JCSM Shareware Collection 1996 September/JCSM Shareware Collection (JCS Distribution) (September 1996).ISO/other___/kbyte253.zip/ara1.txt

Text File | 1995-03-20 | 15KB | 305 lines

                               ARA

               Anthropomortic Research Associates


















        Unpublished compuscript, COPYRIGHT 1987, 1995 by

                       David Perry Beiter
                           CAVE, Inc.
                          1/2 Fast Road
                        Ritner, KY  42639


Disclaimer: All persons, institutions, places, and events herein are strictly a
figment of the author's imagination.  Any resemblance to real persons, living,
dead, or otherwise, must be a figment of the reader's imagination.





             ARA: Anthropomortic Research Associates


0   Summer, 1964

1   Halloween, 1964

2   Thanksgiving, 1964

3   Spring, 1965




Of course, we didn't call ourselves the Anthropomortic Research Associates
until years later.  Zaney had come back from one of her solo winter
mountaineering trips in the White Mountains with that name.  "In honor of the
Classical Greek Goddess of Divine Retribution," she said.  Or the Greek
personification, if you don't believe in gods and goddesses and such.

It had all started as a chance meeting of a few concerned college students at
an All Hallows' E'en party, way back in 1964.  Who would have thought that the
rabid musings of one disenchanted microbiologist could have had such an impact
on the future of all humanity, let alone determine how few all humanity would
eventually become.

I had been shanghaied into providing transportation to Knox Cave, for the
traditional Union College Outing Club Halloween Party.  We managed to load
seven students, plus myself as chauffeur, into my hundred dollar used Volvo,
and with a cloud of blue smoke and a gnashing of tortured gears, we were off.
After a stop at Alvord's "GAS & GRO 2 GO" to stock up on enough pretzels and
pop to rot the guts of the Chinese Army, I was directed out of the city onto a
country lane.

After what seemed like fifty miles and fifteen turns later, I was directed down
an overgrown dirt road.  We soon arrived at the Knox Roller Rink, a ruin from
the glory days of indoor roller skating.  The parking lot was filled with
vehicles of every imaginable sort, plus a few which I would not have imagined.
Can you imagine a VW bus grafted onto the top of a schoolbus?  With a calico
paint job??  More cars, a couple jeeps, and a U-Haul truck soon arrived.

My cargo quit complaining about my Volvo when they saw about lebenty-seven
people emerge from the back of the U-Haul.  "And you rode from Amherst
Massachusetts in the back of a U-Haul truck??!!"

We all donned hard hats and carbide lamps and headed behind the roller rink to
a huge hole in the ground.  If you have never had the pleasure of using a
carbide lamp, let me digress for a moment.

A carbide lamp is this strange brass contraption which uses special rocks and
ordinary water to produce a bright flame.  It is attached to your hat, and thus
provides light pointing in the right direction without the need to hold it in
your hand.  It gets dark in a cave.  After a few years experience, one learns
to control a carbide lamp, so that it gives a well behaved and reliable light.
On the head of a tyro, it is a fire breathing dragon, ever awaiting the chance
to erupt into a ball of flame sitting four inches above his nose.

So I, and a steady stream of other fools, descended into the bowels of the
earth, with these things on our heads each emitting a flickering light and
contented gurgle.  A staircase had been built down the side of the hole, and
through a small opening in the bottom.  A gate stood propped open with a large
rock.  It must have been built by a welder with a sense of humor, for it was in
the form of a giant spider web.

As I was admiring this fine artwork, and wondering if it would still be
unlocked when I chose to exit, I noticed the real artist.  A spider constructed
from 10" iron spyder was perched near the upper hinge.  And in her mandibles
was a little caver, complete with hat and carbide lamp.  Fair warning.

On down the staircase we traveled, past a fellow with a ball of fire where his
carbide lamp should be, who was being extinguished by copious applications of
Pepsi-Cola and Budweiser.  Finally we emerged at the top of a great hall full
of people, and descended to the floor.

"Welcome to the School of Hard Knox," boomed a voice from a petite chick
perched crosslegged about halfway up the side of the far wall.  "Eat, drink,
and make Mary, for tomorrow, you die."

"Who is that?" I asked Steve, my faithful guide.

"Mary Smith, from Smith," he replied, "but she is known professionally as
Calliope Bellowfellow.  She has sung opera since she was eight years old." I
could believe it.  She cut through the chatter like a foghorn.

