Consequences Of A Discovery

: Greener Than You Think

11. "But it's got to be stopped," exclaimed Gootes.



Miss Francis turned silently back to her flowerpot as though she'd

forgotten us. Gootes coursed the kitchenfloor like a puzzled yet anxious

hound. "Damn it, it's got to be stopped." He halfway extracted his pack

of cards, then hastily withdrew his hand as though guarding the moment's

gravity.



"Otherwise ... why, otherwise itll swallow the h use." He decided on the

cards afterall and balanced four of them edgewise on the back of his

hand. Miss Francis immediately abandoned the flowerpot to stare

childishly at the feat. "In fact, if what you say is true, it will

literally swallow up the house. Digest it. Convert it into devilgrass."



"Cynodon dactylon. What I say is true. How much elementary physics is

involved in that trick?"



"But that's terrible," protested Gootes. He regarded a bowl of algae as

if about to make it disappear. Mentally I agreed; one of the greatest

potential moneymakers of the age lost and valueless.



"Yes," she agreed, "it is terrible. Terrible as the starvation in a hive

when the apiarist takes out the winter honey; terrible as the daily

business in an abattoir; terrible as the appetite of grown fish at

spawning time."



"Poo. Fate. Kismet. Nature."



"Ah; you are unconcerned with catastrophes which don't affect man."



"Local man," substituted Gootes. "Los Angeles man. Pithecanthropus

moviensis. Stiffs in Constantinople are strictly AP stuff."



"It seems to me," I broke in, "that you are both assuming too much. I

don't know of anything that calls for the word catastrophe. I'm sure I'm

sorry if the Dinkmans' house is swallowed up as Gootes suggests, but it

hasnt been and I'm sure the possibility is exaggerated. The authorities

will do something or the grass will stop growing. I don't see any point

in looking at the blackest side of things."



Gootes opened his mouth in pretended astonishment. "Wal, I swan. Boy's a

philosopher."



"You are not particularly concerned, Weener?"



"I don't know any reason why I should be," I retorted. "I sold your

product in good faith and I am not responsible--"



"Oh, blind, blind. Do you imagine one man can suffer and you not suffer?

Is your name Simeon Stylites? Do you think for an instant what happens

to any man doesnt happen to everyman? Are you not your brother's

keeper?" She twisted her hands together. "Not responsible! Why, you are

responsible for every brutality, execution, meanness and calamity in the

world today!"



I had often heard that the borderline between profundity and insanity

was thin and inexact and it was now clear on which side she stood. I

looked at Gootes to see how he was taking her hysterical outburst, but

he had found a batch of empty testtubes which he was building into a

perilously swaying structure.



"Of course, of course," I agreed soothingly, backing away. "Youre quite

right."



She walked the floor as if her awkward body were a burden. "Is the

instant response to an obvious truth--platitude even--always a diagnosis

of lunacy? I state a thought so old no one knows who first expressed it

and a hearer feels bound to choose between offense to himself and

contempt for the speaker. Believe me, Weener, I was offering no

exclusive indictment: I too am guilty--infinitely culpable. Even if I

had devoted my life to pure science--perhaps even more certainly

then--patterning myself on a medieval monastic, faithful to vows of

poverty and singleness of purpose; even if I had not, for an apparently

laudable end, betrayed my efforts to a base greed; even if I had never

picked for a moment's use such an unworthy--do not be insulted again,

Weener, unworthiness is a fact, insofar as there are any facts at

all--such an unworthy tool as yourself; even if I had never compounded

the Metamorphizer; even if I had been a biologist or an astronomer--even

then I should be guilty of ruining the Dinkmans and making them

homeless, just as you are guilty and the reporter here is guilty and the

garbageman is guilty and the pastor in his pulpit is guilty."



"Guilty," exclaimed Gootes suddenly, "guilty! What kind of a lousy

newspaperman am I? Worrying about guilt and solutions in the face of

impending calamity instead of serving it redhot to a palpitating public.

Guilty--hell, I ought to be fired. Or anyway shot. Where's the phone?"



"I manage a minimum of privacy in spite of inquiring reporters and

unemployed canvassers. I have no telephone."



"Hokay. Hole everythings. I return immediate."



I followed him for I had no desire to be left alone with someone who

might prove dangerous. But his long legs took him quickly out of sight

before I could catch him, even by running, and so I fell into a more

sedate pace. All Miss Francis' metaphysical talk was beyond me, but what

little I could make of it was pure nonsense. Guilty. Why, I had never

done anything illegal in my life, unless taking a glass of beer in dry

territory be so accounted. All this talk about guilt suggested some sort

of inverted delusions of persecution. How sad it was the eccentricity of

genius so often turned its possessors into cranks. I was thankful to be

of mere normal intelligence.





12. But I wasted no more thought on her, putting the whole episode of

the Metamorphizer behind me, for I now had some liquid capital. It was

true it didnt amount to much, but it existed, crinkled in my pocket, and

I was sure with my experience and native ability I could turn the

Daily Intelligencer's forty dollars into a much larger sum.



But a resolve to forget the Metamorphizer didnt enable me to escape Mrs

Dinkman's lawn. Walking down Hollywood Boulevard, formulating, rejecting

and reshaping plans for my future, I passed a radioshop and from a

loudspeaker hung over the door with the evident purpose of inducing

suggestible pedestrians to rush in and purchase sets, the latest report

of the devilgrass's advance was blared out at me.



"... Station KPAR, The Voice of Edendale, reaching you from a portable

transmitter located in the street in front of what was formerly the

residence of Mr and Mrs Dinkman. I guess youve all heard the story of

how their lawn was allegedly sprinkled with some chemical which made the

grass run wild. I don't know anything about that, but I want to tell you

this grass is certainly running wild. It must be fifteen or sixteen feet

high--think of that, folks--nearly as high as three men standing on each

other's shoulders. It's covered the roof halfway to the peak and it's

choking the windows and doorways of the houses on either side. It's all

over the sidewalk--looks like an enormous green woolly rug--no, that's

not quite right--anyway, it's all over the sidewalk and it would be

right out here in the street where I'm talking to you from if the

firedepartment wasnt on the job constantly chopping off the creeping

ends as they come over the curb. I want to tell you, folks, it's a

frightening sight to see grass--the same kind of grass growing in your

backyard or mine--magnified or maybe I mean multiplied a hundred

times--or maybe more--and coming at you as if it was an enemy--only the

cold steel of the fireman's ax saving you from it.



"While we're waiting for some action, folks--well, not exactly that--the

grass is giving us plenty of action all right--I'll try to bring you

some impressions of the people in the street. Literally in the street,

because the sidewalk is covered with grass. Pardon me, sir--would you

like to say a few words to the unseen audience of Station KPAR? Speak

right into the microphone, sir. Let's have your name first. Don't be

bashful. Haha. Gentleman doesnt care to give his name. Well, that's all

right, quite all right. Just what do you think of this phenomenon? How

does it impress you? Are you disturbed by the sight of this riot of

vegetation? Right into the microphone...."



