Alone in his office at night, while theEvening Starwas starting the hike to Venus, Doctor Hanson sat thinking. He was piecing it together; and it was like playing with a jigsaw puzzle that had three-quarters of the pieces missing. He never would get the completed picture; it just took too many years of a man's life in study and application to finish the job. All he could do was to fit the meager pieces in where he thought they might fit, and then try to ignore the blank spaces that he could not possibly reconstruct.
At midnight, Hanson took to the telephone and called California.
He heard the operator say: "Chicago is calling Doctor Rober."
The switchboard girl at the far end asked: "Who is calling, please?"
"Doctor Jay Hanson."
"Doctor Rober is busy at the moment; may I have him call you back?"
Hanson roared: "I know he's busy. Tell him it's Jay Hanson and see what happens."
A moment later there came a grumpy voice: "Hullo. What's so infernal important?"
"Steve? This is Jay."
"That's what the gal said; it better be important."
"To hell with your precious telescope, Steve; I want some information."
"You'd think we had nothing to do but cast horoscopes," growled the astronomer. "Or answer damned fool questions about the end of the world."
"Answer me one more."
"The world has been here for two times ten to the ninth years at least; you'll not live to see the end of it."
"Look, Steve, this may be important. Tell me, have any of your instruments shown any difference in setting since that streak of energy went through the solar system a few days ago?"
"Not that we can measure."
"But—"
"Jay, the best information we can collect is that the original streak was a long cylinder about a half mile in diameter. Dammitall, you could take a chunk a half mile in diameter and stretching from one end of the universe to the other, remove it from the universe and let the rest of space curl in to fill up what was missing; and when you were done, no one could measure it. A half mile is a small peanut compared to the immensity of space. Now can I go back to work?"
"In a minute, Steve. What do you know about Maculay's Equations?"
"Maculay's Equations? What doyouknow about them? I mean, what do youwantto know about them?"
"I'm no abstract mathematician, Steve, but I'm forced to fumble in the dark with some very cockeyed theories that make no sense. Maculay has the idea that the generation of some sort of negative space would permit gross matter to exceed the velocity of light, but that this negative space would destroy by mutual cancellation this present, or positive space. Does that make sense to you?"
"Y'know what I think?"
"No."
"I think that old saw about the shoemaker sticking to his last is applicable. Stay with your neurones and your pills, witch-doctor, and leave the juggling of space to people who can sight nothing, falling from a vacuum into a void, and explain it."
"Fine," rasped Hanson. "Now that I've been properly roasted for meddling, what gives you to think that no one but an astronomer can think?"
"Steve—if I started to outline medicine to you, it would sound no better than your outline of Maculay's Theories did to me."
Hanson chuckled. "So we're both stupid, according to the other. Now admitting that I'm stupid and get my income tax fouled up, cannot understand the degrees of infinity, and am completely baffled by the predominance of the value Pi in electricity, do I have a layman's grasp of Maculay's Equation?"
"Barely."
"Then suppose I postulate. Suppose that streak of energy had been a spacecraft passing by at a speed faster than light. And as it passed, its own field of negative space cancelled out a wake of real space as it went."
"That's a fine idea," said Rober. "You might as well postulate that as anything else. Furthermore, the cancellation energy derived might be used to drive the ship; and as far as the loss is concerned, a half mile of space is like bailing Lake Michigan with a teaspoon. The expanding universe is expanding much faster than mankind's puny efforts to trim it down at a half mile per trim."
"Why didn't you tell me this before instead of giving me a lot of guff?" roared Hanson.
"Because the shoe is on the other foot," snapped Rober. "This time you need help. And like the rest of us idiots who show our ignorance when we ask medical questions, you show your ignorance of physics by the damfool questions you ask. But I've done some piddling with Maculay's Equations and the guy has something real and something far above my head, too. Why not ask Maculay?"
"He's not available right now."
"Tough. Probably working on the streak itself, huh? Good thing. He'll get it ironed out. But if you can't get Maculay, get his assistant Redmond. Redmond is a young squirt, but he'll talk if he's urged."
"I've met Redmond."
"Um," grunted Rober. "So that's why you're calling me? Say! Redmond didn't scare you, did he?"
"Sure did."
"Don't let him; Maculay will keep him down."
Hanson decided that this was the time to let the story out. "Redmond came here seeking Maculay. Maculay is on Venus having himself a vacation at my orders, and Redmond wanted him back."
"Wanted him back my foot! Redmond—if anything—wanted to be certain that Maculay was out of the way so that he could plunge into the secret files, using the emergency as reason. What are you doing about it?"
Hanson smiled to himself. "I've done it," he said. "I was just confirming some of my fears by calling you. I've just sent Miss Longacre to get him."
"Pray that she hurries," said Rober. "Redmond is the guy made from the same mold as the Sorcerer's Apprentice."
"You mean the kind of student we used to explain the process of making nitroglycerine to carefully because we knew they'd make it anyway, and blow hell out of themselves if they didn't violate the rules correctly?"
"More'n that," said Rober. "I said Sorcerer's Apprentice and I meant just that. Redmond is the kind of dope who would start manufacturing negative space and not be able to stop the process."
"Someone—or something—has done it."
"Yeah. But they—and Maculay alone on earth—knows what they're doing. And Maculay when I last saw him knew enough to leave it alone."
