AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION             "The SETI (Search for
                                               Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
               by Phillip Nolte                transmitters had been wildly
                                               successful even if the outcome
              Copyright (c)1992                of the project wasn't exactly
                                               what its founders had in mind."

It all started when the earth was invaded by the Space Aliens last year. The SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) transmitters had been wildly successful even if the outcome of the project wasn't exactly what its founders had in mind. Make no mistake about it, it was an exciting time to be a newsman. You could see it in the headlines blazing the news all across the country: Earth Attacked by Space Aliens From the Andromeda Galaxy! Alien Base on Far Side of Moon! Far-out Foreigners Fight European Forces, Immediate Surrender Demanded!

Yes indeed, a very exciting time to be a newspaper reporter. Unless of course, like me, you were assigned to the agricultural beat in rural Idaho! Yes, Space Aliens were set to land on the White House lawn, governments all over the world were contemplating the future of mankind and was I covering the story? Was I in the front lines, poised to garner fame and glory? No. I was driving my old, beat-up Subaru out to Arco, Idaho to visit with the object of this week's farmer spotlight, Lester W. McGill, an eccentric potato farmer. McGill had designed or adapted some electronic gadgets for the purpose of getting his spuds into and out of the ground more efficiently! Lucky me! See article and photos, page 6C, just beneath the obituaries, right above the ad for ribbed implement tires!

Surely there would be a reward for me in the afterlife, I thought, because I was certainly doing my penance now!

The radio signal on the all-news station had faded away as I went behind the mountains, taking me out of touch with the news that I craved. All the other stations were playing country-western music. Dolly Parton and Waylon Jennings don't know much 'bout flyin' saucers.

Mercifully, I finally found the farm out on RR 2 Arco. Right where they said it would be. You've heard the directions before: "Yeah, ya'll jus' go on down pas' the feed store and take the firs' turn to the lef' and go `bout one and a half mile to that big center pivot irr-ee-gation rig, then ya'll head straight for them Lemhi Mountains. Ya'll cain't miss the farm, It's the one with the gee-o-deesik dome out back!"

This means, of course that you'll never find it on your first try! Or your second. I did well to find it on my third, mostly because of the geodesic dome, which made me some 28 minutes late for my appointment. I did know from experience, however, that these folks were used to time being somewhat flexible so I didn't worry overmuch.

As expected, the McGill place was a complete mess! This guy was one of those fellows who collected all manner of junk, preferably that which he could get for free or for a low, low price. He'd cart these treasures back to the farm with big plans for modifying them or salvaging parts from them but inevitably wound up forgetting about them when he got sidetracked by something even more compelling. If this process is given enough time, the junk will eventually overwhelm the entire yard. The saturation point had been reached sometime ago at McGill's, but that hadn't stopped the junk from continuing to accumulate.

Some of the hulks and bits of rusted metal were recognizable as old farm implements or truck parts while others were weird conglomerations of the familiar, the somewhat familiar, and the very strange. You know the kind of stuff I mean, someone's dream of a better mousetrap or spud planter or what-have-you that took a lot of time but didn't work out quite right and is now longforgotten. From the looks of things, McGill had been the undertaker for other people's dream machines for a good many years! In spite of myself, I was intrigued; I'd always been fascinated by junk yards.

I slung my camera bag over my shoulder and grasped my note pad in my hand as I waded through the junk and knocked on the front door of a crooked little house that had, at one time, been white. While I waited for a response, I noticed that the front lawn was long, weedy and unkempt.

Mrs. McGill was wiping her hands on a red gingham apron when she opened the door to let me in. She was a short, slender middle-aged lady, well preserved with clear blue eyes and an honest, farmer's-wife face. The only concession she made to her age was her hair color. It was an awful outof-the-bottle pinkish-red that looks so damned unnatural, that it makes you shake your head in wonder at why people would actually pay money to have someone do that to their hair. Naturally, I told her I liked it.

The house reminded me of my Grandma's place. It was permeated with the smell of fresh-baked bread and freshbrewed coffee. In sharp contrast to the outside, the interior of the house was primly decorated and neat as a pin. It was as though the front door was the border between two distinct worlds chaos without and order within!

