And so Joseph Kingsley yawned as he stepped back. He was waiting for the tubes to come up to working temperature. For the past twelve hours it had been just another half-hour, perhaps, and then a final bit of frustration before the trial. Kingsley refused to give up and go to bed, because success was so close.
His reward was near, now. He watched the meters indolently, smoked a cigarette until everything came to stable operating condition, then snapped the final switch with his left hand as he stared intently at a polished plate of mirror-perfect silver about three inches in diameter.
The plate was ringed by equipment of one sort or another, but Kingsley was interested only in the plate. Not the mirror image of his own face behind the plate, but in the surface of the plate itself.
Subtly it changed from a solid shining surface to a translucent film, and then it faded into a partially transparent darkness. Kingsley took a deep breath and realized that he had been holding his breath for a full minute. He shook his head quizzically and poked a pencil forward.
THE culmination of months of work depended upon this moment. According to all of the laws of modem physics, the pencil should have come against the silver plate regardless of its change in color. It was not supposed to stop, yet Kingsley really did not believe that the pencil would do anything else even though he had designed the gear after making the preliminary discoveries. It was so utterly fantastic that he himself did not really believe it.
Gingerly he pushed the pencil forward and then he knew that the point of the pencil was beyond the surface of the silver plate. The plate was invisible, now, but in the three-inch expanse, Kingsley could estimate the virtual surface reasonably close. He shoved the pencil in deep; stopping only when his fingers were close to the invisible surface.
He looked at the pencil. It seemed normal enough. It was illuminated by the light m his room passing through the three-inch circle made by the silver plate. On the—other side—there was no light. Or not much, anyway, compared to the high level of light in his laboratory.
Joseph Kingsley withdrew the pencil and inspected it. It had not changed.
He looked through the plate. It reminded Joe of peering through a three-inch porthole from a brightly lighted room into a dimly lighted space, or perhaps looking out of his room onto the street through a three-inch hole in the wall. A street darkened by night. He could see nothing because the light in the room was too bright.
He shoved a forefinger into the circle with a cautious gesture. It might hurt; it might be dangerous. Kingsley did not know. Yet he felt nothing.
So far it was a success.
So far—and yet so futile. It was, he thought, like having a brand new telephone on a world where there were no other subscribers. He could reach out for the world but the world could not answer. Yet, if his theory were correct, both pencil and forefinger must have been reaching and pointing for—something, somewhere!
Joe Kingsley cranked three of the dials on the front of a panel near by. The hole changed color once during the spinning of the dials, but Joe was unable to relocate the setting. At a later date he would have calibrated them, but now they were standard dials that read from zero to one hundred and were meaningless in any terms but the percentage of half-rotation of the dial itself. Even an intrinsic zero for the equipment did not coincide with zero on the dials, because true zero required an electrical balance and not merely zero input.
According to theory, there must be somewhere a three-inch circle that looked out of a darkened spot into his laboratory.
Kingsley wanted that other circle to enter his own lab so that he could experiment with both ends.
It was a solid half-hour later before Kingsley saw the circle lighten once more and he fiddled with the dials carefully, balancing them as close to the theoretical zero as he could. The circle lightened in swoops and darkened suddenly as he fiddled, and he saw, in those swift changed, brief flashes of the laboratory, as if seen through the eye of a motion picture camera swinging madly on a boom and making wild random zoom shots.
He finally got the thing stable, then spent another half-hour fixing the circuit with fine tuning verniers so that he could control the position of the circle. Before, a hair-breadth on the dial sent the far circle swooping beyond calculation.
Then Kingsley looked through his circle at a bench on the far side of the room, where a screwdriver lay. Taking his tongue between his teeth, Joe reached into the three-inch circle before him, reached down on the bench he saw through the circle, and picked up the screwdriver.
Across the room, his hand appeared in space above the table and grasped the screwdriver. To a hypothetical observer from that vantage, it would seem as though a three-inch circle appeared in space, behind which stood Joe Kingsley and a pile of equipment. It was the opposite of Kingsley’s view. Where Kingsley was looking through a three-inch hole in a wall at the outside or at the bench, the bench was oppositely looking through the same hole in the same mystical wall at Kingsley and his equipment.
KINGSLEY drew the screwdriver back through and looked at it. It seemed quite normal.
Then the enormity of the thing struck Kingsley, and he sat down quickly. It was too much. He had just succeeded in making a teleport, surpassing the dreams of many writers of science fiction. This was not story for the imagination, this was fact, and it was so fantastic a fact that Joe Kingsley had to rest both his mind and his body before he could continue.
He reached for a cigarette, and grunted when he found his pack empty.
It was now about four o’clock in the morning and every place he knew of closed. He wanted a smoke desperately, which desire was heightened because he had none.
Kingsley looked at the gear speculatively, and from the gear to the screwdriver he held in his hand.
If Kingsley could steer this thing, he could get cigarettes.
He turned the dials carefully, but saw the circle swoop away far too rapidly. It passed bright patches and dark spots with a kaleidoscopic rapidity and poised—somewhere— while Kingsley peered through it hopefully.
