by Isaac Asimov
Chapter 5
A year's work, however, had netted them very little. Messages had finally come across; messages had come back. Nothing.
"Just guess!" Lamont had said feverishly to Bronowski. "Any wild guess at all. Try it out on them. "
"It's exactly what I'm doing, Pete. What are you so jumpy about? I spent twelve years on the Etruscan Inscriptions. Do you expect this job to take less time?"
"Good God, Mike. We can't take twelve years. "
"Why not? Look, Pete, it hasn't escaped me that there's been a change in your attitude. You've been impossible this last month or so. I thought we had it clear at the start that this work can't go quickly, and that we've got to be patient. I thought you understood that I had my regular duties at the university, too. Look, I've been asking you this several times, now. Let me ask again. Why are you in such a hurry now?"
"Because I'm in a hurry," said Lamont abruptly. "Because I want to get on with it. "
"Congratulations," said Bronowski, dryly, "so do I. Listen, you're not expecting an early death, are you? Your doctor hasn't told you you're hiding a fatal cancer?"
"No, no," groaned Lamont.
"Well, then?"
"Never mind," said Lamont, and he walked away hurriedly.
When he had first tried to get Bronowski to join forces with him, Lamont's grievance had concerned only Hallam's mean-minded obstinacy concerning the suggestion that the para-men were the more intelligent. It was in that respect and that respect only that Lamont was striving for a breakthrough. He intended nothing beyond that - at first.
But in the course of the following months, he had been subjected to endless exasperation. His requests for equipment, for technical assistance, for computer time were delayed; his request for travel funds snubbed; his views at interdepartmental meetings invariably overlooked.
The breaking point came when Henry Garrison, junior to himself in point of service and definitely so in point of ability, received an advisory appointment, rich in prestige, that, by all rights, should have gone to Lamont. It was then that Lamont's resentment built up to the point where merely proving himself right was no longer sufficient. He yearned to smash Hallam, destroy him utterly.
The feeling was reinforced every day, almost every hour, by the unmistakable attitude of everyone else at the Pump Station. Lamont's abrasive personality didn't collect sympathy, but some existed nevertheless.
Garrison himself was embarrassed. He was a quiet-spoken, amiable young man who clearly wanted no trouble and who now stood in the doorway of Lamont's lab with an expression that had more than a small component of apprehension in it.
He said, "Hey, Pete, can I have a few words with you?"
"As many as you like," said Lamont, frowning and avoiding a direct eye-to-eye glance.
Garrison came in and sat down. "Pete," he said, "I can't turn down the appointment but I want you to know I didn't push for it. It came as a surprise. "
"Who's asking you to turn it down? I don't give a damn. "
"Pete. It's Hallam. If I turned it down, it would go to someone else, not you. What have you done to the old man?"
Lamont rounded on the other. "What do you think of Hallam? What kind of man is he, in your opinion?"
Garrison was caught by surprise. He pursed his lips and rubbed his nose. "Well - " he said, and let the sound fade off.
"Great man? Brilliant scientist? Inspiring leader?"
"Well - "
"Let me tell you. The man's a phony! He's a fraud! He's got this reputation and this position of his and he's sitting on it in a panic. He knows that I see through him and that's what he has against me. "
Garrison gave out a small, uneasy laugh, "You haven't gone up to him and said - "
"No, I haven't said anything directly to him," said Lamont, morosely. "Some day I will. But he can tell. He knows I'm one person he isn't fooling even if I don't say anything. "
"But, Pete, where's the point in letting him blow it? I don't say I think he's the world's greatest, either, but where's the sense in broadcasting it? Butter him up a little. He's got your career in his hands. "
"Has he? I've got his reputation in mine. I'm going to show him up. I'm going to strip him. "
"How?"
"My business!" muttered Lamont, who at the moment had not the slightest idea as to how.
"But that's ridiculous," said Garrison. "You can't win. He'll just destroy you. Even if he isn't an Einstein or an Oppenheimer really, he's more than either to the world in general. He is the Father of the Electron Pump to Earth's two-billion population and nothing you can possibly do will affect them as long as the Electron Pump is the key to human paradise. While that's true, Hallam can't be touched and you're crazy if you think he can. What the hell, Pete, tell him he's great and eat crow. Don't be another Denison!"
"I tell you what, Henry," said Lamont, in sudden fury. "Why not mind your own business?"
Garrison rose suddenly and left without a word. Lamont had made another enemy; or, at least, lost another friend. The price, however, was right, he finally decided, for one remark of Garrison had set the ball rolling in another direction.
