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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of The impossible invention, by Robert
-Moore Williams
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: The impossible invention
-
-Author: Robert Moore Williams
-
-Release Date: July 31, 2022 [eBook #68659]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
-             Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMPOSSIBLE
-INVENTION ***
-
-
-
-
-
-                       The Impossible Invention
-
-                       By Robert Moore Williams
-
-           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
-                    Astonishing Stories, June 1942.
-         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
-         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
-
-
-I had to admire this little guy's courage. Fradin, his name was--James
-Arthur Fradin, with a string of letters after it that even the
-alphabet agencies down at Washington could not have unscrambled. The
-letters represented honorary degrees conferred on him by half a dozen
-different colleges, and they should have entitled him to be heard with
-respectful consideration, but they weren't. The assembled scientists of
-the Institute of Radio Engineers were giving him merry hell.
-
-"What you are saying, Fradin," one of the scientists interrupted hotly,
-"is gross nonsense."
-
-"It is absolutely impossible," another shouted.
-
-"Faker!" somebody yelled, and a dozen voices took it up until the room
-echoed with the sound.
-
-I sat back and grinned to myself. If this meeting ended in a
-free-for-all fight, which was what looked like was due to happen, I
-would be able to make a swell human interest humorous yarn out of it.
-My editor went for human interest stuff, which was largely why he had
-sent me down to cover this meeting. He knew I wasn't likely to develop
-any front page news here, scientific meetings being what they are. But
-there might be a human interest angle that would be good for a laugh.
-And the way these solemn scientists were calling Fradin a liar, it
-looked like the laugh was coming.
-
-There was one man who wasn't doing any name calling, I noticed, a tall,
-cadaverous-looking individual sitting two seats down from me. He had
-listened very carefully, almost eagerly, I thought, to everything the
-speaker had said. Glancing at him, I got the impression that I should
-know him, but at the moment I couldn't place him. Tall, bony face,
-thin, hawk nose--yes, it seemed I should know him.
-
-Fradin had stopped speaking when the storm of abuse broke over him. He
-stood there on the platform, a little, white haired guy with a gentle
-face.
-
-"If you numbskulls will only be quiet for a moment," he said, when the
-noise had subsided for an instant, "I will offer incontrovertible proof
-to support my statement that radio waves are transmitted through what
-I must, for lack of a better term to describe the undescribable, call
-the fourth dimension."
-
-What I mean, the roof must have been nailed down tight, or the
-explosion that followed would certainly have lifted it off the
-building. You never did see so many excited scientists in one group.
-Normally a scientist is supposed to be cool, aloof, and impersonal.
-But this group was anything else! They went right straight up in the
-air. I couldn't tell whether they were angrier because he had called
-them a bunch of numbskulls or because he had said that radio waves were
-transmitted through the fourth dimension.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-One of them leaped to his feet. Ramsen, I think his name was. He was a
-big shot in the field, almost as big as De Forest and Marconi.
-
-"Fradin," he yelled, "that is the most preposterous statement I ever
-heard from the lips of any man in his right senses. It raises the
-immediate question of whether or not _you_ are in your right senses."
-
-There was a buzz of approval following his statement. Fradin waited for
-it to die down.
-
-"Mr. Ramsen," he said, "you have chosen to challenge my theory.
-Perhaps you can tell me what medium _does_ carry the electro-magnetic
-radiations that we call radio waves?"
-
-"Certainly," Ramsen answered. "Any schoolboy knows that."
-
-"We are not here concerned with the knowledge of schoolboys," Fradin
-gently replied. "Sound is carried in air and water and by many solid
-substances. But we know that radio waves do not travel in air, because
-they will pass through a perfect vacuum. In what medium do they travel,
-Mr. Ramsen?"
-
-Right here was where I began to pay close attention. Something about
-Fradin's manner, his calmness, his certainty, gave me the impression
-that he knew pretty much what he was talking about.
