by John Sladek
It was black, luxuriant hair shot with silver grey of the same shade as his foulard tie. This was embroidered with black anthrax bacilli, carefully knotted, and clipped with a tiny silver scalpel. His suit was a quiet grey, his shirt of television blue, though he had no real intention of appearing before news cameras. The only real spot of colour about him was his lapel pin from the Blood Bank, a red plastic droplet.
The bold outlines of Smilax’s face were softened by a dapper moustache, while rimless glasses diluted the peculiar intensity of his gaze. Nevertheless his was the unrelenting expression of a man used to commanding, not acquiescing. He could not fawn, like most civilian ‘experts’ consulted by the Joint Chiefs. Smilax gave orders, he did not beg to be given orders, and all the clerkliness in his appearance could not disguise the fact. Breeding, he thought, permitting himself a small, ironic smile, will out.
Toto Smilax, M.D., D.V.M.S., Ph.D. (Chem.) and M.E.E., was the scion of a good family, though only by accident. One of his earliest memories was of his mother’s shaking her head and saying, ‘Son, I don’t never want you to go wrong like I done.’
He was five years old before he learned what ‘going wrong’ meant; it meant having a child without being married first. At once Toto began to worry that he would, somehow, actually
give birth to a child out of wedlock. Every morning he looked in his bed fearfully, to see if a baby had arrived.
Lotte Smilax, his mother, had never married. She often told little Toto how her father had been an important man in the West, and how she had brought disgrace upon the family by allowing the mad butler to rape her at gunpoint.
‘It was all because my Daddy never beat me,’ she would say. ‘Oh, if only he had beat me ! But I mean to do better by you, my son. I won’t make the same mistakes. I want to give you every chance I never had.’
So saying, she would commence larrupping him with anything handy: her boot, a whip, a ladle, or a belt.
School was for Toto equally onerous, for the other children tortured him without mercy, to the limits of their fiendish imaginations. They poked him with compasses, stole or tore his books, implied that his mother was a ‘hoot’ and that he was born out of wedlock, stoned him, made up songs about him, and invited him to eat (in summer) sand and mud, and (in winter) unclean snow.
The reason they did all this was because, of course, his name was Toto. It was not a Christian name, it was not even the name of a famous hero, real or fictional. It was the name of a dog.
Poor Toto had been named for his mother’s favourite character in fiction, Dorothy’s little dog in The Wizard of Oz. Lotte, it must be confessed, was fond of animals, and her bookshelf was filled with dog books, including the complete works of Albert Payson Terhune and Dog of Flanders, which Lotte never read without weeping.
She may have been a stern disciplinarian, but Toto’s mother was also a warm-hearted, impulsively generous creature, who never could resist bringing home a hungry dog or lame kitten. Generally the hearth was merry with one or two Lads, a Rex, a Spot, and perhaps half-a-dozen Snowballs and Midnights. Lotte often encouraged them to dine sitting up together at the table with her, for she loved to have company for dinner, and Toto for his own good was restricted to his bowl on the kitchen floor, marked with his name.
Every night, curled up in his little basket, Toto would hear his mother going out to her SPCA meeting. He would lay there and pray, naming each of her pets in connection with a different kind of painful death. To finish off the list, he would conjure up a set of slow agonies for Albert Payson Terhune, whom he
somehow imagined to be Lotte’s father.
One day they took one of the mangy Rexes to the Pet Clinic. Toto wandered around the building, discovering the mysteries of veterinary medicine. Through a glass partition he saw a cat undergoing Caesarian section to give up six kittens. Toto pressed his nose to the glass wistfully. It was all so beautiful—the bright red blood, the clean linen, the very mystery of reproduction itself, laid open by a glittering knife. So this was sex !
Within him, Toto’s fierce little spirit rejected everything he had been taught. Having babies could not be so wrong after all. Nothing so solemn and bloody could be altogether bad. He vowed to become a vet.
When he was eight, the magic carpet of a court order removed him from his mother’s custody and placed him with two kind, pleasant old maiden aunts in Dubuque. There were no more beatings, plenty to eat, a regular bed. There was a tutor instead of school.