"Uh ... hello ... well, I guess I havent ... uh anything much to say ...

pretty color ... bad stuff, I guess. Gladsnotgrowing myyard...."



"Yes, go right on, sir. Oh ... the gentleman is through. Very

interesting and thank you.



"Theyre bringing up a whole crew of weedburners now--going to try and

get this thing under control. The men all have tanks of oil or kerosene

on their backs. Wait a minute, folks, I want to find out for sure

whether it's oil or kerosene. Mumble. Mumble. Well, folks, I'm sorry,

but this gentleman doesnt know exactly what's in the tanks. Anyway it's

kerosene or oil and there are long hoses with wide nozzles at the end.

Something like vacuumcleaners. Well, that's not quite right. Anyway

theyre lighting the nozzles now. Makes a big whoosh. Now I'll bring the

microphone closer and maybe you can catch the noise of the flame. Hear

it? That's quite a roar. I guess old Mr Grass is cooked now.



"Now these boys are advancing in a straight line from the street up over

the curb, holding their fiery torches in front of them. The devilgrass

is shriveling up. Yessir, it's shriveling right up--like a gob of

tobaccojuice on a hot stove. Theyve burned about two feet of it away

already. Nothing left but some smoking stems. Quite a lot of smoking

stems--a regular compact mass of them--but all the green stuff has been

burned right off. Yes, folks, burned clean off; I wish we had television

here so I could show you how that thick pad of stems lies there without

a bit of life left in it.



"Now theyre uncovering the sidewalk. I'm following right behind with the

microphone--maybe you can hear the roar of the weedburners again. Now

I'd like to have you keep in mind the height of this grass. You never

saw grass as tall as this unless youve been in the jungle or South

America or someplace where grass grows this high. I mean high. Even here

at the sidewalk it's well over a man's head, seven or eight feet. And

this crew is carving right into it, cutting it like steel with an

acetylenetorch. Theyre making big holes in it. You hear that hissing?

That noise like a steamhose? Well, that's the grass shriveling. Think of

it--grass with so much sap inside it hisses. It's drying right up in a

one-two-three! Now the top part is falling down--toppling

forward--coming like a breaking wave. Oops! Hay.... It put out one of

the torches by smothering it. Drowned it in grass. Nothing serious--the

boy's got it lit again. Progress is slow here, folks--youve got to

realize this stuff's about ten feet high. Further in it's anyway sixteen

feet. Fighting it's like battling an octopus with a million arms. The

stuff writhes around and grows all the time. It's terrific. Imagine

tangles of barbedwire, hundreds and hundreds of bales or rolls or

however barbedwire comes, covering your frontyard and house--only it

isnt barbedwire at all, but green, living grass.... Just a minute,

folks, I'm having a little trouble with my microphone cable. Nothing

serious, you understand--tangled a bit in the grass behind me. Those

burnt stems. Stand by for just a minute...."



"This is KPAR, The Voice of Edendale. Due to mechanical difficulties

there will be a brief musical interlude until contact is resumed with

our portable transmitter bringing you an onthespot account of the

unusual grass...."



"Kirk, Quork, krrmp--AR's portable transmitter. Here I am again, folks,

in the street in front of the Dinkman residence--a little out of breath,

but none the worse off, ready to resume the blowbyblow story of the

fight against the devilgrass. That was a little trouble back there, but

it's all right now. Seems the weedburners hadnt quite finished off the

grass in the parkwaystrip between the curb and the sidewalk and after I

dragged my microphone cable across it, it sort of--well, it sort of came

to life again and tangled up the cable. It's all right now though.

Everything under control. The boys with the weedburners have come back

and are going over the parkwaystrip again, just to make sure.



"I want to tell you--this stuff really can grow. It's amazing, simply

amazing. Youve heard of plants growing while you look at them; well,

this grows while you don't look at it. It grows while your back is

turned. Just to give you an example: while the boys have been busy a

second time with the parkwaystrip, the grass has come back and grown

again over all they burned up beyond the sidewalk. And now it's starting

to come back over the concrete. You can actually see it move. The

creepers run out in front and crawl ahead like thousands of little green

snakes. Imagine seeing grass traveling forward like an army of worms. An

army you can't stop. Because it's alive. Alive and coming at you. It's

alive. It's alive. It's al--"



"This is Station KPAR. We will resume our regular programs immediately

following the timesignal. Now we bring you a message from the

manufacturers of Chewachoc, the Candy Laxative with the Hole...."



I continued thoughtfully down the street. The Daily Intelligencer was

spread on a newsstand, a smudgy black bannerhead fouling its pure bosom.

CITY COUNCIL MEETS TO END GRASS MENACE.



I trusted so. Quickly. I was tired of Mrs Dinkman's lawn.





13. "Weener sahib, fate has tied us together."



I hoped not. I was weary of Gootes and his phony accents.



"On account of your female Burbank, your scientess (scientistess is a

twister. Peder Piber et a peg of piggled pebbers) won't play ball with W

R. The chief offered her a fabulous sum--'much beer in little kegs, many

dozen hardboiled eggs, and goodies to a fabulous amount'--fabulous for W

R, that is--to act as special writer on the grass business. J S Francis,

World Renowned Chemist, exclusively in the Intelligencer. You know.

Suppress her unfortunate sex. ORIGINATOR OF WILD GRASS TELLS ALL.



"Anyway she didnt grasp her chance. Practically told W R to go to hell.

Practically told him to go to hell," he repeated, evidently torn

between reprehension at the sacrilege and admiration of the daring.



Miss Francis plainly had what might be described as talent that way. I

debated whether to inform Gootes of my discovery of her craziness and

decided against it on the bare possibility it would be unwise to lower

the value of my connection with the Metamorphizer's discoverer. I was

soon rewarded for my caution.



"O Weeneru san," continued Gootes, evidently in an oriental vein

traveling westward, "not too hard for you to be picking up few yen. You

do not hate fifty potatoes from Editor san yesterday?"



"Forty," I corrected.



"Forty, fifty--what's the difference so long as youre healthy?" He

produced a card, showed it, tore it in half, waved his hand and

exhibited it whole and unharmed. "No kidding, chum; the old man has the

bug to make you a special correspondent--on my advice

yunderstand--always looking out for my pals."



Well, why not? The wheel of Fortune had been a long time turning before

stopping at the proper spot. I had never had any doubt I'd someday be in

a position to prove my writing ability. Now all those who had sneered at

me years before--my English teachers and editors who had been too

jealous to recognize my existence by anything more courteous than a

printed rejection--would have to acknowledge their injustice. And in the

meantime all my accumulated experience had been added to enhance my

original talent. I'd sold everything that could be sold doortodoor and a

man acquires not only an ease with words but a wide knowledge of human

nature this way. Certainly I was better equipped all around than many of

these highly advertised magazine or newspaper authors.



"Well ... I don't know if I could spare the time...."



"O K, bigshot. Let me know if the market goes down and I'll come around

and put up more margin."



