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bathing beaches, all the world over.
Indestructible or not, it was about 90 percent destroyed. What I pulled out
was a handle and part'of a neck. The rest drizzled off into a substance very
like the stuff I had shaved with. Only that was soap, which one expects to
dissolve from time to time. High-density polythene one does not.
The fruit flies were buzzing around me, and everything was very confusing. I
was hardly aware that the front doorbell had rung until I noticed that Shirl
had gone to answer it.
What made me fully aware of this was Mr. Ber-mingham's triumphant roar:
"Thought I'd find you here, Dupoir! And who are these people-your
confederates?"
Bermingham had no terrors for me. I was past that point. I said, "Hello, Mr.
Bermingham. This confederate is my wife, the littler one here is my son.
Shirl, Butchie-Mr. Bermingham. Mr.
Bermingham's the one who is going to take away our house."
Shirl said politely, "You must be tired, Mr. Bermingham. I'll get you a cup of
coffee."
Garigolli to Home Base
Chief, I admit it, we've excreted this one out beyond redemption. Don't bother
to reply to this. Just write us off.
I could say that it wasn't entirely the fault of the crew members who stayed
behind in the Host's domicile. They thought they had figured out a way to meet
Directive Two. They modified some organisms-didn't even use bacteria, just an
enzyme that hydrated polythene into what they had every reason to believe was
a standard food substance, since the Host had been observed to ingest it with
some frequency. There is no wrong-doing there, Chief. Alcohols are standard
foods for many organic beings, as you know. And a gift of food has been held
to satisfy the second Directive. And add to that they were half out of their
plexuses with empathy deprivation.
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Nevertheless I admit the gift failed in a fairly basic way, since it seems to
have damaged artifacts the Hosts hold valuable.
So I accept the responsibility, Chief. Wipe this expedition off the records.
We've failed, and we'll never see our home breeding-slings again.
Please notify our descendants and former co-parents and, if you can, try to
let them think we died heroically, won't you?
Garigolli
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Shirl has defeated the wrath of far more complex 'Creatures than Mr.
Bermingham by offering them coffee-me, for instance. While she got him the
clean cup and the spoon and the milk out of the pitcher in the refrigerator, I
had time to think.
Mr. Horgan would be interested in what had happened to our plastics Econ-Bin.
Not only Mr. Horgan.
The Fourteenth Floor would be interested. The ecology freaks themselves would
be interested, and maybe would forget about liking buzzards better than babies
long enough to say a good word for
International Plastics Co.
I mean, this was significant. It was big, by which I mean it wasn't little. It
was a sort of whole new horizon for plastics. The thing about plastics, as
everyone knows, is that once you convert them into trash they stay trash. Bury
a maple syrup jug hi your back yard and five thousand years from now some
descendant operating a radar-controlled peony-planter from his back porch will
grub it up as shiny as new. But the gunk in our eco-bin was making these
plastics, or at least the polythene parts of them, bio-degradable.
What was the gunk? I had no idea. Some random chemical combination between
Butchie's oatmeal and his vitamins? I didn't care. It was there, and it
worked. If we could isolate the stuff, I had no doubt that the world-famous
scientists who gave us the plastic storm window and the popup Eco-Bin could
duplicate it. And if we could duplicate it we could sell it to hard-pressed
garbagemen all over the world. The Fourteenth Floor would be very pleased.
With me to think was ever to act. I rinsed out one of Butchie's baby-food jars
in the sink, scraped some of the stickiest parts of the melting plastic into
it and capped it tightly. I
couldn't wait to get it to the office.
Mr. Bermingham was staring at me with his mouth open. "Good Lord," he
muttered, "playing with filth at his age. What psychic damage we wreak with
bad early toilet training."
I had lost interest in Mr. Bermingham. I stood up and told him, "I've got to
go to work. I'd be happy, to walk you as far as the bus."
"You aren't going anywhere, Dupoir! Came here to talk to you. Going to do it,
too. Behavior was absolutely inexcusable, and I demand- Say, Dupoir, you don't
have a drink anywhere about the house, do you?"
"More coffee, Mr. Bermingham?" Shirl said politely. "I'm afraid we don't have
anything stronger to offer you. We don't keep alcoholic beverages here, or at
least not very long. Mr. Dupoir drinks them."
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