Bread Overhead Read online

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  Bread Overhead

  By FRITZ LEIBER

  _The Staff of Life suddenly and disconcertingly sprouted wings --and mankind had to eat crow!_

  Illustrated by WOOD

  As a blisteringly hot but guaranteed weather-controlled future summerday dawned on the Mississippi Valley, the walking mills of PuffyProducts ("Spike to Loaf in One Operation!") began to tread delicatelyon their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.

  The walking mills resembled fat metal serpents, rather larger than thoseChinese paper dragons animated by files of men in procession. Sensoryrobot devices in their noses informed them that the waiting wheat hadreached ripe perfection.

  As they advanced, their heads swung lazily from side to side, very muchlike snakes, gobbling the yellow grain. In their throats, it wasthreshed, the chaff bundled and burped aside for pickup by the crawltrucks of a chemical corporation, the kernels quick-dried and blownalong into the mighty chests of the machines. There the tireless millsground the kernels to flour, which was instantly sifted, the bran beingpackaged and dropped like the chaff for pickup. A cluster of tanks whichgave the metal serpents a decidedly humpbacked appearance added water,shortening, salt and other ingredients, some named and some not. Thedough was at the same time infused with gas from a tank conspicuouslylabeled "Carbon Dioxide" ("No Yeast Creatures in Your Bread!").

  Thus instantly risen, the dough was clipped into loaves and shot intoradionic ovens forming the midsections of the metal serpents. There thebread was baked in a matter of seconds, a fierce heat-front browning thecrusts, and the piping-hot loaves sealed in transparent plastic bearingthe proud Puffyloaf emblem (two cherubs circling a floating loaf) andejected onto the delivery platform at each serpent's rear end, where acluster of pickup machines, like hungry piglets, snatched at the loaveswith hygienic claws.

  A few loaves would be hurried off for the day's consumption, themajority stored for winter in strategically located mammoth deepfreezes.

  But now, behold a wonder! As loaves began to appear on the deliveryplatform of the first walking mill to get into action, they did notlinger on the conveyor belt, but rose gently into the air and slowlytraveled off down-wind across the hot rippling fields.

  * * * * *

  The robot claws of the pickup machines clutched in vain, and, notnoticing the difference, proceeded carefully to stack emptiness, tier bytier. One errant loaf, rising more sluggishly than its fellows, wassnagged by a thrusting claw. The machine paused, clumsily wiped off theinjured loaf, set it aside--where it bobbed on one corner, unable totake off again--and went back to the work of storing nothingness.

  A flock of crows rose from the trees of a nearby shelterbelt as theflight of loaves approached. The crows swooped to investigate and thensuddenly scattered, screeching in panic.

  The helicopter of a hangoverish Sunday traveler bound for Wichita shiedvery similarly from the brown fliers and did not return for a secondlook.

  A black-haired housewife spied them over her back fence, crossed herselfand grabbed her walkie-talkie from the laundry basket. Seconds later,the yawning correspondent of a regional newspaper was jotting down thelead of a humorous news story which, recalling the old flying-saucerscares, stated that now apparently bread was to be included in the madaerial tea party.

  The congregation of an open-walled country church, standing up to recitethe most familiar of Christian prayers, had just reached the petitionfor daily sustenance, when a sub-flight of the loaves, either forceddown by a vagrant wind or lacking the natural buoyancy of the rest, camecoasting silently as the sunbeams between the graceful pillars at thealtar end of the building.

  Meanwhile, the main flight, now augmented by other bread flocks fromscores and hundreds of walking mills that had started work a littlelater, mounted slowly and majestically into the cirrus-flecked upperair, where a steady wind was blowing strongly toward the east.

  About one thousand miles farther on in that direction, where a clusterof stratosphere-tickling towers marked the location of the metropolis ofNewNew York, a tender scene was being enacted in the pressurizedpenthouse managerial suite of Puffy Products. Megera Winterly, Secretaryin Chief to the Managerial Board and referred to by her underlings asthe Blonde Icicle, was dealing with the advances of Roger ("Racehorse")Snedden, Assistant Secretary to the Board and often indistinguishablefrom any passing office boy.

