a series of controlled laboratory Timothy Leary as the personification of the then, and, though I had heard about hal- tests of LSD— tests you have said weren't LSD culture. You corresponded with him in lucinations and nervous disorders asso- very satisfactory. Why not? the Sixties and met him in Switzerland in ciated with Saint Anthony's Fire, nothing Hofmann: We used low doses — 0.05 mil- 1971 and 1973: As the Father of LSD, did I had read could have prepared me for what ligram—in a controlled setting with inter- you consider him your most charismatic I began seeing. The symptoms increased viewers. Rorschach tests, written explana- disciple, I or were, you wary of him? terribly until lost all sensation of my body. I tions of what we were going through. These Hofmann: I never could make out what he had the feeling that I was already dead, weren't especially meaningful experi- really intended. I had the feeling he was that my heartbeat had stopped, that I was ences, personally. I thought it would be naive: He was so enthusiastic about- LSD completely out of my body. more interesting to see how it would work in that he wanted to give it to everyone, even It was a terrifying experience because an artistic surrounding. to very young people. I told him, "No, give it there were my children and my wife to con- Omni: Did you feel that you not only had only to people who are prepared for it, who discovered a new area of scientific re- have strong, stable psychic, structures. search but had. also— through your per- Don't give it to young people." He said that sonal experiments— opened a door into American teen-agers are so experienced another world of individual experience? that they are like grown-ups in Europe. Hofmann: The whole thing started within 4l/Ve should have We did not agree about this at all. I had my normal work as a chemist. Then I be- the same argument with my friend Rudolf two lives — one in which we came interested in the matter of how reality, Gelpke, the Islamic scholar and drug re- the existing world or one's experience of it. take LSD and one searcher. Retold all his friends, "You must could be changed and broadened so take LSD." I never said that everyone in which we don't — to prove completely it. It I should take someone asked me, told I arranged to explore these things in a its effects. him exactly what LSD does, and I left it up nonlaboratory setting in 1951 with the I think that taking LSD it. to him to judge whether to take And I pharmacologist Herbert Knozett and the think the' writing I that's poinl of this book. together is German novelist Ernst Junger would say it' Omni: Could you tell us what that first mo- was the first truly psychedelic experience, a very deep experience.^ ment was like, when you discovered the though it was a low dose and didn't go very psychotropic effects of LSD-25? deep. But it was beautiful. I believed I was Hofmann: While working on ergot al- in North Africa among the Berber tribes. I kaloids in 1938, 1 first synthesized lysergic saw all these beautiful, exotic landscapes, acid diethylamide, but it didn't seem to oases, while a Mozart record played like produce any psychic effects when it was sider But even while that was happening. I music from above. However, it was not a tested on lower animals. Only in working realized-l had just made a very important religious experience. with the substance again, one day in 1943. discovery, because no known toxic sub- Omni: When did you have your first reli- when I somehow began to have this day- stance in the world would have had any gious experience on LSD? all dreamlike but not disagreeable experi- effect at in such a small dosage. I was Hofmann: Well, the very first time I had the did I it in still ence, discover my own body. able to think about that. feeling that I had left the world forever It Because 1 knew I hadn't ingested anything', Omni: Yours sounds more like a terrifying was frightening, but nonetheless a pro- I realized experience that the substance involved must than an uplifting one. found experience, because I was con- be very, very active. I was determined to get Hofmann: Yes, at first. But by the time the fronted with death and came back. to the bottom of it, and three days later I doctor got there, the horror had softened Omni: Did your LSD experiences with I arranged to take what believed to be a somewhat, and I was already starting to Junger advance your friendship to a higher very weak dose— 0.25 milligram. come back from the feeling that I had died. plane? After about half an hour the effects I started to see an endless variety of colors Hofmann: .I think that our friendship over I started. tried to take notes in my labora- and even to enjoy them. I thought, Yes, now the last thirty years would have been deep I tory journal, but after a tew pages realized you have come back to life . It was beautiful even without LSD. We should have .two I couldn't write anymore. Everything started to feel at home again, to feel that I could lives — one in which we take LSD and one in to change; so I said to my assistant, "Let's come back to our everyday world from the which we don't— to prove what its effects This won't after go home. be so easy all." strange world where I had been. really are. One will never know, but I think Automobile use was restricted during the I had the feeling that things had changed taking LSD was a very deep experience to war; so we started home on our bicycles. their meaning, and I watched with great have had together. Omni: Thus the story about the drug- happiness, a kind of rapture, as every Omni: In those early years did you think crazed Dr. Hofmann pedaling madly sound— a car door closing or the doctor that you were playing with fire, or did you through the streets of Basel. talking — was accompanied by a stream of feel you had found something marvelous? Hofmann: Yes. I kept pedaling harder and corresponding colored images, abstract Hofmann: My hopes for LSD were abso- harder, and J. thought I was locked in one pictures. That night I had a good sleep and lutely concentrated on the psychiatric field. spot. Finally I got home, and everything awoke the next day without any hangover. From my own experience, I realized that had changed, had become terrifying. My Omni: When you first reported such an LSD could be a useful agent in psycho- neighbor came in and looked like a horrible unearthly experience, did any of your col- analysis and psychotherapy, that patients 70 OMNI could leave their everyday, ordinary reality land. Did you ever regret your discovery just a laboratory or office setting. with it by getting out of their problems and and feel that you, like Einstein with the Omni: Do you think there was overuse, as into another sphere of consciousness. I atom, had unwittingly created a monster? well as misuse, of the drug in the Sixties? also it important I thought could be for brain Hofmann: No, can honestly say that I The late John Lennon, for instance, was -research. haven't, because I've always pointed out reported to have done LSD more than a But my own LSD experiences had a the dangers. The unstable people would thousand times. of to I touch danger them, and never have done something els? perhaps some- Hofmann: I don't see the reason for such thought LSD would be used as a pleasure thing worse, like heroin, if there had been repeated use. It's even destructive, be- drug, as it was when it hit the drug scene in no LSD, And the main point is ;hal LSD was cause such a powerful experience should the United States in the 1950s. Apart from developed in the course of an investigation be respected — and worked out. When you psychiatric use, I thought of LSD as being whose aim was to produce new medicines; use something habitually, its value is de- appropriate for an elite, might for it wasn't to you say produce a psychedelic. But I creased. artists and writers and philosophers. think the production of this psychedelic Omni: Leary and Richard Alpert, or Baba Omni: But you were impressed by Aldous was very important. Ram Das, made pilgrimages to the East Huxley, who, while not advertising the Omni: You say that you used LSD yourself, after taking LSD Did "tasting of the lotus" drugs to the masses, remained very along with other hallucinogens, such as tempt people to abandon this reality for an evangelistic about psychedelics? psilocybin and morning-glory seeds, about ever greater escape? Hofmann: Yes, [ felt closer to Huxley's twenty times. Yet. like many others, you've' Hofmann: I've never been able to under- point ot view than to Leary's, but even Hux- stopped using them. Why? I stand these people. What got out of LSD, I ley believed in potential for Hofmann: last time i took LSD's a much The LSD was in carry about inside me. I have to stay in my broader public than I did. I had no contact 1972 with Jun.ger. I think I got out of LSD all own daily life. To see the flowers in my own with Huxley until 1961 , when we had a beau- that it could do for me, and probably the garden is to see all the mystical wonder of tiful meeting at the Sonnenberg Hotel, out- same was true for many other people. It's existence, of creation You don't have to go side Zurich. We were together again a great really not LSD that produces deep effects. to India to see it. It deal at the World Academy of Arts and can only stimulate what's in the person I think the insight that many people got Sciences, in Stockholm, in 1963. but he already: If there is nothing inside, nothing from LSD is that the Creator exists. If you suffering was already from cancer. comes out. see the wonder of creation, it seems im- Omni: Regardless of your own intentions, Omni: What about all the bad reactions? possible that it was produced by accident. LSD use spread among perhaps millions of Hofmann: The surroundings, the setting. There must be something spiritual behind people in North America and Europe in the are very' important Much of the Sixties drug it, something we name God. Sixties, and more than a few of these It is true that some people had negative people had intensely disruptive experi- experiences, too. You see. we always have ences. In your book you describe the many this ambivalence, the experience of the sadly confused and unstable hippies who good and the bad together They are al- made pilgrimages to your house in Switzer- ways connected and revc separated. Omni: Someone once said that .one thing Now there ' it balance we need in order to exist. Other- them? Hofmann: Yes. I see having an important wise the danger is that we become crazy. Hofmann: As head of the department tor role as an adjunct to meditation, and in : The LSD experience is schizophrenic to natural- products research. I remained the psychoanalysis. brain research, and the extent that you simultaneously re- experimental chemist in the laboratory, treatment of the terminally ill, The final goal member your ordinary reality and also see working on isoaiirci :ie active princirjies o? of me cl: fat. on is a visionary experience of another reality, another worid. different plants for medicine But through reality, and some people who have medi- Omni: What about the rumors of long-term LSD I also became interested in mysticism h-ed extensive y nay feel prepared to go a physical damage from LSD? and all the substances that affect the mind.. step further. And this is where LSD might Hofmann: There's no evidence for lasting Personally 1 had been changed, of course, help them. physical damage of any kind, The things especially o my conception of reality I don't mean that everybody should take that were said about chromosome dam- I realized that we have the choice to see t cny -.ha: mediation can be seen as a age, for example, were all based on iso- things in different ways, that there is no kind of medical application of LSD, as a lated observations- that later studies such thing as an objective reality. We have chance for people stuck in an unpleasant proved untrue. the- opportunity to choose a philosophical world view to get an otherwise unattainable Omni: Did the LSD experience change attitude corresponding to our personality. view of reality But of course it is much bet- enough people to affect sociaLy Inst -s to People, may look ai a -grim aspect of reality ter if they just have a spontaneous. .expand- become a social force? Do you think there and believe that it is the only true one, not ng exncr.once witnojt it is less passion for the unknown now than knowing that they have the potential to alter Omni: So are you talking about just one during the Sixties? their lives by looking- at another aspect. transforming dose of LSD? Hofmann: 1 believe that the revolution of Omni: But given this more rational .state of Hofmann: Yes, about one, or only a few consciousness some people experienced mind that prevails in the Eighties, what more, because some people, when all their during :he Sixnes will have an influence on possibility is there that people will again fixed conceptions are shaken may find them tor ;he res: of their lives, whether they seek to delve into their unconscious in their first LSu experience '"Tjotering took LSD or didn't. order to explore these inner alternatives Omni: So the first time could take things It is a crazier time now. but in a different and potentials? apart, and the second may be necessary way In he Si/ties :he'e.was a psychologi- Hofmann: I'm not sure how things will or to put them back together. cal revolution, a search for another reality. should compare to the Sixties but interest Hofmann: Yes. that's one way to .say it. 3 Omni: But the LSD experience is unpre- "dead," to have Ihis religious experience 7 Hofmann: None are identical, of course, dictable. Sometimes it has been said that Hofmann: Yes, it's an immense problem but the active principle of the magic mush- LSD is positive, renewing, only when it is that people living in cities are surrounded room psilocybin, for example, is very simi- _Jied to a feeling of hope. Does the world by dead things. One is not part of pave- lar to that of the neurotransmitter serotonin malaise — modern-day anxiety, urban de- ment or concrete. People become sick in the brain. The only difference between cay, the breakdown of the family — limit the when they have to live in a secondhand, them is the position of a hydroxyl group. It potential of LSD? man-made reality and no longer have con- may be because these plant substances Hofmann: Not really. Just as in earlier dif- tact with living nature, with creation. have a similar structure that they are able to ficult times, when people were more reli- Omni: In your book you discuss a strange intervene in the action of our brain hor- gious, we need religion now. But not the level of relations between man and nature. mones. same kind. We can't use the same old pic- When you first took the Mexican mushroom Omni: You have said you see a broader tures for our religious imagination, the im- Psilocybe mexicana, in Switzerland in the future for LSD in the context of meditation ages of a God outside reality. We must try to mid-Fifties, you were overwhelmed by Mex- centers. Won't there be the same potential get inside and feel that we are a part of ican imagery despite attempts to focus on for misuse that existed in the Sixties? creation, in some way individually a part of other things. And you say that Gordon Hofmann: I don't think so. The leader of a God— that we are partners in creation and Wasson, the author of The Wondrous Mush- responsible meditation center should • thus protected by it. Meditation alone or room, had this experience repeatedly Are serve as something like a psychiatrist and meditation with LSD can illuminate this new you suggesting that different plant hal- know the people with him well enough to religiosity. The great weakness ot the West- lucinogens carry their own images or ar- decide who should and should not use ern world is that we no longer have a strong chetypes? LSD — who is ready to use it as a phar- religious belief that can be fused with our Hofmann: I think that's very possible. Not macological catalyst. everyday reality. God is someone we talk to only did Wasson and I have that experience Omni: Do you think there's a realistic pos- on Sunday. with psilocybin, but so did Rudolf Gelpke's sibility that Western governments will ever Omni: Do you practice any particular type wife— in a very interesting way She was a sanction this kind of LSD use? of meditation or espouse any technique? Hofmann: Yes, but not in the near future. Hofmann: Everybody should do it in his It's more important that it become more I for own way. I begin when have the feeling, readily available psychiatry, where its the knowledge that I have as a chemist, thai use should never have been stopped. But our human organism is made up of the official Western medical schools are rely- 4/ realized same things, the same compounds, that LSD ing more and more on meditation as a are found in animals, plants, and all living could be very useful in means of treatmenf. Eventually LSD can be with an aid to meditation, not just for the matter around us. Then I feel united psychotherapy. used as nature and protected in it. The knowledge ill but for healthy people as well. that we've gotten of reality from all our re- Patients could leave their Omni: You also mention that LSD might be search in the natural sciences is really the ordinary reality used for the terminally ill— to soften their myth of our time. We have to meditate on experience of oncoming death. their problems, and get this knowledge in order to give it deeper Hofmann: Yes. In certain American clinics , meaning. into another it has already been used for terminal Omni: What kind of meaning? cancer patients who are suffering from ex- sphere of consciousness Hofmann: We should experience the treme pain and no longer responding to medication. wonder of creation in our lives. I think that conventional The reason LSD no one should be so deeply impressed by can alleviate or even abolish pain may be this as should a natural scientist, because that patients under its influence are psy- if, as a chemist, I see a flower, I know all that chologically so dissociated from their is involved in synthesizing a flower's ele- graphic designer, and after taking the bodies that their physical pain no longer it ments. And I know that even the fact that mushroom, she started drawing. She had penetrates their consciousness. There are exists is not something that is natural. It is a never been to Mexico or even seen Mexi- many case histories ie ling of patients who, miracle. can art, but she drew these startlingly Mex- once freed from acute pain, gained mean- How can a plant synthesize these ele- ican designs'. She didn't even realize this ingful insights about life and death and ments all by itself? How can it create these until she took a look at some Mexican art a their fate— and died peacefully unique colors and forms? These are the few months later and was amazed by the Omni: Huxley took a massive dose of LSD questions we always have to ask ourselves, similarities. when he was dying. Would you use it if you and we will see that the existence of every Omni: Is this where you got your ideas saw your life ending? single flower is a mystical happening. We about a crack in the rational concept of Hofmann: I don't know. Maybe I will be very now have such a wonderful scientific pic- reality, about hallucinogens working at a happy without LSD when I am dying. ture of the universe— we know about the borderline where mind and matter merge? Maybe if I were suffering as horribly as stars and nebulae and all these fantastic Hofmann: No. I got those ideas from my Huxley was from cancer, I would. It's a situ- things— and we should meditate about just experiences with LSD, from the fact that a ation I can't foresee. these things. trace of this substance can transform one's Omni: You yourself haven't used LSD Omni; Do you believe in God? consciousness, even transform twenty since 1972. Do you anticipate doing it Hofmann: Of course. I believe in the thousand people. There is a poem by again? Creator, and the Creator is God. Goethe that says, "How could our eyes see Hofmann: Maybe sometime, but there's no Omni: Do you believe in an afterlife? the sun, unless they are sunlike them- pressing need. I have a wonderful life now Hofmann: Yes. I don't know in which form, selves?" I have changed that to say, "If there with my seven grandchildren and my home I matter, but believe that, as Goethe said, "Things were not something of mind in how in the Jura Mountains. And I still get a lot of cannot disappear; they can only change." could matter change the mind?" This does visitors, young people from the United Science has also established this, that not mean that we are simply made up of States and around Europe, who come to nothing disappears completely; Matter is matter but that the material world has a speak about their problems, about God simply changed into new forms of energy. I spiritual element. and nature and our world situation. I like believe this is true for the spirit, too. Omni: Are there any natural substances in these young people and receive them Omni: Isn't it extremely difficult for people the brain with the same active principles as whenever possible. We get into these long living in cities, which you characterize as LSD or other halluc' discussions. ... I'm still a kind of guru. DO 71 OMNI Embryos sleeping in a frozen nether world may outwit sterility and survive atomic armageddon BIRTH ON ICE BY MICHAEL JEFFRIES Francesca, is who Since the father's estate sterile, and her hus- already would have band. Mark, plan to have been probated, what in- a baby in a few years. ^V'l'M heritance rights would The child will be five the belated child have? years old at the moment If his mother dies, who of birth. Infertile women becomes the child's giving birth to five-year- legal guardian? What if old newborns isn't as both would-be parents paradoxical as it seems. die before they thaw Before disease robbed their cryogenic em- Francesca of her ability bryos; should the semi- to become naturally living ice capsules be pregnant, she had three m wf destroyed, or be im- eggs fertilized by her planted in a surrogate, husband deep-frozen in or be left in the limbo of suspended animation. the deep freeze? Now. years later, doctors There is more. Scien- will reimplant the eggs in tists are convinced that her womb, where she an embryo conceived can carry them to term. today can be held in Three successive children, entirely ratories, in Texas, and Jackson Labo- suspended animation and resurrected Mark's and her own. will have spent ratory, in Bar Harbor, Maine, em- hundreds of years hence — after both several years in a cryogenic tube be- bryonic freezing became fully com- parents have died. The development fore the journey toward birth. mercially practical Several American of techniques to produce test-tube The remarkable possibilities of zoos are experimenting with the tech- babies, so that an embryo can be im- freeze-drying livestock embryos are nique as a way to save rare or en- planted in any mother, not necessarily well-known. Within two years British dangered species. its biological mother, has cleared the researchers will bring the technique to it But is in England and Australia last major obstacle to keeping em- humans. Couples like Francesca and where American techniques are find- bryos in suspended animation for as Mark may be having their offspring ing their most exciting application. Al- much as 1,000 years before btrth. The frozen before birth and saved to begin ready Australian scientists have frozen Rip van Winkle legend is coming true life in the future. a dozen human embryos. When two in a modern scientific idiom. Cryogenics involves plunging living embryos were thawed in the lab, they It has just begun to dawn on scien- cells info a bath of liquid nitrogen. resumed normal growth. tists that cryogenics offers the poten- where they exist on the edge of extinc- "Freezing embryos." says Dr. Carl tial for human survival after nuclear tion. To prevent ice-crystal formation Wood, leader of the Australian team at war. A nucleus population of frozen and death, the cells are drained of Queen Victoria Medical Center, in embryos from volunteer couples of their water content. This halts all their Sydney, "complicates the concept of healthy genetic stock could survive to biological activity before they are fro- reproduction so that I could not sanc- inherit an otherwise doomed world. In zen. The "reduced" cells can remain at tion the process before appropriate vaults deep underground, cradled in -196"C for generations still and I be legal review. am concerned about the their lead-lined nitrogen casks, an en- reactivated without damage. ethics of it." Cryogenic cattle breeding actually For instance, cryogenics would if's difficult It; differentiate frozen embryos sprang from U.S. laboratories more make it possible for a child's life to from their supercold environment (left), than a decade ago. At Rio Vista Labo- begin long after his father had died. in a thick, insuiaied steel tube (above). PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAN McCOY/RAINBOW 6 Cryogenic techniques fire population would sleep safely through thawing chamber. Embryologists culture lab but were unable to implant them in %'''' jA*****'"* the holocaust above. Researchers have yet the child in a body-temperature incubator women successfully. They determined could be applied to storing :o consider in any serious manner the crea- until they are sure its cells are functioning after many failures that the eggs would take human organs in tion of a human "population bank" held in and developing normally. In particular; mi- only when the mothers' hormone cycles suspended animation against such a croscopic checks identify the child's sex and balances were in perfect harmony. transplant banks . . . creating catastrophe. But they acknowledge that, and determine whether chromosomes con- That meant waiting at leasl a month from perfect lab animals theoretically at least, the concept is scientif- trolling the baby's genetic development are the moment biologists removed an egg and preserving people of ically feasible. undamaged. Once the embryo's vitality is from the prospective mother for fertilization it. feasible it is gently implanted inside its until they attempted to implant the present day The trick in making cryogenics ensured, isn't the freezing — scientists have long mother's womb with a quick and relatively Dr Patrick Steptoe, leader of the re- as ambassadors to the future* known the effects and problems of keeping painless procedure. search, felt that it should be possible to living material, such as food, fresh and The science of applying cryogenics to freeze embryos for a month until the recip- cold — but the thawing. Bringing a cell from biology grew unsteadily for 20 years follow- ient's next reproductive cycle. He was not such a low temperature back to life is a ing its birth in 1949, when scientists dis- the only one with that idea. In 1972 another tricky process. covered that certain bird sperm can be In the of a human embryo, tempera- deep-frozen, then returned to normal. The case Cryogenics flas long proved successful with where infant slum- big breakthrough came in 1969, as British i ture in the steel lube the farm animals, Ova are drawn Irom cows, for ex- possibility bers is raised at a precise rate from researchers closed in on the of ample (above), then artificially inseminated (low- : -196°C to 37 C. normal body tempera- creating a test-tube baby er left). A fertilized embryo (above let!) is then m ture, inside an electronically controlled Scientists fertilized human eggs in the readied to enter the freezing liquid-nitrogen tank. 79 ' British scientist, Dr. David Whittingham, re- more reliably. So tar he has not reported any lambs have been ;x;rr there after spending ported the first su one sea. freezing of baby success. Of two human embryos frozen, up to three years in suspended animation. mice in embryo form. (Dr. Ian Wilrnut, a one was "lost" and could not be recovered. Visitors are invited to meet.the aptly named lalented researcher at the Agricultural Re- The other was dead after thawing. Frostie, a brown and white cow born after -..