d
until a way is found to kill the Grass."

There was a faintly familiar ring to the scheme.

"You seem to have worked it out thoroughly, Burlet."

"Polishing the plate, sir."

"Polishing the plate?"

"It leaves the mind free for cerebration. I ave a full set of blueprints
and specifications, if youd like to inspect them, sir."

It was fantastic, I thought, and probably quite impractical, but I
promised to submit his plans to those with more technical knowledge than
I possessed. I sent his carefully written papers to an undersecretary of
the World Congress and forgot the matter. Idleness certainly led to
queer occupations. Vertical cities--and who in the world had the money
to erect these nightmare structures? Only Albert Weener--that was
probably why Burlet took advantage of his position to approach me with
the scheme. Completely absurd....

_86._ Probably the complaints of the Australians gave final impetus to
the Congress to Combat the Grass. They met in extraordinary session in
Budapest and declared themselves the executive body of a world
government, which did not of course include the Socialist Union. All
qualified scientists were immediately ordered to leave whatever
employment they had and place themselves at the disposition of the World
Government. Affluence for life, guaranteed against any fluctuations of
currency, was promised to anyone who could offer, not necessarily an
answer, but an idea which should lead to the solution of the problem in
hand. While they were issuing their first edicts the Grass finished off
the East Indies, covered threequarters of Australia and attacked the
southern Philippines.

Millions of Indonesians traveling the comparatively short distances in
anything floatable crowded the already overpopulated areas of Asia. As I
had predicted to General Thario, these refugees carried nothing with
which to purchase the concentrates to keep them alive, and conditions of
famine in India and China, essentially due to the backwardness of these
countries, offered no subsistence to the natives--much less to an influx
from outside.

The Grass sped northward and westward through the Malay States and Siam,
up into China and Burma. In the beginning the Orientals did not flee,
but stood their ground, village by village and family by family,
opposing the advance with scythes, stones, and pitiful bonfires of their
household belongings, with hoes, flails, and finally with their bare
hands. But