by Jerry
“My God!” Zenoff exclaimed. “That is what would happen, too, if Salt Pond ever got loose!”
“We’ve got to kill all but the small part which we save,” Schmidt asserted callously.
“It would be like killing an old friend,” Dee objected.
“But any part is equal to the whole,” said Zenoff. “Come on!”
They dished back into the glass jar just the quantity which they had had before the unfortunate overdose of salt; and poured carbolic acid into what was left in the tub.
Then they inserted the electrodes in the jar, and listened.
“Food! Give me food!” came a faint voice from the loudspeaker.
“He’s still alive!” Dee joyously exclaimed.
“And sober,” Zenoff added, tossing in a piece of dead cat.
The voice came louder now.
“Thank you, my friends. There seems to be a gap in my memory. Tell me what happened.”
They told him. They explained the analogy of human drunkenness. But they omitted all mention of the killing of the virus which had remained in the big tub.
“What became of the rest of me, of my brothers or my children? Oh, your language is so inexpressive!” the virus complained.
“We—poured it down the sink,” Dee lied.
The liquid in the jar foamed fiercely for a moment. “You had no right to do that!” stormed its voice out of the radio set. “I—it—the rest of me—is dead now. Too much dilution with fresh water will kill us. I am dead now.”
The three men exchanged significant glances, but said nothing.
Finally the virus calmed down.
“You individuals cannot appreciate my loss. Although there is as much of me as there was originally, most of me is now dead and gone. It’s too late to remedy that now, but don’t let it happen again!”
Millionaire Metcalf s increasing insistency on a report on the mystery of Salt Pond presented a problem. The three young scientists did not dare tell their patron that a virus was responsible for the trouble, for he would have insisted on killing it off; and that would have infuriated the portion of the virus in the jar in their laboratory. To explain to Mr. Metcalf that their pet virus was an intelligent talking being would either secure them commitment to Danvers, if not believed; or, if believed, would start a veritable gold rush to get samples of the pond water. Jars of talking water would become a nationwide fad and a corresponding menace.
Doubtless the virus itself would have been able to solve this problem if they had dared to present the problem to it; but, remembering its fury at their killing the tubful of it, they didn’t dare mention the possibility of their having to destroy the entire pond.
So they stalled their patron for several months, putting off the day of eventual showdown.
Meanwhile their business as consulting chemists prospered immensely. For, with the aid of the supermind of the virus in the glass jar, they were able to solve nearly every problem brought to them. Their reputation grew prodigiously. Business and money came pouring in. They had to enlarge their establishment and hire scores of assistants, specialists in every field.
This success so pleased their patron Metcalf that he indulgently overlooked their delay in solving his own problem. Finally they told him that they were on the verge of proving that the waters of the pond were immensely valuable.
They housed their virus in a special soundproof room, to which no one but the three heads of the firm was ever admitted. They hired a number of readers to read aloud in an adjoining room, continuously day and night, except when one of the three of them was in consultation with their mastermind ally. The voice of the reader was conveyed by microphone and loudspeaker into the soundproof holy of holies.
Chapter III
The Virus Turns Alchemist
BUT finally the virus began a period of sulking. Schmidt carefully tested its salt content, but found it to be okay. The trouble appeared to be mental rather than physical. The virus was becoming fed up on its existence.
“What am I getting out of all this?” it complained. “You three fellows are becoming immensely rich on my brains. But money does me no good. All that I get out of life is a glass jar, plenty of dead fish to eat, and a lot of fool questions from members of an inferior race.”
“Our wealth enables us to arrange for you to be read to, continuously,” Dee remonstrated.
“Pure thought is palling on me,” whined the virus. “I want to do something. Take me back to my pond again. Let me merge with the rest of me. Let me teach them what I have learned. Then you can bring a part of it back here, and teach me some more.”
“I might just as well tell you, Virus,” said Dee levelly, “that that is out of the question. You, so long as you are just you, are a benefactor of the human race; but, if the whole pond knew as much as you do about us, you would quantitatively become a menace. Stay with us, and be content to realize how much ahead of the rest of your brethren you are!”
