George O. Smith

“ Channing, you can send a gallon of gasoline through this, ah, so-called matter transmitter?"
"Naturally."
"Then, your honor, it is my contention that no matter what the means or the intent, this instrument utilizes the sub-etheric effects to transmit energy! It is seldom possible to transmit power over the same carriers that carry communications—only very specialized cases prevail, and they are converted to the job. But this thing is universal. Perhaps it does transmit intelligence. It will and can be used to transmit energy! Matter, your honor, is energy! ”

“ Beams of invisible energy burned furrows in the frozen ground, and the official buildings melted and exploded from the air pressure within them. The Titan station went off the ether with a roar, and the theorists believed that Murdoch's gang had been augmented by four hundred and nineteen of the Solar System's most vicious criminals.
"That rips it wide open," said Channing. "Better get the folks to withstand a siege. I don't think they can take us."
"That devil might turn his beams on the station itself, though," said Walt.
"He wants to control communications." ”

“ In the first place, we can see a planet, and they can see us, so they can hold their beams. A spaceship might be able to see us, but they couldn't hold a beam on us because of the side sway. We couldn't see them until they are right upon us and so we could not hope to hold a beam on them. Spaceships might broadcast, but you have no idea what the square law of radiated power will do to a broadcast signal when millions upon millions of miles are counted in. A half million watts on any planet will not quite cover the planet as a service area on broadcast frequencies. ”

“ Tinken sat down.
"I maintain that the concept of communication precludes matter transmission," stormed Kingman. "Matter transmission becomes a problem for the transportation companies and the power companies. Matter, your honor, is energy. They are transmitting energy!" ”

“ Look at all the time that's wasted in waiting for a landing to answer 'grams. In this day and age, time is money, squared. The latter is to differentiate between this time and the first glimmering of speedy living."
"Was there a first glimmering?" asked Arden sagely. "I've often thought that the speed-up was a stable acceleration from the dawn of time to the present."
"All right, go technical on me," laughed Walt. "Things do move. That is, all except the message from your loving husband."
"You don't suppose he's squelched?"
"I doubt it. Squelching Donald Channing is a job for a superbeing. ”

“ As your current starts up from zero, the electron gun squirts a bouquet of electrons into a chamber built like a pair of angel's food cake tins set rim to rim. The magnet's field begins to build up at the same time, and the resulting increase in field strength accelerates the electrons and at the same time, its increasing field keeps the little devils running in the same orbit. Shoot it with two-hundred-cycle current, and in the half cycle your electrons are made to run around the center a few million times. That builds up a terrific velocity—measured in six figures, believe it or not. ”

“ But man triumphed over nature. The megawatt of energy that came in a tight beam from the building at Northern Landing emerged from the Heaviside Layer as a weak, piffling signal. It wavered and it crackled. It wanted desperately to lie down and sleep. Its directional qualities were impaired, and it wabbled badly. It arrived at the relay station tired and worn.
One million watts of ultra-high frequency energy at the start, it was measurable in microvolts when it reached a space station, only five hundred miles above the city of Northern Landing. ”

“ We've all read tales of the Jolly Roger being painted on the side of a sleek ship of space while the pirate, who is a fine fellow at heart though uninhibited, hails down the cruiser carrying radium. He swipes the stuff and kisses all the women whilst menacing the men with a gun-hand full of searing, coruscating, violently lethal ray pistol. ”

“ You can't machine-clean the house. You can't machine-write books, music, or moving pictures. You can't machine-maintain machinery. You can't machine-doctor a burst appendix. And so forth. You can duplicate the antiques until they have no value. Rembrandt is going to be a household word. The day of the antique is gone, Linna, and the eventual trend will be toward the unique. Mark my words, there will one day be unique shops that deal in nothing but items which they can certify as never having been duplicated. ”

“ Look, Kingman, I'm advocating piracy!"
"Piracy?" asked Kingman, aghast.
"Illegal piracy. But I'm intelligent. I realize that a pirate hasn't a chance against civilization unless he is as smart as they are. We need a research and construction organization, and that's where Terran Electric comes in. Its an old company, well established. It's now on the rocks. We can build it up again. We'll use it for a base, and set the research boys to figuring out the answers we need. Eventually we'll control Venus Equilateral, and half of the enterprises throughout the system." ”

“ Ha!" laughed Murdoch, "only the rich are permitted to be subjects of an experiment. Touch not the poor, who offer nothing. Experiment upon those of intellect, wealth, fame, or anything that sets them above the mob. Yes, even genius came under my knife. But I couldn't give a poor man a fifty-fifty chance at his life, when the chances of his life were less than one in ten. From a brilliant man, operating under fifty-fifty chances for life, I became an inhuman monster that cut without fear. ”

