Title: Booby prize
Author: Smith, George O. (George Oliver)
Language: English
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                              BOOBY PRIZE

                             a novelet by
                            GEORGE O. SMITH

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                 Thrilling Wonder Stories August 1953.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]



                                   I


Peter Mansfield waved a hand in a gesture that included the laboratory
inclusively and said, "I can't wait to turn it on."

Norma Higgins smiled up at him and said, "Peter, you're still a bit of
a breathless kid at heart, aren't you?"

Peter nodded boyishly. "Maybe I am," he admitted with a grin. "But
after a guy has worked and slaved for about five years, and then he
finally gets his job finished, it's tough to wait before he can try it
out."

"Just 'till tomorrow," said Norma softly. "It isn't so awfully long. In
the meantime, Peter, maybe we can think of the day after tomorrow and
the day after that?"

Peter Mansfield forgot the two equipments that were the focal points of
the laboratory and turned to the girl. Norma came into his arms with a
great amount of quiet enthusiasm. Her lithe young body pressed against
him, tempting him. Her lips were warm and eager. Then before he was
ready to let her go, Norma leaned back in his arms and asked softly,
"Why must we wait, Peter? Why not tonight? Right now?"

He shook his head unhappily. "No," he said stubbornly, "not until I can
look you in the eye."

Norma shrugged herself out of his arms--not angrily, but with enough
display of annoyance to let him understand that she thought his remark
entirely uncalled for. "You're a bit of a booby, Peter," she told him.
"We've been putting this off for four or five years just because you
are afraid of my bank book. You've been struggling like an overloaded
draft animal on an uphill drag just so you can prove to me that you've
got what it takes to support me. Darn it, Peter, I don't need to be
supported. And I could have helped you, you know, if you'd been less
stubborn. You could have hired help, you could have bought equipment,
you might have been finished sooner. But no. Is that--"

Peter Mansfield looked down at the floor. "Norma," he said plaintively,
"I couldn't let my wife support me. It isn't the way I was brought up."

       *       *       *       *       *

Norma moved into his arms again to show him that she was irritated but
not angry. "You're a sweet fool, Peter. But sometimes too much of a
fool and not as sweet as you might be." She kissed him quickly. "Let's
not beat the past to death. It's past. Let's hope for tomorrow. And why
not tonight? You're on the brink of success. Let's make it complete."

"I'd like to. But there's only one catch."

"A catch?"

Peter Mansfield nodded unhappily. "Don't you think for one moment that
I don't know your father's feelings. He poured money into this project
because you urged him to, not because he felt that I was a howling
success."

Norma laughed gently. "Peter, you'd take his money, so why not take
mine?"

Peter smiled grimly. "Because it is your father that I've got to face,
even more than you. Sure," he said with a bitter smile, "I could have
poured a million of your dollars down the drain and if I'd failed,
you'd have forgotten it. But I'd know that and maybe I'd have worked
less hard--"

"You? Nonsense."

"--but when it is a strictly business proposition, and I make a success
and hand your father the details of a paying proposition, then both
he--and me--and the rest of the world will know that I've got what it
takes, instead of having to lean financially on a wealthy wife."

"You'd think I was buying you like a puppy."

"I wonder if you might not have been trying to," he grunted.

"I won't even answer that," said Norma with a slight flare of anger.
"So suppose you show me what it has taken you five years to build."

Peter looked down at her and took a deep breath. He felt relieved. He
would prefer to spend the next twenty-four hours explaining his project
to someone who knew it rather well than to spend the next couple of
hours in the same futile argument they'd been engaged in for some time.

She smiled up at him. "Tell me more about your matter transmitter and
what your big problem was."

"Shucks," he grinned, "you know as much about it as I do."

"Not really. Oh, I've heard you expound for years but it still goes
over my head."

"You've studied about pair production, of course."

"I flunked. Even with your help I flunked."

He smiled slightly. "Pair production takes place when a gamma radiation
of the right energy passes close to a nucleus. The gamma radiation then
changes into an electron and a positron. Conversely, when an electron
and a positron collide, they produce a quantum of gamma radiation."

"This I know, but how and why?"

"How deep do you want to go into nuclear physics?"

"Not very. Just explain once more how pair production makes a matter
transmitter possible."

Peter said, "Not very long after pair production was found to be a
fact in cloud chamber photographs, the nuclear physicists began to
compute the energies that might be needed for pair production of
nuclear particles. If pair production took place between the lighter
particles, it should take place among the heavier particles providing
the gamma radiation was energetic enough. Sure enough, when they built
the super-accelerators, they found that they could produce proton pairs
and neutron pairs. Then someone caught sight of an alpha pair being
produced and that started the construction of the super-super colossal
accelerator, in which they caught the pair production of lithium
nuclei, and then beryllium, and then came a sprinkling of the next few
higher nuclear weights. They even got a couple of sodium nuclei from
the first attempts.

"Somewhere in here they discovered that each atom had its own resonant
frequency, and that if you bombarded the nucleus with that resonant
frequency the result would be half a pair's worth of resulting gamma."

"That's where I always get lost. First you bombard your junk with
gamma, and cause it to break up into more gamma, which doesn't seem
quite right."

       *       *       *       *       *

Peter laughed. "This is the easy part," he assured her. "The gamma
from my bombarder is absorbed in the production of the half-pair;
the resulting radiation can be sent in a tight beam by means of a
parabolic reflector, coated with one of the semi-conducting elements,
through which a rather high current is being passed. Otherwise the
radiation is so hard that it just goes through anything. When the tight
beam hits a second parabolic reflector of similar construction, the
hard gamma is focussed to an atomic point and the nucleus re-forms. In
other words, if I break up a nucleus of iron, for instance, into its
half-pair equivalent of hard gamma, when the radiation is focussed once
more, the radiation produces an iron nucleus."

"I'm still behind, but I probably never will catch up."

"Oh, there's a lot more to it than that," smiled Peter. "Mine is about
as simple and incomplete an explanation as you'll ever hear about
anything. Most of it is oversimplified to the point of being almost
incorrect, but to really explain takes knowledge of matrix mathematics
and the theory of nuclear determinants."

"Don't bother. Just go on."

Peter nodded. "The big problem," he said slowly, "was the development
of a scanning device. In order to reconstruct any object faithfully,
the reformed atom must reassemble in exactly the same relative
position. No one could ever do it mechanically. But a magnetic field
can bend the radiation if the field is strong and localized. The
trouble was in control. The atomic proportions are so minute that the
matter of a few micro-micro-amperes will cause success or failure.
Considering that the electromagnets carry several hundred amperes, the
variation of ten to the minus twelfth amperes is well-nigh impossible
to control. It took me five years, but now I've done it."

"And tomorrow?" asked Norma. "Tomorrow you are going to demonstrate
this to father."

"Uh-huh."