-search Council's laboratories at Cam- Many biologists believe success is only a having been frozen for three months. bridge, achieved a similar independent relatively small technical step away. Clos- Animal research biologist Dr. Christo- success. Unlike Dr. Whittingham, he did not est to achieving a viable cryogenic baby is pher Polge is collaborating with Craft in implant his thawed embryo for birth.) probably Dr. Ian Craft, of the Royal Free adopting similar techniques for humans. At the time Whittingham was not con- Hospital, in London. It is ironic that Dr. Dr. Polge says, "These animals are quite cerned with human embryos. However, Craft's attempts to open a new realm of normal and produce healthy offspring of since the reproductive systems of mouse possibility for women who want babies de- their own after freezing." So reliable is the and man are similar in many ways, he soon pends .so much on women who want to liquid-nitrogen storage technique that the turned his attention to man. At Whitting- avoid having children. His lab specimens institute and commercial companies have ham's lab in the Medical Research Coun- for artificial fertilization and freezing are begun exporting high-grade strains of farm cil's Mammalian Development Unit at Uni- human eggs donated by women about to livestock to New Zealand and Poland. versity College, London, pink-eyed white be sterilized. Craft's research program is Polge asks pointedly, "Why export a cow mice scamper around a cage. They Jive, approved by the hospital's ethics commit- weighing half a ton when you can send one eat, and mate quite normally after being tee. hundred frozen embryos by airplane in an revived from five years of embryonic sus- At present the biologist is perfecting the insulated flask?" pended animation.. "They are perfectly basic technique of freezing and reviving As for the safety of long-term freezing, healthy and normal." Whittingham says. Iwo-cell human embryos that were fer- Polge discloses that he carried out a Recently some mice frozen for seven 'iiizod in the l;-:n. These c-.xporimen'.;; will unique experiment, perhaps the strangest years— more than three times their natural continue until Craft is satisfied he can activity to mark the silver jubilee of Queen lifespan — havs-; been successfully thawed safely transfer adefrosted baby into one of Elizabeth II. In 1977 he defrosted bull and have survived birth. This is probably sperm that had been frozen in 1952, the the longest period after which any mammal year of her accession. "It was perfectly has been successfully revived from cryo- healthy and produced a normal calf." he genic storage. says. This quarter-of-a-century survival is Three days after his mice mate, Whit- regarded the longest cryogenic storage Qn cryogenic as tingham removes the colorless embryos, ot living sperm. which by then have grown from one to eight suspended animation, Such success augurs well for mans fu- cells, from mouse's reproductive each tract the span from ture. A number c' scernats agree that once and prepares them for immersion in super- a human embryo is f'ozen. biological aging conception to birth cold liquid nitrogen. can be becomes irrelevant. "Theoretically, it can For the next few years the churn, with its extended forever. exist virtually indefinitely in a state of sus- temperature kept constant, becomes the pended animation, provided it is capable 'An embryo could be revived embryo's artificial womb, though ot course of withstanding freezing to a temperature at the cells ' cannot grow. The frozen creatures after 1,000 years. . . . It's which there is no further biological activity," clamp into an unrecognizable, grayish Rip van Winkle come true.^ Polge asserts. mass. "There are about thirty frozen mouse Could there ever be a need to store ani- embryos in a test tube," Whittingham's mals or humans in this way and awaken technician Alison l-alsey explains. Tapping them 200 or 1,000 years from now? "Who a container of nitrogen on the floor with her knows? Anthropologists in a thousand still toe, she continues, "We have mice from years might decide it would be interesting the original batch ol several hundred frozen his 45 hopeful patients. When is that likely? to resuscitate a human being from the in 1973 in here." "I would hope within the next two years io present century to see how genetically he Whittingham has achieved an 80 percent have some success in freezing an embryo would differ from the population of 'the survival rate after freezing and thawing and reimplaniing it into a mother," he says. world in the future," Polge declares. "It is more than 10,000 mouse embryos; up to 70 Craft says that he is prepared to use not fictional. In theory it could be done. percent of the mice were actually born. frozen embryos to help sterile patients Farm animals such as Frostie. laboratory Today more than 20 laboratories use this conceive, but he would stop short of using mice, and human test-tube births have technique, some in modified form, to freeze a surrogate mother. shown the way." embryos of rats, rabbits, sheep, goats, and Eventually, some doctors think, cryogen- Scientists, however, shy away from any cattle successfully. ic techniques may be applied to the ex- projection of their research into the arena of So what are the chances for the human tremely difficult problem of storing com- surviving nuclear war. And clearly such a race? "If the woman is made to produce plete human organs with their many differ- use poses extreme problems. One imme- extra eggs, they could be fertilized and entiated cells in transplant banks. Once diate Challenge of a nuclear attack is to stored at the eight-cell stage," Whittingham these organs can be safely frozen, the withstand the cessation of essential ser- has stated. An embryo could then be surplus of kidneys, livers, hearts, and other vices and the failure of all utilities. "If the reimplanted in a subsequent cycle, say, transplantable tissues would enable sur- embryos were to survive, one would have to three months later. geons to ensure much better matching to ensure that refrigeration equipment would "If the first attempt was. not successful, prevent rejection by the recipient's immune be developed to keep them at the tempera- you could easily repeat the process," he 1 system. ture of -196°C for some years," one scien- notes. "The procedure could also be re- The potential of human cryobiology is tist points out. peated when the woman wanted a second presaged in agriculture's incredibly suc- They would need developments in low- child without going through '.ho initial proc- cessful results with "cryobirth." Among energy, long-term retrige'ar on techniques, ess of superovulation. This raises the pos- farm animals, the success rate for frozen- probably utilizing solar, nuclear, wave, or sibility of egg banks or of having children embryo birth is 50 to 60 percent. some other form of energy. Further re- by donor." Cattle and sheep grazing contentedly in search may enable embryos to be stored at Whittingham recently collaborated with the emerald pastures of England's Institute higher temperatures, reducing power de- London gynecologists who hope the tech- of Animal Physiology in Cambridge, are mands. Self-contained power sources that nique can produce test-tube babies much testimony to this fact. Healthy calves and would be safe from nuclear attack are al- so OMNI CONNNULLl ON FME94 birange experiences among the alien races of Magellan's Cloud TOUR OF THE UNIVERSE BY ROBERT SHECKLEY BHuess whef?C.-iro me and I just won a tour of the universe! We'll see Dykstra's World, where mu- coid parasites communicate with their host through dreams. And Addler's Planet, where time oscillates across a two-hour span, making everyone late for work. We'll also see the Magellan Sin- gularity, where the space/time distortion can do strange things to cosmic voyagers. Good-bye/Ring City (right); hello, Universe. tfayllov. We got off the Jupiter shuttle en Ganymede and were taken lo the interstellar terminal (left) . On the lower far right you can see the Stargate Magellan, parked on the Singularity that makes our trip to another galaxy possible. Some ruins we visited on Pluto (lower near right) are supposed to have been left by a people so alien they didn't possess the numbers 9 through 72. In the Magellan System we visited two arach- noid life forms thai gave us some interesting tips on double-entry book- keeping. The creature between them is Caroline. When we passed through the Singularity, her molecular-reassembly process went hay- wire. Our ship's doctors say she'll snap out of it after our next space/ time jump. You'd think they would have worked out the kinks by now. 'mThe association of Pluto's most ancient ruins with these iong-vanished aliens is dubious3 1 The vibrating Prismoids of Annax IV are the most enigmatic of known intelligent life anywhere.^ On our next stop we met the carnivorous Behemoths ol Ononis Delta 1 1 {Far left). Intelligent and sulky, the Behemoths would be extremely dangerous it their teeih hadn't grown together In an evolutionary devel- opment whose meaning is yhl nol entirely clear. On the lower left is an artist's rendering of a coffee break during the Battle ot Shiva's Rift. At the upper near left are some o! the intelligent crystal forms of Annax IV emitting short bursts of light (their way of clearing their throats). Finally, on the right is a complex symbiotic multiple organism from the Piiax System. Caroline is visible, as one of the spires in its upper left-hand corner That last space/time jump was too much for her. The doctors advised her to stay put. I'll miss her on the trip back to Earth. DO obsessed with her work She had none. Her ible force. "Your world is primitive, except life BLIND -had been her art, and her art her life, for a few high-T enclaves. I know that All SPOT lost it. I'll and now she had right. just have to be careful to bring There were a dozen rehabilitation cen- everything I might need with me, that's all." .-something in her rejected them. A normal ters in the gian; medical complex. Physical "Doctor—" She took a deep breath, for person would be satisfied with the sight therapy occupational therapy {the cruelest the first time moving those unseeing eyes they gave her Bui she was not normal. She failure of all), many varieties of mental away from him. "It isn't just the primitive- was a genius. She demanded perfection, gymnastics— and she tried every one of ness. My world is far away. We couldn't get or perhaps something beyond, something them unsuccessfully. a direct route. We'll, be lucky if we have to that made her subtle creations possible. "I can't see." change wombships only once. In real time She would not be satisfied with anything Failure. His failure. His first failure. that's fifty years, a hundred, or more, for the less, and three times the implanted nerves He should have been glad when she an- trip. If you ever returned here, all your withered and died, nounced, I'm going home." friends, children, family— all will be dead or They tried the prosthetics next. He did But in his own way he was as fanatical changed almost beyond recognition. And " the delicate work, the implanting ot the or- aboui his work as she was abbut hers. First your profession — ganically neutral interfaces, the almost un- he ordered no, as her doctor When she "If I ever return, I'll catch up, profession- noticeable (because he was sure that this laughed in his face, he threatened, cajoled, ally and personally. But if it's such a bad ' was what she wanted) exterior scanners. begged, tried to have her declared men- trip, why are you taking it?" And though it wasn't his personal respon- tally incompetent, sulked when that failed. "I'm going home," she muttered. And he sibility, he watched over her therapy his and always, always argued. Usually she told himself he didn't hear two more unsaid face twisted into a frown as again and ignored him. Once, when he accused her. words: to die. again she lurched through the obstacle of deliberately denying her art to the He consulted a reference library about course. A genuinely blind subject would worlds, she answered wearily, "My world' her world and found out why she didn't have done better. And this from a mind that has simultaneity projectors now like any want him to go. Her world was even more could curve shapes together into the sub- primitive than he had thought. The irogs tlest of relationships, an artist whose works lived on the forest floor, in an eternal night were balanced to within a microgram, a produced by the shadows of the giant millimeter leaves in the crests of immense trees, ani- "It's not seeing. I can't see," she insisted mals among animals, without language, i/n and around over and over. Often her control would fail, and clothing, tools, or society. and she would pound on the nearest ob- on and under and through The cresters were a different race en- jects with her hard, bony fists, bruising tirely; they lived in the sunlight, in the tops ot was a living forest, those fingers that had worked miracles. the huge trees. Not much was known about He had carefully adjusted her prosthe- a veritable ocean solid them except that they were bioengineers tics to normal vision. He tested re- them with lite, growing, with the highest skills. Crester plants, for peatedly, showing her how the graphs food or cloth or simply exotic beauty, were competing, eating, dying, matched up, how the prosthetics were well valuable exports that had paid for the within the tolerances. layer on layer, simultaneity projector that was installed ' And still she fought — or wept. "1 can't and for the technicians willing to exile predator on predator.** see." themselves from their homeworlds to keep He tried to comfort her. but she only the device running. turned away. No one else in the giant hospi- Some of the other information about tal complex had any better luck. He them was confusing or simply unbeliev- thought of getting her foster parents to able. (Cultivating on giant leaves? Irrigat- " help, but they were missionaries of a root- civilized world. Or at least the cresters Oc ing ieaves?) Most physical trading was less sect on whose homeworld religion had It was the first time he realized that her done through the wombships. And the died centuries before, and they had al- world was populated by two separate simultaneity projector disseminated all ready moved on, not wanting to linger in a races. kinds of art and information, but the crest- world that denied the need for what they "I'm a trog." she asserted matter-of- ers were not so foolish as to pass on the offered. Now they were on another endless factly "But the cresters aren't fools. They've secrets of their skills. voyage to another primitive world, riding enjoyed the prestige of my work for years, The doctor absorbed all the information one of the giant wombships, hollowed-out simply because I come from their world. If I he could, and when his patient boarded the asteroids that carried the necessities of life ever manage to work again, they'll trip over wombship, he was right behind her. from world to world. Wombships traveled themselves rushing to program duplicates The wombers refused payment. (They more slowly than light, but they were fast through the simultaneity projectors for revered ihe artist and her work.) And the enough that their voyages involved rel- other worlds to -admire." doctor agreed to spend time and skills on ativists time contraction. People aboard patients aboard the ship. He even trained the ships lived months while decades "I'm going with you." he declared. as many healers as possible in whatever passed on the worlds they visited. Only "What?" She was incredulous. Then, skills he could pass on. simultaneity projectors could exceed the "Why? Love? It's ohvsically impossible, you He never asked what the wombshippers speed of light, and they were limited to know." thought of her, as a person, or what they transmitting knowledge, programs, and "I'm a doctor," he reminded her. thought of him for that matter, but he was nonmaterial information. "Then you'd know better than I. But it fascinated by them. "Don't keep showing me your ma- hasn't stopped — the infatuates, the wor- For thousands of years wombshippers chine-made charts. They're wrong, they're shipers, those who tried to translate artistic had been pariahs. But they were also the all wrong. I can't see!" admiration into something more physical." only thread that held the human worlds to- He searched for others on this world who "I'm a doctor," he repeated stubbornly gether, that is. the worlds colonized by hu- might help — teachers, lovers, friends. But "You're my patient." mans, or what had been humans before she had so surpassed he' teachers, and so She shook her head. "You don't know the they adapted to their new environments. quickly, that she lasting rela- had formed no 'floor' You can't imagine. . .believe me, Each isolated world thought of itself as the tionships with any of them. As for lovers or there's nothing, nothing you can do." norm, its people as human, and anyone, friends, she was an alien, an off-worlder, For once immovable object met irresist- different— and the wombship pariahs were a . " invariably different — as not human. think you're off the mark. Way off. I've talked self—a deprecating gesture, but a smug Then the simultaneity projector was de- to her myself, and I think she's just following grin over it— "am proud to be an acknowl- veloped, linking the worlds together with instinct. Sometimes following one's instinct edged branch of the hundred ninety- piclures. World after world realized lhat all is the smartest thing to do." seventh generation nurtured within its of their thousands ot brother and sister "Even if it means going back to a primi- leaves." He obviously expected a reaction. worlds held intelligent beings who were dif- tive, scratch-for-a-living world?" When it didn't come, he made a disap- ferent yet "human." Camel shrugged, "You see it that way. pointed moue and went on, "So this entire Some worlds reacted by raising their But she wants to go tone"— all the longing tree is quite well cultivated and most tame. barriers higher, rejecting projectors and of a people denied a permanent homefor If you wish to visit one of the wilder trees, it wombships alike. generations contained in that one word. can be arranged;" Some rejected only the projectors, "Sometimes that's the best — and only- The doctor heard his patient mutter grudgingly allowing the alien pariah medicine." something under her breath, wombshippers to trade. He grew io like 'ho wombshippers, to find "And of course"— the guide—was obvi- And some transcended their insularity in their company a relief from the continual ously working up to an oration "if there's their prejudices, and recognized that it was frustration of his primary task. He was al- anything you need, for any reason, we'll be the soul, not the body or the culture, that most sorry when the voyage ended. pleased, and proud, and honored, tp be was important. allowed to serve, in however minor a " And the pariahs, loo, were a culture — But nothing on the tapes had prepared fashion — culture formed by countless years of rejec- him for the frantic vitality of the world called The doctor tuned out the rest; he'd sat tion and by the radiation they couldn't (not by its own people) Sequoia Upper. through banquets before. shield against entirely, that killed many of It was hard to remember he was in the It was then that a fluff of silver tendrils them in their physiological teens and twen- crest of a giant tree. He seemed to be walk- drifted against his patient's cheek. Au- ties. It was a cosmic irony that one of the ing on i- 'hie ft. resident carpet, muddy aqua tomatically he reached over to pluck it off, reasons why they were rejected was that (the basic plant color here). The gently but her hand was quicker. With a facile they seemed immortal, possessing the gesture that spoke of long habit, she immortality that relativistic time contraction grasped it, slid it into her mouth, and at almost light velocities gave them so that sucked on the arsenic-green roundness they would return after fifty planetary years below the pale parachute. and seem only a few months older. The He opened his mouth to protest, but she 6/As watched, truth was that their actual life spans were he had already spit the thing out, not a gesture shorter of planet- of distaste, but rather an absent-minded much than those most the body disintegrated. . expulsion something sucked dry of in- bounds. The teethed of The wombship itself was a spaghetti terest. It tumbled along the surface until he tangle of corridors and living spaces. The appetites of the swarm couldn't see it any longer. doctor's guide was a tall, thin, but pre- She didn't drop dead, and before he ate it, bite by bite. pubescent female, bald and radiation could lick his dry lips and ask, his guide It wasn't ' scarred, whose vocabulary consisted of a body any interrupted his monologue long enough to "Essr" and "Nossr" and whose jaw con- longer; it was a repeat the gesture, this time with a thing like tinually worked on something. He preferred two gray wings run together but no bigger heap of crawling things* not to speculate on what it was. The first than his finger. time she took his hand and they were, with This time he did ask, and the guide no transition he could