All Flesh Is Grass by Clifford D. Simak Read Free Book Online

“in another day or so. Why don’t you come with me? I’m working with a crazy sort of project. There would be room for you. I know the supervisor pretty well and I could speak to him.”
    â€œDoing what?” I asked. “Maybe it would be something that I couldn’t do.”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Alf, “if I can explain it very logically. “It’s a research project—a thinking project. You sit in a booth and think.”
    â€œThink?”
    â€œYeah. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But it’s not the way it sounds. You sit down in a booth and you get a card that has a question or a problem printed on it. Then you think about that problem and you’re supposed to think out loud, sort of talking to yourself, sometimes arguing with yourself. You’re self-conscious to start with, but you get over that. The booth is soundproofed and no one can see or hear you. I suppose there is a recorder of some sort to take down what you say, but if there is, it’s not in sight.”
    â€œAnd they pay you for this?”
    â€œRather well,” said Alf. “A man can get along.”
    â€œBut what is it for?” I asked.
    â€œWe don’t know,” said Alf. “Not that we haven’t asked. But that’s the one condition of the job—that you don’t know what it’s all about. It’s an experiment of some sort, I’d guess. I imagine that it’s financed by a university or some research outfit. We are told that if we knew what was going on it might influence the way we are thinking. A man might unconsciously pattern his thinking to fit the purpose of the research.”
    â€œAnd the results?” I asked.
    â€œWe aren’t told results. Each thinker must have a certain kind of pattern and if you knew that pattern it might influence you. You might try to conform to your own personal pattern, to be consistent, or perhaps there’d be a tendency to break out of it. If you don’t know the results, you can’t guess at the pattern and there is then no danger.”
    A truck went by in the street outside and its rumble was loud in the quietness of the tavern. And after it went past, there was a fly buzzing on the ceiling. The people up in front apparently had left—at least, they weren’t talking any more. I looked around for Stiffy Grant and he wasn’t there. I recalled now that I had not seen him and that was funny, for I’d just given him the dollar.
    â€œWhere is this place?” I asked.
    â€œMississippi. Greenbriar, Mississippi. It’s just a little place. Come to think of it, it’s a lot like Millville. Just a little village, quiet and dusty and hot. My God, how hot it is. But the project center is air conditioned. It isn’t had in there.”
    â€œA little town,” I said. “Funny that there’d be a place like that in a little town.”
    â€œCamouflage,” said Alf. “They want to keep it quiet. We’re asked not to talk about it. And how could you hide it better than in a little place like that? No one would ever think there’d be a project of that sort in a stuck-off village.”
    â€œBut you were a stranger …”
    â€œSure, and that’s how I got the job. They didn’t want too many local people. All of them would have a tendency to think pretty much alike. They were glad to get someone from out of town. There are quite a lot of out-of-towners in the project.”
    â€œAnd before that?”
    â€œBefore that? Oh, yes, I see. Before that there was everything. I floated, bummed around. Never stayed too long in any spot. A job for a few weeks here, then a job for a few weeks a little farther on. I guess you could say I drifted. Worked on a concrete gang for a while, washed dishes for a while when the cash ran out and there was nothing else to do. Was a gardener on a big estate down in Louisville for a month or two. Picked