"And then the next day--?"

Peter Mansfield turned back to the girl with a strained smile. He
reached for her and she came into his arms with a smile that matched
his. "I'll bet you haven't heard a word I said."

"Yes I did. Most of it went over my head, but at least you've gotten it
out of your system. Now, Peter, take me dancing."

"I can't afford to."

"I can. And I'll pout and be disagreeable if you don't let me."

"Damn all headstrong women," grunted Peter. But he went, and after an
hour or so he relaxed.



                                  II


They came in a body at nine-thirty the next morning. Peter showed them
to chairs in the laboratory, but Walter Higgins remained standing.
"These are some of my Board of Directors," he said to Peter. "Meet
Mr. Harrison, Vice-President in charge of Engineering and Research
of Higgins Development Company. And this is Mr. Forsyth, Executive
Vice-President of Higgins Enterprises, Incorporated. Mr. Lewis,
Vice-President of the Higgins Industrial Trust. Mr. Thomason, of
Higgins and Thomason Investment Company. Gentlemen, this is the young
man of whom I spoke. I would have had you here before this, but there
was nothing much to see. And young Mr. Mansfield had nothing to say but
a lot of high-sounding explanation that none of us could understand.
However, he assures me that he is ready to demonstrate. This is true?"

Peter nodded. The collection of vice-presidents made him nervous. He
would have preferred that the first demonstration took place before
this rather public announcement. But he had been told rather firmly by
Walter Higgins that these were the men who were helping him pour money
into the matter transmitter, and so they had every right to see the
first demonstration.

"I'll explain how this works," he said, hoping that his voice would
gain strength as he went along. "In--"

"Don't bother," said Walter Higgins, waving the explanation aside with
a gesture of his cigar. The long ash held firm during the airy wave.
"None of us could follow it. Just show us how it works and maybe we can
grasp the explanation later, if we care to study that sort of thing.
I--"

He was interrupted by another arrival. Norma came in breathlessly and
asked, "Am I late?"

"Late!" stormed Walter Higgins. "You weren't invited."

"I invited myself."

"You were told not to come."

Father and daughter eyed one another like a pair of gladiators about to
gladiate. "I know," she said in a cheerful voice. "And it wouldn't be
the first time I did something I was told not to do, either."

"Your mother--"

"Mother wouldn't paddle my bottom either," she said. "In fact, mother
agreed with me that there was no reason why I shouldn't watch this
demonstration."

Walter Higgins sat down glowering. He shoved the long cigar in his
mouth and clamped down on it. He puffed vigorously and exhaled a cloud
of smoke. Whatever anger he felt was being taken out on the cigar.

"Am I late?" asked Norma.

"No," said Peter in an unhappy voice. He was upset. Walter Higgins had
backed this project grudgingly. He disliked the evidence of emotional
entanglement between his daughter and Peter Mansfield. And instead of
Norma Higgins playing it quiet and glossing over the old man's angry
attitude, Norma was practically shoving her interest in Mansfield into
her father's disapproving face.

"Get going," snapped Higgins from around his cigar.

       *       *       *       *       *

Peter swallowed a large lump. From the desk he picked up a cube of
metal. "This is a two inch cube of iron," he said shakily. "For the
first demonstration, I will convert the cube into its radiation
equivalent, send the radiation down the length of the laboratory, and
reassemble it at the receiving equipment down there. Once this has
been done, I have a number of other objects to transmit, in increasing
complexity. For instance, there is a pair of pliers to show that alloy
steels can be faithfully reproduced, and also that a moving joint can
be maintained. We have a cheap alarm clock to show that the energy
coiled in the mainspring can be transmitted without much loss, if any.
I'll have to determine any such losses later, gentlemen. Next we will
send a standard radio vacuum tube to show that not only can a whole
horde of elements and compounds be transmitted, but that a vacuum
can be maintained, even though the reconstruction takes place in the
presence of an atmosphere. Finally--"

"Let's see the first thing first," grunted Higgins impatiently.

Peter nodded and swallowed.

"This is the transmitter-end," he said. "The thick concrete wall is to
protect operator and spectators from the radiation that comes from my
bombardment. The receiving end needs no such shielding because all the
hard gamma that passes across the intervening space is of such a short
wavelength that it passes freely without any resonant absorption or
interception. Once the beam converges, all of the energy is used in
reconstructing the original atom. Ergo, no free radiation."

Peter sat down at the control desk. He fiddled with switches and dials
until meters read to his satisfaction. In a large plate glass mirror
hung above the shield, he and the visitors could see over the concrete
barrier.

[Illustration: Peter fiddled with switches and dials....]

From a block-shaped enclosure there came a thin pencil of bright blue
ionization. The line passed through the space between four large
magnet-windings and a circular focus-coil. The beam came to a sharp,
brilliant point an inch above the surface of a polished metal table.

"That is the prime focus," explained Peter. "It is at rest, but now I
start the sweep circuits."

He pressed one button and the point of focus became a horizontal line
while the converging beam changed from a true cone to a wedge-shaped
figure, circular in cross section at the magnet-assembly and
knife-edged above the table.

"Next, the vertical," said Peter. The wedge-shaped beam and the knife
edge changed to become a square of brightness above the table. The cone
of radiation became a transition-surface from circle to square as it
crossed the space between magnet and tabletop.

"Now the traverse." The square of brightness dimmed and spread out to
form a cube.

"We scan the volume like a three dimensional television raster,"
explained Peter. "Line after line moves down along a plane, and at
the bottom of each plane the raster starts again at the top of the
next plane." He eyed a couple of oscilloscope tubes critically.
"This equipment has never been in full operation before," he said.
"But it seems to be operating properly. So I will now put the first
object--this cube of iron--on the transmitting table and send it out
across the laboratory to be reassembled."

Peter shut the whole thing off with a single snap and disappeared
around the edge of the shield. They saw him come into the enclosure
from behind; in the mirror above, they saw him place the block of iron
on the plate and set it very carefully. He left the shielded enclosure
and was back in the open room in another half minute.

"Now!" he said with a feeling of mounting excitement.

Peter pressed the button.

The blue bombardment hit the metal cube and there hazed out in all
directions an aura of pale ionization. From the centrix of this aureole
there fanned out a spreading cone of blue that faded to invisibility as
the spread reached the surface of the large parabolic reflector.

"The matter transmitter seems to be working perfectly," said Peter with
a careful reading of his meters.

Walter Higgins snorted. He waved his cigar toward the far end of the
laboratory. "How is your matter receiver doing?"

       *       *       *       *       *

It was hard to tell. It was quite a distance off and it was clouded
in a haze of light. From the parabolic reflector there converged a
cone of the same-looking blue ionization. The intensity grew until it
tortured the eye-ball. Above a small metal table was the focal point,
a volume of blue-violet light so bright that its outlines could not be
determined by the human eye.

