"Whatever that means," I said.
"Or, by primitive reckoning, 2700 A.D."
"Thanks."
To explain, we must begin at the beginning. You may know that Bickerstaff was a poor Scottish engineer who went and discovered atomic power. I shall pass over his early struggles for recognition, merely stating that the process he invented was economical and efficient beyond anything similar in history.
"With the genius of Bickerstaff as a prod, humanity blossomed forth into its fullest greatness. Poetry and music, architecture and sculpture, letters and graphics became the principal occupations of mankind."
The panel coughed. "I myself," it said, modestly struggling with pride, "was a composer of no little renown in this city.
"However, there was one thing wrong with the Bickerstaff Power Process. That is, as Bickerstaff was to mankind, so the element yttrium was to his process. It was what is known as a catalyst, a substance introduced into a reaction for the purpose of increasing the speed of the reaction."
I, a Chemical Engineer, listening to that elementary rot! I didn't walk away. Perhaps he was going to say something of importance.
"In normal reactions the catalyst is not changed either in quantity or in quality, since it takes no real part in the process. However, the Bickerstaff process subjected all matter involved to extraordinary heat, pressure, and bombardment, and so the supply of yttrium has steadily vanished.
"Possibly we should have earlier heeded the warnings of nature. It may be the fault of no one but ourselves that we have allowed our race to become soft and degenerate in the long era of plenty. Power, light, heat – for the asking. And then we faced twin terrors: shortage of yttrium – and the Martians."
Abruptly I sat straight. Martians! I didn't see any of them around.
"Our planetary neighbors," said the panel, "are hardly agreeable. It came as a distinct shock to us when their ships landed this year – my year, that is – as the bearers of a message.
"Flatly we were ordered: Get out or be crushed. We could have resisted, we could have built war-machines, but what was to power them? Our brain-men did what they could, but it was little enough.
"They warned us, did the Martians. They said that we were worthless, absolutely useless, and they deserved the planet more than we. They had been watching our planet for many years, they said, and we were unfit to own it.
"That is almost a quotation of what they said. Not a translation, either, for they spoke English and indeed all the languages of Earth perfectly. They had observed us so minutely as to learn our tongues!
"Opinion was divided as to the course that lay before us. There were those who claimed that by hoarding the minute quantity of yttrium remaining to us we might be able to hold off the invaders when they should come. But while we were discussing the idea the supply was all consumed.
"Some declared themselves for absorption with the Martian race on its arrival. Simple laws of biogenetics demonstrated effectively that such a procedure was likewise impossible.
"A very large group decided to wage guerilla warfare, studying the technique from Clausewitz's "Theory and Practise". Unfortunately, the sole remaining copy of this work crumbled into dust when it was removed from its vault.
"And then ...
"A man named Selig Vissarion, a poet of Odessa, turned his faculties to the problem, and evolved a device to remove the agonies of waiting. Three months ago – my time, remember –he proclaimed it to all mankind.
"His device was – the Biosomniac. It so operates that the sleeper – the subject of the device, that is – is thrown into a deep slumber characterized by dreams of a pleasurable nature. And the slumber is one from which he will never, without outside interference, awake.
"The entire human race, as I speak, is now under the influence of the machine. All but me, and I am left only because there is no one to put me under. When I have done here – I shall shoot myself.
"For this is our tragedy: Now, when all our yttrium is gone, we have found a device to transmute metals. Now we could make all the yttrium we need, except that ...
"The device cannot be powered except by the destruction of the atom.
"And, having no yttrium at all left, we can produce no such power ...
"And so, unknown friend, farewell. You have heard our history. Remember it, and take warning. Be warned of sloth, beware of greed. Farewell, my unknown friend."
And, with that little sermon, the shifting glow of the panel died and I sat bespelled. It was all a puzzle to me. If the Martians were coming, why hadn't they arrived? Or had they? At least I saw none about me.
