The Expert Dreamers (1962) Anthology

by Frederik Pohl (ed. )

  Oxidant. Pure oxygen is of course ideal but costly; it is therefore proposed to use air in the first place. However, it must be remembered that air contains 78 per cent of nitrogen. If even a fraction of that combined with the carbon of the coal to form the highly toxic gas cyanogen this would constitute a grave health hazard (see below).

  Operation and Control. To start the reaction one requires a fairly high temperature of about 988 degrees F.; this is most conveniently achieved by passing an electric current between the inner and outer cylinder (the end plates being made of insulating ceramic). A current of several thousand amps is needed, at some 30 volts, and the required large storage battery will add substantially to the cost of the installation.

  Once the reaction is started its rate can be controlled by adjusting the rate at which oxygen is admitted; this is almost as simple as the use of control rods in a conventional fission reactor.

  Corrosion. The walls of the reactor must withstand a temperature of well over 1,000 degrees F. in the presence of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon monoxide and dioxide, as well as small amounts of sulphur dioxide and other impurities, some still unknown. Few metals or ceramics can resist such grueling conditions. Niobium with a thin lining of nickel might be an attractive possibility, but probably solid nickel will have to be used. For the ceramic, fused thoria appears to be the best bet.

  Health Hazards. The main health hazard is attached to the gaseous waste-products. They contain not only carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide (both highly toxic) but also a number of carcinogenic compounds such as phenanthrene and others. To discharge those into the air is impossible; it would cause the tolerance level to be exceeded for several miles around the reactor.

  It is therefore necessary to collect the gaseous waste in suitable containers, pending chemical detoxification. Alternatively the waste might be mixed with hydrogen and filled into large balloons which are subsequently released.

  The solid waste products will have to be removed at frequent intervals (perhaps as often as daily!), but the health hazards involved in that operation can easily be minimized by the use of conventional remote-handling equipment. The waste could then be taken out to sea and dumped.

  There is a possibility—though it may seem remote—that the oxygen supply may get out of control; this would lead to melting of the entire reactor and the liberation of vast amounts of toxic gas. Here is a grave argument against the use of coal and in favor of fission reactors which have proved their complete safety over a period of several thousand years. It will probably take decades before a control system of sufficient reliability can be evolved.

  A FEAST OF DEMONS

  WILLIAM MORRISON

  (Joseph Samachson)

  As a chemist, Joseph Samachson’s published papers have covered a score of research projects, of which the most intelligible to the layman has to do with the body retention of that familiar nemesis of nuclear testing, strontium-go. As a science fiction writer, he has been a steady contributor to most of the leading science fiction magazines for some two decades. Readers of Star of Stars will remember his remarkable Country Doctor, in which Dr. (of biochemistry) Samachson painted a moving and convincing portrait of a doctor (of medicine) confronted with the problem of healing a sick alien creature somewhat larger than a whale. Samachson s science fiction has appeared under pseudonyms, the best known of them being “William Morrison” under which the present story was first published.

  I

  That year we were all Romans, and I have to tell you that I look awful in a toga and short sword, but not nearly as awful as the Greek.

  You go to one of the big schools and naturally you turn out for the Class Reunion. Why not? There’s money there, and good fellowship, and money, and the chance of a business contact that will do you some good. And money.

  Well, I wasn’t that fortunate—and you can say that again because it’s the story of my life: I wasn’t that fortunate.

  I didn’t go to Harvard, Princeton or Yale. I didn’t even go to Columbia, U.C.L.A. or the University of Chicago. What I went to was Old Ugly. Don’t lie to me—you never heard of Old Ugly, not even if I tell you it’s Oglethorpe A. & M. There were fifty-eight of us in my graduating class —that’s 1940—and exactly thirty turned up for the tenth reunion.

  Wouldn’t that turn your stomach? Only thirty Old Grads with enough loyalty and school feeling to show up for that tenth reunion and parade around in Roman togas and drink themselves silly and renew old school ties. And, out of that thirty, the ones that we all really wanted to see for sentimental reasons—I refer to Feinbarger of Feinbarger Shipping, Schroop of the S.S.K. Studios in Hollywood, Dixon of the National City Bank and so on—they didn’t show up at all. It was terribly disappointing to all of us, especially to me.

  In fact, at the feast that evening, I found myself sitting next to El Greco. There simply wasn’t anyone else there. You understand that I don’t refer to that Spanish painter— I believe he’s dead, as a matter of fact. I mean Theobald Greco, the one we called the Greek.

  I introduced myself and he looked at me blearily through thick glasses. “Hampstead? Hampstead?”

  “Virgil Hampstead,” I reminded him. “You remember me. Old Virgie.”

  He said, “Sure. Any more of that stuff left in the bottle, Old Virgie?’’

  I poured for him. It was my impression, later borne out by evidence, that he was not accustomed to drinking.

  I said, “It’s sure great to see all the fellows again, isn’t it? Say, look at Pudge Detweiler there! Ever see anything so comical as the lampshade he’s wearing for a hat?”

  “Just pass me the bottle, will you?” Greco requested. “Old Virgie, I mean.”

