by C. L. Moore
Arnie said he would. Gallegher drank black coffee at a counter stand, went home warily by taxi, and let himself into his house. He double-locked the door behind him. Narcissus was dancing before the big mirror in the lab.
"Any calls?" Gallegher said.
"No. Nothing's happened. Look at this graceful pas."
"Later. If anybody tries to get in, call me. I'll hide till you can get rid of 'em." Gallegher squeezed his eyes shut. "Is the coffee ready?"
"Black and strong. In the kitchen."
The scientist went into the bathroom instead, stripped, cold-showered, and took a brief irradiation. Feeling less woozy, he returned to the lab with a gigantic cup full of steaming coffee. He perched on Bubbles and gulped the liquid.
"You look like Rodin's Thinker," Narcissus remarked. "I'll get you a robe. Your ungainly body offends my aesthetic feelings."
Gallegher didn't hear. He donned the robe, since his sweating skin felt unpleasantly cool, but continued to drink the coffee and stare into space.
"Narcissus. More of this."
Equation: a (or) b (or) c equals x. He had been trying to find the value of a, b, or c. Maybe that was the wrong way. He hadn't located J. W. at all. Smith remained a phantom. And Dell Hopper (one thousand credits) had been of no assistance.
It might be better to find the value of x. That blasted machine must have some purpose. Granted, it ate dirt. But matter cannot be destroyed; it can be changed into other forms.
Dirt went into the machine; nothing came out.
Nothing visible.
Free energy?
That was invisible, but could be detected with instruments.
Voltmeter, ammeter—gold leaf—
Gallegher turned the machine on again briefly. Its singing was dangerously loud, but no one rang the door buzzer, and after a minute or two Gallegher snapped the switch back to off. He had learned nothing.
-
Arnie called. The broker had secured the information Gallegher wanted.
" 'Twasn't easy. I had to pull some wires. But I found out why du stock's been dropping."
"Thank Heaven for that! Spill it."
"du's a sort of exchange, you know. They farm out jobs. This one—it's a big office building to be constructed in downtown Manhattan. Only the contractor hasn't been able to start yet. There's a lot of dough tied up in the deal, and there's a whispering campaign that's hurt the du stock."
"Keep talking."
Arnie went on. "I got all the info I could, in case. There were two firms bidding on the job."
"Who?"
"Ajax, and somebody named—"
"Not Smith?"
"That's it," Arnie said. "Thaddeus Smith. S-m-e-i-t-h, he spells it."
There was a long pause. "S-m-e-i-t-h," Gallegher repeated at last. "So that's why the girl at du couldn't ... eh? Oh, nothing. I ought to have guessed it." Sure. When he'd asked Cuff whether Fatty spelled his name with an e or an i, the alderman had said both. Smeith. Ha!
"Smeith got the contract," Arnie continued. "He underbid Ajax. However, Ajax has political pull. They got some alderman to clamp down and apply an old statute that put the kibosh on Smeith. He can't do a thing."
"Why not?"
"Because," Arnie said, "the law won't permit him to block Manhattan traffic. It's a question of air rights. Smeith's client—or du's client, rather—bought the property lately, but air rights over it had been leased for a ninety-nine-year period to Transworld Strato. The strato-liners have their hangar just beyond that property, and you know they're not gyros. They need a straightaway course for a bit before they can angle up. Well, their right of way runs right over the property. Their lease is good. For ninety-nine years they've got the right to use the air over that land, above and over fifty feet above ground level."
Gallegher squinted thoughtfully. "How could Smeith expect to put up a building there, then?"
"The new owner possesses the property from fifty feet above soil down to the center of the earth. Savvy? A big eighty-story building—most of it underground. It's been done before, but not against political pull. If Smeith fails to fulfill his contract, the job goes to Ajax—and Ajax is hand-in-glove with that alderman."
"Yeah. Max Cuff," Gallegher said. "I've met the lug. Still—what's this statute you mentioned?"
"An old one, pretty much obsolete, but still on the books. It's legal. I checked. You can't interfere with downtown traffic, or upset the stagger system of transport."
"Well?"
