(4/15) The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IV: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  Ellerbee dropped Fenwick off by the Jefferson memorial, then drove on about a mile. Still in sight, he stopped the car and got out. Fenwick saw him wave a hand. Nothing happened.

  Fenwick glanced down at the crystal in his hand. About the size of a child's toy block. He could almost understand Baker's position. It was pretty silly to suppose this thing could have the powers Ellerbee said it had. No electric energy applied. It merely amplified the normal telepathic impulses existing in every human mind, Ellerbee said. Fenwick sighed. You just couldn't tell ahead of time that a thing wasn't going to pan out. He knew his philosophy was right. These had to be investigated--every lousy, crackpot one of them. You could never tell what you were missing out on unless you did check.

  He squeezed harder on the crystal, as Ellerbee had told him to do.

  It was just a little fuzzy at first, fading and coming back. Then it was there, shimmering a little, but steady. The image of Ellerbee standing in front of him, grinning.

  Fenwick glanced down the road. Ellerbee was still there, a mile away. But he was also right there in front of him, about four feet away.

  "It shakes you up a little bit at first," said Ellerbee. "But you get used to it after a while. Anyway, this is it. Are you convinced my device works?"

  Fenwick shook his head to try to clear it rather than to give a negative answer. "I'm convinced something is working," he said. "I'm just not quite sure what it is."

  "I'll drive across town," Ellerbee offered. "You can see that distance makes no difference at all. Later, I'll prove it works clear across the country if you want me to."

  They arranged that proof of Ellerbee's presence on the other side of the city could be obtained by Fenwick's calling him at a drug store pay phone. Then they would communicate by means of the cubes.

  It was no different than before.

  The telephone call satisfied Fenwick that Ellerbee was at least ten miles away. Then, within a second, he also appeared to be standing directly in front of Fenwick.

  "What do you want?" said Fenwick finally. "What do you want the Bureau to do about your device? How much money do you want for development?"

  "Money? I don't need any money!" Ellerbee exploded. "All I want is for the Government to make some use of the thing. I've had a patent on it for six months. The Patent Office had sense enough to give me a patent, but nobody else would look at it. I just want somebody to make some use of it!"

  "I'm sure a great many practical applications can be found," Fenwick said lamely. "We'll have to make a report, first, however. There will be a need for a great many more experiments--"

  But most important of all, Baker would have to be shown. Baker would have to know from his own experience that this thing worked.

  Fenwick suddenly wanted to get away from Ellerbee as much as he had from Baker a little earlier. There was just so much a man's aging synapses could stand, he told himself. He had to do a bit of thinking by himself. When Ellerbee drove up again, Fenwick told him what he wanted.

  Ellerbee looked disappointed but resigned. "I hope this isn't another runaround, Mr. Fenwick. You'll pardon me for being blunt, but I've had some pretty raw treatment from your office since I started writing about my communicator."

  "I promise you this isn't a runaround," said Fenwick, "but it's absolutely necessary to get Dr. Baker to view your demonstration. We will want to see your laboratories and your methods of production. I promise you it won't be more than two or three days, depending on Dr. Baker's busy schedule."

  "O.K. I'll wait until the end of the week," said Ellerbee. "If I don't hear something by then, I'll go ahead with my plans to market the crystals as a novelty gadget."

  "I'll be in touch with you. I promise," said Fenwick. He stood by the curb and watched Ellerbee drive away.

  * * * * *

  Fenwick moved slowly back to his own car and sat behind the wheel without starting the motor. It seemed a long time since nine-thirty yesterday morning, when he had come in to Baker's office to check on the grant he had known Baker wasn't going to give him. Now, merely by kicking Baker's refuse pile with his toe, so to speak, he had turned up a diamond that Baker was ready to discard.

  Fenwick felt a sudden surge of revulsion. How was it possible for such a blind, ignorant fool as Baker to be placed in the position he was in? How could the administrative officers of the United States Government be responsible for such misjudgment? Such maladministration, if performed consciously, would be sheer treason. Yet, unconsciously and ignorantly, Baker's authority was perpetuated, giving him a stranglehold on the creative powers of the nation.