Garrison had said, in essence, ". . . as long as the Electron Pump is the key to human paradise . . . Hallam can't be touched. "
With that clanging in his mind, Lamont for the first time turned his attention away from Hallam and placed it on the Electron Pump.
Was the Electron Pump the key to human paradise? Or was there, by Heaven, a catch?
Everything in history had had a catch. What was the catch to the Electron Pump?
Lamont knew enough of the history of para-theory to know that the matter of "a catch" had not gone unexplored. When it was first announced that the basic over-all change in the Electron Pump was the Pumping of electrons from the Universe to the para-Universe, there had not been wanting those who said immediately, "But what will happen when all the electrons have been Pumped?"
This was easily answered. At the largest reasonable rate of Pumping, the electron supply would last for at least a trillion trillion years - and the entire Universe, together, presumably, with the para-Universe, wouldn't last a tiny fraction of that time.
The next objection was more sophisticated. There was no possibility of Pumping all the electrons across. As the electrons were Pumped, the para-Universe would gain a net negative charge, and the Universe a net positive charge. With each year, as this difference in charge grew, it would become more difficult to Pump further electrons against the force of the opposed charge-difference. It was, of course neutral atoms that were actually Pumped but the distortion of the orbital electrons in the process created an effective charge which increased immensely with the radioactive changes that followed.
If the charge-concentration remained at the points of Pumping, the effect on the orbit-distorted atoms being Pumped would stop the entire process almost at once, but of course, there was diffusion to take into account. The charge-concentration diffused outward over the Earth, and the effect on the Pumping process had been calculated with that in mind.
The increased positive charge of the Earth generally forced the positively charged Solar wind to avoid the planet at a greater distance, and the magnetosphere was enlarged. Thanks to the work of McFarland (the real originator of the Great Insight according to Lamont) it could be shown that a definite equilibrium point was reached as the Solar wind swept away more and more of the accumulating positive particles that were repelled from Earth's surface and driven higher into the exosphere. With each increase in Pumping intensity; with each additional Pumping Station constructed, the net positive charge on Earth increased slightly, and the magnetosphere expanded by a few miles. The change, however, was minor, and the positive charge was, in the end, swept away by the Solar wind and spread through the outer reaches of the Solar system.
Even so - even allowing for the most rapid possible diffusion of the charge - the time would come when the local char
ge-difference between Universe and para-Universe at the points of Pumping would grow large enough to end the process, and that would be a small fraction of the time it would take really to use up all the electrons; roughly, a trillion-trillionth of the time.
But that still meant that Pumping would remain possible for a trillion years. Only a single trillion years, but that was enough; it would suffice. A trillion years was far longer than man would last, or the Solar system either. And if man somehow did last that long (or some creature that was man's successor and supplanter) then no doubt something would be devised to correct the situation. A great deal could be done in a trillion years.
Lamont had to agree to that.
But then he thought of something else, another line of thought that he well remembered Hallam himself had dealt with in one of the articles he had written for popular consumption. With some distaste, he dug out the article. It was important to see what Hallam had said before he carried the matter further.
The article said, in part,
"Because of the ever-present gravitational force, we have come to associate the phrase 'downhill' with the kind of inevitable change we can use to produce energy of the sort we can change into useful work. It is the water running downhill that, in past centuries, turned wheels which in turn powered machinery such as pumps and generators. But what happens when all the water has run downhill?
"There can then be no further work possible till the water has been returned uphill - and that takes work. In fact, it takes more work to force the water uphill than we can collect by then allowing it to flow downhill. We work at an energy-loss. Fortunately, the Sun does the work for us. It evaporates the oceans so that water vapor climbs high in the atmosphere, forms clouds, and eventually falls again as rain or snow. This soaks the ground at all levels, fills the springs and streams, and keeps the water forever running downhill.
"But not quite forever. The Sun can raise the water vapor, but only because, in a nuclear sense, it is running downhill, too. It is running downhill at a rate immensely greater than any Earthly river can manage, and when all of it has run downhill there will be nothing we know of to pull it uphill again.
"All sources of energy in our Universe run down. We can't help that. Everything is downhill in just one direction, and we can force a temporary uphill, backward, only by taking advantage of some greater downhill in the vicinity. If we want useful energy forever, we need a road that is downhill both ways. That is a paradox in our Universe; it stands to reason that whatever is downhill one way is uphill going back.
"But need we confine ourselves to our Universe alone? Think of the para-Universe. It has roads, too, that are downhill in one direction and uphill in the other. Those roads, however, don't fit in with our roads. It is possible to take a road from the para-Universe to our Universe that is downhill, but which, when we follow it back from the Universe to the para-Universe, is downhill again - because the Universes have different laws of behavior.