"You're the reporter from the `Eastern Idaho Sentinel' ain't you?" she said, with that endearing Western accent that you either come to love so well or to really hate if you live out here long enough.

"Yes, Ma'am," I replied, reverting to the local dialect, "Trevor Dahlgren, at your service!"

"Here, Mr. Dahlgren, take this basket o' cinnamon rolls, an' I'll take this tray o' coffee and cups an' we'll go out back to the gee-o-deezic dome. That's where Les is workin' right now."

I followed the slight, almost frail form of Mrs. McGill (there are no Ms. out here in this part of the country!) across the junk-strewn farmyard out to the largish geodesic dome with the imposing outlines of the snow-capped Lemhi mountain range outlined against the sky behind it.

"Ain't thet somethin' 'bout them Space Aliens, Mr. Dahlgren?"

"Yes, Mrs. McGill, it certainly is! Please, call me Trevor."

"My name's Dorothy. Well never fear, Mr. Trevor, my Les is gonna save the world. Fact is, you got here jus' in time."

"I... ah... what exactly do you mean, Mrs. Mc... er... Dorothy?"

"You'll see, Mr. Trevor, you'll see."

By then we were at the door to the geodesic dome and I could get no more out of the little woman. Both of us ducked our heads and stepped over a rather tallish sill to enter through the hexagonal door. I noticed as we went in that the door was of a very hefty construction and that the structure of the dome itself had an inner wall about a foot inside the outer skin.

The inside of the dome was something else again. I can't say what I expected, but it certainly wasn't what I found!

We went up a set of metal stairs to the main floor of the building which was about six feet above ground level. The interior of the dome was brightly lit and criss-crossed with I-beam braces in an apparent attempt to increase the structure's strength. All around the perimeter, along the walls, was a continuous conglomeration of strange-looking, cobbled-together machinery.

In the center of the room was a John Deere tractor, minus the rear wheels. In place of the rear wheels was what appeared to be a very large electric generator. From the generator, a huge cable, fully six inches in diameter, disappeared into the floor. A length of large diameter flexpipe connected the exhaust pipe of the tractor to another hole in the floor. In place of the tractor seat was a bucket seat with a headrest that looked like it had been lifted from 1969 Camaro. The new instrument panel was a plethora of digital and analog gauges with, strangest of all, a cable coming out of the middle of it that was connected to what looked like a Nintendo control. All around the room, electrical cables and wires ran everywhere, helterskelter, across the floor and up the walls.

I looked up at the ceiling and noticed that the geodesic pattern of the upper portion of the dome had a ring of the hexagonal panels replaced with a clear material, making a sort of skylight. Several other panels, at eye level and at sixty degree intervals around the structure were similarly replaced, making for a series of windows.

Across the building, bent over one of the arcane machines, was a tall, skinny man, with sparse, graying hair who had to be Lester W. McGill. He had a sort of "Lester" look about him, if you know what I mean. He was dressed in a pair of those striped light-blue bib overalls that all good farmers wear you know the ones, the kind that you buy already dirty. As he turned in response to our entry, I saw that he wore an old-fashioned pair of tiny, round, wire-rimmed glasses on his hawklike nose below his close-set and somewhat wild-looking hazel eyes.

Just to McGill's left was a shorter man who also turned around and looked up from his work. He was young, handsome and Latin. Probably a Mexican hired hand, I thought.

Lester didn't even introduce himself. Instead he spoke to his wife, who was right behind me.

"Dorothy, put that stuff down here and ya'll get back to the house and grab them bags I had you pack this mornin'. Make sure to grab my chewing tobacco out of the cupboard on the way. Hurry now, we ain't got much time!" He must have remembered our phone conversation of the day before because he guessed right off who I was.

"I'm Lester McGill, and you'll be Mr. Dahlgren - Trevor Dahlgren. That right?"

"Ye... ss," I managed to stammer out. His air of urgency had caught me off guard.

"Well, Dahlgren, you got here just in time. We need your help."

"Okay, Sure," I said, still rather in shock.

"This here's Juan. Help him load up a few supplies if you would. I'll explain everything later."