“ Did James Clerk Maxwell, in postulating his Electromagnetic Equations, ever conceive of the massive industry that was to grow around the art of radio transmission? Did Thomas Alva Edison contemplate Times Square when he was seeking a more efficient means of illumination?
Yes, inventions are all deadly in one sense or another. They are openly considered so when their effect kills human beings. Few inventions are conceived with the intent of producing murder, the atomic bomb notwithstanding. ”

“ Why should valuable space for valuable supplies be taken up with personal favors between friends? And if the personnel wants to smoke and drink, let them pay for the privilege! It will help to pay for the high price of shipping the useless items out from the nearest planet—as well as saving of precious storage space!"
"But you're breeding ill will among the employees," objected Channing.
"Any that prefer to do so may leave!" snapped Burbank.
"You may find it difficult to hire people to spend their lives in a place that offers no sight of a sky or a breath of fresh air. ”

“ Don Channing looked up at the indicator panel in his office and frowned in puzzlement. He punched a buzzer and spoke into the communicator on his desk.
"Find out who that is, will you, Arden?"
"He isn't expected," came back the voice of Arden Westland.
"I know that. But I've been expecting someone ever since John Peters retired last week. You know why."
"You hope to get his job," said the girl in an amused voice. "I hope you do. So that someone else will sit around all day trying to make you retire so that he can have your job!" ”

“ Snow covered the dead leaves, and Christmas, with its holly, went into the past, followed closely by New Year's Eve with its hangover.
And on a roof by the shore of Lake Michigan, a group of men stood in overcoats beside a huge machine that towered above the great letters of the Terran Electric Company sign that could be seen all the way from Gary, Indiana.
It was a beautiful thing, this tube; a far cry from the haywire thing that had brought solar power to Venus Equilateral. It was mounted on gimbals, and the metal was bright-plated and perfectly machined. ”

“ The rebuff given him by Don Channing had worn off and he was sparkling with ideas. He speared Franks with the glitter in his eye and said: "If our beams are always on the center, why is it necessary to use multiplex diversity?"
Franks smiled. "You're mistaken," he told Burbank. "They're not always on the button. They vary. Therefore, we use diversity transmission so that if one beam fails momentarily, one of the other beams will bring the signal in. It is analogous to tying five or six ropes onto a hoisted stone. If one breaks, you have the others." ”

“ That single fact makes it easy to step the power up to terrific quantities. Since the thing is fixed by nature so that the output is proportional—electron gun initial velocity versus magnetic field strength—if we increase the input voltage, the output voltage goes up without having to resort to manipulistic gymnastics on the part of the operator."
"Go on, Professor Maxwell."
"Don't make fun of a great man's name," said Arden. "If it wasn't for Clerk Maxwell, we'd still be yelling out of the window at one another instead of squirting radio beams all over the Solar System." ”

“ Walt explained the relation between Russell's Mixture and the composition of Sol.
"Sun makers, hey?" asked Riley. "Is the chief screwball up there?"
"Yup," said Walt, grinning at Don.
"Sounds like him. Yeah, we can make you an alloy consisting of Russell's Mixture. Tony's got it here, now, and it doesn't look hard. How big a dynode do you want?"
Walt gave him the dimensions of the dynode in the solar tube.
"Cinch," said Riley. "You can have it in two hours."
"Swell."
"But it'll be hotter than hell. Better make that six or seven hours. We may run into trouble making it jell." ”

“ An alarm clamored in the hallway and Wes Farrell jumped a foot. He headed for the door, but Channing stopped him with a gesture.
"Friend Farrell forgets that we no longer care," laughed Channing. "That was the main fuse in the solar-energy tubes blowing out and we won't be needing them any more. It is sort of pleasant to know that a fuse blew—a thing that was formerly master and we the slave—and that we don't have to give a hoot whether it blew or not. Let it blow, Wes. We don't need power any more! ”

“ That makes money, you know, and if you can make the market tick your way—I mean control enough stuff—your purchases at the bottom send the market up a few points, and then you dump it and it drops again. It wouldn't take more than a point or two to make a guy rich, if you had enough stock and could continue to make the market vacillate."
"That's so," agreed Don. "Look, Bill, why don't we get some of our Terran agents to tinkering, too? Get one of our best men to try to outguess the market. As long as it is being done systematically, he should be able to follow the other guy's thinking. ”

