Make Mine Homogenized
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it.
"But we do think we know what made Sally give that milk and made thosehens start laying the gold eggs."
Johnny and Barney laid down their work and motioned the excitedscientist to join them on a bench against the horse stalls.
"Do you remember the day Sally came fresh?" Peterson continued.
"Not exactly," Johnny replied, "but I could look it up in my journal. Ikeep a good record of things like new registered stock births."
"Never mind," Peterson said. "I've already checked. It was May 9th."
He paused and smiled triumphantly.
"I guess that's right if you say so," Johnny said. "But what about it?"
"And that was the same day that the hens laid the first golden egg too,wasn't it?" Peterson asked.
"Why it sure was, Doc," Barney chimed in. "I remember, cause MizThompson was so mad that the milk was bad and the eggs went wrong bothin the same day."
"That's what we know. Now listen to this, Johnny," the scientistcontinued. "During the night of May 8th, we fired an entirely new kindof test shot on the range. I can't tell you what it was, only to saythat it was a special atomic device that even we didn't know too muchabout. That's why we fired it from a cave in the side of a hill downthere.
"Since then, our people have been working on the pretty good assumptionthat something happened to that cow and those chickens not too longbefore they started giving the Eggnog ingredients. Someone rememberedthe experimental test shot, checked the date and then went out and hada look at the cave. We already had some earlier suspicions that thisdevice produced a new type of beam ray. We took sightings from thecave, found them to be in a direct, unbroken line with the Circle T. Weset up the device again and using a very small model, tried it out onsome chick embryos. Sure enough, we got a mutation. But not the rightkind.
"So we're going to recreate the entire situation right here, only thistime, we're going to expose not only Sally but a dozen other Guernseysfrom as close to her blood line as we can get.
"And we already knew that you had a young rooster sired by Solomon."
"But, Doc," Johnny protested. "Sally had a calf early that morning.Isn't that going to make a difference?"
"Of course it is," Peterson exclaimed. "And she's going to have anotherone the same way. And so are all the other cows. You're the one thattold me she had her calf by artificial insemination, didn't you?"
Johnny nodded.
"Well, then she's going to have another calf from the same bull and sowill the other cows."
"Pore Sally," Barney said sorrowfully. "They're sure takin' the romanceoutta motherhood for you."
* * * * *
The next day the guards were back on the gate. By midafternoon twelvefine young Guernseys arrived, together with a corps of veterinarians,biologists and security police. By nightfall, Sally and her companionswere all once again in a "delicate condition."
A mile from the ranch house, a dormitory was built for theveterinarians and biologists and a barracks thrown up for the securityguards. A thirty-five thousand dollar, twelve-foot high chain linkfence, topped by barbed wire, was constructed around the pasture andarmored cars patrolled the fence by day and kept guard over thepregnant bovines by night in the barn.
Through the fall, into the long winter and back to budding springagain, the host of experts and guards watched and cared for the newcalf-bloated herd.
The fact that Sally had gone dry had been kept a carefully guardednational secret. To keep up the pretense and show to the world thatAmerica still controlled the only proven method of manned space travel,the Joint Chiefs of Staff voted to expend two hundred gallons of theprecious, small store of milk on hand for another interplanetaryjunket, this time to inspect the rings around Saturn.
Piloting a smaller and more sophisticated but equally-well protectedversion of _Icarus_, Major Quartermain abandoned the fleshpots of earthand the adulation of his coast-to-coast collection of worshipingfemales to again hurtle into the unknown.
"It was strictly a milk run," Major Quartermain was quoted as saying ashe emerged from his ship after an uneventful but propaganda-loadedtrip.
By the middle of May, it was the consensus of the veterinarians thatDelivery Day would be July 4th. Plans were drafted for the repeatatomic cave shot at 9:00 p.m., July 3rd. The pregnant herd was to begiven labor-inducing shots at midnight, and, if all went well,deliveries would start within a few hours. Just to be sure that nothingwould shield the cows from the rays of the explosion, they were put ina corral on the south side of the barn until 9:30 p.m., on the night ofthe firing.