Juan and I took a few minutes to carry, among other things, six sacks of potatoes into the dome. Over the high door sill and up the six feet of stairs. Those suckers were heavy! I was sweating as we dropped the last one onto the newly formed pile along one side of the dome. Juan smiled at my discomfort, flashing even, white teeth.

"What are these for, Mr. McGill?"

"Lester," he said evenly. "Spuds? You never know what we might be up against in the next few days or weeks. Spuds are good food. Good enough so's my Irish ancestors used them as for their only food for a good many years." He stopped and scratched his chin. "'Course, there was that damned famine!"

"Food?" I asked, and then repeated Lester's own words. "What we might be up against in the next few days or weeks? What do you mean, Lester?"

"Why, we're gonna save the world from them aliens, that's what!"

Just then, Dorothy returned with several suitcases, some tins of Copenhagen, and a large, unkempt, Heinz-fifty-seven breed farm dog. Dorothy had changed into a very practical pair of blue jeans and a pink sweatshirt. The outfit looked nice on her; the sweatshirt even matched her hair.

"Close the door," Lester called out to Juan. Juan swung a massive door closed and spun the handwheel in the center. I was reminded of the outer hull door that I'd seen in those old WW II submarine movies. "Sit, Balthazer," Lester told the dog. The beast obediently sat. Then Lester turned back to me.

"The aliens are going to land in Washington," I said.

"That's right," said Lester. "An' we're going there after 'em. We did a little test on our powerplant a few minutes ago and now we're ready. Bring your notepad and your camera, Dahlgren, 'cause, by Gawd, your gonna get some news!"

"Powerplant?" I asked.

"Hell yes, boy! Ain't you figured things out yet? This here gee-o-deesik dome is a spaceship an' we're going to war! Bein' a red-blooded American and a Idahoan, I just hates them gad-damned aliens!"

With that he went over and hunkered his lanky frame into the bucket seat, snapped himself into a three-point seat belt and picked up the control module (I looked carefully, it was a Nintendo control!). Juan, meanwhile, had placed himself in front of a very new-looking Zeos PC and monitor on a bucket seat that appeared to be the mate of the one on the tractor. I heard the unmistakable sound of a starter motor, followed by the equally unmistakable roar of a diesel engine. I hoped that the exhaust pipe was vented to the outside or things were gonna get mighty uncomfortable inside our "gee-odeesik" dome!

"Find a place to sit down, Dahlgren. We're takin' off!"

In a state of numbed shock, I sat down next to Dorothy in a short row of what appeared to be used theater chairs. I found a somewhat worn lap belt and strapped in. Balthazer came over and took a station laying at my feet with his head up and his ears pricked.

We did not have an overlong wait for the next set of developments. Lester put the remains of the tractor in gear and let out the clutch as he simultaneously manipulated the Nintendo control. I felt a strangely familiar sensation of movement, like the feeling you get when a fast elevator whooshes upwards - except that this sensation was almost brutal in its intensity and it lasted for considerably longer.

"Yeee haa!" shouted Lester. "It worked, I knew it would work!"

I saw the outline of the Lemhi Mountain range go past one of the hexagonal windows. It occurred to me that maybe I'd better start referring to them as "viewports."

"I'll be a son-of-a-bitch," I said aloud. "This thing is a God-damned spaceship!" As soon as the acceleration diminished, I got out of my seat to gaze out of the nearest of the viewports. It was just like the pictures from the space shuttle, the large sphere of the earth all blue and white with a smattering of brown and green showing through the white. Below I could make out the Oregon coast line, off to the left. We were already in orbit! This thing could really fly!

Lester didn't waste any time. "Gimme a vector for Washington DC would you, Juan?"

Juan's fingers rapidly caressed the keyboard of the Zeos. In less than five seconds he called out, "Heading 386, Les. Tell me when you reach 25 minutes so I can activate the atmospheric compensation shields before we re-enter the atmosphere."

Juan's English was almost flawless, with just a hint of a Spanish accent. Whatever he might have been, Juan was no hired hand! In spite of the exhilaration and shock caused by the recent turn of events, my experience as a reporter kicked in. Almost automatically, I began to ask a few questions.

"I don't believe I got your full name or what it is that you do, Juan." He swiveled his Camaro bucket seat around to face me and smiled smugly as he replied.