  “Still in research and that sort of thing?” I asked. “You always were a brain, Greek. I can’t tell you how much I’ve envied you creative fellows. I’m in sales myself. Got a little territory right here that’s a mint, Greek. A mint. If I only knew where I could lay my hands on a little capital to expand it the way—But I won’t bore you with shop talk. What’s your line these days?”

  “I’m in transmutation,” he said clearly, and passed out face down on the table.

  Now nobody ever called me a dope—other things, yes, but not a dope.

  I knew what transmutation meant. Lead into gold, tin into platinum, all that line of goodies. And accordingly the next morning, after a certain amount of Bromo and black coffee, I asked around the campus and found out that Greco had a place of his own not far from the campus. That explained why he’d turned up for the reunion. I’d been wondering.

  I borrowed cab fare from Old Pudge Detweiler and headed for the address I’d been given.

  It wasn’t a home. It was a beat-up factory and it had a sign over the door:

  T. GRECO

  Plant Foods & Organic Supplies

  Since it was Sunday, nobody seemed to be there, but I pushed open the door. It wasn’t locked. I heard something from the basement, so I walked down a flight of steps and looked out into a rather smelly laboratory.

  There was the Greek. Tall, thin, wide-eyed and staggering, he appeared to be chasing butterflies.

  I cleared my throat, but he didn’t hear me. He was racing around the laboratory, gasping and muttering to himself, sweeping at empty air with what looked to me like an electric toaster on a stick. I looked again and, no, it wasn’t an electric toaster, but exactly what it was defied me. It appeared to have a recording scale on the side of it, with a needle that flickered wildly.

  I couldn’t see what he was chasing.

  The fact was that, as far as I could see, he wasn’t chasing anything at all.

  You have to get the picture: Here was Greco, racing around with one eye on the scale and one eye on thin air; he kept bumping into things, and every now and then he’d stop, and stare around at the gadgets on the lab benches, and maybe he’d throw a switch or turn a dial, and then he’d be off again.

  He kept it up for ten minutes and, to tell you the truth, I began to wi
sh that I’d made some better use of Pudge Detweiler’s cab fare. The Greek looked as though he’d flipped, nothing less.

  But there I was. So I waited.

  And by and by he seemed to get whatever it was he was looking for and he stopped, breathing heavily.

  I said, “Hi there, Greek.”

  He looked up sharply. “Oh,” he said, “Old Virgie.”

  He slumped back against a table, trying to catch his breath.

  “The little devils,” he panted. “They must have thought they’d got away that time. But I fixed them!”

  “Sure you did,” I said. “You bet you did. Mind if I come in?”

  He shrugged. Ignoring me, he put down the toaster on a stick, flipped some switches and stood up. A whining sound dwindled and disappeared; some flickering lights went out. Others remained on, but he seemed to feel that, whatever it was he was doing, it didn’t require his attention now.

  In his own good time, he came over and we shook hands. I said appreciatively, “Nice-looking laboratory you have here, Greek. I don’t know what the stuff is for, but it looks expen—it looks very efficient.”

  He grunted. “It is. Both. Expensive and efficient.”

  I laughed. “Say,” I said, “you were pretty loaded last night. Know what you told me you were doing here?”

  He looked up quickly. “What?”

  “You said you were in transmutation.” I laughed harder than ever.

  He stared at me thoughtfully, and for a second I thought —well, I don’t know what I thought, but I was worried. He had a lot of funny-looking things there, and his hand was stretching out toward one of them.

  But then he said, “Old Virgie.”

  “That’s me,” I said eagerly.

  “I owe you an apology,” he went on.

  “You do?”

  He nodded. “I’d forgotten,” he confessed, ashamed. “I didn’t remember until just this minute that you were the one I talked to in my senior year. My only confidant. And you’ve kept my secret all this time.”

  I coughed. “It was nothing,” I said largely. “Don’t give it a thought.”

  He nodded in appreciation. “That’s just like you,” he reminisced. “Ten years, eh? And you haven’t breathed a word, have you?”

  “Not a word,” I assured him. And it was no more than the truth. I hadn’t said a word to anybody. I hadn’t even said a word to myself. The fact of the matter was, I had completely forgotten what he was talking about. Kept his secret? I didn’t even remember his secret. And it was driving me nuts!

  “I was sure of you,” he said, suddenly thawing. “I knew

  I could trust you. I must have—otherwise I certainly wouldn’t have told you, would I?”

  I smiled modestly. But inside I was fiercely cudgeling my brain.

  He said suddenly, “All right, Virgie. You’re entitled to something for having kept faith. I tell you what I’ll do—I’ll let you in on what I’m doing here.”

  All at once, the little muscles at the back of my neck began to tense up.

  He would do what? “Let me in” on something? It was an unpleasantly familiar phrase. I had used it myself all too often.

  “To begin with,” said the Greek, focusing, attentively on me, “you wonder, perhaps, what I was doing when you came in.”

  “I do,” I said.

  He hesitated. “Certain—particles, which are of importance to my research, have a tendency to go free. I can keep them under a measure of control only by means of electrostatic forces, generated in this.” He waved the thing that looked like a toaster on a stick. “And as for what they do— well, watch.”

