The Space Opera Megapack: 20 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Tales

by John W. Campbell

  At eleven-thirty, through the little view window, Buck Kendall saw something that made him cry out in amazement. The mercury metal in the receiver, behind its layers of screening was beginning to glow, with a dull reddish light, and little solidifications were appearing in it! Eagerly the men looked, as the solidifications spread slowly, like crystals growing in an evaporating solution.

  Twelve o’clock came and went, and one o’clock and two o’clock. Still the slow crystallization went on. Buck Kendall was casting furtive glances at the kilowatt-hour meter. It stood at a figure that represented twenty-seven thousand dollars’ worth of power. Long since the power rate had been increased to the maximum available, as the power plant’s normal load reduced as the morning hours came. Surely, this time something would start, but Buck had two worries. If all the enormous amount of energy they had poured in there decided to release itself at once—

  And at any rate, Buck saw they’d never dare to let a generator stop, once it was started!

  The men were a tense group around the machine at three-fifteen A.M. There remained only a tiny, dancing globule of silvery mercury skittering around on the sharp, needle-like crystals of the dull red metal that had resulted. Slowly that skittering drop was shrinking—

  Three twenty-two and a half A.M. saw the last fraction of it vanish. Tensely the men stared into the machine—backing off slowly—watching the meters on the board. At nearly eighty thousand volts the power had been fed into it.

  The power continued to flow, and a growing halo of intense violet light appeared suddenly on those red, needle-like crystals, a swiftly expanding halo—

  Without a sound, without the slightest disturbance, the halo vanished, and softly, gently, the needle-like crystals relapsed, melted away, and a dull pool of metallic mercury rested in the receiver.

  At eighty thousand volts, power was flowing in—

  And it didn’t even sparkle.

  V

  The apparatus of the magnetic shield had been completed two days later, and set up in Buck’s own laboratory. On the bench was the powerful, but small, little projector of the straight magnetic field, simply a specially designed accumulator, a super-condenser, and the peculiar apparatus Devin had designed to distort the electric field through ninety degrees to a magnetic field. Behind this was a curious, paraboloid projector made up of hundreds of tiny, carefully orientated coils. This was Buck’s own contribution. They were ready for the tests.

  “I would invite McLaurin in to see this,” said Kendall looking at them, and then across the room bitterly toward the alleged atomic power apparatus on the opposite bench. “I think it will work. But after that—” He stared, glaring, at the heavy tungsten dome with its heavy tungsten contacts, across which the flame of released atomic energy was supposed to have leapt. “That was probably the flattest flop any experiment ever flopped.”

  “Well—it didn’t blow up. That’s one comfort,” suggested Devin.

  “I wish it had. Then at least it would have shown some response. The only response shown, actually, was shown on the power meter. It damn near wore out the bearings turning so fast.”

  “Personally, I prefer the lack of action.” Devin laughed. “Have you got that circuit hooked up?”

  “Right,” sighed Kendall, turning back to the work in hand. “Is Douglass in on this?”

  “Yes—in the next room. He’ll let us know when he’s ready. He’s setting up those instruments.”

  Douglass, a young junior physicist, late of the IP Physics Department, stuck his head in the door and announced his instruments were all set up.

  “Keep an eye on them. They’ll move somehow, at any rate. This thing couldn’t go as flat as that atom-buster of mine.”

  Carefully Kendall made a few last-minute adjustments on the limiting relays, and took up his position at the power board. Devin took his place near the apparatus, with another series of instruments, similar to those Douglass was now watching in the next room, some thirty feet away, through the two-inch metal wall. “Ready,” called Kendall.

  The switch shot home. Instantly Kendall, Devin, and all the men in the building jumped some six feet from their former positions. A monstrous roar of sound crashed out in that laboratory that thundered from one wall to the other, and bellowed in a Titan’s fury. It thundered and growled, it bellowed and howled, the walls shook with the march and counter-march of crashing waves of sound.

