The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

Seeing the folks who are trying to thwart you as people just like yourself rather than The Enemy (in Satanic red sometimes, not just capital letters) isn't easy. You're better off dealing with them that way, though, because it's surprising (or revolting, depending on how you look it at) how often they have a point I knocked off at five, slid down to the ground. Pickets were marking on the sidewalk off to one side of the parking lot Pickets marched outside the Confederal Building about three days out of five, touting one cause or another (sometimes the people touting one cause run into those touting another, and then mere can be trouble).

These particular pickets weren't just marching; they were chanting, too: "Hey, hey, waddaya say, let's throw out the EPA!"

That flicked my curiosity. I wandered over to see what they were upset about Their signs spoke for themselves:

SAVE OUR STBAWBERMESI was one. Another said, STOP AERIAL GARLIC SPRAYING! And a third - BETTER MEDVAMPS THAN TURNING MY BACK YARD INTO AN ITALIAN DEU! I liked that, actually, even if I couldn't agree with it Sometimes protesters will listen to reason. I decided to give it a try, remarking to a fellow with a blond beard, "You know, if we let Medvamps establish themselves here, they'll wipe out a good part of our agriculture. Look what they've done to the Sandwich Islands."

"I don't care about the Sandwich Islands, pal," Blond Beard answered. "All I know is that as far as I'm concerned, garlic stinks. I have to smell it - every hour of the day and night and I think it's making me sick. And. it's gotten into my flying carpet and the sylphs don't like it any better than I do.

I may have to trade the stupid thing in, and with the performance shot I won't get near what it's worth. So there!"

"But-" I started. Blond Beard had stopped paying attention to me; he was chanting again. I gave up and headed back to my own carpet. Reminding him that all the people in the spraying area had been warned to cover up their carpets or bring them indoors wouldn't have changed his mind, it would just have made him angrier than he was already. Some people might as well be zombies, for all the constructive use they get out of their free will.

As I started to fly toward - the freeway, I noticed a familiar-looking man holding a glass glove up to the mouth of one of the picketers. It was Joe Forbes of Ethernet Station One. "Thanks a lot, Joe," I muttered. Thousands of people, I had no doubt, would hear about the imaginary evils of garBc spraying just as if they were thaumaturgically established.

I hoped he'd have the integrity to interview an EPA sorcerer or somebody from the citrus business, too. But even if he did, the views of people who didn't know anything except what they didn't like would in effect get equal weight with those of folks who'd been studying the problem since it first bared its teeth. I sighed. What could I do about it? People out picketing and raising a ruckus were "news," regardless of whether they had any facts to back them up.

The freeway was jammed, too, which didn't do anything to improve my mood by the time I finally got home.

Next morning, I started adding to my chart some of the toxic spell components the aerospace firms dumped at Devonshire. I hadn't been at it for more than a couple of hours before I saw I'd have to talk with my boss.

Bea was on the phone when I went up to her office.

Sometimes I think she's had that imp permanently implanted in her ear. As soon as she laid down the handset I scurried in. Before the phone could go off again, I tossed my still only half-done chart on the desk in front other.

Her eyes followed it down. When she saw some of the things I'd written in red, she gave a real live theatrical gasp.

"Good God in heaven, are we actually storing these things inside a populated area?" she exclaimed, raising a shocked hand. Her gaze lingered on the flayed human skin substitute.

Even though it's legal, it's appalling to contemplate.

"Looks that way," I said, "and this isn't all of it, by any means. I wanted to ask you to let me do some afternoon fieldwork this week, maybe talk to some of the people who use this stuff and see if there aren't substitutes. Or even substitutes for the substitutes," I added, wondering if a second-generation ersatz skin would be magically efficacious.

"Go ahead," she told me without hesitation; she really is a pretty good boss. "Do one other thing first, though: call Mr.

Charles Kelly and let him know what sort of mess he's landed this office in. I've already had words with him about that, but you can emphasize it, too. If we have to holler for help from the District of St Columba, I don't want him to be able to say he wasn't warned in advance."

Burning brimstone makes you think of demons.