"I should have provided dark glasses," said Peter apologetically. "But
I didn't know it would be that bright."

Walter Higgins turned to one of his visitors. "Forsyth," he ordered,
"Go out and get a dozen pair of dark sun-glasses. And hurry!"

"Yes, sir!"

Peter gulped. Higgins had just snapped an order to the executive
vice-president of one of his companies. Not a request, a flat order.
Forsyth disappeared in a hurry. Peter almost expected Higgins to take a
hundred from his wallet for petty cash, but Higgins was obviously going
to permit his executive vice-president to pay for the glasses himself.

Then the blue haze dimmed.

Down the laboratory the converging cone died. A bright yellow glow
remained on the table and a curl of dirty smoke rose. Peter led the
dash down the laboratory and got there just in time to see the last of
a small dusty pile of gray-black dust turn to thin ash. He poked at
the miserable pile with the end of a pencil and watched the dusty ash
collapse. He spread the ash around on the metal plate.

"Where," asked Walter Higgins in a sharp voice, "is your metal cube?"

Peter poked at the spreading pile of ash. "Here," he said in a shaken
voice. "This is--I don't--it must have--"

Mr. Harrison, the Vice-President In Charge Of Engineering and Research
of the Higgins Development Company elbowed his way through the small
group and picked up a pinch of the ash between thumb and forefinger. He
abraded it gently, felt of the texture. He sniffed it gingerly, put a
pinch in the palm of one hand and rubbed it with a forefinger.

"I would say offhand that this stuff is black iron oxide. Ferrous
oxide, caused by exposing the pyrophoric powder of iron to the oxygen
of the atmosphere," said the man, whose sometime engineering education
had not been entirely lost in his later preoccupation with financial
and administrative duties.

"Do go on," sneered Higgins.

"Well, from this demonstration I would say that Mr. Mansfield most
definitely did demonstrate the transmission of matter, or an equivalent
of the art," said Harrison firmly. "There was no iron here at the
beginning of the demonstration, there is now."

"You call that stuff iron?" snapped Higgins.

"It was. It was undoubtedly one of the forms of finely divided iron,
possibly monatomic from Mr. Mansfield's explanation. Of course,
monatomic iron will oxidize immediately unless protected by some
reducing atmosphere."

"A fine demonstration. We send a block of iron and receive a pile of
iron oxide."

"Ferrous oxide," said Harrison absently.

"What's the damned difference?" glowered Higgins.

Still absently, Harrison said, "Ferrous oxide is FeO, whereas there
are other forms, for instance ferric oxide, Fe_{2}O_{3}], and ferroso
oxide, Fe_{3}O_{4}]. Then--"

"Shut up!" snapped Higgins.

"Yes, sir."

"Have you got anything that won't burn?" asked Higgins of Peter
Mansfield.

"I have a couple of things. Say--how's about a glass paperweight?"

"Get going. Let's see it!"



                                  III


Peter got the paperweight and set the equipment going again just as
Forsyth returned with a dozen dark sun-glasses in leather cases. He had
bought the best that the finances of the vast Higgins holdings could
get without having them made especially. He took one pair from Forsyth
and looked at them before he put them on. They were the high-grade
jobs with polished lenses set in gold-filled frames; they cost about
fifteen dollars a pair, complete with leather case and a wisp of
chamois to keep them clean. They were coated-glass, and fifteen dollars
times twelve pair added up to a hundred and eighty bucks worth of what
Higgins would have called 'petty cash'! And Peter could not even afford
to take Norma Higgins dancing.

Peter Mansfield pressed the big button again and they watched the
receiving end intently. Through the dark glasses, they saw the focal
point of the receiver as a bright glow that (due to the retention of
vision) made a small vertical square plane come into being, to move
swiftly back across the table. It disappeared at the end of its
traverse. And from the swift-moving plane of bright blue radiance there
poured an ultra-fine silt.

Again, a small pyramid of palpable dust decorated the receiving table.

"Well, young man, how do you explain this?" stormed Higgins.

Harrison fingered the dust and said, "Indubitably, this is glass."

Higgins turned on the executive angrily. "Indubitably you are an
imbecile! It was glass. It is now a mass of worthless powder." He
turned on Mansfield again. "Maybe," he said cynically, "you'd like to
try my wrist watch?"

He held the watch out on his fingertips. It was platinum, exquisitely
tiny, and it had thirty-six jewels; twenty three in the works, twelve
diamonds in place of the hour-glass figures, and one in the hub of the
hands. On the back, although Peter could not see it, was an inscription
that said this was a gift from the board of directors in honor of ten
years of active financial machinations that had resulted in collecting
one of the largest economic empires in the world.

Peter backed away from the bauble. It had probably cost more money than
the total amount of money that Peter Mansfield had ever seen, handled,
or earned in the course of his thirty years of age.

"Afraid?" roared Higgins in a peal of sarcastic laughter.

"When I get this working," said Peter firmly, "I'll accept your offer,
Mr. Higgins. As it is--well--"

"As it is, try your damned cheap alarm clock!" snapped Higgins, putting
the watch back on his wrist and winding it ceremoniously. It did have
a self-winding movement, but the self-wind could be augmented by stem
winding if and when the watch was parked on a dresser for more than
forty-eight hours.

Peter looked unhappy. "There's no point--"

"I said try it! Who's paying for it?"

Peter shrugged. He put the dollar alarm clock on the transmitting
stand, fired up his equipment, and watched the receiver with a
sinking heart. As the transmitting plane passed through the clock, it
alternately puffed in a billow of bright glowing smoke, collapsed in
dull dimming flame, erupted again, and--Peter thought that it must have
been when the plane passed through the mainspring--hurled a streamer
of bright burning carbon and iron colored flame around and around in
a tiny circle like a firework pinwheel. Something should have gone
'_spang!_' when a shapeless blob of scintillation arched through
the air like a miniature skyrocket, to die before it hit the floor.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was copper in the clock, alloyed as brass, that burned bright
green. There was carbon and there was iron and there was nickel and
there was a chromium colored flame as the trim hit the air. It was a
fine pyrotechnic display, and that which did not burn as a monatomic
element in air powdered the receiver plate as the same mixed powder.
The powder had lumps this time when elements with an affinity for one
another combined on the plate.

Higgins strode down the length of the room, picked up a small handfull
of the mixed dust and turned to Mr. Harrison. He hurled the dust at the
man and snarled, "I suppose this pile of garbage is an alarm clock?"

Harrison wiped his face. "It was once," he said.

"Carthage was a city before the Romans burned it," snarled Higgins
angrily. "And this--" he hurled the butt of his cigar on the laboratory
floor, "--was once a cigar. Bah! Matter transmitter!"

Harrison shook his head. "Don't blame me for Mansfield's failure," he
said slowly. "He's missed something, somewhere. The fact remains that
Mansfield has succeeded in transmitting matter, no matter how it comes
out."

