Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  The demonstrator looked around carefully, then pointed. "Strings!" he said. "Or rather a black thread. It runs from the top of the model, through a tiny loop in the ceiling, and back down to my hand—tied to this ring on my finger. When I back up—the model rises. It's as simple as that."

  "All good illusions are simple," the colonel grunted, tracing the black thread with his eye. "As long as there is plenty of flimflam to distract the viewer."

  "If you don't have a black table, a black cloth will do," the young man said. "And the arch of a doorway is a good site, just see that the room in back is dark."

  "Wrap it up, my boy, I wasn't born yesterday. I'm an old hand at this kind of thing."

  Biff Hawton sprang it at the next Thursday-night poker party. The gang were all missile men and they cheered and jeered as he hammed up the introduction.

  "Let me copy the diagram, Biff, I could use some of those magnetic waves in the new bird!"

  "Those flashlight batteries are cheaper than lox, this is the thing of the future!"

  Only Teddy Kaner caught wise as the flight began. He was an amateur magician and spotted the gimmick at once. He kept silent with professional courtesy, and smiled ironically as the rest of the bunch grew silent one by one. The colonel was a good showman and he had set the scene well. He almost had them believing in the Space Wave Tapper before he was through. When the model had landed and he had switched it off he couldn't stop them from crowding around the table.

  "A thread!" one of the engineers shouted, almost with relief, and they all laughed along with him.

  "Too bad," the head project physicist said, "I was hoping that a little Space Wave Tapping could help us out. Let me try a flight with it."

  "Teddy Kaner first," Biff announced. "He spotted it while you were all watching the flashing lights, only he didn't say anything."

  Kaner slipped the ring with the black thread over his finger and started to step back.

  "You have to turn the switch on first," Biff said.

  "I know," Kaner smiled. "But that's part of illusion—the spiel and the misdirection. I'm going to try this cold first, so I can get it moving up and down smoothly, then go through it with the whole works."

  He moved his hand back smoothly, in a professional manner that drew no attention to it. The model lifted from the table—then crashed back down.

  "The thread broke," Kaner said.

  "You jerked it, instead of pulling smoothly," Biff said and knotted the broken thread. "Here let me show you how to do it."

  The thread broke again when Biff tried it, which got a good laugh that made his collar a little warm. Someone mentioned the poker game.

  This was the only time that poker was mentioned or even remembered that night. Because very soon after this they found that the thread would lift the model only when the switch was on and two and a half volts flowing through the joke coils. With the current turned off the model was too heavy to lift. The thread broke every time.

  "I still think it's a screwy idea," the young man said. "One week getting fallen arches, demonstrating those toy ships for every brat within a thousand miles. Then selling the things for three bucks when they must have cost at least a hundred dollars apiece to make."

  "But you did sell the ten of them to people who would be interested?" the older man asked.

  "I think so, I caught a few Air Force officers and a colonel in missiles one day. Then there was one official I remembered from the Bureau of Standards. Luckily he didn't recognize me. Then those two professors you spotted from the university."

  "Then the problem is out of our hands and into theirs. All we have to do now is sit back and wait for results."

  "What results?! These people weren't interested when we were hammering on their doors with the proof. We've patented the coils and can prove to anyone that there is a reduction in weight around them when they are operating...."

  "But a small reduction. And we don't know what is causing it. No one can be interested in a thing like that—a fractional weight decrease in a clumsy model, certainly not enough to lift the weight of the generator. No one wrapped up in massive fuel consumption, tons of lift and such is going to have time to worry about a crackpot who thinks he has found a minor slip in Newton's laws."

  "You think they will now?" the young man asked, cracking his knuckles impatiently.

  "I know they will. The tensile strength of that thread is correctly adjusted to the weight of the model. The thread will break if you try to lift the model with it. Yet you can lift the model—after a small increment of its weight has been removed by the coils. This is going to bug these men. Nobody is going to ask them to solve the problem or concern themselves with it. But it will nag at them because they know this effect can't possibly exist. They'll see at once that the magnetic-wave theory is nonsense. Or perhaps true? We don't know. But they will all be thinking about it and worrying about it. Someone is going to experiment in his basement—just as a hobby of course—to find the cause of the error. And he or someone else is going to find out what makes those coils work, or maybe a way to improve them!"

  "And we have the patents...."

  "Correct. They will be doing the research that will take them out of the massive-lift-propulsion business and into the field of pure space flight."

  "And in doing so they will be making us rich—whenever the time comes to manufacture," the young man said cynically.

  "We'll all be rich, son," the older man said, patting him on the shoulder. "Believe me, you're not going to recognize this old world ten years from now."

  * * *

  Contents

  PRELUDE TO SPACE

  By Robert W. Haseltine

  You're certain to be included in a survey at one time or another. However, there's one you may not recognize as such. Chances are it will be more important than you imagine. It could be man's--

  I was climbing the steep side of a central Wisconsin hill, holding my bow away from my body for balance, when I first saw the stranger. He sat on a stump at the crest and watched me struggle up. As I drew nearer I panted out a greeting and received his cheerful "Hi" in return. When I finally reached the top, I threw myself on the ground and began catching my breath.