"Dr. Juan Ramirez de la Vega, at your service. Quantum physicist by training. Now, as you can see, I'm a practicing Astrophysicist. I am originally from Venezuela and was educated at Cal Poly before I did a stint at Fermilab. Until about six months ago, I was at INEL right over near Arco," (INEL is the famous Idaho National Engineering Laboratories where they do all the nuclear research out here in the deserts of Idaho. Needless to say, I was impressed!).

"Did you design this ship?"

"Not really, although I helped with some of the subsystems. This is Lester's brainchild. He came out to our project at INEL to pick up an old experimental fusion torus that we were getting rid of. The INEL authorities thought he wanted it for the more than two miles of copper wire in it. He and I struck up a conversation and it soon became apparent to me that such was not the case. Lester had some very intriguing ideas. That was about a year ago. One thing led to another and soon I was working evenings out at the farm. Things were finally going so well that I resigned my position at INEL about two months ago. Lester and I have been working almost full-time together ever since."

"How does this ... ah ... spaceship work?"

"I cannot explain the mechanisms to someone who does not have a thorough knowledge of higher mathematics, and like anything that has to do with quantum physics, a large dash of faith is also required, but I shall do my best."

Juan got up from his console and walked over next to the tractor were Lester was busy manipulating the Nintendo control and watching his readouts. We both stepped back as a wad of chewed tobacco winged past us and into a trash can next to the tractor.

"That old fusion torus is beneath the floor here, but there is some eighteen inches of concrete between us and the torus. There is a twofold purpose for this. One, to give us some protection and two, to provide some extra mass."

Balthazer had followed us over. He sat on his haunches between us with his head cocked to one side. It didn't bother me, he was probably getting as much out of this as I was.

"Protection?" I asked.

"We were just being careful at the beginning of our experiments. It is not really an issue."

"Ah, good," I replied, only partially convinced. Dr. de la Vega continued his guided tour.

"This machine back here, connected to the tractor, that looks like a generator is really the secret of the whole apparatus. The device actually does generate electrical power but it does so in a very special way. Again, there is a lot of math involved but it is fairly accurate to say that this current is at right angles to our normal universe."

"Right angles to the normal universe?"

We dodged another wad of tobacco juice.

"That's right Dahlgren," said Lester, reaching for his tin of Copenhagen, "the ee-lectrical field is kitty-wumpus to ol' terra firma here. Took me near on to a year to make it work!"

Juan waited politely through the interruption, nodded in agreement and continued: "When you apply that power to the right sized torus, you get an antigravity drive system that taps into the magnetic lines of force of the universe itself! That's why the extra mass of the concrete is so important. To put it simply, we can actually magnify the slab's puny gravitational force several hundred million times - only it is a negative or anti-gravity field."

"You do all that with the front half of a John Deere 4020 tractor?" I asked, incredulously.

"Oh yes. We don't need a large power source because, in actuality, we are merely channelling a minuscule portion of a huge reservoir of power rather than generating the power ourselves."

"Wow," I said, nodding my head as if I understood. Next to me, Balthazer nodded too.

"There's more," said Juan. "Modulate the power through the converter over here - he pointed to a breadbox sized mass of exposed electrical components - and you can generate shields. Almost any type of shield you want, anti-energy or atmospheric or meteorite. If we'd had a few more weeks we might even have come up with some weapons from this technology."

The reference to weapons brought me back to reality, reminding me of the purpose of our little jaunt. We were about to engage an enemy from outer space, that we knew little about, with a barnyard creation from a farm in the mountains of Idaho! Without any weapons!? Did I mention that these same aliens had brought the modern armed forces of Europe to their knees in just under two weeks!

I began to get a little nervous.

"You mean we haven't got any weapons?" I asked. Under the circumstances, I thought it was fair question.

"Weapons? Yeah, we got weapons," said Lester. Before he could elaborate, the two men had to get back to work.

"Twenty-five minutes, Juan."

"Very good, Les. Washington dead ahead."

I swallowed heavily. A life-long ambition, to actually get into space, had been fulfilled, Unfortunately, it didn't look as though I was going to get much of a chance to savor the experience!

