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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77717 ***
+
+
+
+
+                          Passage to Anywhere
+
+                           by Sam Merwin Jr.
+
+
+
+
+  _Have you ever wondered what would happen if man’s inventive genius
+  should abandon space rocket construction for a more daring approach
+  to the conquest of space? Suppose--just suppose--you could step into
+  a matter-transmitting machine and be instantly teleported to Venus
+  or Mars? Concede the possibility and bear in mind that a battle of
+  political titans would have to be waged first, and we predict you
+  won’t be able to lay this story down. For Sam Merwin Jr., with his
+  customary brilliance, has actually dared to fire the opening gun._
+
+  =The scientists were riding high in the saddle with U N backing. But
+  it took a touch of genius to win the teleportation battle.=
+
+
+
+
+The moment Park Hamilton sat down behind his desk and saw the shocking
+pink envelope lying atop the neat little rectangular tower that
+represented his morning’s mail, he felt a distinct sense of foreboding.
+For, while Hamilton was not psychic, in the course of his six-year
+tenure of the difficult office of executive operations director for
+Science Projects Research, he had become highly sensitive to the
+tumbler fallings of small events as indicative of larger patterns.
+
+Reaching slowly for the shocking pink envelope, he tried to tell
+himself that it was his job that was making him jumpy. Keeping SPR
+together and afloat on the swirling tides of politics and opinion in a
+far from united world was a job that would have caused Atlas to throw
+down his burden in despair and face willingly the wrath of the gods.
+Or so Hamilton had more than once told his familiars in moments of
+despondency.
+
+SPR had been born in the disturbed 1950’s as a modest revolt among
+scientists--first in England, then in the United States--against
+the nationalistic restrictions imposed upon them by governments
+inextricably involved in the Gilbertian paradoxes of the so-called
+Cold War. And, as a divided world somehow worked its way toward peace,
+it had grown, little by little, to include most of the truly able
+scientific brains on Earth.
+
+Dedicated to the pure research few governments or industries could
+afford, it supported itself on a sort of ASCAP arrangement, by which
+its members turned over to SPR all of their royalties and were paid
+in return a guaranteed income according to the earnings of the more
+practical results of their work. Oddly enough, the plan was liked.
+
+Ultimately, SPR had grown so unwieldy, and so rich, that Hamilton’s
+predecessor had managed to put it loosely under the aegis of the United
+Nations, thus protecting the fiercely independent organization, at
+least in part, from nationalist pressure. The great SPR Proving and
+Testing Laboratories in Antarctica had been set up when the UN took
+mandate over that much-claimed and almost uninhabited continent.
+
+But winning agreement to his great plan from the individualistic and
+anarchic SPR members had proved almost more difficult than putting
+through the UN and Antarctic projects. Jacques Swanson, the man
+responsible, had died shortly after the first ground--or rather
+ice--was broken south of Ross Sea. And Park Hamilton was his successor.
+
+He had never allowed himself to believe that the job was a sinecure.
+But he was firmly convinced that if he had been aware of the endless
+problems to which it would give rise he would have shot himself before
+considering it. Which, as his personal assistant, Miss Alderman,
+invariably reminded him, was so much blather.
+
+“You thrive on it,” she told him when this mood was upon him. “You look
+five years younger.”
+
+“That,” was his usual reply, “is because, in a Freudian sense, I’m
+trying to work my way back to the womb. But one of these days you’ll
+come in here and find me quite literally curled up in a foetal
+position. Then what will you do?”
+
+“Buy you a lollipop,” had been her most recent retort.
+
+All in all, a thankless business--and, opening the shocking pink
+envelope, Hamilton had a definite hunch that the day ahead was going to
+be even more thankless than usual.
+
+His foreboding was based on a number of things. Each of them was small
+in itself, but in toto, they shaped up to a pattern he disliked. First,
+for several days, everything connected with SPR had been running far
+too smoothly. No member scientist had come up with a demand for a
+half billion dollars to build a machine that would take him under the
+Earth’s crust.
+
+Moreover, no greedy power had been plotting in the UN Assembly to
+subvert to its own use the discovery of one of its nationals, solely
+to avoid paying SPR patent royalties. And no major industrial cartel
+had been stirring up trouble, charging scientist-slavery, from the same
+motives.
+
+What was even more suspicious and disturbing, the reliable Miss
+Alderman had not yet arrived at her office--and had not phoned in an
+explanation. Shirley, the Eurasian receptionist, had given him this
+information quite casually on the way in.
+
+And on top of that, Hamilton had walked under a ladder coming off the
+high-level ramp, where some rim repairmen had been fixing a warped edge
+on the helicoptor roof. This last occurrence was the most annoying,
+because Hamilton _knew_ it was foolishness and superstition. Yet he
+could not help feeling as he did.
+
+Now--the shocking pink envelope. Its color alone indicated two things.
+One, that it was an emergency message from Antarctica too vital to be
+entrusted to the usual coding channels. And two, that it must have come
+in during the past half hour--since he had left his apartment uptown.
+Otherwise it would have been relayed to him there. He was sure it could
+only mean trouble.
+
+It read: SRYAN OFF HELIJET CIRCA 2200 EDST. VACATION TIME. HAMESSAGE
+RESTRAINING TOO LATE. WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN--CANTSPR. Translated, it
+meant that S. Ryan had taken off in a helijet about 10 p.m., New York
+time, on an overdue vacation. A message from Hamilton asking that he
+delay his departure had arrived too late. Ryan’s present whereabouts
+was not known. Chief, Antarctic Science Projects Research.
+
+Hamilton said, “Damn!” in very forcible accents. Then, deciding the
+oath was still too mild and too trite for the occasion, he added a few
+more lurid expletives in several languages, including the Portuguese.
+These last he had picked up while doing a job as consulting biologist
+on the Amazon Delta Reclamation Plan--where his work had won him
+admission to SPR, class AAAA, and had led directly to his present job.
+
+He flipped the visicommunicator switch to Miss Alderman’s office, and
+received in return nothing but a blank screen. He next switched over to
+Shirley, the receptionist, and was instantly rewarded with a view of
+her flowerlike Eurasian face. She said, “Miss Alderman’s apartment does
+not answer. And she has not called in.”
+
+He flipped off with a scowl and lit a cigarette. His foreboding had
+been justified. He wondered just how his message to Ryan had been
+bungled in Antarctica. Or had Ryan simply defied restraint and taken
+off, and were Cantspr, Witherspoon and the rest down there covering
+for him? Exhaling wearily, he decided he could hardly blame either
+Witherspoon and his able staff, or Ryan himself.