From an illiterate child, unable to eat without lapping, Toto became a fine young gentleman, exceeding his aunts’ wildest hopes in nobility and refinement. They spared no expense to teach him all modern and classical languages; under the best masters he learned mathematics, elocution, fencing and dancing.
Toto showed himself no mean scholar, becoming a vet at thirteen, and a physician and surgeon two years later. To keep his fingers supple for operating, he took up the violin, achieving a technical virtuosity that was remarkable. He seldom played, however, complaining the high notes hurt his ears.
In Zürich, Toto met a young English anaesthetist named Nan Richmons, and for the first time in his twenty years he knew a passion more overpowering than his devotion to science. Not only was Nan beautiful and intelligent, but her X-rays showed a crystalline symmetry that made his breath catch. How long would it be before he might gaze in reality upon that coil of colon, those ovaries, the perfect curves of her kidneys? How long before he might pluck that fragile bloom, her appendix? He asked Nan to marry him and become the subject of his surgical experiments, and—ah, peritoneal bliss untold !—she accepted.
The banns were published on two continents. Toto and Nan spent their evenings planning hysterectomies, new and dangerous techniques of anaesthesia. Then, without warning, their castles of aether collapsed.
A muffled stranger came to call upon Toto in his lab, where he was dissecting a cadaver on the eve of their wedding.
‘You must not marry Nan Richmons.’
‘But why not?’ asked Toto. His brow darkened. ‘I must warn you, sir, to be careful what you say about her.’
‘Why, you ask?’ The stranger laughed savagely. ‘Two reasons: First, she is already married—to me.’
‘I care nothing about that. This is 1935, man ! Let us becivilized. Her past is—’
‘Stay ! The second reason is—is that I removed her appendix over two years ago.’
Toto grew pale and staggered back a pace, laying a cadaverous hand to his palpitating heart. ‘Good God ! Say that is a lie, you blackguard !’ Sadly, the stranger shook his head.
‘It is the truth.’
‘Then here.’ Toto snatched up a scalpel and offered it to him. ‘Remove my heart, sir, if you please. It is no longer of the slightest use to me.’
The engagement was broken at once. Nan, despairing, took her life with a mixture of chloroform and nitrous oxide. Toto travelled then, to the Orient, to Africa and elsewhere, studying peculiar surgical techniques.
After the Second World War, he turned up in California, announcing his intention of starting a research laboratory. The Defence Department at once placed several million dollars at his disposal. Toto shut himself up for another decade, doing pain research, during which time he churned out interesting books and monographs (Aesthetic Surgery; The Painful Way to Health; and a book of child care, Spare the Rod? Never !). He studied and conquered new fields of inquiry at the same time: physics, biochemistry, astronomy, biophysics and arachnology, like so many stands of grain, fell to his keen scythe of a mind. In 196– his researches culminated in the invention of the DNA computer known as QUIDNAC.
The existence of this type of computer was not generally known, its principle of operation was a military secret, and its manufacture was understood only by Dr. Toto Smilax himself, who now entered the NORAD conference room.
The Chiefs of Staff were seated behind a large table of gunmetal grey, as far as possible from one another. At one end reared the thin angular f
rame of Air Force General Ickers, a
quick, bird-like man with a shrill voice. Once a test pilot, he still retained a more or less happy-go-lucky attitude about everything but the dignity of his office.
At the opposite end sat a leaden mass of flesh bundled into the uniform of Admiral of the Navy. Because he had once commanded a sub—or rather, a series of subs, each of which managed to have an improbable but genuine accident as soon as he had taken command—he still wore a dirty white turtleneck pullover under his jacket. He managed a sneer now and then, but otherwise the expression on his bloated, drowned-corpse’s face was of despair and apathy.
In the middle sat General of the Army R.M.S. (‘Happy’) Meany, whose face seemed to try its level best to imitate both the countenances of his contemporaries. He never looked towards Ickers without a confident grin or wink of camaraderie; never towards Nematode without a rueful, commiserating sigh.
