Part 12 (1/2)
”Er . . . we don't say that here,” Gabriel reminded him politely.
”Oh, of course.” The G.o.d made an apologetic gesture and then cast his eyes around the table. ”Does anyone else have any suggestions?” he invited. No one had. He sighed in resignation, then looked at the Chief Design Engineer. ”I'm sorry, Chief, but it sounds as if we're stuck. I guess there's no choice but to drop the extras and revert to a standard Mark IV.”
”No people?” the CDE sounded disappointed.
”No people,” the G.o.d confirmed. ”It was a nice thought, but it's out of the question on the timescale of this contract. Keep working on it with Research, and maybe you'll have it all figured out in time for the next bid, huh?” The CDE nodded glumly. The meeting ended shortly thereafter, and the Vice President of Sales went back to his office to begin drafting a revised Appendix section to be delivered to the customer by winged messenger. So the project wasn't going to be so interesting after all, the G.o.d reflected with a pang of regret as he collected his papers. But at least that meant there was less risk of overrunning on time and incurring penance clauses.
The Chief Design Engineer was on the phone shortly after lunch on the following day. ”Have you heard?” he asked. He sounded distressed.
”Heard what?” the G.o.d answered.
”Feathers, Aviation, and Aquatics have been onto our legal people. They're trying to tell us that our birds and fish aren't safe.”
”That's ridiculous! They're the same ones as we've always used. What's wrong with our birds and fish?”
”According to FAA regulations, all flight-control and navigation systems have to be duplicated,” the CDE said. ”Our birds only have a single nervous system. Also, we're allowing them to fly over water without inflatable life jackets.”
The G.o.d was completely taken aback. ”What's gotten into them?” he demanded. ”They've never complained about anything like that before.”
”They've never really bothered to check the regulations before, but the controversy over the people has attracted their attention to this project,” the CDE told him. ”Our legal people think they're all at it-all the angelcies are brus.h.i.+ng the dust off manuals they've never looked at before and going through them with magnifying gla.s.ses. We could be in for some real ha.s.sles.”
The G.o.d groaned. ”But what do they want us to do? We can't go loading the birds up with all kinds of duplicated junk. Their power-weight ratios are critically balanced. They'd never get off the ground.”
”I know that. But all the same it's regulations, and the FAA won't budge. They also say we have to fit bad-weather landing aids.”
The G.o.d's patience snapped abruptly. ”They don't fly in bad weather,” he yelled. ”They just sit in the trees. If they don't fly, why do they need aids for landing? It'd be like putting life jackets on the camels.”
”I know, I know, I know. But that's what the book says, and that's all the FAA's interested in.”
”Can we do it?” the G.o.d asked when he had calmed down a little.
”Only with the penguins, the ostriches, and the others that walk. I called the FAA guy a couple of minutes ago and told him that the only way we could equip all the birds for bad-weather landing was by making them all walk. He said that sounded fine.”
”I've never heard of anything so stupid! What's the point of having birds at all if they're only allowed to walk? We can't have planets with walking birds all over the place. The compet.i.tion would die laughing.”
”I know all that. I'm just telling you what the guy said.”
A few seconds of silence went by. Then the G.o.d asked, ”What's wrong with the fish?”
”The shallow-water species don't have coastal radar.”
Pause.
”Is this some kind of joke?”
”I wish it were. They're serious all right.”
The G.o.d shook his head in disbelief and slumped back in his chair. ”Maybe we might just have to go along without birds and shallow-water fish this time,” he said at last. ”Would the rest still work?”
”I'm not so sure it would,” the CDE replied. ”The birds were supposed to spread seeds around to produce enough vegetation to support the herbivores. If we reduce the quotas of herbivores, we'd have to cut back on the carnivores, too. And without the birds to keep down the insects, we'd have the Forestry Cherubim on our backs for endangering the trees. With the trees in trouble and no shallow-water fish to clean up the garbage from the rivers, the whole ecosystem would break down.
None of the animal species would be able to support themselves.”
The G.o.d sighed and wrestled with the problem in his head. The CDE himself had precipitated the current crisis by introducing the idea of the people in the first place, but there would be nothing to be gained by starting rounds of recriminations and accusations at this point, he thought. What was important was to get the proposal into an acceptable form before the closing date for the bid. ”The only thing I can think of is that if the animals become unable to support themselves, we'll have to put them all on welfare.
If I call HEW and see if I can fix it, would that solve the problem?”
”Well . . . yeah, I guess it would . . . if you can fix it.” The CDE didn't sound too hopeful.
The G.o.d phoned the HEW Director a few minutes later and explained the situation. Would HEW accept a commitment to supplying welfare support for the animals?
”No way!” was the emphatic reply.
”What in he-heaven's name do you expect us to do?” the G.o.d demanded, shouting in exasperation.
”How can we meet anybody's regulations when they always conflict with somebody else's?”
”That's not our problem,” the HEW Director stated bluntly. ”Sorry.”
Another meeting was called early the next morning to discuss the quandary. After all avenues had been explored, there seemed only one solution that would avoid all the conflicts: an azoic universe. All forms of living organisms would have to be deleted from the proposal. The meeting ended on a note of somber resignation.
The Environmental Protection Angel was on the line later that afternoon. Her voice was shrill and piercing, grating on the G.o.d's nerves. ”Without any plants at all, the levels of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur compounds from volcanic activity would exceed the permitted limits. The proposal as it stands is quite unacceptable. We would not be able to issue operating licenses for the volcanoes.”
”But the limits were set to safeguard only living organisms!” the G.o.d thundered. ”We've sc.r.a.pped them-all of them. There aren't any living organisms to be safeguarded.”
”There is no clause in the regulations which specifically exempts lifeless planets,” the EPA told him primly. It was too much.
”What kind of lunatics are you?” the G.o.d raged into the phone. ”You don't need a specific exemption.
What do you need protective regulations for when there isn't anything to be protected? How stupid can you get? Any idiot could see that it doesn't apply here-any of it. You're out of your mind.”
”I'm simply doing my job, and I don't expect personal insults,” came the reply. ”The standards are quite clear, and they must be met. Good day.” The line went dead.
The G.o.d conveyed the news to Design Engineering, who discussed it with Research. Without the volcanoes there wouldn't be enough planetary outga.s.sing to form the atmospheres and oceans. Okay, the atmospheres and oceans would have to go. But the volcanoes were also intended to play a role in relieving the structural stresses and thermal buildups in the planetary crusts. How could that be taken care of without any volcanoes? Only by having more earthquakes to make up the difference, the CDE declared. The G.o.d told him to revise the proposal by deleting the volcanoes and making the crustal formations more earthquake-p.r.o.ne. Everybody agreed that the problem appeared at last to have been solved.
The Department of Highlands, Undulations, and Deserts called the G.o.d a day later with an objection.
”I'm dreadfully sorry, old chap, but we seem to have run into a bit of a problem,” the man from HUD told him. ”You see, the mountain ranges you've proposed don't quite come up to the standards set out in our building codes for the increased level of seismic activity. We'd have no choice but to condemn them as unsafe, I'm afraid.”