+
+Sven Ryan was an inventor and a man of genius. As an inventor he had
+just successfully tested what might well prove the most important
+single development in human gadgetry since the long-haired discovery
+of the wheel. And, as a genius, he had to be given _some_ leeway. But
+Ryan, free-roaming and talking just now--Hamilton tried but failed to
+suppress a shudder at the thought.
+
+The visicommunicator hummed and he flipped it on again, hoping it
+would be the sorely needed Miss Alderman. Instead, it was Shirley.
+Impassively she announced in her sweet, thin voice, “Mr. Harris of the
+UN is here to see you, sir.”
+
+“Dammit, I _know_ Mr. Harris is from the UN!” Hamilton exploded. Then,
+noting her hurt look, “I’m sorry, Shirley. You’re not the target of my
+wrath. Send him in.”
+
+Ian Harris, as SPR high-level liaison man for the United Nations, had
+been working closely with Hamilton for almost five years. They had
+traveled together, wined and dined together both in public and private,
+golfed together, and explored each other’s minds and opinions in the
+closest harmony for hundreds of hours. And yet, at moments such as
+this, Harris had the knack of putting Hamilton on the defensive.
+
+Hamilton knew he was the better looking. He had viewed himself too many
+times on too many color projection screens to have any doubts on that
+score. But his gray-tipped brown hair looked faintly theatrical when
+contrasted with Harris’ cropped black head, and his upper lip looked
+naked beside the other man’s neat black mustache. What was even more
+disconcerting, his features looked looser and more florid, his clothes
+not nearly so well fitting.
+
+As usual, when Harris entered with a brisk nod Hamilton was annoyed to
+find the refrain of _There’ll Always Be an England_ running through his
+head. He said, “Hello, Ian,” waved him to a chair and offered him a
+cigarette with a defensive geniality.
+
+The Englishman shook his head, settled back with a sigh and regarded
+his host with an I-say-old-man-is-this-exactly-cricket? expression.
+It occurred to Hamilton that Harris looked at the moment as sad as a
+Georgia hound dog whose master had eaten up all the steak.
+
+The silence lasted until Hamilton said, with a trace of irritation
+he hated himself for revealing, “Ian, if you came over here to put
+the evil eye on me, I earnestly suggest that you go back to your own
+office? Let _me_ be _your_ guest.”
+
+The UN representative regarded Hamilton as if he were some animal of a
+rarely photographed and inexplicable new species. Then he said, mildly,
+“Park. I find it difficult at times to convince certain regrettably
+backward branches of our organization that SPR is not a malignant wild
+growth upon the human social organism--a growth primarily dedicated
+to the development of disruptive discoveries without regard to their
+probable effect upon the structure of our society as a whole.”
+
+“For heaven’s sake, get to the point, Ian,” said Hamilton. “We’ve been
+over this a thousand times before. It’s the job of SPR’s scientists
+to invent what comes bubbling up to the surface of their perhaps
+oddly constructed minds. It’s my job--and yours--to fit them into the
+socio-economic pattern.”
+
+Harris regarded him with a mute disapproval that made Hamilton feel
+like a small boy caught cheating in a grade-school test. The UN man
+said, “Do you really think you’re doing your job, old man?”
+
+“I’m doing my best,” said Hamilton, knowing that the toreador capework
+was about over and the moment of truth about to arrive.
+
+“I’m sure you are.” Having made his point, Harris was disposed to be
+conciliatory. “But what about this Ryan business?”
+
+Hamilton sighed, and pushed the shocking pink envelope across the
+desk. “There it is,” he said simply. “Somebody goofed. I sent out a
+restraining order under special code the moment I heard that Ryan’s
+tests were successful.”
+
+Harris glanced at the message, frowned, and tossed it back on the desk.
+“Rough luck, Park,” he said. Then, “Has it occurred to you what it
+could mean if word gets out generally that this mad genius of yours has
+developed an instantaneous matter-transmitter?”
+
+“How did _you_ hear of it?” Hamilton asked, instantly suspicious, and
+remembering that it was absolutely against the UN-SPR pact for the UN
+to have an informant in Antarctica.
+
+To Hamilton’s amazement, the usually imperturbable Harris countenance
+turned a bright pink. Нe thought, _If I’m not skinned alive over this
+it will have been worth it--just to see Ian blush. But what is he
+hiding?_
+
+The UN man said, with seeming clairvoyance, “It’s not what you think.
+I--er--picked it up quite inadvertently. I happened to stumble across
+your man Ryan late last night.”
+
+“If you did,” said Hamilton seriously, “why in the name of heaven
+didn’t you clamp on to him?”
+
+“I tried to,” was the reply. “But the circumstances were not exactly
+propitious.”
+
+“Ryan at complete liberty in New York!” Hamilton groaned. “Was he
+talking?”
+
+“If he was keeping silent,” said Harris, his face resuming its normal
+pale tan, “would I be here now? I tell you, Park, this may be more
+serious than you think. I’m qualified to understand his ravings--an
+ability not shared by many, thank God. But there’s no way of telling
+how much harm has been done.”
+
+“Have you taken steps?” Hamilton asked, wishing he had looked up before
+walking under that ladder.
+
+Harris nodded. “I’ve put our UN force on the job. But what can they do?
+There are only a few score of them. Even if they locate him, they have
+no real jurisdiction outside of UN territory. All your man has to do
+is tell them to push off.” He paused, then added, “I came over here to
+discover your attitude and what steps _you_ are taking.”
+
+“Thanks, Ian,” said Hamilton. Harris didn’t have to detail what
+it could mean if word got out that a successful instantaneous
+matter-transmitter had been discovered. It could mean world-wide
+financial and economic catastrophe. It could mean disaster for every
+other form of freight and cargo transportation on Earth, from the great
+rocket airliners with their chains of freight-gliders to the humblest
+obsolescent tramp steamer plying the ocean waves.
+
+Hearing of it prematurely, people wouldn’t wait to learn its
+limitations, or the bugs that would have to be worked out before it
+could be put into operation. They’d dump their stocks and property
+investments and gilt-edged bonds and the result might well be
+world-wide chaos.
+
+“We’ll do our very best, never fear,” said Hamilton, accompanying
+Harris to the office door.
+
+But, returning to his desk, he wondered just what they could do. To put
+either the New York City police or the Federal Authorities on the job
+would be an iron-clad way of opening up a leak. It was one hell of a
+mess. He sat down behind his desk, put his face in his hands, and tried
+desperately to think of something. Nothing came.
+
+The visicommunicator hummed its little tune, and wearily he turned it
+on again. Miss Alderman’s trim, competent face appeared on the screen.
+He said, “Just where have _you_ been?”
+
+She said, “I only this minute got home--and I’ve got the mad Minnesotan
+with me. _Chief_, are you okay?”