"Well, it's up to Ava Longacre."
"Hope she's successful."
Hanson remembered the girl's new attitude. "She'll get him," he said.
Doctor Hanson would not have been able to locate Maculay at all. But he had equipped Ava with the same set of ideas, plus the desire to catch up with the physicist wherever he might have gone; because she was thus equipped, Ava went where Maculay would—and had—gone.
Melaxis, Venus, was a mad mixture of culture and frontier. It boiled with the same sort of teeming millions as New York City; it was a modern city, with white granite buildings, subways, and broad streets filled with racing traffic. But along these broad streets went the rough-shod colonists. They were, for the most part, cut of the same cloth as the colonists of Early America. Men who went to Venus to escape whatever particular hell they felt on earth. Men who objected to taxes, laws, responsibilities, oppressions, regimentations, legalities, religions, and the rest. They were a hardy lot, a bit quick on the trigger and quite inclined to stand upon their own personal integrity. They were just, but their justice was hard-boiled. A man was innocent—or he was guilty enough to get the works.
And it was among this churning metropolis that Ava Longacre landed to seek out Maculay.
Her progress from the spaceport to Maculay was not too arduous, since she knew about where to find him. Ava found a lavish hotel, dragged the bar, picked up a likely-looking character who wanted to visit a gambling hell. Enjoying a chance to show off before this interesting female, the character took her to a mid-town casino where, he told her, "Mac" was likely to be this night.
"Mac?" she asked.
"Mac is a gambler from way back," he told her. "Luckier than hell."
"Let's go," said Ava.
"That's Mac," he said. It was. Cliff Maculay was sitting before a large card table playing Red Dog. Before him he had a large pile of blue chips, and standing at his elbow watching the pile was a dark-eyed Venusian girl, who swayed langorously to the strains of the music coming from the dance floor next door.
"Would you like to make a hundred?" asked Ava.
"Who do you want killed?"
"Pick up that woman from Mac."
"What's the pitch?" he demanded; "a hundred ain't enough to get me killed."
Ava looked him in the eye. "This is the end of your line," she told him. "If you expect any fun tonight, you'll be better off trying for her, because you're out of a girl friend and Maculay is going to be swapping women shortly."
He looked at Ava, compared her against the Venusian girl in a brazen mental listing of their charms, and repeated a statement made earlier: "Luckier than hell, Mac."
Ava went over to the Red Dog table and stood so that her hip brushed Maculay's arm. Cliff looked up in annoyance, but the frown ceased as he saw her. "Hello," he said cheerfully.
It was obvious that he did not know her, and it was equally obvious that the Venusian girl did not care for the competition. "How are we doing?" she asked.
"Fine," he said.
"Yes, we are," said the Venusian girl, emphasizing her use of the 'we'.
"Cliff will do better now," said Ava.
"The lady knows me," chuckled Maculay.
"Every sharpshooter in Melaxis knows you," snapped the Venusian. "But do you know her?"
Ava laughed. Her voice was a pleasant contralto, throaty, suggestive as she said, "No, he doesn't know me. Yet. Which, darling, gives me an advantage, doesn't it?"
"Don't darling me—"
Ava's previous escort was a man of experience, possessor of a fresh hundred, and willing to play the game. His was the simple logic of the wolf; far better to have a woman you might be able to get than one who wanted someone else. Furthermore, he knew enough about human nature to toss a few cupfuls of oil on an already interesting fire. "See here," he said to Maculay, "what's the idea of making passes at my girl?"
Maculay laughed uproariously. He pushed his chair back and stood up, alert. "If she were your girl she'd not be asking me how 'we're' doing," he told the man.
Housemen started to move, slowly, towards the scene of imminent battle.
Ava's escort was willing to start a fire, but he was in no way interested in getting his face pushed in to keep it burning. Yet he could not back out without some show of determination. "I suppose she'syourgirl?" he asked superciliously.
The housemen relaxed. Badinage and billingsgate made noise but it ruined no furniture. The contestants were talking; the kind of fight the housemen were prepared to stop was the kind that took the: "Who—Me?" "Yes, You," Whack! formula which left one of the contenders ready to avenge the lump on his jaw, and willing to use the furniture to do the job.
Cliff relaxed against the card table. "Maybe she is."
"Maybe she isn't!"
"Maybe she'd like to be."
"No accounting for taste."
Ava turned upon her escort coldly. "You haven't any taste. How would you recognize it?"
The Venusian girl knew the situation all too well; she had been looking out for herself for a number of years, and this project included making the best of an opportunity. Her hand strayed behind Maculay.
Then the peacemakers saw something that they were entirely unprepared to stop. Ava Longacre took Maculay by one hand and half-hurled him away from the table, unbalancing him across one hip. Cliff staggered forward—to be caught and supported by his possible assailant. But in the meantime Ava had gone to the edge of the table and had taken the Venusian girl by one wrist. She turned, ducked under the arm, and came up behind in a hammer-lock.
Chips from Maculay's stack dribbled out of the tortured fingers of the Venusian. Ava turned with the girl and hurled her forward into the still-unbalanced men.
The Venusian screamed in anger.
Ava's former escort caught her and kept her from falling, and in doing so he let Maculay slip to one knee.
Someone yelled: "Fight!"