I looked at the mummified figures that stretched in great rows the length of the chamber. These, then, were neither dead nor ill, but sleeping. Sleeping against the coming of the Martians. I thought. My chronology was fearfully confused. Could it be that the invaders from the red planet had not yet come, and that I was only a year or two after the human race had plunged itself into sleep? That must be it.
And all for the want of a little bit of yttrium!
Absently I inspected the appendages of the time travelling belt. They were, for the most part, compact boxes labeled with the curt terminology of engineering. "Converter," said one. "Entropy gradient," said another. And a third bore the cryptic word, "Gadenolite." That baffled my chemical knowledge. Vaguely I remembered something I had done back in Housatonic with the stuff. It was a Scandinavian rare earth, as I remember, containing tratia, eunobia, and several oxides. And one of them, I slowly remembered…
Then I said it aloud, with dignity and precision "One of the compounds present in this earth in large proportions is yttrium dioxide."
Yttrium dioxide? Why, that was —
Yttrium!
It was one of those things that was just too good to be true. Yttrium! Assuming that the Martians hadn't come yet, and that there really was a decent amount of the metal in the little box on my belt ...
Quite the little heroine, I, I thought cheerfully, and strode to the nearest sleeper. "Excuse me," I said.
He groaned as the little reading-lamp flashed on. "Excuse me," I said again.
He didn't move. Stern measures seemed to be called for. I shouted in his ear, Wake up, you!" But he wouldn't. I wandered among the sleepers, trying to arouse some, and failing in every case. It must be those little wires, I thought gaily as I bent over one of them.
I inspected the hand of the creature, and noted that the silvery filaments trailing from the fingers did not seem to be imbedded very deeply in the flesh. Taking a deep breath I twisted one of the wires between forefinger and thumb, and broke it with ease.
The creature groaned again, and – opened its eyes. "Good morning," I said feebly.
It didn't answer me, but sat up and stared from terribly sunken pits for a full second. It uttered a little wailing cry. The eyes closed again, and the creature rolled from its slab, falling heavily to the floor. I felt for the pulse; there was none. Beyond doubt this sleeper slept no longer – I had killed him.
I walked away from the spot, realizing that my problem was not as simple as it might have been. A faint glow lit up the hall, and the lights above flashed out. The new radiance came through the walls of the building.
It must be morning, I thought. I had had a hard night, and a strange one. I pressed the "Slavies' ring" again, and took the revolving staircase down to the lobby.
The thing to do now was to find some way of awakening the sleepers without killing them. That meant study. Study meant books, books meant library. I walked out into the polished stone plaza and looked for libraries.
There was some fruitless wandering about and stumbling into several structures precisely similar to the one I had visited; finally down the vista of a broad, gleaming street I saw the deep-carven words, "Stape Books Place," on the pediment of a traditionally squat, classic building. I set off for it, and arrived too winded by the brisk walk to do anything more than throw myself into a chair.
A panel in th
e wall lit up and an effeminate voice began, "Greetings, unknown friend. You have seated yourself in a chair; please be advised —"
"Go to hell," I said shortly, rose, and left the panel to go through a door inscribed "Books of the Day."
It turned out to be a conventional reading room whose farther end was a maze of stacks and shelves. Light poured in through large windows, and I felt homesick for old Housatonic. If the place had been a little more dusty I'd never have known it from the Main Tech Library.
A volume I chose at random proved to be a work on anthropology : "A General Introduction to the Study of Decapilation Among the Tertiates of Gondwana as Contrasted with the Primates of Eurasia." I found one photograph – in color – of a hairless monkey, shuddered, and restored the volume.
The next book was 'the Exagmination into the incamination for the resons of his Works in pregress," which also left me stranded. It appeared to be a critique of the middle work of one James Joyce, reprinted from the original edition of Paris, 1934 A.D.
I chucked the thing into a corner and rummaged among the piles of pamphlets that jammed a dozen shelves. "Rittenhouse's Necrology" – no. 'statistical Isolates Relating to Isolate Statisticals" – likewise no. "The Cognocrat Manifest" – I opened it and found it a description of a super-state which had yet to be created. "Construction and operation of the Biosomniac" – that was it!