  El Greco began to putter with gleamy, glassy gadgets on one of the tables and I watched him with, I admit, a certain amount of suspicion.

  “What are you doing, Greek?” I asked pretty bluntly.

  He looked up. Surprisingly, I saw that the suspicion was mutual; he frowned and hesitated. Then he shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “For a minute I—but I can trust you, can’t I? The man who kept my secret for ten long years.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “All right.” He poured water out of a beaker into a U-,shaped tube, open at both ends. “Watch,” he said. “Remember any of your college physics?”

  “The way things go, I haven’t had much time to keep up with—”

  “All the better, all the better,” he said. “Then you won’t be able to steal anything.”

  I caught my breath. “Now listen—”

  “No offense, Virgie,” he said earnestly. “But this is a billion dollars and—No matter. When it comes right down to cases, you could know as much as all those fool professors of ours put together and it still wouldn’t help you steal a thing.”

  He bobbed his head, smiled absently and went back to his gleamy gadgets. I tell you, I steamed. That settled it, as far as I was concerned. There was simply no excuse for such unjustified insults to my character. I certainly had no intention of attempting to take any unfair advantage, but if he was going to act that way …

  He was asking for it. Actually and literally asking for it.

  He rapped sharply on the U-tube with a glass stirring rod, seeking my attention.

  “I’m watching,” I told him, very amiable now that he’d made up my mind for me.

  “Good. Now,” he said, “you know what I do here in the plant?”

  “Why—you make fertilizer. It says so on the sign.”

  “Ha! No,” he said. “That is a blind. What I do is, I separate optical isomers.”

  “That’s very nice,” I said warmly. “I’m glad to hear it, Greek.”

  “Shut up,” he retorted unexpectedly. “You don’t have the foggiest notion of what an optical isomer is and you know it. But try and think. This isn’t physics; it’s organic chemistry. There are compounds that exist in two forms—apparently identical in all respects, except that one is the mirror image of the other. Like right-hand and left-hand gloves; one is the other, turned backwards. You understand so far?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  He looked at me thoughtfully, then shrugged. “No matter. They’re called d-and 1-isomers—d for dextro, 1 for levo; right and left, you see. And although they’re identical except for being mirror-reversed, it so happens that sometimes one isomer is worth much more than the other.”

  “I see that,” I said.

  “I thought you would. Well, they can be separated—but it’s expensive. Not my way, though. My way is quick and simple. I use demons.”

  “Oh, now, Greek. Really

  He said in a weary tone, “Don’t talk, Virgie. Just listen. It won’t tire you so much. But bear in mind that this is simply the most trifling application of my discovery. I could use it for separating U-235 from U-238 just as easily. In fact, I already—” He stopped in mid-sentence, cocked his head, looked at me and backtracked. “Never mind that. But you know what a Maxwell demon is?”

  “No.”

  “Good for you, Virgie. Good for you!” he applauded. “I knew I’d get the truth out of you if I waited long enough.“ Another ambiguous remark, I thought to myself. “But you surely know the second law of thermodynamics.”

  “Surely.”

  “I thought you’d say that,” he said gravely. “So then you know that if you put an ice cube in a glass of warm water, for instance, the ice melts, the water cools, and you get a glass with no ice but with all the water lowered in temperature. Right? And it’s a one-way process. That is, you can’t start with a glass of cool water and, hocus-pocus, get it to separate into warm water and ice cube, right?”

  “Naturally,” I said, “for heaven’s sake. I mean that’s silly.”

  “Very silly,” he agreed. “You know it yourself, eh? So watch.”

  He didn’t say hocus-pocus. But he did adjust something on one of his gadgets.

  There was a faint whine and a gurgling, spluttering sound, like fat sparks climbing between spreading electrodes in a Frankenste
in movie.

  The water began to steam faintly.

  But only at one end! That end was steam; the other was— was—

  It was ice. A thin skin formed rapidly, grew thicker; the other open end of the U-tube began to bubble violently. Ice at one end, steam at the other.

  Silly?

  But I was seeing, it!

  I must say, however, that at the time I didn’t really know that that was all I saw.

  The reason for this is that Pudge Detweiler came groaning down the steps to the laboratory just then.

  “Ah, Greek,” he wheezed. “Ah, Virgie. I wanted to talk to you before I left.” He came into the room and, panting, eased himself into a chair, a tired hippopotamus with a hangover.

  “What did you want to talk to me about?” Greco demanded.

  “You?” Pudge’s glance wandered around the room; it was a look of amused distaste, the look of a grown man observing the smudgy mud play of children. “Oh, not you, Greek. I wanted to talk to Virgie. That sales territory you mentioned, Virgie. I’ve been thinking. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but when my father passed away last winter, he left me—well, with certain responsibilities. And it occurred to me that you might be willing to let me invest some of the-”

  I didn’t even let him finish. I had him out of there so fast, we didn’t even have a chance to say good-by to Greco. And all that stuff about demons and hot-and-cold water and so on, it all went out of my head as though it had never been. Old Pudge Detweiler! How was I to know that his father had left him thirty thousand dollars in one attractive lump of cash!