Hell broke loose. A man clipped his neighbor because the other was luckier than he; a Venusian latched onto a handful of chips from one of the tables and had his wrist broken by the owner of the chips who came down on the arm with a heavy fist. Chips flew through the air and rained down, and many, not caught in the fight, dropped to the floor to pick them up. They got into fights with other gleaners, and the melee spread like a crown fire in a piney woods. Critical mass had been reached, and the fission from civilized human beings to outraged primates spread throughout the room.
Cliff found an ornate chair and separated it to get the back-stringer for a club. The other side was clutched by Ava's escort, who plied it well. Ava came up between them clutching a small, wicked-looking stilletto and waving it viciously. Maculay slapped it out of her hand.
"Don't startthat!" he snarled, caving in a likely-looking head with the hunk of chair. He up-ended a table and used it as a protective wall, shoving it forward towards the door. He lost his club over another head and tossed the stub into the face of a third. He splattered the nose of a fourth all over his face, and trampled one fighting pair down to the floor. They paid no attention to him; they had their own private grievance.
Someone yelled: "Police!" and then the lights went out. Maculay steered another course from the door, back through the room full of flailing men and women who were trying now to extricate themselves and make the appearance of innocent bystanders.
Ava opened a door, and the light from inside spilled out over one of the finest barroom shambles ever committed in a high-class gambling hell, where he who wore no evening clothes was not permitted.
Then they were inside.
"Damn," chuckled Maculay. "This is the first time I've ever been inside of a powder room."
"Like it?"
He looked at her. They had lost her former escort in the melee. They had lost some composure, too, and also whatever formality might have been expected.
"Not as well as I thought," he told her. "Where's the hell out?"
Ava pointed to a window.
They left via the window as the door opened. They landed in the gangway between the two buildings, raced for the alley, and ran into a burly man in uniform that stood there stolidly.
Maculay clipped him in a rolling block; the policeman had expected practically anything but a football rush. The pair went down, rolling.
The officer fired one shot at them as they headed into a side-gangway and through to the street beyond. Cliff whistled for a convenient taxicab; they piled into it and were off before the alarm sounded from their rear.
They repaired what damage they could in the taxicab, and carried the rest with them boldly through the finest hotel in Melaxis.
Once in Maculay's suite, Ava opened her handbag and rolled a horde of chips on the table.
Maculay roared with laughter. "Souvenirs," he chortled.
"Can't you cash 'em?"
"M'lady, you are an angel. You turned up just in time to create a diversion. I got out with a whole skin, anyway."
Maculay looked at her curiously. Her eyes were glowing with excitement; her face was flushed, and she bore that slight dishevelment that brings a beautiful woman down from the pedestal of showcase perfection and makes a warm human of her.
She smiled cheerfully. "What do you mean?"
Cliff stepped to the small bar at the end of the room and mixed two very Herculean drinks before answering. Then he said—after Ava had tasted and approved: "They thought I had the cards marked. I didn't; I was playing a formula."
"But aren't formula players usually losers?"
Maculay laughed. "Baby doll," he laughed, "when you've been trained by the best mathematician in the solar system, you remember the sequence of the cards, evolve a formula of probabilities regarding the shuffling, and then play them according to absolute mathematics. In Red Dog, if there's a Heart Six to beat, each and every card played changes the formula as it lands; if you know your mathematics, you can compute your chances about as well as the Interplanetary Life Insurance Company can compute your expectancy."
"But I spoiled your game."
"That game was ruined anyway."
"It was fun," said Ava, taking a fine pull at the drink.
"A nice shindy, m'lady. And far more better than the game they'd have played once they grabbed me."
"But where will we play tomorrow night?"
"Venus is full of places," chuckled Maculay. "Fact is, the evening is young. Wait'll I collect me a fresh shirt; and I'll have to forget the white jacket since it's a mess. But we can see a bit more Venusian Night Life."
"Done!"
Maculay emerged from the dressing room a few moments later. "By the way, m'lady, what's your name?"
"Ava Longacre."
"I'm—"
"I know. Cliff Maculay."
"Such is fame," sighed Cliff. "You know me?"
Ava nodded. "I've met you before," she said. A faint, subdued recollection of her previous meeting with Clifford Maculay stirred her. She recalled, very dimly, the upsurge of emotion, the pounding of her heart, the complete relaxation of defensive mechanism. Something had been started but never finished, before. Now it was all past, gone, and a new day was yet to be born. "Someone gave me a message for you, but I've forgotten it."
"Maybe we can bring it back," chuckled Maculay. He took her by the arm and led her from the room.
Hanson had committed one pardonable error; pardonable because Hanson, for all of his years and his experience, was no worker of miracles, to whom nothing is hidden, and who can be called omniscient.
For all of his experience in wending his way through the hidden recesses of the labyrinth we call the human mind, Hanson did not know everything and would have been the first to admit this honestly. But he did know that the trouble with both Maculay and Ava Longacre laid in the subsurfaces of the conscious mind. Blocks, inhibitions, and fears instilled as a youth had driven Maculay to seek his excellence in mathematics as a goal rather than as the means to the normal goal of a happy, balanced life. In the filing-cabinet of the mind, however; in the subconscious mind of Clifford Maculay was all of the data of the life he should have led, held there subdued by the blocks of the conscious mind. Hanson had opened the doorway by removing these blocks, and he had done a fine job.
In much the same fashion he had removed the blocks and impediments from Ava Longacre's mind.