"How much will Mr Le ffacase--"



"How the hell do I know? More than youre worth--more than I'm getting,

because youre a ninetyday wonder, the guy who put the crap on the grass

and sent it nuts. Less than he'd have given Minerva-Medusa. Come and get

it straight from the horse's mouth."



My only previous visits to newspaper offices had been to place

advertisements, but I was prepared to find the Daily Intelligencer a

veritable hive of activity. Perhaps some part of the big building which

housed the paper did hum, but not the floor devoted to the editorial

staff. That simply dozed. Gootes led me from the elevator through an

enormous room where men and an occasional woman sat indolently before

typewriters, stared druggedly into space or flew paper airplanes out of

open windows. The only sign of animation I saw as we walked what might

well have been a quartermile was one reporter (I judged him such by the

undersized hat on the back of his head) who enthusiastically munched a

sandwich while perusing a magazine containing photographs of women with

uncovered breasts. Even the nipples showed.



Beyond the cityroom was a battery of private offices. I will certainly

not conceal the existence of my extreme nervousness as we neared the

proximity of the famous editor. I hung back from the groundglass door

inscribed in shabby, peeling letters--in distinction to its neighbors,

newly and brightly painted--W.R. Le ffacase. Gootes, noting my

trepidation, put on the brogue of a burlesque Irishman.



"Is it afraid of Himself you are, me boy? Sure, think no more of it.

Faith, and wasnt he born Billy Casey; no better than the rest of us for

all his mother was a Clancy and related to the Finnegans? He's written

so often about coming from noble Huguenot stock he almost believes it

himself, but the Huguenots were dirty Protestants and when his time

comes W R'll send for the priest and take the last sacraments like the

true son of the Church he is in his heart. So buck up, me boy, and come

in and view the biggest faker in journalism."



But Gootes' flippancy reassured me no more than did the bare sunlit

office behind the door. I had somehow, perhaps from the movies, expected

to see an editor's desk piled with copypaper while he himself used

halfadozen telephones at once, simultaneously making incomprehensible

gestures at countless underlings. But Mr Le ffacase's desk was nude

except for an enameled snuffbox and a signed photograph of a president

whose administration had been subjected daily to the editor's bitterest

jabs. On the walls hung framed originals of the more famous political

cartoons of the last quartercentury, but neither telephone nor scrap of

manuscript was in evidence.



But who could examine that office with detached scrutiny while William

Rufus Le ffacase occupied it? Somnolent in a leather armchair, he opened

tiny, sunken eyes to regard us with less than interest as we entered.

Under a shiny alpaca coat he wore an oldfashioned collarless shirt whose

neckband was fastened with a diamond stud. Neither collar nor tie

competed with the brilliance of this flashing gem resting in a shaven

stubblefold of his draped neck. His face was remarkably long, his

upperlip stretching interminably from a mouth looking to have been

freshly smeared with vaseline to a nose not unlike a golfclub in shape.

From the snuffbox on his desk, which I'd imagined a pretty ornament or

receptacle for small objects, he scooped with a flat thumb a conical

mound of graybrown dust and this, with a sweeping upward motion, he

pushed into a gaping nostril.



"Chief, this is Albert Weener."



"How do, Mr Weener. Gootes, who the bloody hell is Weener?"



"Why, Chief, he's the guy who put the stuff on the grass."



"Oh." He surveyed me with the attention due a worthy but not

particularly valuable specimen. "You bit the dog, ay, Weener?"



Gootes burst into a high, appreciative cackle. Le ffacase turned the

deathray of his left eye on him. "Youre a syncophant, Gootes," he stated

flatly, "a miserable groveling lowlivered cringing fawning mealymouthed

chickenhearted toadeating arselicking, slobbering syncophant."



I couldnt see how we were ever to reach the point this way, so I

ventured, "I understand in view of the fact that I inoculated Mrs

Dinkman's lawn you want me to contribute--"



"Desires grow smaller as intelligence expands," growled Le ffacase. "I

want nothing except to find a few undisturbed moments in which to read

the work of the immortal Hobbes."



"I'm sorry," I said. "I understood you wished me to report the progress

of the wildly growing grass."



"Cityeditor's province," he declared uninterestedly.



"No such thing on the Intelligencer," Gootes informed me in a loud

whisper. Le ffacase, who evidently heard him, glared, reached down and

retrieved the telephone from its concealment under the desk and snarled

into the mouthpiece, "I hate to interrupt your crapgame with the trivial

concerns of this organ men called a newspaper till you got on the

payroll. I'm sending you a man who knows something about the crazy

grass. Divorce yourself from whatever pornography youre gloating over at

the moment to see if we can use him."



His immediate obliviousness to our presence was so insulting that if

Gootes had not made the first move to leave I should have done so

myself. I don't know what vast speculations swept upon him as he hung up

the telephone, but I thought he might at least have had the courtesy to

nod a dismissal.



"Youre hired, bejesus," proclaimed Gootes, and of course I was, for

there was no doubt a brilliantly successful figure like Le

ffacase--whatever my opinion of his intemperate language or failure in

the niceties of deportment, he was a forceful man--had sized me up in a

flash and sensed my ability before I'd written a single line for his

paper.





14. The wage offered by the Daily Intelligencer--even assuming, as

they undoubtedly did, that the affair of the grass would be over shortly

and my service ended--was high enough to warrant my buying a secondhand

car. A previous unpleasantness with a financecompany made the

transaction difficult, with as little cash as I had on hand, but a

phonecall to the paper established my bonafides and I was soon driving

out Sunset Boulevard in a tomatocolored roadster, meditating on the

longdelayed upsurge of my fortunes.



The street was closed off by a road barrier quite some distance away and

tightly parked cars testified to the attraction of the expanding grass.

Scorning these idle sightseers, I pushed and shoved my way forward to

what had now become the focus of all my interests.



The Dinkmans had lived in a city block, an urban entity. It was no

pretentious group of houses, nor was it a repetitive design out of some

subdividing contractor's greedy mind. Moderatesized, mediumpriced,

middleclass bungalows; these were the homes of the Dinkmans and their

neighbors; a sample from a pattern which varied but was basically the

same here and in Oakland, Seattle and St. Louis; in Chicago,

Philadelphia, Boston and Cleveland.



But now I looked upon no city scene, no picture built upon the

substantial foundation of daddy at the office all day, fixing a leaky

faucet of an evening, painting the woodwork during his summer vacation;

or mom, after a pleasant afternoon with the girls, unstintedly opening

cans for supper and harassedly watching the cleaning woman who came in

once a week. An alien presence, a rude fist through the canvas negated

the convention that this was a picture of reality. A coneshaped hill

rose to a blurred point, marking the burialplace of the Dinkman house.

It was a child's drawing of a coneshaped hill, done in green crayon; too

symmetrical, too evenly and heavily green to be a spontaneous product of

nature; man's unimaginative hand was apparent in its composition.