  He didn't say anything at first, just looked at the bow and the quiver of arrows on my back. Finally he said, "May I look at it?" and reached for the bow. I handed it to him. He examined it carefully and returned it.

  "Beautiful workmanship. Is that all you use?" he asked.

  "I never cared much for guns," I answered. "I've always thought a bow gave the animal more of an even chance for his life."

  We talked then on the various aspects of hunting and how the crisp fall air seemed to make the deer seem closer than during the heat of summer. While we talked I tried to place the reason he disturbed me, but I couldn't seem to do it. He was dressed in an old plaid shirt and dungarees and his blond hair wasn't many shades removed from my own straw thatch. But there was something odd about him that I couldn't quite find.

  "Perhaps it's the cloth." His words surprised me. "You see, it hasn't been discovered on this planet as yet." My face must have shown astonishment because he went on in the same vein. "I admit it's confusing, but it's also true. My clothes weren't made on Earth." He chuckled then, deep in his throat. "I don't blame you for being confused. I know how I would feel if I met an extraterrestrial being before space travel was a reality."

  I kept staring at him. Finally I blurted out, "What in Sam Hill are you talking about?"

  He leaned forward on the stump and his face grew earnest. "You might say I'm a poll taker. I have to decide certain things from various interviews with individuals I meet."

  "What are you trying to prove?" I asked.

  "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you that until I'm finished with the interview. If I told you, your interest in the subject would tend to prejudice your answers."

  "Fair enough. What do you want to ask me?"

  He pulled out a notebook and smiled.
"These questions may seem a little silly but I must have straight answers to them. Will you go along with me?"

  I nodded my head.

  "Let's see now. If you were the head of a government and wanted to ascertain whether another country was ready for admission into the United Nations, what would you do?"

  I shrugged. "I suppose I would read books and magazines from the country and possibly have an interview with the heads of the government. After I had collected my data I could then act upon it."

  "For the sake of argument suppose the books and other periodicals were written so as to be prejudicial in favor of the government, and the heads also were coloring what they said."

  I thought for a minute. "In that case I suppose I would secretly place someone inside the country to interview the people and get a first hand view of the situation. Then I would act on his data."

  * * * * *

  He nodded his head. "Yes, the people themselves and the conditions they live in will give you the needed data." He turned a page in the book. "Now suppose that you wished to know if a certain planet was ready to enter into an organization such as the Galactic Federation, what would you do?"

  "I suppose I'd act as I did before. Place people inside the various areas of the planet to interview and observe. They would bring back the information needed to ascertain whether they would be an asset or a detriment to the organization."

  I thought to myself that the question was a trifle silly; after all, hadn't science proved that life couldn't exist on the other planets in our system?

  He relaxed after I answered and his smile was brighter than the previous ones. "Right," he said. "Naturally we had to learn the language first, but now a first-hand check can be made. You see, there is a civilization out there," he raised his hand and swept the sky, "and we have to check to see if this planet is ready to take its place as an adult civilization with the rest of us.

  "Earth, within a very short time, will be reaching her fingers into space. Once she gets there she will be eligible to join the Galactic Federation."

  "That's all right," I said, "then we can exchange culture and knowledge with other civilizations."

  "Yes, if you are eligible to join."

  "But you said that once we reach space we will be eligible."

  "Look at it this way," he said. "The main purpose of the Galactic Federation is to promote peace and understanding among the various planets. Earth would have to be prepared to take its place as just another member, and not an important member at that. Earth, you see, is one of the smaller planets and also would be the latest one to join.

  "In times past some planets have reached space without being fully prepared for what they would find. They still had internal troubles on their own worlds. We had to place them in quarantine until they reached that degree of civilization where they were ready to live in peace. Now we check a planet before it reaches the space-travel stage. We find out the reactions of the inhabitants to certain situations."

  "What sort of situations?" I asked.

  "Well, naturally we want to see their artifacts as an indication as to their advancement. We have to know what the average man thinks of space travel and trade with other planets. And their ideas on peace and their feelings towards their fellow men. All are very important.

  "Actually, when a planet once enters the Federation the people are the ones to decide on peace and war. So if the majority of the people on a planet are peace-loving that planet is ready to enter the Federation."

  "But how do you find out all these things?" I asked. "When a man finds out what you are trying to prove he may lie because he wants to get into space."

  His eyes held a mischievous glint as he answered. "Simple, the art of telepathy has been highly developed among my race. I have your thoughts on everything I've mentioned. Later, when all the data from thousands of similar interviews is in it will be evaluated and the decision made as to whether your world will be allowed to reach space. We have the means of keeping you from it if we decide you aren't yet ready."

  He stood up and I followed suit. "I must be going now," he sighed. "This work keeps me on the run and I have many more interviews to make. Believe me, it was a pleasure meeting you. I hope we meet again--later." We shook hands and he strolled over the hill into the valley.

