FALLEN ANGELS

"They discovered how to do it back before the turn of the century," Mike said. "In 1987."

"But--why--"

"They're still testing to see if it's safe. That's what the Greens said. The dairy corporations didn't fight very hard. The last thing they need is cheap milk. Oversupply, they called it."

He found Bruce at the back door of the building. The door was hanging loose on its hinges, and the jamb around the latch was broken and splintered. Bruce pointed to the shattered door. "When Harry said he came trough the back door--"

"He's got a helluva knock, doesn't he?"

Harry approached them from the farther hallway carrying two shovels over his shoulder. " I found a store room," he a

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«SMOF-One: Bull semen!!!??? The Ghost»

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The plant manager spoke in such a broad Texan accent that you would never guess he was not originally from Texas. Just as some people were "more Catholic than the Pope," Ron Ellick reflected, others were more Texan than the Texans. Johns even kept a stuffed rattlesnake in his office. It all seemed very strange, because they were in the Pe

The plant manager led him past the beds of enormous NC machines jigged to shape different parts from the base material. All but one were silent and shrouded. The plant was weirdly quiet with only a handful of people at work. The echo of hammer, saw and drill sounded small in its cavernous spaces. "Not very busy, Mr. Johns," Ellick ventured.

"Call me Joh

"All?"

"Right. Pollution laws won't let anyone drill for all anymore. So, less fuel for the airlines. And they cut back on the number of flights because it might damage the ozone layer. So fewer planes are being built." Johns shrugged. "Bunch of guano, if you ask me. But I'm an interested party. The aerospace people were our biggest customers. Now all we get are maintenance and spares orders. There's an example, on that pallet. See where Mitch is gluing the details in place? Now, what does that remind you of?"

"A bee's honeycomb."

Johns nodded. "Right. We call it structural honeycomb. That there is part of the nose assembly for a 737b."

Ron Ellick studied the part dutifully. He had flown from Mi

"Oh, not the raw material you were asking about. That comes in blocks. Come on, let me show you."

Johns led him to an area of the plant filled with shelving. Each shelf held a stack of what looked like solid oblong blocks. "The way the industry's been ruined, we have enough honeycomb in stock here to last a generation." Johns shook his head sadly. "Anyhow, the stuff was shipped collapsed into blocks like this. Easier to handle. We set the blocks on an extender, put hooks in each end, and stretch 'em open like an accordion." He pointed to another machine which to Ellick looked like a rack from a medieval torture chamber. His mind toyed with the notion: a modern day horror story.…

"So the original honeycomb block," Johns went on, "takes up hardly any room at all. Gi

The worker pulled on a pair of metal reinforced gloves. Glaives, thought Ron Ellick. Chain mail. It seemed appropriate for someone who worked on a rack. She pulled a block from the shelves and began to lower it end-first into a barrel filled with water.

"This one is aluminum," Johns told him. "But we have honeycomb, in all sorts of metallic and non-metallic composites."

The block was completely immersed in the water now and the level in the barrel had hardly risen at all. "Ninety percent air," Johns assured him. I doubt there's any structural material on the face of the earth that combines the structural strength with the lightness of honeycomb."

Ron Ellick nodded. Or offthe face of the earth, either. "How much for the blocks?"

Johns rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. "The aluminum kind or the--"

"Each."

Johns cited a list of prices from memory. Ron Ellick wrote them down on a notepad. "OK, Joh

Johns nodded. "Son, the way the market is right now, I'll carry it to California."

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«I have caught the bug. MYCROFT.»

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Ted Marshall was a young man, round of face and soft of muscle. At 5' 11" and 160 pounds, he gave the odd impression of being both ski

He held the chip up to the light and looked at it. "How many books does it hold?"

"About five hundred," said Will Waxman. The old man with the bushy patriarch's beard laid four more on the table. "This is almost my entire library. The last one, there? That's the Encyclopaedia Brita

Ted grunted and laid the first chip down. All five had been modified to look like Nintendo "Game Boy" cartridges. "Cyberbooks. And you want to know if I can duplicate them?"

Will Waxman nodded. "And the reader." He set a Sony Bookman on the table between them. "Maybe a dozen of each?"

Ted picked up the Bookman. "Where did you get this baby? I thought their import was ba

"It is."

Ted inserted one of the cartridges into the Bookman and touched the "game buttons." "How does it--Never mind, I got it. This is page forward; and this is page back. Hey! You've of the entire Heinlein canon in here! And Asimov and de Camp and… What does this button do?"

"It moves the cursor around so you can tab hypertext buttons. Go ahead, move it to the story title you want to read and then press the 'A' button."

Ted did so and smiled when he saw the title page appear on the screen. He glanced at the other cartridges. "This must be a lot of fun when you're browsing through the encyclopedia."

"Flying through the encyclopedia," Will corrected him, "like a stone from David's sling skipping over the water. No, more like jaunting in Bester's The Stars My Destination or the stepping discs in Niven's Ringworld. Did you ever hear Philip Jose Farmer's definition of a dullard?"

Ted shook his head. "No."

Will gri

Ted laughed. "It's a damn shame they ba

"Trade friction had nothing to do with it." Will took the Bookman from Ted, saw that it was open to Pebble in the Sky and flipped through the electronic pages. "Can you imagine any gadget better designed to seduce the Video Generation into reading?"

Ted frowned. "Nah. Conspiracy theories are fun, but it's usually just ineptitude or--"

"A well-read, educated public is more difficult to lead around by the nose ring." Will leaned across the table. "Can you duplicate the chips and the reader, Ted? I need to know."