"If you dig a hole for an eighty-story building," Arnie said, "you get a lot of dirt and rock. How can you haul it away without upsetting traffic? I didn't try to figure out how many tons have to be removed."
"I see," Gallegher said softly.
"So there it is, on a platinum platter. Smeith took the contract. Now he's stymied. He can't get rid of the dirt he'll be excavating, and pretty soon Ajax will take over and wangle a permit to truck out the material."
"How—a Smeith can't?"
"Remember the alderman? Well, a few weeks ago some of the streets downtown were blocked off, for repairs. Traffic was rerouted—right by that building site. It's been siphoned off there, and it's so crowded that dirt trucks would tangle up the whole business. Of course it's temporary"—Arnie laughed shortly—"temporary until Smeith is forced out. Then the traffic will be rerouted again, and Ajax can wangle their permit."
"Oh," Gallegher looked over his shoulder at the machine. "There may be a way—"
The door buzzer rang. Narcissus made a gesture of inquiry.
Gallegher said, "Do me another favor, Arnie. I want to get Smeith down here to my lab, quick."
"All right, 'vise him."
"His visor's tapped. I don't dare. Can you hop over and bring him here, right away?"
Arnie sighed. "I certainly earn my commissions the hard way. But O.K."
He faded. Gallegher listened to the door buzzer, frowned, and nodded to the robot. "See who it is. I doubt if Cuff would try anything now, but—well, find out. I'll be in this closet."
He stood in the dark, waiting, straining his ears, and wondering. Smeith—he had solved Smeith's problem. The machine ate dirt. The only effective way to get rid of earth without running the risk of a nitrogen explosion.
Eight hundred credits, on account, for a device or a method that would eliminate enough earth—safely—to provide space for an underground office building, a structure that had to be mostly subterranean because of prior-leased air rights.
Fair enough.
Only—where did that dirt go?
Narcissus returned and opened the closet door. "It's a Commander John Wall. He 'vised from Washington earlier tonight. I told you, remember?"
"John Wall?"
J. W., fifteen hundred credits! The third client!
"Let him in," Gallegher ordered breathlessly. "Quick! Is he alone?"
"Yes."
"Then step it up!"
Narcissus padded off, to return with a gray-haired, stocky figure in the uniform of the space police. Wall grinned briefly at Gallegher, and then his keen eyes shot toward the machine by the window.
"That it?"
Gallegher said, "Hello, commander. I ... I'm pretty sure that's it. But I want to discuss some details with you first."
Wall frowned. "Money? You can't hold up the government. Or am I misjudging you? Fifty thousand credits should hold you for a while." His face cleared. "You have fifteen hundred already; I'm prepared to write you a check as soon as you've completed a satisfactory demonstration."
"Fifty thou—" Gallegher took a deep breath. "No, it isn't that, of course. I merely want to make certain that I've filled the terms of our agreement. I want to be sure I've met every specification." If he could only learn what Wall had requested! If he, too, had wanted a machine that ate dirt—
It was a farfetched hope, an impossible coincidence, but Gallegher had to find out. He waved the commander to a chair.
"But we discussed the problem in full detail—"
"A double-check," Gallegher said smoothly. "Narcissus, get the commander a drink."
"Thanks, no."
"Coffee?"
"I'd be obliged. Well, then—as I told you some weeks ago, we needed a spaceship control—a manual that would meet the requirements of elasticity and tensile strength."
"Oh-oh," Gallegher thought.
Wall leaned forward, his eyes brightening. "A spaceship is necessarily big and complicated. Some manual controls are required. But they cannot move in a straight line; construction necessitates that such controls must turn sharp corners, follow an erratic and eccentric path from here to here."
"Well—"
"Thus," Wall said, "you want to turn on a water faucet in a house two blocks away. And you want to do it while you're here, in your laboratory. How?"
"String. Wire. Rope."
"Which could wind around corners as ... say ... a rigid rod could not. However, Mr. Gallegher, let me repeat my statement of two weeks ago. That faucet is hard to turn. And it must be turned often, hundreds of times a day when a ship is in free space. Our toughest wire cables have proved unsatisfactory. The stress and strain snap them. When a cable is bent, and when it is also straight—you see?"