Both had suffered from too puritanical an upbringing. In the long distance that lies between white saint and black evil, there is a long dimension lying just below center that is the despair of reformers and do-gooders. This region contains many people and many ideals that aremal in dictu. Some impractical reformer had decided, for instance, that liquor is to be abhorred; ergo it is against the desires of society for a man to take a drink. Just one. The idea is, of course, to create a race of saints and Little Lord Fauntleroy sweetness—which probably wouldn't last out the century since the desire to poke someone in the nose for stepping on your rights—or your toe—is the same belligerency that has made mankind fight its way up from the swamps to seek the stars.
Below this region of morals or ethics lies themal in factobehaviour. It is bad in fact and practice to murder, steal, and lie.
Hanson had opened the minds of his pair to the enjoyment of the middle region after a short life of the stilted upper bracket. Like the swing of the pendulum, both Ava and Clifford had dropped about as far as they could go without getting into the truly evil region.
But the doctor's error was in not realizing that the human mind, once released of its inhibitions, can make a shrewd calculation. In the case of Ava Longacre, whose mental blocks would have rendered her undesirable to Cliff Maculay; when once released, the woman's mind reversed its tactics. Where the conscious mind had the balanced life distorted into undesirability, now her mind distorted into undesirability—the more responsible way of living—because she was beginning to enjoy excitement.
All of her quiet life she had been suppressing the love of excitement; now released, Ava Longacre's mind refused to consider the task she had been sent to do; once it was finished, she would be returned to the quiet, unexciting life that she no longer wanted.
So instead of employing her woman's wiles to involve Maculay and bring him back to earth where Hanson could get him to go back to work on his negative space, Ava was helping Cliff cut a wide, rosy-hued swathe through the not-too-holy city of Melaxis.
They consumed a bit more alcohol than was necessary; they danced a bit more close together than would have been called proper at a Boston cotillion, and hazarded sums of money on the roll of a pair of dice or the turn of a card just for the thrill of high blood pressure.
It was near dawn when Ava lifted her head from Cliff's shoulder in the taxicab and wiped the lipstick from his cheek with a caressing forefinger. Cliff smiled down at her.
"Baby doll," he said, "let's get married or something."
Ava laughed lightly. "We'll get married—or nothing!"
The sun was above the horizon when Maculay carried his bride—now asleep—over the threshold of his hotel suite. It was late afternoon when the Maculays, man and wife, checked out of their hotel to take a honeymoon in the jungle cities of Venus.
And Hanson fumed and fretted because he had no word from Ava, and worried because he knew that Redmond was poring through Maculay's secret file of computations and beginning to unravel the data that would permit Redmond to create and establish negative space.
On the third day of such worrying, Hanson knew then he had mis-calculated or over-stepped his reasoning. It was at that moment that Hanson did something that he had stoutly insisted that not even a man should do to his wife, or the reverse. Like reading another's mail, one did not paw through desk drawers nor inspect the corners of another's soul to see whether they concealed something. But Hanson went through the desk drawers of his nurse, attempting to learn how he had erred.
He came up with a small package, neatly tied in a very ornamental manner under the plain store-bag. The name on the fancy ribbon was that of a highly gilded women's shoppe where the salesgirls were very beautiful, the silk very sheer, and the prices very high.
Hanson opened the package. It disgorged a petticoat and bra, through either of which the doctor could have read the telephone directory without his glasses. A scant concession to the custom that a woman should wear lingerie—for the sake of the custom but not necessarily for warmth, protection, fire or famine.
It might have been a gift.
It might have been her own.
It made no difference whether Ava had selected this daring set of scanties for herself or for a gift, wedding or Christmas. It displayed her taste, showed her subconscious desires.
"Damn!" exploded Hanson. "I've been working with a courtesan concealed behind an armor of white starch. Oh, brother!"
The doctor knew. Like two small streams, turned here and there by the minor hills and rocks of fate, they had been joined by Hanson into a flowing river, complete unto itself—themselves—which would go its way as it damn well pleased and overflow its banks to the ruination of anything in its path if it were constrained.
They would not be back until Maculay came back in one year—at which point Ava would subtly change, too, to conform with Maculay's desire.
This left Hanson helpless for one year, during which time Redmond would be working towards destruction with no barriers to his course. Hanson could express no more than an unfounded opinion of the fear of danger; he had neither prestige nor formal education in the field of high-geared physics. The first objection he voiced would be taken with a nod by whomever official heard it, accepted for what it was: an opinion by a medical savant of seventy years regarding a problem in spacial physics. Then this opinion would be referred to Redmond for official regard. Hanson knew the answer without asking the question. Redmond would laugh in scorn. Redmond would—
Hanson shook his head unhappily. Redmond would be a tough nut to crack. Belligerent, automatically biassed against the doctor, any attempt at hypnosis would be fought against most vigorously. Yet—
Jay Hanson had been in his business for a long time, but he had had no challenge such as this for years. And though old in body, he was young enough in mind to contemplate the mental challenge with a certain amount of interest.
He bought tickets and flew to the laboratory site where Maculay and his gang worked on spatial physics; he used his medical prestige as key to admittance, and found Redmond sitting at Maculay's desk checking a huge blueprint of a spacecraft.