-
-"Radio waves, Mr. Fradin," Ramsen answered, in the manner of a
-scoutmaster revealing the facts of life to an errant Boy Scout, "travel
-in the ether."
-
-He was right. I was not assigned to cover this meeting by chance but
-because I happen to have a pretty good groundwork in science. Radio
-waves, all scientists admit, are propagated through the ether.
-
-"And what," Fradin countered, "is the ether?"
-
-"Why--" Ramsen answered. "It's--" He started to flounder. A sudden
-silence fell in the room. Ramsen's face started to get red. "The
-ether," he finished, "is--why it's the ether, that's what it is."
-
-"What you are refusing to admit," Fradin crowed, "is that 'ether' is
-a meaningless word invented by numbskulls such as are gathered here
-to describe something about which they know absolutely nothing. The
-ether is a word, nothing more. It does not exist. The Michelson-Morley
-experiments conclusively proved that, if it existed, its nature
-was such that it could not be detected by any physical experiment
-whatsoever. In other words, that it exists only as a handy tool by
-which scientists who ought to know better can conceal their own
-ignorance. Gentlemen," he said, turning from the red-faced Ramsen to
-the perturbed audience, "I can not only conclusively prove that radio
-waves are transmitted through the fourth dimension--but I can also
-prove that power, actual power, can also be transmitted through the
-same medium!"
-
-He stopped suddenly, biting his lips as if he had said more than he
-had intended to. But I think only one man in the audience had caught
-the full implication of Fradin's words. The rest of them were too busy
-defending themselves against the accusation of being numbskulls to
-notice the one really important thing he had said.
-
-How that audience did boil! And they boiled because every man jack of
-them, in his heart of hearts, knew that Fradin was right. I knew it the
-minute he said it. And they knew it too. When he said that "ether" was
-only a word used by fools to conceal their own ignorance, he had hit
-the nail exactly on the head.
-
-For that is precisely what it is. Nobody has ever seen the ether, felt
-it, smelled it, heard it, touched it. Scientists of the past century,
-needing a mechanical device to account for the observed propagation of
-electro-magnetic radiations such as light and the then little known
-radio waves, had invented the ether to carry those radiations, invented
-it out of whole cloth. Fradin's hearers knew he was right. Taken
-individually, when they were calm, they would have admitted it. But
-they were in a group and he was calling them fools right out in public.
-Mass hysteria got them. They boiled over and very promptly demanded
-that he prove his statements.
-
-He refused to do it. Absolutely refused.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-"We demand that you produce your proof," Ramsen howled. "You have
-called us fools and said you could prove it. We demand that you _do_
-prove it."
-
-"I--" Fradin began. He wet his lips. His face had whitened. It wasn't a
-gentle, kindly face any more. It was the face of a badly scared man.
-
-Fradin was scared. But he wasn't scared of those engineers who were
-shouting at him. He was scared of something else.
-
-"Speak up," Ramsen roared. "Produce your proof!"
-
-"I can show you mathematical proof," Fradin offered.
-
-How they howled at that, all except the tall, thin, hawk-nosed
-individual sitting two seats down from me. He took no part in the
-demonstration. Instead he got up and very quietly went out of the room.
-
-As he walked out, I again got the impression that I ought to know him.
-But I still couldn't place him. A reporter sees too many people to
-remember all of them.
-
-"Mathematical proof, unless supported by incontrovertible experimental
-evidence, is not sufficient," Ramsen thundered. "We demand that you
-produce experimental proof."
-
-By experimental proof, he meant an actual instrument of some kind to
-demonstrate Fradin's claims--some gadget that they could see and feel
-and examine, something they could take apart and put back together
-again, something that they could watch in operation. Ramsen was quite
-right in making such a demand, for without experimental evidence to
-back it up, mathematical theory is more often than not just so much hot
-air.
-
-"Your demand is just," Fradin faltered. "I fear in the heat of argument
-I made statements I do not care to support. I do not choose to produce
-the experimental evidence that I have."
