Randall Garrett

“ Granby asked. "No engines, no wings, no control surfaces. It's silly."
"Rocket motors in the rear, of course," said Feldstein. "He's converted the thing into a rocket."
"But the tail is closed," Granby objected. "There's no rocket orifice."
"Dummy cover, I imagine," Feldstein said. "Right, Mr. Porter?"
"Wrong," said Porter angrily. "The motive power is supplied by a mechanism of my own devising! It has nothing to do with rockets! It's as superior to rocket power as the electric motor is to the steam engine!" ”

“ Winstein eased himself off the corner of Elshawe's desk and stood up. "By the way—"
"Yeah?"
"Play it straight when you go out there. You're a reporter, looking for news; you haven't made any previous judgments."
Elshawe's pipe had gone out. He fired it up again with his desk lighter. "I don't want to be," he said between puffs, "too cagey. If he's got ... any brains ... he'll know it's ... a phony act ... if I overdo it." He snapped off the lighter and looked at his employer through a cloud of blue-gray smoke. "I mean, after all, he's on the records as being a crackpot. ”

“ At tremendous acceleration, Malcom Porter and Terrence Elshawe, your reporter, headed for Mars. Inside Porter's ship, there is no feeling of acceleration except for a steady, one-gee pull which makes the passenger feel as though he is on an ordinary airplane, even though the spaceship may be accelerating at more than a hundred gravities. ”

“ No. They know that there's no such thing as a gas with a lighter atomic weight than hydrogen. They know it so well that they wouldn't even bother to consider the idea.
"My invention is so far ahead of present-day scientific thought that no scientists except myself could have even considered the idea."
"O.K.; O.K.," Elshawe said. "So you're going to get yourself shot down to prove your point."
Porter grinned lopsidedly. "Not at all. You're still thinking in terms of a rocket. Sure—if I used a rocket, they'd knock me down fast, just as soon as I lifted above the mountains. ”

“ Take that stuff away. What's the idea of slugging me?"
"I was afraid you might not come willingly," Porter said apologetically. "I needed a witness, and I figured you'd do better than anyone else."
Elshawe tried to move and found that he was tied to the seat and strapped in with a safety belt. "What's this for?" he asked angrily. His jaw still hurt.
"I'll take that stuff off in a few minutes. I know I can trust you, but I want you to remember that I'm the only one who can pilot this ship. If you try anything funny, neither one of us will get back alive. ”

“ Elshawe said. "He claims to have this new drive, but he doesn't want anyone to go nosing around it. The Space Force colonel ... what's his name? ... Manetti, that's it. Manetti asked Porter why, if he had a new invention, he hadn't patented it. Porter said that he wasn't going to patent it because that would make it available to every Tom, Dick, and Harry—his very words—who wanted to build it. Porter insists that, since it's impossible to patent the discovery of a new natural law, he isn't going to give away his genius for nothing. ”

“ Skinner leaned forward earnestly. "Mr. Elshawe, who deserves credit for an invention? Who deserves the money?"
"Why ... why, the inventor, of course."
"The inventor? Or the man who gives it to humanity?"
"I ... don't quite follow you."
He leaned back in his chair again. "Mr. Elshawe, when I invented the Polarizer, I hadn't the remotest idea of what I'd invented. I taught general science in the high school Malcom Porter went to, and I had a lab in my basement. Porter was a pretty bright boy, and he liked to come around to my lab and watch me putter around. ”

“ Nature answers any questions you ask her if you ask her the right way. As soon as the Government sees that your spaceship works, they'll put some of their bright physicists to work on it, and you'll be in the same position as you would have been if you'd showed it to them in the first place. ”

“ Even the most objective of employees is likely to become biased one way or another if he thinks his boss is particularly enthusiastic about an idea. Winstein didn't want yes-men around him; he wanted men who could and would think. ”

“ To the particle itself? That's obvious nonsense. Therefore, what is commonly called 'inertia' is as much a property of so-called 'empty space' as it is a property of matter. My device simply utilizes spatial inertia by polarizing it against the matter inertia of the ship, that's all."
"Hm-m-m," said Elshawe. As far as his own knowledge of science went, that statement made no sense whatever. But the man's manner was persuasive. Talking to him, Elshawe began to have the feeling that Porter not only knew what he was talking about, but could actually do what he said he was going to do. ”

“ He had an income that exceeded a million dollars before taxes, and didn't need to worry about the dull details of making money. He formed a small corporation of his own, Porter Research Associates, and financed it with his own money. It ran deep in the red, but Porter didn't mind; Porter Research Associates was a hobby, not a business, and running at a deficit saved him plenty in taxes.
By the time he was twenty-five, he was known as a crackpot. He had a motley crew of technicians and scientists working for him—some with Ph.D.'s, some with a trade-school education. ”

“ He isn't going to let go of his invention until he gets credit for everything."
There was a long silence from the other end. After a minute, Elshawe said: "Ole? You there?"
"Oh. Yeah ... sure. Just thinking. Terry, what do you think of this whole thing? Does Porter have something?"
"Damned if I know. If I were in New York, I'd say he was a complete nut, but when I talk to him, I'm halfway convinced that he knows what he's talking about."
There was another long pause. This time, Elshawe waited. Finally, Oler Winstein said: "You think Porter's likely to do something drastic?" ”

“ Skinner continued, "I am ... well, rather a shy man. As soon as Malcom told me what the device would do when it was properly powered, I knew that there would be trouble. I am not a fighter, Mr. Elshawe. I have no desire to spend time in prison or be vilified in the news or called a crackpot by orthodox scientists. ”