Not too far away were a few lonely lights that strove in sheer futility to cast illumination on a dark and sleeting countryside. Town, without a doubt, from a distance.
Again Kingsley turned the dials carefully, and the circle approached the town at an odd angle. It poised in the middle of an intersection illuminated poorly by the single light high on a pole at one corner. But on the corners of the intersection that Kingsley could see—two were behind him through the port—were a filling station, a drug store. Both stores were unmistakably familiar and required no more identification.
Kingsley turned the dial-vernier and the circle swooped forward and entered the drug store. Near the door Kingsley located the cigar counter, and because it was dark in the store—the only illumination cast on the scene came from the light in Kingsley’s laboratory —Kingsley merely reached for the first pack of cigarettes he saw.
Then because Kingsley was an honest man, he fished in his pocket and dropped a quarter in the cash drawer. The ring of the cash register bell was loud in Kingsley’s laboratory—and also in the drug store.
Kingsley retreated rapidly, turning off his gear after he drew the cigarettes back into his own bailiwick. He lit one idly, paying no attention to the pack other than to strip the paper from it with a letter opener. The paper went into the wastebasket and the cigarettes went into his cigarette case.
Then Kingsley relaxed and smoked, planning his next move.
This was not hard to do. The first thing was to make a teleport with a four-foot circle so that something larger than a hand could enter it. No, the first thing was to hit the hay and get some sleep. Then would come the time to rebuild and refine.
He sighed at the equipment. It might take another couple of weeks before he could again do this. The new equipment would require cannibalization of the present gear. The salary and the appropriation of a college professor in theoretical and practical physics does not permit grand expendi
tures for fancy and special equipment.
First sleep. Next rebuilding. Then announcement of his success. And then to reap the profits from a machine that would make him a fortune and bring him undying fame.
Joe Kingsley was wrong. His first move should have been to inspect the package of cigarettes, instead of letting his practised fingers open them without his eyes seeing them.
That might have saved him a lot of trouble.
CHAPTER II
Wheels-Within-Wheels
WALTER MURDOCH of the Treasury Department entered his superior’s office with a smile. His boss handed Walter a cigar.
“Sit down. Walt,” he said. “We’ve a case for you.”
Walt nodded affably. Tony Monroe did not call his operatives into the office for any other reason.
Monroe handed Murdoch a quarter and asked, “What do you think of that?” Murdoch placed his cigar on the ash-try and looked at the quarter. Then he gulped, looked at it again, and exploded into lurid profanity.
Tony Monroe nodded. “That’s what we all said. What do you make of it?”
“It’s a perfect mirror image!”
“Precisely. And though you’ve had only a chance to inspect it visually, we’ve made comparison photos. The thing is a perfect mirror image.”
“It is?” asked Murdoch incredulously.
“Blown up a thousand times in the comparison projector, a photograph of this phony and a real quarter from the same mint register perfectly—so long as this one’s lantern slide is put in the projector reversed.”
Murdoch looked at the reversed quarter. “Now why in the name of sin would anybody make a reversed die of a coin?”
Tony Monroe shook his head. “I could see some amateur counterfeiter making a reverse image with a bit of his own-built gear. Some guy who hadn’t thought too much about the process—a rank, ignorant amateur. But this thing is mechanically perfect. It would take a master die cutter to make a coining die of that perfection, and any master die cutter would know how to make it come out properly. Furthermore, the department metallurgists tell me that a sliver from that phony is precisely correct coin metal.”
Murdoch whistled. “So we have a quarter made of perfect coin metal, from a die mechanically perfect, but mirror-reversed. What about the guy who took this?”
“A small store in Holland, Illinois. The storekeeper, a Timothy Lockland, knows nothing about it. Doesn’t know where he got it.”
“Believe him?”
“I do. He called the bank as soon as he found it.”
“Fingerprints?”
“A smudge. The storekeeper’s; two bankteller’s; and one other. We’re running through the card files now. At any rate, Walter, you’re it. Track this thing down and clean it up. Heaven alone knows who’s tinkering with coins this way, but well have to find out.”
Murdock took the coin close to his eyes again. He shook his head unhappily.
“This is a first class mystery,” he said. “I doubt that counterfeiting has much to do with this case.”
“Nor do I. But even so, they’re monkeying with U.S. coinage, and we’ve got to stop them. It’s a fine thing, I’d say. But—”
The buzzer on Tony Monroe’s desk called his attention and he snapped the switch, to hear, “Mr. Monroe, the files are ready for you.”
“Bring ’em in, Trudy,” he replied.
A girl brought a sheaf of papers in to Monroe’s desk. Monroe handed them to Murdoch, who riffled through them quickly. There were not many—a statement made by the storekeeper, and statements by the bank tellers. A photo of the quarter taken through the comparison projector showing the perfect registry of real and phony quarters when the latter was re-reversed. A fingerprint photograph, showing the outlined areas of several prints, each numbered and keyed to various fingerprint records of the people involved, including one with a question mark scrawled on it. The latter was in a brief folder by itself, and Murdoch opened the folder.