  And a ten-foot wavering flame of blue-white, bellying electric fire shuddered up to the ceiling from the contact points of the alleged atomic generator. The heat, pouring out from the flashing, roaring arc sent prickles of aching burns over Kendall’s skin. For ten seconds he stood in utter, paralyzed surprise as his flop of flops bellowed its anger at his disdain. Then he leapt to the power board and shut off the roaring thing, by cutting the switch that had started it.

  “Spirits of Space! Did that come to life!”

  “Atomic Energy!” Devin cried.

  “Atomic energy, hell. That’s my thirty thousand dollars’ worth of power breaking loose again,” chortled Kendall. “We missed the atomic energy, but, sweet boy, what an accumulator we stubbed our toes on! I wondered where in blazes all that power went to. That’s the answer. I’ll bet I can tell you right now what happened. We built that mercury up to a new level, and that transitional stage was the red, crystalline metal. When it reached the higher stage, it was temporarily stable—but that projector over there that we designed for the purpose of holding open electric and magnetic fields just opened the door and let all that power right out again.”

  “But why isn’t it atomic energy? How do you know that no more than your power that you put in is coming out?” demanded Devin.

  “The arc, man, the arc. That was a high-current, and low-voltage arc. Couldn’t you tell by the sound that no great voltage—as atomic voltages go—was smashing across there? If we were getting atomic voltage—and power—there’d have been a different tone to it, high and shriller.

  “Now, did you take any readings?”

  “What do you think, man? I’m human. Do you think I got any readings with that thing bellowing and shrieking in my ears, and burning my skin with ultraviolet? It itches now.”

  Kendall laughed. “You know what to do for an itch. Now, I’m going to make a bet. We had those points separated for a half-million volts discharge, but there was a dust-cover thrown over them just now. That, you notice, is missing. I’ll bet that served as a starter lead for the main arc. Now I’m going to start that projector thing again, and move the points there through about six inches, and that thing probably won’t start itself.”

  Most of the laboratory staff had collected at the doorway, looking in at the white-hot tungsten discharge points, and the now silent “atomic engine.” Kendall turned to them and said: “The flop picked itself up. You go on back, we seem to be all in one piece yet. Douglass, you didn’t get any readings, did you?”

  Sheepishly, Douglass grinned at him. “Eh—er—no—but I tore my pants. The magnetic field grabbed me and I jumped. They had some steel buttons, and a lot of steel keys—they’re kinda’ hard to keep on now.”

  The laboratory staff broke into a roar of laughter, as Douglass, holding up his trousers with both hands was beheld.

  “I guess the field worked,” he said.

  “I guess maybe it did,” adjudged Kendall solemnly. “We have some rope here if you need it—”

  Douglass returned to his post.

  Swiftly, Kendall altered the atomic distortion storage apparatus, and returned to the power-board. “Ready?”

  “Check.”

  Kendall shoved home the switch. The storage device was silent. Only a slight feeling of strain made itself felt, and the sudden noisy hum of a small transformer nearby. “She works, Buck!” Devin called. “The readings check almost exactly.”

  “All good then. Now I want to get to that atomic thing. We can let that slide for a little bit—I’ll answer it.”

  The telephone h
ad rung noisily. “Kendall Labs—Kendall speaking.”

  “This is Superintendent Foster, of the New York Power, Mr. Kendall. We have some trouble just now that we think your operations may be responsible for. The substation at North Beaumont blew all the fuses, and threw the breakers at the main station. The men out there said the transformers began howling—”

  “Right you are—I’m afraid I did do that. I had no idea that it would reach so far. How far is that from my place here?”

  “It’s about a thousand yards, according to the survey maps.”

  “Thanks—and I’ll be careful about it. Any damage, I am responsible for? All okay?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Kendall.”

  Kendall hung up. “We stirred up a lot more dust than we expected, Devin. Now let’s start seeing if we can keep track of it. Douglass, how did your readings show?”

  “I took them at the ten stations, and here they are. The stations are two feet apart.”

  “H-m-m—.5— .55— .6— .7— 20— 198— 5950— 6010—6012— 5920. Very, very nice—only the darned thing’s got an arm as long as the law. Your readings were about .2, Devin?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then these little readings are just leakage. What’s our normal intensity here?”