“ Why risk your neck?"
Porter shook his head. "The analogy isn't valid. Suppose someone had invented the A-bomb in 1810. It would have been a perfectly safe secret because there wasn't a scientist on Earth who included such a thing as atomic energy in his philosophy. And, believe me, this drive of mine is just as far ahead of contemporary scientific philosophy as atomic energy was ahead of Napoleon's scientists. ”

“ When Elshawe got his equipment stowed away, Porter invited him to come out and take a look at his pride and joy.
"The first real spaceship, Elshawe," he said energetically. "The first real spaceship. The rocket is no more a spaceship than a rowboat is an ocean-going vessel." He gestured toward the sleek, shining, metal ship. "Of course, it's only a pilot model, you might say. I don't have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend ”

“ Porter continued, "but I'll risk that if I have to. But I won't risk death just yet. Don't worry; the Army won't know I'm even gone until I'm halfway to the Moon."
"Foo!" said Elshawe. "Every radar base from Albuquerque to the Mexican border has an antenna focused on the air above this ranch. The minute you get above those mountains, they'll have a fix on you, and a minute after that, they'll have you bracketed with Cobras.
"Why don't you let the Government inspectors look it over and give you an O.K.? What makes you think they're all out to steal your invention?" ”

“ Skinner brought in the coffee and then sat down, facing Elshawe, in another chair. "Now," he said bluntly, "what was that remark you made on the phone about showing up Malcom Porter as a phony? I understood that you actually went to Mars on his ship. Don't you believe the evidence of your own senses?" ”

“ Porter, I assure you that it doesn't matter what you're using to lift that thing. You could be using dynamite for all I care. The law says that it can't leave the ground unless it's airworthy. Without wings or control surfaces, it is obviously not airworthy. If it is not a rocket device, then it comes under the jurisdiction of the Civil Aeronautics Authority, and if you try to take off without our permission, you'll go to jail.
"If it is a rocket device, then it will be up to the Space Force to inspect it before take-off to make sure it is not dangerous. ”

“ It wasn't up to Porter to prove that it wasn't."
"Hey," Elshawe said in admiration, "that's pretty neat. I'm almost sorry it didn't work."
"Yeah. Trouble was that the Army had blown up the evidence. They knew it was a rocket, but they had to prove it. They had recordings of the radar picture, of course, and they used that to show the shape and acceleration of the missile. They proved that he'd bought an old obsolete Odin rocket from one of the small colleges in the Midwest—one that the Army had sold them as a demonstration model for their rocket engineering classes. ”

“ Sure it'll work. It worked in '79; it'll work now. The way that drive is built, it can't help but work. I just don't want to stick around and watch him get in trouble again, that's all."
Elshawe frowned. All the time that Porter had been in prison, his technicians had been getting together the stuff to build the so-called "spaceship," but none of them knew how it was put together or how it worked. Only Porter knew that, and he'd put it together after he'd been released on parole.
But if that was so, how come Skinner, who didn't even work for Porter, was so knowledgeable about the drive? ”

“ Seventy-two hours later, Terry Elshawe was in Silver City, talking to his boss over a long-distance line.
"... And that's the way it lines up, Ole. The CAA won't clear his ship for take-off, and the Space Force won't either. And if he tries it without the O.K. of both of them, he'll be right back in Alcatraz."
"He hasn't violated his parole yet, though?" Winstein's voice came distantly.
"No." Elshawe cursed the fact that he couldn't get a vision connection with New York. "But, the way he's acting, he's likely to. He's furious." ”

“ I don't have a degree, and I don't claim one. I don't want the public thinking I'm claiming to be something I'm not."
"I understand, Mr. Porter."
Bill Rodriguez's voice broke in. "Where do you want me to put all this stuff, Doc?" He had unloaded Elshawe's baggage from the station wagon and set it carefully on the ground. Skinner picked up his single suitcase and looked at Porter inquiringly.
"My usual room, Malcom?"
"Yeah. Sure, Sam; sure." As Skinner walked off toward one of the other buildings, Porter said: "Quite a load of baggage you have there, Mr. Elshawe. Recording equipment?" ”

“ After announcing that he would land on his New Mexico ranch, he did just that. As soon as he stepped out, a couple of dozen Government agents grabbed him. Violation of parole—he left the state without notifying his parole officer. But they couldn't touch me, and they knew it.
"Here's another bit of news for your personal information. A bomb went off inside the ship after it landed and blew the drive to smithereens. The only information is inside Porter's head. He's got the Government where the short hair grows." ”

“ Porter said bitterly. "Heaven's-to-Betsy no! But this invention of mine will mean that the United States of America will be in complete control of the planets and the space between. When the Government wants a piece of property, they try to buy it at their price; if they can't do that, they condemn it and pay the owner what they think it's worth—not what the owner thinks it's worth. The same thing applies here; they'd give me what they thought I ought to have—in ten years or so. Look what happened to Fermi.
"No, Elshawe ”

“ Elshawe?"
Elshawe just sat silently in the chair for long minutes, thinking. Skinner didn't interrupt; he simply waited patiently.
After about ten minutes, Elshawe put his pipe carefully on a nearby table and reached down to pick up his briefcase. He handed it to Skinner.
"Here. It contains all the evidence I have. Including, I might say, the recording of our conversation here. Just take the tape out of the minirecorder. A man like you deserves whatever reward he wants. Take it, Mr. Skinner." ”

“ I'll give you a transcript of the trial later; you'll have to read it for yourself to get the real flavor of it. The gist of it was that things had come to a pretty pass if a man could claim a scientific principle known only to himself as a defense against a crime. ”