We descended almost noiselessly through the atmosphere. Soon, I could make out the unmistakable skyline of our nation's capital. Seemingly on guard about the dome of the capital hovered three glowing, pulsating, saucer-shaped objects, each about the size of a 747.

"Andromedan space craft, dead ahead, Les," said Juan. He was now working continuously at the Zeos console.

"Yep, I sees `em. Dorothy, git the shotgun."

"Right away, Lester."

"Dahlgren, ya'll git the door so's the Missus can git a shot at them aliens, would ya?"

Well, this made a lot of sense! We were facing three war vessels of a highly advanced alien race who hadn't even been marked by all the sophisticated weaponry that Europe could throw at them and we were about to attack them nothing more advanced than a double-barreled shotgun! I said as much.

"Never fear, Dahlgren," drawled Lester, "It's double 0 buckshot!"

"That's a relief!" I yelled. "Buckshot or birdshot, what's the difference?"

"Jus' calm down and open the door, Mr. Trevor," soothed Dorothy. I rolled my eyes, but did as I was told. What the hell, I thought, we aren't going to live through the day anyway.

With the door open, Lester swung the ship around until we could see the alien vessels through it. They were only a few hundred feet away. I could hear a strange humming noise that rose and fell in intensity with the pulsations in the glow of the saucers. Balthazer's hackles came up as he bared his teeth at them and growled.

"Take a bead on the lead one, Ma," said Lester. "Ya'll be ready to slam that door, Dahlgren. We may need to git to hell outta here in a hurry!"

That was the first sane thing I'd heard all day!

"Okay, Pa, I'm ready!" sang out Dorothy.

"Git ready with them energy shields, Juan."

"Ready, Les."

"Fire away, Ma!"

Ka-whump! Ka-whump! Dorothy rocked back from the recoil of the shots but, farm girl that she was, seemed unaffected otherwise. The noise was deafening in the enclosed space of the dome! Wonder of wonders, the lead alien ship was ... Totally unharmed! But we had gotten their attention! Balthazer began barking uncontrollably as the saucers got brighter and the pulsations increased in frequency.

"Shields, Juan! Door, Dahlgren!"

I noticed a faint blue haze appear around the hull of the dome as I slammed the door and spun the wheel to lock it. The lights dimmed and the dome lurched and rang like a bell as we took what I presumed to be a direct hit from the lead alien ship. By now, Balthazer was at one of the viewports continuing to bark furiously.

"Hey, Juan, them shields work too!" shouted Lester. "Looks like we'd better high-tail it outta here! Take your seats, folks! Shut up, Balthazer!" The big dog obeyed immediately and bounded back over to resume his station at my feet.

We took two more hits, without apparent harm, before the now familiar elevator sensation struck us again. This time the intensity was far worse as the diesel engine roared at full throttle.

"They're following us," said Juan, matter of factly.

"Good,"

"They're gaining,"

"Yeah, I figured they might,"

"What, now, McGill?" I couldn't believe that we were still alive, but found that I rather liked the sensation, if you get my drift.

"Well, now that we're out of the atmosphere we can try some other things," replied Lester. To my horror, he throttled down the diesel and pushed in the clutch on the wheelless tractor!

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"We're gonna try her in second." I heard the crunch of a gear change. The clutch came back out and the engine rpm increased. I was slammed into my seat by a hither-to unimaginable force. Even the stalwart Balthazer whimpered from the pain.

"Good," said Juan, "They're falling back. You should apply the throttle a little more gently in the higher gears, Les. That was almost painful. Or should we activate the artificial gravity maintenance module?"

"It's gotta be the ARTGRAV module, Juan. That last blast made me see spots before my eyes!"

"It appears we have little choice, Les. The alien ships are again gaining on us."

"Let's do the ARTGRAV and then see what happens."

"Right," said Juan, as he flipped a series of switches on a console near the Zeos.

Immediately, the sensation of being in a moving elevator ceased and I felt no different than if we were on the ground, back on the farm.

"Why didn't you do that before?" I asked.

"Unfortunately, we haven't gotten all the bugs out of it yet," said Juan. Almost as if on cue, my stomach did a series of flip-flops and, just as quickly went back to normal. Lester, his aim upset by the gravity fluctuation, missed the trash can with his latest wad of tobacco.

"Damn!" Lester swore artfully.