detect, someplace laughed and caught something from the air else, he nearly had a heart attack. Eventu- and put it to his lips. Five minutes later the ally he learned to appreciate the speed of doctor was still mulling over the multiple travel and to be thankful that his hosts had moving, ever-changing "walls" were like a subtleties of his first taste of sequoia. assigned him a guide capable of taking holo abstract; actually they were leaves. There was so much tq assimilate, so him as well as herself "through." He did vines,, stalks, growths, saprophytes, ten- many flavors and smells and customs and what research he could on psionics. drils, some close, some far away, the whole whatnot, that adapting to life on the womb- another gift of radiation, but his results were blurring Into a panorama of relentless ship had been like preform play, while this contradictory, and with a sigh he simply growth. was final specialization residency But he accepted. "It's as if the very air were alive and grow- was enjoying it — part of him even wallowed There were plenty of medical problems ing," he told his guide, a short, prehensile- in the VIP treatment— until his patient told to occupy his time, and doing what he tailed male' whose costume revealed no him the truth. could for the wombers helped keep his fewer than six apparently functional nip- "We're both pariahs, you know." mind off the continued deterioration of his ples as well as indisputable evidence of He didn't believe her. He'd been es- prime patient. Over the months he became masculinity. (The doctor learned later that corted through some of their finest re- friendly with many of the wombers, mostly the costumes — all the "clothes" in fact- search strands of planting (though he still the medical staff, and especially their were plants, stem and hair roots concealed wasn't sure whether the sprouts were chief, a wizened gremlin of a woman with somewhere in the fur or manes, the rest merely being nurtured on their leaf fields or the unlikely sobriquet of Camel. But when growing in a controlled pattern around the whether they were products of the leaves he toid her his pet theory regarding his Syquoian wearing them.) themselves), wined and dined and de- patient, she only threw back her head and "Rainforest, I believe it's called." the ferred to and flattered and listened to and laughed. guide commented, politely. "Though I un- even entertained in an ancient but still ap- "This is the wrong place to talk about derstand on other worlds what they call preciated fashion. back to the womb, you know" She sobered. rainforest would be a strand of sprouts not She interrupted his protests by reaching "But it's certainly one of our major prob- yet ready to be transplanted here. Now this over and tapping the wall of the room they lems. If that's her trouble, you needn't tree, called baldcypress"— he waved his were in, one of several that was "theirs" for worry. She'll decide to stay here, and we've hand, and the doctor, who hadn't seen any the duration. "Dead," she said simply. developed a few"— a toothless grin — trace of structure or point of division, won- "Dead wood." She tapped again, and it__ "techniques that might prove effective. dered whether everything he saw wasn't was a dull sound. "The ultimate insult in Anyway, once a diagnosis is confirmed, part of a single organism— "has sprouted their language is 'Go live in deadwood.' you're more than halfway to a cure. But I an ancient and honorable family; I my- She spat, and he watched the green-tinged . eter, their lower reaches were liquid disappear into the floor. "Or is it chance, or were we prejudged, off- and girding merely the penuliimate insult?" she mused worlder? Some people see only whal they living buttresses, great knees of wood to see, the motives of larger than most of the trees he was accus- aloud. "Go live with the trogs. Yes, I think want and perhaps so-callec soilless missionaries ought tomed to. And in and around and on and that is the ultimate. And I wonder which .of those all living forest, -.-us they despise more, me, the trog, or you, to be examined more closely" He .caught under and through was a life, competing, the trog lover." A breath. "Doclor." his lip, remembering a news holo of an veritable ocean solid with "Yes?" He wondered about something awards ceremony; there had been several eating, growing, dying, layer on layer, predator. rainforest himself: what the penalty was here for a off-worlders with the artist then, all of them predator on A normal doctor strangling his patient? radiating a complacent, almost arrogant (he had consulted the records he had "Take my advice. Take the next womb- pride. "The trog was "spirited away from brought) was actually scant of life on its the shut out ship away from here, no matter where it's here. Did you know that? Becaus'e my floor, because canopy above going. Just go. Get away This isn't your predecessors protested al the very too much light. But here, even without light, organic material raining world, and ultimately it will reject you." thought. And after, when we warned that there was enough the "You're my patient, and I'm going to cure she would be damaged away from bet down from the giants above to provide asked that she be re- basis for an ecology. And what an ecology! you. I promise." home, when we ecol- ''Blind, blind," she murmured. "But which turned, we were sneered at, accused of What a competitive, fetid, voracious so complex! of us is it that will not see?" wanting to keep her treasures selfishly to ogy! And vines climbing up a treeling a Three days later she was gone. ourselves, accused — it was sickening, He saw And no one believed us, as you don't be- mere ten meters or so high. He blinked, and "Once a trog, always a trog," said the lieve us now:" She shrugged. "We could the vines swarmed upward and spread out, incredibly old woman coldly. prove all we have said, but you, outlander sending in tendrils to tap the tree's life fluids, round round, leaves unfurling 'And that's it. Throw her and her potential with your closed mind, have already de- and away." He had bulled his way up to this termined our guilt, Would you believe the and sending spines into the treeling until next what Sequoian Ultimate Authority in a barely truth if it were right in front of you?" between one breath and the had controlled rage. been a tree was a mound of pulsing leaves. "She's a trog," the woman muttered. "Stranglervine," one of the guides Something fluttered through the air and (guards) answered to his stammered Ques- in- landed against her cheek. Her fingers went tion. "By tomorrow it'll have sucked the up in a caressing gesture, and — he fant dead and dry. Then it'll curl up in a ball •/-/e didn't see blinked — had those fingers somehow and tumble away, until leaf-breath wind it to another vine." flicked the airborne wisp away, or had it the chief make a gesture brings .." into the crepey, powdery "Will it . been absorbed to a guard old skin? She snorted, her swishing tail imperi- directly behind 'And that covers it." he heard himself standing ously contemptuous, But there are snarling. Some of the leaves from the plant him; he didn't "You wouldn't taste right. animal, that he'd been forced to wear fluttered away threats here, plant and make see that guard move. from his mouth, and he saw her flinch. That the stranglervine seem like Anna Sweet- planl had driven home his patient's point, Then he didn't teat." But in minutes he she It and He glared. knew about his being a pariah. clung to see anything at all3 covered every inch of skin and gave off a had spoken the simple truth. The floor was rank odor. Even the windbornes kept away a pesthole, a hothouse and breeding ground for desperate appetites. Animal, from him, and he knew it for what it was: this world's equivalent of a contamination suit. plant — and trog. Nothing of him must infect their happy Two strong cresters were at point, hack- lives. "Just throw her away. She's a trog, a ."Try me." ing with off-wohd metal machetes at the worthless, useless animal of a trog. All "It will be dangerous." living mass. Hacked and headless corpses 9 " underfoot right, all right then. But don't be surprised "For you or for me He couldn't help of small animals were trampled at how other worlds react to what you've sneering, along with the severed plants. The cresters' done. Other worlds have values different "So be it." Her pale lips were tight, and progress was measured in meters, He Irom yours. They might see your aclions in the very wall of living plant seemed to could still see the doomed tree under its an unflattering light. On other worlds racial shudder with her restrained anger. mound of stranglervine when a shapeless, " prejudice is considered — many-legged horror dropped onto the "Prejudice!" She was slight and slender, The only way down, short of the danger- shoulder of a crester walking not two paces antique and fragile. "Off-worlder, you came ous climb down the clifflike trunk, was by in front of him. The victim dropped without here, knowing you knew all there was to being lowered, at dizzying speed, on im- as much as a gasp, but another guide know about us. You look and you do not mensely long vines. reached over and touched the wetly glis- see. You are a—a dissonance, a flaw in our The others were armed with a variety of tening horror with a vine wrapped around lives, a wrongness we cannot right. Yet we weapons, only some of them recognizable. her wrist, and. with a teeth-tearing keen, have made you welcome. And in return you His companions were all grim, their pre- legs convulsing, the horror shriveled and would tell other worlds about the sins that hensile tails stiffly erect, and he knew that if fell off, to be kickec away into the dimness. we committed only in your mind." She looks could kill, he wouldn't survive to Its victim was loaded onto a sling and car- stood, one hand against a leaf that formed reach the floor. ried by his fellows. the "wall" of this cozy nook, and tiny tendrils The floor, It wasn't as totally dark as he'd The attacks were almost continuous. twined around her arm. He had a sudden imagined, because many of the plants — From above, behind, the side, the front. vision of woman and tree, unity, a single and animals, too— phosphoresced. A Things even slithered up out of the living organism. phrase he'd heard once long ago kept crushed-down matter they were walking "Your prejudice," he said, but more echoing through his head. The caves of on. Big things, little things, all bristling with calmly "drove her off this world in the first night. He was wandering lost through the every natural weapon he'd ever heard of, place. And now it has driven her down to caves of night. Above was a leafy canopy and a few he wouldn't have dreamed her death." of solid darkness. And beneath . . existed. Things crisped by lasers, hacked "Our prejudice? Prejudice means pre- The trunks of the giant trees were tens, by machetes, destroyed by the symbiotic judging, doesn't it? Were we given a some even hundreds,, of meters in diam- plants. Still, dying, they came on, claws 92 OMNI " grasping, tendrils reaching, teeth slaver- Fascinated, he continued to watch until ing, spitting acids, dribbling caustics, he was staring at a scatter of yellow bones,- limbs flailing, tentacles reaching— reach- polished, gleaming, clean. Something no fclGGED? ing— reaching— bigger than his hand, a cuddly gray ball of The007 Despite all their efforts, there was soon a living velvet, ambled over, snapped off a % second casualty and, even before that vic- rib, and chewed it with gusto. The rib went tim could be settled in a sling to be carried, down in seconds, and the ball cracked off a llONIC a third one. second and began chewing, but an odd, The trpgs, his guide, informed him be- growled rumble made it freeze and then RIEFCASE tween attacks, are among the most scurry hastily away. dangerous of the floor dwellers, thanks to The "dead" guard was being attended to their claws and teeth, their cunning and by one of the troops. The doctor was em- ferocity; they glide through the growth like barrassed, professionally shamed. It was sunbeams through b r oksn couds. They kill his duty after all, to tend the wounded. He and eat and breed prolifically, a dozen or had seen the bright arterial blood spurting more to the litter and so survive. They're from the torn throat, but the trog had been marsupial, and if the mother's kilted, the the greater compulsion. Even so. he tofd tough pouch convulses shut, protecting himself, what could he have done with Ihe the litter against all but the worst of tooth few supplies he'd brought with him? He and claw and acid. The newborn are tiny, was about to ask why the corpse hadn't and the pouch is small; often the killer swal- been attacked by the caw-ling things when lows it whole. But inside the stomach, the the "corpse" fluttered her eyelids. c'isso-vents act on the pouch in a curious "An even chance for her, if we turn back way. The pouch has a simple nervous sys- new." :he ch-e ; of ihe guard sad tem of its own; it attaches itself to the "But how? It would have taken a high -T stomach wall and absorbs nutrients from machine to have stopped the bleeding in its surroundings to feed the litter. The litter time. I don't understand." g'ows until i; cor-o\c\c\y blocks of- the She shrugged. "What you do with ma- stomach, and the killer starves. Then the chines, we do with life." Impatiently, 'How litter eats its way out of the pouch, fast, many of us must die before you are con- before the floor dwellers can devour vinced?" corpse, pouch, litter, and all. His head flicked back the way theyd "But would you have believed this?" she come, then again forward, drawn by ihe finished with a grim nod to the voracity inexorable compulsion, drawn to the floor. around them. "Any of this if you hadn't seen the hotbed of life, knowing he was a foot. it With your own eyes, actually experi- knowing it was failure. His failure he enced— the floor?" couldn't face, and yet — He licked his dps Around him birth and death alike and satd, "A.s long as there's a chance, any " exploded in the green-white light. chance that — "How long do you think a blind trog would He didn't sec the chief make agestureto survive?" a guard standing directly behind him. he "Seconds," he admitted, "minutes, no didn't see that guard move. Then he oidn't more. But can't you understand? I have to see anything at all. not even the guard's try'." Despite the protect ve doth-ng nod rueful mixture of regret and admiration as been given, things had burrowed under it. she gazed down at his limp body. He could feel the skittering tegs— or were they tendrils?— in a dozen places. He He opened his eyes to an almost perfect jumped abruptly as a white-hot needle replica of his room back at Continental _ bcecJ n just below the ocu.nt cf hs e t General. It wasn't until he reached out his shoulderblade. hand to the intercom that he realized it was And then a trog attacked. It had the cun- a clever take. Everything was plant growth ning to go for one of the back points , but the But even as intellect recognized fafsity. his troops were all watching one another and a instincts were relaxing, so that he was al- loud voice gave the alarm before the victim ready smiling muzzily when the crester hit the ground, The trog tore off a great bustled in, "clothed" in the traditional blue chunk of its victim with its teeth and ran, the Of surgery service. bleeding strip dangling from its mouth. "Don't tell me, plants." he murmured, a One of the guards made a throwing motion man purged temporarily at leas! of every with her arm, and the trog went down, its emotion but a sort of languid curiosity. "But booty still clamped tightly between its how did you get them the right shade of teeth. By the. time they ran up to it, both the blue?" trog and its gruesome treasure were being She twinkled at him, her tail curling and swarmed over by hundreds of tiny crawling uncurling joyously. "Oh, you're feeling bet- and flying things. ter at last. Wouldn't a little sun be nice, eh? He watched, gulping and unable to Easy over now— Speak. Dead eyes, yellow-green like hers, He had a lot of time to think, sitting in the CCS Communication stared up at him; the white fur was slimed warm sunlight, shaded by a friendly leaf. "I with dark blood, the teeth glistened with it. can teach you as much as you can teach !«rlyHllli.Ca.90I!?:I13:i. As he watched, the body disintegrated, me," he fold.them. And it was true. He never and the swarm ate it, bite by bite. It was no found their secret, how they grew the plants longer a body; it had become nothing but a they did, but he isolated a dozen useful heap of crawling. fighting- ones and helped them develop a dozen " " 1 more, from the little saprophyte that could was holding . 1 irg: 17=0 copy in disarms, be clamped on an open wound and would and he refused to take anything. The BIRTH ON ICE seal In seconds, reducing blood loss im- artwork would be the smallest possible ap- measurably, to a seed that when swallowed preciation to Johnny Healerseed from the -went directly to an ulcer and grew over it, grateful world of Getchergoat.— ready being researched for use in emer- protecting all the delicate tissues, He It was this man "My current label is gency government bunkers. taught them new medical techniques: how Drifting-through-Anomie," he said— who But before they can prove thai cryogenic to set a bone pin, how to treat the stump of a insisted on guiding him through the rest of embryos can outlast a nuclear attack, sci- limb so that when it healed, it could befitted the display which ended in a series of unti- entists have to evaluate the potential dam- with a (hand-carved) prosthetic, how to tled pieces. "Why untitled?" he wondered age to frozen animals from the natural radi- transplantorgans.andhowtodoabypass. aloud, his hands caressing a piece that ation to which we are all exposed daily. And then the wombship came. When it curved subtly around and through itself. During cryostorage normal enzyme repair left, he went with it, taking supplies of all the His guide shrugged. "It's the custom mechanisms of cells do not function. Even plants he thought would be useful on other here, with pieces untitled by the artist, or so, natural levels of background radiation primitive worlds, as well as the Agrippa where the title is unknown or has been lost." would be so low that 50 percent of mouse see'ds he had learned to love chewing. "Solipsism." he said, still playing with the embryos stored between 200 and 1,000 His patient had been right; as much-as piece. years would be able to survive, Whitting- he loved his work, this wasn't his world, and "Good, good, very good," Drifting- ham predicts. it was better that he leave it. through-Anomie beamed. "Should I add it This is based on collaborative work with He knew that he could never go back to to the list of suggested titles?" geneticists Dr. Mary Lyon and Dr. Peter his own world. Too many years, too many "No." He continued to turn the piece, Glenister, at the Medical Research Coun- changes, had alienated him as much as shaking his head. "So many pieces 1 don't cil's Radiobiology Unit, in Harwell, Eng- any of the wombers. recognize, and I thought I knew most of her land. Dr. Lyon bombarded frozen mouse work. I must be getting senile." embryos with up to 100 times the natural And the years passed. Few for him, many "Idegosuper forfendl" Drifting- background dose of radiation for periods of for the worlds spinning warm and smug through-Anomie was appalled. "No, these from 6 months to 27 months. around their suns, and he discovered that, would be the pieces discovered on At all radiation levels, the embryos were thanks to relativistic time contraction and Sequoia after you left there to begin your capable of development to the implanta- the simultaneity projector (were people pilgrimage. I'm sure!" tion stage. Those transplanted into adult really going through the projector now?), he "Discovered alter — " His mouth female mice developed into fetuses. Some was becoming a legend. Whole worlds dropped open. "You mean, she was alive were allowed to proceed to natural birth, were grateful to Johnny Healerseed. after all! She was alive, and I left her!" and the resulting mice mated, Even the wombers took to calling him "I'm sure not." Drifting-through-Anomie Twenty to 30 percent of the 7,000 em- that, at first in gentle derision, later just from cocked his head to one side, as if listening bryos used in these experiments were habit, and he gradually forgot he had once to unheard silent voices, as he undoubt- born, a figure researchers are confident been called by any other name. edly was. "No. the first work of her final they can improve with better techniques. It was on a world called Getchergoatthat period was discovered in Stanyear 809. at Lyon has calculated that about 500 mouse he found the last piece of his personal puz- least two hundred years after she returned embryos would have to be stored in ice to zle. Getchergoat had projectors, and a to her native world. The next three— provide a surviving colony with a good fairly high level of technology, so that he "Two hundred I" safety margin. "Thus, the preservation of was learning as well as teaching. When he "Oh dear! How mannerless of me! You'd unique genetic stocks of mice by storage learned and taught as much as he could, like to see it in situ, wouldn't you?" Between as frozen embryos is now a feasible propo- and knew that his ship would be orbiting for them a tiny sphere appeared, and the doc- sition," she has reported. several standard weeks yet, he asked, as tor realized it was a holo, taken from the If this finding proves to be similar in man, he had on many other worlds, what sights crests. "It was a womber who spotted it— then anthropologists in 32,000 years might his colleagues recommended he see. The view descended, hovered over the decide to retrieve one of our contempo- Everyone agreed that the one thing he Ireetops. and focused on fhe oddly convo- raries from suspended animation. By then, mustn't miss was the Pan-Art Exhibition in luted crest of one particular tree. if history is anything to go by, the average the Septmillennial Memorial Audisseum. "Aesculapius!" - human could be as different from us as we The Audisseum was multilevel, a freeform "The style is unmistakable, of course. are from the hairy Neanderthal. hugeness in transparent weather sheath- The original is about seventy meters high Long before that day the benefits of ing. He hesitated in the dilating entrance, a and about twenty-five meters in diameter, frozen-embryo storage will be reaped in radiation-scarred old man, and an ovoid and its song has been recorded"— a deep medicine and agriculture. In research, for shimmer materialized at his elbow "May I rumble— of triumph filled the air around instance, the major advantage of using direct you to any specific exhibit?" the them "though how that great genius inbred animals is to maintain uniformity. ovoid inquired. managed to shape the growth of the trees, Unfortunately, genetic drift is difficult to "Have you anything here by the Se- we don't know—" control, because of the continual natural quoian troglodyte Inanna Kantanitanki?" The doctor thought of a hand putting a mutations that gradually accumulate in lab "A man of taste," the ovoid purred. "Do seed into a mouth, the mouth spitting it out animals. This can distort the results of simi- you prefer Early, Mature, or Final period?" again — of chemical signals of amazing lar medical research carried out at different "All three," he said. complexity that make a body grow and centers. Alternatively, cryogenic animals In the Early display, he was pleased to change— of a world where plants and ani- can remain constant, created specifically see a copy of Mayflight in the Morning, mals had grown so interrelated that he had for a set of tests. enlarged so that it sang baritone instead of often thought of it as one, immense, com- Despite present progress, we are still soprano. When he tried to arrange some plex, single living organism, a living world exploring the foothills of the cryogenic po- sort of credit, so he could have another that isolated outside contaminants in tential for man. Within the next few years copy to replace the one left behind some- deadness— and he knew how his once- cryogenic storage should begin to ameli- where long ago, he was embarrassed be- hosts grew their medical and other mira- orate the widespread problems of infertility cause they refused any exchange, A mid- cles and why the trog had had to return. He in marriage, such as those faced by dle-aged man, attired only in Mercury's smiled gently at Drifting-through-Anomie. Francesca and Mark. For the future it just winged shoes, came sailing out on a "They ate her soul with her bones," he might be the closest we'll ever come to at- striped orange-and-lime flying disc. He said. OO taining immortality. OQ 94 OMNI the ormrui-ruiErusM I.GJ.T T By Scot Morris ur readers love to test themselves. After we pub- Other than their ability to get high scores on "intelligence lished "The World's Hardest 1.0. Test" in April tests" (which may measure nothing more significant than 1979, so many of you sent in answer sheets— test-taking skills), Mensa members have little in common, about 25,000 at last count — that the California society The society has no restrictions on race, religion, sex, and scoring the test was overwhelmed by the. volume and fell age.