Robert Silverberg - Hi Diddle Diddle

“You see the pickle we’re in, Mason. So be a good fellow and go away, until—”

“No,” Mason said. “Look, sir, could you get me in to see Commander Henderson right away?”

“Of course not. I told you, he’s on the wire to Earth!”

“Who cares about that? Tell him I can get him milk. Real milk!”

“You—what? Listen, Mason, this is no time for funny business.”

“I know,” Mason said. “But I can supply milk. M—I—L—K. Will you tell the commander that?”

“Don’t try to make fools out of us,” Chalmers warned. Mason uttered a brief cry of disgust and deftly sidestepped the startled Chalmers. He pushed his way into Commander Henderson’s office. The C.O. was bent over his communication panel, speaking loudly into the mike.

He looked up and barked, “Get out of here, Mason. I’m on the line to Earth!”

“I know, sir. You can hang up. I know what you’re calling for. I just want to tell you that the synthesizer is working, sir. We have milk for Representative Manners!”

“What?” Henderson’s eyes widened astonishingly. He muttered something into the microphone and broke the contact with a brusque gesture. “You mean that crackbrained scheme of yours actually worked? That thing in 106a gives milk? ”

“Yes, sir. And liver, too. We got it working last night.”

Mason repressed a yawn of exhaustion. “If you like, sir, you can have some milk for Representative Manners.”

In due time the congressional delegation departed, on the February ship from Earth. And the month sped by, until it was time for the March ship.

Commander Henderson sent for Mason after the cargo of the March ship had been unloaded.

The commander spread some microfilm transcripts out on his desk. “An excerpt from the Congressional Record. Listen: this is Representative Manners speaking.

“. . . I am deeply impressed with the resourcefulness and cleverness of the scientists at Lunar Base Three. Compelled by the exigencies of nature to subsist on synthetic foods they have shrewdly and economically devised means for creating virtual duplicates of certain Terran foods. My colleagues and I, after several days of subsistence on normal synthetic foods, were delighted one day to be greeted with milk and meat which seemed undeniably Terrestrial in origin—only to be shown, after the meal , how these commodities were produced, virtually magically, by means of a startling technique termed biochemical transmutation. Milk and meat created from waste paper! And at remarkably low cost! A triumphant example of Yankee ingenuity at its finest—’”

Henderson paused and looked up. “Manners’ style is on the flowery side, so I won’t read any more.”

“I guess we impressed him,” Mason said.

“I guess so. Producing those quarts of milk really bowled them over—and saved Manners’ face, too. And the liver made a real hit with them. We’re getting ten million tacked onto our appropriation for ’96-’97.”

“I’m glad to hear that, sir.”

Henderson smiled. “I still haven’t apologized for getting sore when you told me what the gadgetry was for.

“Apologies aren’t necessary, sir.”

Henderson shook his head. “They are, Al. You were having fun, and I roasted you for it—but I should have known that your kind of fun gets results. Now, thanks to your fun—which I should have known is the essence of fundamental research!—weve solved a major problem of life on the Moon. We have a meat-and-milk synthesizer. It’s a little cumbersome, perhaps, but—”

“I was meaning to talk to you about that, sir. We . . . ah . . . have a new model in the works. It’s a little more streamlined—a lot smaller, and a better yield. But it’s going to need some tricky equipment, and the cost may run a little high, so—”

Henderson’s eyes twinkled. He scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to Mason. “Here, Al. An authorization for unlimited research funds. You’ve got a blank check to have some more fun with. Go build us a better cow.”