The sides of the cone flowed past the doors and windows of the adjacent

houses, blocking them as it had previously blocked the Dinkmans', but

their inhabitants, forewarned, had gone. More than mere desertion was

implied in their going; there was an implicit surrender, abandonment to

the invader. The base of the cone, accepting capitulation and still

aggressive, had reached to the lawns beyond, warning these householders

too to be ready for flight; over backfences to dwellings fronting

another street, and establishing itself firmly over the concrete

pavement before the Dinkmans' door.



I would be suppressing part of the truth if I did not admit that for the

smallest moment some perverted pride made me cherish this hill as my

work, my creation. But for me it would not have existed. I had done

something notable, I had caused a stir; it was the same kind of

sensation, I imagine, which makes criminals boast of their crimes.



I quickly dismissed this morbid thought, but it was succeeded by one

almost equally unhealthy, for I was ridden by a sudden wild impulse to

touch, feel, walk on, roll in the encroaching grass. I tried to control

myself, but no willing of mine could prevent me from going up and

letting the long runners slip through my half open hands. It was like

receiving some sort of electric shock. Though the blades were soft and

tender, the stems communicated to my palms a feeling of surging

vitality, implacable life and ineluctable strength. I drew back from the

green mass as though I had been doing something venturesome.



For, no matter what botanists or naturalists may tell us to the

contrary, we habitually think of plantlife as fixed and stolid,

insensate and quiescent. But this abnormal growth was no passive lawn,

no sleepy patch of vegetation. As I stood there with fascinated

attention, the thing moved and kept on moving; not in one place, but in

thousands; not in one direction, but toward all points of the compass.

It writhed and twisted in nightmarish unease, expanding, extending,

increasing; spreading, spreading, spreading. Its movement, by human

standards, was slow, but it was so monstrous to see this great mass of

verdure move at all that it appeared to be going with express speed,

inexorably enveloping everything in its path. A crack in the roadway

disappeared under it, a shrub was swallowed up, a patch of wall

vanished.



The eye shifted from whole to detail and back again. The overrun crack

was duplicated by an untouched one a few inches away--it too went; the

fine tentacles on top of the mound reached upward, shimmering like the

air on a hot summer's day, and near my feet hundreds of runners crept

ever closer, the pale stolons shiny and brittle, supporting the

ominously bristling green leaves.



I hope Ive not given the impression there was no human activity all this

while, that nothing was being done to combat the living glacier. On the

contrary, there was tremendous bustle and industry. The weedburning crew

was still fighting a rearguard action, gaining momentary successes here

and there, driving back the invading tendrils as they wriggled over

concrete sidewalk and roadway, only to be defeated as the main mass,

piling higher and ever higher, toppled forward on the temporarily

redeemed areas. For on this vastly thicker bulk the smoky fingers of

flame had no more effect than did the exertions of the scythemen,

hacking futilely away at the tough intricacies, or the rattling reapers

entangling themselves to become like waterlogged ships.



But greatest hopes were now being pinned on a new weapon. A dozen black

and sootylooking tanktrucks had come up and from them, like the arms of

a squid, thick hoses lazily uncoiled. Hundreds of gallons of dark

crudeoil were being poured upon the grass. At least ten bystanders

eagerly explained to any who would listen the purpose and value of this

maneuver. Petroleum, deadly enemy of all rooted things, would

unquestionably kill the weed. They might as well call off all the other

silly efforts, for in a day or two, as soon as the oil soaked into the

ground, the roots would die, the monster collapse and wither away. I

wanted with all my heart to believe in this hope, but when I compared

the feeble brown trickle to the vast green body I was gravely doubtful.



Shaken and thoughtful, I went back to my car and drove homeward,

reflecting on the fortuitousness of human actions. Had I not answered

Miss Francis' ad someone else would have been the agent of calamity; had

Mrs Dinkman been away from home that day another place than hers, or

perhaps no place at all, might have been engulfed.



On the other hand, I might still be searching for a chance to prove my

merit to the world. It seemed to me suddenly man was but a helpless

creature afterall.





15. It wasnt until I was almost at my own frontdoor I remembered the

purpose of my visit, which was not to draw philosophic conclusions, but

to order my impressions so the columns of the Daily Intelligencer

might benefit by the reactions of one so closely connected with the

spread of the devilgrass. I began tentatively putting sentences together

and by the time I got to my room and sat down with pencil and paper, I

was in a ferment of creative activity.



Now I cannot account for this, but the instant I took the pencil in my

fingers all thought of the grass left my mind. No effort to summon back

those fine rolling sentences was of the least avail. I slapped my

forehead and muttered, "Grass, grass, Bermuda, Cynodon dactylon"

aloud, varying it with such key words as "Dinkman, swallowing up, green

hill" and the like, but all I could think of was buying a tire (700 x

16) for the left rear wheel, paying my overdue rent, Gootes' infuriating

buffoonery, the possibilities for a man of my caliber in Florida or New

York, and with a couple of thousand dollars a nice mailorder business

could be established to bring in a comfortable income....



I left the chair and walked up and down the cramped room until the

lodger below rapped spitefully on his ceiling. I went to the bathroom

and washed my hands. I came back and inspected my teeth in the mirror.

Then I resumed my seat and wrote, "The Grass--" After a moment I crossed

this out and substituted, "Today, the grass--"



I decided the whole approach was unimaginative and unworthy of me. I

turned the paper over and began, "Like a dragon springing--" Good,

good--this was the way to start; it would show the readers at once they

were dealing with a man of imagination. "Like a dragon springing."

Springing from what? What did dragons spring from anyway? Eggs, like

snakes? Dragons were reptiles werent they? Or werent they? Give up the

metaphor? I set my teeth with determination and began again. "Not unlike

a fierce and belligerently furious dragon or some other ferocious,

blustery and furious chimerical creature, a menacing and comminatory

debacle is burning fierily in the heart of our fair and increasingly

populous city. As one with an innocent yet cardinal part in the

unleashing of this dire menace, I want to describe how the exposure of

this threatening menace affected me as I looked upon its menacing and

malevolent advance today...."



I sat back, not dissatisfied with my beginning, and thought about the

neat little bachelor apartment I could rent on what the Intelligencer

was paying me. Of course in a few days this hullabaloo would be all

over--for though I had little faith in the efficacy of the crudeoil I

knew really drastic measures would be taken soon and the whole business

stopped--but even in so short a time there could be no doubt Mr Le

ffacase would realize he needed me permanently on his staff and I would

be assured of a living in my own proper sphere. Thus fired with the

thoughts of accomplishment, I returned to my task, but I cannot say it

went easily. I remembered many great writers indulged in stimulants in

the throes of composition, but I decided such a course might blunt the

keen edge of my mind and afterall there was no better stimulant than

plain oldfashioned perseverance. I picked up the pencil again and

doggedly went on to the next sentence.





16. "What the hell's this?" demanded the cityeditor, looking at my

neatly rolled pile of manuscript.



I disdained to bandy words with an underling too lazy to make an effort

to get at what was probably the finest piece of writing ever brought to

him, so I unrolled my story, flattening it out so he might read it the

more easily.



"By the balls of Benjamin Franklin and the little white fringe on Horace

Greeley's chin, this goddamned thing's been wrote by hand! Arent there

any typewriters anymore? Did Mister Remington commit suicide unbeknownst

to me?"