(lhere are currently three members who are four years several months behind in processing. We apologize again of age and several in their nineties). for the inconvenience this caused you. With the help of Alice Fixx, public relations director for The results of that test are now in, and we couldn't be Mensa, we prepared a preliminary test consisting of 46 prouder. Among the first 20,000 persons whose answer items similar to those found in standardized intelligence sheets were scored, the average f.Q. was 137. An I.Q. of tests. Marvin Grosswirth, a past chairman, helped orga- just 133 on a standardized test puts you above 93 percent nize a session of the New York City Mensa, at which 88 of the general population and makes you eligible for mem- members kindly took this test. bership in Mensa, the high-I.Q. society Well over half of After scoring the test (each scored another's paper), we you scored above the Mensa qualification level. went over it item by item. Members were asked to criticize Ten percent ol the Omni readers who entered, had I.Q.'s or praise the items, point out ambiguities, suggest alter- of 154 or higher. Two percent of you scored above 163, the nate interpretations,or judge items too difficult or too easy. cutoff for membership in the Four Sigma Society, makers cf As a result of this session 7 items were discarded, leaving the test. Four hundred Omni respondents qualified foi the 39 items presented 1 here. membership in this elite club. Twenty o.f you had I.Q.'s in We did not impose a time limit on the Mensa testees, but the intellectual stratosphere, above 171. we asked them to work as fast as they could and to raise The volume of response more than confirmed the popu- their hands when they were finished. A tally indicated that larity of this I.Q. feature. We have decided to try it again, most took about 35 minutes to complete the 46-item test. this time with the help of Mensa, and with a test that For this 39-item test, allow a limit of 30 minutes to make readers may score themselves. The answers and a com- your score comparable to those of the Mensa sample. plete analysis of the test will appear next month, Next month we'll give you the answers, with explana- Mensa is an international society with more than 42,000 tions, and some data that will help you make sense of your members in the United States alone. Each year about score: (1) a report on which questions were easiest and 35,000 people try to qualify for membership and 15,000 which were hardest' for Mensa's members'; (2) a test profile succeed. Some of these people go on to become active showing how the 88 Mensa members scored; and (3) members; most are satisfied merely to know they made it. guidelines for converting your raw score into a rough esti- There is only one qualification for membership in this orga- mate of your I.Q. nization—a Score on any standardized intelligence test Scores on this test are not recognized for membership in that is in the upper 2 percent of the general population. On Mensa, but they can indicate whether you would be likely the. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), this corre- to do well on an official test. The procedure tor applying to sponds to an I.Q. of 130. On Scholastic Aptitude Tests, Mensa will be presented here, with the scoring instruc- a qualifying score is 1250 (verbal and math combined). tions, next month. Good luck! 4. Study (he four drawings in the ow. Which of t the bottom raw should appea 'nex ;. tn the group of words below, "^ underline [he two nearly opposite In meaning. [Example: , large. Hat, light, bright] s> heavy i punish, vex, ^ pinch, ignore, pacify, determine Bracelet Earrings f (fa fy Chain S Ring '!! : . !::}:!-: ...:,.;: Hf. , .; .i^.riu 13. M is above H and 0. H is above and below R Therefore: (a) M is not above Q-and P. A (b) O is above N (e) Pis above O. -> « (d) O is above P. V 14. In Ihe group of wwds below, under Similar in meaning. e applies both .from lop lo bo Example: mat. linoleum, itoor i ray. lefito right. Find the ruli and figure out Itie missing n beam, lump, wood, chuckle, Example: 2 7 9 5 4 9 - 4- +D o XA+ + + X +i +U- 4- + % 6> 00 + X X VX 16. If A*B = 24. B»C=24, BxD = 48. and Cx0 = 32> Ax B*C>=D equal? 00 6> (a) 480 (b) 744 (c) 768 (d) 8£4 7 Complete tiered figures. 7 \ HP [H O (a> (b) (c) 18. "Don't throw good money after bad" means: (a) Take your loss and walk away from it. (b) Don't gamble; think of the future. (c) Don't invest in a losing proposition. (d) Don'! borrow lo gamble. 19. Sam. Fred. Steve, and Joe are weigh! lifters. Joe can outliff Steve, ' and Fred can ouilitt Joe. Steve can ouilift Sam. Theiefore:. ' (a) Both Sam and Fred can outliff' Joe. - (b) Joe can otiffifl Sam but can't outliff Steve; (c) Joe can outlifl Sam by more than he can outliff Steve (d) None of Ihe above is true. Lx/^t^J " •21. Determinewl 30. If Barbara'jrta-jgnvi,; r v cj l,yh:e(s'*iciliei.i» 10 Barbara' (a) Her gMMcJiMihi-r (b) Her mothe- Raincoat (c) Her daughter Sweater (dJHergrd'-ild.juqri'ur Blouse (e) lam8,^rDa-a as. Ihe Whiles )i\ next to the Reeds. If the Lanes' next-dboi neighbors? (a) The Whites (to) The Carsons (c) Both the Whites (d) Impossible (a) If you are good, you will best (b) Be good lo your best enemy (e) Don't accept less than your best. (d) The good struggle against the besl. 'XXX "X- 35. Underline the Evelid is to eye as (window, glass, view, cur 36. Complete the following analogy by writing 6 IIHIII ending with the printed letter. (a) (b) (0) SMi is to brain as sheTJ is to ___ K i. Carol, Celia, and Sharon took intelligence tests. 37. Complete this diagram: iber than Carol, but Allan scored higher than Celia. Alex, but Allan outscored Carol. Sharon scored lowe Allan. Therefore: (a) Celia scored higher lhan Alex but lower than Carol. o (b) Both Alex and Allan outscored Celia. (c) Sharon scored higher than Carol. l OA (d) Celia outscored Alex by more than she outscored Carol. o (e) None of the above is definitely true. OA over or rotated to become the same as the diagram below? A° Ao °AA AO Q ^O o m (c) t<« :. 'A.stream cannot rise high leans: (a) You decline arte; achieving your highest levef. (b) Streams of knowledge can't come from high sources. unuu (c) Your stream of consciousness is highly resourceful. (d) Your stream ot achievement Is limited by your background: '. : Underline l words . parentheses that have the ss in the first phrase. is (spout, kettle, handle, copper, lid). THE PALACE WE'VE GOT THE SYSTEM practice their \\:\ie pagan rituals and do a THAT CAN MAKE YOUR PICTURES lot of dancing around the Maypole and chanting and screwing. You expect me to AS CREATIVE AS THESE. believe that a bunch of gentle, goofy witch- es are going to make war on the Empire?" She said, "Not war. An invasion." "Explain," "One of their nich priests has proclaimed San Francisco a holy place and has in- structed them to come down here and build a Stonehenge in Golden Gate Park in time for proper celebration of the winter solstice. There are at least a quarter of a million neopagans in the Willamette Valley, and more than half of them are expected to take, Its the Cokin part. According to out Mencocino man, the Creative Filter migration has already begun and thou- System- And it sands of Wiccans are spread out between Mount Shasta and Ukiah right now. The sol- fits virtually every 1 stice is only Seven weeks away. The Wic- 35mm camera cans Ti.?.y gentle, be but you're going to made, plus medium format, have a hundred fifty thousand of them in San Francisco by the end of the month. movie, TV cameras and pitching tents all over town." enlargers. And almost ail the lenses "Holy Jesus." Chhstensen muttered. that go with them. From 36mm to "Can you feed' that many strangers? Can filter diameters. you find room far them? Will San Francis- 82mm cans meet them with open arms? Do you The key is an easy-to-use inexpen- think it'll be a love festival?" sive filter holder. Each Cokin filter "It'll be a fucking massacre," Christen- snaps in and out easily You can even sen said tonele.ssly, , "Yes. The witches may be nonviolent, but stack them for multiple special Ihey know now to practice sell-defense. effects . Th ere are more than Once they're attacked, there'll be rivers of 100 accessories to choose - blood, and it won't all be Wiccan blood." Christensen's head was pounding from, including color filters, again. She was absolutely right: chaos, prisms, masks and linear strife, bloodshed. And a merry Christmas shutters. to all. He rubbed his aching forehead, The Cokin Creative Filter turned away from her. and stared out at the deepening twilight and the sparkling lights System. It'll make any of the city on the other side of the bay. A picture you take like no ..£ bleak, bitter clep'c-ssior- s taking hold of picture ; his spirit. He signa ; eo or another round of drinks. Then he said slowly, "They can't be you've ever allowed to enter the city. We' l need lo close taken the imperial frontier and turn them back before. before they get as far as Santa Rosa. Let them build their goddamned Stonehenge in Sacramento if they like." His eyes flick- ered, He started to assemble ideas. "The Empire might just have enough troops to contain the Wiccans by i'.sslf, but I think this is best handled as a regional problem. We'll call in forces from our allies as far out as Peialuma and Napa and Palo Alio. I don't imagine we can expect much help from the Free State or from San Jose. And of course Monterey isn't much of a military power, but Still-" "We are willing to help," Ms. Sawyer said. "To what extent?" "We aren't set up for much actual war- fare, but we have access to our own al- liances from Salinas down to Paso Ftobles, and we could call up, say, live thousand xokiri troops all told. Would that help?" Creative Filter System "That would help," Christensen said. "It shouldn't be necessary lor there to be that Pasadena had the Bomb. Nobody had o'clock. Shall we have dinner together be- any combat. With the imperial border to contend with that up here. fore I go back to the city?" sealed and troops posted along the line Christensen said, "I'll have to propose all "I'd love to." from Guerneville to Sacramento, the Wic- this to'the Defense Ministry, of course. And "I don't know much about Berkeley res- carrs won't lorce the issue. They'll revise get the Emperor's approval. But basically taurants. We're probably better off eating their revelation and celebrate the solstice I'm in agreement with your thinking." right here." somewhere else." "I'm so pleased." "I think that's best," she said. "Yes," he said, "I think' you're right." He 'And I'm very glad that you took the trou- They were the only ones in the hotel's leaned toward her and asked, "Why is Mon- ble to travel up from Monterey to make enormous dining room. A staff of three terey willing to help us?" these matters clear to us." waited .on them as if they were the most "We have problems of our own brew- "Merely a case of enlightened self-inter- important people who had ever dined ing—with San Jose. It we are seen making est," Ms. Sawyer said. there. And dinner turned out to be quite a conspicuous gesture oi solidarity with the "Mmm. Yes." He found himself studying decent, he thought— calamari and aba- Empire, it might discourage San Jose from the sharp planes of her cheekbones, the lone and sand dabs and grilled thresher proceeding with its notion of annexing delicate arch of her eyebrows. Not only was shark, washed down with a dazzling bottle Santa Cruz. That amounts to an act of war she cool and competent, Christensen of Napa Chardonnay. Even though the against us. Surely San Jose isn't interested thought, but now that the business part of • world had ended, it remained possible to in making any moves that will bring the their meeting was over, he was coming to eat very well in the Bay Area, and the Empire down on its back." notice that she was a very attractive woman breakdown of society had not only reduced She wasn't subtle, but she was effective. and that he was hot as tired as he had maritime pollution but also made local sea- Quid pro quo. we help you keep the witches, thought he was. Did international politics food much more readily available for local out, you help us keep San Jose in line, and allow room for a little recreational hanky- consumption. There wasn't much of an ex- all remains well without a shot being fired. panky? Metternich hadn't jumped into bed port trade possible with eleven heavily These goddamned little nations, he with Talleyrand, nor Kissinger with Indira guarded national boundaries and eleven thought, these absuro ierk'A-ater sovereign- Gandhi, but times had changed, after all. sets of customs barriers belween San ties, with their wars and alliances and. shitt- and— no. Wo. He choked off that entire line Francisco'and Los Angeles. ing confederations. It was Mks a game, like of thought. In these shabby days they Dinner conversation was light, re- playground politics. Except that it was real. might all be children playing at being laxed—diplomatic chitchat, gossip about What had fallen apart was not going to be grown-ups, but nevertheless international events in remote territories, reports about put back together, not for a long while, and politics still had its code, and this was a the Voodoo principality expanding out of this miniaturize"! WeitpoHtik was the realest meeting ofdiplomats, not a blind dale or a New Orleans and the Sioux conquests in reality there was just now. At least things singles-bar pickup. You will sleep in your Wyoming and the Prohibition War now were saner in Northern California than they own bed tonight, he told himself, and you going on in what used to be Kentucky. were down south, where Los Angeles was :viii sleep alone There was a bison herd again on the Great gobbling everything and there were rumors AJI the same he said, "It's past six Plains, she said, close to a million head. He told her what he had heard about the Suicide People, who ruled between San Diego and Tijuana, and about King Barnum & Bailey III, who governed in northern Florida with the aid oi a court of circus freaks. She smiled and said, "How can they tell the freaks from the ordinary people? The whole world's a circus now, isn't it?" He shook his head and replied. "No, a zoo," and he beckoned the. waiter for more wine. He did not ask her about internal matters in Monterey, and she tactfully stayed away from the domestic problems of the Empire of San Francisco. He was feeling easy, buoyant, a little drunk, more than a little drunk; to have to answer ques- tions now about the little rebellion that had been suppressed in Sausalito or the se- cessionist thing in Walnut C'eekwouldbea bringdown, and bad for the digestion. About half past eight he said, "You aren't going back to Mcniercy tonight, are you?" "God, no! It's a five-hour drive, assuming no more troubles with the San Jose High- way Patrol. And the road's so bad below Watsonville that only a lunatic would drive it at night. I'll stay here at the Claremont." "Good. Let me put it on the imperial ac- count." "That isn't necessary. We—" "The hotel is always glad to oblige the government and its guests," Ms. Sawyer shrugged. "Very well. We'll reciprocate when you come to Monterey" "Fine." And then her manner suddenly changed. She shifted in her seat and . fidgeted and played with her silverware, but I've never really been anywhere. San "The pomp, the circumstance. You're going to be disappointed. You may be bet- looking awkward and ill at ease. Some new Francisco two or three times when I was a him, actually. Stick to and big topic was obviously about to be girl. San Jose a few times. My mother was ter off not meeting your fantasy of imperial majesty Seriously, introduced, and Christensen guessed that in Los- Angeles once, but I haven't been I'll if insist, but I I an audience you "'"She was going to ask him to spend the night anywhere. And to go home saying that get you - think it's great idea." with her. In a fraction of a second he ran had seen the Emperor " Her eyes spar- don't a more specific?" through all the possible merits and de- kled. "You're really taken aback, aren't you? "Can you be ail "No." merits of that, and came out on the plus You thought I was ice and microproces- "1 him. Regardless." side, and had his answer ready when she sors, and instead I'm only a hick, right? But still want to see being very nice. You aren't even He left the dining room and, with misgiv- said, "Tom, can I ask a big favor?" you're things. tele- Which threw him completely off balance. laughing at me. Will you get me an audi- ings, began arranging The phone system was working sluggishly that Whatever was coming, it certainly wasn't ence with the Emperor for tomorrow?" evening, it took him fifteen minutes to what he was expecting. "I thought you were afraid to go into San and set the whole thing up, but there were no "I'll do my best" Francisco," obstacles. returned to her and "I'd like an audience with the Emperor." She looked abashed. "That was just a serious He ''What?" ploy. To make you come over here, to get said, "The'ferry will pick us up at the marina yourself in about an hour. There'll be a car waiting on "Not on official business. I know the Em- you to take me seriously and put ' will peror talks business only with his ministers out a little. Diplomatic wiles. I'm sorry about the San Francisco side. The Emperor word that you were snotty, that be available for viewing around midnight. I and privy councillors. But I want to see him, that. The was that you're not going to enjoy this. that's all." Color came to her cheeks. you had to be met with strength or you'd be tell you like The Emperor is old, and he's been sick; "Doesn't it sound silly? But it's something impossible to deal with. But you aren't isn't very ir.lerssling person to meet." I've always dreamed of, a kind of adoles- that at all. Tom, I want to see the Emperor. he a said, "The thing I cent fantasy. To be in San Francisco, to be He does give audiences, doesn't he?" 'All the same," she one it wanted, when I volunteered to be the envoy, shown into the imperial throne room, to- kiss "In a manner of speaking. I suppose an imperial audience. Please don't his ring, all that pomp and circumstance. I could be done." was discourage me." want it, Tom. Just to be there, to see him. Do "Oh, would: you? Tomorrow?" another you think you could manage that?" "Why wait for tomorrow?" "As you wish. Shall we have He was astounded. The facade of cool, "Are you being sarcastic?" drink?" produced an tough competence had dropped away "Not at all," Christensen said. "This is "How about these?" She from her, revealing unanticipated absurdity. San Francisco. The Emperor keeps weird enameled cigarette case. "Humboldt finest. Gift of the Free State." He did not know what to answer. hours just like the rest of us. I'll phone over County's smiled and took the joint She said, "Monterey's such a poky little there and see if we can be received." He He and nodded from her. It was elegantly manufactured, place, It's just a town, We call ourselves a hesitated. "I'm afraid it won't be what you're monogram, ig- republic, but we aren't much of anything. expecting." fine cockleshell paper, gold diplomat. In what way?" niter cap, even a filter. Everything else has And I call myself a senator and a "What do you mean? come apart, he thought, but the technology of marijuana is at its highest point in history He flicked the cap, took a deep drag, ' passed it to her. The effect was instantane- ous, a new high cutting through the wooze of bourbon and wine and brandy already in his brain, clearing it, expanding his limp and sagging soul. When they were finished with it, they floated out of the hotel. His driver and hers were still waiting in the park- ing lot. Christensen dismissed his, and they took the Republic of Monterey car down the slopes of Berkeley to the marina. The boat from San Francisco was late, They stood around shivering at the ferry slip for twenty minutes, peering bleakly across at the glitter ng lighis of the far-off city. Neither of them was dressed for the nighttime chill, and he was tempted to pull her close and hold her in his arms, but he did not. There was a boundary he was not yet willing to cross. Hell, he thought, / don't even know her first name. It was nearly eleven by the time they reached San Francisco. An official car was parked at the pier. The driver hopped out, saluting, bustling about— one of those preposterous little civil-service types, doubtless keenly hon- ored to be taxiing bigwigs around late at night. He wore the red-and-gold uniform of the imperial dragoons, a little frayed at one elbow. The car coughed and sputtered and reluctantly lurched into life, up Market Street to Van Ness and then north to the palace. Ms. Sawyer's eyes were wide, and she stared at the ancient high-rises along ' from Monterey seemed to draw They emerged into the clear, cold night. Van Ness as if they were cathedrals. The envoy "I'll ride back to the When they came to the Civic Center back, tense and rigid, repelled, unable or Christensen said, slip with you before I go home." area, she gasped, obviously overwhelmed unwilling to go closer, but Christensen per- ferry until she was no "Where do you live?" ...by the majesty of everything, the shattered sisted, urging her onward "In the other direction. Out near Golden hulk of the Symphony Hall, the Museum of more than a dozen feet from the throne. A Gate Park." Modem Art, the great dome of City Hall, sickly-sweet, vaguely familiar odor ema- She looked up at him and moistened her and the Imperial Palace itself, awesome, nated from the old man. lips. "I don't want to ride across the bay in imposing, a splendid, many-columned "What do I do?" she asked, panicking. forward, the dark, alone, at this hour of the night. Islt building that long ago had been the War "When I introduce you, go orb. all right if I go home with you?" Memorial Opera House. With the envoy curtsey if you know how, touch the said. from ihe Republic of Monterey at his elbow, Then step back. Thai's all." "Sure," he jaunty smile. "YouYe Christensen marched up the steps of the She nodded. She managed a palace and through the center doors into Christensen said, "Your Majesty, the am- straight, aren't you?" "Sure. Most of the time, anyway." the lobby, where a great many ot the rank- bassador from ihe Republic of Monterey, "I thought you were. Good." ing ministers and plenipotentiaries of the Senator Sawyer, to pay her respects." "Frederick Street," Empire were assembled. "How absolutely Trembling, she went to him, curtseyed, They got into the car. "between. Clayton and marvelous," Ms, Sawyer murmured. Smil- touched the orb. As she backed away, she he told the driver, Cole." ing graciously bowing, nodding, Christen- nearly fell, but Christensen came smoothly minutes. Neither of sen pointed out the notables, the defense forward and steadied her. The Emperor The trip took twenty knew what she was think- minister, the minister of finance, the minis- giggled again, a shrill, horrific cackle. them spoke. He ing about: the senile Emperor, dribbling ter of suburban affairs, the chief justice, the Slowly, carefully, Christensen guided the babbling under the bright spotlights. minister of transportation. shaken Ms. Sawyer from the stage. and Norton VII, ruler of everything Precisely at midnight there was a grand "How long has he been like that?" The mighty San Rafael to San Mateo, from Half flourish of trumpets and the door to the "Two years, three, maybe more. Com- from is pomp throne room opened. Christensen offered Moon Bay to Walnut Creek. Such in imperial San Fran- Ms. Sawyer his arm; together they made and circumstance Western civili- the long journey down the center aisle and cisco in these latter days of Christensen sent the driver away, up the ramp to the stage, where the impe- zation. they went upstairs. The cats were hun- rial throne, a resplendent thing of rhine- and £He thought about gry again. stones and foil, glittered brilliantly under apartment," she told' him, the spotlights. Ms. Sawyer was won- the Realm of Wicca, far "If s a lovely cold running derstruck. She pointed toward the six "Three rooms, bath, hoi and in