  “About .19. Just a very small fraction less than the readings.”

  “Perfect—we have what amounts to a hollow shell of magnetic force—we can move inside, and you can move outside—far enough. But you can’t get a conductor or a magnetic field through it.” He put the readings on the bench, and looked at the apparatus across the room. “Now I want to start right on that other. Douglass, you move that magnetostat apparatus out of the way, and leave just the ‘can-opener’ of ours—the projector. I’m pretty sure that’s what does the deed. Devin, see if you can hunt up some electrostatic voltmeters with a range in the neighborhood of—I think it’ll be about eighty thousand.”

  Rapidly, Douglass was dismounting the apparatus, as Devin started for the stock room. Kendall started making some new connections, reconnecting the apparatus they had intended using on the “atomic engine,” largely high-capacity resistances. He seemed to perform this work mechanically, his mind definitely on something else. Suddenly he stopped, and looked carefully into the receiver of the machine. The metal in it was silvery, liquid, and here and there a floating crystal of the dull red metal. Slowly a smile spread across his face. He turned to Douglass.

  “Douglass—ah, you’re through. Get on the trail of MacBride, and get him and his crew to work making half a dozen smaller things like this. Tell ’em they can leave off the tungsten shield. I want different metals in the receiver of each. Use—hmmm—sodium—copper—magnesium—aluminium, iron and chromium. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.” He left, just as Devin returned with a large electrostatic voltmeter.

  “I’d like,” said he, “to know how you know the voltage will range around eighty thousand.”

  “K-ring excitation potential for mercury. I’m willing to bet that thing simply shoved the whole electron system of the mercury out a notch—that it simply hasn’t any K-ring of electrons now. I’m trying some other metals. Douglass is going to have MacBride make up half a dozen more machines. Machines—they need a name. This—ah—this is an ‘atostor.’ MacBride’s going to make up half a dozen of ’em, and try half a dozen metals. I’m almost certain that’s not mercury in there now, at all. It’s probably element 99 or something like it.”

  “It looks like mercury—”

  “Certainly. So would 99. Following the periodic table, 99 would probably have an even lower melting point than mercury, be silvery, dense and heavy—and perhaps slightly radioactive. The series under the B family of Group II is Magnesium, Zinc, Cadmium, Mercury—and 99. The melting point is going down all the way, and they’re all silvery metals. I’m going to try copper, and I fully expect it to turn silvery—in fact, to become silver.”

  “Then let’s see.” Swiftly they hooked up the apparatus, realigned the projector, and again Kendall took his place at the power-board. As he closed the switch, on no-load, the electrostatic voltmeter flopped over instantly, and steadied at just over 80,000 volts.

  “I hate to say ‘I told you so,’” said Kendall. “But let’s hook in a load. Try it on about 100 amps first.”

  Devin began cutting in load. The resistors began heating up swiftly as more and more current flowed through them. By not so much as by a vibration of the voltmeter needle, did the apparatus betray any strain as the load mounted swiftly. 100—200—500—1000 amperes. Still, that needle held steady. Finally, with a drain of ten thousand amperes, all the equipment available could handle, the needle was steady as a rock, though the tremendous load of 800,000,000 watts was cut in and out. That, to atoms, atoms by the nonillions, was no appreciable load at all. There was no internal resistance whatever. The perfect accumulator had certainly been discovered.

  “I’ll have to call McLaurin—” Kendall hurried away with a broad, broad smile.

  VI

  “Hello, Tom?”

  The telephone rattled in a peeved sort of way. “Yes, it is. What now? And when am I going to see you in a social sort of way again?”

  “Not for a long, long time; I’m busy. I’m busy right now as a matter of fact. I’m calling up the vice-president of Faragaut Interplanetary Lines, and I want to place an order.”

  “Why bother me? We have clerks, you know, for that sort of thing,” suggested Faragaut in a pained voice.

  “Tom, do you know how much I’m worth now?”