"As you can see, there is an intermittent flaw in our ARTGRAV system that we haven't been able to trace down. I suppose that we shall have to learn to live with it."

The diesel again throttled down to an idle, followed by the clashing of gears.

"Third gear," sang out Lester. The clutch grabbed and the engine roared.

"The aliens are falling back again, Les."

"Good," Lester replied, scratching his chin. "I been thinkin', Juan. How fas' we goin"'

"Mother of God!" said Juan, as his fingers flew across the Zeos keyboard. "We are currently at Mach 165.8 and accelerating!"

"What happens if you was to run inta somethin' at Mach 165.8, Juan?"

"It is safe to say that there would be a great deal of energy released."

"Yep, that's what I figgered. Anybody followin' us."

"Not, right now. They seem to have given up."

"Good, I'm stoppin' here then."

As good as his word, Lester throttled down and pushed in the clutch.

"I got an idee," said Lester, but he wouldn't tell any one what it was until he had flipped the ship around slowed it down to a mere mach 5.

"We're gonna hafta open the outer door for a coupl'a minutes," said Lester, as he unbuckled and got up out of his Camaro seat.

"How do you propose that we do that?" I asked.

"Hell, boy, we got us some space suits! I think we even got one in your size! You'll get to see space all up close and personal!"

"Why me?" I pleaded, as I swallowed nervously.

"Cause I got a bad back - old farm accident, you know - and the Missus ain't strong enough. Stop yer whimperin', boy, yer worse than Balthazer. Juan'll help ya."

It appeared as though I had little choice. The space suits themselves did not exactly inspire confidence either. They were, like almost everything else on board the ship, cobbled together from used and unrelated parts. In fact, the two suits weren't even remotely similar. Mine was made out of a fifty-gallon drum with a rectangular plexiglass window and what looked like flexible clothes dryer hose for arms and legs, while Juan's looked like the main part of it was from an old deep sea diver's rig, complete with brass headpiece. It had a number of patches and worn-looking spots on it and some other parts that didn't quite match.

"We're ready Lester," said Juan.

Lester and Dorothy looked us both over. Lester smiled and thumped on the fifty-gallon drum which rang hollowly even with me inside it. He spoke loudly so we could both hear him through our suits. But, what he said didn't make much sense to me.

"Jus' drag three of them sacks of spuds over to the airlock. When you gets the outside door open, just open 'em up one at a time and shake them taters out into space." Juan nodded in understanding; I just shook my head.

We accomplished our mission with little trouble but I couldn't help wishing for some momentous quote to fit the occasion. Something like: "Small potatoes for a man, a giant tater tot for mankind ..." Naturally, you'd have to go to the frozen foods section because, of course, the spuds had frozen solid immediately in the cold vacuum of space.

Then, against all common sense, we went back to taunt the three alien vessels.

Lester brought us in really close. Too close, I thought and wiggled the ship seductively to get them to follow us. They reacted immediately, like starved hounds they were after us in an instant. Balthazer loved every minute of it, standing up on his hind legs, barking enthusiastically, with his nose pressed to the viewport and his tail wagging.

This time, Lester increased our speed slowly, allowing the alien craft to stay tantalizingly close (I loudly said too damned close) to us. As we approached the area where we had scattered the potatoes, Juan called out the speed and the distance.

"Ten-thousand miles, Les, mach 155.4. Prepare to perform a right angle maneuver in fifteen seconds."

At the count of fifteen, Lester grimaced as he pushed hard on the Nintendo control. The ship suddenly changed direction, at right angles to our original path. The magic of the ARTGRAV system meant that we weren't crushed to jelly, but my stomach had some ideas of its own for several minutes. Balthazer's eyes got really wide and he came over and curled up by my feet with his front paws covering his eyes. I patted him gently. In many ways we were in the same boat he and I - both of us were more or less along for the ride!

The alien ships swept through the area containing our frozen potatoes, with devastating results. There were three almost simultaneous flashes of very bright light, like little supernovas. Juan did some things at his Zeos keyboard.

"I'm reading nothing but debris, Les! By the virgin, it worked!" All three of them got out of their seats and began whooping and hollering at the tops of their lungs. Lester danced a jig across the hood of the half-tractor. Finally, after about five minutes they began to settle down.