green, off up there for mere foreign minister. gigantic portraits suspended high over the water. Not bad a the boys have suites at the palace, stage and whispered a question, and happy Oregon, sending kindly Some of door I like it better here." He opened the Christensen replied, "The first six em- goddess-worshiping but the deck and stepped outside. Some- perors. And here comes the seventh one." to neopagans to California how, now that he was home, the night was "Oh," she gasped. But was it awe, sur- not cold. He thought about the Realm of prise, or disgust? to celebrate the so Wicca, tar off up there in green, happy in his full regalia, the scarlet robe, He was ... mess,? rebirth of the sun a Oregon, sending a hundred fifty thousand the bright green tunic with ermine trim, the goddess-worshiping neopagans gold chains. But he was wobbly and totter- kindly down here to celebrate the rebirth of the ing, a clumsy, staggering figure, gray- mess, a headache. To- faced and feeble, supported on one side sun. A nuisance, a morrow he'd have to call a meeting of the by Mike Schiff, the Imperial Chamberlain, Cabinet, when everybody had sobered up, and on the other by the Grand Sergeant- pletely senile. Not even housebroken any- wheels turning, and probably at-Arms, Terry Coleman. He was not so more. You could probably tell. I'm sorry I and start the this. to make trips to places like much leaning on them as being dragged told you you'd be better off skipping he'd have Petaluma and Palo Alto to get the alliance by them. Bringing up the rear of the pro- I'm enormously sorry, Ms— Ms. — what's flanged together. Damn. But it was his job. cession were two sleek, pretty boys, one your tirst name, anyway?" carry the load. black and one Chinese, carrying the orb, "Elaine." Someone had to his arm around the slender the scepter, and the massive crown. Ms. "Let's' get out of here. Elaine. Yes?" He slipped from Monterey Sawyer's fingers tightened on Christen- "Yes. Please." woman Emperor," she said softly. sen's forearm, and he heard her catch her She was shivering. He walked her up the "The poor courtiers "Yes," he agreed. "The poor Emperor breath as the Emperor, in the process of side aisle. A few of the were everybody." being lowered into his throne, went bone- clambering up onto the stage now, one with Poor looked toward the east. In a few hours less and nearly spilled to the floor. Some- a guitar, one with juggler's clubs. The impe- He the sun would be coming up over that hill, how the Imperial Chamberlain and the rial giggle pierced the air again and again, place that used to be the United Grand Sergeant-at-Arms settled him prop- becoming rasping and wild. The imperial out of the Emperor States of America and now was a erly in place, balanced the crown on his levee would go on half the night. thousand crazy, fractured, head, and stuffed the orb and scepter into Norton VII was one of San Francisco's most thousand, fragmented entities. Christensen shook his his trembling hands. "His Imperial Majesty, popular amusements. Grand Duchy of Chicago, he Norton the Seventh of San Francisco!" "Now you know," Christensen said. head. The function, if the thought. The Holy Carolina Confederation. cried Mike Schiff in a magnificent voice that "How does the Empire Three Kingdoms of New York, The Em- went booming up to the highest balcony. Emperor is crazy?" The No use getting The Emperor giggled. "We manage. We do our best without pire of San Francisco. much too late for getting upset. You "Come on," Christensen whispered and him. The Romans managed it with Caligula. upset— played the hand that was dealt you, and led her forward. Norton's not half as bad as Caligula. Not a you did your best, and you carved little The old man was really in terrible shape. tenth. Will you tell everyone in Monterey?" of night. Turning to "I not. believe in the power of the islands of safety out the It was weeks" since Christensen had last think We her, he said, "I'm glad you came home with seen him, and by now he looked like some- Empire and in the grandeur of the Emperor. brushed his lips lightly thing dragged from the crypt, slack-jawed, Best not to disturb that faith." me tonight." He Let's inside."DQ drooling, vacant-eyed, utterly burned out. "Quite right," said Christensen. against hers. "Come. go 101 OMNI FUTURE TING i.":ONT NLjFrji signed to detect heavy, long-lived parti- cles, and in his proposed mass region, Ihe eminent physicist claimed, there were no such animals, "Nevertheless," Ting re- marks dryly, "since I usually do not have much confidence in theoretical arguments, we decided lo proceed with our original design." Experiments like this have their terrifying moments. On Chnstmas Eve, 1973, Ting was in Germany. He received a phone call from Upton. "Don't worry," the voice at the other end said; "nobody was killed." A par- ticle detector known as a Chererikov counter a pressurized device containing large plastic mirrors, had exploded with Ihe force of a fragmentation bomb. Fortunately, all of the physicists were safe inside a nearby trailer. Another anxious moment came when they started operating the experiment, De- spite the facl that more than 10,000 tons ;of concrete shielded the machinery, radiaiion inside the experimental trailer remained so high that the physicists would have re- ceived lethal doses of radiation in less than 24 hours. At last, in the early summer of 1974, the v>3parW|ng with Natures own carbonati experiment was ready to run. Al first ihe .?• '--/No- calories, and.Tiothing artificial;? team concentrated on finding particles whose mass lay between 4 and 5 Gev, a , range Ting felt would yield rich experi- mental fruit. They searched for most of the summer and found nary a one. It began to look as if their detractors, had been right. Then, in Augu~i. :l~ey lowered the mass to the 3- to 4-Gev range. Right away they began to see something. "Then the counts began to eome d.ut,." Ting remembers. "That was very exciting. Still, we topktwO or three months to check it." Ting almost too careful. was By Novem- Casio just Eight digit ber he siill hadn't announced his discovery. put an exciting calculator is Meanwhile a team at Stanford's Linear Ac- game—and operated easily, celerator (SLAC). under the leadership of much more—into their best-selling even, by the iaroest iingors Two- line display Burton Richter. were- doing a routine check lator watch. shows day, date, time. Features 24 hour ._ .. ... 1-2/24 "Counterattack" tests your reS,— . alarm, hourly ehime, hour On their experiment. They found one tiny. :-;.--:.--: .."-" ;;.~ you destroy enemy mi : :._.. \.-.^seep-.:\g two time zones, 24 hour stop- annoyir.G inconsistency at the mass of 3 level as you play. Hear easb ;.-_o: tired— watch to V sec Extremely comfortable, Gev that couldn't be explained. Probably a FJ ,: i . i .: v. some interesting physics tell to youabout." THE SHARPER IMAGE Richier replied, "No, Sam, I have some Interesting physics to tell you about." Their reports appeared side by side. The only difference in them is that Ting called after that I wanied to lake some more, but ever, to turn Ting into an experimental his discovery the J and Richter called his my adviser told me. 'You have taken more physicist. This added impetus came from discovery the psi. Today diplomacy dic- than your share in the engineering school. George Uhlenbeck, a professor at Michi- tates its proper name; On the East Coast, it You should take some more circuitry or me- gan who is famous for his discovery of the "is the J; on the West, it is the psi. And if you chanical drawing.' Well, I couldn't do that. electron's spin. aren't sure, just call it the J/Psi, or "gypsy." I'd lose my scholarship. So my adviser Ting asked Uhlenbeck whether he What is the J? After some wrangling, said, 'Then you have to transfer to physics.' should become a theoretical physicist. physicists now believe It-to be the first of a I said, 'Okay, tine.' And that was that." That "Well," Uhlenbeck said, "if I were to do it large new class of particles that contain a was his sophomore year. By his junior year, over again, I would do experiments." Why? special kind ot quark, called the charmed he admits, he had even begun to find "An average experimentalist is very useful, quark, for strictly whimsical reasons. The physics interesting. and an average theoretician is not. In particle itself reveals the richness of mat- In graduate school at Ann Arbor, Ting theoretical physics only a very few theoreti- ter's structure and provides a new tool for met Martin Perl, now of SLAG and then a cians are very important. In an experiment exploring this structure. In 1976 Richter and Michigan professor eager for help with his whatever you do can make a contribution." Ting received the Nobel Prize for their si- experiments. In April of 1960, Ting recalls, Above all, Ting wanted to make a contribu- multaneous and independent discovery. Perl said, "Well, we have an experiment in tion. "It was a standard talk of mine," Richard Feynman, himself a Nobel laure- California, and we need a pair of hands for Uhlenbeck recalls. "Some people took it ate, sent Ting a telegram the day the prize the summer. We pay three hundred dollars seriously, thank God!" was announced. "Dear Sam," he asked, a month plus a round-trip ticket." AN AIRBORNE TASKMASTER "why do they give a prize to somebody who Ting says, "I was interested in theoretical discovers something I couldn't under- physics, but because of this seduction I Today Ting lives with his wife, Kay, and stand'?" went to Berkeley. Jus! as a helping hand." two daughters in a ranch-style house in The Nobel Prize has had surprisingly lit- At Berkeley. I ing was first exposed to the Lexington, Massachusetts, a suburb of tle effect on Ting's life-style. The only solid rigorous demands of high-energy experi- Boston. Kay an architect, is designing a advantage he sees is that if he goes to a new home with their Nobel Prize money, but Chinese restaurant, people know who he if the past -is any indication. Ting won't is— without an American Express card. spend much time in it. 'And I certainly get better service. Oh. yes." Officially, he is a professor at MIT, but he he adds, "my daughters were even nice to spends much of his time enroute from one me for about a month." +High-energy giant particle accelerator to another. He crossings each A CHINESE REFUGEE physics is a iot like a makes 40 transatlantic __ year and spends only every other weekend motion picture: If great events don't shake Ting's life at home. much, it is because his roots run deep— all a large-budget project, Ting is notorious among particle physi- the way back to a vagabond childhood in iong planned, with cists—hard workers in their own right— for China. Ting was born in Ann Arbor Michi- his dedication and energy. He demands no gan, 45 years ago, but his parents, both dozens of experts working less from his colleagues. Once students ' Chinese students at the University of to express the put up a gag sign in his office that de- Michigan, returned home shortly- after his manded staff work 16 hours a day and vision of a single auteur,^ birth because Japan had invaded China. seven days a week. Some weeks, in reality, "Being patriotic sorts," Ting recalls, "they that schedule would seem a vacation. decided to go back to China. I was exactly Ting is known for taking naps in the mid- point three years old at the time." dle of the afternoon so he-can turn up late at The future physicist spent the next nine night, full of energy, to prevent people from years as a refugee "one step ahead of the mentation. Often he was expected to work quitting early. Staffers grumble, but most Japanese." He saw quite a lot' of China, round-the-clock readying an experiment members of the group seem to thrive on the , though scarcely a glimpse of its class- for operation, making hasty repairs, or pressure. They <.no w that these are the sac- rooms. "When you are a refugee," he says. monitoring voltage levels and particle rifices they must make to live on the frontier "you're worried about survival, not educa- counts. This dizzying, breakneck pace is of physics. tion. I went to first grade once, but only for a necessary because only a few experi- The working pressure is enhanced by few days. Then I had to leave because ments can be done at any given time on an another patented Ting trick. To make sure there was bombing every day." If this expe- accelerator, just as only a small section of nothing is overlooked, he ci vides his group rience left him with any scars, they don't the heavens can be examined at a time Into two competing factions. As Ulrich show. Asked what it was like during the war, through a large telescope. Becker, Ting's right-hand man, explains, Ting only smiles and says, "Well, it was very Ting, now legendary for the long hours he "One must avoid that famous, dangerous good, because I never had to go to school." spends on an experiment, took a while to thing — commonsense belief." Everything But all good things must end, and for adjust to. the. pace. "I remember the first is done twice, double-checked. This Ting's family the end came with peace in time t spent on the night shift. The next meticulous care allows Ting to make an 1945. They moved to Taiwan, where Ting's morning was really bad. Who on earth almost-unprecedented claim; His only parents taught at a university and he finally would do such a stupid thing, spend all published mistakes are typographical er- " if I went to school. He was nine and could night running a stupid counter! But after rors. I think that were to make a mistake, barely read. "But," he notes archly, "I man- some time I cameto understand most of it, it would bother me," Ting says without a aged to catch up rather quickly." the importance of actually doing some- trace of a smile. In school, Ting became deeply en- thing, actually managing lo get something For Ting, physics is the only thing and grossed with the concept of truth. The pur- working." experiments are the only truth. He is al- suit of truth ultimately sent him back to the By the end of the summer Ting, was ready planning projects into 1986. For him, United Slates, to study at the University ot hooked, not so much because he found the experimental physics is not a job; it is a Michigan. He enrolled in the school of work particularly gratifying, but because quest. "Unless a thing is measured and engineering _and nearly flunked out. "I Perl said that if he stayed, he would get his confirmed," Ting states, "it does not exist." couldn't understand engineering draw- degree quickly. A graduate student can Ting's discoveries in particle physics con- ings. So the next term I took some physics hear just about no sweeter words. firm his existence and define the ultimate and mathematics courses. And the term It took one further bit of prodding, how- limits ot reality.DQ 106 OMNI Our cover finalists portray the Omni focus PHDTD CDOIT By Geoffrey Golson Fantasy and surrealism dominated the more than 1,500 entries we received for our Cover Photography Contest, announced last January. Readers onnrui were asked to capture Omni's special editorial emphasis in a single photograph. Robert Kittila's winning entry appears on Omni's June cover (see last month's issue). This month, at right, we present the runners-up. All finalists were selected by Omni Publisher and Design Director BobGuccione. John Pisano, of Fort Lewis, Washington, produced the second-place winner a symmetrical, well-framed depiction of the Seattle Aquarium at sunset (shown at top, this sea gull, , left). Pisano photographed which unknowingly crowns a triangular pattern in nature, on Ektachrome 64 film. Pisano received a silver-embossed certificate from Omni. The third-place winner (shown at top, right) was created by Joseph Mauro, of Bethel, Connecticut. His rose-and-egg still life is the result of several developmental stages, including hand-coloring the two subjects with pigment before rephoto- graphing them. Mauro used a Forox SD camera and a Nikon macro lens to record the compelling textural differences between egg and flower. Mauro included the Omni logo, presumably to help influenoeour decision. It didn't help. He received a bronze-embossed certificate of achieve- ment for his effort. Photographer Rick Ueda says his runner-up entry (shown at bottom, left) deals with man as "an everlasting source of thought, energy, and imagination, no matter what environment he chooses to live in," Ueda builtthe set by hand in his studio. His photograph was taken with a 4" x 5" view camera loaded with Kodak Ektachrome sheet film, which was double-exposed. The final product. Schrempp says, "is a June Omni we announced the third in a Stfato Spheres is the title of Erich squadron of enigmatic little orbs drifting series of photography invitationals. Schrempp's runner-up (shown al bottom, over Chicago on a winter evening." Readers are asked to portray the year right). Perched atop Chicago's Sears There are many accomplished pho- 2000 by using cameras as crystal balls Tower, Schrempp shot a night-lit cityscape tographers among the ranks of Omni to peer into the future. Travel through on high-speed Ektachrome film. The readers. Spectacular levels ot imagination time, using your imagination and the 35mm slide was then enlarged to a 4" s 5" and craftsmanship reflect the care with appropriate technology to capture the transparency and rephotographed with which readers respond to our Photo world a generation from now We're waiting ball bearings and Christmas ornaments. Contests. We want to see more. In the to see what you'll show us next. DO 107 (MTIS). The key word in this statement is paid for a contract with the National through NTIS, for it absolves the DNA of Academy of Sciences- National Research FDRUfUl further responsibility. NTIS annually pub- Council to duplicate the Dr Caldwell study lishes Ihe Government Report and An- with the same group of Smoky veterans. The result? Confirmation of Dr Caldwell's instruclion manual, I am clearly identified nouncement Index, which is required to as the president of that company and Mr. identify a document and its NTIS catalog findings that leukemias have been occur- ring excessively Smoky veterans! . Mendelssohn is not mentioned at all. I have number If you can't afford $275 for the re- among filed suit against Mr: Mendelssohn for mis- port, certain colleges and hospitals sub- All of these leukemia victims received less representation, and my lawyers may sub- scribe to the index. You must have the NTIS than Ihe federal guideline of five REMs. poena yon as a witness. But in any case catalog number to obtain a document, and Fourth, Griffith asserts that more than 99 thank you for writing about my company there is a substantial charge. percent of atomic veterans received less and my Robot Eggs. Second, Griffith states that more than than five REMs. He speaks in terms of av- MAX THE ROBOT 40,000 veterans have contacted the DNA erage exposure, as if he were dividing up President and received information. The omitted part Mom's apple pie! The omission in this Intergalactic Robot Eggs, Inc. is the quantity and quality ot information statement is 28 airmen who, as part of Op- that the DNA provides. When a veteran eration Castle in 1954, were exposed to More Atomic Vets contacts the DNA, he receives a form to fill very high levels of radiation through an ac- As a veteran of 22 nuclear tests conducted out concerning his participation in nuclear cident with a 17-megaton bomb. by the U.S. government at Eniwetok Atoll in testing. Under the health portion of this There wen illese natives questionnaire the DNA asks whether you and 23 Japanese involved in this accident. 1958, 1 feel both compelled and qualified to refute Lieutenant General Harry A. Griffith's have any health problems, without giving The Japanese received almost immediate letter [Forum, April 1981], When General any indication of what diseases or prob- lump-sum payments from the U.S. gov- Griffith said that Eleanor Smith's article lems a veteran could expect from radiation ernment, and the Marshallese are still re- about atomic veterans in the November exposure. ceiving free medical treatment for numer- 1980 Earth column contained errors of fact, After this initial contact, a veteran will ous radiation-related diseases. he was practicing the "big lie" technique, never hear from the DNA again unless he is This is documented in a Brookhaven Na- which the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) aggressive. Those who receive a DNA re- tional Laboratory study entitled "A Twenty- has perfected over the years. Griffith would sponse are sent statements that they re- Year Review of Medical Findings in a Mar- have the reader believe (hat this agency is ceived little, if any, radiation during the shallese Population Accidentally Exposed exhausting all resources to help the atomic tests. This is followed by a statement that to Radioactive Fallout." veteran, when just the opposite is true. tells you that scientists will be studying the Three of the 28 airmen with whom I cor- First, Griffith alleges that hundreds of radiation problem tor years! respond have documents from the U.S. documents have been declassified and Third, Griffith forgo! to mention how the government, stating their individual expo- made available to the public through the DNA unsuccessfully tried to influence the sures were 8.6 REMs\ However, since their National Technical Iriornalion Service study of the Smoky test veterans. The. DNA initial medical examinations in 1954. the government has made no follow-up in- quiries concerning their health. The "big lie" technique will no longsr work, for concerned veterans have formed the National Association of Atomic Veter- ans (NAAV). Our headquarters is at 1109 forfutire Franklin Street. Burlington, IA 52601. tele- phone 319-753-6112. NAAV provides atomic veterans with facts and assistance, including the names and addresses of fel- referek:e low participants. George E. Mace Hagerstown. Md.DO Moving? We need 4-6 weeks annrui notice of a change of address. Fill PO. Box 908, Farmlngdole, N.Y 11737 in the attached form. PHOTO CREDITS Pfetaecheek.the ooo-o|L:r o"e ;>:.: cvkTv,. Subscription or Renewal? New Pi.Ty'TC-nf rfiL-S" cc company "k.fei Page 6. US: F si Hill- page B. Cliff Olson John Mmlv page pag»16, Marc L< y,vi'.- iisgeis. i.i"i'-.:. One year of Omni is $18 in the U.S. D \ew Subscription Renewal $28 in Canada and overseas. 27. Vi-, f:., :,.!- s page 211. ?e:e Turrie': Please enclose a check or money ,.!.;; .si psseSS.K:- Ko'fi page36lop, bottom, VI. . > -A-y Nr->, s page 38 top, order for the appropriate amount ,ge 39 left, [ip-naid C 5 r-L-;;:eir Phorc: and ailow 6-8 weeks for delivery Listing/ Unlisting Service? Gmni 1 right, UPI: page 41 top, Noel Hatin;;i;cl makes the names and addresses soarcn r; t !r:(v: page 42 bottom. ERuj- of its subscribers available to other publications and outside com- panies, The publications and companies selected are carefully screened for their acceptability iirdlrnsi A" ItfJ-il -ajncj Arts"; X A-r.l quality their offers. If you and of 82, '.olm -i-:v. pages B2 -83. try Rojei;,; would like your name removed lop left, ::ir,, RoDBts page 85 top fight, age 85 left bottom, Colin Page, page BS from this mailing list please check right bolton Inn tarsals, page 86 top left. R;:.li,i..l the^appropriate box on ihe coupon. page 124, Do Dixon, T08 OMNI EARTH Sterling Silver Hearts $ 5 apiece by the year 2000 Losses caused by ozone in this region are estimated to be 233 mil- lion bushels. Millions of cubic .feet of valu- [Why?] able timber is lost each year to the invisible pollution that weakens :re«s and slows their As part of an advertising program quest is made before Sept. 22, you growth, Those who want to use coal. we will give a solid sterling silver may request a second heart by Loucks follow that plume of warns, must floating heart pendant charm to enclosing an additional $5 plus SI pollutants from the smokestack to its ulti- every reader of Omni Magazine shipping and handling. No request mate etfects and only then decide whether who reads and responds to this will be accepted past the the tradeoff is worthwhile, dates The regions hardest hit will seldom be printed notice before Midnight, noted above; your uncashed check the ones that benefit from use of the coal- Sept. 30, for the sum of $5 plus SI will be returned if postmarked later Ecological fallout from the Midwest will be shipping and handling. There is no than those dates. Please enclose visited on neighbors in the Northeast further monetary obligation. this original notice with your re- which may soon have air pollution rivaling [Each heart is composed entirely of quest; photocopies will not be that of southern California, "if industrial ac- conversion to coal continues," Loucks pre- solid sterling silver and will be ac- cepted. Note: If you would like a dicts, "the United States will experience companied by our Certificate of matching 18-inch chain of solid severe forest food shortages, decreased Authenticity to that effect.] This sterling silver to go with your growth, and an acceleration of the advertising notice is being placed heart, please indicate this when greenhouse effect." Loucks expects in- simultaneously in other publica- your it creased po.litical tensions with Canada you make request and will over environmental issues. tions. If you see it in more than one be included at no additional cost. The nation's renewed mie rest in coal has publication, please let us know, as Send appropriate sum together intensified this warming trend. Production this information is helpful to us. with your name and address to: levels are up. In the United States, where Should you wish to return your CHRVSTIE & SPRYNGHE, LTD., more than half the electricity is coal gener- heart you may do so at any time to Silver Heart Advertising ated, mining rose as* yeg :'. 