"Yeah," sneered Higgins scornfully. "But this pile of original dust
isn't what we were paying for. So what's he missed but the main point
of the whole experiment? All Mansfield's done is to do on a large scale
what they did fifty years ago. Reduced an atom to radiation and then
caused the radiation to reduce back into the original atom. Mansfield
just did it with a pound of matter instead of a millimicrogram in a
cloud chamber."

"But Mr. Higgins," said Peter hopefully, "doesn't the fact that I did
transmit matter prove that the project is feasible? All I have to do
now is to discover the way of transmitting whatever field of force or
basic energy is required to maintain the original form of the object.
Whatever binding energy holds the atoms together, one to the next, to
create the whole object."

"Do go on."

"Nothing was ever invented in a hurry. I've shown my original premise
to be true--"

"Hell's eternal bells! They did that fifty years ago. You've just added
a useless scanner and a couple of parabolic reflectors."

"But remember that this is the first demonstration. I admit that I
thought that I had it licked. But now that I know there's something
missing, I can devote time to--"

"Time you can devote, but no more of the Higgins bankroll."

"Peter," said Norma Higgins, softly, "I--"

"And you won't either, young woman!"

"You can't--!"

"The hell I can't! Thomason! You will see that Miss Higgins' drawing
account is limited to one hundred dollars per week until further
notice!"

"Yes sir."

"And that, young lady, is hardly enough to keep you in nylons."

"Dad! You couldn't!"

"I've just done it. Now, gentlemen, let's leave this sorry
demonstration. We've got work to do."

Higgins strode out with his sycophants following.

Norma looked downcast. "Peter?" she asked.

"What can I say?" he replied. "I've tried and I've failed." He swiped
his hand across the receiving table and came up with a handful of the
impalpable dust. He fingered it in the palm of his hand, pushing some
of the powder over the edge. It fell towards the floor in a cloud but
did not drop; it filtered down more like a heavy gas, diffusing and
spreading and being held in midair by the motion of the atmosphere. Now
and then a microscopic flash of light came as a mote of it burned.

"There," he said bitterly, "falls the ashes of my future."

Norma blinked back sympathetic tears.

"Peter, you must have read that line in a mellerdrammer," she said in
an attempt at levity that fell flat.

"Maybe so," he told her. "But this is where I stop."

"Peter, you've got to continue!"

"How?"

"I--" Norma stopped. "Peter," she asked gently, "If I can outmaneuver
daddy, would you let me help?"

       *       *       *       *       *

He looked down at her. There was a sting in his eyes and he knew that
if he weren't careful, tears would form and spill down his cheeks. He
couldn't speak, but Norma said it for him.

"Peter, you've got faith in this thing. Why can't you let me have some,
too? I've got faith in you, Peter. I admire your determination, I like
your mind. No man could have done what you've done--"

"Done?" he exploded bitterly, "All I've done is to make an imbecile of
myself."

Norma reached up and put a gentle hand on his mouth. "You've faith in
yourself, I've got faith in you. Now, will you let me help?"

Slowly he shook his head.

"Peter! You fool. You and your cockeyed sense of social values. Don't
you see that no matter what, no matter how widely separated two people
are at the beginning and no matter in what way, they can be happy
together only if each brings something that the other needs and has not
got?"

"That's just book--"

Norma clung to him for a moment. "Peter, listen to me. You have the
completely crazy notion that you want to hand me the world on a silver
plate. I don't want the material world on any kind of plate. I've had
everything I've wanted ever since I could point at things in store
windows. You seem to think my sense of value is determined by the
number of dollars available. It isn't. I--"

"You'll have precious little money once your father puts a close rein
on the cashbox," said Peter harshly.

"I can circumvent father," said Norma angrily. "My problem is
circumventing that warped thing you call your pride. Peter, I can bring
to you a good deal more than the temporal finances you need to make
this project a success; and in turn you can give me what I've been
seeking."

"What--?"

"I want a man," she cried. "Not any man. Not a man who wines
and dines me with one eye on my bankbook, or one of my social
contemporaries whose family finances obviate his avarice but whose
family finances also take all ambition away from him. I--you emotional
adolescent--happen to want you. On any terms."

Peter put an arm around her waist and then took it away fast. The film
of monatomic dust from his hand made a shadowy print on her dress. He
started to brush it off.

"You and your distorted set of economic values," she laughed. She
scooped up a handful of the dust and rubbed it in his hair, then
started to run her fingers through it. She obviously got amusement out
of this. Norma scooped up another film of dust and sprinkled it on the
front of her dress. "Dust _that_ off, Peter," she said. "Dare you!"

Peter blushed.

Norma wailed, "Peter, are you actually afraid to touch me?"

He couldn't reply.

Angrily, Norma stepped back and said, "How much will you take for a
caress?"

"You--" he choked up, unable to compete with her swift change in
emotions.

She changed again. She came forward into his arms and held him
close. "Peter," she breathed, "once you told me that the job of
any man involved in any of the sciences was at least ninety-eight
percent frustration. So many things that never work. So the job of a
scientist's wife must be to smooth over those frustrations. To keep
him in action. To keep him getting up every morning with determination
to go out and tackle the job that licked him yesterday. And the man's
response must be that when he is happy, his wife can share his success.
Now, can I help?"

He looked down at her. There were tears hanging on the brim of her
large eyes, her body was soft and clinging, as though she were afraid
to let go. He looked at her and he knew that he was a man who had lost
his pride because he was at last willing to accept help from any source.

"Yes," he said in a strained voice.

Norma's body throbbed with new vitality, although the tears she had
been holding back suddenly welled out and came streaming down. She held
him close and gave him her lips for a long time. She kissed away his
own hurt and his own failure and in turn regained her own happy dream
of future. Then they parted very gently and were not quite willing to
look one another in the eye.

"I've got to run," she said at last. She shook her head unhappily.
"I've got to go and get a few things done before dad can pull the
string."

"I--"

"It's my worry and I'll do the worrying," she said firmly. "Your job
is to go back to work and see what you missed in this doodad. Promise?"

"I--"

Norma's tears dried up swiftly. "We're a fine combination so long as we
both let each other do his own particular job," she said, catching his
hand and holding it tight. "You make with the mechanics and I'll make
with the finances, and if we can both do those at the same time, we'll
have time between to make love. But I've got to get going, Peter."

He watched her go.

Then he turned back to his equipment. He felt like kicking the
bombarder, but he knew that the block of concrete that shielded the
bombarder would protect the instrument; in fact, the concrete was
probably harder than the device itself. He would only hurt himself by
such a show of childish anger.

He considered the whole gear analytically. Something was missing. The
binding force that connected atom to atom and molecule to molecule had
not been properly transmitted.