-
-He didn't say another word. Instead, he turned and walked off the
-platform, going out through a door at the back. Nor did he enter the
-lecture hall where the meeting was being held. He walked out of the
-room.
-
-And he didn't come back.
-
-Why had he refused to produce the evidence that he had? What had scared
-him?
-
-Questions were buzzing like gadflies in my mind. There was one
-particularly persistent gadfly. Fradin had said something of which
-I had almost caught the significance. Almost, but not quite. The
-significant thing he had said kept buzzing in the back of my mind, but
-I couldn't quite put a mental finger on it....
-
-Then I remembered it.
-
-I went out of that room at a dead run. I went up over the speaker's
-platform and through the door Fradin had taken. How I did want to talk
-to that tortured man!
-
-What he had said, letting it slip accidentally, added up to one of
-the biggest stories that ever splashed across the front page of a
-newspaper. I had come down here looking for a human interest yarn.
-Instead I had run straight into a story that could easily set the world
-on fire, _if_ I could find Fradin and make him talk.
-
-I didn't doubt that I would find him. He couldn't have gotten far away.
-He hadn't had time. Not five minutes had passed after he had walked off
-the platform until I was following him.
-
-The door opened into a long hall, and in that hall I found Fradin.
-He was down at the far end, getting into an elevator. A tall, thin
-individual was with him.
-
-I sprinted down the hall to try to catch them before the elevator doors
-closed. The operator saw me coming and started to wait for me, but
-something changed his mind for him. The two men were already in the
-cage; I couldn't be positive of it, but I thought the tall man said
-something to the operator. Just as I got there, the operator slammed
-the door in my face. The cage started down.
-
-"All right, smart guy," I yelled at the operator. "I'll give you a
-smack in the snoot for this."
-
-Probably I could have gotten down faster by waiting for another
-elevator, but there was a stairway and I used that. I was in a hurry.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I got to the first floor just in time to see Fradin and his companion
-walk out of the front door.
-
-"Hey!" I yelled. "Wait--"
-
-I started to say, "Wait for me," but the words were choked off in my
-throat. I recognized Fradin's companion. The hawk-faced man who had sat
-two seats down from me and who had slipped unobtrusively out of the
-meeting. He had gone around to the back of the hall and joined Fradin.
-
-But the fact that he was with Fradin wasn't the thing that had choked
-off my call. It was the way the two men were walking. Fradin was a
-little ahead, and he wasn't looking to the right or the left. Just
-walking. There was a stiffness about him that made me think of a
-mechanical toy that has been wound up and is taking a walk for itself.
-
-Hawk-face was following right behind him. Hawk-face had his hand in his
-pocket. I didn't need to look twice to know that he had a gun in that
-pocket too, pointing straight at the little inventor's back.
-
-It wasn't a stick-up. It was a kidnap job. Hawk-face had also heard
-the really important thing that Fradin had said in his speech. I had
-missed it for a few minutes, but he hadn't missed it. He had instantly
-realized how damned important it was. He had walked out of the meeting,
-gone around to the back, waited for the scientist.
-
-I should have called the police. But just then something happened that
-upset me so badly I completely forgot all about police.
-
-I recognized Hawk-face, and cold chills began to run up and down my
-spine.
-
-His name--or at least the name attached to the picture I had once
-seen in the hands of an F.B.I. man--was Marvak. The name didn't mean
-anything. He had others. A name to use in Asia, one for Russia, one for
-Europe, all different.
-
-Marvak was one of the names he used in America, but the F.B.I.
-suspected he had others. They would cheerfully have hung him by any of
-his names, if they could have caught him, but he didn't catch easily.
-Compared to him, an eel was a rank amateur in slipperiness, and a
-rattlesnake was man's best friend.
-
-Right out in front of the building, on a crowded city street, he forced
-Fradin into a cab. I was so close I could see the haunted, terrified
-expression on the little scientist's face. But I didn't think then and
-I know now that he wasn't afraid of the gun. He was afraid of something
-even more horrible than Marvak.