“ Make that any normal gyration and I'll buy it."
"Then why don't we disperse the beam to two or three thousand miles and do away with diversity transmission?" asked Burbank triumphantly.
"Ever heard of fading?" asked Channing with a grin. "Your signal comes and goes. Not gyration, it just gets weaker. It fails for want of something to eat, I guess, and takes off after a wandering cosmic ray. At any rate, there are many times per minute that one beam will be right on the nose and yet so weak that our strippers cannot clean it enough to make it usable. Then the diversity system comes in handy. ”

“ Popping at them with any kind of a rifle would be like trying to hit a flying bird with a spitball. Look, Jeanne, speed on the run from Mars to Terra at major opposition is up among the thousands of miles per second at the turnover. A meteor itself may be blatting along at fifty miles per second. Now a rifle, shooting a projectile at a few thousand feet per second, would be useless. You'd have the meteor in your lap and out of the other side while the projectile is making up its mind to move forward and relieve the pressure that is building up behind it due to the exploding powder. ”

“ That must be the Black Widow. How'll we pass her?"
"About thirty thousand miles."
"Then get the finders set on that lithium-coated hull as we pass."
"Hold it," said Walt. "Our velocity with respect to his is about three thousand. We can be certain of the ship by checking the finder-response on the lithium coating. If so, she's the Black Widow. Right from here, we can be assured. Jim! Check the finders in the torpedoes on that target!"
"Did," said Jim. "They're on and it is."
"Launch 'em all!" yelled Franks.
"Are you nuts?" asked Channing. ”

“ Towle, you're a dope. You've been feeling very virtuous about working like a slave for your fortune, which would probably keep you in cakes and lodging for the rest of your life. You've been promising starvation and pauperism to anyone who bought anything that seemed the slightest bit frivolous to you. Now that the axe has slipped, you're mad because the guy who liked to ramble amid the roses is not going to starve to death as per schedule. ”

“ Your electron gun, Walt, whether it be fish, flesh, or fowl, must be overloaded for an instant."
"Is overload a necessary requirement?" asked Arden. "It seems to me that you might be able to bore a sixteen-inch gun for a twenty-two. What now, little man?"
"By the time we get something big enough to do more than knock paint off, we'll have something bigger than a twenty-two," grinned Channing. "I was speaking in terms of available strength versus required punch. In the way that a girder will hold tremendous overloads for brief instants, a gun is overloaded for milliseconds. ”

“ He explained in detail. "Can you beat that?"
"We may not be able to outfire you," gritted Channing, "but we may be able to nullify your beam."
"Nonsense!" roared Murdoch. "Look, Channing, you'd best surrender."
"Never!"
"You'd rather die?"
"We'd rather fight it out. Come in and get us."
"Oh, no. We'll just shoot your little station full of holes. Like the average spaceship, your station will be quite capable of handling communications even though the air is all gone. Filling us full of holes wouldn't do a thing; you see, we're wearing spacesuits." ”

“ Kingman smiled. "It's easy to get into easy thinking. They took power from Sirius—believe it or not—and then made some there-and-back time measurements and came up with a figure that was about the square of one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second. But you know that you can't square a velocity and come up with anything that looks sensible. The square of a velocity must be some concept like an expanding area." ”

“ I shall levy a tax against any and every ship leaving any spaceport. We shall demand one dollar solarian for every gross ton that lifts from any planet and reaches the planetary limit."
"How do you establish that limit?" asked Kingman interestedly.
"Ironically, we'll use the Channing Layer," said Murdoch with dark humor. "Since the Channing Layer describes the boundary below which our solar beam will not work. Our reign of terror will be identified with Channing because of that; it will take some of the praise out of people's minds when they think of Channing and Venus Equilateral." ”

“ I doubt that we can reason that angle out."
"I can," said Arden. "Can we tap the power beams?"
"Wonderful is the mind of woman," praised Don. "Positively wonderful! Arden, you have earned your next fur coat. Here I've been thinking of radio transmission all this time. No, Arden, when you're set up for sheer energy transmission, it's strictly no dice. The crimped up jobs we use for communications can be tapped—but not the power transmission beams. If you can keep the gadget working on that line, Walt, we're in and solid." ”

“ We can prove Kingman has been violating the law to embezzle, mulct, steal, commit grand larceny, and so on. We're going to take a swing at Mr. Kingman and Terran Electric that they won't forget. We can't lose, because I'm not a good sportsman when I find that I've been tricked. We're going after Kingman in our own fashion—and if we lose, we're going to go tinhorn and cry for the gendarmes. ”

