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Suppose that the sort of ice we
skate upon and put into highballs--what we might call ice-one--is only one
of several types of ice. Suppose water always froze as ice-one on Earth
because it had never had a seed to teach it how to form ice-two, ice-three,
ice-four…? And suppose,"…that there were one form, which
we will call ice-nine--a crystal…with a melting point of, let us say,…one-hundred-and-thirty
degrees." If [a] Marine threw that Seed into the nearest puddle...?" "The puddle would freeze?" I guessed. "And all the muck around the puddle?" "It would freeze?" "And all the puddles in the frozen muck?" "They would freeze?" "And the pools and the streams in the frozen muck?" "They would freeze?" "You bet they would!" he cried. "And the United States Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!" "If the streams flowing through the swamp froze as ice-nine, what about the rivers and lakes the streams fed?" "They'd freeze…" "And the oceans the frozen rivers fed?" "They'd freeze, of course…" "And the springs feeding the frozen lakes and streams, and all the water underground feeding the springs?" "They'd freeze, damn it!" he cried. "And the rain?" "When it fell, it would freeze into bard little hobnails of ice-nine--and that would be the end of the world!" Adapted from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Cat's Cradle. [New York: Dell, 1963] |