-
-The cab pulled away.
-
-An eternity seemed to pass before I could collect my faculties and grab
-the next cab in line.
-
-"Follow that cab," I hissed at the hacker. "There's a ten-spot in it
-for you if you don't lose it."
-
-He didn't lose it. We followed Fradin and Marvak down to an old,
-abandoned factory building on the outskirts of the city. They were
-getting out of their cab when we drove up. Marvak, with his right hand
-still in his coat pocket, was paying off the driver.
-
-"Drive on past," I told my driver.
-
-He went on past and around the block and I got out, but the driver had
-to remind me about the ten-spot I had promised him. I paid off like a
-slot machine.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-That shows how excited I was. I had stopped thinking about the story I
-might get. The story was secondary now. What really mattered was that
-Fradin had to be rescued, and fast. The thing he had let slip was too
-big to fall into Marvak's hands under any circumstances. And I had to
-be the one who rescued him. There wasn't time to go for the police.
-Marvak would work fast.
-
-Marvak did work fast.
-
-I tried the front door first because that was the obvious thing to do.
-If I got caught coming in the front door I could say I had the wrong
-address and back out. But if I got caught at the back door, no amount
-of explanation would do me any good.
-
-The front door was unlocked. It opened into what had once been an
-office. A flight of stairs led up to the second floor.
-
-I listened--there wasn't a sound. "They went upstairs," I thought.
-
-"Hold it, bud," a voice said behind me.
-
-The voice had a chilled steel ring that sent my heart right down into
-my shoes. There was no mercy in it, no compassion, no pity. It was
-double-edged with the threat of death. It jerked my head around.
-
-Marvak was standing there in the office. He had the gun out of his
-pocket now, pointing it straight at me.
-
-There was a closet in the office. Marvak had simply waited in the
-closet until I entered. When I started up the stairs, he had stepped
-out behind me.
-
-"I--I must have got the wrong ad--address," I faltered.
-
-His eyes, gray chilled steel, they were, drilled into me.
-
-"No doubt," he said--but very doubtfully. "You're the reporter I
-noticed at the meeting, aren't you? What are you doing here?"
-
-How big a lie could I tell and still be safe? How close to the truth
-could I come and not get one of those slugs between my eyes?
-
-"I came out to interview Mr. Fradin," I blurted out.
-
-He seemed to let it go, but back of those cold gray eyes I could see
-his mind working as he decided what to do with me. Then I saw him reach
-a decision.
-
-First, he searched me. I didn't have a gun, which seemed to surprise
-him.
-
-"You can come along," he said. "If Fradin can demonstrate to my
-satisfaction the discovery he claimed to have made, it will make the
-headlines, _if_ you get a chance to write it."
-
-With that, he dug the little inventor out of the closet, and with the
-gun out, prodded both of us upstairs. There were only two floors to
-this building and the entire second floor was Fradin's laboratory.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-It was crammed to the ceiling with the weirdest collection of
-electrical equipment I have ever seen. Generators, dynamos, electric
-motors. There was enough radio equipment to set up a modest
-broadcasting station. And in one corner was something big enough to be
-a cyclotron. Fradin had just about everything in his laboratory.
-
-"Now," said Marvak to the little inventor, "you will please prove the
-truth of your assertion that power can be transmitted by radio."
-
-That was the thing that Fradin had said. Power by radio! It doesn't
-sound like much, but let me tell you, it's plenty big. With it, science
-could come darned close to remaking the face of the globe.
-
-How?
-
-This is the power age. Practically all of our industrial
-achievements--and through them we have achieved what passes for
-civilization--have come about through cheap power. Coal, the steam
-engine, the dynamo, water power. Maybe, not so long in the future,
-we'll have atomic power, but we don't have it yet. All we have now are
-coal and water. And possibly 90% of the water power in this country and
-probably 95% of the water power on earth are going to waste, simply
-because the waterfalls are usually in mountains and the places where
-the current is to be used are in cities hundreds and even thousands
-of miles away. _Transmission losses over high lines are so great that
-electrical energy cannot be efficiently transmitted very far._ So the
-water power goes to waste.
