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diff --git a/77717-h/77717-h.htm b/77717-h/77717-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e6550f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/77717-h/77717-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1279 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + Passage to Anywhere | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + + +blockquote { + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} +img.w20 {width: 20em;} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +.p5 {font-size: 1.5em;} +.p6 {font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold;} +.mt1 { margin-top: 1em; } + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe115_4375 {width: 115.4375em;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77717 ***</div> + + +<figure class="figcenter illowe115_4375" id="cover"> + <img class="w20" src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> + +<h1> +Passage to Anywhere +</h1> + +<p class="center p5">by <strong>Sam Merwin Jr.</strong></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> <div class="chapter"></div> + + +<blockquote> +<p><i>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.</i></p> + +<p><b>The scientists were riding high in the saddle with U N backing. But +it took a touch of genius to win the teleportation battle.</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> <div class="chapter"></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You thrive on it,” she told him when this mood was upon him. “You look +five years younger.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Buy you a lollipop,” had been her most recent retort.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>knew</i> it was foolishness and superstition. Yet he +could not help feeling as he did.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It read: <span class="allsmcap">SRYAN OFF HELIJET CIRCA 2200 EDST. VACATION TIME. HAMESSAGE +RESTRAINING TOO LATE. WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN—CANTSPR.</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>some</i> leeway. But +Ryan, free-roaming and talking just now—Hamilton tried but failed to +suppress a shudder at the thought.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Dammit, I <i>know</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>As usual, when Harris entered with a brisk nod Hamilton was annoyed to +find the refrain of <i>There’ll Always Be an England</i> running through his +head. He said, “Hello, Ian,” waved him to a chair and offered him a +cigarette with a defensive geniality.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>me</i> be <i>your</i> guest.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“I’m doing my best,” said Hamilton, knowing that the toreador capework +was about over and the moment of truth about to arrive.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure you are.” Having made his point, Harris was disposed to be +conciliatory. “But what about this Ryan business?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“How did <i>you</i> 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.</p> + +<p>To Hamilton’s amazement, the usually imperturbable Harris countenance +turned a bright pink. Нe thought, <i>If I’m not skinned alive over this +it will have been worth it—just to see Ian blush. But what is he +hiding?</i></p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“If you did,” said Hamilton seriously, “why in the name of heaven +didn’t you clamp on to him?”</p> + +<p>“I tried to,” was the reply. “But the circumstances were not exactly +propitious.”</p> + +<p>“Ryan at complete liberty in New York!” Hamilton groaned. “Was he +talking?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Have you taken steps?” Hamilton asked, wishing he had looked up before +walking under that ladder.</p> + +<p>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 <i>you</i> are taking.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“We’ll do our very best, never fear,” said Hamilton, accompanying +Harris to the office door.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>you</i> been?”</p> + +<p>She said, “I only this minute got home—and I’ve got the mad Minnesotan +with me. <i>Chief</i>, are you okay?”</p> + + +<p class="center p6 mt1">II</p> + +<p>Hamilton’s first reaction was one of utter disbelief. He said, “You’ve +<i>what</i>, Nancy? If by any chance this is a joke—”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“But where, and how did you ever get hold of him?” asked Hamilton, +still half-incredulous.</p> + +<p>“Maybe you’d better come right over here, Chief,” she said. “I’ll +explain when you get here. Do you know where I live?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. “<i>How?</i>” he +asked her.</p> + +<p>“Have some coffee,” she suggested, flushing with pleasure.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I’m waiting,” said Hamilton.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Good girls, both of you,” said Hamilton warmly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Hamilton could not help smiling. His use of the phrase <i>good girls</i> +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?”</p> + +<p>“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?’”</p> + +<p>She stroked her perfectly smooth upper lip, looking faintly troubled. +Then she said, “I don’t have a mustache, do I, Chief?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter, Chief?” Miss Alderman stared at him with curiosity +snapping in her wide-set black eyes.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“How did you get him away from them?” he asked.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Get hold of yourself, Nancy,” said Hamilton, rising. “You’ve done SPR +a very great service. How’d you keep him here?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“I remember,” said Miss Alderman.</p> + +<p>Hamilton rose. He said, “I think we’d better wake Ryan up. We can’t let +him sleep here indefinitely.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Chief!” asked Miss Alderman, standing to reveal a trim if not +opulent figure.</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Miss Alderman turned to stare at Hamilton, her expression bewildered +and uncertain.</p> + +<p>Hamilton said, quietly, “Come in, Charlie. Come in. I’m glad to see +you.”</p> + +<p>“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. <i>Confound the man!</i> he thought. It was a hell of a note when +you couldn’t stay mad at your enemies.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>Hamilton said, “Let Miss Alderman pour you a cup of coffee. It’s +excellent, I can assure you.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“In there,” said Hamilton, nodding toward the bedroom door. “He’s +sleeping it off.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You <i>have</i> been busy,” said Hamilton, really worried. “But that Act +has been superseded by a whole flock of subsequent legislation.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Forsythe looked sleepily amused. “Quite the lawyer, aren’t you, Park? +Too bad you aren’t as good an American.”</p> + +<p>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 <i>will</i> take action—and we’ll +have no trouble getting UN backing.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>Miss Alderman emerged from the bedroom. “He’s still out like a light,” +she said.