At a smaller table some twenty feet away sat a WAF secretary. When Dr. Smilax entered, all were watching the progress of a battle on the Big Board. One half of it showed the green lines and blue grids of a topological map; the other displayed jerky televised glimpses of actual skirmishing.
A contingent of paratroops had been landed in Altoona. The evening was murky—moonless, Smilax remembered—and the images were jiggly and confused (Nematode insisted the enemy was jamming the works for reasons of their own; Ickers declared the reception was perfect as far as he was concerned). Now and then a squat, blocky shape hurtled out of the gloom, made a grab at some man’s weapon, and vanished again.
‘Some sojers !’ snorted the admiral.
One paratrooper was hit, low, by what appeared to be a twisted sort of typewriter. He dropped his machine gun and fell, arms flailing.
‘I knew it wouldn’t work,’ said Nematode slowly, savouring his words. ‘But why should anyone listen to me? I’m only the Admiral.’ He laced his thick fingers together and studied their dirty nails.
‘One man knocked down doesn’t mean a lost battle,’ snapped Ickers. His head bobbed, shaking silver plumage in emphasis. ‘Got the wind knocked out of him, that’s all. He’s playin’ possum, so he can trick the enemy.’
At that moment, the screen went dark. ‘I knew it !’ crowed the admiral. ‘Now that thing has captured the camera.’
‘The hell it did !’
‘Yup, captured the whole goddamned town, and our boys with it. Tonight Altoona—tomorrow the world ! This’ll be the end of civilization—and good riddance, I say !’
‘What?’ Ickers screeched. ‘How can you wear the uniform of your country and say a rotten thing like that? That’s a lie ! Our United States will last a thousand years !’
‘Well there’s much to be said for both viewpoints,’ said General Meany. ‘Why don’t we hear a few words from our expert on the matter, eh? Doctor, won’t you tell us a little about this gadget of yours?’
‘“Gadget”? A trivial word for something to which I am sure you attach a great deal of importance, gentlemen. Oh—,’ he permitted himself a wry, professional smile as he rose and strolled to the blackboard—‘I know I’m indulging in a semantic quibble, but we men of science are rather narrow about our definitions.’
Taking chalk from his pocket, he wrote ‘Nomenclature: THE REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM,’ across the top of the board. The three men pulled pads towards them and readied pens. Meany wrote ‘syst.’ and underlined it three times.
‘The Reproductive System is composed of what we call cells.’ The doctor wrote it on the board. ‘The first cells were constructed at Project 32, as you all know. They were of a variety of types, differing from one another in two respects:
‘(1) Differing means of perception and communication. These included metal detectors, radiation detectors, radar, cathode tubes, microphones, light pens, graphic inputs and displays, and typewriters. Only the first two of these were standard on all cells built.
‘(2) Differing modes of propulsion. These included gear-driven wheels, jointed insectoid legs, rockets, propellors, and the inertial, or “falling-cat” system. Just as a cat can right itself while in midair, so an objective may be propelled by displacing weight “outwards and backwards” rapidly. It moves as does a child scooting along in a cardboard box. We saw a soldier on television doing the same thing unconsciously—threshing his arms to restore his balance.’
‘Yes,’ chuckled the admiral, who was not taking notes. ‘We saw how well it worked for him, didn’t we? He’s only dead, that’s all.’
Ickers jumped up. ‘It’s a glorious and fine thing to die in the service of our country,’ he shouted. ‘I only wish everyone had the chance to do so, right this minute !’
‘Now gentlemen,’ said Meany. ‘Let’s try to reconcile our differences. There is much truth in what each of you say. Perhaps the doctor would be good enough to give us his view on the matter?’
‘How about a little action !’ shouted Ickers. Meany filled in the single word on his pad with geometric forms. Nematode began drawing female genitalia. ‘Let’s not sit around here all day. I want to get out there and slam that thing in the gut. My boy Grawk is out in the hall now, waiting for orders. Let’s go-go-go !’