                                  IV


In the days that followed, Peter Mansfield re-read all the books he
could find on binding energies. He studied meson theory and he computed
packing fraction energies. He bombarded elements as pure as he could
find, and he measured the resultant gamma radiation as close as he
could measure it. Something was missing, all right. The binding force
radiated off in a random pattern that he could not collect and direct
through his parabolic reflector. Neutrinos were spinning off at any odd
angle; positron holes sucked in corrective energies; he even detected
the evanescent negatron as it came into being and dissipated in a gout
of annihilation energy.

He caught what looked like the evidence of the proposed but never
detected anti-neutron, although he himself was far from sure just how
anything could consist of factors which were opposite to zero charge
and positive mass. He looked into the abstract often, and at one period
he tried to reconcile the rather high-altitude suggestion that the
positron, the positive electron, was equivalent to the usual electron
traveling backwards in time. All the math available said that there
was no way of telling one concept from the other; that the effects of
a positron would be the same as the effect of an electron in reversed
timefield. This completely abstract concept also covered the negatron
and the anti-neutron.

Peter abandoned the concept of nuclear time fields and picked up
the meson theory. He studied spin and angular momentum and tried to
correlate the energies involved in spin and binding forces.

He got into crystallography and into the lattice structure of regular
crystalline masses and into the theory of amorphous substances. His
trail led him through the study of distorted crystalline structure and
semi-fractured crystalline regeneration. At one time he found himself
absorbed in a study of machining versus coining and although he knew
why and how a rolled, or coined, screw thread was stronger than a cut
thread, he read the whole article again and got new hope from it.

Peter sent many things through his equipment, which he now called his
"Matter Reducer" and he studied the results analytically.

He was busy; he was completely occupied from awakening to bedtime, and
in order to take his next important step forward, Peter cut down on his
sleeping time. He worked and he studied almost eighteen hours a day. He
ate with one hand and used the other to turn the pages of his books;
sometimes he did not eat. He existed on cans of soup and loaves of
sliced bread because they took little time to prepare. He consumed jars
of peanut butter and crackers by the package. Now and then he would
take time off to munch an apple, taking time off because apple juice
made it rather awkward to handle a book at the same time. He shaved
when his face became uncomfortable; although he bathed regularly, most
of the bathing was a case of shocking himself awake after too little
sleep by a deluge of water. Now and then he would go to sleep with his
book on his lap, to wake up a few hours later and resume his study.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was ten days before he realized that he had not seen Norma since
their last parting, and even this he did not realize until she came to
his laboratory and found him haggard from loss of sleep and thin from
overwork and undereating.

Norma herself was a bit haggard. But she brightened when she saw Peter.
She came in softly and happily and kissed him sweetly. He held her with
the clutch of a man submersed in the troubles of the world, hanging on
to a sweet fragment of sanity. Norma responded to him for a minute and
then put him back gently. She dropped into a chair opposite him and put
her head back listlessly.

"Been rough," she said.

"Rough?" he growled. Somehow he could not grasp the notion that
anything could be rough to a person who had money, either potential or
actual, at the fingertips. Rough to Peter Mansfield meant the constant
search for a factor that he could not fathom.

"Pappy is a smooth, sharp operator," said Norma. "He's been
manipulating strings, people, and corporations so long that he does
it naturally. He and that lily-livered investment genius of his cut
off my drawing account like turning off a water faucet, but they
couldn't block my handling of my own personal stock. I took a flier in
the market, Peter, before they got there. In fact," she chuckled, "I
knew what they'd do, so I started to sell short before they got into
the game. Then, the pair of scheming scoundrels didn't cheat fair."
Norma's smile faded into anger. "Instead of running the stock down so
I'd take a large loss, they bought like madmen and made it rise so I
had to damn near lose my scanties covering my short sale. I almost
got even by dumping the block of one stock, and it must've cost pappy
plenty. A hell of a lot more than just tossing the money away. But I
did get out with a half-million or so. Peter, will you take it--for me?
For--us?"

"But--what does that leave you with?"

Norma got up out of her seat and came across the small room to snuggle
down in his lap. "It leaves me with a hundred bucks a week--and you.
I'll give up the hundred a week for you every hour of the day and
night."

He had to grin. "Bad bet, darling. I'm no closer to being a howling
success than I was a couple of weeks ago."

She kissed him generously. "I'd rather have you as my failure than see
you as someone else's success."

"Dog in the manger."

"Don't you call me a b--!" she reddened.

Peter laughed. His laughter felt good inside of him, and he found a
corner of his mind wondering why. He did not realize that he had been
working much too hard, that his overworked brain and nervous system was
almost in a state bordering on hysteria. His whole system was crying
for relief, and he would have laughed like a madman at spectacles that
his normal attitude would have considered banal. His mind was tired,
far more exhausted than the body that sat there expending its energy in
reading and studying and turning the pages of a book. A bit of physical
effort--a _lot_ of physical effort--was needed to maintain his
healthy balance. Norma squirmed into a more comfortable position and
Peter's body recognized the probable avenue of physical expenditure and
responded vigorously. In fact, his mind (the subconscious side) saw
the possibility of taking a rest while the physical went to work and
urged him to grab the chance. His conscious mind objected mildly and
then went to sleep, so far as any guardianship of his morals and pride
were concerned. Peter relaxed with Norma in his arms and enjoyed the
pleasant sensation of not giving a purple damn about anything but the
high probability of gaining that soft, floating-on-nothing sensation
that comes with complete surfeit of all energy.

He sought her mouth and floated.

His mind was a dizzy maelstrom, lucid at times when he recognized her
presence, completely foggy at other times when he half-dozed, at which
time he dreamed bizarre dreams about strange doors opening and wet
flagstone walks that led in aimless courses through formal gardens.
When his consciousness came up again he wondered what the symbolism
meant but he was too tired to figure it out. Eventually he slept deep
and long.

       *       *       *       *       *

He awoke to bright daylight streaming through the windows of his room.
He wondered how he had managed to cover the couple of hundred feet from
the bookshelf in the laboratory to the studio couch in the back room,
and then he came a bit more alive and remembered Norma. Had she--?

"Awake, Peter?" she called from the doorway.

He fumbled for an answer, not only to her question because he was not
sure, but also to the more important question that he posed for his own
mind.

"Ah--er--"

"You're a sleepyhead. A hell of a fine lover you are." Norma laughed.
"I come to give you a half-million bucks, and all I ask is that you
pay attention to me. What do you do? You accept my half-million in a
half-conscious manner and then you go to sleep."

"Norma, I--"

"Peter," she said sternly, "for five hundred thousand clams, the least
a girl should have to do is defend her honor. If my old broken-down
honor isn't worth a half-million, I'll give the damn thing away. So
there!"