Redmond looked up. It was obvious that this little scene was one prepared by Redmond. Men who have visitors announced by secretaries, after having signed passes to let the visitor into the inner sanctum, after learning as he must have learned that the famous doctor had come to the huge laboratory site, should not look up from their desks in surprise.
Hanson understood; Redmond was morally right and ethically wrong. He had every moral right to take over Maculay's position during Maculay's absence; that was his appointed job. But ethically, he had no right to paw through Maculay's desk, and take from Maculay's secret files the information that Maculay had forbidden him to see. Now he was play-acting the part of a busy man who had all of the power he needed.
Redmond said: "Yes, Doctor Hanson?"
Hanson paid no attention to the blueprint. "I thought you'd like to know," he said softly, "that I've been unable to locate Maculay."
"Damn!" objected Redmond. Only one who understood what was in Redmond's ambitious mind would know that the disappointment was very false.
"So I came to tell you and also to be curious."
"Curiosity killed a cat," said Redmond.
The doctor laughed. "It's created more kittens than the cats it's killed. Is this still super-top secret or can you let an old man in on it?"
Redmond glowed inwardly at the chance to show off before the doctor. "According to the latest calculations," he said, "the generation of negative space by the force-fields of diagravitic force takes the form of a sphere. Obviously the proper shape for a spacecraft employing one of these generators would be spherical. But we are using a converted spacecraft of the torpedo shape, and I feel that—well, to generate a sphere large enough to enclose the spacecraft in one gulp would produce far too much power. So we are using two of them placed so that their spherical fields produce a pattern something like two equal-sized soap bubbles stuck together. The ship lies longwise through the centers of the circles, since the generators are in the ship, of course."
Hanson nodded. His head bobbed gently, in a measured motion. He was sitting with his back to the room, the window in front of him. He knew that the reflection of the window was in his glasses and that Redmond was watching this spot of light instead of watching the doctor's eyes. Redmond continued to watch as he spoke.
"Within a week we shall have it finished," said Redmond. "Then the stars shall be ours!"
Hanson continued to nod.
"Of course we have not tested the generators as yet. There is no known way of dissipating the energy they develop. Since the realized energy in this real space is sufficient to propel matter faster than the velocity of light, the outpouring of energy must be paradoxically many times the value of infinity."
Hanson continued to nod.
"This statement, of course, makes no sense," said Redmond, "because of one of the definitions of infinity—which is that number which is larger than the number of all numbers. Here we treat infinity as a definite instead of an abstract, and by our equations we are permitted to multiply infinity by integer numbers and come up with a real answer—in a sort of abstract sense," said Redmond with a slight laugh. It was 'Our Equations' now instead of 'Maculay's Equations'.
Hanson continued to nod and Redmond kept watching the spot on the Doctor's glasses.
"However," said Redmond, "the fact is that the power output does not exceed infinity at any time in this space. Not really, and therefore the paradox is answered. It is merely apparent, if you follow me. Actually, the spacecraft is not in real space and therefore it need not have an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light. However, there is no way of anchoring the generator on the planet while testing, nor of dissipating the energy. So the only way to test the set-up is to build a spacecraft and take off. If it does not work, we have the standard drivers to get us back."
Hanson kept on nodding. His neck was getting a bit stiff, but he could not stop.
"I've heard the argument that the generators may set up a self-propagating field," said Redmond. "This is so much bosh. The theory that the streak of energy that went through the solar system some weeks ago was the wake of a supervelocity spacecraft seems to be universal among the people who have studied the Equations. Ergo it stands to reason that no destruction of the universe will obtain. We are safe."
Hanson continued to nod.
Redmond smiled quietly.
The doctor said, "You've been working quite hard on this; you must be tired."
Redmond laughed sarcastically. "You've been working harder, Doc. If you've been expecting me to fall under your hypnotic spell with that head-bobbing business, you're getting a stiff neck and no results. You're an old fool with an unfounded horror of anything new. You should view this sensibly; if another race can employ the spacedrive without ruining the universe, so can we. Now why not let busy men alone to work, while you go back to your mental cripples? Good day!"
Hanson fumed but it did no good. He was licked by animosity, disdain, and complete lack of sympathy. There was nothing to do but leave. And the doctor left, half-convinced that Redmond was right in assuming that if one galactic race could use the negative-space drive, another could do the same without fear. But he was only half-convinced; he wanted an opinion from Maculay. There was more here than met the eye.
Some other race knew the secret and were using it. The human race knew the secret and were about to try it. But the man who knew the real answers had gone into a tizzy because of some errata, or factor that was absolutely incompatible with life, liberty, and/or pursuit of happiness.
Hanson grunted. All too often in the case of violent disagreement, all parties were absolutely correct in their own mind, their own honest belief. Maybe this was similar.
One theoretical man feared the results from an abstract analysis of the computations. One mechanically-minded man could not appreciate the possible dangers, but was happy to follow the plans since completion meant fame and fortune for him. Both might be right. But....
Hanson shrugged unhappily; it was a bad spot to be in. Yet in the course of his seventy years many problems had seemed insoluble until some factor entered that changed the whole picture. And life itself must have seen many crises, in which the motion of a hand in the wrong direction would have caused the utter downfall of Humanity—or, he thought bitterly,perhaps we are the result of an ill-moved hand of fate and might truly be great in mind as in work if some prehistoric egomaniac hadn't kicked some unknown prop out from beneath us.