+
+
+                                   II
+
+Hamilton’s first reaction was one of utter disbelief. He said, “You’ve
+_what_, Nancy? If by any chance this is a joke--”
+
+“It’s not,” Miss Alderman assured him crisply. “How do you think I got
+these rings under my eyes? Sven Ryan is sleeping it off right here in
+my apartment. I didn’t dare turn on my communicator until he passed
+out.”
+
+“But where, and how did you ever get hold of him?” asked Hamilton,
+still half-incredulous.
+
+“Maybe you’d better come right over here, Chief,” she said. “I’ll
+explain when you get here. Do you know where I live?”
+
+“I do--and I’m on my way.” When Miss Alderman switched off, he flipped
+Shirley’s switch, and informed her he was leaving the office. “Call Mr.
+Harris and tell him everything is under control,” he directed.
+
+He left by the private door, thus avoiding the reception room and any
+potential holdups in the outer office. Emerging on the high-level ramp,
+he looked about warily for the rim repairmen and their ladder, and
+was relieved to discover that they had finished their work, and gone
+elsewhere.
+
+Since Miss Alderman, like everyone on SPR except its few top echelon
+members, lived within a mile of the Zeckendorf Plaza offices, Hamilton
+hopped a ramp-conveyor that carried him with gratifying celerity and
+an equally gratifying smoothness across the bottomless canyons of the
+incredible city.
+
+In less than fifteen minutes he had arrived at a high-level port in
+her own building, close to the lean green rectangle of Central Park.
+About him, unnoticed, passed the ever-changing kaleidoscopic vista of
+Manhattan with its familiar but fantastic metal and glass complexes of
+polychromatic spires, pyramids, ziggurats and domes.
+
+Although the trip had been incredibly brief, Miss Alderman looked as
+crisply and as trimly brunette as she had on the day when she had
+first stepped into his office to take up her difficult assignment as
+his personal secretary. Evidently she had found time to do a quite
+miraculous repair job on the circles under her eyes.
+
+He put an arm around her shoulders, and gave her a quick squeeze. He
+said, “If I forgot to say thanks over the communicator--thanks now,
+Nancy.” He stood back, looking at her with open admiration. “_How?_” he
+asked her.
+
+“Have some coffee,” she suggested, flushing with pleasure.
+
+She poured him a steaming black cupful from a glasspresso livingroom
+machine which was one of SPR’s most profitable patents. As they sat
+down, Hamilton could hear the faint sound of snoring from behind the
+closed bedroom door. He lifted an eyebrow, and nodded toward the sound.
+Miss Alderman nodded in return.
+
+“I’m waiting,” said Hamilton.
+
+“Well,” she began, marshalling her thoughts and words with care, “I was
+sound asleep in my beautypad when I got a call on the communicator.
+It must have been just about three a.m. It was one of the girls in
+compo-filing. She was watching a night club mike-jockey and she told me
+that Sven Ryan had just appeared on the screen, and wasn’t he supposed
+to be in Antarctica? It seems she filed your restraining message
+yesterday afternoon.”
+
+“Good girls, both of you,” said Hamilton warmly.
+
+To his surprise, Miss Alderman choked on her coffee. For some reason,
+her reaction reminded him of Ian Harris’ inexplicable embarrassment in
+his office earlier.
+
+When she had recovered herself, Miss Alderman said, “I’m sorry, Chief.
+But I think you’ll understand when I tell you that by the time I got
+myself together and over to the club our crazy genius was sitting at a
+table swathed in three of Molly Sadler’s choicest items--one blonde,
+one redhead, and one brunette. You never saw such--er--figures.”
+
+Hamilton could not help smiling. His use of the phrase _good girls_
+in even remote connotation with any of Molly Sadler’s justly renowned
+Cyprians was more than amusing. He said, “You underrate me, Nancy. How
+did Ryan react when he saw you?”
+
+“It was odd.” She told him. “Mind you, he was very drunk, and by the
+time I managed to get him halfway reassembled he couldn’t remember any
+of it. But I’d be willing to swear he said, ‘Lord! Another vulture! And
+I fled Antarctica to get away from all of you. But where’s your black
+mustache?’”
+
+She stroked her perfectly smooth upper lip, looking faintly troubled.
+Then she said, “I don’t have a mustache, do I, Chief?”
+
+He replied, “No, of course not, but Ia--” He caught it barely in
+time. And, in spite of himself, he grimaced, envisioning what must
+have happened. Evidently Ryan, loaded and ready for “tiger hunting,”
+had headed for Molly Sadler’s famous non-home and discovered the
+impeccable, imperturbable, and immovable Ian Harris already there.
+
+“What’s the matter, Chief?” Miss Alderman stared at him with curiosity
+snapping in her wide-set black eyes.
+
+“Nothing,” said Alderman. “Tell you later. How did you manage to get
+him away from the bevy? From what I’ve heard about Molly’s girls--” He
+let it hang.
+
+“Chief, all I can tell you after last night is that everything you
+hear isn’t half the truth,” she said solemnly. “If I had a quarter of
+the--well, I’ll just say that if I had a certain kind of glamor I’d
+never have wasted a fourth of my life becoming college-trained to spend
+the best years of my youth behind a desk--even a very nice desk.”
+
+“You’ll do--anywhere,” he told her. Then, frowning, “Among the
+interesting things I’ve heard about Molly’s girls is that some of them
+have college degrees too. Was Ryan talking?”
+
+“He certainly was,” said Miss Alderman promptly. “He was beguiling his
+harem with promises to ship each of them an Antarctic rock-diamond
+every week, by instant teleportation.”
+
+“Oh, God!” said Hamilton. “Let’s hope these particular girls
+have extremely low IQ’s. They could be the exact opposite of the
+intellectual type.”
+
+“I wouldn’t bet on it, Chief,” was Miss Alderman’s reply. “Though it
+doesn’t seem quite fair, when you come right down to it.”
+
+“How did you get him away from them?” he asked.
+
+She shook her close-cut darkhaired head. “If I hadn’t been full of
+outraged righteousness, if I’d stopped to think twice, I’d never have
+made it,” she admitted. “I just marched in and led poor Sven out by
+the ear. It was a high-handed, somewhat unworthy trick--at least he
+seemed to think so once I had him under wraps. I’m beginning to think
+so myself.”
+
+“Get hold of yourself, Nancy,” said Hamilton, rising. “You’ve done SPR
+a very great service. How’d you keep him here?”
+
+“Not the way you think,” she said promptly. “By the time I got him here
+he was running out of steam. He wanted to talk--and go on drinking.