"I'm sorry," I said stiffly. "I didnt think youd have any difficulty in

reading my handwriting." And in fact the whole business was absurd, for

if there's anything I pride myself on it's the gracefulness and

legibility of my penmanship. Typewriters might well be mandatory for the

ephemeral news item, but I had been hired as a special correspondent and

someday my manuscript would be a valuable property.



The cityeditor eyed me in a most disagreeable fashion. "I'm an educated

man," he stated. "Groton, Harvard and the WPA. No doubt with time and

care I could decipher this bid for next year's Pulitzer prize. But I

must consider the more handicapped members of the staff: compositors,

layoutmen and proofreaders; without my advantages and broadmindedness

they might be so startled by this innovation as to have their usefulness

permanently crippled. No; I'm afraid, Mr Weener, I must ask you to put

this in more orthodox form and type it up."



Just another example of pettish bureaucracy, the officiousness of the

jack-in-office. Except for the nuisance, it didnt particularly matter.

When Mr Le ffacase read my contribution I knew there would be no concern

in future whether it was handwritten, typewritten, or engraved in

Babylonic cuneiform on a freshly baked brick.



Nevertheless I went over to one of the unoccupied desks and began to

copy what I had written on the machine. I must say I was favorably

impressed by the appearance of my words in this form, for they somehow

looked more important and enduring. While still engaged in this task I

was slapped so heartily on the back I was knocked forward against the

typewriter and Gootes perched himself on a corner of the desk.



"Working the jolly old mill, what? I say, the old bugger wants to know

where your stuff is. Fact of the matter, he wants to know with quite a

bit of deuced bad language. Not a softspoken chap, you know, W R."



"I'll be through in a minute or two."



He gathered his pipe apparently out of my left ear and his tobacco pouch

from the air and very rudely, without asking my permission, picked up

the top sheet and started to read it. A thick eyebrow shot up

immediately and he allowed his pipe to hang slackly from his mouth.



"Purple," he exclaimed, "magenta, violet, lavender, mauve. Schmaltz,

real copperriveted, brassbound, steeljacketed, castiron schmaltz. I

havent seen such a genuine sample since my kid sister wrote up Jack the

Ripper back in 1889."



The manifest discrepancy in these remarks so confused me my fingers

stumbled over the typewriter keys. Evidently he intended some kind of

humor or sarcasm, but I could make nothing of it. How could his younger

sister...?



"Bertie boy," he said, after I had struggled to get another paragraph

down, "it breaks my heart to see you toil so. Let's take in as much as

youve done to the chief and either he'll be so impressed he'll put a

stenographer to transcribing the rest or else--"



"Or else?" I prompted.



"Or else he won't. Come on."



Mr Le ffacase had apparently not stirred since last we were in his

office. He opened his eyes, thumbed a pinch of snuff and asked Gootes,

"Where the bloody hell is that stuff on the grass?"



"Here it is, Chief. No date, no who what when and where, but very litry.

Very, very litry."



The editor picked up my copy and I could not help but watch him

anxiously for some sign of his reaction. It came forth promptly and

explosively.



"What the ingenious and delightfully painful hell is this, Gootes?"



"'As Reported by Our Special Writer, Albert Weener, The Man Who

Inoculated the Loony Grass.'"



"Gootes, you are the endproduct of a long line of incestuous idiots, the

winner of the boobyprize in any intelligencetest, but you have outdone

yourself in bringing me this verminous and maggoty ordure," said Le

ffacase, throwing my efforts to the floor and kicking at them. The

outrage made me boil and if he had not been an older man I might have

done him an injury. "As for you, Weener, I doubt if you will ever be

elevated to the ranks of idiocy. Get the sanguinary hell out of here

and do humanity the favor to step in front of the first tentontruck

driving by."



"One minute, Chief," urged Gootes. "Don't be hasty. Seen the latest on

the grass? Well, the mayor's asked the governor to call out the National

Guard; the Times'll have an interview with Einstein tomorrow and the

Examiner's going to run a symposium of what Herbert Hoover, Bernard

Shaw and General MacArthur think of the situation. Don't suppose perhaps

we could afford to ghost Bertie here?"



Was I never to escape from the malice inspired by the envy my literary

talent aroused? I had certainly expected that a man of the famous

editor's reputation would be above such pettiness. I was too dismayed

and downcast by the meanness of human nature to speak.



Le ffacase snuffed again and looked malevolently at the wall. A framed

caricature of himself returned the stare. "Very well," he grudgingly

conceded at length, "youre on the grass anyway, so you might as well

take this on too. Leave you only twentytwo hours a day to sleep in. You,

Weener, are still on the payroll--at half the agreedupon figure."



I opened my mouth to protest, but he turned on me with a snarl; baring

yellow and twisted teeth, unpleasant to see. "Weener, you look like a

criminal type to me; Lombroso couldve used you for a model to advantage.

Have you a policerecord or have you so far evaded the law? Let me tell

you, the Intelligencer is the evildoers' nemesis. Is your conscience

clear, your past unsullied as a virgin's bed, your every deed open to

search? Do you know what a penitentiary's like? Did you ever hear the

clang of a celldoor as the turnkey slammed it behind him and left you to

think and stew and weep in a silence accented and made more wretched by

a yellow electricbulb and the stink of corrosivesublimate? Back to the

cityroom, you dabbling booby, you precious simpleton, addlepated dunce,

and be thankful my boundless generosity permits you to draw a weekly

paycheck at all and doesnt condemn you to labor forever unrewarded in

the subterranean vaults where the old files are kept."



First Miss Francis and now Le ffacase. Were all these great

intelligences touched? Was the world piloted by unbalanced minds? It

seemed incredible, impossible it should be so, but two such similar

experiences in so short a time apparently supported this gloomy view.

Horrible, I thought as I preceded Gootes out of the maniac's office,

unbelievably horrible.



"Son," advised Gootes, "never argue with the chief. He has the makings

of a firstclass apoplexy--I hope. You just keep squawking to the

bookkeeping department and youll get further than coming up against the

Old Man. Now let's go out and look at nature in the raw."



"But my copy," I protested.



"Oh, that," he said airily, "I'll run that off when we come back.

Deadlines mean nothing to Jacson Gootes, the compositors' companion, the

proofreaders' pardner, the layoutman's love. Come, Senor Veener, we take

look at el grasso grosso by the moonlight."





17. However, it was not moonlight illuminating the weird tumulus, but

the glare of a battery of searchlights, suggesting, as Gootes

irreverently remarked, the opening of a new supermarket. During my

absence the National Guard had arrived and focused the great

incandescent beams on the mound which now covered five houses and whose

threat had driven the inhabitants from as many more. The powdery blue

lights gave the grass an uncanny yellowish look, as though it had been

stricken by a disease.



The rays, directed low, were constantly being interrupted by the bodies

of the militiamen hurrying back and forth to accomplish some definite

task. "What goes on?" inquired Gootes.



