Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE _Kenzie_ REPORT
_By Mark Clifton_
Illustrated by Kelly Freas
_If this story has a moral, it is: "Leave well enough alone." Just look what happened to Kenzie "mad-about-ants" MacKenzie, who didn't...._
* * * * *
That Kenzie MacKenzie was a mad scientist hardly showed at all. To seehim ambling down the street in loose jointed manner, with sandy hairuncombed, blue eyes looking vaguely beyond normal focus, you mightthink here was a young fellow dreaming over how his gal looked lastnight. It might never occur to you that he was thinking of--ants.
Of course, we fellows in the experimental lab all knew it, but Kenziewasn't too hard to get along with. In fact, he could usually becounted on to pull us out of a technical hole. We put up with himthrough a certain fondness, maybe even a little pride. It gave us aharmless subject to talk about when security was too rigid on otherthings.
Our Department Chief knew it, but Kenzie had solved quite a few knottyelectronics problems. The Chief never has been too particular to seecredit get back to the guy who earned it. We guessed he figured havingKenzie there was profitable to him. In fact, the little redhead inpayroll told me the Chief was drawing quite a few bonus checks.
Personnel probably didn't know about it. Kenzie's papers, buried deepin the files, wouldn't show it; because about the only question theyhad _not_ asked us was, "Where do you stand on the matter of ants?"
There was an unwritten law in the lab for nobody ever to mentioninsects, or even elderly female relatives. I guess that was why itwasn't mentioned to the new guy, name of Robert Pringle. This fellowPringle worked along for a couple weeks and showed us he had the oldknow-how in his fingers. A capable tech, a good joe, and we thought wewere lucky to get him.
On this particular morning, it happened that Pringle was working atthe bench next to Kenzie. Being a talented tech, like the rest of us,his mind naturally ran along more than one channel at the same time. Iexpect he was really surprised at the reaction he got when he shoutedout to the room at large.
"Hey, fellows," he yelled. "I got little green bugs on my roses. Whatdo you do about it?"
The silence made him look up from his work, and he couldn't helpnoticing we all stood there with clinched hands and gritted teeth. Wewere watching Kenzie, who snapped the juice off his soldering iron andpointed the iron at Pringle.
"Those," said Kenzie in a hollow, impressive voice, "are aphis. If youwill look closer, Pringle, you will see among them--ants. The aphid isto the ant as the dairy cow is to the human. Those ants are aphidherders, carefully tending and milking their flock."
"Here we go again," moaned one of the fellows across the lab.
"The ants are a highly intelligent life form," Kenzie went on. "Iwould explain it to you in detail, but I am in the middle of a problemat this moment."
"Thank heaven for that," another tech ground out the words.
"Suffice it to say," Kenzie ignored all interruptions, "Man would welloccupy himself trying to communicate with them."
The Chief came to the doorway of his little office down at the end ofthe lab. He looked us all over patiently and knowingly.
"Now give him your syllogism, Kenzie," he said quietly, "so we can allget back to work."
"You may reflect on this, Pringle," Kenzie stated and waved hissoldering iron in the air.
"One: Man wants to communicate with intelligent life from otherplanets or the stars.
"Two: We know from observation the ants communicate with one another.
"Ergo: Before we reach so far as to contact extra terrestrialintelligence, had we not better occupy our time with solving a muchsimpler communications problem; to wit: communicate with the ants? Howcan we expect to solve communication with really alien beings from thestars, when we have not learned to communicate with the intelligentbeings at our very feet?"
All over the room we sighed heavily with relief. We knew the syllogismwas the conclusion, the Sunday punch. The boy had really cut it shortthis time. Usually he was good for a solid hour with facts and figuresabout how ants built bridges and such stuff.
We all looked at Pringle's face, expecting to see the embarrassed andsheepish grin. This was the usual reaction of a stranger when he firstmet up with Kenzie's syllogism. It horrified us to see, instead, hisshining eyes. We heard him say enthusiastically.
"That's just how I've always felt about it, Kenzie. It's a pleasure tomeet a man who isn't afraid of thinking."
"Oh, no-o-o!" we all groaned out in a chorus.
"Only," Pringle said dubiously, and our hopes began to arise again."Only I've been thinking more along the line of termites." Our hopesfell and were shattered.
We heard the Chief moan to himself and saw him turn and almost runback into his office.
"Two of 'em now," he was mumbling over and over. "Two of 'em now. Itain't worth it. It ain't worth it." He sat down heavily and buried hishead in his arms across the top of his desk. Kenzie was watching himtoo, like he was wondering what had got into the Chief. Then Kenzieturned back to Pringle.
"Ants," he said with determination.
"Termites," Pringle answered him stubbornly. Kenzie glared at Pringlefor a minute, then his face cleared.
"Why not both of them?" he asked, like a fellow who was willing to bebig about it.
"Sure, why not?" Pringle came his half way also. Then, like he wasn'tto be outdone in generosity. "Ants first, then termites later."
Solemnly the two shook hands. They went back to their work at thebench, and there was an aura of understanding and accord at that endof the room thick enough to be felt.
"I hope you insect lovers will be very happy together," the gridexpert mumbled to their backs. The rest of us also settled back intoour varied jobs and problems. But we worked as if we momentarilyexpected an earthquake to rock us. Our hands were not quite steady.Our eyes were not firm and piercing. We almost held our breaths. For awonder, we agreed with the Chief. Two of 'em now.
The days passed and nothing more was said. More than ever now, weenforced the taboo on insects. We didn't mention trees, or wood, oreven the conditional subjunctive. Would sounded like wood. Wood mightbring up the thought of termites.
We could see the Chief was weighing the advantages of keeping themagainst the risks of upsetting the department constantly. As weexpected, greed won. We knew he would not risk giving up the prestigeand extra bonuses he got for Kenzie's work. And he knew he had to keepthose discoveries coming, because our management has a short memory ofwhat a guy has done in the past.
The Chief even let Kenzie have Pringle as his own personal tech. Itserved two purposes. It isolated them from the rest of us. It madeKenzie happy.
I will say for the lads, they spent most of their time on Companyproblems, at first. But gradually, on one corner of Kenzie's bench, agadget began to take shape. The two of them worked on it when therewere no urgent, frantic, must-be-out-today-without-fail problems to besolved first. None of us could figure out the purpose of themechanism.
We knew if we couldn't figure it, the Chief couldn't. But we couldpractically see him rub his hands in glee when he thought of the extrabonus he might get for this new gadget.
Of course the Chief wasn't a complete slouch as an electronicsengineer. But it was a long time since he did his study,
and he hadgrown hazy by spending too many years as an administrator. The wordgot around that for hours at a time, after we had gone home, the Chiefwould stand at Kenzie's bench.
The way we reasoned it, he figured he ought to know something aboutthe gadget when he took it in to Old Rock Jaw, and palmed it off ashis latest discovery. We also reasoned that since we couldn't figureit, the Chief must have been an awfully troubled man.
Obviously, it had something to do with microwave transmission andreception. There was the usual high-frequency condensor, the magnatrontubes, the tuning cavities. All company stock, of course. But thennone of us ever worried about cost. That was the Chief's problem.
He didn't worry much about it either, except at budget time. Thenthere were screams of anguish from the front