-
-But here we have radio transmitted power. No high lines, hence no high
-line losses. Of course there would be other losses, but if Fradin said
-power could be transmitted by radio, he would know how to cure the
-losses. Radio transmitted power would make electricity so damned cheap
-that every home in the country could have it.
-
-And this is only part of the picture that Fradin's invention brought
-into being. Supposing power could be transmitted by radio. Suppose
-automobiles could pick it up and use it. Then the extremely expensive
-internal combustion engine that goes into every car could be replaced
-by cheap motors. The price of cars could be cut in half. Everybody
-could have one. And operation costs would be next to nothing.
-
-Ocean liners? No more bully, costly steam engines. Boats could take
-their power out of the air.
-
-And airplanes. There was the most important item of all. No gasoline
-engines in planes, no engine failures, no crashes because the motor
-conked out. Air flight spanning the globe.
-
-That's what radio transmitted power ought to mean, that's what it would
-mean--until Marvak entered the picture. When he appeared on the scene,
-power by radio, instead of being a blessing, would become one of the
-worst disasters that ever happened to humanity.
-
-Marvak was a spy. Not a common, garden variety of spy, not a fifth
-columnist, not a saboteur, but a sort of super-spy who sold his
-services to the highest bidder. If you wanted a war started, he could
-make all the arrangements to provide for an "incident." If you wanted
-to take over a minor nation, he could pave the way for you; if your
-enemy had a new and secret weapon, he could get the plans. Anything,
-just so he was well paid for it.
-
-If Fradin could really transmit power by radio, and if Marvak got
-the plans, the waterfalls would not be harnessed, there wouldn't be
-cheap automobiles, and handy power for ocean liners. There would be
-power--unfailing power--for one thing: planes! Bombing planes, fighting
-planes!
-
-If you think several nations on this globe would not jump at the chance
-to acquire such an invention, you have another think coming. And the
-price they would be willing to pay for it, would be big enough to
-interest even Marvak. It would be worth--well, what is the worth of
-the British Empire, China, and the United States?
-
-Fradin's invention had exactly the same value as those three nations
-lumped together, if Marvak succeeded in peddling it in Europe. Bombers
-over New York, bombers over Chicago. There would no longer be any
-safety in three thousand miles of water. Bombers over London. New
-bombers that would be almost invincible.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Sweat was running down over my face, down over my body, down over my
-soul. If Marvak got Fradin's invention, Johnny Holmes--that's me--go
-hunt for an air-raid shelter, because you're sure going to need it.
-
-"I was mistaken," Fradin faltered, his voice a whisper. "I
-was--boasting. I cannot transmit power by radio."
-
-"You're a liar!" Marvak snapped.
-
-"I'm not a liar," Fradin whispered.
-
-"Either or else," Marvak said, bringing up his gun until it pointed
-right at the little inventor's forehead.
-
-Fradin had something that a man could call courage. He looked that gun
-in the eye. His face went a shade whiter, but his eyes did not drop.
-
-"I'm afraid it will have to be else," he said. As he spoke the words,
-he seemed to stiffen himself until he stood very straight. He looked
-like a soldier standing at attention. "But if you shoot me you may find
-it difficult to operate my invention."
-
-Marvak's finger tightened around the trigger. His face was cold with
-rage, his grey, killer eyes looked like icicles.
-
-"Don't shoot him, you fool!" I hissed. "Then you'll never find out what
-you want to know."
-
-I was stalling for time, stalling for anything, stalling for a chance
-to jump that gun. I was standing beside Fradin, but the gun covered
-both of us.
-
-"Shut up!" Marvak snarled at me.
