International Carborundum had looked around the world for a place to manufacture Cyclod B. After announcing that a local resident would be president of the facility and that it would provide not only five thousand low-paying jobs but also a hundred important positions, the company found that it had its choice of the subcontinent. It chose Gupta because it was near a good railhead. It was far enough away from Delhi so that central-government officials would have to be bribed only occasionally, and it had a mixed Indian population so that the Hindus would not accuse International Carborundum of favoring Sikhs or Muslims or Christians-and vice versa for all the combinations that existed.
They could spread the wealth.
The decision from headquarters in Dover was an immediate yes. But with one warning.
"Make sure as hell they know how damned dangerous Cyclod B is."
"Bit difficult. We sort of sold the Indian government on the idea that Cyclod B is no more dangerous than water when properly used."
"How the hell did we do that?"
"We spread rupees around like manure."
"Just make sure we have good men in safety and maintenance."
Apparently someone knew how International Carborundum worked because the good men that were hired all had the best recommendations and degrees. And men with degrees did not like to go around turning valves and knobs like untouchables. The first thing they did was order new offices, with pretty secretaries, expensive desks, and many telephones, and then they assigned the task of monitoring to underlings. These underlings ordered smaller offices for themseves and shared secretaries, but each had a personal phone. They too hired subordinates for the menial work of reading meters and checking valves.
The safety-engineering budget increased fifteenfold within a week, and thereafter it took a full day and a half with stacks of paperwork requiring six or seven signatures to get so much as a mop delivered to a hallway.
Valves that had to be checked and lubricated every day now rarely saw a human hand. And in Gupta, a lone voice was heard. An American engineer mentioned to a local newspaper that the plant was being run dangerously, but the story was not printed because it smacked of American racism.
The man tried to explain that it was not the color of the man's skin monitoring the safety valves, but the monitoring itself. He even left a pamphlet for the newspaper editorial writer showing the dangers of Cyclod B.
"I will not even look at anything brought to me by a racist," said the editorial writer.
"I'll tell you what, you just keep it around. If you still have it in a week and you haven't used it, I'll buy it back for a hundred dollars American. But I think you'll need it."
"A racist attitude. We are not only safe, but perhaps even safer because these are the lives of our own people."
The man laughed at the editorial writer.
"The only reason International Carborundum manufactures Cyclod B here is that they wouldn't dare manufacture it in America or Europe. Now who are the racists?"
"You, sir, get out," said the editorial writer, who was deeply bothered by the man's voice. He could have sworn he had heard it before, but had never seen the face before. However, even if the man were a racist, he was a help. He took a safety pin and fixed a typewriter that had been sticking for years and was thought to be too badly damaged to be repaired.
"How did you do that?"
"I know how things work," said the man. He did not leave his name or explain why he had such hostility toward Indians running American factories.
It was not long before one of the gauges on the safety valves began flicking ominously toward the red zone, the danger area for the flow of Cyclod B. The only way to make sure the chemical was safe was to be sure it always stayed liquid, and that meant keeping it at a temperature below a certain level. In the hot valley, Cyclod B had to be constantly refrigerated.
It was morning when the lowest assistant noticed the dial edging dangerously close to the red zone, which meant the temperatures were rising in the holding tanks. He ran to the third assistant safety engineer with the warning. The third assistant knew this was very important and therefore was very careful in preparing his memorandum for the second assistant safety engineer.
It was so important he rewrote it four times to make sure his syntax was correct. Then he berated the secretary for the one spelling error. He would not allow strikeovers.
The second assistant safety engineer insisted his name be included in the memorandum three times instead of just once. The third assistant had his name mentioned enough, the second assistant pointed out, because he was the sender.
And so by the time the memorandum reached the main office of the safety-engineering department, the gauges were well into the red zone and the untouchable who was assigned to read them had taken his family out of the city. He knew what they meant. He had worked in the factory a long time and the American racists were the only ones who talked to him, and they explained things to him.
They had told him that when the needles on the temperature gauges hit red, he should do one of two things. The first was to run.
And what was the second?
"Place your head carefully between your legs, bend over very far, and kiss your ass good-bye. "
Cyclod B became a gas quietly as the temperatures rose, and as it became gas it put pressure on the entire tank system, and as this happened other gauges began to creep into the danger zone, and as that happened, the director of safety engineering was meeting with his subordinates preparing their plan to increase the size of their department.
This memo read that there never could be too high a price for safety. It warned of the danger of chemicals. It proposed a most reasonable solution to the pressing personnel problem. More secretaries. Pretty ones, possibly from Bombay or Calcutta.
The pressurized gas burst one seam and that was all that was needed. It came out in a small grayishwhite cloud, somewhat thicker than the normal haze of the Gupta valley.
The first person who smelled it was an untouchable gathering dung on the road. It smelled like a charcoal fire. He wondered who was burning expensive wood. The odor was somewhat pleasant and it tickled his nostrils. Then he realized there was no more tickling. His nostrils were numb, and his limbs were numb, and the sun had gone out of the sky.
He dropped just as the cow down the road had dropped. Silently the gray cloud spread slowly across the valley without any wind to disperse it. The cloud grew and moved through the factory and into the city, cutting down people more thoroughly and viciously than any Mogul invader.
Babies cried and then stopped crying as desperate mothers shook them and then fell themselves, dropping their children into the dust as they died. Mothers, even in death, were seen crouched over the bodies of their children as if to protect them.
The rich important people who were not in the factory area escaped by car. It was four days before the city was safe to enter. Everywhere was carnage. Indian Army soldiers had to wear gas masks, not as protection from the Cyclod B that had by now been slowly dissolved into the air, but to block the stench of rotting flesh.
At first, government officials, not wanting to lose a valuable factory, tried to run a logical inquiry. But an outcry arose from the survivors.
The Times of Gupta had proof that Cyclod B was a liquid so dangerous that International Carborundum would not dare manufacture it in an American or European country. They had instead carelessly chosen a valley in India whose heat could turn the liquid into a deadly gas.