  "Why don't you jump out the window, Roger, remembering to shut theairlock after you?" the Golden Glacier said in tones not unkind. "Whenare your high-strung, thoroughbred nerves going to accept the fact thatI would never consider marriage with a business inferior? You have aboutas much chance as a starving Ukrainian kulak now that Moscow's clappedon the interdict."

  * * * * *

  Roger's voice was calm, although his eyes were feverishly bright, as hereplied, "A lot of things are going to be different around here, Meg, assoon as the Board is forced to admit that only my quick thinking made itpossible to bring the name of Puffyloaf in front of the whole world."

  "Puffyloaf could do with a little of that," the business girl observedjudiciously. "The way sales have been plummeting, it won't be longbefore the Government deeds our desks to the managers of Fairy Bread andasks us to take the Big Jump. But just where does your quick thinkingcome into this, Mr. Snedden? You can't be referring to the helium--thatwas Rose Thinker's brainwave."

  She studied him suspiciously. "You've birthed another promotionalbumble, Roger. I can see it in your eyes. I only hope it's not as big aone as when you put the Martian ambassador on 3D and he thanked youprofusely for the gross of Puffyloaves, assuring you that he'd neverslept on a softer mattress in all his life on two planets."

  "Listen to me, Meg. Today--yes, today!--you're going to see the Boardeating out of my hand."

  "Hah! I guarantee you won't have any fingers left. You're bold enoughnow, but when Mr. Gryce and those two big machines come through thatdoor--"

  "Now wait a minute, Meg--"

  "Hush! They're coming now!"

  Roger leaped three feet in the air, but managed to land without a soundand edged toward his stool. Through the dilating iris of the door strodePhineas T. Gryce, flanked by Rose Thinker and Tin Philosopher.

  The man approached the conference table in the center of the room withmeasured pace and gravely expressionless face. The rose-tinted machineon his left did a couple of impulsive pirouettes on the way andtwittered a greeting to Meg and Roger. The other machine quietly tookthe third of the high seats and lifted a claw at Meg, who now occupied astool twice the height of Roger's.

  "Miss Winterly, please--our theme."

  The Blonde Icicle's face thawed into a little-girl smile as she chantedbubblingly:

  "_Made up of tiny wheaten motes And reinforced with sturdy oats, It rises through the air and floats-- The bread on which all Terra dotes!_"

  * * * * *

  "Thank you, Miss Winterly," said Tin Philosopher. "Though a purelyfigurative statement, that bit about rising through the air always getsme--here." He rapped his midsection, which gave off a high musical_clang_.

  "Ladies--" he inclined his photocells toward Rose Thinker and Meg--"andgentlemen. This is a historic occasion in Old Puffy's long history, theinauguration of the helium-filled loaf ('So Light It Almost FloatsAway!') in which that inert and heaven-aspiring gas replacesold-fashioned carbon dioxide. Later, there will be kudos for RoseThinker, whose bright relay
s genius-sparked the idea, and also for RogerSnedden, who took care of the details.

  "By the by, Racehorse, that was a brilliant piece of work getting thehelium out of the government--they've been pretty stuffy lately abouttheir monopoly. But first I want to throw wide the casement in yourminds that opens on the Long View of Things."

  Rose Thinker spun twice on her chair and opened her photocells wide. TinPhilosopher coughed to limber up the diaphragm of his speaker andcontinued:

  "Ever since the first cave wife boasted to her next-den neighbor aboutthe superior paleness and fluffiness of her tortillas, mankind hassought lighter, whiter bread. Indeed, thinkers wiser than myself haveequated the whole upward course of culture with this poignant quest.Yeast was a wonderful discovery--for its primitive day. Sifting the branand wheat germ from the flour was an