10 percent Program, The coal industry is pushing for aggressive the address below and receive a full Dept. 662-8, Box 1900, Greenwich, development of the 438 billion-ton U.S. refund. There is a limit of one (I) Connecticut 06830. coal reserve. Utilities throughout the coun- heart per address, but if your re- try are converting to coal power now that the government has relaxed clean-air re- strictions. And several other coal-rich New, Unique, Hard-To-Find Products areas, like the Four Corners region of Arizona. Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico, are producing more coal to meet demands Alternate Energy, Biofeedback, Telescopes, from neighboring regions that require elec- tricity. Soon these coal-rich regions will Optics, Tools, Weather, Motors, Magnets, ace problems similar to those of the Ohio River basin. "I know there will be a change when we Microscopes, Lab Equipment, & More! havepoisoneo enougn osopleard server: ourselves." he says. "I am concerned In One Giant FREE Catalog about our capacity to make the necessary changes soon enough. It is possible to BestQuaifty! Best Selection! Biggest Catalog! avert these catastrophes, but only if we can For over 40 years, thousands of engineers, persuade people that there is a need now craftsmen, hobbyists, and do-it-yourselfers to avert them" nationwide, have been going directly to the Damage from coal use can be countered Edmund Scientific Catalog. They find top by building smaller power plants with effec- quality products for every need. . .fully tive emission-control devices, "More im- guaranteed! portant," says Loucks. Is increased devel- FREE! You can have a copy of this unique opment of conservation as an alternative catalog now, jusi for the asking. Simply fill in below, mail today, your Edmund Scientific energy source. Along with increased utili- and Catalog will be on its way to you. zation of solar and wind energy byutiliti.es, I am encouraged by the fact that we now Send FREE Catalog have an opportunity to have an advanced global society without the threat of wastes and toxic substances. "There are no simple answers," headds. "That's why we have to take a closer look at ADDRESS _ the whole answer — coal conversion, acid CITY rain, carbon cycles. We already have ahead of us decades of hard work. We will need to adjust to energy-efficient values S Edmund Scientific Dept. 3240 KN14 Edscorp Bldg. Barrington. N.J and life-styles. There is no silver lining in this cloud. "DO , 7 . Pssssst! Have you heard. CDRJlPETITOrU By Scot Morris reare cats or s.josisntiations. November, when we an- It was a classically provocative rumor that a eg Lastnounced our Competition #1 Paul McCartney was dead. That rumor Investigation sometimes leads to an tor Unconfirmed Rumors, we had inspired diligent, creative people to inves- official denial, which, for a rumor, is the of nominated for an no idea ot the mass-market appeal that a tigate it and uncover new "evidence." equivalent being stories rat good rumor can have. At that time only They were then able to say, "If it isn't true, Oscar. After all, those about in bucket of chicken, one major rumor had "gone Hollywood"; explain this . . ."And then they would parts found a worm The canard thai no astronauts ever went meat in hamburgers, and spiders' eggs in only moderate word-of- into space and that all the "moonwalks" bubble gum had were secretly filmed in a Nevada desert mouth circulation. Most of us first heard of became the inspiration for the 1978 film these outrages when the companies' Capricorn One, starring James Brolin, official denials were carried nationally Hal Holbrook, and O. J. Simpson. by the news media. Almost immediately after we announced Finally, if any of the above qualities are our contest, (hree other famous rumors lacking, an oulrageous sense of humor made their screen debuts. Within weeks is the saving grace. For purposes of our contest, anofher we saw the release of The Formula , which had George C. Scott vs. Marlon Brando quality was looked for namely, originality It and the secret of the cheap fuel that is didn't matter whether the rumor was "real" being kept from the public by greedy oil or made up. If too many versions of a companies; Hangar 18, about the crashed rumor came in, we discarded all of them. UFO and those alien bodies in deep 'RUMOR THEMAS' freeze at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, After sifting through of in Ohio; and Alligator, the real truth under- thousands recurring lying the manhole coverup in the New rumors, we began to notice York City sewer system. themes. The most commonly overdone categories were: If the trend continues, other rumors mentioned when we announced this 1 , They're Still Alive! Hitler, the shah of contest are soon to become motion pic- Iran. Howard Hughes, Jim Morrison, Elvis lures. First out will be Scallop!, about a Presley, Bruce Lee, even John Lennon, are ruthless restaurateur who serves cut-out shark or skate to unsuspecting customers who have ordered shellfish. We are cur- rently negotiating the screen rights to our rumor that reading Omni will make one multiorgasmic. (It's probably because of the sex pheromones we add to our ink.) THE RUMOR HALL OF FAME What makes for a classic rumor? The best are paranoid, plausible, provocative, officially denied, and outrageous. Solid paranoid thinking underlies the very best rumors. The truth is known only to a few because the p&vers-that-be are covering it up. Paranoia is the easiest mental aberration to slip into and the one that appeals to the most creative, intel- ligent minds. If you can't find conspira- cies all around you, you're not paying attention. A good rumor must be plausi- ble, of course, but lo the truly imaginative there are few situations that aren't. Plausibility then provokes investigation. RUMORS GO HOLLYWOOD: Terror from the sewers (lop) ... a phony astronaut landing (bottom) . . 110 OMNI comply with his wishes. all still with us, in hiding. We saw so many drowned trying to RUNNERS-UP:$25 resurrections of J.FK. (always "a vege- — William Anderson, Calkey, Ireland table") that we had to give a prize to the It is widely rumored that John E Kennedy second-order rumor that finally lays him was no! killed in Dallas. His brain was Seeking the reputation of a visionary— like to rest. destroyed, but he is "alive"— as a" human Heinlein, Wells, and Verne — acertain 2. The Aliens Are Among Us! Known vegetable— on the Greek island of well-known science-fiction writer has paid extraterrestrials; Einstein, Heinlein, Sagan, Skorpios. Jackie "married" Aristotle enormous sums of money and has even and at least one Omni editor. Recently Onassis on the condition that he provide a put innocent lives in danger, just to make discovered: Senator William Proxmire, who secret place where J.RK.'s body could be sure that a wild prediction he made in a" several years ago will come is trying to keep earthlings from learning kept alive for as long as possible. I have short story the real secrets of the universe. heard that J.EK.'s body did die in 1978, true on schedule. 3. They're All Impostors! None of them are although that is still unconfirmed. — P J. Veber, Mount Pleasant, S.C. the real them; Ronald Reagan (he died in - Kathy Hurley. New York, N.Y 1952; the man in the While House is a David Berkowitz obtained his pseudonym fifty-five- year-old stand-in, possibly his Someone found that the red M&M's can by listening to Jimi Hendrix whisper, "Son own illegitimate son); Jimmy Carter (the be used as an aphrodisiac. So the FDA of Sam, Son of Sam," halfway through switcheroo came when he changed the ordered most of them taken out of the mix. "Purple Haze" on the right channel. part in his hair); Ayatollah Khomeini (in If you find any save them. You need at — Robert Rudd, Danbury, Conn, exile he had nine f'ngers: tne impostor least five. in Iran has ten); and Isaac Asimov (who is -Kevin L. Clark. Crown Point, N.Y. Killing turkeys causes winter. known to be at least triplets). - Brian Siano, Cherry Hill, N.J. 4. They're Suppressing the Miracle Popular arcade games such as Asteroids, Patents! Everyone has heard about the Space Invaders, and Tail Gunner are The National Enquirer is paying Scot 100-mpg carburetor that Standard Oil programmed to record the initials of the Morris $1 for each item he receives for bought for millions of dollars and then highest-scoring player. When you enter Omni Competition #17. They expect to get buried. But what happened to the inven- your initials, a photograph is secretly at least two years' worth of cover stories tor? Some say he was bumped off, Others taken of you. The "games" are actually from this investment. suspect that he became a specialist mechanisms for selecting, sorting, and — Corrie J. Bergeron, Jr., and went on to produce other suppres- training slave labor for duty in military College Station, Tex. sive inventions, such as the 50-year spacecraft and on star bases. People who HONORABLE MENTION light bulb, the permanent battery, the get good at these machines disappear ___ million-mile tire, the tooth-decay preventa- under suspicious circumstances. You Humpty Dumpty was pushed. tive, and the runless nylon stocking. won't find my initials in one of those things, — Michael Martin, Brisbane, Australia 5. The Secret Ingredient. Girl Scout no matter how good I get! cookies are laced with hashish; Famous — Larry Pike, Portland, Ore. Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F Kennedy Amos uses pure THC. Addictive drugs are — Kurt Friedman, Oxon Hill, Md, added to pizza, gum, and, of course, cola The U.S. government secretly is trying to ("Why do you think they cail it-Coke?"). increase inflation. Eighteen percent We Chinese believe that one's destiny is ' 6. The Real Purpose of Omni and inflation could double your income every determined by one's physical features. In Competition #17. Several sneaky entrants four years, placing you in a higher tax the case of a politician, the fate of a hoped to win the money by mentioning bracket, without ircreasirg your real country can be predicted. Take Sun Omni or this contest. One succeeded income at all. Yat-sen, for instance. China under Sun (Corrie J. Bergeron, Jr., below), but most — Dan J. Hicks, Orlando, Fla. Yal-sen was divided into the Nationalist didn't. Some claimed that this contest was and Communist camps because he a thinly disguised attempt by the I have heard that a man in Kerry [Ireland], parted his hair in the middle. Chiang American government to find out who on his deathbed, expressed a desire to be Kai-shek lost the whole of mainland China knows what is really going on; any entrants buried at sea and that three of his sons because ho shaved oh ail his hair who divulged real gove-'nmeni secrets would be eliminated quietly. Another invidious claim was that the government paid Omni to run this contest in order to convince people that stories about the AMA's subsidy to the tobacco industry and the alien bodies on ice at Wright- Patterson are "just rumors." Several real conspiracies are planted in the results as well, so that people will associate them with crackpot ideas and dismiss all of them as untrue. Don't believe a word of it. GRAND-PRIZE WINNER: $100 There is a strain of albino marijuana growing in the New York City sewer system. The nutrient-rich sludge has germinated the seeds that were flushed down the toilet during drug raids, resulting in extremely powerful plants, known locally as Manhattan white or subway silver. It is hard to harvest, however, because it is guarded by all those alligators. — Daniel Cohen, Port Jervis, N.Y deep freeze ai sn Air Force base, wnere aiier. oo/psr;.? are being kept o. 112 OMNI Chairman Mao Zedong was able to sweep was recorded in a thin-walled studio in Colonel Sander ':-; "Ex Ira Crispy' chic-en across China and unite the country New York City, and. the screams couldn't. is yesterday's "O'-gmai Recipe" cuicx-'i II because his hair is swept back without !..'(! edited out completely. this isn't so, explain why "Extra Crispy" a**v parting. He had one problem, though; —Vernon Nelson. Springfield. 111'., usually cos'.s iess than "Original Recipe." the island of Taiwan, as shown by the mole — Laurie M. Young: Decatur, Mich, on his chin, "Max." the eccentric millionaire who had — S. T Quah, Singapore himself cloned in David Rorvik's book In The movie The Invasion of ihe Body His Image; The Cloning of a Man, was. in Snatchers was a documentary, The Antichrist prophesied in the' Bible reality, Alex Comfort. — Richard Green, Liverm'ore,.Calif (Revelations 14:18) has arrived. He is — Ken Stein, Baltimore. Md. Ronald Wilson Reagan. Count the letters in each names get "toe-number of the If yog drink the water from the Chartes beast"; 666. 1 realized this on election River, in Boston, it will cause you to be night, 1980, when the winning number in unable to pronounce your r's. The Peoples Temple eu lists did not the Maryland State Lottery was — you - Ben Edelhart. New York. N.Y. ".c"" "i: sucide n Guyana. They were guessed it— 666. "u'dered by ihe CIA in order to create an - David Chiarenza, Columbia. Md. Dr Pepper is carbonated prune juice antic-ult hysteria that would aid the FBI in — Bryan McLane. Hollywood. Fla. its war against the Church of Scientology. The SAT Scores are low because -David Palter, Hollywood, Calif. : educators who make the tests have added Prehistoric man did net . more difficult questions to get more federal childbeafing wito intercourse ce: . The reason why Anita Bryant hates funding for their projects. the long delay between the two events: He homosexuals is. that when she Was in — Bill Loercher. Manheirrt, Pa. did, however, understand the hair on his kindergarten three gay boys tied her up palms. naked after school and gang-rejected her. If nobody voted in a U.S. presidential - Chris Doyle Burke Vs. — Viko StasKO. Cp.umbus Ore election, a candidate would still win = because.big business computers have the NFL Commissioner Pete Boas : "; i The U.S. government is reluctant to fund winners of each election taped 12 years in job is to keep pro football honest so that the space- program because it cioesn t - " arivance. Tnis explains why no one admits pceple wiil continue !o be " Want to lose taxpayers to L-5-typ'e he or she voted for Nixon: No one did. — Eugene H. Bales. Savannah. Mo. colonies. — Jennifer R. Habersaal San Jose Ca I. — Donald R. Gentry. Independence. Mo. In the Tibetan Book of the Dead Stem sa In the background noise of the Ohio description oi a technique --'e'eo. one Isaac Asimov. Martin Gardner, and James J Players' song \ ove Rol er coaster," one can learn to lic.-Je G'isse- Randt are aliens with psi powers and are can hear a girl oeing slabbed to death. It — SiuartS. Dennch BaKimotB. Md. debunking flying saucers and paranormal The Soligor 80-200mm Expand Your Horizons By Getting Close. You ve got a terrific 35mm SLR camera, but not all of your shots are terrific. Some suffer from too much unwanted scenery, some from tiny people in big frames . . . shots that didn't work because your creative 1.0 was more than your lens could handle. That's right, lens. But. Soligor has a solution: the affordable, innovative Soligor 80-20Qmm One-Touch Zoom 4- Macro lens that lets you and your camera turn blah into beauty. Zoom in to crop out extraneous details. Bring your subjects up to 4 times closer than a standard lens can. Frame your shots exactly as you want them, and Soligor quality captures them faithfully. Create exciting portraits, instead of just pictures of people; capture a still life or sports action as the kind of picture you bought your camera to get; experiment with amazing close- ups, thanks to macro ability. And it's all so easy with Soligor's single One-Touch control for zoom, focus and macro. If some of the zip has gone out of your picture taking, zip toyourSoligordealerandtryour80-200mm on your Canon, Minolta. Pentax, Olympus, Nikon or other fine camera. Or, write for full information. SOLIGOR" MAKES THE DIFFERENCE . Salkin, Beckley. and Keel, among others, to be. This ironic complaint appeared to ab- UFD solve the gullible investigators of any CON-|f;ui.urnOMPAGEia responsibility for their careless and credu- -neatest thing in the whole world." planned scientific experiments. In. March lous acceptance of Monleleone's deliber- Mission control: "Whan; can I sign up?" 1968 several college students at the Uni- ately absurd fabrications. Fate magazine And then Christopher C. Kraft, who had versity of Maryland were listening to 5 call- seemed to be saying that it was not their been a part of the Mercury, Gemini, and in radio-show interview with a man who faull that they were hoaxed. Apollo programs and who was now one of claimed to have been taken by flying- Some other reactions to Monteleone's the "wise gray heads" of NASA and director saucer people to their home planet, confession are quite amusing. Salkin, who of the Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Lanulos, "in the distant constellation is described by long-time ufological ob- summed il all up with one sardonic line: Ganymede." One of the students, Tom server James Moseley as "a warm, likable, "We just became infinitely smarter." Monteieone, an avid science-fiction buff, but somewhat gullible sort." still refuses to The pilgrims in the desert were cele- called to ask a question. Then Monteieone believe Monteleone's confession. Keel is brants now. The Coors truck was passing suddenly thought, Just for the heck of it, particularly upset and has issued a state- out free beer. The Omni area had turned why not claim I've been to Lanulos, too? It'll ment calling the Fate piece "an attempt to into a champagne party. The years of frus- blow his mind! discredit my entire body of work and my tration and delay, the budget cuts and en- And. so he' did. and it did. The dumb- professional reputation as a journalist for gineering problems, the criticisms and founded "contactee," Woodrow Deren- uvc-f 35 years." Keel is preparing a lawsuit, threats to cancel the shuttle program alto- berger, quickly regained his composure according to some accounts. gether—they were forgotten now. We had and eorroboraied Monteleone's descrip- As for Beckley, he has to worry about all just become infinitely smarter. We had a tion ot the planet Lanulos, agreeing with fresher wounds in his credibility as a com- spaceship sitting out there on the desert, a details that contradicted things Deren- petent UFO investigator. In a recent issue of visitor from outer space: Columbia and her berger had just disclosed on the show. Fif- his monthly tabloid UFO Review, Beckley sister craft being built by Rockwell are teen minutes later Monteieone hung up apparently became the victim of yet meant to work in orbital space. Her time and enjoyed a good laugh with his room- another UFO hoax. here on the surface of our planet is only the- mates—until the phone rang. The radio In an article entitled "Erotic Encounters time between missions— waiting time. station had traced his call and now wanted of the Very Close Kind," Beckley opened By now Young, who has flown more further information. with the startling words, "It is not uncom- space missions of greater variety than any For the next fwo years Monteieone went mon for the occupants of UFOs.to have other human being, impatient almost to the along with the ruse, cleverly providing UFO sexual contact with humans." He tried to point of testiriess, "had Una, ly climbed down investigators with information gleaned from lay the foundation for this far-out story in an out of Columbia and was circling the craft, Derenberger's accounts and from the gen- editorial on the facing page: "Some read- inspecting it like a rookie pilot who has to eral UFO literature. Whenever he "corrobo- ers undoubtedly will believe that we are. see and touch the machine that carried him rated" information given earlier his credibil- getting a wee bit carried away when we turn aloft. ity .jose further (he had told investigators to sex in order to sell a UFO newspaper. , . All that took place three months ago. that he was unfamiliar with UFO literature, We really aren't trying to capture a larger Columbia is now back at Cape Canaveral. and they believed him), UFO publicist audience by printing a sensationalists > being readied for her second trip into Harold Salkin was impressed that Mon- headline on oar cover It we wanted to take teleone's story tightly . . space. Challenger, under construction in was "so synchro- this approach, we'd . simply fabricate the California, will be ready for flight next year. nized" with Derenberger's: UFO writer and stories we print. But we don't cater to the In Washington the new team heading editor Timothy Green Beckley taped an gullible. ... All the items we mention in our NASA now has a powerful argument to interview and wrote several magazine arti- story are fully documented. We need not convince our political leaders that a new cles that presented the account as factual; subsli'ute fiction for truth-- tor truth is far era in space transportation has truly be- noted UFO author and theorist John Keel greater than fiction in the field of UFOIogy." gun. Never again can the debate be over called the story "one of the most puzzling The principal source of Beckley's "sau- whether the space shuttle will fly or not. contact stories in my files. ... I'm forced to cer sex" story was a newspaper account Now the question is. How much do we want accept that it's true" (even though, as Mon- dated February 12, 1978, which carried the to accomplish with the shuttle? How soon teieone noted. Keel's published accounts headline kidnapped to venus. Reporter will we use her capabilities to help build a of the story were'vastly distorted). Jerry Burger told of a thirty-one-year-old permanent American presence in near- "I underwent long interviews," Monte- librarian found by police as she rambled Earth orbit? ieone recounted in Omni (May 1979). "I not around in a park, wearing no clothes. She For the first time since its inception, only repeated my false experiences but claimed she had been "abducted by Venu- Space Week will have an entirely new and also added further embellishments and sians" and taken to the "back of the moon," different American achievement to cele- absurdities — just to see how far I could where she was "implanted with outer- brate. We are in space again. And this, time carry the hoax before being discredited." space semen" before being returned to we are there to stay. No longer the glamor- Monteieone even submitted to a hypnosis Earth. Beckley reported the case as true ous, one-shol i-issions thai grabbed head- session, sponsored by Salkin, during and added that "such reports are taking lines and then faded into oblivion. Space- which he faked the trance and "passed" place on a global scale There can be flight is on its way to becoming as routine the test like a champion. little doubt from the documented evidence as commercial air travel. Strangely enough, when the full admis- that some tremendous event is slated to Even the longest journey is started with a sion of the hoax was published in Fate happen that will guide us to a higher un- single step. Columbia has taken that first magazine late last year (Omni had derstanding ot ourselves and the cos- step for all of us. scooped Fate by a year and a half), Mon- mos. . . . The UFOnauts are trying to teach Crippen said it best, the day after the teieone was the one blamed for all the con- us a lesson— that love is universal and en- landing, when he told a press conference fusion. His actions, wrote author Karl compasses every living creature, regard- in Houston lhat, despite ail the problems Pflock, "served to muddy still further the less of their planet or dimension of origin." and setbacks that had beleaguered the already muddy waters