The officer addressed had two gleaming silver bars on his shoulder. He

seemed very young and nervous. "Sorry--no one allowed this far without

special authorization."



"Working press." Gootes produced a reporter's badge from the captain's

bars.



"Oh. Excuse me. Say, that was a sharp little stunt, Mr--"



"Name of Jacson Gootes. Intelligencer."



"Captain Eltwiss. How did you learn stuff like that?"



I looked at him, for the name was somehow vaguely familiar. But to the

best of my knowledge I had never seen that smooth, boyish face before.



"Talent. Natural talent. What did you say all the shootin was about?"



"Getting ready to tunnel under," answered the officer affably. "Blow the

thing skyhigh from the middle and get rid of it right now. Not going to

let any grass grow under our feet."



"But I read an article saying neither dynamite, TNT nor nitroglycerin

would be effective against the grass; might even do more harm than

good."



"Writers." Captain Eltwiss dismissed literature without even resorting

to an exclamationpoint. "Writers." To underline his confidence the

boneshaking chatter of pneumatic chisels began a syncopated rattle.

Military directness would accomplish in one swift, decisive stroke at

the heart of things what civilian fumbling around the edges had failed

to do.



I looked with almost sentimental regret at the great conical heap. I had

brought it into being; in a few hours it would be gone and whatever fame

its brief existence had given me would be gone with it.



With swift method the guardsmen started burrowing. In ordered relays,

fresh workers replaced tired, and the pile of excavated dirt grew. Since

their activity, except for its urgency and the strangeness of the

situation, didnt differ from labors observable any time a street was

repaired or a foundation laid, I saw no point in watching, hour after

hour. I thought Gootes' persistence less a devotion to duty than the

idle curiosity which makes grown men gape at a steamshovel.



My hints being lost on him, I ascertained the hour they expected to be

finished and went home. Excitement or no excitement, I saw no reason to

abandon all routine. My forethought was proven when I returned refreshed

in midmorning as the last shovelfuls of dirt came from the tunnel and

the explosive charges were hurried to their place.



There was reason for haste. While the tunneling had been going on, all

the grassfighting activity had ceased, for the militia had ordered

weedburners, reapers, bulldozers and the rest off the scene. The weed,

unhampered for the first time since Mrs Dinkman attacked it with her

lawnmower, responded by growing and growing until more and more

guardsmen had to be detached to the duty of keeping it back from the

excavation--by the very means they had scorned so recently. Even their

most frantic efforts could not prevent the grass from sending its most

advanced tendrils down into the gaping hole where the wires were being

laid to detonate the charge.



There was so much dashing to and fro, so many orders relayed, so many

dispatches delivered that I thought I might have been witnessing an

outofdate Civilwar play instead of a peacetime action of the California

National Guard. Captain Eltwiss--I kept wondering where I'd heard the

name--was constantly being interrupted in what was apparently a very

friendly conversation with Gootes by the arrival of officiallooking

envelopes which he immediately stuffed into his pocket with every

indication of vexation. "Silly old fools," he muttered, each time the

incident happened.



Quick inspections made, plans checked, an order was rasped to clear the

vicinity. Gootes' agonized protest that he had to report the occasion

for the Intelligencer's readers was ignored. "Can't start making

exceptions," explained Captain Eltwiss. Everyone--workingpress, militia,

sightseers and all, had to move back a couple of blocks where

intervening trees and houses cut us off from any view of the green hill.



"This is terrible," exclaimed Gootes frantically. "Tragic. Howll I live

it down? Howm I going to face W R? Godlike wrath. 'What poolhall were

you dozing in, Gootes? Asleep on your bloody feet, ay, somnambulistic

offspring of a threetoed sloth?' Wait all night for a story and then not

get it, like the star legman on the Jackson Junior Highschool

Jive-Jitterbug. I'll never be able to hold my head up again. Say

something, say something, Weener--Ive got to get this."



"We'll be able to hear the explosion from here," I remarked to console

him, for his distress was genuine.



"Oh," he groaned. "Hear the explosion. Albert, Albert ... you have a

fertile mind. Why didnt I hide myself before they told us to clear out?

Why didnt I get W R to hire a plane? Why didnt I foresee this and do any

of a hundred things? A microphone and automatic moviecamera ... Goony

Gootes, they called him, the man who missed all bets.... A captive

balloon, now.... Hay! What about a roof?"



"Trees," I objected, with a mental picture of him bursting into the

nearest house and demanding entrance to the roof.



"Bushwa. Zair's no tree in z' way of z' old box over zair--allons!"



It wasnt till he had urged me inside and up a flight of stairs that I

realized the "box" was Miss Francis' apartmenthouse. It had been a

logical choice, since its height and ugliness distinguished it even from

its unhandsome neighbors. Less than a week had gone by since I had come

here for the first time. As I followed Gootes' grasshopper leaps upward

at a more dignified pace, I reflected how strangely my circumstances had

changed.



The shoddily carpeted halls were musty and still as we climbed, except

for the unheeded squeaking of a radio someone had forgotten to turn off.

You could always tell when a radio was being listened to, for when

disregarded it sulkily gave off painfully listless noises in frustration

and loneliness.



I wasnt at all surprised to find Miss Francis among the spectators

crowded on the roof in evidence of having no more important occupation.

"I somehow expected you. Have you any new tricks?" she asked Gootes

coaxingly.



"Ecod, your worship, wot time ave I for legerdemain? Wif your elp, now,

I'd be a fine gentleman-journalist, stead of a noverworked ack."



"Ha," she said genially, busy with the toothpick, "youll find enough

respectable laboratory mechanics eager to cooperate. How long will it be

before they shoot, do you know?"



Gootes shook his head and I strained my eyes toward the grass.

Symmetrical and shimmeringly green, removed as it now was from all

connotations of danger by distance and the promise of immediate

destruction, it showed serenely beautiful and unaffected by the

machinations of its attackers. I could almost have wept as I traced its

sloping sides upward to the rounded peak on top. Reversing all previous

impressions, it now appeared to be the natural inhabitant and all the

houses, roadways, pavements, fences, automobiles, lightpoles and the

rest of the evidences of civilization the intruders.



But even as I looked at it so eagerly it moved and wavered and I heard

the muffled boom of explosion. The roof trembled and windows rattled

with diminishing echoes. The noise was neither a great nor terrifying

one and I distinctly remember thinking it quite inadequate to the

occasion.



I believe all of us there, when we heard the report, expected to see a

vast hole where the grass had been. I'm sure I did. When it was clear

this hadnt happened, I continued to stare hard, thinking, since my

highschool physics was so hazy, I had somehow reversed the relative

speed of sight and sound and we had heard the noise before seeing the

destruction.



But the green bulk was still there.



Oh, not unchanged, by any means. The smooth, picturebook slope had

become jagged and bruised while the regular, evenlyrounded apex had

turned into a sort of phrygian cap with its pinnacle woundedly askew.

The outlines which had been sharp were now blurred, its evenness had

become scraggly. The placid surface was vexed; the attempt on its being

had hurt. But not mortally, for even with outline altered, it remained;

defiant, certain, inexorable.