“This guy’s in jail, Tony.”
“Yeah, I know,” grunted Monroe unhappily. “I’ve just called the warden. Number Three-forty-seven—eight-eighty-nine—forty is still in his cell and has been there all along. I told Warden Daniels not to do or say anything other than to keep a quiet watch. We’ll do our own investigating of this mad thing. The papers are keeping it quiet, too.”
MURDOCH nodded and dropped the quarter into his pocket.
“This is a start,” he said, tapping the file folder. “But that print’s rather small.”
Monroe nodded. “A mere fragment. Not enough to get a conviction, I’ll admit. Just barely enough to get the general classification. About all we can do is to see if there is a connection between the ones that fall into this classification and the real act.”
“There were others?”
“About eight. Five of them fall in the general grouping, but their match is imperfect with the fragment. One was executed for murder a month ago and was taken from the files on active criminals, but the red tape hadn’t caught up the general card file yet. The other came from the general identification files and was a blueprint clerk in a war factory during the late unpleasantness. A girl of twenty at the time, since married to a lieutenant in the Navy and now raising a brood of embryonic naval officers and Waves while her husband is skippering a sub chaser and stationed within a three-inch rifle shot of their home. Somehow I can’t connect her with this.”
“So it boils down to Norman Blair, alias Norman Black, alias Ned Burrows. Age thirty-two. Convicted of forgery, theft, and tampering with the mail. Now serving twenty years for attempted bank robbery. A ruthless character unlikely to be or become a trusty, and more likely to be carefully watched at all times. How in the devil can a jailed crook do some of the things they get away with?”
“I’ll never tell you,” agreed Monroe. “But there it is, Walt. Take off and see what you can uncover…”
There was little he could get from the jailbird. Norman Blair’s constantly repeated answer was the same:
“I don’t know nothing, copper.”
“And you’ve never been in Holland, Illinois?”
“Never heard of it, copper.”
“I’m no copper. I’m a Treasury Agent.”
“A T-man, huh?” spat Norman Blair roughly.
“If you call us that.”
“We calls you other things,” snorted Blair.
“And you’ve never seen or heard of anything like this quarter?”
“No dope’d make a phony quarter.”
“Why not?”
“Not profitable.”
“Thanks.”
“Thanks—for nothing,” snarled Blair nastily. “Any fool would know that.” He looked at the reversed coin again. “And any fool wouldn’t make a reversed die.”
“Some might.”
“Nope.”
“Well,” snapped Murdock angrily, “someone did!”
“Maybe someone turned a real quarter inside-out,” sneered Blair.
“Maybe they did.”
“A nice trick if you can do it,” jeered Blair. “And what good is it?”
“I wouldn’t know. I just want to find out who did it.”
“Then find ’em, copper. Someone else, not me. I wouldn’t waste my time on quarters, either.”
“All right. Just forget I was ever here.”
“More’n glad to, copper. You annoy me.”
Blair turned and left the office with a sour expression. Murdoch shrugged as Blair left. Then after a period of thought, he turned to Warden Daniels.
“Have you any ideas, Warden?”
“Nope. Only that Blair is a tough guy and we’ve had him under more than close observation. He broke jail in Arizona once, you know. We’d like to keep him here.”
“And where does he go when he’s finished here?”
“In about eighteen years he can go back to Arizona to finish out his stretch there. That’ll keep him under the wraps for most of the rest of his life. He’s been w
ith us for two years now.”
“Well this looks like a dead end. I might as well go to Holland and see what’s giving at that end. That’s where this coin was found, you know.”
“I’ll wish you luck, Mr. Murdoch.”
FLIPPING the quarter, Murdoch caught it deftly. It came down heads—reversed —so that Washington looked to the right “I’ll need it,” he said unhopefully.
Murdoch left after that, and went to his hotel to think about further plans. He was not entirely satisfied with Blair’s explanations, but he knew that there was nothing he could do about it more than to ask Warden Daniels to inspect any letters carefully.
Yet as Murdoch left the jail, Norman Blair was writing a letter to a friend. This letter was written in a normal vein. It contained considerable discussion of the state of affairs in the world, his own feelings at incarceration, and what he planned to do eventually. The latter included appeals and ideas for retrials, which were so much talk, but typical of the man.
Concealed in the letter was a word-meaning code impossible to break since the seemingly uncouth usage of improper words conveyed whole phrases of meaning. It went out by mail right through the censor’s desk, and was on its way before Treasury Agent Murdoch got a train reservation making connection with the small town of Holland, Illinois…
A week passed quietly, during which time the trail cooled considerably. Murdoch arrived in Holland and met the storekeeper and came away convinced that the man knew nothing of the mystery; nor even how it had happened. He stayed around a few days, but his stay was completely sterile because this was a completely cold trail with not the slightest inkling to lead Murdoch toward a new end.
The recipient of Blair’s coded letter arrived a day or so after Murdoch came, and because only the Treasury agent had official sanction, there was even less to be learned. Unknown to one another, both sat and pondered by the hour; wondering what possible move could be made next.
Spaceman's Luck and Other Stories Page 7