of ufology. The last And for those readers who wanted more shuttle program, "It was worth it." thing we need, if we are to unravel the UFO information, Beckley added that the None of thepilgrims who ventured into mystery, is false leads that absorb any part "saucer sex" story is just one chapter in his the desert that morning to see the dawn of of the far-too-limited resources of serious new book, Strange Encounters Bizarre & the Shutlle Era A, oud disagree. DO researchers"— which Pflock cor.s:de r ed Eerie Contacts with Flying Saucers, avail- able from the author for S6.95 plus postage taken in December 1957 and first pub- UFO stories that originate at a great dis- and handling. lished in 1959. As chronicled by skeptical tance in space or time. They are thus im : Unfortunately, Beckley's story is even ufologist David A. Schroth, the photo- mune from any real investigation. If they are it is more absurd than it first appears. Houston graphs were embraced by magazines in hoaxes, next to impossible to prove. spaceflight expert Robert Nichols sent Great Britain and the United States; UFO As part of a "UFO flap" in 1897, the story Omni the actual source of the "outer-space experts argued that some features on the of Alexander Hamilton, of Yates Center, semen" slory, in the form of the newspaper bottom of the flying saucer were identical to Kansas, stands out. The farmer reported clipping Beckley quoted. The article did features seen in other photographs, testify- that a cigar-shaped airship flown by jabber- not come from a newspaper at all, but from ing to the authenticity of Fogl's photo- ing humanoids hovered over his farm and a' 1978 satirical publication, the Sunday graphs. American UFO publicist Ray caught hold of a calf with a rope. Hamilton's Newspaper Parody, written by the National Palmer declared, "We are forced to admit account was published in the local news- Lampoon. Beckley (or someone on his this is not a fake." In 1966 one of the photo- paper, along with a statement vouching for staff) evidently made some editorial graphs was presenled as authentic in Life, his honesty, signed by five leading citizens changes by adding realistic touches to the That may have been the last straw for of the town. The slory rapidly spread .article and changing the original spelling of Fogl, who finally revealed that the UFOs around the world, and for decades UFO the saucer-rape victim from the highly sus- were faked — made with a small model writers considered it one of the best-doc- picious "Penelope Cuntz" to the accepta- hung on a wire. When asked why he d the extent of Beckley's role in promoting As if in fulfillment of Fogl's point, UFO topped all other fabrications. The newspa- and altering it (or merely passing it along writers continued to use the hoax pictures. per story was all a joke, as it turned out, but credulously) is still undetermined. Palmer (who is credited by UFO historian neither the editor nor the town citizens Photographs are even more subject to Daniel Cohen with having "invented" the realized how seriously the outside world hoaxing. In fact, while only a very small concept of "flying saucers") wrote that it had taken the account. It was not until early percentage of raw UFO reports are hoaxes, was "impossible" for the photos to be fakes 1977 that the full story appeared, in Fate odi:or it is generally acknowledged even by UFO and that Fogl's confession must be a hoax. magazine. Associate Jerry Clark, a believers that the overwhelming majority of And in 1979 McGraw-Hill published David diligent and highly principled pro-UFO in- published UFO photographs are hoax- C. Knight's UFOs; A Pictorial History, with vestigator, revealed what he called "the es—either forgeries, models, or misrepre- page 86 proudly presenting one of Fogl's biggest hoax ever known in UFO history" sented ordinary phenomena. pictures as still authentic. when he published hitherto-unknown doc- A classic UFO photographic hoax in- Another famous UFQ hoax provides umentation that established beyond a volved the "Fogl flying saucer" pictures. eloquent warning against well-meaning shadow of a doubt that the Kansas farmer's story was phony. Buf the same old "uforic" patterns con- tinued. New wnters based (heir books and articles on older UFO books and articles, not relying On original sources or their own independent verification. Among the sub- sequent UFO literature that continued to use the Hamilton story as if it were authentic were Knight's UFOs: A Pictorial History and Ripley's Believe It or'Not: Stars, Space and UFOs (thirty-third in a series). The January 1980 issue of UFO Journal (issued by MUFON, the Mutual UFO Net- work, a well-organized private research group with a good reputation) provided some very interesting insights into the minds of a UFO hoaxer and of the UFO investigator who worked on the case. The witness was a twenty-six-year-old security guard who claimed to have encountered aliens in the San Joaquin Valley on Febru- ary 27, 1977. A year and a half later, after trying to dig up supporting evidence, he contacted MUFON. The investigator (who, along with the wit- ness, was kept anonymous in the article) reported: "I was impressed with this young man's sincerity, his apparent honesty, and his concern that he was unable to locate any other witnesses. I am by nature a cau-" tious and suspicious person , . . having run into enough hoaxes and fraudulent cases in my 22 years of investigation to give me adequate insight and recognition for such incidents I was quite satisfied as to his honesty." The UFO incident filled nearly four pages in the magazine, But at the end of the article the entire book UFOs: Contact from the Pleiades. tone changed: "The important message for While the strikingly handsome collection of all of us," wrote editor Richard Hall, "is that flying-saucer photographs was being this case is a hoax— a confessed hoax." billed'by its publishers as the greatest UFO "The investigators didn't find this out for sure breakfhrough in human history, a number of ological applications of music. We proba- until the article had been typeset, but they pro-UFO researchers circulated reports bly know more than anyone else about the decided to publish it anyway as a lesson in that claimed that the whole business was a psychological and physiological effects. human vulnerability to hoaxes. "The story money-making fraud. For once UFO skep- "What we claim to offer is a really func- content fit so well with other cases, and the tics agreed with their traditionally an- tional music in worker areas. We arrange reporter seemed so 'sincere' and in a re- tagonistic pro-UFO counterparts, though a and record all our own music, and we give it sponsible position, that we were nearly Genesis-Ill spokesman continues to deny a stimulus factor. Then we play in fifteen- taken in." Even without the confession, that his company is involved in any hoax. minute segments, on and off, programmed MUFON investigators had become suspi- UFO skeptics, however, go even further sequentially so that the last composition in cious of glaring discrepancies in the story in their allegafions that there have been the fifteen-minute segment has the maxi- as told to different investigators, but even hoaxes, and they find themselves in bitter mum amount of stimulus value. Although those considerations might not have been disagreement with pro-UFO forces. Some it's not entertainment, we still use music enough to prove the case a hoax if the of the highly publicized classic UFO en- from the Top Hundred, and we even com- witness himself had not confessed when counters (such as the 1973 Pascagoula pose some of our own." confronted with the inconsistencies and fishermen's account and the 1975 Snow- Muzak is made in the studios of the com- contradictions in his story flake, Arizona, woodcutters' account) and pany's world headquarters at 100 Park Av- In a letter to MUFON, the hoaxer (code- some of the classic UFO photographs enue, in New York City, by musicians like named "Carl" to preserve his anonymity) (such as the 1950 McMinnville photos and Dick Hyman, Warren Covington, Lionel the 1957 Trinidade Island photos) are con- explained his motives: 'All my life I had Hampton, Tony Mottola, Al Caiola, and skeptics to Half of been a nobody, unimportant. ... I wanted to sidered by be hoaxes. maybe even Bucky Pizzarelli. After the be important. ... I am not psychologically the "best UFO cases" of the 1970s-as compositions are properly mixed, they're deranged but just wanted some attention." judged by a blue-ribbon panel of UFO ex- put in the library, where they become part But he had not apparently acted as if he perts sponsored by the National Enquir- of the daily schedule of programming. sought attention. He certainly had not er—are considered hoaxes, according to All the programming is done by com- sought publicity. Indeed, the investigator independent research by skeptics. Here puter. There is a computer printout for each had originally reported that "fearing the battle lines are clearly drawn. day. A program is never repeated. The pro- ridicule and harassment from friends and Suggesting that a UFO case is a hoax grammers produce 24 hours' worth of coworkers, Carl kept this story to himself poses delicate problems. First of all, the music every day until he simply had to tell someone who UFO witness (whether a hoaxer or not) may The printout for this day's program, to- would help ease his frustration and anxi- have grounds for a libel lawsuit. Although morrow's program, and so on, goes out to ety." Evidently the "adequate insight" into many threats along these lines have been Westbury, Long Island, where there's an hoaxes that the MUFON investigator made, so far no suits have been filed. Sec- automated studio. Until very recently the claimed to possess involved something ond, without a confession it is extremely program was duplicated onto tapes. that other than factual evidence. difficult to prove an accusation of "hoax," went on a 15-city circuit about every three MUFON's decision to publish the San however spurious the story may sound. days. First the tapes were played at 100 Joaquin hoax story with the confession was Last, UFO skeptics (in particular, the Park Avenue and then, b^ lease line, went a courageous one, since it did make its world's undisputed leading skeptic, avia- to the antenna atop the Empire State Build- investigator sound rather foolish. But the tion journalist Philip J. Klass) open them- ing. There the tapes were transmitted on UFO group demonstrated commendable selves up fo countercharges of "character the subchannel of an FM station before maturity in choosing to try to have all its assassination" and "vicious ad hominem being sent to Philadelphia and then to the investigators learn from the experience, attacks" when they point out, usually quite next city on the circuit. Ultimately they re- lest it be repeated on a wide scale. It still correctly, that the reliability of many famous turned to Westbury, where the process may not help. UFO witnesses is highly questionable be- began all over again. The other famous hoaxes were not uni- cause of their past and subsequent his- Now Muzak is going satellite. Instead of versally swallowed, either. Monteleone's tories of exaggeration, fantasy, and outright producing tapes, copyingthem, andsend- space trip to Lanulos was never believed deception (pro-UFO groups generally ing them city to city, Muzak is beamed di- by most of the "nuts and bolts" UFO buffs downplay, or even cover up, such behavior rectly from the satellite to the subscriber. who have for so long despised the crack- on the part of people whose credibility they The price of a subscription depends pot contactees and the bad publicity they wish to emphasize). upon the number of speakers a restaurant, have brought to the subject. James Despite the problems caused by UFO office, or elevator has. The greater the Moseley, editor of Flying Saucer News, hoaxes (mainly, that they can be far more number of speakers, the greater the dis- wrote that Monteleone clearly was not a difficult to solve or even recognize than are tribution on the subscriber's premises. A "classic contactee" and evidently never be- "ordinary" honest UFO reports), these pat- simple little restaurant with two or three lieved his own slory. A perceptive conclu- terns in deception can be made useful. speakers may pay $40 a month. And then sion! However, the Fogl photographs and Successful hoaxes can help calibrate the there are installations that pay $10,000 a Simpson's experiment in England would reliability of UFO research, as in the case of month per franchise. probably not have survived the sophisti- Monteleone's and Simpson's hoaxes; "We have four programs to choose from: cated photoanalytical techniques now hoaxes can also instruct serious inves- 'Office,' 'Travel,' 'Public Area,' and 'Indus- used by some UFO groups, notably William tigators in caution and humility, as with the trial,' which has lots of brass. Most of the Spaulding's high-technology Ground San Joaquin hoax reported inJJFO Journal. heavy industry thai we play is at night, be- Saucer Watch, in Phoenix, and the GEPAN The claim of the superskeptics, that un- cause the workers on the third shift require laboratories, in Paris. solved UFO cases can all easily be dis- the greatest amount of stimulation. That's The extent to which serious UFO groups missed as unrecognized hoaxes, is un- why they get a lot of brass." seem determined to detect and reject substantiated; the claim of UFO eager A whorehouse in Stuttgart requested a hoaxes was demonstrated lasf year when, believers, that the hoax problem is under "Light Industrial Program," although it's not virtually without exception, all major groups control, is equally unsubstantiated, if not clear to Bing Muscio whether it was to in- and leading invesiigators publicly de- refuted. And since no one wants to look crease the workers' productivity or to relax nounced Genesis-Ill Productions' photo foolish, the disagreement continues. DO the customers. DO , 118 OMNI . WRITERS! LEARN THE SECRETS OF i l-ICTION SCIENCE FICTION FROM BEN BOVA WRITKR Ttlng st "Sen Boua is a writer of quality and ex- ivtng a great imagi perience. NOTES TO A SCIENCE FIC- The (ruth is, you must learn (hi TION WRITER is a book that will be or '-'I! ««„,, of writing before you car sell y use to every fledgling writer wondering in the ayer-expanding science I martial. All successful writers I can too. with Ben Bova's NOTES TO SCIENCE FICTION WRITER. war "What Ben Bova says about writing - How to ing science-fictional Shakespeare by science fiction should be taken to heart " by all fiction writers. — Ray Bradbury —Sylvia K. Burak, Editor, MAIL THIS COUPON TO OMNI TODAY. YOUR SATISFACTION GUARANTEED OR YOUR MONEY BACK. • Why every story is a race again: I 11737 • How to make your stories seem Yes! Please rush me the new Revised and Expanded edition of NOTES TO A SCIENCE FICTION WRITER, by OMNI editor Ben Bova. I enclose my payment for If $7.45 (includes $1.50 for shipping and handling] I am not delighted, I may return the book within 10 days and my money will be refunded at once. I w" Account* nnnnnnnnnnnnnr I Interbank* (Master Charge Only) Signature - . Dnnrui | cormruiuruicMTianjs the physical properties of radar and-jn- indicates that a major cosmic n'asi oc- irared detection. curred in our galaxy 50.000 years ago, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10 Radar-absorbing coatings are only one I thought Hogan's book was pure sci- fine and a laudable one, reality dictates small element of the Stealth program ence fiction. Imagine my surprise and ex- that the human race has .not yet reached Anolher type of coating uses a phenome- citement on reading Saltman's- article, such a level ot progress and unity. non of physics known as destructive inter- There really is a difference octween the two The Communist doctrine maintains that ference-. Graphite fibers, epoxy resms ana 5 :-e : :N; moon 1 imagine my anger and capitalism is merely a tool in the hands of high-strength ceramics reflect radar mere dismay that most of the rocks retrieved by "imperialist aggressors." Yet, by observing effectively than conventional metals do. An Apollo n are still lying penned in silence, recent history, one cannot help noticing that aircraft design with a small cross section. begging to blurt their knowledge of the the USSR has cast an ever-widening curved surfaces, and no sharp angies, in- time, place, and cause of Earth's birth, shadow of imperialist influence and ag- tersecting edges, engine pods, or vertical As demonstrated by Hogan's bpok, an gression over the world, not necessarily for control surfaces will produce a much open mind, a unique line of thought, and a the good of the common people. weaker echo. Finally there are electronic willingness to challenge the obvious and Can we doubt that this philosophy will be systems that can deceive and baffle radar the widely acceptc-oa'o necessary for man carried into space as well? Leaders of Dr. Nahin got the politics right on the to succeed. Fear of the unknown should not democratic countries should not allow Stealth brouhaha, butthetechnoiogiesand hinder our healthy curiosity. such dangerous weapons to be placed in electronic countermeasures involved are Julie Palmer orbit by a government that is totally hos- equally important. Toronto, Ont., Canada tile to democratic societies. John-Allen Price Frank D. Patrick Lewiston. NY. Worried about Washoe Clem, WVa. Thank you for the way in which you handled Moon Rocks Revisited the article thai told about my accident with The Stealth Brouhaha I was fascinated by the more serious sideot Washoe, the first chimpanzee to learn writer As a who specializes in aviation, I David Saltman's Last Word [November human sign language "People. February was interested in "The Stealth Affair" [Con- 1980], concerning lunar rocks. 1981]. I worried that a report of this kind tinuum. April 1981]. Paul Nahin is correct in In the science-fiction novel Inherit Ihe might damage the-possibili^es ioi iuiuio disclaiming former President Carter's Stars, by James P Hogan. a 50.000-year- work with apes, but Ms. Rob's treatment of statement that the Stealth aircraft was a old human skeleton in a space suit is found the incident was such that there couldn't be technological breakthrough, but it is cer- on the moon. At that time Homo sapiens any adverse effect. tainly far more than a "rubher-coated could not have evolved to this human form, Let me take this opportunity to tell you airplane." much less to the level of intelligence re- how much my family and my coworkers--- Stealth is a combination of technologies: quired for space travel: This man could not appreciate the good job Omni is doing. - structural materials, air frame and engine have existed. The evidence of rock sam- Karl H. Pribram design, and electronics, all of which exploit ples piled randomly only on the far side Stanford, Calit.OO USSR. Hero, the countenance of Lenin be- in military dress crowd around and hang EXPLDRATIOfUS comes a symbol and a reminder of the over the balconies on the upper levels, in- CONTINUED FHOM PAGE 30 Soviet people's faith in nauka. the produc- tent on watching the tiny Vostok rocket as it of exploring Russian spacecraft. In the tive force of science and technology in swings slowly into launch position. ""highest orbit, stoically presiding over the Communist society. Somewhere a patriotic theme begins to tinny hall, is a great bronze head of Lenin. There are also some subtle insights to be play softly. Over that, a sound, two As you wander around these museums squeezed from the massive bronze and. men talking: the original recording of and monuments, a great many impressions concrete monuments, though not so much Korolev addressing Gagarin moments be- 1961. begin to crystallize. The first few are obvi- from size as from design. The Social fore liftoff on April 12, ous: The sheer number of these. memorials Realism school of sculpture uses every de- Korolev: How are you feeling? I'm worried. I fee! fine. and the titanic size of some speak of a great vice to convey dynamic movement. Figures Gagarin: not How feeling? national pride in, and grass-roots commit- never stand; they stride. The air is never still are you the swells to a cre- ment to, the Soviet space program. But around them; the wind whips their coats. Suddenly music as the these observations don't get at the Rus- The Monument to Space Conquerors is a scendo and the museum shakes thun- sia/mess of the matter The United States rocket that shoots heavenward, riding a rockets burst into life. From atop the "Peahyekalee!" also boasts of a great many aerospace ex- bronze trail of exhaust. These sculptures der Gagarin shouts, action, a split hibits, most of them larger than anything may seem melodramatic to Westerners, Now freeze the second split visitors comparable in the USSR. The differences but there is something about them that after littoff, a second before the between Eastern and Western attitudes to- evokes an emotional response. Compare to the museum break into an ovation, on ward space exploration are far more subtle, the 15-story-high Monument to Space that one word: peahyekaleel exclamation of a bound up with the history and tempera- Conquerors with a leviathan space memo- It was the spontaneous no one ment of the people. rial in the United States, the Saturn 5 moon young man about to do something the that inau- The omnipresent likeness of Lenin is one rocket lying on its side at the John F Ken- had ever done. It was speech simple Russian clue. It's not a simple case of hero worship nedy Space Center The cigar-shaped rock- gurated the Space Age. A experi- for a founding father. One of Lenin's et rising above Moscow may look like, a colloquialism, it sums up a cultural But legacies in the Soviet Union is a profound science-fiction caricature, but which ence. It's besttranslated as "We're off!" mean- belief thai science and technology can monument communicates more of a feeling it carries with it a whole universe of lead the way to Utopia. of progress? ing: adventure, expectation, and the love of In the Soviet government's earliest days, In the Kaluga museum there is a working a rider for his steed. Baikonur. It's it's exhibit, that one word when its very existence was threatened by model of the Cosmodrome at And that one civil war, Lenin set up one research organi- not sophisticated, as models go. The played over and over amid the electronic zation after another, determined to build a operator is in full view of the audience, and hiss and noise and rumble of rockets, that relationship of powerful scientific community. Cosmonau- the rocket never quite launches, but it has a perhaps best defines the Russian visitors. Chil- Soviet citizens to the awesome technology tics is one of the most visible, and most magnetic appeal for successful, scientific programs in the dren, adults, and important-looking figures of the Space Age. DO BUY BACK ..; _. SOME OF THE FUTURE COMPLETE VOUR COLLECTION OF OMNI NOW. FILL OUT THE COUPON AND MAIL WITH YOUR PAYMENT TODAY onnrui bock * RO. Box 355. Believiiif LI Check or J Money Order for S3. 50 per issue. (Postage and handling included.) Paymenf must accompany or- der. Total amount enclosed 5 NOVEMBER 79 DECEMBER 79 . CDn/IPETITOrU fUEXT Dn/IRJI ;.>!" :-...E J =30l-.