  Fenwick tried to recall how he and Baker had become friends--so long ago, in their own college days. It wasn't that there was any closeness or common interest between them, yet they seemed to have drawn together as two opposites might. They were both science majors at the time, but their philosophies were so different that their studies were hardly a common ground.

  Fenwick figuratively threw away the textbook the first time the professor's back was turned. Baker, Fenwick thought, never took his eyes from its pages. Fenwick distrusted everything that he could not prove himself. Baker believed nothing that was not solidly fixed in black and white and bound between sturdy cloth covers, and prefaced by the name of a man who boasted at least two graduate degrees.

  Fenwick remembered even now his first reaction to Baker. He had never seen his kind before and could not believe that such existed. He supposed Baker felt similarly about him, and, out of the strange contradiction of their worlds, they formed a hesitant friendship. For himself, Fenwick supposed that it was based on a kind of fascination in associating with one who walked so blindly, who was so profoundly incapable of understanding his own blindness and peril.

  But never before had he realized the absolute danger that rested in the hands of Baker. And there must be others like him in high Government scientific circles, Fenwick thought. He had learned long ago that Baker's kind was somewhere in the background in every laboratory and scientific office.

  But few of them achieved the strangling power that Baker now possessed.

  The Index! Fenwick thought of it and gagged. Wardrobe evaluation! Staff reading index! The reproductive ratio--social activity index--the index of hereditary accomplishment--multiply your ancestors by the number of technical papers your five-year old children have produced and divide by the number of book reviews you attend weekly--

  Fenwick slumped in the seat. We hold these truths to be self-evident--that the ratio of sports coats to tuxedos in a faculty member's closet shall determine whether Clearwater gets to do research in solid state physics, whether George Durrant gives his genius to the nation or whether it gets buried in Dr. William Baker's refuse pile.

  But not only George Durrant. Jim Ellerbee, too. And how many others?

  Something had to be done.

  Fenwick hadn't realized it before, but this was the thought that had been churning in his cortex for the last hour. Something had to be done about Bill Baker.

  But, short of murder, what?

  Getting rid of Baker physically was not the answer, of course. If he were gone, a hundred others like him would fight for his place.

  Baker had to be shown. He had to be shown that high-grading was costing him the very thing he was trying to find. It must be proven to him that flotation methods work as well in mining human resources as in mining metal. That the extra trouble paid off.

  This was known--a long time ago--Fenwick thought. Somewhere along the way things got changed. He glanced toward the Jefferson Memorial. Tom Jefferson knew how it should be, Tom Jefferson, statesman, farmer, writer, and amateur mechanic and inventor. It was not only every gentleman's privilege, it was also his duty to be a tinkerer and amateur scientist, no matter what else he might be.

  Fenwick glanced in the distance toward the Lincoln Memorial. Abe had done his share of tinkering. His weird boot-strap system for hoisting river boats off shoals and bars hadn't amounted to much, but Abe knew the p
rinciple that every man has the right to be his own scientist.

  And then there was Ben Franklin, the noblest amateur of them all! He had roamed these parts, too.

  Somewhere it had been lost. The Bill Bakers would have laughed out of existence the great tinkerers like Franklin and Lincoln and Jefferson. And the Pasteurs and the Mendels--and the George Durrants and the Jim Ellerbees, too.

  Fenwick started the car. Something had to be done about Bill Baker.

  * * * * *

  Baker leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily. "So it worked, did it? He showed you something that made you think he had a real working device."

  "There was no 'think' about it," said Fenwick. "I saw it with my own eyes. That boy's got something terrific!"

  Baker sobered and thumbed through the Ellerbee file again. "Any freshman math major could poke holes all through this mathematical explanation he offers. Right? Secondly, a device such as he claims to have produced violates all the basic laws of science. Why, it's even against the Second Law of Thermodynamics!"

