The Silencers

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I beat the first real blizzard of the season across the mountains east of Albuquerque, New Mexico. On the high plains beyond, with scattered snowflakes melting on the truck's windshield, I turned south and stopped for lunch in the small town of Carrizozo. The great gray wall of clouds was still chasing me, but here at a lower altitude it could produce nothing but rain.

It was still raining when I had my afternoon coffee and pie in Alamogordo in a joint called the Atomic Cafe. Everything is either nuclear or atomic in Alamogordo; they seem to be very proud of the fact that the first bomb was exploded in their neighborhood. Well, I suppose it's a distinction of sorts, but the bomb I want to see and survive, is the last one.

I asked the man at the cash register what he thought about the underground burst soon to be set off in the Manzanita Mountains, not too far away, now that the Russians had resumed testing. He said it was all right with him. At least he liked it better than an open-air test, with its danger of fall-out if the winds shifted, but he said the folks over in Carlsbad were still worrying about what the shock might do to the great caverns that were their main tourist attraction. He said pretty soon, of course, we wouldn't have these problems. All tests would be conducted in outer space, bothering only the Martians and Venusians. I hadn't heard of that possibility, but then, it's not exactly my field.

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