Peter stretched in a luxurious yawn; he realized that he hadn't felt
so good for a rather long time. He grinned at her. "Look," he said.
"You've got this thing all wrong. It's the wolfish male that turns the
virgin's head with the half-million and tries to violate her honor.
Not--"

"Buster, shut up. You went to sleep, remember?"

He sat up in bed abruptly. "Norma--I didn't--?"

"No, dammit, you didn't. You went, dammit, to sleep instead. If I,
dammit, hadn't gotten tired and hungry waiting for you to sleep
it off, I'd not have started to brew breakfast. Now, dammit, that
I've constructed coffee; ham and eggs, and orange juice in self
preservation, you'll wait. So help me."

Peter grinned. "Can't I, dammit, have both?"

She blew a stray wisp of hair out of her eyes.

"First things first. First you'll eat, to build up your strength. After
that, if you can keep your nose out of a book, we'll see about the
rest. Now--"

The doorbell rang like the sounding of a fire warning. It made both of
them jump. The ringing was followed by a heavy fist beating on a panel
of the door.

"I don't know what this is all about," said Peter. "But I don't like
that official-sounding method of attack." He climbed out of the studio
couch, blushed when he realized that he was clad in his shorts and
wristwatch and realized that he may or may not have undressed, probably
not.

"In there," he said, pointing at a side room. "And if someone touches
that doorknob, you go out through the back door but fast!"

"Yes, Peter," said Norma. She lifted her face and responded to his
brief kiss with a vigor that left him pleasantly wobbly at the knees.
But Norma was well concealed by the time Peter opened the door for Mr.
Forsyth, the Executive Vice-President of Everything Else and another
character, the latter of vast muscular proportions.

"Ah, Mr. Mansfield. I hoped you'd be in. Have you time to consult with
us?"

"A bit," said Peter uncertainly. The size of Forsyth's associate
removed any and all notions of objection, either physical or verbal
impertinence. He stood aside and let them enter.

"This is a rather unique place you have here," observed Forsyth, eyeing
the laboratory in general.

       *       *       *       *       *

Peter nodded, wondering why Forsyth bothered to comment. He had been
there before and he had seen it all. He said, not because he wanted to
explain, but because Forsyth had left a very awkward silence that Peter
wanted filled, "Once, it was an automobile sales room. The last of the
big plush jobs. It had a ladies' powder room and a nursery to take care
of the kids whilst mother picked out the upholstery to match her dress,
a bar for father to half-anaesthetise himself in before he signed the
check, and concealed way back in the rear was a vast area filled with
repairmen and spare parts. It went idle after too many customers had
their crates worked on in the back. Sit down, Mr. Forsyth, and we'll
confer. What's on your mind?"

"Mr. Mansfield, I am here on a rather distressing mission."

"Distressing?"

"Indeed, and it pains me."

"I'll bet. So--?"

"You have, you must admit, failed to produce, you know."

Peter nodded slowly. "My first attempt was rather puny as a success.
However, I'd not call it a howling flop, Mr. Forsyth."

"Perhaps not, but you have not produced the answer or corrective
measures."

"These things take time. Research cannot be scheduled, no one can
stand off and state that at such-and-such a time, following x-number of
man hours of work, he will come up with some basic discovery."

"I must admit that you are probably right. However, I must point out
that you are not keeping your contract."

"Not keeping my contract?"

"You signed a contract to produce a matter transmitter for Mr. Higgins."

"Oh. Well, look, Mr. Forsyth, I was under the supposition that I would
be granted more time. After all, I did transmit matter, you know."

Mr. Forsyth nodded very slowly. "This I saw. Now, Mr. Mansfield, have
you been able to think up any logical, profitable use for your device
as it stands as of today?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Nothing?"

"No. At first I thought that perhaps the thing might be successful in
the preparation of finely divided powders. My trouble is that I've
divided them too finely. No one really wants a molecular or atomic
powder. Strange things happen. Elements that burn in air can be
collected in helium, then one of two things happens. Either the stuff
re-welds itself together again in a shapeless mass because of its own
internal atomic affinity for itself, or it burns as soon as you remove
the helium. I must admit that I am a failure so far. However, I do wish
to point out that nothing was ever done in a hurry and I feel confident
that--"

       *       *       *       *       *

Forsyth held up a hand to stem Peter's tongue. "The difficulty may lie
in the lack of a co-ordinated effort," said Forsyth.

"Co-ordinated effort? What do you mean?"

"The contract you signed to produce a matter transmitter also
stipulated that you were to be given free reign. You have hired no one
else to help, possibly in fear that someone might steal your ideas. Mr.
Higgins believes that this device should, at this point, be turned
over to a complete laboratory staff for study and eventual development."

"And what do I get out of it?" demanded Peter.

"You will be paid handsomely."

"How much?"

"As of this morning at nine-thirty, the Higgins Enterprises has
generously signed the tab for two million, three hundred and
thirty-five thousand, eight hundred and six dollars and fifty-five
cents," said Forsyth, consulting a small notebook. "As of one week ago
Thursday, your contract-time had expired without producing any form of
acceptable device for the wireless transmission of material objects.
The terms of your contract state that if you fail, you then become
liable for the entire financial backing."

Peter went white. "This is the way Higgins has collected just about
everything!" he stormed, jumping to his feet. Then Peter remembered
the strong, silent member of the duo, and subsided nervously. Mr.
Forsyth's large associate, however, had not moved a muscle. Peter had
to admit that his attitude indicated a complete self-assurance that his
battleship-mass was enough to prevent any uprising.

Peter went on less angrily, "This is no way to act. I've done my job
honestly and to the best of my ability, and therefore if I meet with a
setback, due to some factor that I couldn't foresee, then--"

"The point you name is the point we are trying to make," interrupted
Forsyth smoothly. "We wonder whether the 'best of your ability' is of
a caliber high enough to conquer the rather difficult task you set for
yourself."

"Now see here--"

"Please. We are not blaming you. Industry, science, and the very
foundation of civilization itself needs a proper proportion of
thinkers, dreamers, and men whose sights are set intolerably high.
These are the men who, like Einstein, propose abstract concepts, the
practical use of which is obscure. Sometimes for years and years. I am
certain that James Clerk Maxwell, for instance, had nothing financial
in mind when he proposed the mathematics that are the cornerstone of
radio and communications. Such may be the case with you, Mansfield."

Peter grunted. "Are you comparing me to Maxwell, Einstein and maybe B.
Franklin?" asked Peter scornfully.

"I am trying to. Maybe you deserve it, Mansfield. But you've got
to realize that we hardly feel it desirable to wait for another
half-hundred years before your discoveries here can be made financially
sound."

"Meaning?"

"We're back to this again. It is very simple. Perhaps you don't care
to face the facts, Mansfield. The facts are these: We admit that yours
is not a complete failure; that you have provided a basic concept
and a good spring-board from which to leap into possible engineering
and ultimate exploitation. Therefore, since your contract calls for
this development to remain in your complete control, we are willing
to barter. Sign us a waiver, Mr. Mansfield, and we will cancel our
contract without further exchange of considerations."