The air was filled with small green particles whirling and floating

downward. Feathery, yet clumsy, they refused to obey gravity and seek

the earth urgently, but instead shifted and changed direction, coyly

spiraling upward and sideways before yielding to the inevitable

attraction.



"At least there's less of it," observed Gootes. "This much anyway," he

added, holding a broken stolon in his fingers.



"Cynodon dactylon," said Miss Francis, "like most of the family

Gramineae, is propagated not only by seed, but by cuttings as well. That

is to say, any part of the plant (except the leaves or flowers)

separated from the parent whole, upon receiving water and nourishment

will root itself and become a new parent or entity. The dispersion of

the mass, far from making the whole less, as our literary friend so

ingenuously assumes, increases it to what mathematicians call the nth

power because each particle, finding a new restingplace unhampered by

the competition for food it encountered when integrated with the parent

mass, now becomes capable of spreading infinitely itself unless checked

by factors which deprive it of sustenance. These facts have been

repeated a hundred times in letters, telegrams and newspaper articles

since the project of attempting to blow up the inoculated batch was

known. In spite of warnings the authorities chose to go ahead. No, make

no mistake, this fiasco has not set Cynodon dactylon back a

millimeter; rather it has advanced it tremendously."



There was silence while we absorbed this unpleasant bit of information.

Gootes was the first to regain his usual cockiness and he asked, "You

say fiasco, professor. O K--can you tell us just why it was a fiasco? I

know they stuck enough soup under it to blow the whole works and when it

went off it gave out with a good bang."



"Certainly. Cynodon dactylon spreads in what may be called jumps. That

is, the stems are short and jointed. Those aboveground, the true stems,

are called stolons, and those below, from which the roots spread, are

rhizomes. Conceive if you will twoinch lengths of stiff wire--and this

plant is vulgarly called wiregrass in some regions just as it is called

devilgrass here--bent on either end at rightangles. Now take these bits

and weave them horizontally into a thick mass. Then add, vertically,

more of the wires, breaking the pattern occasionally and putting in more

in odd places, just to be sure there are no logical fracturepoints.

Cover this involved web--not forgetting it has three dimensions despite

my instructions treating it as a plane--with earth, eight, ten, or

twelve inches deep. Then try to blow it up with dynamite or

trinitrotoluene and see if you havent--in a much lesser

degree--duplicated and accounted for the situation in hand."



Everything now seemed unusually and, perhaps because of the contrast,

unreasonably quiet. Downstairs the radio, which had been monotonously

soothing a presumptive audience of unsatisfied housewives with languid

ballads, raised its pitch several tones as though for the first time it

had become interested in what it purveyed.



"... Yes, unseen friends, God is preparing His vengeance for wickedness

and sin, even as you are listening. You have been warned many times of

the wrath to come, but I say to you, the wrath is at hand. Even now God

is giving you a sign of His displeasure; a cloud no bigger than a man's

hand. But, O my unseen friends, that cloud has within it all the storms,

cyclones, typhoons, hurricanes and tornadoes necessary to destroy you

and yours. Unless you repent of your pride and sloth, Judgment will

surely come upon you. The Lord has taken a simple and despised weed and

caused it to multiply in defiance of all your puny powers and efforts. O

my friends, do not fight this grass, but cherish it; do not allow it to

be cut down for it is full of significance for you. Call off all your

minions and repent, lest if the holy messenger be injured a more

terrible one is sent. But now, my friends, I see my time is up; please

send your contributions so urgently needed to carry on the Divine Work

to Brother Paul care of the station to which you are listening."



"That's one way of looking at it," said Gootes. "Adios amigos."



He went down the stairs at an even more breakneck pace than he had come

up. Almost in front of the apartmenthouse door we nearly collided with

two officers in angry dispute.



"You mean to tell me, Captain, that not one of the urgent orders to

suspend operations came through to you?"



"Colonel, I havent seen a thing against the project except some fool

articles in a newspaper."



Suddenly I remembered where I'd seen the name Eltwiss. It was on the

financial page, not far away from the elusive quotation on Consolidated

Pemmican and Allied Concentrates for which I'd been idly searching.

"Eltwiss Explosives Cut Melon." Funny how things come back to you as

soon as you put them out of your mind.



Miss Francis, who had followed us down was busy collecting some of the

stolons which were still floating lazily downward.





18. An illiterate patchwork of lifeless and uninteresting scribbling

appeared under my byline day after day in the Intelligencer. Not a

word, not a thought of my own was left. I was not restrained from

protest by the absurd threats of Le ffacase, but prudence dictated not

throwing away dirty water before I got clean, and the money from the

paper, while negligible of course, yet provided my most pressing needs.



As I was being paid for my name while my talents went to waste, I was

free to go anywhere I pleased, but I had little desire to leave the

vicinity of the grass. It exerted upon me, more understandably, the same

fascination as on the merely curious.



But I was not permitted unmolested access to the phenomenon with which I

was so closely concerned. An officious young guardsman warned me away

brusquely and I was not allowed to come near until I swallowed my pride

and claimed connection with the Intelligencer. Even then it was

necessary for me to explain myself to several nervous soldiers on pain

of being ordered from the spot.



I was struck as I had not been before by the dynamic quality of the

grass; never the same for successive instants. Constant movement and

struggle as the expanding parts fought for room among themselves,

pushing upward and outward, seemed to indicate perceptible sentience

permeating the whole body. Preparing, brooding, it was disturbed,

searching, alert.



Its external aspect reflected the change. The proportions of height to

breadth had altered since the explosion. The peak had disappeared,

flattening out into an irregular plateau. Its progress across the

ground, however, had been vastly accelerated; it had crossed the streets

on all sides of the block and was spreading with great rapidity over the

whole district. For the moment no new effort was apparently being made

to halt its progress, the activities of the militia being confined to

patrolling the area and shooing decent citizens away. I wondered if a

new strategy contemplated allowing the thing to exhaust itself. Since it

looked more vigorous with each passing hour, I saw myself on the payroll

of the Intelligencer for a long time to come.



Captain Eltwiss walked by and I asked him if this were so. "Don't

worry," he reassured me. "We're hep now, with the actual, unbeatable

mccoy. Park the body and watch what happens to old Mr Grass."



I had every intention of staying and I thought it advisable to remain

close to the captain in order, if his boast were wellfounded, to be in

on the kill. He was in excellent spirits and although I did not think it

tactful to refer to it, it was evident his little difference with the

colonel about the unreceived orders had not affected him. We chatted

amiably. I mentioned what Miss Francis had said about the weed springing

up in new places from each of the shreds dispersed by the explosion, but

he merely shrugged and laughed.



"I know these longbearded scientific nuts. They can find calamity around

the corner quicker than a drunk can find a bar."



"The discoverer of the Metamorphizer is a woman, so her long beard is

doubtful," I told him, just a little irritated by his cocksureness.