  "I don't care what it's against," said Fenwick. "It works. I want you to come with me to Ellerbee's and see for yourself. His device will revolutionize communications."

  Baker shook his head sadly. "It's always tougher when they show you something that seems to work. Then you've got to waste a lot of time looking for the gimmick if you're going to follow it through. I just haven't got the time--"

  "You've got to, Bill!"

  "I'll tell you what I'll do. You go out there and look over his setup. If you can't find his gimmick in half a day, I'll come out and show it to you. But I warn you, some of these things are very tricky--like the old perpetual motion machines. You've got to have your wits about you. Is that fair enough?"

  "Fair enough," Fenwick agreed.

  Baker smiled broadly. "I'll do even more. If this Ellerbee device should prove to be on the level, I'll give you the research grant you want for Clearwater."

  "I'm not so sure I want it on those terms," said Fenwick.

  "Well, it's a purely academic matter. You won't have to worry about it. But, on the other hand, I'll expect you to agree that when Ellerbee is exposed you'll not persist in your request to this office."

  "Well, now--"

  "That's a fair offer. I'm giving you a chance to prove I'm wrong in setting up the Index to screen out people like Ellerbee--"

  "--And institutions like Clearwater."

  "And institutions like Clearwater," Baker agreed.

  "All right," said Fenwick. "I'll gamble with you--for one more stake: If Ellerbee's device is on the level, you'll make a grant to Clearwater and other institutions of like qualifications, and you'll scrap that insane Index--"

  Baker tapped the desk placatingly. "The grant to Clearwater, yes. As for the Index, if it should fail in its applicability to this clear-cut Ellerbee case I would be the first to want to know why. But I assure you there is no flaw in the Index. It has been tried too many thousands of times."

  * * * * *

  Ellerbee's place was in Virginia, in a dairying area in the hills. The last ten miles of the road were not the kind to attract visitors. The road was steep and narrow in places that turned sharply around the hillsides. No guardrails blocked the descent into the steep gullies. It was definitely a region for people who liked solitude. The farms that lay in the valleys of the hills were neat and well-cared for, however. The people Fenwick passed on the road didn't look like the recluse type.

  Ellerbee's farm was one of the best looking in the vicinity. It had the look of being cared for by a man who could do everything. The huge barn and the corrals were as neat as a garden, and the large white frame farmhouse stood out like a monument against the green pasture.

  A woman and two children were in the garden beside the house as Fenwick drove up. "May I help you? I'm Mrs. Ellerbee," the woman said.

  Fenwick explained who he was and his purpose in coming. "Jim's been expecting you," the woman said. "His laboratory is the long white building back of the house. He's out there now."

  Jim Ellerbee met him at the door. "You didn't bring Dr. Baker," he said almost accusingly.

  "Later," said Fenwick. "I came, as I promised. Dr. Baker wants my report on your facilities and production methods. Then he will come up to make his own inspection."

  There was doubt in Ellerbee's eyes, as if he was used to such stories. "Maybe it would be best if I marketed the crystals in any form I can," he said.

  He led Fenwick through a number of rooms of expensive, precision electronic equipment. Then they passed through a set of double doors, which Fenwick observed acted as a thermal lock between the crystal growing room and the rest of the building. It reminded him of George Durrant's laboratory at Clearwater.

  "This is where the crystals are grown," said Ellerbee. "I suppose you're familiar with such processes. Here we must use a very precisely controlled sequence of co-crystallization to get layers of desired thickness--"

  Fenwick wasn't listening. He had suddenly observed the second man in the room, a rather small, swarthy man, who moved with quiet precision among a row of tanks on the far side of the room. There was a startling quality about the man that Fenwick was unable to define, a strangeness.

  Ellerbee caught the direction of his glance. "Oh," he said. "You must meet my neighbor, Sam Atkins. Sam is in this as deep or even deeper than I am. I think perhaps he's more responsible for the communicator crystals."

