Free Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman Page A

might be able to save him.
    “Meanwhile . . . I’d like to keep posted on Bob, but we have less than an hour to finish up here, before the thing slingshots. So on with it.”
    He went to the other side of the table and picked up the scalpel Willard had dropped. “Now I don’t claim to know half the invertebrate anatomy that Bob does. Is there anybody here who thinks they can do a better job?”
    Nobody responded. “Speak up, God damn it. I’m not puffing rank here. How about you, Modibo? You did that damn slug last month.”
    A big black man in the front of the crowd shook his head slowly. “Not out of any special expertise, doctor. I was just on deck at the right time.”
    “You go ahead, Phil,” another said. “If we see anything, we’ll shout it out.”
    “All right.” To Carol and Jacque: “You two grab hold of the thing.
    “Now. Dorsal incision.” He brought the blade down and hesitated. “Hm. Dorsal.”
    He looked up at Jacque and shook his head violently. Then he carefully raised the scalpel and slit his own throat.
     
24 - Geoformy II: Access to Tools
     
    To:             Public Relations, Westinghouse International
    From:         Black & Morgenstern
    Date:          11 November 2075
    Subject:      Text and Preliminary Camera Instructions, Four-Minute Public Interest Spot (for mid-point insert, Don Loft Show, 17 Jan 76)
     
     
    SETTING:             Craters of the Moon National Park
    REQUIREMENTS:           Animation lab; three (3) available-light holo cameras, three (3) actors, two (2) simulated GPEM suits, one (1) Westinghouse mass spectrograph.
     
    Spot begins with a 30-second animated cartoon. First you have a simplified alien landscape, strange music. Five Tamers pop into existence, get out of formation and mill around, waiting.
    The place they appeared from goes pop again, this time producing a pile of bricks, mortar, bricklaying tools. Music segues into a soft jissto as they start building a house. Tempo increases as they work faster and faster. New piles of bricks appear pop as they need them; it takes four piles to finish the house.
    The Tamer-figures sit around the house, panting. Suddenly the music stops and the bottom layer of bricks disappears. The top three-fourths of the house falls with a resounding crash. This is repeated three more times, as each successive layer disappears.
    The Tamers stand there scratching their heads. Then they also disappear. Fade into Craters of the Moon sequence.
    (Camera positions given in conventional Cartesian style. Primary origin is ground level, centered underneath mass spectrograph, which will be placed on a level area 1250 meters NNW of benchmark 1728 (permissions bought from Park Service, Inc.). X-axis oriented 29° E of N. initially.)
    time     origin       skew   X Y Z
     
    030      31,00,3      00     8.5,8.5,3.0Shattered landscape.
    035      31,00,3      00     8.5,8.5,3.0VOICE OVER:
    SLOW X-AXIS DRIFT TO                   (t = 33) “Nothing made on
    045      10,00,2      00     8.5,8.5,3.0the Earth can stay on
    050      05,05,1      00     8.5,8.5,3.0another planet.”
    055      00,00,0      00     7.5,7.5,3.0
    TIGHTEN TO                             (t=55) “This is the
    065      00,00,0      00     2.0,2.0,2.0machine that gave humankind the stars.”
    SKEW ROLL                              (t = 70) “The Westinghouse
    075      00,00,0      -180   1.5,1.5,2.0. . . Mass Spectrograph.”
    HOLD THIS                              (t = 72) “The two Tamers,
    CONFIGURATION TO                       walking together, approach
    101      00,00,0      -180   1.5,1.5,2.0the machine. They are carrying
    great armloads of
    SLOW                                   rock,