+He’s a pretty nice guy, you know. It took me all the rest of the night
+to get him folded up.” She paused, then added, “Chief, is this new item
+of his as hot as he claims?”
+
+“Ian Harris was in my office just now, having catfits over it,” said
+Hamilton. “Potentially, it’s the hottest potato SPR has ever come up
+with. And we’ve had to handle some pretty sizzling ones, remember?”
+
+“I remember,” said Miss Alderman.
+
+Hamilton rose. He said, “I think we’d better wake Ryan up. We can’t let
+him sleep here indefinitely.”
+
+“Why, Chief!” asked Miss Alderman, standing to reveal a trim if not
+opulent figure.
+
+“I’m not, at the moment, concerned about your reputation,” he told her,
+inwardly damning all women for their tendency to coyness at the wrong
+moments. “What I am concerned with is Ryan and his--”
+
+The doorbell chimed sharply. After a swift, silent interchange, Miss
+Alderman answered it. Rather expecting Ian Harris to have run them to
+earth, Hamilton was not wholly surprised at the appearance of a huge,
+burly man with bushy black eyebrows and a ruggedly handsome face.
+
+Face and body belonged to Charles Forsythe, Undersecretary of Science
+and Industry in the Cabinet of the President of the United States and
+one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful individuals. It is
+perhaps needless to add that he was, incidentally, SPR’s deadliest foe
+in the name of private enterprise.
+
+Miss Alderman turned to stare at Hamilton, her expression bewildered
+and uncertain.
+
+Hamilton said, quietly, “Come in, Charlie. Come in. I’m glad to see
+you.”
+
+“Glad to see you, too, Park,” said Forsythe. The two men eyed each
+other with the restrained wariness of polite jungle cats. Then
+Forsythe’s mouth twitched and Hamilton found himself laughing with the
+intruder. _Confound the man!_ he thought. It was a hell of a note when
+you couldn’t stay mad at your enemies.
+
+Actually, Forsythe’s sudden emergence in the already complex problem of
+Sven Ryan and his matter-transmitter was an element Hamilton had been
+hoping they could avoid ever since Ian Harris had told him Ryan was at
+liberty in New York and talking his head off. But, since Forsythe was
+already here....
+
+Hamilton said, “Let Miss Alderman pour you a cup of coffee. It’s
+excellent, I can assure you.”
+
+“Thank you, I could use one,” said the industrialist, flinging
+himself in a rollachair that creaked ominously under his by no means
+inconsiderable weight. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
+
+“I don’t imagine you did,” said Hamilton, shaking his head faintly at
+Nancy, who was giving him a shall-I-put-something-in-it? look. “You
+must have been pretty busy.”
+
+“All in the night’s work,” said Forsythe, yawning and extending his
+legs. His voice, like the rest of him, was big and deep. Charlie
+Forsythe looked like a gigantic, old-fashioned steel puddler who
+had come up in the world and was not quite adjusted to its social
+niceties--a bull in a china shop instead of the expensively-reared son
+of vast inherited wealth that he actually was. He was a throwback to
+the industrial-pirate era of the late nineteenth century--human, tough,
+limited, determined, likeable, and always dangerous.
+
+He was, in fact, that most dangerous variety of anarchist--the sort
+that believes in absolute freedom for himself and stringent regulation
+for others. He was a dinosaur, a three-decker man of war. He was
+obsolete but he didn’t know it. All of which, with his strength of
+personality and immense resources, made him doubly dangerous.
+
+The cup of coffee Miss Alderman handed him looked like a child’s piece
+of doll-house china in his immense hairy hand. Нe drained it at a
+draught, nodded his thanks, and said, “Well, where’s the boy?”
+
+“In there,” said Hamilton, nodding toward the bedroom door. “He’s
+sleeping it off.”
+
+“I’ve got an order here,” said Forsythe patting his breast pocket.
+“I’ve also got operatives outside. We’re picking up Ryan under the
+Security Act of nineteen fifty-six.”
+
+“You _have_ been busy,” said Hamilton, really worried. “But that Act
+has been superseded by a whole flock of subsequent legislation.”
+
+Forsythe grinned lazily, like a satisfied sabre-tooth tiger. He said,
+“Maybe--but it’s still on the books. And by the time the courts get
+through arguing out the pros and cons of it we’ll have all the juice
+out of the boy.” He glanced at Hamilton, and added significantly, “All
+of this is on the level, isn’t it? I’d hate to think I’d wasted the
+entire night for nothing.”
+
+Hamilton longed to lie, but knew it would gain him nothing. They’d
+simply pull Ryan in anyway and find out about his invention for
+themselves. He said, “It’s on the level, Charley. But the whole thing
+is so new--so untried. It may take years, even decades.”
+
+Forsythe lit a cigar--a cigarette would have looked like a ladycracker
+stuck in that enormous face. He said, “That may be so. But we can’t
+afford to risk it. The Wrights invented the airplane at the turn of the
+century, and ten years later they were using it to bomb targets in the
+Second Balkan War.”
+
+That, thought Hamilton unhappily, was one of the things that made
+Forsythe dangerous. Underneath the bullyboy exterior lurked a
+first-class brain and a vast storehouse of knowledge in unexpected
+fields. It was, he decided, time to take steps.
+
+“Charley,” he said, “I think you know what I am empowered to do if
+you try this with Ryan. It is clearly stated in the SPR charter that
+infringement by a national government, or any subject or citizen
+of such a government, upon the rights of either SPR, or any member
+thereof, permits us to apply sanctions, either limited or total,
+according to our judgment. That’s a UN General Assembly provision.”
+
+Forsythe looked sleepily amused. “Quite the lawyer, aren’t you, Park?
+Too bad you aren’t as good an American.”
+
+With difficulty Hamilton restrained the sudden surge of anger within
+him. He said, “Not today, Charley. But if you pull this kidnapping
+merely to save your own bank account SPR _will_ take action--and we’ll
+have no trouble getting UN backing.”
+
+“Of course you won’t,” said Forsythe, smiling. “But we can’t afford the
+risk of matter-transmission at this point. We’re willing to fly by the
+seat of our pants. The UN can’t afford to have you people withdraw your
+patents from us and put America out of business.” He blew a perfect
+smoke ring.
+
+Miss Alderman emerged from the bedroom. “He’s still out like a light,”
+she said.
+
+“We have an ambulance downstairs,” said Forsythe quietly. “We were
+going to use it anyway.”
+
+Hamilton said, “Naturally, we wouldn’t put America out of business.
+But we could withdraw your rights to all SPR patents employed in your
+international carriers. That would hurt _you_. It would force American
+exporters to use foreign carriers. But it wouldn’t put America or the
+world out of business.”