"The Electron Pump takes advantage of a road that is downhill both ways. The Electron Pump - "
Lamont looked back at the title of the piece again. It was "The Road that is Downhill Both Ways. "
He began thinking. The concept was, of course, a familiar one to him, as was its thermodynamic consequences. But why not examine the assumptions? That had to be the weak point in any theory. What if the assumptions, assumed to be right by definition, were wrong? What would be the consequences if one started with other assumptions? Contradictory ones?
He started blindly but within a month he had that feeling that every scientist recognizes - the endless click-click as unexpected pieces fall into place, as annoying anomalies become anomalous no more - It was the feel of Truth.
It was from that moment on that he began to put additional pressure on Bronowski.
And one day he said, "I'm going to see Hallam again. "
Bronowski's eyebrows lifted. "What for?"
"To have him turn me down. "
"Yes, that's about your speed, Pete. You're unhappy if your troubles die down a bit. "
"You don't understand. It's important to have him refuse to listen to me. I can't have it said afterward that I by-passed him; that he was ignorant of it. "
"Of what? Of the translation of the para-symbols? There isn't any yet. Don't jump the gun, Pete. "
"No, no, not that," and he would say no more. Hallam did not make it easy for Lamont; it was some weeks before he could find time to see the younger man. Nor did Lamont intend to make it easy for Hallam. He stalked in with every invisible bristle on edge and sharply pointed. Hallam waited for him frozen-faced, with sullen eyes.
Hallam said abruptly, "What's this crisis you're talking about?"
"Something's turned up, sir," said Lamont, tonelessly, "inspired by one of your articles. "
"Oh?" Then, quickly, "Which one?"
" 'The Road that is Downhill Both Ways,' The one you programmed for Teenage Life, sir. "
"And what about it?"
"I believe the Electron Pump is not downhill both ways, if I may use your metaphor, which is not, as it happens, a completely accurate way of describing the Second Law of Thermodynamics. "
Hallam frowned. "What have you got in mind?"
"I can explain it best, sir, by setting up the Field Equations for the two Universes, sir, and demonstrating an interaction that till now has not been considered - unfortunately so, in my opinion. "
With that, Lamont moved directly to the thixo-board and quickly fingered the equations, talking rapidly as he did so.
Lamont knew that Hallam would be humiliated and irritated by such a procedure since he would not follow the mathematics. Lamont counted on that.
Hallam growled, "See here, young man, I have no time now to engage in a full discussion of any aspect of para-theory. You send me a complete report and, for now, if you have some brief statement as to what you're getting at, you may make it. "
Lamont walked away from the thixo-board, with an unmistakable expression of contempt on his face. He said, "All right. The Second Law of Thermodynamics describes a process that inevitably chops off extremes. Water doesn't run downhill; what really happens is that extremes of gravitational potential are equalized. Water will just as easily bubble uphill if trapped underground. You can get work out of the juxtaposition of two different temperature levels, but the end result is that the temperature is equalized at an intermediate level; the hot body cools down and the cold body warms up. Both cooling and warming are equal aspects of the Second Law and, under, the proper circumstances, equally spontaneous. "
"Don't teach me elementary thermodynamics, young man. What is it you want? I have very little time. "
Lamont said, with no change of expression, no sense of being hurried. "Work is obtained out of the Electron Pump by an equalization of extremes. In this case, the extremes are the physical laws of the two Universes, The conditions that make those laws possible, whatever those conditions may be, are being bled from one Universe into the other and the end result of the entire process will be two Universes in which the laws of nature will be identical - and intermediate as compared with the situation now. Since this will produce uncertain but undoubtedly large changes in this Universe, it would seem that serious consideration must be given to stopping the Pumps and, shutting down the whole operation permanently. "
It was at this point that Lamont expected Hallam to explode, cutting off any chance of further explanation. Hallam did not fail that expectation. He sprang out of his chair, which fell over. He kicked the chair away and took the two steps that separated him from Lamont.
Warily, Lamont pushed his own chair hastily backward and stood up.
"You idiot," shouted Hallam, almost stammering in his anger. "Don't you suppose everyone at the station understands about the equalization of natural law. Are you wasting my time telling me something I knew when you were learning to read? Get out of here, and any time you want to offer m
e your resignation, consider it accepted. "
Lamont left, having obtained exactly what he wanted, and yet he felt himself to be furious over Hallam's treatment of him.