We made our way to a smaller passage, leading off the side of this entrance
room and on to an even larger room.  It too was filled with people milling
about, or clustered together in groups eating, drinking, and setting each
other's hair on fire.  You soon learn to move when someone comes at you with
three inches of flame spouting from her head.

Steve wandered from group to group, sampling their cuisine and exchanging
pleasantries.  After about the third introduction, I lost track of who was
whom, and went back to the entrance room.

I arrived just in time to see a giant bat fly down from the ceiling and alight
on a large boulder.  This was my introduction to Daredevil Dave, the flying
dingbat.  He had attached a rope to the ceiling of the cave, and dressed in his
batwings, had slid down along it.  Soon he was climbing back up the rope with
what looked like loops in the rope.  Except that somehow he moved these loops
up the rope with him.

This time his faithful ground crew moved over to the staircase, and the flying
dingbat flew down into a newly arriving bevy of Skidmore girls.  I don't think
that they were expecting any bats with a ten foot wingspread.

I soon tired of partying and people, and proceeded to wander off down some of
the many passages in this labyrinth.  I never considered how I would find my
way back, nor how long this light on my head would remain lit.  I soon learned
that wandering around in caves alone with one light is a very foolish idea.

As I was sitting there in the dark wondering how long it would take to find my
way back to the party by the light of my cigarette lighter flint, I saw my
rescuers' lights in the distance.  After a short lesson in the dangers of solo
caving and in carbide lamp maintenance, they invited me on a trip to The
Gunbarrel.

The Gunbarrel is this hole barely big enough for a fat groundhog.  This is the
only way to another part of the cave.  As we arrived, it was emitting a strange
assortment of noises and small wisps of steam.  Suddenly the noise ceased and a
steady breeze blew from this little hole.  "Twelve minutes, forty-seven point
three seconds.  Who's next?" You have to do it to believe it.  Suffice it to
say that if you have claustrophobia, you won't make it.

"It's a lot easier if you go feet first", coached a fellow dressed in what had
been bright red coveralls before they were coated with mud.

"How can I see where I am going?" asked the victim.  A foolish question.  There
wasn't sufficient room to turn around, let alone get lost.

Soon it was my turn to play human cannonball.  I simply didn't fit.  "Lay on
your side with your top arm behind and your lower arm in front and push
backwards." Well, I made like a big inchworm in reverse.  Fifty-seven feet and
twenty minutes later I came out feet first into a room.  Or at least it seemed
roomy, after what I had just been thru.  There sure were a lot less people on
this side.  And really not much of a party, either.

"Oh, this would make a fine bomb shelter," said a feminine voice from a dark
corner, "and then what?  I suppose that you would just drive on down to the A&P
and buy your pretzels and beer."

"Well, doesn't the government have big warehouses full of food for
emergencies?" This time it was a male voice, and closer.

"Ha!  They don't even have enough to feed their own bureaucrats for a month,
let alone the whole country until next harvest.  You'd have to eat long pig or
go hungry." I wondered what sort of people talked about atomic bombs and
cannibalism at a party, but then again, this was already a bit of an unusual
party.  I goosed my carbide lamp and shone it towards feminine voice.

There was a pile of muddy rags, but nothing which looked like it should belong
to feminine voice.  Suddenly there was a blinding light in my eyes and a string
of words most of which need not be repeated.  "Shine your <EXPLETIVE DELETED>
light in your own <EXPLETIVE DELETED> <EXPLETIVE DELETED> eyes, you ..." I
wasn't quite so interested in seeing what feminine voice looked like anymore.

"Don't take it personally.  Peggy always talks like that.  Just wait 'til she
gets mad.  And it is considered bad manners to shine your light in her eyes."
Another male voice.  I crawled over towards him, and noticed a couple more
bodies propped up against the wall.  "I'm Jim Livingstone.  That's Peggy
Pease.  We're from MIT.  That's Freddy somebody over there, and I don't know
the rest of 'em."

"I'm Dave Byter, from Union.  I hope that I haven't interrupted your party." It
didn't seem like much of a party, but who knows?

"No party here.  If you want to party, you are on the wrong side of The
Gunbarrel.  If you want to see some more cave, then you are on the right side."
Livingstone made it clear enuf.  I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to carry
potato chips and beer thru The Gunbarrel.

"We were just killing time waiting for the rest of our gang to show up.  Freddy
there thinks that we would just have to hide in a hole for a few hours while
the Russians bomb us.  Peggy, on the other hand, says that the Ruskies have
enuf bombs to destroy all of the structure of our society," explained
Livingstone.

