Bread Overhead

by Fritz Leiber

answer inquiries after Roger put the famoussculptures-in-miniature artist on 3D and he testified that he alwaysmolded his first attempts from Puffybread, one jumbo loaf squeezing downto approximately the size of a peanut."

  * * * * *

  Her photocells dimmed and brightened. "Oh, boy--hydrogen! The loaf'sunwrapped. After a while, in spite of the crust-seal, a little oxygendiffuses in. An explosive mixture. Housewife in curlers and kimono popsa couple slices in the toaster. Boom!"

  The three human beings in the room winced.

  Tin Philosopher kicked her under the table, while observing, "So yousee, Roger, that the non-delivery of the hydrogen loaf carries someconsolations. And I must confess that one aspect of the affair gives megreat satisfaction, not as a Board Member but as a private machine. Youhave at last made a reality of the 'rises through the air' part ofPuffybread's theme. They can't ever take that away from you. By now,half the inhabitants of the Great Plains must have observed our flyingloaves rising high."

  Phineas T. Gryce shot a frightened look at the west windows and foundhis full voice.

  "Stop the mills!" he roared at Meg Winterly, who nodded and whisperedurgently into her mike.

  "A sensible suggestion," Tin Philosopher said. "But it comes a triflelate in the day. If the mills are still walking and grinding,approximately seven billion Puffyloaves are at this moment cruisingeastward over Middle America. Remember that a six-month supply fordeep-freeze is involved and that the current consumption of bread, dueto its matchless airiness, is eight and one-half loaves per person perday."

  Phineas T. Gryce carefully inserted both hands into his scanty hair,feeling for a good grip. He leaned menacingly toward Roger who, chinresting on the table, regarded him apathetically.

  "Hold it!" Meg called sharply. "Flock of multiple-urgents coming in.News Liaison: information bureaus swamped with flying-bread inquiries.Aero-expresslines: Clear our airways or face law suit. U. S. Army: Whydo loaves flame when hit by incendiary bullets? U. S. Customs: If breadintended for export, get export license or face prosecution. RussianConsulate in Chicago: Advise on destination of bread-lift. And someKansas church is accusing us of a hoax inciting to blasphemy, of fakingmiracles--I don't know _why_."

  The business girl tore off her headphones. "Roger Snedden," she criedwith a hysteria that would have dumfounded her underlings, "you'vebrought the name of Puffyloaf in front of the whole world, all right!Now do something about the situation!"

  Roger nodded obediently. But his pallor increased a shade, the pupils ofhis eyes disappeared under the upper lids, and his head burrowed beneathhis forearms.

  "Oh, boy," Rose Thinker called gayly to Tin Philosopher, "this lookslike the start of a real crisis session! Did you remember to bring sparebatteries?"

  * * * * *

  Meanwhile, the monstrous flight of Puffyloaves, filling midwestern skiesas no small fliers had since the days of the passenger pigeon, soaredsteadily onward.

  Private fliers approached the brown and glistening bread-front incuriosity and dipped back in awe. Aero-expresslines organizedsightseeing flights along the flanks. Planes of the government forestryand agricultural services and 'copters bearing the Puffyloaf emblemhovered on the fringes, watching developments and waiting for orders. Asquadron of supersonic fighters hung menacingly above.

  The behavior of birds varied considerably. Most fled or gave the loavesa wide berth, but some bolder species, discovering the minimal nutritivenature of the translucent brown objects, attacked them furiously withbeaks and claws. Hydrogen diffusing slowly through the crusts had nowdistended most of the sealed plastic wrappers into little balloons,which ruptured, when pierced, with disconcerting _pops_.

  Below, neck-craning citizens crowded streets and back yards, cranks andcultists had a field day, while local and national governments ragedindiscriminately at Puffyloaf and at each other.

  Rumors that a fusion weapon would be exploded in the midst of the flyingbread drew angry protests from conservationists and a flood of telefaxpamphlets titled "H-Loaf or H-bomb?"

  Stockholm sent a mystifying note of praise to the United Nations FoodOrganization.

