there's a library in a small town near charles neck on murdock sound. it's so run down and useless that a lot of old books still hang around on the shelves, the big kind with stiff backs and all kinds of fancy little stars or small, curly designs to show the end of one section and the beginning of another. very quaint. after the wfi took over the sound in our remote area, i didn't have much to do in the day time, so i used to walk down the road to town and get a handful of these stiff backs once in a while. from reading them i got the notion i'm a one man resistance movement, which is pitiful and foolish, and, i gather, always has been a seedy, run-down sort of thing, a backward state of mind and feelings. that's me, alright: backward. i tried to be forward, but it made me hard to live with; and since i live mostly with myself, i had to quit. still, i knew i couldn't get away with backwardness, and that sooner or later the wfi would slap me down, squash this bussing insect, and get on with its work again as usual.

sure enough, one bleak november morning, when i was half through a couple of eggs and a cup of coffee, i heard the throb of a motor. i walked down to the end of my wharf and looked skyward. i was pretty sure they wouldn't come by land, because most of the secondary roads were in bad shape; and they wouldn't travel by water, because that took too much gas and time. in fact, the wfi never wasted anything. they couldn't afford to. everything went for food, its growth, collection, and processing. the big freighters, some of them, had atomic piles, but that power was impossibly clumsy and expensive for smaller boats. so they came by air in the usual inspection helicopter. the pilot dropped her in the cove right alongside the wharf and made fast. three men stepped onto the planks. they had the wheat sheaf insignia of the wfi on their overcoat arms and caps, and they looked cold and bored. a small sea sucked at the pilings and the helicopter rose and fell, grating against the wharf. i looked at the pilot and said, "better put your chafing gear out if you intend staying a while." we all watched while the pilot put a few kapoks at the tight spots. then he looked at a notebook and said, "you george arthur henry?"

i said, "call me george."

this inspector was the usual type: tired from long hours, bored from doing nothing on a weary round of food inspections. he hunched his shoulders against the wind.

i said, "it's warmer inside."

they followed me into the kitchen of the house. all three of them started to sit down, then stopped, and walked over to the table in perfect step. they looked at the cold remains of my breakfast eggs. the wfi inspector shoved his hat up and said, "eggs." the others nodded, wordless with wonder. then the inspector said, "chickens?"

"where," i said, "do you think i got the eggs?"

the little man alongside the inspector came to life. in three dextrous movements he had glasses on, a notebook in his hand, and stylus poised. "what do you feed them?" he inquired eagerly.

"seeds," i said, "insects, chopped up garter snakes, mussels, ground up oyster shells. you boys have all the grain."

there was an excited light in the little man's eyes. he hurried out to a broken down shed to examine the chickens.

that left two of them. the inspector continued to gaze at the remains on the plate in a dreamy way. the other man straightened his big shoulders, looked at me, and said, jerking his thumb toward the shed, "mr. carter's an ecologist. he just came along for the trip. he's on his way to the government experimental farm over at murdock. i'm a government sociologist. i was sent here to have a talk with you. my name is ranson."

"sure. sit down. i guess i'm licked, but there's no use making a rumpus about it."

i turned to the inspector whose eyes were still caught in the egg plate. i said, "ever taste them?"

"once," he said, in a far away voice. i went to the cupboard and came back with a paper bag full of eggs and put it in his hands. he held them as if someone had just given him the wheat sheaf badge of merit.

"i won't be needing these after our little talk, i expect. take them home to the kiddies."

he smiled, looked at the sociologists, who grinned back and nodded. the inspector walked very carefully out of the back door and down to the wharf to stow his eggs in the helicopter.

ranson shifted in his chair. he said, "that was very nice of you, mr. henry."

"george," i said.

"against the law, of course." there was a smile around his eyes. "are you against the law, george?"

"yes. no use bluffing. you know the story. all the waters and everything in them are wfi. all the land and everything on it. i don't like packaged food. i like real food. i don't like my oysters, crabs, clams, fish minced up and blended with chick weed, cereals, yeast, algae, plankton, and flavored to taste a little like steak. and plenty of others feel the same. i have a market."

"an illegal market."

"yes," i said. "by god, if you had told my father, before i was born, that the oysters he tonged could not be eaten as oysters, he'd have laughed in your face. and if you had told him he wouldn't even be allowed to tong them, he'd have cussed you good and proper!"

"people have to be fed. the only way we can do it is to combine the total food resources of the world, process and package them, and do it as efficiently as possible. that means absolute control of all food sources and their harvesting. you could work for wfi, george. it would be important work."

"i know. it's so important nothing else gets done. have you seen the roads around here? half the bridges are down across charles neck and walter hook. you can't get gas. you can't get telephones, and if you happen to have one, it doesn't work half the time. and the busses don't run any more. and—"

ranson held up his hand. "it's an emergency, george. you have to realize that. it's been building up for a long time, long before your father worked the oyster beds in murdock sound."

"there's another thing," i said. "before you fellows closed the sound, i was independent. i had my own boat and i made my own way. now you put your wfi scoops in the sound and the whole job is done in a month or two. and who are the watermen? a couple of clerks to every scoop who turn a valve every once in a while and draw their packaged food, clothing, and entertainment once a week. do you call that a job? why, those food clerks couldn't even lift a pair of thirty foot rakes, let alone tong with them."

"we get more oysters, george, and in less time, and we do it scientifically."

ranson tapped his notebook with the stylus and he looked out of the kitchen window. he was giving me time to cool off. he'd been kind and patient when he didn't have to be either. with his job he had no time to sit and reason with a one man resistance movement. he had no time for anything but food, and organizing society to keep it grubbing incessantly for food, and, at the same time, to keep society as orderly and contented as possible. i was not orderly and i was not contented. but i was just one man, not society. i cooled off.