</p> + +<p>“We have an ambulance downstairs,” said Forsythe quietly. “We were +going to use it anyway.”</p> + +<p>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 <i>you</i>. It would force American +exporters to use foreign carriers. But it wouldn’t put America or the +world out of business.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“If you’d paid them well enough to begin with, SPR would never have +been formed,” said Hamilton.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps.” Forsythe shrugged. “But that’s water under the bridge. We +shan’t repeat the mistake, I promise you.”</p> + +<p>“You won’t get the chance,” warned Hamilton.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Hamilton stepped in. He said, “Gentlemen, we seem to have reached an +impasse. May I therefore suggest a way out?”</p> + + +<p class="center p6 mt1">III</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He eyed his chief with resignation. “What are you going to do to me, +Park?” he said. “Boot me out of the SPR?”</p> + +<p>“For heaven’s sake, why?” Hamilton asked, surprised.</p> + +<p>“For blowing a couple of million bucks,” was the solemn reply.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“So you took off and got drunk,” said Hamilton. “You wanted to drown +your sorrows.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>“It was Ian Harris of the UN, and you stumbled over him at Molly +Sadler’s house of joy,” said Hamilton.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>Hamilton chuckled. Then he said, “Didn’t she tell you anything, Sven?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“That I got,” said Ryan. “Are you planning to have me flayed alive or +merely drawn and quartered?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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—”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You mean you want me to run off a test for these characters?” Ryan +inquired with amazing perspicacity.</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” said Hamilton. “You can, can’t you?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“How far did the first airplane fly?” Hamilton asked the inventor. “A +hundred and thirty-seven feet, wasn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Ryan hesitated, then shook his head. “I might embarrass Harris,” he +said, and winced at the accidental rhyme.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Some</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose,” said Forsythe in his booming voice, “that the UN is not an +institution—and you are not loyal to it?”</p> + +<p>“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.’”</p> + +<p>“What will happen when we colonize the planets?” Sven Ryan asked.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“I opposed the appropriations cut, Mr. Ryan,” Ian Harris reminded him. +“However, expenses were running a bit hog-wild.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think of nothing but dollars?” Ryan asked pugnaciously. His +hangover safely buried, he had acquired a new belligerence.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Wait and see,” was his whispered reply. “We’ve still got an ace or two +up our sleeves.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“He’s not my boyfriend!” was Miss Alderman’s hot retort—a trifle too +heated, Hamilton thought. He replied with his most irritating chuckle.</p> + + +<p class="center p6 mt1">IV</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Ian Harris, regarding it with a dubious gleam in his eye, remarked, “It +looks rather like an upended warming pan, doesn’t it?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Int’resting,” said Ian Harris, stroking his mustache. “Any chance of +an explosion if the timing’s off?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Hamilton said, “What about while your beam is operating. Any time limit +on that?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Ready, Jack?” the inventor asked.</p> + +<p>“In a minute,” was the reply. “What are you sending us?”</p> + +<p>Sven looked at Ian Harris. “Willing to risk your watch?” he asked. +“Park will replace it if anything goes wrong.”</p> + +<p>“You can send a watch without hurting it?” the UN liaison man asked.</p> + +<p>“Well, we’re going to try,” said Sven, his features impassive.</p> + +<p>After a moment of reluctance, the Englishman pulled a slim platinum +timepiece from his pocket. “The chain, too?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“<i>Hah!</i> Very good,” said Harris, looking faintly uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>In the screen, Witherspoon said, “Ready here, Sven.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“But true,” said Sven with a trace of mockery. Hamilton frowned at him +and shook his head.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Hamilton shook his head. “Let’s hear what they have to say,” he +replied, <i>sotto voce</i>. “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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Hamilton <i>shushed</i> 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?”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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 <i>years</i> of +preparation. It’s like asking Australian bushmen to drive helicars in +New York overhead traffic.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“What are you talking about?” Forsythe boomed.</p> + +<p>“But with our own eyes, we saw—” began Harris.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“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 <i>matter-transmission</i> terrify +you.”</p> + +<p>“If the words alarmed <i>us</i>,” said Harris, “consider their effect on +humanity at large.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“What have you got in mind, Park?” the inventor asked.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>men</i>. 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.”</p> + +<p>Ryan leaped on Hamilton, and gave him a bear-hug. “Chief!” he almost +shouted. “You’ve done it! You’ve got the answer!”</p> + +<p>Half-laughing, Hamilton got clear of the inventor and said, “I may have +an answer, but <i>you</i> did it.” He turned toward Harris and Forsythe, +adding, “Well, what do you gentlemen think now of our impractical +gadget?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“You’re too big—and too fat!” said the inventor.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>“Passage to anywhere,” Miss Alderman murmured as she lifted her glass.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Duty calls, Chief,” she said with an indulgent smile.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Not for five dollars, you wouldn’t,” said Miss Alderman with a +half-smile. “Besides, you’re not the type.”</p> + +<p>“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....</p> + +<p>Moments later, Mrs. Nancy Hamilton leaned across him and made sure his +jacket would not get rumpled while he slept.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="transnote"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_note"> + Transcriber’s note: + </h2> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor +inconsistencies have been retained as printed.</p> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77717 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/77717-h/images/cover.jpg b/77717-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec32dbe --- /dev/null +++ b/77717-h/images/cover.jpg |