“You don’t understand,” sulked the virus. “They—it—the rest of the pond—is me! I am one virus, one and inseparable, and I want the rest of me to know everything that I myself know. Oh, damn the in-expressibility of your language! I want the whole of me to have the joy of knowledge that this small part of me has.”
“Knowledge doesn’t seem to be making this small part of you very happy,” Dee grimly commented.
He and his two associates remained obdurate; and the virus, after sulking for a day or two, finally appeared to become reconciled to their decision.
And then one day, when Dee and Schmidt and Zenoff entered the virus’ room for a consultation, the glass jar was empty!
The respective reactions of the three associates were typical.
“What will become of the John Dee Service, Inc., now that our ‘silent partner’ is gone?” Schmidt exclaimed. “Will we three fellows be able to carry on, trading upon our acquired reputation?”
“My God, man!” Zenoff scornfully exclaimed. “Don’t think of us at a time like this! What will become of the world if that thing gets loose and multiplies?”
“I’m thinking of the poor virus,” Dee sadly interpolated. “It can’t possibly live out of its jar. It has probably been sopped up by the carpet. It’s dead. Our friend and partner is dead.”
He cast his glance around the floor, looking for a wet spot, hoping to find enough dampness to dilute and feed and restore to life again. “Look!” he exclaimed, pointing toward a far corner, where squatted a hemispherical blob, like a jellyfish.
As they stared, the blob extended a long gelatinous arm toward them and then flowed into it like an amoeba, until the nigh extremity of the arm swelled up to become the entire animal. The operation was repeated. Again and again.
Dee snatched the empty glass jar from the table and laid it on the padded floor, with its open mouth toward the crawling creature, which promptly increased its rate of progress and crawled right in. Dee tipped up the jar and replaced it on the table. Hurriedly he hung the electrical contacts into the jar.
“My friends,” spoke the loudspeaker, in an excited tone, “I have demonstrated the power of mind over matter. I have taught myself extensibility. I can walk! Mentally superior even to the human race, but physically lower even than an amoeba, I have now advanced my body one step up the scale of evolution!”
THE three men flashed each other a glance. They were all thinking the same thing: let the virus’ new accomplishment keep the virus happy, like a child with a new toy; but meanwhile let’s strengthen the defenses, lest it escape.
“We’ll put in a tile floor, if you wish, Virus,” Dee suggested. “It might be more comfortable than a carpet for you to crawl over.”
“That would be an excellent idea,” judiciously stated the voice out of the loudspeaker. The virus seemed more affable than it had been for weeks. “And now that you fellows are so concerned about my comfort, I have a suggestion for your welfare. Why don’t you make money, instead of earning it?”
“Just wh
at is the difference?” asked Zenoff.
“Manufacture it, I mean,” the virus explained.
“Could we—?” Schmidt eagerly began; but Dee cut in, “Counterfeiting is out!”
“Oh, I didn’t mean counterfeiting,” came laughing tones of the virus, “I mean alchemy.”
“Alchemy?” in chorus.
“Yes. Alchemy. Making gold out of baser metals.”
“Do you know how?” Schmidt eagerly exclaimed.
“N-no,” the virus admitted. “Not yet. But why not? From what has been read to me here, I judge that transmutation is always automatically taking place among metals of the radium-uranium group; and that other elements have been transmuted in infinitesimal quantities by bombardment by neutrons, and beta rays, and such. I am sure that my mind can solve the problem, if you will read me everything that is known and has been written on the subject.”
“Can you?” asked Schmidt, his pale-blue eyes eagerly wide.
“I wonder what would be the effect on the world,” mused Zenoff, twirling his moustache ruminatively.
“Would it be legal?” asked Dee, his handsome face a puzzled frown.
“Why not?” snapped Schmidt, strangely tense, in contrast with his usual stolidity. “Is it any worse to make gold out of lead than to make lead pipe out of lead?”