-
-The gun went off.
-
-He had shot Fradin. It was cold blooded murder. But as he had shot the
-little scientist, he had taken his eyes off me. I started to jump. The
-gun instantly swung to cover me. I saw Marvak's face, with no mercy in
-it. The gun froze me motionless.
-
-Fradin didn't fall. There was a look of surprise on his face, but he
-didn't fall. Then I saw what had happened. Marvak had shot him in the
-shoulder instead of through his head.
-
-"That's just a sample," Marvak said, "to show you that I mean business.
-You're not badly hurt, but the next one will go through your knee-cap.
-I understand that a bullet through the knee is very painful. Now are
-you going to tell me what I want to know or are you going to need
-further persuasion?"
-
-Blood was running down Fradin's coat. He was clutching his shoulder
-with the other hand, trying to stop the flow of blood. His face was
-very white. And now there was fear on it, fear that had not been there
-when he first faced Marvak's gun. I got the fleeting impression that
-it was not fear of the spy nor of the weapon, but of something else. I
-also got the impression that it was a terrible fear, a soul-consuming
-fear, a bleaching, whitening, shuddering fear, a fear greater even than
-the fear of death....
-
-"All right," the little inventor whispered. "You win. I'll show you
-what you want."
-
-"That's better," Marvak said, in a satisfied tone. "I don't mind saying
-that if I make a cleaning on this, I'm quite willing to cut you and the
-reporter in on it."
-
-He was lying. The only way he would cut us in would be to cut our
-throats. Both Fradin and I knew it.
-
-"I'm afraid," the inventor said, "that your shot has injured my arm so
-badly that I will have to ask you to help me."
-
-"Okay," Marvak said. "But remember I have an excellent knowledge of
-electrical apparatus, so don't try any tricks, like electrocuting me by
-accident."
-
-"There won't be any trickery involved here," the little inventor
-whispered through bloodless lips.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I watched. There were two bulky instruments, one of them a transmitter,
-the other a receiver. The current flow was seemingly directional. It
-was sent out from the transmitter and caught by the receiver. There
-was a meter on the transmitter to show how much current was being
-transmitted and another on the receiver to show how much was getting
-through.
-
-There was a red line on the dial of the meter at the transmitter.
-
-The purpose of the set-up was obviously to demonstrate that current
-could be transmitted by radio.
-
-Marvak made a complete examination of the apparatus. He knew what he
-was doing, all right. You could tell from the way he went over the
-instruments that he knew his stuff.
-
-"I'm not interested in transmitting just a little power," Marvak
-said. "If this thing is to be useful, it must be able to send lots of
-kilowatts through the ether."
-
-"I think," Fradin answered wearily, "it will handle all the power you
-choose to put into it."
-
-That was the thing Marvak had to know, that the power transmitted would
-be adequate to keep a plane in the air. If only a little power was
-transmitted, the invention, from a practical viewpoint, was useless. No
-dictator would give a cent for it.
-
-Marvak handled the transmitter, Fradin tried to operate the receiver
-and to stanch the flow of blood from his shoulder at the same time.
-
-Marvak turned a switch, and the power transmitter began to throb under
-the load. Marvak consulted the meter on the transmitter, then ran
-across the room to the receiver and examined the meter there.
-
-"You've really got it!" he exulted. "There's enough power flowing
-through the receiver to keep a plane in the air."
-
-I was sick, sicker than I had ever been. Fradin's invention worked. And
-when it worked, it spelled our doom. We would be killed, because it
-worked. How many millions of others would also die, I could not begin
-to guess.
-
-"One plane is not enough," Marvak said. "It has to be strong enough to
-supply current to a fleet of planes."
-
-He started triumphantly back to the transmitter.
-
-"I--" Fradin faltered. He started to say something but changed his mind
-abruptly.
-
-Marvak kicked over the handle of the rheostat that fed current into the
-transmitter. The transformer groaned. I could see the hand of the meter
-on the transmitter. It was moving forward as more and more current
-flowed into that mysterious medium that transmits radio waves.