-' ^iOr I On August 1, 1981, one person will be ran- domly selected from the list of charter sub- scribers to Omni and awarded room aboard the space shuttle Columbia. — R Demarest, Pensacola, Fla. Jeane Dixon predicted that a mass murder would occur in the basement of a dormitory at a Big Ten university, but her publishers didn't print the prophecy for fear it would cause a panic. — Steve Banker, Bloomington, Ind. The nuclear plant that powered Skylab separated and stayed in its orbit when Skylab crashed. In March 1980 it fell to Earth unheralded and crashed into the dormant crater of Mount St. Helens, where it triggered the eruption of that mountain. -Dale E. Currier, Portage, Me. i, Tex. Einstein solved the unified field theory long before his dealh. but he carried the secret to his grave because he fell that man was not yet ready for the knowledge. FICTION — Lona Rawlings, Santa Barbara, Calif. ATTORNEY TO THE STAF the big questions: Who should stars? finds ihe an- All food in York City's Chinatown res- mine the- moon? Who pays if ia owns ihe He New in taurants under- swers in ihe laws of the Roman Empire. ;ing out of a computerized house comes from one huge to downtown Houston, Dula is the' first lawyer 1 private practice to devote himself ground kitchen, first federal — Francesca Heller, New York, N.Y space and technical law At thirty-three, he i already odds on to be the judge on the moon. To find out why. see thi; exclusive profile in the August Omni. Mystery singer Leon Redbone is actually THE RIGHT TO DIE— One spring morning in 1975 Derek Humphrey har Frank Zappa in disguise. wife a cup of coffee containing a lethal mix of sleeping pills and painkillers, —The More Freedom Rhapsodists, emotional support, Jean Humphrey had decided to end her long and p: Tipp City, Ohio struggle against cancer. Derek has gone on to lead the grass-roots suicide move- Parking meters are to ment, promoting the right of the aged or the terminally ill to end lives they find designed speed up intolerable. The society he founded, Hemlock, has 15,000 members and is growing during the las! ten minutes of an hour. — J, Kish, Bellerose, N.Y rapidly. A more radical group, Exit, is bent on bringing out a detailed how-to of Vincent suicide. Battling fierce opposition, the right-to-die movement has gained startling momentum on both sides of the Atlanlic. Read about these groups next month. The insignia at the base of J.FK.'s neck on Ihe half dollar is a hammer and sickle. It VISIONS OF EDEN—The interpenetraiion of ocean, mountain, and sky is the was placed ihere by the coin's designer, a subject of "Green World," next month's pictorial. The art of Friedrich Hechelmann, Communist sympathizer, and was not circulation, with text by Robert Sheckley, explores a strange, yet familiar, world of the imagina- noticed until the coin was in tion: the prima! garden that calls to us from our genetic memories. A leading painter — Richard W Fulton, Walkerton, Ind. from Vienna's school of Fantastic Realism, Hechelmann has displayed his distinc- tive style in many exhibitions and films. He recently illustrated a book of gothic tales. a Wesi died of toxic shock. . Calif. Next month in Omni the artist celebrates the illusive paradise of our mind's eye. — Doug Thomson, Soqui Swine flu shots actually were vaccinations INNOVATIONS— Many breakthroughs in personal technology are transforming the bacterium that ways we enjoy our leisure time Next month Omni selects the best of innovative against a virulent escaped negligence from government re- products that facilitate outdoor summer explorations. An underwater telephone, a through laboratories. jet surfboard, and a parafoil kite are to be found among the fantastic machines and search — Reeder, Bowie, Md. gadgets composing a porttolio of items that fuse nature with technology Look for Tony our rundown an what's up in electronics, sports machines, and ingenious devices. The Japanese actually bought the 100- inventor SCIENCE FtCTION— Included in the August issue are an excerpt from Ben Bova's mpg carburetor from an unknown said, bought new novel.-vbysge.rs, speculating on humankind's first contact with an alien in in 1952. It was not, as is ofien space; a lighthearted story of the unexpected havoc wreaked by Ian Stewart's by the big oil companies and then buried. are miniature robots in "The Microbotic Revolution"; and Melisa Michaels's tale of a Now, after many years, the Japanese invention against us, but only ten sentient spaceship determined to reach the stars, "I Am Large. I Contain Multitudes," using this 122 OMNI . mpg at a time. This year the 50-mpg car, next year the 60-mpg car, and so on . . LIFE -Peter lefferts, San Martin, Calif. Jimmy Hoffa is alive and helping to orga- sperm away from it. Each testicle should be nize the labor movement in Poland. examined separately, with both hands, by — Gordon Dodge. De'Soio, Mo. holding it between the thumb and index finger and rolling the organ to sense its The FBI was responsible for' seeding the smoothness and firmness. clouds above the Woodstock Festival. "Any lump in the testicle- can be pre- — Anthony Connolly. West Bridgford, sumed to be cancerous until proved oth- England erwise," Dr, Garnick warns. "Many men with testicular cancer have made the mis- Flossing is the only effective way to ioosen take that an enlarged testicle is a sign of dental fillings. greater virility and have postponed a visit to — Alan M. Schwartz. Costa Mesa, Calif. the physician until it was too late." Any enlargement, hardening, or lump not is the Society, associated with infection should be Omni suing Four Sigma pub- NAME: Michael J. Lavelle lishers of "The World's Hardest I.Q. Test" checked immediately by a physician, pref- HOMETOWN: Brooklyn, New York (April 1979), lor inordinate delays in proc- erably by a urologist. CURRENT RESIDENCE: San Jose, California essing the score reports o( readers. "While all of this may astound or frighten EDUCATION: BJV -Philosophy, S.U.N.Y., — A. Fixx. Detroit, Mich. most men," Garnick says, "keep in mind Stony Brook, New York thai just ten years ago the chances of sur- OCCUPATION: Computer Professional HOBBIES: Racquetball, basketball, auto A few years ago there was an attempt to viving testicular cancer would have been mechanics, hiking, philosophy remove "superglue" (cyanoacrylate) from as low as ten to forty percent. Death often the market. The reason given was the pos- came within two years of discovery. But AS A ROSICRUCIAN, sible danger to children's skin and eyes. today there's a ninety-five to one hundred I HAVE LEARNED TO The real reason was that an irate Michigan percent chance of survival if we catch if housewife discovered her husband's in- early enough, while the cancer is still con- CONTROL MY LIFE testicle." fidelity and glued his penis to his leg while fined to the Several years ago as a college student in he slept. To promote wider awareness oi the dis- search of truth. I found myself collecting many use- — Dan Blake. Elkhart, Ind. ease, the Farber Institute and the Mas- less facts that did not apply to my lile. On hearing sachusetts chapter of the American Can- about the Rosicrucian Order, I was skeptical and spent time investigating its claims. Eventually, 1 There is only one fruitcake in the entire cer Society have designed a project to became a member—and that was the most reward- world; it is simply passed around from per- educate teen-agers and their parents. The ing step I have ever taken t.son to person, changing hands every Massachusetts ACS has published pam- As a Rosicmcian. I have learned to develop Christmas. phlets and lends out a ten-minute film de- the psychic, subconscious and Intellectual levels of — A. Baird. Davis. Calif. picting a case history. The American my mind.. With this new awareness, I can deal with Cancer in York is preparing Society New people on a deep and positive level, attracting har- will distrib- Here We Go Again Dept.; Dr. Charles Drew, similar publications, which be monious conditions to my persona] relationships. I the black American physician who discov- uted later this year, ha'.a also -earned to maintain an excellent state of ered a way to separate blood for storing, "Obviously," Garnick concedes, "there's In short, the Rosicrucian teachings have put died outside a hospital because it was for a long way to go before the men and boys to control of my lile. whites only. of America come out of the Dark Ages and me Today I look within myself to understand and — Dennis Hotter, Independence, Mo. realistically confront the threat of testicular control life situations, and rely on my intuition to cancer. But I believe that before Iffe dec- guide me in decision -making and problem- solving. East and West Africa have a rift between ade is out we shall all be changed by this Andsmceihereisnolimit to what lean learn, I will knowledge. Already the Army and the Navy them. be a Rosicrucian for as long as I can. — Isaac Asimov. New York, N.Y. are using our procedure in a film for their The Rosicrudans are a fraternal, cultural and recruits. I see the. day not too far from now acj carnal organization and are not a religion. Ambrose Bierce. Judge Crater, and Amelia when young men will be completely com- FREE BOOKLET Earhart are living in a m&nags a trois in fortable in their knowledge of sexual hearth. Why don't you investigate the Rosicrucian Nicaragua. just as they are today with tooth decay pre- Order to see how its teachings may benefit you? — Harlan Ellison, Sherman Oaks. Calif. vention," For your free booklet entitled "The Mastery of For more information on testicular can- Life." use the coupon below Corrugated paper clips were taken off the cer, send for the brochure "TSE,~ available market because they work too well, The at no charge from the American Cancer manufacturers found that smooth clips Society, 247 Commonwealth Avenue Rosicrucians slide off and are lost more readily, bringing Boston. MA 02116. The a faster turnover in sales. So smooth clips Schools, civic associations, and other SCRIBE BOO are now all they sell. appropriate organizations can also borrow. Rosicrucian Order, AMORC 1 — Martin Gardner, Hendersonvilie, N.C. or buy for $200, the ten-minute film about Rosicrucian Park ( testicular cancer, suitable for general audi- San Jose, California 95191 U.SA The Omni Games editor is a CIA spy, using ences. Write to Norwich-Eaton Pharmaceu- Kindly send me a free copy of The I in I the Games column asa tool for hunting out ticals, Film Library. Norwich, NY 13815. Masiery of Life. I am sincerely interested people of a devious enough intellect to The American Cancer Society head- th. a- fundi pose a possible threat' to the U.S. govern- quarters in New York distributes to its local NAME ment. Anyone who sends in a really cre- chapters throughout the country a ADDRESS _ ative answer to a problem or a Competition brochure entitled "Facts on Testicular disappears within a few days, and is never Cancer." To obtain more information, write CITY heard from again. to the American Cancer Society. 777 Third — Timothy A. Livengood, St. Louis, Mo. 00 Avenue, New York, NY 10017.DO RETHINKING HUBBLE By David K. Lynch isn't every aay the universe shrinks; constant. Once it is known, we can calcu- -ececino more scwly than ir -eally is, Itmuch less, in halt. It happened, though. late the size and age of the universe; the reducing the estimated Hubble constant. On Novembers, 1979. And. unlike the lower the constant, the larger and older De Vaucouleurs compensates for this rest of us, it got younger, by between 6 the universe. by measuring the distance of galaxies billion and 9 billion years. Hubble's estimate turned out to be too outside the supercluster. Sandage and If you didn't notice, don't worry about it. high. It has fallen— and the universe has Tammann do not. But their estimate has It was nothing dramatic. The stars didn't grown— with each revision ever since. been almost universally accepted for suddenly leap closer It was only a quiet For the past two decades the leaders in the last decade. All of this brings us back announcement at a meeting of astrono- refining the Hubble constant have been to Novembers, 1979. mers. All the same, the universe was Allan Sandage, of the Hale Observatory, Huchra, Aaronson, and Mould have suddenly a lot smaller and younger than Gustav Tammann, a Swiss, and Gerard de found what they believe to be a reliable most of them thought. Vaucouleurs, of the University of Texas. new way to measure the distances to far What happened isthat three American According to Sandage and Tammann, the galaxies. They start by examining the scientists— John Huchra, of Harvard, Hubble constant is roughly 50 kilometers frequency and shape of radio waves Marc Aaronson, of the University of Ari- per second per megaparsec, which puts emitted by hydrogen in a galaxy. The zona, and Jeremy Mould, ot Kitt Peak .the age of the universe at about 18 billion signal's frequency depends on the speed National Observatory, southwest of years. De Vaucouleurs, however, believes at which the galaxy is moving away from Tucson— reported a new estimate of the the constant is about 100 and the age only the earth, and its shape depends on the . Hubble constant, H. Along with a number 9 billion years. galaxy's speed of rotation. called the deceleration parameter, H There are several reasons for this con- The astronomers already knew that a determines the size and age of the uni- flict, but one is crucial. De Vaucouleurs galaxy's rotation and intrinsic brightness verse. Much of today's cosmological has found that the Milky Way is being are governed by its mass. So they could research hinges on the magnitude of the pulled toward a congregation of galaxies string all these functions together with a Hubble constant, located in the constellation Virgo. Our little complicated arithmetic and calculate Edwin Hubble was a tall, chilly speed, 450 kilometers per second, or the galaxy's distance by measuring how " Missourian who spoke with an Oxford about 1 million miles per hour, makes bright it appears. Compare with other accent and spent most of his career at the Virgo "supercluster" appear to be galaxies, and you have a new estimate California's Mount Wilson Observatory. It of the Hubble constant. was Hubble who proved that the long- When Huchra, Aaronson, and Mould mysterious nebulae were galaxies like our looked at galaxies outside the Virgo own. He had measured the distance to supercluster, they found a Hubble con- many of them. stant of 95 kilometers per second per Then, in 1927. Hubble compared his megaparsec — almost exactly what De work with that of Vesto Slipher of the Vaucouleurs had been claiming for years. Lowell Observatory, in Flagstaff, Arizona. That makes the universe roughly 9 billion Slipher had spent several years studying years old, half the commonly accepted the nebulae and, much to his surprise, age. And if the universe is half as old as had discovered that nearly all were mov- we thought, it must be half as large. ing away from Earth, at speeds up to Like many scientific debates, the 1,000 miles per second. What Hubble controversy over the Hubble constant found was that the farther the galaxies h nges less on the accuracy of the were from Earth, the faster they were measurements than on the assumptions receding. He had found the expanding that go into interpreting them. Each universe predicted by Einstein's theory team can cite flaws in the arguments of of general relativity in 1916. the other, and for the moment neither side What is more, he had found a clear of the debate is clearly stronger than relationship between the velocity of a the other. Most astronomers are waiting receding galaxy and its distance from to see more and better observations Earth: A galaxy leaves our neighborhood before they take sides, at roughly 525 kilometers per second per Meanwhile the universe, quite uncon- megaparsec (about 3.26 million light- cerned with our struggle to discover its years), or 360,000 miles per hour per size and age, continues to expand — as if million light-years. And that is the Hubble Edwin Hubble: His has for 10 billion or 20 billion years. DO 124 OMNI ; PHEruonnEnjM ross a sculpture II" trays the scope of ihe city of Kristiansand, in southern Norway, sculptor, Marius Heyerdal, to signify tl riveting effectofa marriage between I. .„ elements in our cosmos. Photographer Karoly Buday focused on this aspect of the glass and steel sculpture to magnify and S^j0F^wgl$>t enhance the symbolic scar. Thus, the irphosis created and controlled by the artist- mgh photography we . 1 would not be able to see in any other way. We cut through the visible to see the 'invisible,' " r V30th-second exposure. The blue ' goid fusil • r,iv a» M '.. ? a , Soapy Sam strikes again, and a baby step for man By Scot Morris Both day and night at Samuel Wilberforce, bishop of Oxford, nicknamed Soapy Sam by his contempo- raries because of his slippery debating rir+and is iv\ deal tactics, is best remembered for his con- .i-iiv-,:-: ijresi-ovs sm i- keepal'vs withou; iX'p^ny r. v t"=-. frontation in 1 860 with Thomas Henry gvssse-:;: :;y or :iarr= can ! oo a coy a Dudeny discussed the above riddle in Huxley before the British Association 300 Best Word Puzzles (Scribner's, 1972), for the Advancement of Science in calling it an "unsolved enigma that is a debate over the new theory of evolution. the widely known . . . attributed to Bishop Wilberforce was also a puzzle maker. This one proved the toughest, with smallest Wilberforce." His own suggested answer Last December we printed four "unsolved widest variety of entries and the solution was was/?earracne. "Probably it is not correct," riddles" attributed to him that had been consensus. The commonest stretch of the imagina- he said, "but all other attempts seem in- sent to us by Dr. Richard Wrangham, a orchid, allowing a ferior." quotes the last three lines fit water I die"?). Dudeny distant relative of Wilberforce's and. tion to make the lines ("in English puzzlist, a bit differently: "And never felt by biologist and research fellow at King's Henry Ernest Dudeny. the was night;/'Tis dear tofriends when far College, Cambridge, England. The'riddles wrote in 1920 that he thought bubble for reasons that seem far- away/And hateful when in sight." were discovered in the bishop's personal the best answer, than Many readers agreed with Dudeny, but papers, Wrangham said, and as far as he. fetched, or at least farther-fetched back cur choice we saw too many problems with heart- > or other Wilberforce descendants knew, the reasons we tound to — whate. "Ore" (the Latin ache: An ache isn't abused; a heartache none had yet been adequately solved. for best solution loudest syllable in is never desired and never in sight. We challenged our readers to solve the root for whale) is the seen We judged the most reasonable answer Wilberforce riddles and offered $50 for orchestra; a blowhole spout- could be riddle's whale dies un- to be firefly , This fits most of the the best solution to each riddle. As. always, as "plumage"; a beached lines, though the last two still seem to be we underestimated readers' ingenuity. naturally, others die in water; a breaching destroys me questionable. If the answer is correct, "in Thousands of cards came in, analyzing whale "flies." The "Darkness sight" must mean something like "inyour these enigmas from every conceivable and light is my death" line may refer to to eye." From 49 fireftys submitted, the angle. Some riddles attracted hundreds of whale-oil lamps, and the last lines more com- winning entrant was Marshall B. Mills, different answers; others arrived with long whalebone corset stays, both Wilberforce's day. of Tucson explanations, often in rhyme. We picked mon associations in gallant attempts at solution The "my first/my second" format is out the most plausible, most clever, and Some other gossip, fire, called a charade and suggests that the most outrageous of these and sent a were offered for sound, wind, answer is a compound word. Some In- summary to three guest judges for their and the. letter k. as ever genious arguments were made for these opinions: Willard R. Espy, author of nu- Soapy Sam remains as slippery best alternate answers: lifetime, willpower, merous wordplay books, most recently with this one. Whale was judged the imperfect, and from 21 earthworm, homework, and cockroach. the delightful Another Almanac of Words solution, albeit Ross Eckler, whale/orc/orca entries our randomly at Play (Crown, 1980); A. RIDDLE #3 logo- chosen winner was Mike Gormly, of St. editor of Word Ways, the journal for Not newly formed, ye philes; and Will Shoriz, puzzle editor of Louis. still haven't found away Games magazine. it is possible that we a g ive okeep. These eminent wordsmiths indicated the answer or the rationale that Wilber- And none would wish preferred "best" solutions, and we force had in mind, the sentiment ex- their At last we have a riddle with a clear of judgment in the case of pressed by Darrell H. Bartee. made a final solution. Of nearly 1,000 entrants, 255 cards containing the Wichita, Kansas: disagreements. All agreed on a beef; the last line refers to the solution for riddle. The bishop went loo far this lime chosen "best" each obsolescent phrase "to keep abed," i.e., his rhyme. in a pile, and the money In listing clues to make were placed to be sick. What isn't clear is whether He included everything, I think. winner was chosen randomly fronUhem Wilberforce actually wrote this riddle. perhaps the kitchen sink. {using the last digits of numbers irf'the Except Charles J. Fox, — Other sources attribute it to The answer — as tricky, I presume Manhattan telephone directory}.' an eighteenth-century statesman and Here, then, the results qf,qur quest to Lies by the bishop in his tomb. orator. It is possible that Soapy Sam enigmas. crack the bishop's century-old penned the riddle into his personal papers RIDDLE #2 without noting that it wasn't his own and RIDDLE#1 that his descendants only assumed it was I'm the louder,! ..\ voices :"'. ore -.estra heard original. (A similar fate may have befallen riddle attributes for all. finally #4. which one source to troublesome We had to write 1 COMPETITION #2 . SMALL STEPS William Cowper.) it off to the different attitudes of another Some clever arguments were made fbr era. Although Espy and Eckler preferred "Thai's one small step for man, one giant a secret V.D.,a mistress , a snoring mate : love , we agreed with Shortz that a kiss leap for mankind." "made" today , the letter e . and a New York better satisfies the first line. "I'm |usr two We commemorate the moment— 12 City sanitation truck. The money went, to and two." (Incidentally, two readers inde- years ago. on the twentieth of this month Mike Moore, ot Springfield. Ohio. pendently argued for heart by placing a — when one of the strangest sentences pair of 2:'S face to faee: £2) of all time was uttered. What did it mean? distinction RIDDLE #4 The winning kiss , from astack of 39, Whal was the between "man" came from Grif Mauser, of Jacksonville. and "mankind"? There was none, of Texas. course. Neil Armstrong misspoke. What We acknowledge the following readers. he meant to say was, "That's one small who made solid explanations for "right" step for a man." by "a man" meaning answers. or valiant attempts ai wrong ones, himself. The line, fluffed through over- who sent the cleverest rhymed replies, or fehearsal or the momentousness of the [ Love passion , sex. a toss were the who otherwise honored themselves in this occasion, was small step away in , and a commonest answers. The last line proved contest: David Benaron. Graeme Bennett wording, a giant leap away in effect. Here Theodore L. Brown, Anne Davidson, Dan are some "small steps," just off the mark: DiMase. Chris Doyle; Mark Famen. Ben 3 • Gottlieb, 0. E. Jackson, Carl Lippitt. E = mc Samuel G. McLellan, Wally Nickel. D. S, • World War J r • & R, Twohy William J. Vetek, and Nea' "Lightning never strikes twice at the time." White III. same • Fiddler on the Porch READER ORIGINAL • Lawrence of the United Arab Republic • $25. Sam Bassett, of Palo Alto, California The United States of Vespucci writes that while he was driving behind a • Mercury, Venus, Earth. Mars. Jupiter, late-model Volkswagen, he noticed that its Saturn. Uranus, Neptune, and Goofy iicense plate read ML8 ML8, when he "Oneif by land, iwootherwise." caught oh, he "nearly ran off the road • "Beware March fifteenth." laughing." • " 'Twas brilliant, and the slimy toads did Question: What color was the car? gyrate and gambol in the waves." • Godet, Escher, Brahms OLD BUSINESS • The joy of victory, the downer of losing • In February's "How Observant Are You?" Zerox.6-Up, Bob Dillon Quiz, we offered "DOC," a mnemonic to • "Give me liberty or kill me." tell whether the moon is waxing or waning These are Ihe titles, names ano by observing whether its curve is "D"- or phrases that might have. been. Mary Ann in York macazV'-- "C"- shaped. This was appallingly Madden, herWew com- northerh-hemispheristof us. Australians, petitions column (which we acknowledge of course, use "COD." Problem #14 in for the idea and someof the examples), "Quick Quiz" [April] had an obvious calls them near-misses. To us they are "small misprint. It referred at one point to tooth- steps"— close, but not quite picks and al another to matches. This on target. wasn't meant as an extra April Fool's joke We're looking far more, We'll pay $100 for of on readers, but it turned out to be one on the best Ihe genre, $25 each for WHAT IS THIS? Here's a visual puzzle to runners-up (2-10). Postcards only, comptemenllhis month's verbal ones. Under a us. please, with no. more than two entries s'rong iigi-ii, stare at the spot in the center o! tht READER ORIGINAL Here's the answer to per card. Entries drawing above. Don'l move your head, or the the MLS MLS license plate problem, become the property of _ magazine, tor about 20 seconds. After that firm above: Omni and cannot be returned. Send your lock a' a while wall or a blank piece at paper. uej Small Steps, postmarked by August 15, An afterimage will appear, and it.may hold KOJiEQ siM3i e si Hosseg -{„\a]e\ tuj iejB| 19.81, to: Omni Competition #21. 909 Third quite a surprise for you. lu,|„) asjnoo jo 'jiqqey a)iu,M e sem jbd au.i Avenue, New York, NY 10022.OO 129 WORDLA5T