Waste Not, Want Not

the world was in peril until mr. gripfiler appeared with his marvelous machine

The six men filed in. Barnes, of the Interior. Hoop, representing Asio-Africo. Gosboy, of the Russkers Group. A stringy little gnome from the Arctic Combines. Edestone, Commerce. The chairman, Leader Maskisson of the Amerrikabloc, started at once.

"I have evidence, gentlemen, of dumping in the Indian Ocean. Leader Hoop's beach plants are flooding ----"

Everyone stared at the ceiling in agonized embarrassment. Always The Problem. Never a solution.

"You know," Maskisson went on, "that this has been coming upon us for years, ever since Ben Salter, on that memorable day in April 1997, found that every razor-blade slot in his house was overflowing."

The other men nodded glumly. As if they didn't know when The Problem first began.

"And now there just isn't any more room," Maskisson continued, "and we, the Leaders, must find a way. But, as we well know, it is our duty to foster short-life permanent-expendables."

All the men stood up together and murmured reverently, "Bless Waste."

Then they all sat down and shook their heads. All except Barnes, of the Interior. He waved his hand to attract the chairman.

"I have a contractor. I have proof. He will get rid of it all," he broke out. He seemed oblivious to the hostile stares of the others, who remembered that Barnes had tried this stunt before. That "contractor" had tried to resell waste. He had been given 20 years for seven counts of extended over-use, and The Problem was worse than ever. Now here was that fool Barnes with another one.

But even before Maskisson could protest, Barnes had swung open the door to the conference room and led in a little, smiling, plump man in a sparkling weldcloth suit.

"Now, Leaders, Mr. Gripfiler will show you," he said proudly.

Mr. Gripfiler smiled still more. He snapped open his eternametal handcase and revealed a beautifully constructed device made of transparent life-rock and polished durametal. In its center, cradled in a mesh of platinum filament wires, was a hollow durametal hopper, with a clamshell mouth.

"This, sirs, is my Wondergrinder," said Mr. Gripfiler. "It will dispose of anything. Permanently, and with not a trace of vapor, smog, residue or sludge."

"Even an absoblade?" smiled Hoop, trying to make a dismal joke. Everyone knew that nothing made by man's perfect technology was more difficult to dispose of after its time than one of these deadly little shining blades. Made of special alloy eternametal, they never lost their cutting edge, and with the recent up in quotas for the Absoblade Combine no one was permitted to use one for more than a single shave. Any such reactionism would start a dangerous autocycle.

"Do you have one handy?" asked Mr. Gripfiler.

A blade was found in the stainless flint tile washroom just off the conference chamber. Flicking open the tiny clamshell jaws with a chubby finger, Mr. Gripfiler dropped the absoblade in the hopper. The jaws snapped shut. Mr. Gripfiler twisted a knob. The filament wires glowed red for a second, then faded to a dull white.

Mr. Gripfiler flicked open the jaws of the hopper. The absoblade was gone. Each Leader felt that he had witnessed some expert sleight-of-hand. So they gave him pocket tissues, folding knives, watches -- all the intricate little articles they would soon have to drop into waste-chutes and replace with new models. And each time, no matter how full they stuffed the little hopper, Mr. Gripfiler made them vanish. Without a trace.

Maskisson broke the silence. "I'm convinced," he said, "but I should get the feeling of the others ----"

The Leaders looked at him. They nodded.

"Take it," said Gospoy.

"Sign paper now," urged the Arctic Leader.

They accepted Mr. Gripfiler's terms. He was as good as his word, and soon 500 full-scale Wondergrinders were operating in each disposal sector of Worldfed, obediently swallowing every shred of rejected waste.

But no one thought to ask Mr. Gripfiler where it went.

No one cared. The Problem was solved.

• • •

Blurro IV sat gracefully on a magnesium bench and indolently arranged his fibroid toga. In Blurro's world of 80,704 there were no problems. Progress had outmoded itself at least 30 thousand years ago, largely due to the Wondergrinder, reputed to have been created out of the mud of the Nile in the Year of Troubles, 2080, or thereabouts. No one cared much for history. They only knew that those blessed machines with their clamshell jaws took care of all the junk that man could produce. It all went into the Divine Wondergrinder and vanished. Blurro's world was tidy and at peace. There were no problems.

But now, on this day of June 80,704, the air before Blurro's eyes seemed to become pregnant. It struggled to give birth to an object. Then, with a tiny plop of gratified release, a small object fell at Blurro's feet. He picked it up, and promptly cut his finger. Then other objects fell, like solid rain. Two tiny ticking machines. Some crumpled pieces of paper. A folding knife.

In a month the garden world of the year 80,704 was a mess. An ugly and dangerous mess, for everywhere came the steady shower of deadly sharp absoblades.

It took the wisest thinker, Clarol III, to solve the problem. With a stroke of mind as brilliant and as irresponsible as the original Gripfiler's, Clarol not only reset, but reoriented, the Wondergrinders. Now they sent the junk on, not only in time, but also in space.

No one asked Clarol where it went. No one cared. The Problem was solved.

• • •

Thirty million light years away, on the grubby little planet Omicron, the last remaining pair of great scaled Longfipes dragged their 80 feebly twitching legs across the bone-strewn wastes of granite and basalt. Death faced this pair, for they had eaten the last loose chunks of metallic ore they could paw from the ground.

The huge male could only belch a feeble smoke puff from his cavernous mouth. Then something flickered in the air before the tired female's half-shut eye. Then another flicker, and she caught the morsel with her upper feeder palp. It was tiny, but it crunched with metallic promise. More shreds fell. She nudged her vast mate. He opened one of his five eyes to see manna falling from heaven.

When the four yellow moons had circled Omicron again, the two Longfipes were browsing contentedly through a vast stack of non-refillable metabotts, stainless durametal cans, and permanent metaloid furniture which fell in a steady stream from the upper stratosphere. Their digestive fires flared with a healthy crackling roar, and as the male raised his huge upper jaw, a long swirling blast of white flame seared the enamel from a pile of old autobodies before him.

Gamboling clumsily behind their parents were two Longfipe cubs, scooping up mouthfuls of the shining absoblades which covered the plain like petals from a metallic flower.

And they didn't stop to ask where this blessed provender came from.

They didn't care -- they just ate and were content.