Flavor in Space: Ch 41

I know a chemist who is interested in sanitation. Clean water for the world is what he wants.

He describes, "There are people in the Middle Kingdom who live near factories and are poisoned by bad water. They need clean water and I want to design chemical filters that will give them clean water." Forget that the filters are disposed of in the Middle Kingdom. It is a big place, in its vast factories, under its poison brown skies, workers assemble the parts for the whole galaxy. "They need clean water," he says.

I reason with him, "In Aidni there are many people who bath in water that you call dirty and they even drink this water, but they don't get sick. Each, in their own body, have helpers who break down the inedible things in the water. There are those who live inside the stomach and make the water clean. Was it not the same here in Nohin?"

"It is true," he says, "that at one time here in Nohin, here in Otoyk, we once had these helpers too. We each had a fellowship in our body that broke down the poisons and made our water clean.... But we don't have it anymore. Our water is cleaned for us in big tanks with many machines."

"So we have lost our fellowship, and we can't drink the water from the river anymore? How do you imagine the future? Will we develop these helpers again? Will we eventually be able to drink the water from the river again?"

The chemist stops his talk, and decides to come back in a week and tell me. He comes back with his decision, "It is much more efficient to clean all the water for all the people with one standardized machine. It is very difficult and very dangerous to develop cleaning devices in one's own stomach. To develop personally in this way would hurt one's stomach everyday for years, and maybe some people might even die."