There was silence in the office for the next few hours. Arnold worked steadily, adding chemicals, pouring off precipitates, checking the results in several large books he kept on his desk. Gregor brought in sandwiches and coffee. After eating, he paced up and down and watched the grey powder tumble steadily out of the machine.
The purr of the Producer grew steadily louder, and the powder flowed in a thick stream.
An hour after lunch Arnold stood up. "We are in!" he stated.
"What is that stuff?" Gregor asked, wondering if, for once, Arnold had hit upon something.
"That stuff," Arnold said, "is Tangreese." He looked expectantly at Gregor.
"Tangreese, eh?"
"Absolutely."
"Then would you kindly tell me what Tangreese is?" Gregor shouted.
"I thought you knew. Tangreese is the basic food of the Meldgen people. An adult Meldgen consumes several tons a year."
"Food, eh?" Gregor looked at the thick grey powder with new respect. A machine which turned out food steadily, twenty-four hours a day, might be a very good moneymaker. Especially if the machine never needed servicing, and cost nothing to run.
Arnold already had the telephone book open. "Here we are." He dialled a number. "Hello, Interstellar Food Corporation? Let me speak to the president. What? He isn't? The vice-president, then. This is important ... Channels, eh? All right, here's the story. I am in a position to supply you with an almost unlimited quantity of Tangreese, the basic food of the Meldgen people. That's right. I knew you'd be interested. Yes, of course I'll hold on."
He turned to Gregor. "These corporations think they can push — yes? ... Yes sir, that's right, sir. You do handle Tangreese, eh? ... Fine, splendid!"
Gregor moved closer, trying to hear what was being said on the other end. Arnold pushed him away.
"Price? Well, what is the fair market price? ... Oh. Well, five dollars a ton isn't much, but I suppose — what? Five cents a ton? You're kidding! Let's be serious now."
Gregor walked away from the telephone and sank wearily into a chair. Apathetically he listened to Arnold saying, "Yes, yes. Well, I didn't know that... I see. Thank you."
Arnold hung up. "It seems," he said, "there's not much demand for Tangreese on Earth. There are only about fifty Meldgens here, and the cost of transporting it to the northern periphery is prohibitively high."
Gregor raised both eyebrows and looked at the Producer. Apparently it had hit its stride, for Tangreese was pouring out like water from a high-pressure hose. There was grey powder over everything in the room. It was half a foot deep in front of the machine.
"Never mind," Arnold said. "It must be used for something else." He returned to his desk and opened several more large books.
"Shouldn't we turn it off in the meantime?" Gregor asked.
"Certainly not," Arnold said. "It's free, don't you understand? It's making money for us."
He plunged into his books. Gregor began to pace the floor, but found it difficult wading through the ankle-deep Tangreese. He slumped into his chair, wondering why he hadn't gone into landscape gardening.
By early evening, a grey dust filled the room to a depth of several feet. Several pens, pencils, a briefcase and a small filing cabinet were already lost in it, and Gregor was beginning to wonder if the floor would hold the weight. He had to shovel a path to the door, using a wastepaper basket as an improvised spade.
Arnold finally closed his books with a look of weary satisfaction. "There is another use."
"What?"
"Tangreese is used as a building material. After a few weeks exposure to the air, it hardens like granite, you know."
"No, I didn't."
"Get a construction company on the telephone. We'll take care of this right now."
Gregor called the Toledo-Mars Construction Company and told a Mr O'Toole that they were prepared to supply them with an almost unlimited quantity of Tangreese.
"Tangreese, eh?" O'Toole said. "Not too popular as a building material these days. Doesn't hold paint, you know."
"No, I didn't," Gregor said.
"Fact. Tell you what. Tangreese can be eaten by some crazy race. Why don't you—"
"We prefer to sell it as a building material," Gregor said.
"Well, I suppose we can buy it. Always some cheap construction going on. Give you fifteen a ton for it."
"Dollars?"
"Cents."
"I'll let you know," Gregor said.
His partner nodded sagely when he heard the offer. "That's all right. Say this machine of ours produces ten tons a day, every day, year after year. Let's see ..." He did some quick figuring with his slide rule. "That's almost five hundred and fifty dollars a year. Won't make us rich, but it'll help pay the rent."
"But we can't leave it here," Gregor said, looking with alarm at the ever-increasing pile of Tangreese.
"Of course not. We'll find a vacant lot in the country and turn it loose. They can haul the stuff away any time they like."
Gregor called O'Toole and said they would be happy to do business.
"All right," O'Toole said. "You know where our plant is. Just truck the stuff in any old time."
"Us truck it in? I thought you—"
"At fifteen cents a ton? No, we're doing you a favour just taking it off your hands. You truck it in."
"That's bad," Arnold said, after Gregor had hung up. "The cost of transporting it—"
"Would be far more than fifteen cents a ton," Gregor said. "You'd better shut that thing off until we decide what to do."
Arnold waded up to the Producer. "Let me see," he said. "To turn it off I use the Laxian Key." He studied the front of the machine.
"Go ahead, turn it off," Gregor said.
"Just a moment."
"Are you going to turn it off or not?"
Arnold straightened up and gave an embarrassed little laugh. "It's not that easy."
"Why not?"
"We need a Laxian Key to turn it off. And we don't seem to have one."
The next few hours were spent in frantic telephone calls around the country. Gregor and Arnold contacted museums, research institutions, the archaeological departments of colleges, and anyone else they could think of. No one had ever seen a Laxian Key or heard of one being found.
In desperation, Arnold called Joe, the Interstellar Junkman, at his downtown penthouse.
"No, I ain't got no Laxian Key," Joe said. "Why you think I sold you the gadget so cheap?"
They put down the telephone and stared at each other. The Meldgen Free Producer was cheerfully blasting out its stream of worthless powder. Two chairs and a radiator had disappeared into it, and the grey Tangreese was approaching desk-top level.
"Nice little wage earner," Gregor said.
"We'll think of something."
"We?"
Arnold returned to his books and spent the rest of the night searching for another use for Tangreese. Gregor had to shovel the grey powder into the hall, to keep their office from becoming completely submerged.
The morning came, and the sun gleamed gaily on their windows through a film of grey dust. Arnold stood up and yawned.
"No luck?" Gregor asked.
"I'm afraid not."
Gregor waded out for coffee. When he returned, the building superintendent and two large red-faced policemen were shouting at Arnold.
"You gotta get every bit of that sand outa my hall!" the super screamed.
"Yes, and there's an ordinance against operating a factory in a business district," one of the red-faced policemen said.
"This isn't a factory," Gregor explained. "This is a Meldgen Free—"
"I say it's a factory," the policeman said. "And I say you gotta cease operation at once."
"That's our problem," Arnold said. "We can't seem to turn it off."
"Can't turn it off?" The policeman glared at them suspiciously. "You trying to kid me? I say you gotta turn it off."