"What happened?" I asked, bewildered by the whole thing as usual.

"You would not understand the math, Trevor," said Juan, breathlessly, "but basically, our three friends flew into our cloud of frozen potato tubers."

"You mean the invincible Andromedans, who made a laughing stock out of Europe's finest forces were done in by three-hundred pounds - excuse me, one hundred and fifty kilograms - of POTATOES?!"

"That's right, Dahlgren," grinned Lester, "we done them in with three sacks of Idaho Russets!" He began to dance another jig.

"Lester is essentially correct, Trevor, but if the alien ships had hit almost anything at the speeds they were traveling, they probably would have been destroyed."

"Huh? How can a potato destroy a spaceship?"

"It has to do with high relative velocities, and the amounts of energy released when a collision occurs."

"I still don't follow."

"Let me try it another way. Out here in space, in a vacuum, in the absence of gravity, it is the relative motion that matters. Think of the alien ships as being at rest and the potato tubers moving at mach 150. You have seen what happens to an insect when it impacts your windshield out on the highway at seventy miles per hour?"

"Yeah," I said, "Those grasshoppers do make quite a smack. I got hit on the arm once, when I was hanging it out the window. It hurt!"

"A grasshopper at seventy miles per hour is moving at approximately 100 feet per second. It packs quite a wallop."

I nodded my head in understanding.

"Now imagine hitting a frozen potato at a speed exceeding thirty MILES per second!"

It began to dawn on me, but Juan wasn't done yet.

"You ever been to meteor crater, in Arizona?"

"No, but I saw it on TV a couple of times."

"That's good," said Juan. "The authorities believe that meteor crater was blasted out by a meteorite that wasn't much bigger than one of our potatoes, traveling at similar speeds to the ones we've been dealing with here."

"It was almost like an atomic bomb!" I exclaimed.

"Exactly!" said Juan. "But there's more. I believe the aliens failed to detect and avoid the potatoes because they were ORGANIC MATTER, in an area where such things very seldom occur. Whether you knew it or not, Les, the use of potatoes for this purpose truly was a brilliant idea!"

"Why thank ye, Juan."

"I tol' you, Mr. Trevor, thet my Lester was gonna save the world!" Dorothy stood up on tiptoe and kissed her husband on the cheek which caused him to blush ferociously.

"Well, we have a good start, but there is the matter of the base on the far side of the moon to contend with," said Juan.

"Yer right, Juan, I got another idee we can try but firs' we gotta find out jus' what this ol' ship'll do!"

"You mean ..." Juan gulped.

"Thet's right, Juan, we gotta try her in road gear!"

Juan looked at Lester gravely for a few moments, considering.

"I am afraid you are right, my friend. Alright, take your places everyone. We are about to boldly go where no man has gone before!"

Even Dorothy looked at him suspiciously.

We went back to our accustomed positions and awaited the next development. I patted Balthazer as much to reassure myself as I did to comfort him.

Lester cracked his knuckles and shifted in his seat to get settled before he looked around at us and reached for the shift lever.

"You folks ready?"

We all nodded, but nobody looked real happy. I didn't really know if what he was about to try was dangerous or not, I had just picked up on the mood of the rest of them. As nonchalant as they had been about some of our other activities that day, their being worried about this was enough to get my attention!

Lester pushed in the clutch. There was a soft clash of gears as he pulled the shift lever back into high gear.

"Here goes nothin'," he announced as he let out the clutch and pulled back on the throttle.

These actions were followed by the strangest sensation that I have ever experienced. I'm not even sure I can explain it properly but it affected every one of the senses in a big way. Imagine a kaleidoscope made up of sensations, visual, aural and tactile, from all the carnival rides you've ever been on, kinda rolled together into a high-speed dream sequence and you'll have a rough idea of what it was like!

I don't know what would have happened without the ARTGRAV. Balthazer lay on his side, eyes glazed and legs twitching. If his experience was anything like mine, he had just treed the cat of his dreams and was flying up after it!

When Lester had let out the clutch, the sun was shining brightly through one of the port side viewports. After what seemed like only 30 seconds or so, the sun had all but vanished.