Gallegher nodded. "Sure. You can break wire by bending it back and forth often enough."
"That is the problem we asked you to solve. You said it could be done. Now—have you done it? And how?"
A manual control that could turn corners and withstand repeated stresses. Gallegher eyed the machine. Nitrogen—a thought was moving in the back of his mind, but he could not quite capture it.
The buzzer rang. "Smeith," Gallegher thought, and nodded to Narcissus. The robot vanished.
He returned with four men at his heels. Two of them were uniformed officers. The others were, respectively, Smeith and Dell Hopper.
Hopper was smiling savagely. "Hello, Gallegher," he said. "We've been waiting. We weren't fast enough when this man"—he nodded toward Commander Wall—"came in, but we waited for a second chance."
Smeith, his plump face puzzled, said, "Mr. Gallegher, what is this? I rang your buzzer, and then these men surrounded me—"
"It's O.K.," Gallegher said. "You're on top, at least. Look out that window."
Smeith obeyed. He popped back in again, beaming.
"That hole—"
"Right. I didn't cart the dirt away, either. I'll give you a demonstration presently."
"You will in jail," Hopper said acidly. "I warned you, Gallegher, that I'm not a man to play around with. I gave you a thousand credits to do a job for me, and you neither did the job nor returned the money."
Commander Wall was staring, his coffee cup, forgotten, balanced in one hand. An officer moved forward and took Gallegher's arm.
"Wait a minute," Wall began, but Smeith was quicker.
"I think I owe Mr. Gallegher some credits," he said, snatching out a wallet. "I've not much more than a thousand on me, but you can take a check for the balance, I suppose. If this—gentleman—wants cash, there should be a thousand here."
Gallegher gulped.
Smeith nodded at hirn encouragingly. "You did my job for me, you know. I can begin construction—and excavation—tomorrow. Without bothering to get a trucking permit, either."
Hopper's teeth showed. "The devil with the money! I'm going to teach this man a lesson! My time is worth plenty, and he's completely upset my schedule. Options, scouts—I've gone ahead on the assumption that he could do what I paid him for, and now he blandly thinks he can wiggle out. Well, Mr. Gallegher, you can't. You failed to observe that summons you were handed today, which makes you legally liable to certain penalties—and you're going to suffer them, Dammit!"
Smeith looked around. "But—I'll stand good for Mr. Gallegher. I'll reimburse—"
"No!" Hopper snapped.
"The man says no," Gallegher murmured. "It's just my heart's blood he wants. Malevolent little devil, isn't he?"
"You drunken idiot!" Hopper snarled. "Take him to the jail, officers. Now!"
"Don't worry, Mr. Gallegher," Smeith encouraged. "I'll have you out in no time. I can pull a few wires myself."
Gallegher's jaw dropped. He breathed hoarsely, in an asthmatic fashion, as he stared at Smeith, who drew back.
"Wires," Gallegher whispered. "And a ... a stereoscopic screen that can be viewed from any angle. You said—wires!"
"Take him away," Hopper ordered brusquely.
Gallegher tried to wrench away from the officers holding him. "Wait a minute! One minute! I've got the answer now. It must be the answer. Hopper, I've done what you wanted—and you, too, commander. Let me go."
Hopper sneered and jerked his thumb toward the door. Narcissus walked forward, cat-footed. "Shall I break their heads, chief?" he inquired gently. "I like blood. It's a primary color."
Commander Wall put down his coffee cup and rose, his voice sounding crisp and metallic. "All right, officers. Let Mr. Gallegher go."
"Don't do it," Hopper insisted. "Who are you, anyway? A space captain!"
Wall's weathered cheeks darkened. He brought out a badge in a small leather case. "Commander Wall," he said. "Administrative Space Commission. You"—he pointed to Narcissus—"I'm deputizing you as a government agent, pro tem. If these officers don't release Mr. Gallegher in five seconds, go on and break their heads."
But that was unnecessary. The Space Commission was big. It had the government behind it, and local officials were, by comparison, small potatoes. The officers hastily released Gallegher and tried to look as though they'd never touched him.