"That's assuming that you are fallout proof.  And that the cows are fallout
proof.  And that all the crops are fallout proof.  And that the bacteria and
insects which are fallout proof don't mutate into something virulent,"
interrupted Peggy, continuing her optimistic argument.  "Remember what it was
like the last time that an ice storm had the electricity out for a day, and
then multiply that by a year."

"We have fallout shelters for the entire population, filled with food and
medicine.  We have the best Civil Defense in the world.  If you are at ground
zero, that's too bad.  But if you are ten miles away, it's only a minor
inconvenience.  If they were to bomb Schenectady and Albany, here at Knox the
worst problem would be that the people working in the cities would be out of a
job." Thus spake a fellow known only as BoBo.

"A nuclear war might be good for the world.  It would help to get rid of some
of the excess population.  Too many people, not enuf planet." Such harsh words
from such a sweet voice.  Peggy must have had a deprived childhood.

Another voice.  I hadn't realized that there was anything human in that pile of
muddy rocks.  "God," she said, "will take care of us.  We are the chosen people
of The One True God, and as long as we worship Him, He will protect us.  From
anything.  It says so in The Bible, and the Bible is The Word Of God.  All this
talk of fallout shelters and Civil Defense is nonsense."

"That does have a certain kind of logic to it," was Peggy's sarcastic reply.

This line of reasoning was interrupted by some horrible noises emanating from
The Gunbarrel.  Soon a pair of boots emerged, followed by a fellow who looked
twice too fat to fit into such a hole.  "Tiny!  What took ya so long?  We've
been setting here keeping the rocks warm for an hour."

"Man, there was a party going on out there.  I had to fill up before our trip
to the Alabaster Room." Tiny was not named for his size, as I found out later,
but as a Dutch nickname for Vallentine.  "Last train now leaving.  Follow me."

Easier said than done.  Somehow Tiny managed to sort of roll along sideways
where everyone else crawled.  Lights popped up from several mudpiles, and soon
there were nearly a dozen people following our fearless leader deeper into the
bowels of the earth.

Eventually we came to a place big enuf for all of us to stand up in one place.
Way up.  Thirty feet high.  The Great Divide, it was called.  Tiny scrambled up
a pile of rocks like he was a goat.  Freddy and Peggy and a couple of others
got up, but not so gracefully.  My turn.  It was a lot harder than it looked!

Peggy was spouting off still, "...  a lot nicer for the rest of the world which
has to live with us.  Some bacterium like Pasteurella that would bring the
human population under control without poisoning the rest of the animals.  It
would save the world from nuclear war and pollution from the pesticides.  Did
you know that DDT has wiped out most of the hawks and owls, and a good part of
the songbirds?  Less birds means more mice and bugs, which means more rat
poison and bug spray, which means less birds, which means more bugs ..."

"Oh shaddap!!!  I'm tired of hearing about your plans to save humanity from
itself.  This is supposed to be a party, not a funeral." My sentiments exactly,
but Ed could get away with it.

Peggy offered barely a snarl.  But as we were to later discover, she was still
talking to herself.

Eventually we arrived at the fabled Alabaster Room.  If it weren't the end of
the cave, it wouldn't have been worth mentioning.  But it was a room of
sufficient size to allow all eleven of us to stretch out or move around without
tripping over each other.  In New York caves, that defines a "big" room.

Peggy was still mumbling to herself, and Livingstone was still trying to calm
her down.  Curious about what optimistic ideas she came up with this time, I
slithered closer.  "A bug that only attacked humans.  It could be done.  Most
of the pathogenic bacterial & viruses are quite host specific.  The Army is
doing all kinds of research trying to find one that is so host specific that it
only kills communists.  Of course that won't happen, but it is worth a lot of
fat grants.  Yeah, even if it wiped out the chimpanzees and gorillas, it would
be worth it!"

"If the bug never got to the apes, it wouldn't hurt them," commented the fellow
we would later come to call Reaper.  "It could be transmitted sexually.  That
would limit it to one species, and it would be self-limiting.  You don't really
need to wipe out all of the human population.  Ninety percent would be plenty,
even fifty percent would be a help."

"It would be nice to leave a few of us around.  It's not so much humans as a
species, but rather our ability to use technology to exceed carrying capacity,
that is ruining the planet," mused Peggy in a very uncharacteristically benign
mood.

So the seed was planted, deep beneath the earth of rural New York.  I thought
little of it at the time.  Chemistry was my specialty, and had I wanted to
decimate a population I would have just developed a better pesticide.