+
+It was the old, hateful tug of war, the civilized man against the
+jungle barbarian in thought and deed. Not for the first time, Hamilton
+felt a sense of shame at his country’s forbearance. As, he supposed,
+other internationalists must occasionally feel toward their own.
+
+Forsythe said, “I hardly have to remind you, Park, that there is strong
+and growing resentment in certain influential circles against your SPR
+as a world monopoly that gobbles up all of our finest scientific brains
+and forces us to pay for their use.”
+
+“If you’d paid them well enough to begin with, SPR would never have
+been formed,” said Hamilton.
+
+“Perhaps.” Forsythe shrugged. “But that’s water under the bridge. We
+shan’t repeat the mistake, I promise you.”
+
+“You won’t get the chance,” warned Hamilton.
+
+They were eyeing each other warily when the doorbell chimed again.
+Miss Alderman hastened to answer it. Ian Harris stood framed in
+the entranceway, backed by four white-and-blue-uniformed UN police
+officers. A pair of plainclothesmen, obviously Forsythe’s operatives,
+hovered at a discreet distance behind them.
+
+Harris, looking every inch the Britisher, waited until Miss Alderman
+had closed the door. Then he said, “Mr. Forsythe, am I right in my
+interpretation of what Miss Alderman recently informed me via UN
+communicator? Did you enter this apartment, accompanied by an armed
+escort, for the sole purpose of removing without his consent an SPR
+employee to an unknown destination?”
+
+Forsythe shrugged his mammoth shoulders. “Interpret it as you choose.
+I came here empowered by the President of the United States, operating
+under law--the Security Act of nineteen fifty-six--to ensure that a
+citizen of my country does not employ his specialized knowledge to its
+jeopardy.”
+
+Harris said, drily, “For your information, Forsythe, and that of your
+government, all SPR property and persons fall under UN jurisdiction
+according to General Assembly agreement--an agreement ratified by all
+member nations. That naturally includes their living quarters. Since
+Miss Alderman is an SPR official her apartment is therefore inviolable
+by any national police force--except in case of a felony.”
+
+Hamilton stepped in. He said, “Gentlemen, we seem to have reached an
+impasse. May I therefore suggest a way out?”
+
+
+                                  III
+
+Hamilton left Forsythe and Ian Harris sitting on opposite sides of
+the fore-cabin of the SPR helirocket which was taking them swiftly
+southward to Antarctica. In the rear cabin were Miss Alderman and an
+unhappily reawakened Sven Ryan.
+
+Hamilton nodded to his assistant and said, “Nancy, you’d better go
+forward and keep those two tigers from tearing each other limb from
+limb. I want to talk to Ryan alone. It’s of great importance.”
+
+Miss Alderman slipped silently from the rear cabin and Hamilton sat
+down in the seat she had left vacant and studied the inventor in
+tight-lipped concern. Despite the fact that he had spent two years
+under the skin-tanning Antarctic sun and snow-glare, Sven Ryan’s face
+was white. Quite obviously he was the sort of milk-skinned redhead who
+does not react to exposure by turning red or brown.
+
+At the moment, his face was a near-pistachio green--a delicate pastel
+shade that contrasted vividly with the bright red of his hair and
+eyeballs. He sat despondently on his cot, with his chin in his hands,
+flanked by an oxygen inhalator and a half-empty bottle of anti-fatigue
+tablets.
+
+He eyed his chief with resignation. “What are you going to do to me,
+Park?” he said. “Boot me out of the SPR?”
+
+“For heaven’s sake, why?” Hamilton asked, surprised.
+
+“For blowing a couple of million bucks,” was the solemn reply.
+
+Hamilton had expected to find Ryan in the throes of physical reaction
+to his bender, but he had not expected such abject mental misery.
+He said, soothingly, “Sven, you know as well as I do that SPR funds
+are primarily for the use of its scientists--for their research and
+experimentation. The only thing that puzzles me is why you went
+gallivanting off and spilled your large flannel mouth all over New York
+last night.”
+
+Hamilton was prepared for every answer but the one he got. Incredibly,
+the inventor lifted his bleary eyes to the other’s face and said, “Why
+shouldn’t I drown my sorrows after blowing all that money and work on a
+miserable failure? And if I chose to talk about it, that’s my business.”
+
+Hamilton felt as if the helirocket had hit an old-fashioned air pocket.
+The very breath seemed to go out of him. He said, “But according to the
+reports, your transmitter was a success. It worked.”
+
+Sven Ryan made a gesture of disgust. “Sure it worked,” he said, “over
+one kilometer with a few kilos of dead weight. But you know what I was
+working for. My whole aim has been to invent some method of transport
+that will make interplanetary travel economically feasible. But what
+good is a transporter that cannot send organic life?”
+
+He paused to take a whiff of oxygen and his looks and spirits almost
+visibly improved. “I must have been out of my mind, Park. I ran a dozen
+extra tests with white mice.” He shook his head wretchedly. “What came
+out in the receiver was sickening. I felt like a sadist.”
+
+“So you took off and got drunk,” said Hamilton. “You wanted to drown
+your sorrows.”
+
+Here, he thought, was a perfect example of the creative, scientific
+mind--a mind so wrapped up in fulfillment of a dream, in the attainment
+of a single end, that everything else remained in fuzzy focus. Here was
+that persistent anomaly, the completely dedicated man who would never
+cease to be a problem to the more scatter-gunned mass of humanity. It
+was a problem that ranged all the way from the absentminded professor
+to the discoverer of new theories and machines that were constantly
+threatening to disrupt the balances by which other men lived.
+
+“Seven years!” said Ryan gloomily. “Seven years and almost three
+million SPR dollars--and it’s a tragic bust. Do you wonder I blew my
+top, Park?” He paused again and for an instant his eyes lighted up.
+“Chief, do you know who I ran into last night? I’m not going to tell
+you where, but it was--”
+
+“It was Ian Harris of the UN, and you stumbled over him at Molly
+Sadler’s house of joy,” said Hamilton.
+
+“How’d you know?” Ryan asked. Then, before his chief could answer,
+“Lord, Park, it was almost worth it. But I was in no mood to trade shop
+talk with Ian Harris then. So I grabbed me an armful of girls and took
+off. The next thing I remember, Nancy--your girl Friday--was hauling me
+away from them. And the next thing I remember after that is waking up
+here with the same face before me. Park, is part of her job tormenting
+poor scientists out for a little ill-deserved fun?”
+
+Hamilton chuckled. Then he said, “Didn’t she tell you anything, Sven?”
+
+“She tried to,” was the reply, “but I shut her up. As it was my ears
+were ringing in three different keys. Why do you ask?”