  Delhi issued nervous denials of a millet blight that no one had heard ofuntil that moment and reaffirmed India's ability to feed her populationwith no outside help except the usual.

  Radio Moscow asserted that the Kremlin would brook no interference inits treatment of the Ukrainians, jokingly referred to the flying breadas a farce perpetrated by mad internationalists inhabiting Cloud CuckooLand, added contradictory references to airborne bread booby-trapped byCapitalist gangsters, and then fell moodily silent on the whole topic.

  Radio Venus reported to its winged audience that Earth's inhabitantswere establishing food depots in the upper air, preparatory to taking uppermanent aerial residence "such as we have always enjoyed on Venus."

  * * * * *

  NewNew York made feverish preparations for the passage of the flyingbread. Tickets for sightseeing space in skyscrapers were sold at highprices; cold meats and potted spreads were hawked to viewers with theassurance that they would be able to snag the bread out of the air andenjoy a historic sandwich.

  Phineas T. Gryce, escaping from his own managerial suite, raged aboutthe city, demanding general cooperation in the stretching of great netsbetween the skyscrapers to trap the errant loaves. He was captured byTin Philosopher, escaped again, and was found posted with oxygen maskand submachine gun on the topmost spire of Puffyloaf Tower, apparentlydetermined to shoot down the loaves as they appeared and before theyinvolved his company in more trouble with Customs and the StateDepartment.

  Recaptured by Tin Philosopher, who suffered only minor bullet holes, hewas given a series of mild electroshocks and returned to the conferencetable, calm and clear-headed as ever.

  But the bread flight, swinging away from a hurricane moving up theAtlantic coast, crossed a clouded-in Boston by night and disappearedinto a high Atlantic overcast, also thereby evading a local stormgenerated by the Weather Department in a last-minute effort to bringdown or at least disperse the H-loaves.

  Warnings and counterwarnings by Communist and Capitalist governmentsseriously interfered with military trailing of the flight during thisperiod and it was actually lost in touch with for several days.

  At scattered points, seagulls were observed fighting over individualloaves floating down from the gray roof--that was all.

  A mood of spirituality strongly tinged with humor seized the people ofthe world. Ministers sermonized about the bread, variously interpretingit as a call to charity, a warning against gluttony, a parable of theevanescence of all earthly things, and a divine joke. Husbands andwives, facing each other across their walls of breakfast toast, burstinto laughter. The mere sight of a loaf of bread anywhere was enough toevoke guffaws. An obscure sect, having as part of its creed theinjunction "Don't take yourself so damn seriously," won new adherents.

  The bread flight, rising above an Atlantic storm widely reported to havedestroyed it, passed unobserved across a foggy England and rose out ofthe overcast only over Mittel-europa. The loaves had at last reachedtheir maximum altitude.

  The Sun's rays beat through the rarified air on the distended plasticwrappers, increasing still further the pressure of the confinedhydrogen. They burst by the millions and tens of millions. A high-flyingBulgarian evangelist, who had happened to mistake the up-lever for theeast-lever in the cockpit of his flier and who was the sole witness ofthe event, afterward described it as "the foaming of a sea of diamonds,the crackle of God's knuckles."

  * * * * *

  By the millions and tens of millions, the loaves coasted down into thestarving Ukraine. Shaken by a week of humor that threatened to invadeeven its own grim precincts, the Kremlin made a sudden about-face. A newpolicy was instituted of communal ownership of the produce of communalfarms, and teams of hunger-fighters and caravans of trucks loaded wit
hpumpernickel were dispatched into the Ukraine.

  World distribution was given to a series of photographs showingpeasants queueing up to trade scavenged Puffyloaves for traditionalblack bread, recently aerated itself but still extra solid bycomparison, the rate of exchange demanded by the Moscow teams beingtwenty Puffyloaves to one of pumpernickel.

  Another series of photographs, picturing chubby workers' children beingblown to bits by booby-trapped bread, was quietly destroyed.