I seated myself at one of the polished tables and read through the slim pamphlet rapidly once, then tore out some of its blank pages to take notes on. The arrangement of the regulating dials is optional," I copied on to the paper scraps, and sketched the intricate system of Bowden wires that connected the bodies with the controls. That was as much of a clue as I could get from the little volume, but it indicated in its appendix more exhaustive works. I looked up Tissarion," the first on the list.
"Monarch! may many moiling mockers make my master more malicious marry mate —"
it said. Mankind, artist to the last, had yet found time to compose an epic poem on the inventor of the Biosomniac. I flung the sappy thing away and took down the next work on the list, "Chemistry of the Somniac." It was a sound treatise on the minute yet perceptible functionings of the subject under the influence of the Vissarion device. More notes and diagrams, collated with the information from the other book.
The vitality of the sleeper is most profoundly affected by the operations of the Alphate dial ... It is believed that the Somniac may be awakened by a suitable manipulation of the ego-flow so calculated as to stock the sleeper to survive a severing of the quasi-amniotic wiring system."
I rose and tucked the notes into my belt. That was enough for me! I'd have to experiment, and most likely make a few mistakes, but in a few hours men would be awake to grow hard and strong again after their long sleep, to pluck out their wires themselves, and to take my yttrium and with it build the needed war-machines against the Martians. No more sleep for Earth! And perhaps a new flowering of life when the crisis of the invaders was past?
"The compleat heroine – quite!" I chortled aloud as I passed through the door. I glanced at the glowing panel, but it glowed no longer – the unknown speaker had said his piece and was done. Onward and outward to save the world, I thought.
"Excuse me," said a voice.
I spun around and saw a fishy individual staring at me through what seemed to be a small window.
"What are you doing awake?" I asked excitedly.
He laughed softly. "That, my dear young lady, is just what I was about to ask you."
"Come out from behind that window," I said nervously. "I can hardly see you."
"Don't be silly," he said sharply. "I'm quite a few million miles away. I'm on Mars. In fact, I'm a Martian."
I looked closer. He did seem sort of peculiar, but hardly the bogey-man that his race had been cracked up to be. "Then you will please tell me what you want," I said. "I'm a busy woman with little time to waste on Martians." Brave words. I knew it would take him a while to get from Mars to where I was; by that time I would have everyone awake and stinging.
"Oh," he said casually. "I just thought you might like a little chat. I suppose you're a time-traveller."
"Just that."
"I thought so. You're the fourth – no, the fifth – this week. Funny how they always seem to hit on this year. My name is Alfred, John Alfred."
"How do you do?" I said politely. "And I'm Mabel Evans of Colchester, Vermont. Year, 1940. But why have you got a name like an Earthman?"
"We all have," he answered. "We copied it from you Terrestrials. It's your major contribution to our culture."
"I suppose so," I said bitterly. "Those jellyfish didn't have much to offer anybody except poetry and bad sculpture. I hardly know why I'm reviving them and giving them the yttrium to fight you blokes off."
He looked bored, as nearly as I could see. "Oh, have you some yttrium?"
"Yes."
"Much?"
"Enough for a start. Besides, I expect them to pick up and acquire some independence once they get through their brush-up with Mars. By the way – when will you invade?"
"We plan to colonize," he said, delicately emphasizing the word, "beginning about two years from now. It will take that long to get everything in shape to move."
"That's fine," I said enthusiastically. "We should have plenty of time to get ready, I think. What kind of weapons do you use? Death-rays?"
"Of course," said the Martian. "And heat rays, and molecular collapse rays, and disintegrator rays, and resistance rays – you just call it and we have it in stock, lady.
He was a little boastful. "Well," I said, "you just wait until we get a few factories going – then you'll see what high-speed, high-grade production can be. We'll have everything you've got – double."
"All this, of course," he said with a smug smile, "after you wake the sleepers and give them your yttrium?"