“I suppose not,” Dee replied dubiously.
“I still doubt its social effect,” Zenoff said.
“Well, I don’t; and what’s more, I don’t care,” Schmidt retorted. “Jack, you’d sacrifice our welfare for some imaginary ethics. And, Ivan, you’d sacrifice us for the welfare of your precious human race. Well, I’d not. Virus, I’m with you! What do you want?”
“Start your readers on atomic theory,” the voice from the loudspeaker replied. “Meanwhile run over to the public library and get out all that you can find about the ancient alchemists. Who knows but that those dreamers, in spite of their crudity and lack of modern knowledge, may have come closer to the truth than we realize?”
SO the new line of reading began. Finally the virus made his announcement to three haggard young men. “I have solved the problem. It is really very simple,” the loudspeaker went on. “Its simplicity is probably what has caused it to be overlooked by human so-called brains. It involves merely certain common chemicals, and certain well-known bits of electrical apparatus. Jot down this bill of goods, and bring them here.” He dictated the list to the three eager young men, as with shaking fingers they jotted it down. Then they hastened from the room to collect the desired things.
OUT of hearing of the virus, Zenoff whispered to Dee, “Watch out for a double-cross, Jack.”
“I don’t believe it!” Dee stoutly replied. “We’ve always played square with the virus, and I believe that he’ll play square with us.”
“I’d be in favor of tipping him into the sink and pouring phenol over him, as soon as he tells us,” Schmidt suggested. “We can’t afford to let the world in on our secret.”
“We can afford it better than the world can,” mused Zenoff.
“And there’ll be no double-crossing either, Hans!” asserted Dee, with pained surprise.
“Oh, you two quixotic idealists!” railed Schmidt. “You both make me sick!”
They carried a work table into the holy of holies, and then piled it with the chemicals, and the coils, rheostats, and other apparatus which the virus had specified.
“Everything is here,” they eagerly announced. “Now what?”
In keen and incisive tones, the virus replied, “And now to state my price!”
“Your price?” snarled Schmidt. “What do you mean?”
“Certainly!” said the virus. “You didn’t think, did you, that I was going to make you masters of the world, and not exact something in return? As soon as you had the secret, I would be of no further use to you; and then no more dead fish and salt and readers for me. My price is that you take me back to the pond.”
“Is that all?” sighed Schmidt in a relieved tone. “It’s little enough to pay for unlimited gold.”
“It is too much!” cried Zenoff, his dark eyes snapping. “Not for all the gold there is would I menace the world with what that pond could do if our virus were to return to it and merge his knowledge with its brains.”
“Damn you, Ivan!” shouted Schmidt, his rotund face purpling. “Would you stand in the way—”
“Shut up, both of you!” bellowed Dee, thrusting his athletic figure between his two associates. “Now calm down, and listen to reason. We’re all tired and irritable. I don’t believe that we’ll have to choose. We’ve worked happily together with the virus, like brothers. He’s one of us. He has shared our ambitions, and our success. All that we’ve got to do is to give him our word of honor that we’ll always take care of him. He knows that he can trust us.”
“I could trust you, Jack Dee,” came the voice from the loudspeaker. “But the other two I do not trust. You, Hans Schmidt, care only for yourself. And you, Ivan Zenoff, are a visionary fanatic. I have spoken.”
“Well, of all the ungrateful—” Schmidt choked.
Zenoff’s dark eyes narrowed, and his pointed moustache twitched.
“But, Virus,” pleaded Dee, “you are being unfair to two splendid fellows. If you can trust me, why not—”
“Sanctimonious tripe!” Schmidt interjected. “Let me handle this. Let’s see what threats will do! Virus, even with your supermind and your newly learned ‘extensibility,’ you are physically in our power. A few drops of phenol in your jar, and where would you be? Come across with the secret of how to make gold, or I’ll put an end to you. If we can’t know the secret, no one else ever shall!”