"Get it down to my level," growled Peter.

"Flatly stated, we are paying you better than two and a quarter million
for your efforts, ideas, and equipment to date."



                                   V


Peter eyed Forsyth thoughtfully. "If Higgins Enterprises is willing to
pay me that much, then someone must have some plans for the future," he
said slowly. "My answer is no!"

"Come now, Mr. Mansfield, you can't be as stubborn as that."

"I can and I am."

"Then you leave me with no recourse. Mr. Black, please--?"

The large man got out of his chair easily and came forward, reaching in
his inside pocket. "You are Peter Mansfield?"

"I--yes--?"

"Peter Mansfield, accept this court notification of judgment," said the
man called Black.

Peter, blankly, put out a hand and the process landed in the palm.
Black let go of it and Peter had it.

"Read it," urged Forsyth.

Peter opened it and skimmed down the first page. "For the benefit of my
thick head, maybe you'd better explain this in layman's terms."

"It merely states that due to your inability to comply with the terms
of your contract--namely to produce a device that will cause material
objects to be transmitted without handling, defined as a matter
transmitter, and more carefully outlined in the contract itself--you
are therefore declared in forfeit and the indemnity clause is being
enforced."

"Indemnity clause?"

"Yes, if I must repeat myself. It calls for the return, upon demand, of
all monies accountable, subject to a formal audit later."

Peter snorted. "Look," he said crossly, "if I'd had that couple of cold
million in the first place I'd not have bothered Higgins. So now you
expect me to write you a check for two million, three hundred and some
thousand? Or," he sneered bitterly, "would you prefer it in cash? One
dollar bills be all right, Mr. Forsyth? Or perhaps you prefer it in
tens?"

"Please, let's not be facetious. This is a serious matter."

"So? And what am I expected to do about it?" stormed Peter.

"You'll just have to comply with the orders of the court."

Peter eyed the large process server. "Do you know any law?" he asked
plaintively.

"Damn little. I'm no lawyer."

"Can anybody slap a sight-demand on anybody for a wad like this?"

"How should I know? Get a lawyer and ask him."

Peter eyed Forsyth. "Have you anything to say?" he demanded. "Is this a
sight-demand, and shall I call the newspapers and inform them that Boss
Higgins is taking another hunk of unprotected land for his empire?"

Forsyth smiled wolfishly. "You're impetuous, young man. Shows the
impatience of youth. Frankly, Mansfield, this is no illegal squeeze,
nor is it a legal squeeze. You have your alternatives, and you will be
granted a reasonable length of time to prepare and deliver an answer."

"And what does the court consider a reasonable length of time?"

"Ten days."

"And if I don't take your offer?"

Forsyth smiled. "You have no recourse. The court will insist upon an
equitable settlement. Higgins feels that a great amount of generosity
is being shown by merely writing 'paid in full' across your account
ledger in return for your lofty ideas, plans and dreams, including
this laboratory and its contents, with one more small proviso: That in
turning this project over to Higgins, you will agree not to go into
later competition."

"I'll see Higgins in--"

"I'd advise you to say nothing rash until you've thought it over."
Forsyth rose to go and the process server followed like a destroyer
screen.

Peter Mansfield let them go out unguided.

As the door slammed, Norma came in from the other room. He looked at
her unhappily. "Now what?" he said.

"I've still got some money, Peter."

       *       *       *       *       *

He nodded glumly. "At this moment I'd take it if it were enough. But
I'll not throw your offering down the hatch, Norma."

"Let 'em have this fool mess," she said angrily. "Let them take it and
welcome. I've still got enough to get by for a long time, and you can
always get another idea. We'll work together, Peter."

He shook his head. "I hate to think that your father and his bunch can
think up a use for this doodad while I can't."

Norma shook her head slowly. "He hasn't any use for it, Peter," she
said slowly.

"Nonsense! He wouldn't be trying to put the squeeze on if he really
thought it worthless."

"Yes he would. He would happily toss a couple of million in the sewer
just to prove to me that you aren't a capable operator."

"Maybe I'm not."

Norma came over, pushed him into his chair, and parked herself in his
lap. "Maybe you're not," she said softly. "Father always grades people
in terms of money. He forgets that his money can buy most anything but
brains, and those he feels that he can hire."

Peter grunted. "I've heard it said that nothing was ever useless.
Somewhere there's got to be a use for this gizmo, even in its imperfect
state."

"Can I help?"

Peter shook his head ruefully. He even essayed a sickly grin. "Sure,"
he said with a bitter laugh, "think up a use for a contraption that
eats coal and delivers lampblack divided so fine it oxidizes in air.
Water becomes a cloud of steam that condenses all over the place. I've
made nascent oxygen, hydrogen, and the like, but this is hardly a
problem these days, and the commercial companies have methods that do
not involve a super betatron that delivers enough gamma to disintegrate
atoms. I've considered it as a weapon, but what enemy would stand still
while you brought a thousand ton gravis up, set it in operation, and
went to work on him? You'd do better puncturing him to death with blunt
toothpicks."

"Peter--"

"Yes?"

"Don't be so bitter. You have ten days to think of something."

"Ten days? That's two hundred and thirty-odd thousands bucks per day
I've got to dig up to keep my hands on this project. Dammit, Norma,
I don't mind failure and frustration because I know that I can make
it work. Someday. I just hate to bring it this far and then lose it
forever."

"You mustn't!"

"No? Well, that's what I'm facing unless I can find some use for a
gizmo that takes in fabricated material and gives out with a mass of
the component atoms, molecules, and the resulting heat of recombination
of the primitive elements. I--"

Peter stopped and looked over Norma's shoulder. She wriggled around
to follow his gaze and found that he was staring wide-eyed at a blank
place on the wall. She turned back and blocked his stare with her own
face.

"Peter?"

"I just had a glimmer of an idea."

"From where?"

"From what I said last. Look, Norma, how much of that half-million have
you got with you?"

Norma looked bright. "All of it," she said.

"I mean cash."

"Yes." She got off Peter's lap and found her large handbag, and from
it Norma dumped out a rather awesome sheaf of greenbacks. Then she saw
Peter's jaw hanging at half mast.

He said dumbly, "You'd go wandering around with a half a million
dollars in cash in a handbag?"

"Why, er, why not? It's mine, isn't it?"

Perhaps it might not have been more than ten or fifteen minutes
earlier that Peter Mansfield might have been impressed. He might have
been forced to compare himself with the background of a girl who
took a half-million-worth of dollars in greenbacks--even fifty-cent
dollars--and stuffed them in a handbag. Peter had never seen a thousand
dollar bill; Norma had a wad of them, a batch of ten-thousands, and
two of the very rare fifty G type. Peter didn't even know who Salmon P.
Chase was, let alone recognize the venerable gentleman's engraving on
the fifty G.