In its place was a small circle of bright light about the size of a pencil eraser. Juan, fingers flying over his keyboard, was the first to react.

"By the virgin! We have broken the light speed barrier! Lester, we have travelled nearly eighty light minutes out from the sun in under a minute!"

Lester was wearing what could only be described as a shiteating grin.

"Yep," he said. "Now we're gonna kick some alien ass!"

"So we broke the light speed barrier," I said, "That's great, but how will it help us stop the aliens?"

"No sweat," said Lester. "We just need to aim the ship at the alien base and let our potatoes do the rest."

I shook my head, whatever they were about to do, I'd go along with. After all, we should have been dead several times already!

"This is gonna take some pretty hell-afied pilotin'," said Lester. "We gotta line everythin' up jus' right. An' I think we'd better use all three sacks of potatoes that we got left."

We got back into our seats and Lester did several more light-speed, carnivalmontage maneuvers to line the ship up properly with the moon. Juan, holding tightly to a iron pipe railing, called out directions from the eyepiece of a large, battered, but apparently still serviceable, refractor telescope that they'd wheeled over and trained through one of the viewports. Finally, they were both satisfied with the alignment.

"The alien base is centered in the field of view, Lester."

"Good! Now get them spuds outside."

"Right," said Juan. "Come on, Trevor, we must get back into our spacesuits."

This time we left the bags intact, full of potatoes. We just nudged them gently out of the airlock where they tumbled gently, describing black, potato-sack-shaped silhouettes against the billions of tiny, brilliant, pinprick lights of the stars. An eerie feeling came over me at that moment. It was like I was trapped in a bad "B" movie, "The Burlap Avengers of Sol Prime" or something. That's it, I thought, I'll be waking up any minute!

I didn't wake up and we came back inside.

"Okay, Juan, grab aholt of `em," said Lester.

Juan manipulated some switches on his console. "I have them in tow, Lester." As usual, I didn't know what they were talking about.

"What do you mean, you have them in tow?"

"Tractor beam," said Lester.

Powered by John Deere. How appropriate.

"Holt on, folks. We're goin' in!"

High gear again. The earth's moon started out as an insignificant point of light in the front (top) viewports. Over and above the carnival sensations, I watched it grow to an alarming size before Lester called out, "Now!" and turned the ship aside just as Juan flicked off the tractor beam. The moon flashed past the viewport.

The back side of the moon lit up in a brilliant blue flash that was many times brighter than the sun!

"Yee-haa!" shouted Lester, taking the tractor out of gear and coming down to embrace his wife. Juan was crossing himself repeatedly as he grinned from ear to ear. The mood could only be described as joyous. I sensed that something good had just occurred but, you guessed it, didn't quite comprehend exactly what it was.

"What happened?" I asked.

"One of our potato sacks scored a direct hit on the alien base, Trevor! We have saved Mankind!"

"With a sack of potatoes?"

"Remember our lecture on the meteor crater, Trevor?"

"Yes."

"Well, that sack of potatoes was travelling at greater than light speed when we let go of it. The amount of energy released was incalculable! The aliens didn't have a chance!"

We arrived back in Washington to a hero's welcome. Within a few days, we had dinner with the President and the First Lady. There followed a tour of Europe and the rest of the world to meet with various heads of state. Not only did I attend them all, I got to cover them for the major wire services as well! My fame and fortune as a newsman soared meteorically, if I can use that expression! Perhaps you've read my book "The Agricultural Revolution" which gives an account of our adventure. "Balthazer, Dog of Space" has outsold "Millie" and, my latest, "Plowshares into Swords: the Lester McGill Story," will be out in a month or so.

So you want to be a journalist? Okay, fine, but you gotta go where the news is happening, to where the future of mankind is being forged! And where might that be? Hey, no contest. You gotta become an agricultural reporter! Go for it! Last I heard, there was even an opening at the `Eastern Idaho Sentinel.'

Phil is the Extension Seed Potato Specialist for the University of Idaho. He's in Idaho Falls and he's still writing fiction although not as much as he should be. He's listed as a contributing editor for Intertext. He and his wife and daughter like their not so private Idaho very much. This story is NOT true but is based on REAL Idaho characters.

nolte@idui1.csrv.uidaho.edu