  Perhaps I should have followed him, but it wouldn't have done any good, really. Because a few moments later I saw something shimmering over the top of the hill. It was big and disc-shaped and shot into the sky with a speed that was unbelievable.

  I still don't know what to think about him or what we talked about. I'm going to keep watching the papers though, and hoping he got the right answers. If we reach the Moon I'll know he did....

  * * *

  Contents

  ONE PURPLE HOPE!

  By Henry Hasse

  Once he had been a tall, straight spaceman, free as the galaxies. Now Joel Latham was a tsith-addict, a beach-comber at Venusport. Maybe he'd get one last chance....

  His sleep-drugged mind was slow to respond. He was lying face down, he knew that. And he ought to get up. If he didn't get up he would drown. Something hot and heavy, like a huge hand, was pressing him deeper into the brackish mire. He pondered. Perhaps it were better to drown. For a moment he allowed himself the luxury of the thought, then decided against it. Plenty of time later for drowning. First there was something he had to do!

  So it was that Joel Latham, Earthman, age thirty, occupation space drifter, avocation tsith drinker, awakened on this most momentous of mornings.

  Moaning in protest, he slowly rolled himself over. The sun slapped him hard against the eyes. He blinked against the pain and saw that he was still in Venusport; rather he was at the edge of the swamp near the sprawling compound. Overhead the ionic field was aglow, humming softly, beating back the obscurant mists.

  He managed to stand up. Some of the pallid-faced gweels, out in the swamp, stopped their work to stare at him. Latham grimaced. Every fiber of him, especially his brain, seemed to have been squeezed dry. Then it came. He felt it coming and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The hammering nausea took him suddenly about the middle, bending him double.

  "I'm an Earthman," Joel Latham groaned aloud. That was invariably the first reaction of the tsith hound, at least with Terrestrials who indulged in the deadly stuff; a piteous protest half in defiance, half in despair. The nausea reached up through his stomach, through his chest and into his throat. It became more than nausea. It grew thorns that stabbed inwardly, jagged edges that sawed away at his brain with a terrible need. He fell forward on hands and knees ... and that's when he saw the little Martian who crouched a few feet away, watching him.

  "I went through mine a few minutes ago," the Martian said in a monotone. "Yours will go away presently."

  "I know ... it will. Been through this ... before."

  "You obviously have. Many times."

  Many times was an understatement, Latham thought wretchedly. But this was one of the worst ones, even worse than the time on Callisto. Thinking about it didn't help.

  He turned his gaze back to the Martian. That didn't help either.

  Most Martians are lean and brown and ugly. This one was that, and more. What had once been clothes were tattered and spattered with swamp mud. The hair was a wisp, the teeth only a memory. The skin was tight and leathery across the bony structure of the face, the eyes distended and yellow, the unmistakable sign of a tsith hound.

  Latham grimaced, managed to grind out: "Do I look as bad as you?"

  "Worse," the little Martian was matter-of-fact.

  "I believe you." He looked long and hard at the Martian. "I remember you now. Name's Kueelo. You were with me last night--"

  Kueelo grinned, showing the stumps of yellowish teeth. "Correction. Four nights ago. That's when it began."

  Latham climbed to his feet. The reaction was going away but there was still a dull apathy about his brain. Just to think was an aching effort.

  "F
our days," he muttered. "How'd I come here?"

  "So you don't remember that? You came on the pleasure yacht. The one from Turibek."

  * * * * *

  "Turibek--" Latham was remembering now. Turibek, capital city of Venus, far on the other side of the planet. He'd had a small stake and was lucky at the gaming tables. Before that it was Callisto, where he had struck it rich in the iridium fields; anyway, rich enough to keep him supplied with tsith for a year. Before Callisto it had been Mars. He had worked the rocket rooms of Jovian freighters, he had served as tourist guide in the dark little streets of Ganymede City, and when fortune was lowest he had begged in those streets and done worse things than begging. Before that he couldn't remember. He went wherever whim and fortune took him, but the whims were short-lived and the fortune invariably ended at the bottom of a glass. The deadly tsith twisted his brain awry and took its toll and drove him on. He had been "on the beach" on half a dozen planets. Earth he shunned. He hadn't set foot there in more years than he could remember. At first it was because he was ashamed, but even that was gone now. Only a cold sickness was left in the soul of Joel Latham.

  He stared at this fellow tsith hound, this shell of a Martian, and said, "What happened last night?"

  "What always happens," Kueelo said wearily. "We used up all our credit. Penger kicked us out."

  It took Joel Latham a full minute to absorb that piece of information. Mixed up with the agony in his eyes was a pensive look, but no resentment; his need just now was too dire for resentment. He stared across the swamp at the outpost's straggling street. Jake Penger was the law here, and he owned the only supply of tsith. Latham recalled him vaguely, a huge man, inscrutable, uncompromising.

  "Penger," he muttered. "That's it. I knew there was something I was going to do."