Why Do Birds

CHAPTER 9

Sit down, Mr. Stone," Thomas Moore said. The two men shook hands and seated themselves. "My secretary told me I ought to see you, but I'm not sure why. I understand you have some kind of unusual project."

"That's right, I want to find somebody to build a cube big enough to pack the whole human race into it."

"You do?"

"Uh-huh, and I guess the first thing is, how big would it have to be?"

The architect scratched his nose. "Well, the world population is around six billion now. Can I assume-"

"Wait a minute. Six billion? Back in the thirties, it was about two. How could that happen?"

"Natural increase, I suppose. Anyway, am I right that you want to pack them in there dead? They don't have to have room to move around?"

"Not dead exactly, but yeah, just pack them in."

"Okay, fine. Well, suppose we figure about twenty-five cubic feet per person. That's high, because some of them will be children, but if you want to standardize it- You're going to put each body in a casket, and then just stack them on some sort of structural grid?"

"Right."

"Okay, let's go with twenty-five, then, and let's take a wild guess that you'd need another thirteen cubic feet apiece for structural members." He tapped keys on his desktop. "That would give you a cube just over sixty-one hundred feet on a side-about one and two-tenths miles."

"Okay."

"But now you want the whole population, is that right? Every man, woman and child?"

"Uh-huh."

"All right, you've got to figure that you're dealing with an exploding population. How big is it going to be when you get this thing built? Suppose it takes twenty years. By that time you'd have a world population of maybe six and a quarter billion, unless we get another wave of famines. Okay, but now you've got the thing built and you're packing them in. How long will that take? Let's say you can load a million a day." He tapped keys again.

"That's going to take you about sixteen and a half years," he said, "but the more you load in, the less there are outside to propagate, so you're budgeting more space than you need. You really want a computer program for this, and it's sensitive to all kinds of factors."

"Where could I get a program like that?"

"That's easy, you could use a standard population generator or even a spreadsheet, but you don't know yet what numbers to put into it. You have to make some assumptions about population growth. You need to know how long construction will take. Can you load them in while construction is going on? That might be the easiest way, in fact. How do you organize transportation, and so on? I assume you realize that this is a bizarre idea."

"Yes, I do. Well, one more thing I wanted to ask you, is it a practical proposition, just to build something that big?"

"Depends on what you mean by practical. Frank Lloyd Wright drew plans for a mile-high tower in the thirties, and Paolo Soleri had some plans for even bigger structures, but they never came to anything."

"Why not?"

"Well, anything that tall would be a hazard to planes, especially if it was near a major airport. And there just never seemed to be any good reason to do it. It doesn't make economic sense to build high except in the core areas of big cities, where the land costs so much that you can't afford to build low. Even there, when you get above about a thousand feet, the wind load problems multiply, the damn thing sways like a flagpole, and you get more headaches than you're paying for."

"So, anyway, if there was a real good reason, you could do it?"

"It could be done, sure."

"Could your outfit take it on?"

"No, we don't do anything on that scale. You want somebody like Norman Chang, or Richter Associates in Chicago."

"How much would it cost, do you think?"

''Just for the design? I'd say about ten million."

"Thanks a lot," said Stone. "Say, I hate to bring this up, but I wonder if you could lend me three thousand dollars."

"Three thousand? Well, it's unusual-"

''I'll pay you back as soon as I get on my feet."

"All right. I'm feeling a little bizarre myself." The architect took some bills out of his wallet.

"Thanks a lot, Mr. Moore."

"Happy to be of help. Keep in touch, will you?"

Mrs. Rooney smiled as the young man came out of the inner office. "How did it go?" she asked.

"Swell. Say, have you got a business card I could take, and have you got an envelope and a stamp?"

"A stamp?"

"You know, a postage stamp?"

She shook her head. "Don't you remember, the post office went out of business? Do you want to send a fax?"

"No, some money. You mean to say I can't mail a letter anymore?"

"Afraid not. We use fax and electronic transfer now. Give me the money and I'll take care of it."

"Would you? That's swell." He handed her a bill and wrote on her desk pad: Dr. Wellafield, State Mental Health Care Facility, Trenton, New jersey.

"There's my man," said Rong when Stone walked in. They were at a different table, and there were more of them now, two women besides Mary, and two men. Dick was there too; Paul was behind the bar. They all crowded aside to make room for Stone. "You made it, huh?"

"Yeah." Stone took the wig out of his pocket and handed it to Mary. "Hey, thanks a lot." He took some bills out of his pocket. "Here's three hundred for your trouble, and here's the three hundred I owe you, Rong, and here's another three hundred for you, Sherman. You been buying all the drinks?"

Cohen waved his hands. "'S all right," he said. "Good folks."

Rong said, "Okay, this is Cindy and this is Loella"-two young black women, one fat and one slim-"this is Shir-ley"-a large white male-"and this here is Julio"-a grayhaired Hispanic. Stone shook hands with all of them.

"Listen," he said to Cohen, "I stopped off at Bernice Fashions on the way out and left your package, okay? Here's the receipt."

"Won-der-ful," said Cohen. "That was won-der-ful."

"You think we ought to get him home?'' Shirley asked. "Where at do you live, Sherm?"

"Ho-bo-ken."

"Me and Julio will take him over. "What's the address, Sherm? Where's it at?"

"Hunnerd fifty-two ."

"Hundred fifty-two what?"

"Look on his ID, on the clipboard," said Stone.

"Okay, we got it. Come on, Sherm." They hoisted Cohen to his feet and took him away smiling and waving. The others spread out around the table with expressions of relief.

"Listen, can we get something to eat here?" Stone asked.

"Sure you can," said Dick. "Corned beef sandwich, roast beef sandwich, or pizza from next door. "

"Okay, I want the corned beef, and then I got to find a place to stay tonight."

"How much money you got left, Ed?"

He looked in his wallet. "Eleven hundred."

"Well, that ain't going to go very far. You got to pay for your sandwich, and then there's breakfast tomorrow." Dick stood up and went to the terminal booth in the comer. He tapped keys, leaving the door open, and called back, "Here's the Marlin Hotel, six-fifty a night, but that's in Brooklyn. You want Manhattan?"

"Yeah, I'd better."

Dick peered at the screen again. "The Netherland, seven hundred a night? It's on Canal Street."

"Seven hundred? Is that the cheapest?"

"Unless you want a shelter. I wouldn't send my brother in-law to one of them places, and besides, have you got a blue card?"

"I don't think so."

Loella said, "Listen, you can come home with I and Cindy."

"Hey, thanks, but I think I better get a hotel and get up early-I got a bunch more calls to make."

"Yeah? What's next, Ed?"

"Well, I got to talk to some banks about a loan."

"For money to live on, huh? That's smart."

"No, for money to build the big box."