-
-The needle on the dial touched the red mark.
-
-Then--it happened.
-
-If I live to be a thousand years old I'll never be able to describe
-adequately what I saw happen, what I heard happen, what I felt happen.
-It had never happened before.
-
-Something that I can only describe as a lightning flash ran through
-the room. It was a sharp, tearing crash, similar to the sound you hear
-when a bolt of lightning hits near you. There was a flash of brilliant
-light. Thunder seemed to smash my ear drums.
-
-Fradin leaped--but not at Marvak. He leaped at me. The next instant he
-was grabbing me, shoving me across the room. And all the tortures of
-hell were breaking loose around that generator.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-There was a blasting, howling roar of wind. It was the coldest wind
-ever. It was, I suspect, the cold of absolute zero that struck through
-that laboratory.
-
-Out of nowhere, around that transmitter, a hole seemed to appear. It
-seemed to be torn in space. It was black, with a curiously liquid kind
-of blackness. It appeared around the transmitter, and Marvak was at the
-transmitter.
-
-The spy seemed to freeze. A look of amazed fright appeared on his face.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-Then he seemed to fall. The transmitter seemed to fall with him. Marvak
-tried to leap, but the footing seemed to fall away under him. He fell
-out of sight.
-
-For a mad instant, while Fradin kicked and hauled me away from that
-transmitter, the laboratory was hideous with the blast of thunder.
-
-Then another murderous crash came, and....
-
-Then there was silence. Utter silence. The only sound was Fradin
-fighting for his breath. I looked across the room. The transmitter was
-gone. It just wasn't there any more. Under it, in the floor of the room
-was a neat, round hole. All the mass of wires that had led into it
-were neatly severed. Wires came from the transformer to where the hole
-began, then stopped.
-
-Marvak wasn't there. Marvak was gone.
-
-Suddenly I turned to Fradin. "You--" I gulped. "You were afraid this
-would happen. My God, man, what was it?"
-
-"It was," he answered, "a hole in the fourth dimension."
-
-Then I got it. He had been trying to tell that convention of radio
-engineers that radio waves were transmitted through the fourth
-dimension, not through the "ether." He had been able to prove his point
-but he had refused because he knew that this would happen.
-
-"But even if radio waves do pass through the fourth dimension, nothing
-like this has ever happened," I stammered.
-
-"Ordinary broadcasting stations do not put enough power through their
-transmitters to open this hole," he explained. "It takes power to do
-it, lots of power. I had calculated how much power it would take.
-There was a red mark on the input meter of the transmitter. That
-red line marked the critical point. If more power was put through
-the transmitter, it would break down the fabric of space between
-this dimension and the fourth dimension. I knew it would happen.
-That's why I refused to make a demonstration for the benefit of my
-skeptical compatriots. If I told them what I had discovered, proved I
-had discovered it, some fool would be sure to try it, with disastrous
-results."
-
-"But that cold wind," I protested.
-
-"This particular region opens out into what must be interplanetary
-space in the fourth dimension. That cold wind was simply the cold of
-outer space rushing through what was in effect a window."
-
-So that was it. There was a hole in space. And space is cold.
-
-"Marvak!" I said weakly.
-
-"Don't mention him," Fradin shuddered. "He was catapulted into the
-fourth dimension. He's frozen solid by now."
-
-I guess the human race will never have power by radio. Probably we will
-be able to get along without it. Atomic power seems to be coming along,
-and it's safe.
-
-I took Fradin to the hospital. That slug through his shoulder had cost
-him a lot of blood, but he recovered all right, only to discover that
-the Institute of Radio Engineers had booted him right out of their
-organization, for making the preposterous claim that radio waves are
-transmitted through the fourth dimension instead of through the ether.
-However, he never cared two whoops in hell about that. He knew what he
-knew. And he was content with that.
-
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