Clifford Simak - All Flesh Is Grass and Other Stories

"It goes like that," said Herb. "For a long time there ain't a thing worth shooting. Then all hell breaks loose."

Herb was right. News runs that way — in streaks. Crime waves and traffic-accident waves and suicide waves. But this was something different. It wasn't just screwballs jumping off high places. It was a lot of other things.

There was the guy who had massacred his family and then turned the gun on himself. There was the chap who'd butchered his bride on their honeymoon. And the fellow who had poured gasoline over himself and struck a match.

All such damn senseless things.

No newsman in his right mind objects to a little violence, for that's what news is made of. But things were getting pretty thick; just a bit revolting and horrifying. Enough to sicken even a hard-working legman who isn't supposed to have any feelings over things like that.

Just then the boy came up with the papers, and, if I say so myself, that story of mine read like a honey. It should have. I had been thinking it up and composing it while I watched the bird teetering around up on that ledge.

The pictures were good, too. Great street-sale stuff. I could almost see old J.R. rubbing his hands together and licking his lips and patting himself on the back for the kind of a sheet we had.

Billy Larson, the science editor, strolled over to my desk and draped himself over it. Billy was a funny guy. He wore big, horn-rimmed spectacles, and he wiggled his ears when he got excited, but he knew a lot of science. He could take a dry-as-dust scientific paper and pep it up until it made good reading.

"I got an idea," he announced.

"So have I," I answered. "I'm going down to the Dutchman's and take me on a beer. Maybe two or three."

"I hope," piped Herb. "that it ain't something else about old Doc Ackerman and his time machine."

"Nope," said Billy, "it's something else. Doc's time machine isn't so hot any more. People got tired of reading about it. I guess the old boy has plenty on the ball, but what of it? Who will ever use the thing? Everyone is scared of it."

"What's it this time?" I asked.

"Sunspots," he said.

I tried to brush him off, because I wanted that beer so bad I could almost taste it, but Billy had an idea, and he wasn't going to let mc get away before he told me all about it.

"It's pretty well recognized," he told me, "that sunspots do affect human lives. Lots of sunspots and we have good times. Stocks and bonds are up, prices are high. Trade is good. But likewise, we have an increased nervous tension. We have violence. People get excited."

"Hell starts to pop," said Herb.

"That's exactly it," agreed Billy. "Tchijevsky, the Russian scientist, pointed it out thirty years ago. I believe he's the one that noted increased activity on battle fronts during the first World War occurring simultaneously with the appearance of large spots on the Sun. Back in 1937, the sit-down strikes were ushered in by one of the most rapid rises in the sunspot curve in twenty years."

I couldn't get excited. But Billy was all worked up about it. That's the way he is — enthusiastic about his work.

"People have their ups and downs," he said, a fanatic light creeping into his eyes, the way it does when he's on the trail of some idea to make — Globe- readers gasp.

"Not only people, but peoples — nations, cultures, civilizations. Go back through history and you can point out a parallelism in the cycles of sunspots and significant events. Take 1937, for example, the year they had the sit-down strikes. In July of that year the sunspot cycle hits its maximum with a Wolfer index of 137.

"Scientists are pretty sure periods of excitement are explained by acute changes in the nervous and psychic characters of humanity which take place at sunspot maxima, but they aren't sure of the reasons for those changes."

"Ultraviolet light," I yawned, remembering something I had read in a magazine about it.

Billy wiggled his ears and went on: "Most likely ultraviolet has a lot to do with it. The spots themselves aren't strong emission centers for ultraviolet. But it may be the very changes in the Sun's atmosphere which produce the spots also result in the production of more ultraviolet.

"Most of the ultraviolet reaching Earth's atmosphere is used up converting oxygen into ozone, but changes of as much as twenty percent in its intensity are possible at the surface.

"And ultraviolet produces definite reaction in human glands, largely in the endocrine glands."

"I don't believe a damn word of it," Herb declared flatly, but there was no stopping Billy.

He clinched his argument: "Let's say, then, that changes in sunshine, such as occur during sunspot periods, affect the physiological character and mental outlook of all the people on Earth. In other words, human behavior corresponds to sunspot cycles.

"Compare Dow Jones averages with sunspots and you will find they show a marked sympathy with the cycles — the market rising with sunspot activity. Sunspots were riding high in 1928 and 1929. In the autumn of 1929 there was an abrupt break in sunspot activity and the market crashed. It hit bedrock in 1932 and 1933, and so did the sunspots. Wall Street follows the sunspot cycle."

"Keep those old sunspots rolling," I jeered at him, "and we'll have everlasting prosperity. We'll simply wallow in wealth."

"Sure," said Herb, "and the damn fools will keep jumping off the buildings."

"But what would happen if we reversed things — made a law against sunspots?" I asked.

"Why, then," said Billy, solemn as an owl, "we'd have terrible depressions."

I got up and walked away from him. I had got to thinking about what I had seen on the sidewalk after the fellow jumped, and I needed that beer.

Jake, one of the copy boys, yelled at me just as I was going out the door.

"J.R. wants to see you, Mike."

So I turned around and walked toward the door behind which J.R. sat rubbing his hands and figuring out some new stunts to shock the public into buying the — Globe-.

"Mike," said J.R. when I stepped into his office, "I want to congratulate you on the splendid job you did this morning. Mighty fine story, my boy, mighty fine."

"Thanks, J.R.," I said, knowing the old rascal didn't mean a word of it.

Then J.R. got down to business.

"Mike," he said, "I suppose you've been reading this stuff about Dr. Ackerman's time machine."

"Yeah," I told him, "but if you think you're going to send me out to interview that old publicity grabber, you're all wrong. I saw a guy spatter himself all over Fifth Street this morning, and I been listening to Billy Larson telling about sunspots, and I can't stand much more. Not in one day, anyhow."

Then J.R. dropped the bombshell on me.

"The — Globe-," he announced, "has bought a time machine."

That took me clear off my feet.

The — Globe-, in my time, had done a lot of wacky things, but this was the worst.

"What for?" I asked weakly, and J.R. looked shocked; but he recovered in a minute and leaned across the desk.

"Just consider, Mike. Think of the opportunities a time machine offers a newspaper. The other papers can tell them what has happened and what is happening, but, by Godfrey, they'll have to read the — Globe- to know what is going to happen."

"I have a slogan for you," I said. "Read the News Before It Happens."

He didn't know if I was joking or was serious and waited for a minute before going on.

"A war breaks out," he said. "The other papers can tell what is happening at the moment. We can do better than that. We can tell them what will happen. Who will win and lose. What battles will be fought. How long the war will last-"

"But, J.R.," I yelled at him, "you can't do that! Don't you see what a hell of a mess you'll make of things. If one side knew it was going to lose-"