  The man turned as his name was mentioned, and came toward them. "You were the one who developed the crystals," he said in a soft, persuasive voice, to Jim Ellerbee.

  "This is my setup," Ellerbee explained with a wave of his hand to indicate the laboratory surroundings. "But Sam has been working with me for about a year on this thing. When Sam moved in, we found we were both radio hams and electronic bugs. I'd been fooling around with crystal growing, trying to design some new type transistors. Then Sam suggested some experiments in co-crystallization--using different chemicals that will crystallize in successive layers in one crystal.

  "We stumbled on one combination that made a terrific amplifier. Then we found it would actually radiate to a distant point all by itself. Finally, we discovered that its radiation was completely nonelectromagnetic. There is no way we have yet found of detecting the radiation from the crystal--except by means of another piece of the same crystal.

  "I know it's against all the rules in the books. It just doesn't make sense. But there it is. It works."

  Sam Atkins had turned away for a moment to attend to one of the tanks, but Fenwick found himself intensely aware of the man's presence. There was nothing he could put his finger on. He just knew, with such intense certainty, that Sam Atkins was there.

  "What does Mr. Atkins do?" Fenwick asked. "Does he have a dairy farm, too?"

  Ellerbee nodded. "His place is right next to mine. Since we started this project Sam has practically lived here, however. He's a bachelor, and so he takes most of his meals with us."

  "Seems strange--" Fenwick mused, "two men like you, way out here in the country, doing work on a level with that of the best crystal labs in the country. I should think you'd both rather be in academic or industrial work."

  Ellerbee smiled and looked up through the windows to the meadows beyond. "We're free out here," he said.

  Fenwick thought of Baker. "You are that," he said.

  "You said you wanted to investigate the whole production process. We'll start here, if you like, and I'll show you every step in our process. This tank contains an ordinary alum solution. We start building on a seed crystal of alum and continue until we reach a precise thickness. Here is a solution of chrome alum. You'll note the insulated tanks. Room temperature is maintained within half a degree. The solutions are held to within one-tenth of a degree. Crystal dimensions must be held to tolerances of little more than the thickness of a molecule--"

  * * * * *

  The gimmick to fool him and cheat him. Where was it? Fenwick asked himself. B
aker was sure it was here. If so, where could it be? There was no trickery in the crystal laboratory--unless it was the trickery of precision refinement of methods. Only men of great mechanical skill could accomplish what Ellerbee and his friend were doing. Genius behind the milking machine! Fenwick could almost sympathize with Baker in his hiding behind the ridiculous Index. Without some such protection a man could encounter shocks.

  The crackpot fringe.

  Where else would credence have been given to the phenomenon of a crystal that seemed to radiate in a nonelectromagnetic way?

  But, of course, it couldn't actually be doing that. All the books, all the authorities, and the known scientific principles said it couldn't happen. Therefore, it wouldn't have happened--outside the crackpot fringe.

  If Ellerbee and Atkins weren't trying to foist a deliberate deception, where were they mistaken? It was possible for such men as these to make an honest mistake. That would more than likely turn out to be the case here. But how could there be a mistake in the production of a phenomenon such as Fenwick had witnessed? How could that be produced through some error when it couldn't even be done by known electronic methods--not just as Fenwick had seen it.

  Throughout the morning Ellerbee led him down the rows of tanks, explaining at each step what was happening. Sometimes Sam Atkins offered a word of explanation also, but always he stayed in the background. The two farmers showed Fenwick how they measured crystal size down to the thickness of a molecule while the crystals were growing.

  A sudden suspicion crossed Fenwick's mind. "If those dimensions are so critical, how did you determine them in the first place?"

  "Initially, it was a lucky accident," said Sam Atkins.

  "Very lucky," said Fenwick, "if you were able to accidentally obtain a crystal of fifteen layers or so and have each layer even approximately correct."

  Sam smiled blandly. "Our first crystals were not so complex, you understand. Only three layers. We thought we were building transistors, then. Later, our mathematics showed us the advantage of additional layers and gave us the dimensions."