  “Not much,” replied Faragaut promptly. “What of it? I hear, as a matter of fact that you’re worth even less in a business way. They’re talking quite a lot down this way about an alleged bank you’re setting up on Luna. I hear it’s got more protective devices, and armor than any IP station in the System, that you even had it designed by an IP designer, and have a gang of Colonels and Generals in charge. I also hear that you’ve succeeded in getting rid of money at about one million dollars a day—just slightly shy of that.”

  “You overestimate me, my friend. Much of that is merely contracted for. Actually it’ll take me nearly nine months to get rid of it. And by that time I’ll have more. Anyway, I think I have something like ten million left. And remember that way back in the twentieth century some old fellow beat my record. Armour, I think it was, lost a million dollars a day for a couple of months running.

  “Anyway, what I called you up for was to say I’d like to order five hundred thousand tons of mercury, for delivery as soon as possible.”

  “What! Oh, say, I thought you were going in for business.” Faragaut gave a slight laugh of relief.

  “Tom, I am. I mean exactly what I say. I want five—hundred—thousand—tons of metallic mercury, and just as soon as you can get it.”

  “Man, there isn’t that much in the system.”

  “I know it. Get all there is on the market for me, and contract to take all the ‘Jupiter Heavy-Metals’ can turn out. You send those orders through, and clean out the market completely. Somebody’s about to pay for the work I’ve been doing, and boy, they’re going to pay through the nose. After you’ve got that order launched, and don’t make a christening party of the launching either, why just drop out here, and I’ll show you why the value of mercury is going so high you won’t be able to follow it in a space ship.”

  “The cost of that,” said Faragaut, seriously now, “will be about—fifty-three million at the market price. You’d have to put up twenty-six cash, and I don’t believe you’ve got it.”

  Buck laughed. “Tom, loan me a dozen million, will you? You send that order through, and then come see what I’ve got. I’ve got a break, too! Mercury’s the best metal for this use—and it’ll stop gamma rays too!”

  “So it will—but for the love of the system, what of it?”

  “Come and see—tonight. Will you send that order through?”

  “I will, Buck. I hope you’re right.
Cash is tight now, and I’ll probably have to put up nearer twenty million, when all that buying goes through. How long will it be tied up in that deal, do you think?”

  “Not over three weeks. And I’ll guarantee you three hundred percent—if you’ll stay in with me after you start. Otherwise—I don’t think making this money would be fair just now.”

  “I’ll be out to see you in about two hours, Buck. Where are you? At the estate?” asked Faragaut seriously.

  “In my lab out there. Thanks, Tom.”

  McLaurin was there when Tom Faragaut arrived. And General Logan, and Colonel Gerardhi. There was a restrained air of gratefulness about all of them that Tom Faragaut couldn’t quite understand. He had been looking up Buck Kendall’s famous bank, and more and more he had begun to wonder just what was up. The list of stockholders had read like a list of IP heroes and executives. The staff had been a list of IP men with a slender sprinkling of accountants. And the sixty-million dollar structure was to be a bank without advertising of any sort! Usually such a venture is planned and published months in advance. This had sprung up suddenly, with a strange quietness.

  Almost silently, Buck Kendall led the way to the laboratory. A small metal tank was supported in a peculiar piece of apparatus, and from it led a small platinum pipe to a domed apparatus made largely of insulum. A little pool of mercury, with small red crystals floating in it rested in a shallow hollow surrounded by heavy conductors.

  “That’s it, Tom. I wanted to show you first what we have, and why I wanted all that mercury. Within three weeks, every man, woman and child in the system will be clamoring for mercury metal. That’s the perfect accumulator.” Quickly he demonstrated the machine, charging it, and then discharging it. It was better than 99.95% efficient on the charge, and was 100% efficient on the discharge.

  “Physically, any metal will do. Technically, mercury is best for a number of reasons. It’s a liquid. I can, and do it in this, charge a certain quantity, and then move it up to the storage tank. Charge another pool, and move it up. In discharge, I can let a stream flow in continuously if I required a steady, terrific drain of power without interruption. If I wanted it for more normal service, I’d discharge a pool, drain it, refill the receiver, and discharge a second pool. Thus, mercury is the metal to use.