  Congratulatory notes were exchanged by various national governments andworld organizations, including the Brotherhood of Free BusinessMachines. The great bread flight was over, though for several weeksafterward scattered falls of loaves occurred, giving rise to a newfolklore of manna among lonely Arabian tribesmen, and in onewell-authenticated instance in Tibet, sustaining life in a party ofmountaineers cut off by a snow slide.

  Back in NewNew York, the managerial board of Puffy Products slumped inutter collapse around the conference table, the long crisis session atlast ended. Empty coffee cartons were scattered around the chairs of thethree humans, dead batteries around those of the two machines. For awhile, there was no movement whatsoever. Then Roger Snedden reached outwearily for the earphones where Megera Winterly had hurled them down,adjusted them to his head, pushed a button and listened apathetically.

  After a bit, his gaze brightened. He pushed more buttons and listenedmore eagerly. Soon he was sitting tensely upright on his stool, eyesbright and lower face all a-smile, muttering terse comments andquestions into the lapel mike torn from Meg's fair neck.

  The others, reviving, watched him, at first dully, then with quickeninginterest, especially when he jerked off the earphones with a happy shoutand sprang to his feet.

  * * * * *

  "Listen to this!" he cried in a ringing voice. "As a result of theworldwide publicity, Puffyloaves are outselling Fairy Bread three toone--and that's just the old carbon-dioxide stock from our freezers!It's almost exhausted, but the government, now that the Ukrainian crisisis over, has taken the ban off helium and will also sell us stockpiledwheat if we need it. We can have our walking mills burrowing into thewheat caves in a matter of hours!

  "But that isn't all! The far greater demand everywhere is forPuffyloaves that will actually float. Public Relations, Child LiaisonDivision, reports that the kiddies are making their mothers' livesmiserable about it. If only we can figure out some way to make hydrogennon-explosive or the helium loaf float just a little--"

  "I'm sure we can take care of that quite handily," Tin Philosopherinterrupted briskly. "Puffyloaf has kept it a corporation secret--evenyou've never been told about it--but just before he went crazy, EverettWhitehead discovered a way to make bread using only half as much flouras we do in the present loaf. Using this secret technique, which we'vebeen saving for just such an emergency, it will be possible to bake ahelium loaf as buoyant in every respect as the hydrogen loaf."

  "Good!" Roger cried. "We'll tether 'em on strings and sell 'em likeballoons. No mother-child shopping team will leave the store without acluster. Buying bread balloons will be the big event of the day forkiddies. It'll make the carry-home shopping load lighter too! I'll issueorders at once--"

  * * * * *

  He broke off, looking at Phineas T. Gryce, said with quiet assurance,"Excuse me, sir, if I seem to be taking too much upon myself."

  "Not at all, son; go straight ahead," the great manager saidapprovingly. "You're"--he laughed in anticipation of getting off amemorable remark--"rising to the challenging situation like a genuinePuffyloaf."

  Megera Winterly looked from the older man to the younger. Then in asingle leap she was upon Roger, her arms wrapped tightly around him.

  "My sweet little ever-victorious, self-propelled monkey wrench!" shecrooned in his ear. Roger looked fatuously over her soft shoulder at TinPhilosopher who, as if moved by some similar feeling, reached over andtouched claws with Rose Thinker.

  This, however, was what he telegraphed silently to his fellow machineacross the circuit so completed:

  "Good-o, Rosie! That makes another victory for robot-engineered worldunity, though you almost gave us away at the start with that 'breadoverhead' jingle. We've struck another blow against the next world war,in which--as we know only too well!--we machines would suffer the most.Now if we can only arrange, say, a fur-famine in Alaska and a migrationof long-haired Siberian lemmings across Behring Straits ... we'd have toswing the Japanese Current up there so it'd be warm enough for thelittle fellows.... Anyhow, Rosie, with a spot of help from theBrotherhood, those humans will paint themselves into the peace corneryet."

  Meanwhile, he and Rose Thinker quietly watched the Blonde Icicle melt.

  --FRITZ LEIBER

  Transcriber's Note

  This etext was produced from _Galaxy_ February 1958. Extensive researchdid not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publicationwas renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been correctedwithout note.