John Victor Peterson

“ Sosnowski's voice came from Hanford, "She's here now, Bob. I cut the AGS out and then back in and bingo!"
Elaine was behind him, sporting a Cossack hat.
"Elaine, I would—" I started. And stopped. She wasn't there.
"Du bist wunderschon," a guttural voice proclaimed.
I swung to the Munich monitor. I didn't need a translation. Elaine was there and making an impression. She swapped the Cossack hat for a Tyrolean one which a grinning Bavarian had been wearing—and vanished.
"Elle est ici!" a nasal tenor said. "C'est la Sorbonne ou elle est. C'est DuBois qui parle. Ma foi! ”

“ The face became human.
"But what can you know about Elaine? You're in Wisconsin, aren't you?" And, at my nod, "Well, she vanished from here when we activated HOAGS. Don't—don't tell me—"
"Yes, she was here," I said. "Just a few minutes ago. Said that HOAGS exploded."
His twitching brows drew down. "It didn't explode. There was a defect in the ring and particles of anti-matter we haven't yet named escaped. That was just before we missed Elaine! Now, Mitchell, are you sure she was there? Can you describe her?" ”

“ I cried. "Someone's not playing fair! In the last few minutes, Miss Schoener has been in Siberia, in Hanford, Washington, U.S.A., in Munich, Germany, and in Paris. This—"
"She's back again!" Sosnowski cried from Hanford.
I swung to the Hanford screen. "Ted," I said, "stop switching the AGS off and on. It could be dangerous. The gauss level might even bring her to critical mass. You're playing with something we know little about."
Sosnowski rolled his eyes from the screen to Elaine. "Brother," he said, "this girl's always near critical mass! ”

“ There were other data: times of vanishment; durations of presence here and at Phoenix; the fact that the parka had gone with Elaine from here to Phoenix but had remained at Phoenix upon her vanishment there—
"She's drawn to an AGS unit upon its activation," Benson said. That was already obvious to me but I didn't say so; Al Benson keeps his computer pretty high up on a throne. He went on, "Your parka came here with Elaine because it had picked up some manner of static charge from her. ”

“ I knew what HOAGS had been intended to do: guide streams of particles in a chainlike pattern through the influence of magnetic fields of alternating direction so that head-on collisions of particles would result. Theoretically this should yield energies as enormous as the satellites reported present in cosmic radiation in space. ”

“ When the United Nations finally established worldwide atomic control three years ago—in '65—it created the Atomic Control Monitor Establishment at its New York Headquarters with an Alternate installation here near Racine. Piecing together most of the capitals, the alternate set-up comes out UNACMEA. The WAGS, of course, is easy. W for Wisconsin. AGS for Alternating Gradient Synchrotron.
Everyone knows what an AGS is from the publicity given to the 25-Bev unit which went in at Brookhaven National Laboratories back in the International Geophysical Year. ”

“ D. philanderings, during which Elaine's loveliness appeared briefly on the monitor screens for Paris, Leeds, Brussels, Hanford, Stockholm, Paris, Hanford, Phoenix, Munich, Hanford, Atomsk, Tokyo, Hanford, Madrid, Paris, Hanford, Paris, Hanford, Paris, Hanford—
"Sosnowski!" I cried, "and you, too, Monsieur DuBois! Stop! Arretez! Don't do it any more! Ne faites-le plus!"
The situation continued to pingpong. Hanford to Paris to Hanford to Paris.
Sosnowski said (while Monsieur DuBois was ardently proposing to Elaine at the Sorbonne) , "I sincerely wish to marry the girl, Bob." ”