Bread Overhead | Page 5

Gryce carefully inserted both hands into his scanty hair,
feeling for a good grip. He leaned menacingly toward Roger who, chin
resting on the table, regarded him apathetically.
"Hold it!" Meg called sharply. "Flock of multiple-urgents coming in.
News Liaison: information bureaus swamped with flying-bread
inquiries. Aero-expresslines: Clear our airways or face law suit. U. S.
Army: Why do loaves flame when hit by incendiary bullets? U. S.
Customs: If bread intended for export, get export license or face
prosecution. Russian Consulate in Chicago: Advise on destination of
bread-lift. And some Kansas church is accusing us of a hoax inciting to
blasphemy, of faking miracles--I don't know why."
The business girl tore off her headphones. "Roger Snedden," she cried
with a hysteria that would have dumfounded her underlings, "you've
brought the name of Puffyloaf in front of the whole world, all right!

Now do something about the situation!"
Roger nodded obediently. But his pallor increased a shade, the pupils
of his eyes disappeared under the upper lids, and his head burrowed
beneath his forearms.
"Oh, boy," Rose Thinker called gayly to Tin Philosopher, "this looks
like the start of a real crisis session! Did you remember to bring spare
batteries?"
* * * * *
Meanwhile, the monstrous flight of Puffyloaves, filling midwestern
skies as no small fliers had since the days of the passenger pigeon,
soared steadily onward.
Private fliers approached the brown and glistening bread-front in
curiosity and dipped back in awe. Aero-expresslines organized
sightseeing flights along the flanks. Planes of the government forestry
and agricultural services and 'copters bearing the Puffyloaf emblem
hovered on the fringes, watching developments and waiting for orders.
A squadron of supersonic fighters hung menacingly above.
The behavior of birds varied considerably. Most fled or gave the loaves
a wide berth, but some bolder species, discovering the minimal
nutritive nature of the translucent brown objects, attacked them
furiously with beaks and claws. Hydrogen diffusing slowly through the
crusts had now distended most of the sealed plastic wrappers into little
balloons, which ruptured, when pierced, with disconcerting pops.
Below, neck-craning citizens crowded streets and back yards, cranks
and cultists had a field day, while local and national governments raged
indiscriminately at Puffyloaf and at each other.
Rumors that a fusion weapon would be exploded in the midst of the
flying bread drew angry protests from conservationists and a flood of
telefax pamphlets titled "H-Loaf or H-bomb?"

Stockholm sent a mystifying note of praise to the United Nations Food
Organization.
Delhi issued nervous denials of a millet blight that no one had heard of
until that moment and reaffirmed India's ability to feed her population
with no outside help except the usual.
Radio Moscow asserted that the Kremlin would brook no interference
in its treatment of the Ukrainians, jokingly referred to the flying bread
as a farce perpetrated by mad internationalists inhabiting Cloud Cuckoo
Land, added contradictory references to airborne bread booby-trapped
by Capitalist gangsters, and then fell moodily silent on the whole topic.
Radio Venus reported to its winged audience that Earth's inhabitants
were establishing food depots in the upper air, preparatory to taking up
permanent aerial residence "such as we have always enjoyed on
Venus."
* * * * *
NewNew York made feverish preparations for the passage of the flying
bread. Tickets for sightseeing space in skyscrapers were sold at high
prices; cold meats and potted spreads were hawked to viewers with the
assurance that they would be able to snag the bread out of the air and
enjoy a historic sandwich.
Phineas T. Gryce, escaping from his own managerial suite, raged about
the city, demanding general cooperation in the stretching of great nets
between the skyscrapers to trap the errant loaves. He was captured by
Tin Philosopher, escaped again, and was found posted with oxygen
mask and submachine gun on the topmost spire of Puffyloaf Tower,
apparently determined to shoot down the loaves as they appeared and
before they involved his company in more trouble with Customs and
the State Department.
Recaptured by Tin Philosopher, who suffered only minor bullet holes,
he was given a series of mild electroshocks and returned to the
conference table, calm and clear-headed as ever.

[Illustration]
But the bread flight, swinging away from a hurricane moving up the
Atlantic coast, crossed a clouded-in Boston by night and disappeared
into a high Atlantic overcast, also thereby evading a local storm
generated by the Weather Department in a last-minute effort to bring
down or at least disperse the H-loaves.
Warnings and counterwarnings by Communist and Capitalist
governments seriously interfered with military trailing of the flight
during this period and it was actually lost in touch with for several
days.
At scattered points, seagulls were observed fighting over individual
loaves floating down from the gray roof--that was all.
A mood of spirituality