“ Likewise, we cannot permit dangerous experiments. And anything that includes a dangerous experiment must be out, too."
"Oh," said Wes. His voice and attitude were altogether crestfallen.
"Don't take it so hard, fella," grinned Channing. "Any time we have to indulge in dangerous experiments, we always do it with an assistant—and in one of the blister-laboratories. But take that fragile glassware out of the picture, and I'll buy it," he finished.
Walt Franks entered and asked what was going on.
"Wes was just demonstrating the latest equipment in concentrated deviltry," smiled Channing. ”

“ I wonder, occasionally, if it might not be possible to instigate some sort of cold snap or a rainy season just for the purpose of bringing to the members of Venus Equilateral some of the surprises that are to be found in Chicago or New York. Hell, even Canalopsis has an occasional rainstorm!"
"Return to your laboratory," said Burbank coldly. "And let me run the station. Why should we spend useful money to pamper people? I don't care if Canalopsis does have an occasional storm, we are not on Mars, we are in Venus Equilateral. ”

“ Puny man, setting his will against the monstrous void. Puny man, dependent upon atmosphere. "'Nature abhors a vacuum,' said Torricelli," groaned Channing. "Nuts! If nature abhorred a vacuum, why did she make so much of it?"
Arden Westland entered the apartment without knocking. ”

“ About all that could be carried on a beam as sorry as this was the knowledge that there was a transmitter—and that it was transmitting.
But its raucous note synchronized with the paint-brush wiping of the transmitter. There was no doubt.
Don Channing put an arm around Arden's waist and grinned at Walt Franks. "Go to work, genius. I've got the Empress of Kolain on the pipe. You're the bright-eyed lad that is going to wake them up! We've shot almost twenty hours of our allotted fifty. Make with the megacycles, Walter. Arden and I will take in a steak, a moom pitcher, and maybe a bit of woo. ”

“ Kingman flushed.
"Find that Terran Electric wasn't worth much?" jeered Channing.
"Sufficient," said Kingman.
"Did it ever occur to you that maybe Venus Equilateral wasn't worth much either?" asked Channing.
"I'll make it work for me. And I'll also report that one of your wild experiments got loose and nearly froze the station out completely. I still say that if you'd stopped toying around with everything that came along, Venus Equilateral would still be a running corporation."
"I daresay you're right. But the devil finds work for idle hands, you know. So just what is the future holding?" ”

“ Kingman leaned back in his chair and put both of his feet on the desk. "I don't mind telling you," he said gloatingly. "Venus Equilateral is going to have the name of having invented and developed the matter transmitter and matter duplicator. That's fine. It will carry quite an honor, that reputation, up to the time that the big crash comes, when people realize they're being trapped. Terran Electric, selling duplicators for home use at a song, will emerge as the savior of mankind. All I'm going to gain out of this is security for Mark Kingman and a big black eye for Venus Equilateral." ”

“ Terran Electric would emerge from this battle with Venus Equilateral as a subsidiary—with Kingman at the helm!
Walt Franks entered Channing's office with a wild-eyed look on his face. "Don! C2!"
"Huh! What are you driving about?"
"C2. The speed of light, squared!"
"Fast—but what is it?"
"The solar beam! It propagates at C2!"
"Oh, now look. Nothing can travel that fast!"
"Maybe this isn't something!"
"It has energy, energy has mass, mass cannot travel faster than the limiting speed of light."
"O.K. It can't do it. But unless my measurements are all haywire, the beam gets to Sol and back at C2. ”

“ And who will say that radio is a useless science?"
"But it is not right that I should have slaved to acquire a retirement fortune only to have it wiped out."
"Look, Towle, the whole system is undergoing a radical change in the economic structure. By the same token, Venus Equilateral is a ruined concern. We've dropped from ten million paid messages per day to a mere handful. Those we send through because we are bound by agreement to maintain service at all costs. We aren't making expenses, if you feel like hollering about money. Would you like a few million?" asked Channing suddenly. ”

“ Johannson spoke to the doctor. "How're we doing?"
"Pretty well," said Doc. "There's as pretty an assortment of fractured limbs, broken ribs, cracked clavicles, and scars, mars, and abrasions as you ever saw. There are a number dead, worse luck, but we can't do a thing about them. We can hold on for a week as far as food and water goes. Everyone is now interested in the manner of our rescue rather than worrying about it." He turned to Channing. "The words Channing and Venus Equilateral have wonderful healing powers," he said. "They all think your gang are part magician and part sorcerer." ”