Perhaps, too, his mind told him, it could have been some half-baked do-gooder trying to help. As he, Jay Hanson, had attempted to help Maculay. The fault was as much his as it was Redmond's. More—Redmond could not help being what he was. Yet, neither could Hanson stand by and see a man go to pieces.
In any case it was not a proposition of fixing the blame; to hell with the blame and the responsibility. Fix it. Fix it. Fix it and forget the fumbling finger that fouled it.
Hanson swore. He was helpless.
Yet for all of his efforts, he believed that something would happen to avert this disaster. It hardly seemed possible that one man's act could destroy the universe. Man's total effort was so puny. Inconsequential. The ignorant savage could not destroy civilization.
But in the back of his mind, Hanson knew that a couple of lumps of plutonium in the hands of an ignorant savage could destroy life beyond the scope of the savage's experience; and mankind's scope was reaching to the stars.
Still fretting, and still hoping for the answer, he headed home.
He was sitting in his office when the telephone rang on the following morning. Hanson answered it slowly, prepared to stall any patient off until he could regain some of his composure and his self-confidence.
"Hanson? Doc, this is Larimore."
"Larimore? Hi. What's up?"
"Doc, this job ain't good."
"What job?"
"The Black Slash."
"The what?"
Larimore chuckled. "If that yarn had turned up in the slush-pile, it would have been bounced with a rejection slip. It's not good, Doc. You've got no reason to write that bad, even though you've not written me anything for a couple of years; you don't forget how. But this job sounds like the half-baked efforts of a man convinced that he could write but who lacks the basic fundamentals of story construction. Now—"
"What in the devil are you talking about?" demanded Hanson.
"Didn't you send me a yarn calledThe Black Slash?"
"I—" Hanson paused. Cautiously, he said: "By Edward Lomax?"
"Naturally. That's your pen name. It—"
"Wasn't the job timely?"
"Doc, you ought to know by now that every time something new and frightening comes up, my desk is bombarded with a million stories about it. The best get taken up. That streak of energy a couple of weeks ago has brought fourteen stories so far, and some of them were damned good. But yours—Say, Doc, how come you went to Venus? I thought that you weren't allowed space-flight?"
Hanson paused and shook his head. Edward Lomax was his pen name. It was the pen name supplied to Maculay in the explanation as to why Cliff was in disfavor in the eyes of his fictitious uncle. And it was sort of natural, too, that Maculay would try to write about this thing. But Maculay, either as the renowned Clifford Maculay, or young Cliff Maculay the black sheep, had never written a single line of fiction. Maculay's pedantic papers were full of equations, qualifications, cumbersome sentences, and inverted phrases—complete with the everlasting 'However' enclosed between commas.
Hanson laughed shortly.
People do not expect a man to step up to his first piano, sit himself down, and run through a faultless repertoire from Bach to Bebop. But these same people nod their heads at a new author's writing and think it is the first time he ever sat down to a typewriter—and then swear that they will do likewise as soon as they get a couple of free hours. Maculay was no exception, plus the fact that Hanson had given his mind the false experience of writing to cover up many irregularities in Maculay's past. Maculay believed he could write and had been writing; actually he knew nothing of the techniques involved. It takes more than a burning desire to see your words in print; it takes at the very least some judgment as to which of your words you select for print plus the ability to produce them in logical sequence. Maculay had tried.
But above all, Maculay had offered a lead—provided unwittingly by Hanson himself. The doctor glowed inwardly, happily. He would now—
"You still there, Doc?"
"You bet. Where did that story come from, Larry?"
Larimore paused a moment. "A small town in the midlands of Venus a couple of hundred miles from Melaxis." Then he exploded. "Hey. Weren't you there? Why didn't you bring it back with you? What the hell goes on—?"
Hanson said, "Larimore, this is a long story and probably a better one than Maculay wrote. But it's important."
"I'm listening. Take off."
The doctor outlined the entire business over the telephone.
"My God," said Larimore. "Now what?"
"Now? It's easy. Send Maculay a special radiogram, addressed to Lomax, stating that Modern Pictures wants the script for a full-length moving picture at some fabulous price providing they can hire the author to rewrite the thing into novel length. You have an option check for five thousand dollars which will expire within ten days if the author is not present in person at your office before that time."
"I get it. 'Twill be done."
Hanson sat back, relieved; this was the answer he was hoping for. It had come and now all he had to do was to husband his strength until Maculay could get home. Because when Maculay arrived, there would be a big job to do.
He spent his time working slowly, resting often. He went to Larimore's office and fitted it with his equipment, on the off-chance that Maculay might be hard to handle. Hanson did not think Maculay would be difficult to re-convert since the true personality was submerged by the false character by mere hypnotic suggestion. It should be remarkably easy. But the doctor wanted to take no chances.
He read Maculay's sorry attempt at fiction. It was not good fiction but it interested Hanson because there was so much fact concealed in its descriptive passages. Maculay, unable to think too deeply about the negative space concept, or real and unreal space, and variable-matrix wave mechanics, had treated the whole scientific formulation with a touch of the ridiculous. Just as Cliff, upon hearing of the streak of energy, had laughingly included it in a 'story' because he was hypnotically unfitted to treat his opinion as anything but fiction-fantasy, he was again concealing the truth behind a thin disguise. It was all there.