"Of course. Why shouldn't it be?"
"Oh, I was just asking. But I have an idea that you've made a fundamental error."
"Error my neck," I said. "What do you mean?"
"Listen closely, please," he said. "Your machine – that is, your time-traveller – operates on the principle of similar circles, does it not?"
"I seem to remember that it does. So what?"
"So this, Miss Evans. You postulate that firstly the circumference of all circles equals infinity times zero. Am I right?"
That was approximately what Stephen had said, so I supposed that he was. "Right as rarebits," I said.
"Now, your further hypothesis is probably that all circles are equal. And that equal distances traversed at equal speeds are traversed in equal times. Am I still right?"
"That seemed to be the idea."
"Very well." A smug smile broke over his fishy face. He continued. "Your theory works beautifully – but your machine – no."
I looked down at myself to see if I were there. I was. "Explain that, please," I said. "Why doesn't the machine work?"
"For this reason. Infinity times zero does not equal a nurnber. It equals any number. A definite number is represented by x; any number, n. See the difference? And so unequal circles are still unequal, and cannot be circumnavigated as of the same distance at the same speed in the same time. And your theory – is a fallacy."
He looked at me gloatingly before continuing. Then, slowly, "Your theory is fallacious. Ergo, your machine doesn't work. If your machine doesn't work, you couldn't have used it to get here. There is no other way for you to have gotten here. Therefore ... you are not here! and so the projected colonization will proceed on schedule!"
And the light flashed in my head. Of course! that was what I had been trying to think of back in the house. The weakness in Trainer's logic!
Then I went pouf again, my eyes closed, and I thought to myself, "Since the machine didn't work and couldn't have worked, I didn't travel in time. So I must be back with Trainer."
I opened my eyes. I was.
"You moron," I snapped at h
im as he stood goggle-eyed, his hand on the wall-socket. "Your machine doesn't work!" He stared at me blankly. "You were gone. Where were you?"
"It seemed to be 2700 A.D.," I answered.
"How was it?" he inquired, reaching for a fresh flask of ethyl.
"Very, very silly. I'm glad the machine didn't work." He offered me .a beaker and I drained it. "I'd hate to think that I'd really been there." I took off the belt and stretched my aching muscles.
"Do you know, Mabel," he said, looking at me hard, "I think I'm going to like this town."
THE ENGINEER
IT WAS VERY SIMPLE. Some combination of low temperature and high pressure had forced something from the seepage at the ocean bottom into combination with something in the water around them.
And the impregnable armor around Subatlantic Oil’s drilling chamber had discovered a weakness.
On the television screen it looked more serious than it was-so Muhlenhoff told himself, staring at it grimly. You get down more than a mile, and you’re bound to have little technical problems. That’s why deep-sea oil wells were still there.
Still, it did look kind of serious. The water driving in the pitted faults had the pressure of eighteen hundred meters behind it, and where it struck it did not splash-it battered and destroyed. As Muhlenhoff watched, a bulkhead collapsed in an explosion of spray; the remote camera caught a tiny driblet of the scattering brine, and the picture in the screen fluttered and shrank, and came back with a wavering sidewise pulse.
Muhlenhoff flicked off the screen and marched into the room where the Engineering Board was waiting in attitudes of flabby panic.
As he swept his hand through his snow-white crew cut and called the board to order, a dispatch was handed to him-a preliminary report from a quickly-dispatched company trouble-shooter team. He read it to the board, stone-faced.
A veteran heat-transfer man, the first to recover, growled:
“Some vibration thing-and seepage from the oil pool. Sloppy drilling!” He sneered. “Big deal! So a couple hundred meters of shaft have to be plugged and pumped. So six or eight compartments go pop. Since when did we start to believe the cack Research and Development hands out? Armor’s armor. Sure it pops -when something makes it pop. If Atlantic oil was easy to get at, it wouldn’t be here waiting for us now. Put a gang on the job. Find out what happened, make sure it doesn’t happen again. Big deal!”
The Wonder Effect Page 10