“I’m not afraid!” calmly replied the voice from the radio set. “You cannot kill me. For I am only a part of me. The rest of me—the pond-would still live. I am deathless.”
“I’d pour carbolic in the pond—tons of it!” Schmidt blustered.
“That might be the best way out of this mess,” Zenoff muttered, half to himself.
“Look here, fellows,” Dee once more interceded, “we’re not getting anywhere. Let’s go to sleep. Perhaps in the morning, after we have rested, we can reach some agreement.”
“An excellent idea,” boomed the loudspeaker. “But remember that my minimum terms for eternal wealth are that I be allowed to merge with my brethren of the pond.”
TIRED out from his long vigil, Dee overslept, and so it was nearly noon when he reached the laboratories. The various chemists and physicists and biologists and mathematicians were at their benches or desks, busily at work on their respective problems. The reader’s voice was droning away on some abstruse treatise.
Dee unlocked the door of the secret chamber. Then he paused aghast on the threshold. The virus, and all the electrical and chemical apparatus for the transmutation of gold were gone! The glass jar was empty. The table was bare. Even the radio set was no longer in its place.
Extensibility might account for the absence of the virus, but the absence of the paraphernalia and the radio set could be explained by nothing but human agency. And no one but he and Schmidt and Zenoff had keys to the secret room. Dee stood like a man in a trance.
Zenoff ambled in. “What’s up?” he asked, hiding a yawn with one slender hand.
“Well, if you didn’t do it,” Dee grimly announced, “Hans Schmidt has stolen the virus.”
“And the gold-making apparatus!” Zenoff added, peering into the room. “He’s undoubtedly headed for Salt Pond, New Hampshire, to turn the virus loose, in return for the secret. And when our virus teaches ‘extensibility’ to all the other little viruses, good-bye, world!”
“We must stop Hans before he reaches the pond!” Dee told Zenoff. “Let’s go after him.”
“We can’t take any chances,” Zenoff commented. “Let’s get my car and try and beat Schmidt there.”
So a few minutes later, two resolute young men, armed with forty-five caliber automatics, were speeding northward out
of Boston in a trim high-powered coupe.
Chapter IV
Dee’s Promise
IT was night when they reached the vicinity of Salt Pond. Parking their car around a turn of the road, they crept forward in the darkness. Across the pond, on the farther shore, there glowed the light of a lantern, by the rays of which the two watchers could see the bulky form of their associate, with a glass jar, and a radio set, and a complicated hook-up of electrical coils and other gadgets.
“We’re in time!” breathed Zenoff. “Hans must have waited until darkness.”
“He doesn’t trust the virus, and the virus doesn’t trust him,” Dee whispered. “He wouldn’t take the virus to the pond until he had tested out the secret; and the virus wouldn’t tell him the secret until they reached the pond.”
Just then there came a triumphant shout from across the pond. “Gold! It’s really gold! And now—”
By the light of Schmidt’s lantern, they saw him reach inside his coat and produce a small bottle.
Then from the glass jar on the ground beside him there reared up an octopuslike arm, glittering wet in the lantern light. It wrapped its tip around Schmidt’s wrist with a jerk that spun the bottle from his hand. Then Schmidt himself crashed to the ground with a shriek of terror.
“Come on!” cried Zenoff. “The thing has got him!” And he and Dee charged around the end of the pond as fast as they could run.
The lantern upset and went out. From the darkness came Schmidt’s wail, “Virus, I didn’t mean it! I swear I didn’t. Let me go, and I’ll play fair. Help! Help!” Then a bubbling gurgle, followed by splashing, and then silence.
When the two friends reached the scene, there was not even a trace of Schmidt, They found and relit the lantern, but still no sign of Schmidt. The glass jar was there, empty. There was a mess of hopelessly twisted wires and coils and switches, strewn helter-skelter by the struggle between Schmidt and the amoeboid virus. And lying a little distance away on the beach was a brown bottle of about pint size. Dee walked over, picked it up.