Dr. Smilax drew a cross-section of an individual cell. ‘The size varies,’ he exclaimed, ‘for various hereditary and environmental reasons. The original cells were not of a size, and their differences have become in some cases quite marked. The armoured exterior of each cell is usually weatherproofed by paint, rubber or plastic coatings and the like. Apertures are maintained, through which tools can be projected: hooks, claws, cutters, welding equipment, etc. On some types the casing is expandable. In most types it can be opened to admit materials—or emit a neophyte cell.
‘The space just inside the cell is where reproduction and maintenance take place. Manufacturing is quite limited in scope, consisting chiefly in adapting found objects to makeshift purposes.
‘Templates for both mechanical and electronic components (such as integrated circuits) are constructed at the orders of the QUIDNAC control unit. All bearings and other parts requiring close tolerances are made by sintering; finer machining is done with acids.
‘Any power supply may be used, if either it can be modified to fit into the cell or the cell can make sufficient modifications upon itself. We predicted, for example, that cells would be able to glue themselves to locomotives and take power from them, and I understand our prediction was correct.
‘Now for the “yolk” of our “egg”,’ he said, with another dry, professorial smile, and pointed to the centre of his chalk diagram. ‘This is the QUIDNAC control unit, in three sections: (1) The DNA section; (2) the amplifying and interpreting section; and (3) the control linkage.
‘The DNA section is a complex, compact means of storing and retrieving information. In it are stored about 1010, or ten billion messages, many of them only three units long, but some as long as a million units. The fourteen simplest messages correspond to the rules of logic, to arithmetic computation, or to the mechanics of handling other data.’
He wrote:
Message Meaning Conventional Symbol
AAA ‘Either … or … or both’ v
CCC ‘If … then …’
GGG ‘… and …’ .
TTT ‘… is equivalent to …’ ≡
GAGGAG ‘zero’ 0
GCGGCG ‘positive’ +
GTGGTG ‘negative’ —
TGTTGT ‘… is identical with …’ =
AGAAGA ‘Record …’ (Remember)
ATAATA ‘Erase …’ (Forget)
CGCCGC ‘Duplicate …’ (Repeat; Copy)
CTCCTC ‘Transit …’ (Tell me)
‘These messages are encoded in a double helix of DNA. They are activated only by the appropriate input. In one sense, the QUIDNAC is completely programmed, since it is true that every message output, or response, has been encoded into the molecule of DNA. But different sets, different combinations of responses are not predictable, if only because of
their very, very, varied variety.’ Again the smile, and again no response from his audience. ‘The total number of message combinations possible is equal to the sum of the squares of all the numbers from 1 to 1010.
‘All input data, or stimuli, are automatically recorded, and compared with previous stimuli. If they correspond, they are dealt with as in past successes; if they do not, various analogies are devised from past experiences. If no analogies seem to have the slightest relevance to the new stimuli, random responses are selected and tested. In effect, QUIDNAC learns, and as it learns it alters the structure of the DNA molecule. Alterations generally consist in breaking the molecule apart and reassembling it in new patterns, much in the manner of making anagrams
from long words:’
Here he wrote: ‘JOHN THOMAS SLADEK’
And under it: ‘DNA’S MOL HATH JOKES’
‘You see, a mol is a gram molecular weight, or the molecular weight of a substance expressed in grams. The molecular weight of our DNA is about 287 × 1016, so the joke of it is that one mol would weigh about three trillion tons.’
He laughed heartily at DNA’s subtle jest. The three faces before him, however, remained fixed in their gargoyle patterns of joy, despair and indecision. Dr. Smilax cleared his throat and prepared to resume.
‘British trillion or American trillion?’ asked the WAF secretary. ‘Long tons or short tons?’
‘I’ll go into it later, if you’ll make a note of it.’ A muscle in the doctor’s scalp began twitching. ‘Now then:
‘The second stage of the QUIDNAC control unit consists of a system of integrated circuits which translate and amplify the output of the DNA section. The third section consists of actual control mechanisms, switches, relays, etc., operating various ‘limbs’, ‘organs’ and functions of the cell. Tuned circuits are employed, so that a rather complex signal may be sent as an excitation “clang”, out of which each receiver selects its own signal. Our own nervous system works on much the same principle.’