All there, Hanson saw with a sour finality, but the solution. Maculay had pulled the old gag of having the fabulous machine totally destroyed, complete with its secret. A poor gag, and unfitted for modern writing, especially unfitted for application to fact. For, in fact, this was not a story; it was the truth, told by a man who must tell it as fiction since the truth literally hurt him. But there was no true solution, and once the negative-gravitic generators were started, the unreal root of negative space would spread to engulf the universe.
This 'story' of Maculay's convinced—or rather pinned the last doubt down—Hanson that his guess-work was right. But handing such a story to any official as true data would get the doctor nothing but a horselaugh—at the least—and possibly a trip to the looney-bin for observation.
However, he would have the truth at hand soon enough. Maculay would know what steps to take.
Even if Maculay ordered everything to stop, while the answer was found.
Hanson was working in Larimore's office when Maculay came in with his bride.
The doctor looked at them both; he nodded affably.
"Doc!" roared Maculay cheerfully. "What in hell are you doing here?"
"Came to kiss the bride," said Hanson. "And she looks lovely enough to kiss."
"Go ahead," said Maculay; "I'll permit you eight seconds."
Hanson smiled at Ava, but shook his head. "I've got one more thing on my mind," he said quietly. "Cliff, what do you know of Maculay's Equations?"
"He's an uncle of mine," started Maculay. "He came up against a tough one. He found a way to exceed the speed of light—but doing it would destroy universal space by a sustained and spreading cancellation. It—"
"Maculay, what would you do if you wereTheClifford Maculay?"
"Go fishing."
Hanson touched a button at his elbow. There was a soundless flash of brilliant light as the photoflash bulb planted in the desk lamp flared. Then as Maculay stood, tense with shock, Hanson said, in a forceful tone: "Clifford Maculay, the hypnotic suggestion that I gave you before must cease. I order it to stop; I order you released. You are once more Doctor Clifford Maculay, who must—"
The jovial smile faded from Maculay's face. The twinkle in his eye changed to a calculating glitter, and the lines of Maculay's face hardened. "Hanson," he snapped, "what has been going on?"
"You've been on vacation," said the doctor. "And while you were traipsing all over Venus, Redmond has opened your secret file and is starting to build a supervelocity spacecraft. You must put a stop to it."
Maculay looked startled for a moment. Then he said: "Redmond is a pompous sort of juvenile jackass, I admit, but he isn't that stupid."
"I've seen his installation."
Maculay shrugged. "I'm not a jealous man, Doc. I've had my day; I've done my work; I've laid my cornerstone. I've even been stumped. Now if Redmond can solve the problem that had me licked, I'll be the last man on earth to deny him his triumph."
"Clifford, from all I've heard about this, total destruction will result if any man energizes a volume of negative space."
"Quite right," said Maculay. And as he said it, his eyes clouded and he winced gently.
"Redmond has added nothing to your calculations."
Maculay stood up with a dry smile. "As a physician you are Number One on earth. As a psychiatrist you are tops. I know what you've done and it's been good. I hope," he added slyly, "that she likes me as well this way as she did the other way—or can you change her too? Or," he continued with growing comprehension, "is it 'change her back, too'?"
"Back."
"Good. So as a witch-doctor you're tops in any jungle. But as a physicist, you don't know a gravitino from a vocal fricative."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that before any judgment is cast, I shall have to see the evidence."
Hanson stood up. "So it's back to the laboratory site."
Maculay nodded, held out an arm which Ava took happily, and then he said: "And from the lab site to the stars, Doc."
Hanson grumbled: "Or total extinction."
Maculay did not hear him. He was looking down at Ava. "Doc," he said slowly, "you'd better come along. Snooky, here, needs to be slowed down to my level and you're the guy to do it."
Hanson did not tell Maculay that Ava's reconversion would take no longer than his own; the doctor wanted to be in at the end of this, good or bad. He merely nodded, then waited while Maculay made arrangements to fly to the laboratory site. His name worked wonders; an official plane was being warmed up by the time they left Larimore's office and headed towards the airport.
Redmond greeted them with a hearty smile. Only Hanson, who had every reason to doubt Redmond's happiness at Maculay's return, saw the falsity of the greeting. Redmond, of course, was on a spot; yet, the man was convinced of his own correct reasoning, and this justified his acts. Redmond's greeting was less hearty to Hanson; obviously Redmond would have preferred to deal with Maculay alone. Having the doctor there might be awkward, for Maculay might be talked into belief, whereas Hanson was more than likely to ignore the words and their import, and deal entirely upon whether the sayer of the words was lying or telling the truth.
Redmond believed in a swift attack.
Once the original greeting was over, he plunged in: "We spent some time trying to locate you as soon as it became evident that the energetic streak that went through the solar system produced the sort of radiation that we had been theorizing over," said Redmond. "Lacking Maculay, I was asked to open your secret file and see what could be made of it."
"You discovered the trouble, then?"
"Yes."
Cliff relaxed. He had been under a strain visible only to Hanson; the doctor nodded. When a man is in a mental tizzy because he's hit upon an insoluble dilemma, it makes no difference who solves it. The weight of strain went out of Maculay; the mental run-around that had kept him fighting to the exclusion of everything else was gone. The couple of months of rest had done wonders; now the final true release from strain added to it. Give Maculay another few months of absolute freedom from strain, and Cliff would be ready to take on the world with a hand tied behind him.