+
+“Brace yourself, boy,” said Hamilton, deciding it was time to discuss
+some home truths with a youth who was showing every sign of rapid
+recovery. “We’re on our way to Antarctica. Did you know that?”
+
+“That I got,” said Ryan. “Are you planning to have me flayed alive or
+merely drawn and quartered?”
+
+“Hardly,” Hamilton assured him. “Though there are a couple of chaps up
+in the front cabin who might not be averse to such a plan. One of them
+is Charles Forsythe, the American Secretary for Science and Industry.
+The other is your old friend Ian Harris.”
+
+Ryan sat bolt upright on his cot, his clearing eyes wide with surprise.
+“Good God!” he exclaimed. “How come they’re in on this? Are they
+planning to participate in my courtmartial? I’m sorry, Park, if I’ve
+made things tough for you. But I don’t quite see what I did to--”
+
+“All you did,” Hamilton interrupted, “was to invent the first
+successful instantaneous matter-transmitter in history. In your
+preoccupation with discovering a way to send men to the stars it
+evidently didn’t occur to you that your little gadget, right here on
+Earth, can make every other means of transport from a mountain burro to
+the latest A-rocket obsolete overnight. And then you had to get drunk
+and spill it all over New York! Charlie Forsythe tried to put you under
+security lock and key for the United States.”
+
+Hamilton went on to explain exactly what had happened. How Nancy
+Alderman had plucked him to precarious safety, how Forsythe had
+attempted protective custody, how Harris had foiled Forsythe, and
+finally how Hamilton himself, after a prolonged and fruitless argument,
+had stepped in with a compromise suggestion.
+
+“You mean you want me to run off a test for these characters?” Ryan
+inquired with amazing perspicacity.
+
+“Exactly,” said Hamilton. “You can, can’t you?”
+
+“Sure,” was the prompt reply. “But it won’t prove anything. The
+ground-level projection range is only a couple of kilometers. Even with
+towers, it won’t transmit far enough to amount to anything. Who wants
+to haul heavy freight up to the top of a hundred-meter tower to move it
+a few more kilometers? Park, it just doesn’t make sense.”
+
+“How far did the first airplane fly?” Hamilton asked the inventor. “A
+hundred and thirty-seven feet, wasn’t it?”
+
+“Hmmph!” Ryan took another whiff of oxygen. “I hadn’t thought of the
+Earth-transport angle. But the bugs in this creation of mine are going
+to be a hell of a lot harder to work out. Earth-transport--why, it’s
+like using a diecaster to crack a nut.” Then, with a look of alarm,
+“Chief, you aren’t giving up on the space-travel dream, are you?”
+
+Hamilton shook his head. “You know better than that,” he said. “In
+fact--” He let it hang, adding quickly, “But forget about your
+invention being a flop. It’s potentially the most important single
+device any SPR man has ever come up with. I’m sorry we had to cut off
+your spree in mid-flight, but we couldn’t afford an international panic
+just now.”
+
+A brief, boyish smile lent charm to the inventor’s almost ugly face.
+He said wistfully, “I guess it would kick over a lot of applecarts at
+that. Hey, Park, where are you going?”
+
+“You may not have noticed,” said Hamilton drily, “but we’re coming in
+to land. Don’t you want to come forward and join the others? After all,
+you are the lion of this occasion.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ryan hesitated, then shook his head. “I might embarrass Harris,” he
+said, and winced at the accidental rhyme.
+
+“Impossible,” said Hamilton, rising. Then, recalling the Englishman’s
+blush in his office only that morning, “Well, have it your own way.
+Just remember you’re a hero, son.”
+
+“I’ll try, Father Hamilton,” said Ryan, patting his diaphragm and
+belching vigorously. “Sometimes I don’t know what’s worse--the hangover
+or its cure.”
+
+“You’re cured,” said Hamilton from the doorway. “See you at the base.
+Run these tests off and you’ll get all the liberty and girls you
+want--liquor, too.”
+
+“Don’t make me ill again,” said Ryan. “I’ve had it for another five
+years. I’m even looking forward to seeing the girls at the base again.
+Thanks, Park--for everything.”
+
+An hour later, they were seated at a luncheon table in the CANTSPR’s
+private dining room, where Jack Witherspoon and his aides had whipped
+together a remarkable short-notice meal of foods raised or grown on the
+SPR Breeding and Agricultural Station.
+
+There was a delicious plankton-and-shark-fin soup, followed by filets
+of musk-oxen that had been so treated by SPR husbandry and food experts
+that it rivaled the finest Argentine beef. These were accompanied by an
+astonishing array of locally-grown fruits and vegetables, some out of
+doors, some under artificial lights, and all of them hydroponically.
+
+When dessert was served Witherspoon--a lean, nut-brown man with a high,
+near-bald forehead--remarked, “One thing we never have to worry about
+here is the sherbet. We always have plenty of ice.”
+
+The sally brought a chuckle, but it was of short duration. Forsythe
+and Ian Harris were still locked in their marathon argument as to the
+rights of the individual nation, and the individual citizen balanced
+against the stern edicts of a world control.
+
+“You can’t go against human nature,” Forsythe said for the fifteenth
+time. “People are people, and they’ll always want to take care of their
+own before they share with others.”
+
+“_Some_ people, Forsythe,” said Harris drily. “Fortunately or
+otherwise, there are a number of us who consider loyalty to self and
+species above loyalty to any institution or set of institutions,
+however traditional.”
+
+“I suppose,” said Forsythe in his booming voice, “that the UN is not an
+institution--and you are not loyal to it?”
+
+“A specious argument, I fear,” replied Harris, stroking his neat black
+mustache. “I’ll grant you that institutions are necessary, man being
+what he is. But it is therefore necessary for us to create and serve
+institutions that grow constantly larger in scope and embrace more and
+more people in their pattern of expansion. Should we not instead draw a
+line and say, ‘Here I stop--I go no further.’”
+
+“What will happen when we colonize the planets?” Sven Ryan asked.
+
+Harris regarded the inventor with mild astonishment, while Forsythe
+looked actually baleful. The American cabinet member said, “I thought
+the space-dream was halted for the time being, after the last
+Moon-mission failed. How much did that one cost you people? Forty-one
+billions, wasn’t it?”
+
+“And the lives of seventeen men and women when the appropriations bill
+was cut--thanks largely to American influence in the UN,” retorted the
+inventor hotly.
+
+“If they’d come back as ordered, no one would have died,” said Forsythe
+angrily. “What was the sense of maintaining a Moon station when all
+they could do was observe conditions there--at the staggering cost of
+fifteen billion dollars a year?”
+
+“I opposed the appropriations cut, Mr. Ryan,” Ian Harris reminded him.