He laughed with as much ease at himself as at anything else. "A woman

scientist, ay? Funny things womenll do when they can't get a man. But

longbearded or flatchested it's all the same. Gruesome, that's what

they are, gruesome. Forget it. After we get this cleaned up we'll take

care of any others that start, but personally I don't think therell be

any. Sounds like a lot of theory to me."



I looked contemptuously at him, for he had that unimaginative approach

which disdains Science and so holds Civilization back on its upward

path. If the world's future rested with people like this, I thought, we

should never have had dynamite or germtheories or airplanes capable of

destroying whole cities at a blow.



But Captain Eltwiss was a servant to the Science he looked down on. The

answer he had bragged about now appeared and it was a scientific

contribution if ever there was one. A division of tanks, twenty or

thirty of them with what appeared to be sledrunners invertedly attached

to their fronts, rolled into sight. "Wirecutters," he explained with

pride. "Same equipment used for barbedwire on the Normandy beachhead. Go

through anything like cheese."



The tanks drew up in a semicircle and the drivers came out of their

vehicles for lastminute preparations. A final check was made of gas,

oil, and the positions of the wirecutters. Maps, showing the location of

each house now covered by the grass, were studied and compasspoints

checked against them. I admired the thoroughness and efficiency of the

arrangements. So did the captain.



"The idea is simple. These tanks are shocktroops. Theyll cut their way

into the middle of the stuff. This will give us entranceways and a

central operating point, besides hitting the grass where its strength is

greatest. From there--" he paused impressively--"from there we'll throw

everything in the book at it and a few that arent. All the stuff they

used before we came. Only we'll use it efficiently. And everything else.

Even hush-hush stuff. Just got the release from Washington. The minute

one of these stems shows we'll stamp it out. We'll fight it and fight it

until we beat it and we won't leave a bit of it, no, sir, not one bit of

it, alive."



He looked at me triumphantly. Behind his triumph was a hint of the vast

resources and the slowmoving but unassailable force his uniform

represented. It sounded as though he had been correct in his boast and

something drastic indeed would "happen to Mr. Grass."



The tanks were ready to go at last and the drivers climbed back into

them and disappeared, leaving the steel monsters looking as though theyd

swallowed the men. Like bubbles of air in a narrow glass tube they began

to jerk backward and forward, until at some signal--I presume given by

radio--they jumped ahead, their exhausts bellowing defiance of the grass

mauled and torn by their treads.



They went onward with careless scorn, leaving behind a bruised and

trampled pathway. The captain followed in the track and I after him,

though I must admit it was not without some trepidation I put my feet

upon the battered and now lifeless mass packed into a hard roadbed, for

I recalled clearly how the grass had wrenched the ladder from the

firemen and how it had impishly attacked the broadcaster's equipment.



The tanks moved ahead steadily until the slope of the mound began to

rise sharply and the runners of grass, instead of flattening obediently

behind, curled and twisted grotesquely as the tracks passed over them,

lightly slapping at the impervious steel sides. Small bunches, mutilated

and crushed, sprang back into erectness, larger ones flopped limply as

their props were pushed aside.



Then, suddenly, the tank we were trailing disappeared. There was no

warning; one second it was pursuing its way, an implacable executioner,

the next it had plunged into the weed and was lost to sight. The ends of

the grass came together spitefully behind it, weaving themselves

together, knitting, as we watched, an opaque blanket. It closed over and

around so that the smooth track ended abruptly, bitten by a wiry green

portcullis.



I was dismayed, but the captain seemed happy. "Now we're getting

somewhere," he exclaimed. "The little devils are eating right into the

heart of the old sonofabitch."



We stood there gaping stupidly after our lost champion, but the grass

mound was enigmatic and offered us no information as to its progress. A

survey of the other tracks showed their tanks, too, had burrowed into

the heart of the weed like so many hounds after a rabbit.



"Well," said the captain, who by now had apparently accepted me as his

confidant, "let's go and see what's coming in over the radio."



I was glad to be reminded the tanks werent lost, even temporarily, and

that we would soon learn of their advance. Field headquarters had been

set up in a house about two blocks away and there, after exchanging

salutes, passwords, and assorted badinage, the captain led. The men in

contact with the tanks, shoulders hunched, fingers rapid with pad and

pencil, were sitting in a row by a wall on which had been tacked a large

and detailed map of the district.



In addition to their earphones, a loudspeaker had also been thoughtfully

set up, apparently to take care of any such curious visitors as

ourselves. The disadvantage, soon manifest, was that no plan had been

devised to unscramble the reports from the various tanks. As a

consequence, whenever two or three came in together, the reports

overlapped, resulting in a jumble of unintelligible sounds from the

loudspeaker.



"Brf brf brm," it was saying as we entered the room. "Rrr rrr about

three hundred meters khorof khorof khorof north by northeast. Can you

hear me, FHQ? Come in, FHQ."



There was a further muddle of words, then, "I think my motor's going to

conk out. Shall I backtrack, FHQ? Come in, FHQ."



"Rugged place to stall," commented captain Eltwiss sympathetically, "but

we can pull him out in halfashake soons we get things under control."



The loudspeaker, after a great deal of gibberish, condescended to

clarity again. "... about five hundred meters. Supposed to join SMT5 at

this point. Can't raise him by radio. What do you have on SMT5, FHQ?

Come in, FHQ."



I was still speculating as to what had happened to SMT5 when the

loudspeaker once more became intelligible. "... and the going's getting

tougher all the time. I don't believe these goddamned wirecutters are

worth a pissinasnowhole. Just fouled up, that's what they are, just

fouled up. Got further if theyd been left off."



His grumbling was blotted out. For a moment there was complete babel,

then "... if I can guess, it's somehow got in the motor and shorted the

ignition. Ive got to take a chance and get out to look at it. This is

SMT3 reporting to FHQ. Now leaving the transmitter."



"... stalled so I turned on my lights. Can you hear me, FHQ? Come in

FHQ, O K, O K, don't get sore. So I turned on my lights. I'm not going

to do a Bob Trout, but I want to tell you it's pretty creepy. I guess

this stuff looks pretty and green enough on top, especially in daylight,

but from where I am now it's like an illustration out of Grimm's Fairy

Tales--something about the place where the wicked ogre lived. Not a bit

of green. Not a bit of light except from my own which penetrate about

two feet ahead and stop. Dead. Yellow and reddishbrown stems. Thick.

Interlaced. How the hell I ever got this far I'd like to know. But not

as much as how I'm going to get out.



"I'm sticking my head out of the turret now. As far as these stemsll let

me. Which isnt far. Theyre a solid mass on top of the machine. And

beside it. I'm going to take a few tools and make for the engine. Only

thing to do. Can't sit here and describe grassroots to you dogrobbers

all day long. See if I can't get her running and back out. Then I resign

from the state of California. Right then. This is SMT7 leaving the

transmitter for essential repairs and signing off."



For hours the reports kept coming in, all in identically the same vein:

rapid progress followed by a slowdown, then either engine trouble or a

failure to keep rendezvous by another tank, all messages concluding

alike: "Now leaving transmitter." It was no use for field headquarters

frantically to order them to stay in their tanks no