Solomon's successor and a new bevy of hens were already roosting in thesame old chicken house and egg production was normal.
On the night of July 3rd, at precisely 9:00 p.m., a sheet of lighterupted from the Nevada hillside cave and the ground shook and rumbledfor a few miles. It wasn't a powerful blast, nor had been the originalshot. Sixty miles away, thirteen Guernsey cows munched at a rick offresh hay and chewed contentedly in the moonlight.
At 3:11 a.m., the following morning the first calf arrived, followed inrapid order by a dozen more.
Sally's Cloverdale Marathon III dropped her calf at 4:08 a.m. onIndependence Day.
At 7:00 a.m., she was milked and produced two and a half gallons ofabsolutely clear, odorless, tasteless and non-ignitable fluid. Elevenother Guernseys gave forth gushing, foaming, creamy rich gallon aftergallon of Grade A milk.
The thirteenth cow filled two buckets with something that looked likeweak cocoa and smelled like stale tea.
But when a white-smocked University of California poultry specialistentered the chicken house later in the morning, he found nothing butnormal, white fresh eggs in the nests. He finally arrived at theconclusion that Solomon's old harem had known for some time; whateverit was that Solomon had been gifted with, this new rooster just didn'thave it.
A rush call went out for a dozen of the precious store of golden eggsto be sent to the testing labs down range.
Two hours later, Dr. Peterson, surrounded by fellow scientists, stoodbefore a bank of closed circuit television monitors in the Frenchman'sFlat headquarters building. The scene on the screens was the interiorof a massive steel-and-concrete test building several miles up range.Resting on the floor of the building was an open, gallon-sized glassbeaker filled with the new version of Sally's milk.
Poised directly above the opened beaker was a funnel-shaped vesselcontaining the contents of one golden egg.
Dr. Peterson reached for a small lever. By remote control, the leverwould gradually open the bottom of the funnel. He squeezed gently,slowly applying pressure. An involuntary gasp arose from the spectatorsas a tiny trickle of egg fluid fell from the funnel towards the openbeaker.
Instinctively, everyone in the room clamped their eyes shut inanticipation of a blast. A second later, Peterson peered cautiously atthe screen. The beaker of milk had turned a cloudy pale blue. Itneither fizzed nor exploded. It just sat.
He levered another drop from the funnel. The stringy, glutenous massplopped into the beaker and the liquid swirled briefly and turned moreopaque, taking on more of a bluish tinge.
A babble of voices broke through the room when it was apparent that noexplosion was forthcoming.
Peterson slumped into a nearby chair and stared at the screen.
"Now what?" he moaned.
* * * * *
The "what" developed twelve hectic hours later after time lostinitially in shaking, bouncing and beaming the new substance on theoutside chance it might develop a latent tendency towards demolition.
Satisfied that whatever it was in the beaker wasn't explosive, theliquid was quickly poured off into sixteen small half-pint beakers andspeeded to as many different laboratories for possible analysis.
"What about the other stuff?" Peterson was asked, referring to thebrownish "milk" subsequently identified as coming from a dainty youngcow known as Melody Buttercup Greenb
rier IV.
"One thing at a time," replied Peterson. "Let's find out what we havehere before we got involved in the second problem."
At 9:00 p.m., that night, Peterson was called to the radiation labs. Hewas met at the door by a glazed-eyed physicist who led him back to hisoffice.
He motioned Peterson to a seat and then handed him a sheaf ofphotographic papers and other charts. Each of the photo sheets had aclear, white outline of a test beaker surrounded by a solid field ofblack. Two of the papers were all white.
"I don't believe it, Floyd," the physicist said, running his handsthrough his hair. "I've seen it, I've done it, I've tested it, provenit, and I still don't believe it."
Peterson riffled the sheaf of papers and waited