+“However, expenses were running a bit hog-wild.”
+
+“Do you think of nothing but dollars?” Ryan asked pugnaciously. His
+hangover safely buried, he had acquired a new belligerence.
+
+Hamilton broke the embarrassed silence that followed. Laying his napkin
+on the table, he rose and asked, “Don’t you think we’d better be
+getting on with the test?”
+
+Actually, he was on the inventor’s side of the argument, but he
+dared not risk alienating the others. Leaving the dining room, they
+were taken underground, where they donned temperature-proof aluminum
+coveralls. Then they rode a swift, monorail subway to the proving
+ground. Hamilton wished his chest would stop itching. It always began
+the moment he found himself unable to scratch it.
+
+Miss Alderman caught his arm for an instant as they left the monorail
+at the end of their journey. “What have you got in mind, Chief?” she
+asked him in a cautious whisper.
+
+“Wait and see,” was his whispered reply. “We’ve still got an ace or two
+up our sleeves.”
+
+“I hope so,” she said earnestly. “If Mr. Forsythe gets frightened
+enough, I’m afraid he’ll ask the Americans to drop a bomb on the whole
+base.”
+
+“We can stop a bomb,” Hamilton told her quietly. “We’ve got to stop any
+effort to put clamps on SPR through UN channels. I’m not even sure how
+Ian would stand on such a move if your boyfriend’s invention looks too
+good. But that’s my job. You concentrate on keeping Ryan in hand. You
+didn’t do too well at the lunch table.”
+
+“He’s not my boyfriend!” was Miss Alderman’s hot retort--a trifle too
+heated, Hamilton thought. He replied with his most irritating chuckle.
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+As the tests were set up, Hamilton, Sven Ryan and Ian Harris remained
+at the near transmitter-post, while Forsythe and Miss Alderman
+journeyed by jet-sled across a kilometer of concrete to the far
+terminus, with Jack Witherspoon doing the honors as operator at the
+terminus post. The transmitter, looking somewhat like an old-fashioned
+circular heater, or primitive radar receptor, was enclosed in a heated
+dome-hut. With the complex machinery that surrounded it, it rose more
+than two meters high.
+
+Ian Harris, regarding it with a dubious gleam in his eye, remarked, “It
+looks rather like an upended warming pan, doesn’t it?”
+
+Hamilton ignored the remark. “As I get it, Sven, the principle involved
+is that of atomic transmutation--right?” he asked, prowling about the
+machine as the inventor set about preparing it for the test with quiet
+efficiency.
+
+“That’s the basic idea,” Ryan replied. “Actually, it breaks down the
+cargo into its atomic components, and transmits it over the beam to the
+terminus, where it is reassembled. The whole process of breakdown, like
+the reassembly, must take place in one-thousandth of a second--or we’d
+come up with apple tapioca or something. You should see some of the
+messes we’ve had. And--” he added with a glance at Hamilton, “I don’t
+mean the mice.”
+
+“Int’resting,” said Ian Harris, stroking his mustache. “Any chance of
+an explosion if the timing’s off?”
+
+Ryan shook his copper head. “Not a chance,” he replied firmly.
+“There’s nothing to trigger a critical mass--and besides, there’s no
+critical mass to trigger. If there were--” He paused significantly.
+“If there were we’d have been blown to bits, along with a large chunk
+of Antarctica, months ago. Some of our timing was so far off it was
+pitiful.”
+
+Hamilton said, “What about while your beam is operating. Any time limit
+on that?”
+
+“None that we know of,” was the reply. “Once she’s in beam
+transmission, she’s static. It’s the breakdown and reassembly stages
+where every millisecond counts.” He flipped a switch, and a large
+visiscreen showed Jack Witherspoon preparing a duplicate of the
+transmitter, with Miss Alderman and hulking Charley Forsythe hovering
+in the background.
+
+“Ready, Jack?” the inventor asked.
+
+“In a minute,” was the reply. “What are you sending us?”
+
+Sven looked at Ian Harris. “Willing to risk your watch?” he asked.
+“Park will replace it if anything goes wrong.”
+
+“You can send a watch without hurting it?” the UN liaison man asked.
+
+“Well, we’re going to try,” said Sven, his features impassive.
+
+After a moment of reluctance, the Englishman pulled a slim platinum
+timepiece from his pocket. “The chain, too?” he asked.
+
+“Sure--why not? Thanks.” The inventor took the objects and placed them
+in an adjustable holder in the center of the transmitter. “You spoiled
+my time last night, Mr. Harris,” he said. “Why shouldn’t I spoil yours
+today?”
+
+“_Hah!_ Very good,” said Harris, looking faintly uncomfortable.
+
+In the screen, Witherspoon said, “Ready here, Sven.”
+
+“Coming at you,” said the redheaded inventor. He pushed a button.
+Witherspoon unlocked the receiver on the screen and held the
+Englishman’s watch close to it.
+
+“Jove! It’s still ticking!” said Harris, looking relieved. Moments
+later, it had been sent back and he was holding it in his hand, an
+expression of utter incredulity on his habitually impassive face.
+“Impossible!” he exclaimed faintly.
+
+“But true,” said Sven with a trace of mockery. Hamilton frowned at him
+and shook his head.
+
+After a half dozen other tests, which included transmission and
+re-transmission of a kilo of butter, a lump of crude iron, a book, a
+jet-sled, a handkerchief and a bunch of station-grown grapes, the two
+parties reassembled and rode the monorail back to the main base, where
+Witherspoon had them served fine synthetic brandy. Hamilton noted that
+Ryan took a soft drink instead.
+
+There had been little talk during the journey. In Witherspoon’s
+quarters, Hamilton noticed an obviously shaken Charley Forsythe and a
+white-faced Ian Harris gathered in a corner, where they seemed to be
+reaching some sort of whispered agreement.
+
+Miss Alderman, regarding them anxiously, nudged her chief’s elbow and
+asked, “Don’t you think we ought to break that up before it goes too
+far? I’m not scared of either of them. But the thought of them together
+gives me chills.”
+
+Hamilton shook his head. “Let’s hear what they have to say,” he
+replied, _sotto voce_. “I’d like to get this whole business thrashed
+out and settled before we get back to New York. Once they’re on their
+own again, I’m afraid to imagine what they’ll do.”
+
+He chatted with Sven Ryan and Witherspoon, congratulating them on their
+achievement. But he kept a weather eye cocked on the conference in the
+corner. When Forsythe cleared his throat like some giant bullfrog, and
+stepped forward, he was prepared for anything.
+
+“First,” said the aggressive financier in his great roar of a voice,
+“I want to congratulate you, Ryan, and all of you in SPR, for what you
+have shown us this afternoon. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d
+never have believed it.”