But Hanson knew there was trouble ahead, for, unless he were very incorrect, Redmond was bulling it through and—
"You've discovered the error?"
Redmond laughed. "Your equations showed that negative space cancelled real space."
"Yes. And I could figure no other way."
"This is true in limited cases," said Redmond. "The consensus of opinion is that the streak of energy was nothing more than the mutual destruction of a cylinder of space being cancelled by the passage of a spacecraft enveloped in a spherical field of negative space. Upon working with that theory in mind and applying other bits of true evidence gained from the readings and measurements of the streak, we have solved your dilemma."
"Let's see our equations," suggested Maculay.
"Rather," said Redmond, "let's visit the spacecraft."
"All right."
Hanson said: "Are you certain that you're not assuming too much?"
"Meaning?" asked Redmond coldly.
"You are basing everything on the fact that an alien spacecraft passed through here. How do you know?"
Redmond laughed in a superior manner. "Since matter cannot exceed the velocity of light without being encased in a volume of unreal space—and since a volume of unreal space would kick up the same sort of wake as we measured—we can assume that some intelligence has developed negative space and is using it. Negative space, Doctor Hanson, is not to be found free in nature."
"But you've really added nothing to Maculay's Equations."
"We've proven by observation that the sustained destruction of the universe will not obtain; we'll prove it, too."
Hanson snorted. "This isn't a game of bridge," he said; "you're not bidding a grand slam just to see if you can make it without the ace of trump."
"But we know that it has been done. Nothing more need hold us up; we know!"
Hanson added another page to his mental notes regarding Redmond. Frustrated genius, second rater really, Redmond was the type of man who had always been protected against danger. In the course of his life, he had never faced the consequences of one of his own acts; therefore he fully believed that every time he was about to step off of the deep end, some Divine Providence would save him. If Redmond were permitted to do as he wanted to do, it was "Sign to Redmond" that he was on the right track. Some people call it superstition; some call it intuition; some call it foolishness. To Redmond, it was a sort of Fate.
Maculay stood up and led the way to the doorway. "Let's look at this," he said.
"Cliff," said Hanson, "nothing has changed since you went away. Real and unreal space are still mutually destructive. And if you couldn't figure it out, no other man on earth could."
Redmond said, "True, at that time. But we've had extra evidence to work on."
"But—"
"Forget it," said Redmond; "we know what we're talking about."
Maculay entered the control room of the ship first. He looked it over with interest, then nodded. "Everything is in ship-shape fashion," he said.
"We could start tomorrow if we had to."
Maculay looked at the controls that projected side by side on the polished black panel labelledUpperandLower.
"Dunno," said Maculay thickly.
Hanson watched him carefully. "Cliff," he said quietly, "you knew about the streak of energy, too. If that were the answer, you'd have come out of your mental tizzy."
Maculay turned to Redmond. "What means have you to prevent the sustained reaction?"
Redmond shook his head. "We don't need any. If another race can do it—"
"Don't be an idiot! Just because one race makes iron steamships it is no sign that iron floats on water."
"But it stands to reason—"
"You'd bank your life on it?"
"Yes."
Cliff Maculay took the two handles, one in each hand. His eyes glazed a bit, and he laughed uncertainly. "Maybe the creation of the universe was started by some fool who created negative space," he said thickly. "You simple idiot, this is exactly the danger that almost drove me nuts; you haven't solved a thing!"
Maculay stood there, watching Redmond. Then the frown left his face, and his body tightened. His eyes lost the hard glitter and took on a luminous air, which became half-humorous and half cynical as the corners of his mouth quirked up.
Hanson took a deep breath. Maculay the physicist had become Cliff Maculay the hell-raiser in just that short a time, because he was once more faced with the insoluble.
"No!" yelled Hanson.
But Maculay laughed. "Might as well wreck it," he jeered. "Better to wreck this fool's work than destroy the universe. Damn idiot, Clifford Maculay. Better—"
Maculay slammed theUpperswitch to the right.
"—let the ne'er-do-well foul it right!"
Maculay slammed theLowerswitch to the left.
There was a perceptible shift in the frame of reference, a hiatus in the solidity of things, like the rug slipping on the polished floor, like the fancy movable steps in the Fun House, like the bottom of the quicksand lake, like space itself being warped.
Then Arcturus passed the nearby viewport in a single flash of blue-white, and seconds afterwards a second star flashed, then a third.
"The backward sort," chortled Maculay. He was neither Maculay the Physicist now, nor was he Maculay the hell-raiser; he was a glad mixture of both. "It came to me," he told Hanson, "just likeThat!"
"But—?"
"Easy. Easy. The output from the upper generator creates negative space. But before it can establish an expanding field, the output of the lower generator nullifies it. For the lower generator is making a field of positive space equal to the force from above. Take unity. Add unity and you have two. Cancel one unity and you have unity—plus a spacedriver!"
Thirty thousand light years away, a recorder wiggled, a bell rang, and a sentient creature came out of a quiet complacence with a roar. Then came the clangor of a huge alarm and other creatures came tumbling into the huge room. They watched the recorder anxiously; then as it levelled off they left, slowly. Six remained; the others got into a small spacecraft and took off. There would be no nova for the suppression squad to extinguish; all that was needed was for the safety squad to go there and teach newcomers how not to play with fire.