Robert Sheckley - The Laxian Key

Gregor raised both eyebrows and looked at the Producer. Apparently it had hit its stride, for Tangreese was pouring out like water from a high-pressure hose. There was grey powder over everything in the room. It was half a foot deep in front of the machine.

'Never mind,' Arnold said. 'It must be used for something else.' He returned to his desk and opened several more large books.

'Shouldn't we turn it off in the meantime?' Gregor asked.

'Certainly not,' Arnold said. 'It's free, don't you understand? It's making money for us.'

He plunged into his books. Gregor began to pace the floor, but found it difficult wading through the ankle-deep Tangreese. He slumped into his chair, wondering why he hadn't gone into landscape gardening.

By early evening, a grey dust filled the room to a depth of several feet. Several pens, pencils, a briefcase and a small filing cabinet were already lost in it, and Gregor was beginning to wonder if the floor would hold the weight. He

had to shovel a path to the door, using a wastepaper basket as an improvised spade.

Arnold finally closed his books with a look of weary satisfaction. 'There is another use.'

'What?'

'Tangreese is used as a building material. After a few weeks' exposure to the air, it hardens like granite, you know.'

'No, I didn't.'

'Get a construction company on the telephone. We'll take care of this right now.'

Gregor called the Toledo-Mars Construction Company and told a Mr O'Toole that they were prepared to supply them with an almost unlimited quantity of Tangreese.

'Tangreese, eh?' O'Toole said. 'Not too popular as a building material these days. Doesn't hold paint, you know.'

'No, I didn't,' Gregor said.

'Fact. Tell you what. Tangreese can be eaten by some crazy race. Why don't you—'

'We prefer to sell it as a building material,' Gregor said.

'Well, I suppose we can buy it. Always some cheap construction going on. Give you fifteen a ton for it.'

'Dollars?'

'Cents.'

'I'll let you know,' Gregor said.

His partner nodded sagely when he heard the offer. 'That's all right. Say this machine of ours produces ten tons a day, every day, year after year. Let's see ...' He did some quick figuring with his slide rule. 'That's almost five hundred and fifty dollars a year. Won't make us rich, but it'll help pay the rent.'

'But we can't leave it here,' Gregor said, looking with alarm at the ever-increasing pile of Tangreese.

'Of course not. We'll find a vacant lot in the country and turn it loose. They can haul the stuff away any time they like.'

Gregor called O'Toole and said they would be happy to do business.

'All right,' O'Toole said. 'You know where our plant is. Just truck the stuff in any old time.'

'Us truck it in? I thought you—'

'At fifteen cents a ton? No, we're doing you a favour just taking it off your hands. You truck it in.'

'That's bad,' Arnold said, after Gregor had hung up. 'The cost of transporting it—'

'Would be far more than fifteen cents a ton,' Gregor said. 'You'd better shut that thing off until we decide what to do.'

Arnold waded up to the Producer. 'Let me see,' he said. 'To turn it off I use the Laxian Key.' He studied the front of the machine.

'Go ahead, turn it off,' Gregor said.

'Just a moment.'

'Are you going to turn it off or not?'

Arnold straightened up and gave an embarrassed little laugh. 'It's not that easy.'

'Why not?'

'We need a Laxian Key to turn it off. And we don't seem to have one.'

The next few hours were spent in frantic telephone calls around the country. Gregor and Arnold contacted museums, research institutions, the archaeological departments of colleges, and anyone else they could think of. No one had ever seen a Laxian Key or heard of one being found.

In desperation, Arnold called Joe, the Interstellar Junkman, at his downtown penthouse.

'No, I ain't got no Laxian Key,' Joe said. 'Why you think I sold you the gadget so cheap?'

They put down the telephone and stared at each other. The Meldgen Free Producer was cheerfully blasting out its stream of worthless powder. Two chairs and a radiator had disappeared into it, and the grey Tangreese was approaching desk-top level.

'Nice little wage earner,' Gregor said.

'We'll think of something.'

'We?'

Arnold returned to his books and spent the rest of the night searching for another use for Tangreese. Gregor had to shovel the grey powder into the hall, to keep their office from becoming completely submerged.

The morning came, and the sun gleamed gaily on their windows through a film of grey dust. Arnold stood up and yawned.

'No luck?' Gregor asked.

'I'm afraid not.'

Gregor waded out for coffee. When he returned, the building superintendent and two large red-faced policemen were shouting at Arnold.

'You gotta get every bit of that sand outa my hall!' the super screamed.

'Yes, and there's an ordinance against operating a factory in a business district,' one of the red-faced policemen said.

'This isn't a factory,' Gregor explained. 'This is a Meldgen Free—'

'I say it's a factory,' the policeman said. 'And I say you gotta cease operation at once.'

'That's our problem,' Arnold said. 'We can't seem to turn it off.'

'Can't turn it off?' The policeman glared at them suspiciously. 'You trying to kid me? I say you gotta turn it off.'

'Officer, I swear to you—'

'Listen, wise guy, I'll be back in an hour. You get that thing turned off and this mess out of here, or I'm giving you a summons.' The three men marched out.

Gregor and Arnold looked at each other, then at the Free Producer. The Tangreese was at desk-top level now, and coming steadily.

'Damn it all,' Arnold said, with a touch of hysteria, 'there must be a way of working it out. There must be a market!

It's free, I tell you. Every bit of this powder is free, free, free!'

'Steady,' Gregor said, wearily scratching sand out of his hair.

'Don't you understand? When you get something free, in unlimited quantities, there has to be an application for it. And all this is free—'

The door opened, and a tall, thin man in a dark business suit walked in, holding a complex little gadget in his hand.

'So here it is,' the man said.

Gregor was struck by a sudden wild thought. 'Is that a Laxian Key?' he asked.

'A what key? No, I don't suppose it is,' the man said. 'It is a drainometer.'

'Oh,' Gregor said.

'And it seems to have brought me to the source of the trouble,' the man said. 'I'm Mr Garstairs.' He cleared sand from Gregor's desk, took a last reading on his drainometer and started to fill out a printed form.

'What's all this about?' Arnold asked.

'I'm from the Metropolitan Power Company,' Garstairs said. 'Starting around noon yesterday, we observed a sudden enormous drain on our facilities.'

'And it's coming from here?' Gregor asked.

'From that machine of yours,' Garstairs said. He completed his form, folded it and put it in his pocket. 'Thanks for your cooperation. You will be billed for this, of course.' With some difficulty he opened the door, then turned and took another look at the Free Producer.

'It must be making something extremely valuable,' he said, 'to justify the expenditure of so much power. What is it? Platinum dust?'

He smiled, nodded pleasantly and left.

Gregor turned to Arnold. 'Free power, eh?'

'Well,' Arnold said, 'I guess it just grabs it from the nearest power source.'

'So I see. Draws power out of the air, out of space, out of the sun. And out of the power company's lines, if they're handy.'

'So it seems. But the basic principle—'