+
+He paused for effect, then went on with, “However, I am sure you are
+all aware of the momentous consequences of this latest and greatest of
+human accomplishments. Before I go on, I want to say that Mr. Harris,
+as the UN representative on the spot, is in full agreement with me.
+
+“As things stand today, if so much as a whisper leaks out that you
+have accomplished instantaneous matter-transmission, we’ll be facing a
+financial breakdown that will make the Great Depression of fifty years
+ago look like a boom. Since we have no guarantee that the secret can or
+will be kept--no offense, gentlemen and Miss Alderman--both Mr. Harris
+and I feel we are going to have to put the entire SPR Antarctica Base
+under security wraps.
+
+“Mind you, this is only a temporary fiat, as yet unbacked by either UN
+or United States mandate. But, in view of the appalling potential of
+your discovery, both Mr. Harris and I feel that no other steps will
+suffice.”
+
+Hamilton _shushed_ an irate Sven Ryan, who looked ready to do battle
+with his fists. He stepped forward, wishing fugitively that he didn’t
+have to look up to the financier. Turning to Harris, he said, “Ian, do
+you really want to clamp down on SPR?”
+
+The Englishman looked miserable--but helpless. He said, “I detest the
+step and you know it. But what else is there to do, old man?”
+
+Hamilton sighed. “Instead of suppressing knowledge--a step that has
+never worked for long in all history--why don’t you prepare the world
+to accept this new miracle?”
+
+Forsythe boomed, “It’s too big a risk, Park. They’ll never adjust
+to the idea without a bad crash. This is going to take _years_ of
+preparation. It’s like asking Australian bushmen to drive helicars in
+New York overhead traffic.”
+
+“Perhaps it’s not as big a jump as you fear,” said Hamilton quietly.
+“Charley, you’ve been looking for a loophole to crack down on
+SPR--pardon the scrambled metaphor--all your life. You’re jumping at
+the chance to suppress something you can’t control. Ian, you’re not
+really frightened--you’re being lazy. You are afraid of the work that
+has to be done.”
+
+Stung, the Englishman said, “Possibly, Park. But consider the full
+implications of the ability to transport an endless flood of material
+across any ocean you wish--instantaneously. Why should any shipper on
+Earth even consider our present modes of transport?”
+
+“Because,” said Hamilton, with a half-wink at an obviously bursting
+Sven Ryan, “the present modes of transport are the only means of
+getting their goods where they want them to go.”
+
+“What are you talking about?” Forsythe boomed.
+
+“But with our own eyes, we saw--” began Harris.
+
+Hamilton raised his hand. “You witnessed matter-transmission, never
+fear,” he told them. Then he went on to detail what the inventor had
+told him in the helirocket, adding a detail or two he knew himself.
+“So you see,” he concluded, “to transmit matter over any distance
+would mean the building of immense towers and loading platforms. The
+transmitter cannot send through the curve of the Earth. And it cannot
+be bounced off the Heavyside Layer.”
+
+Forsythe and Harris exchanged puzzled glances. It was the UN official
+who said, “Then you mean the device is impractical? If it is, what are
+we so excited about?”
+
+“Precisely what I was wondering,” said Hamilton. “Good artificial
+jewels have been made for more than a century. But real gems have not
+lost an iota of their value.” He paused to sip his brandy, added, “So
+you gentlemen have let the mere words _matter-transmission_ terrify
+you.”
+
+“If the words alarmed _us_,” said Harris, “consider their effect on
+humanity at large.”
+
+“Probably much less than you suppose,” said Hamilton. “Remember,
+humanity at large has much less immediately at stake in the various
+forms of transportation than either of you.”
+
+Forsythe seemed to have lost interest. “You’re right, Park, much as
+I hate to admit it. We’re up against nothing a little well-guided
+public relations campaign won’t handle. And you--SPR--have come up with
+another impractical invention.”
+
+“Impractical?” said Hamilton, looking one by one at the others in the
+room. “I wouldn’t say so. Sven Ryan, you set out to develop a means of
+making space-flight economically feasible. When your transmitter proved
+unable to send living creatures intact, you thought you had failed.”
+
+“What have you got in mind, Park?” the inventor asked.
+
+“Just this,” said Hamilton. “What has made any successful establishment
+of posts on the Moon or any of the planets impossible? It is not the
+transportation of _men_. It is the transportation of material both ways
+to maintain them and make their operation profitable--scientifically as
+well as economically. Sven, there’s no Earth curvature between here and
+the near side of the Moon. Once we set up a transfer-terminus on the
+near side, the supply problem would be licked.”
+
+Ryan leaped on Hamilton, and gave him a bear-hug. “Chief!” he almost
+shouted. “You’ve done it! You’ve got the answer!”
+
+Half-laughing, Hamilton got clear of the inventor and said, “I may have
+an answer, but _you_ did it.” He turned toward Harris and Forsythe,
+adding, “Well, what do you gentlemen think now of our impractical
+gadget?”
+
+Harris could only nod. From his relieved expression, from the glint of
+excitement in his eyes, there was no question where his true sympathies
+lay. Charley Forsythe stepped forward again, grabbed Ryan and said, “By
+God, when you get it worked out, I want to go up there.”
+
+“You’re too big--and too fat!” said the inventor.
+
+“Gentlemen,” said Hamilton, moving in again, “a toast to the
+transmitter, and to its inventor--and to the Moon and all the moons and
+planets beyond!”
+
+“Passage to anywhere,” Miss Alderman murmured as she lifted her glass.
+
+Later, riding back to New York with her in the helirocket, Hamilton
+felt limp, washed out, distinctly sorry for himself. “Why do I have to
+get back so soon?” he inquired, a trifle peevishly. “Charley and Ian
+are having all the fun back there in Antarctica, celebrating.”
+
+“Duty calls, Chief,” she said with an indulgent smile.
+
+He ignored her. “And all I get is a hug from Sven Ryan. For five bucks,
+I’d pay Molly Sadler a visit and meet some of those stunners of hers in
+the flesh.”
+
+“Not for five dollars, you wouldn’t,” said Miss Alderman with a
+half-smile. “Besides, you’re not the type.”
+
+“Dammit, do you have to remind me now?” he said. He settled lower in
+his seat and wished he had a hat to pull over his eyes. He wished Nancy
+Alderman weren’t so damnably puritanic. He wished....
+
+Moments later, Mrs. Nancy Hamilton leaned across him and made sure his
+jacket would not get rumpled while he slept.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s note:
+
+
+This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, February 1956 (Vol. 5,
+No. 1.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor
+inconsistencies have been retained as printed.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77717 ***