Hopper seemed ready to explode. "By what right do you interfere with justice, Commander?" he demanded.
"Right of priority. The government needs a device Mr. Gallegher has made for us. He deserves a hearing, at least."
"He does not!"
Wall eyed Hopper coldly. "I think he said, a few moments ago, that he had fulfilled your commission also."
"With that?" The big shot pointed to the machine. "Does that look like a stereoscopic screen?"
Gallegher said, "Get me an ultraviolet, Narcissus. Fluorescent." He went to the device, praying that his guess was right. But it had to be. There was no other possible answer. Extract nitrogen from dirt or rock, extract all gaseous content, and you have inert matter.
Gallegher touched the switch. The machine started to sing "St. James Infirmary." Commander Wall looked startled and slightly less sympathetic. Hopper snorted. Smeith ran to the window and ecstatically watched the long tentacles eat dirt, swirling madly in the moonlit pit below.
"The lamp, Narcissus."
It was already hooked up on an extension cord. Gallegher moved it slowly about the machine. Presently he had reached the grooved wheel at the extreme end, farthest from the window.
Something fluoresced.
It fluoresced blue—emerging from the little valve in the metal cylinder, winding about the grooved wheel, and piling in coils on the laboratory floor. Gallegher touched the switch; as the machine stopped, the valve snapped shut, cutting off the blue, cryptic thing that emerged from the cylinder. Gallegher picked up the coil. As he moved the light away, it vanished. He brought the lamp closer—it reappeared.
"Here you are, commander," he said. "Try it."
Wall squinted at the fluorescence. "Tensile strength?"
"Plenty," Gallegher said. "It has to be. Nonorganic, mineral content of solid earth, compacted and compressed into wire. Sure, it's got tensile strength. Only you couldn't support a ton weight with it."
Wall nodded. "Of course not. It would cut through steel like a thread through butter. Fine, Mr. Gallegher. We'll have to make tests—"
"Go ahead. It'll stand up. You can run this wire around corners all you want, from one end of a spaceship to another, and it'll never snap under stress. It's too thin. It won't—it can't—be strained unevenly, because it's too thin. A wire cable couldn't do it. You needed flexibility that wouldn't cancel tensile strength. The only possible answer
was a thin, tough wire."
The commander grinned. That was enough.
"We'll have the routine tests," he said. "Need any money now, though? We'll advance anything you need, within reason—say up to ten thousand."
Hopper pushed forward. "I never ordered wire, Gallegher. So you haven't fulfilled my commission."
Gallegher didn't answer. He was adjusting his lamp. The wire changed from blue to yellow fluorescence, and then to red.
"This is your screen, wise guy," Gallegher said. "See the pretty colors?"
"Naturally I see them! I'm not blind. But—"
"Different colors, depending on how many angstroms I use. Thus. Red. Blue. Red again. Yellow. And when I turn off the lamp—"
The wire Wall still held became invisible.
Hopper closed his mouth with a snap. He leaned forward, cocking his head to one side.
Gallegher said, "The wire's got the same refractive index as air. I made it that way, on purpose." He had the grace to blush slightly. Oh, well—he could buy Gallegher Plus a drink later.
"On purpose?"
"You wanted a stereoscopic screen which could be viewed from any angle without optical distortion. And in color—that goes without saying, these days. Well, here it is."
Hopper breathed hard.
Gallegher beamed at him, "Take a box frame and string each square with this wire. Make a mesh screen. Do that on all four sides. String enough wires inside of the box. You have, in effect, an invisible cube, made of wire. All right. Use ultraviolet to project your film or your television, and you have patterns of fluorescence, depending on the angstrom strength patterns. In other words—a picture. A colored picture. A three-dimensional picture, because it's projected onto an invisible cube. And, finally, one that can be viewed from any angle without distortion, because it does more than give an optical illusion of stereoscopic vision—it's actually a three-dimensional picture. Catch?"
Hopper said feebly, "Yes. I understand. You ... why didn't you tell me this before?"
Gallegher changed the subject in haste. "I'd like some police protection, Commander Wall. A crook named Max Cuff has been trying to get his hooks on this machine. His thugs kidnaped me this afternoon, and—"