But at this moment, Peter Mansfield was too busy with his own thoughts
to compare himself with Norma and wonder how a man who was strapped
to buy a good dinner could run in the company of a girl who thought
nothing of going around loaded high enough to endow a college library
wing, in cool cash.

"About five hundred," he said absently.

"Take a thousand," she said, handing him a bill.

He looked at it and laughed. "I should shove this under a ticket window
and ask for change?"

"Peter, tell me?"

He looked down at her cheerfully. "Nope," he said. "Not until you're
Mrs. Peter Mansfield."

Norma looked up, startled and hurt. "Peter!" she cried. Then what he
had said caught her in another way and she looked eager. "Peter," she
asked softly, "is this a proposal?"

He nodded. "We can do the deed on the way, and I'll tell you all about
it after I carry you across that threshold."

Norma laughed happily. "You'd best tell me between the Justice and the
honeymoon suite," she said. "You'll be too busy after that. Come on,
Peter, let's go!"

       *       *       *       *       *

It was exactly ten days later, almost precisely to the hour. The
laboratory had changed a bit, but not greatly. There were some
additions that couldn't possibly have been missed, but for the most
part, it looked the same.

But the stage had been set, the preparations had been made, and the
whole program had been concluded satisfactorily. It had almost been
rehearsed, and it might have been if the main characters had been
willing to rehearse. Or if they had known what was going on.

The doorbell rang and Peter grinned at his bride of ten days.

This time Forsyth was accompanied by Higgins and a couple of the
board of directors, introduced stiffly by Forsyth as a Mr. Barnett,
Vice-President In Charge of Legal Matters, and a Mr. Hammond, Assistant
To Mr. Barnett.

"Well, young man," coughed Mr. Higgins. "You've made up your mind?"

"I have," nodded Peter cheerfully. "But at the moment I am in the
middle of a rather interesting experiment. Have I your indulgence for
the next--" Peter eyed his watch "--sixteen minutes?"

Higgins snorted. "I suppose so," he said grudgingly. "If you've
anything practical to add to this mess, go right ahead, Mansfield."

Forsyth, who had been looking around the laboratory, spotted the new
additions. "What are those?" he asked.

Peter tapped one, a large cylindrical tank. "Hydrazine," he said,
patting it fondly on its flank. He pointed to the other, a bit too far
away to touch because of the size. "Nitric acid."

"What kind of fool experiment are you going to do?" demanded Higgins.
"I warn you, Mansfield--er, Mr. Barnett, you warn him about destruction
of property."

"Mr. Mansfield, I warn you that any attempt at the destruction of this
equipment or this property is illegal, inasmuch as a lien has been
placed upon it."

"What makes you think I'm going to destroy anything?" demanded Peter.

"Nitric acid? And what's that other stuff?"

"Hydrazine."

"Must be corrosive."

"Oh, definitely. But--" a buzzer buzzed and Peter turned from the
collection of vice-presidents and picked up a telephone near the
operator's table. "Mansfield," he said crisply. "Yes sir! We're all
ripe and ready!"

He pressed a button and a machine began to whir. Flow meters ran high
on their scales. Straining to keep the tangled jumble of heavy pipes
separated, they followed them with their eyes along the floor to where
the pipes disappeared behind the thick concrete shield.

Then in the mirror above, they saw the same pipes join. One, they
couldn't tell which one, expanded as the other curved to enter the
larger pipe. Nor could they tell whether the smaller pipe ended at the
wall of the larger or whether the smaller pipe went concentric inside
the larger for the remaining six feet of distance. All that was visible
was the vertical plane of Mansfield's matter transmitter and the end of
the pipe, pouring its two-foot cascade of evil-looking liquid at the
bright transmitting plane and disappearing.

       *       *       *       *       *

Automatically, they looked to the far end of the laboratory, but the
receiver was not there. The parabolic reflector of the transmitter, on
second look, was pointed in a new angle. Where, none of the visitors
could guess.

Peter eyed the meters and the flow gauges and nodded to himself.

"I've got a bit of time now," he said. "And it's also within your
granted sixteen minutes of grace, Mr. Higgins. So permit me to take
advantage of the quit-clause of our contract. I--put out your hand,
dammit!--deliver to you my certified check for two million, three
hundred thirty-five thousand, eight hundred and six dollars and
fifty-five cents."

"Where did you get this? Do you think you can palm off--"

"It's certified," said Peter quietly.

"It--now see here, Mansfield, you can't do this--"

"Yes I can, and I'll ask your Mr. Barnett to back me up. You slapped a
service on me, a notice that you were calling my contract in default.
The quit-clause states clearly that in case of default upon my part
that I have the alternative of reimbursing you in full within ten days
after the call for termination, or that I turn over to you everything
of value related to this contract, project, development, property and
future holding. I choose the first alternative. Like the looks of my
check?"

Higgins growled at the paper and went into a whispered consultation
with Barnett. Peter sauntered to his equipment and scanned the meters
and flow gauges casually. The humming machine had changed in pitch.
It sounded now like a machine laboring over a huge, basso-resonant
emptiness.

"Whatever you've done to earn this check," snapped Higgins, "will have
to be proved a development made by you subsequent to the service of
that termination notice. That is going to be tough. Men like you have
been known to arrange a flat and dismal failure just to discourage a
financier. You probably had this idea of yours in mind for a long time."

"I've got a reliable witness. A party you will find difficult to
impugn. My wife--your daughter--"

Higgins roared. His face got red, and then turned an ugly red-purple.
His voice croaked and choked into a whisper. And as he headed towards
an attack of apoplexy, Norma came into the room and said:

"If you so much as suggest that Peter had this idea in mind before he
did, I'll point out chapter and verse that you wilfully manipulated and
juggled the stock market, to strip me of funds. I'll attest to the fact
that Peter did plead with Forsyth to extend the contract. I'll announce
to the world that you've even accused my husband of being a kept man!"

"Then," snapped Higgins. "Explain how you came by this check?"

Peter eyed his equipment once more. The vast tanks were running out;
only a few hundred gallons were left in each.

"Sure," he said easily. "I don't mind. The Mansfield Matter Transmitter
couldn't send a housebrick across a yard of distance, but it isn't a
full failure. Hydrazine and Nitric Acid is the propellant for rockets.
The stuff reacts upon contact. So we send the propellant, being mixed,
across space to the reaction motor. There we win, because we can send
men across space, if we can't transmit a gold watch or a vacuum tube.
This is the Mansfield Mass Transmitter. No steps to drop, no mass-ratio
to worry about, no fuel tanks to carry. Follow?"

       *       *       *       *       *

A thousand miles to the East and five hundred miles in the sky, a
blow-torch flame wickered and died as the last traces of fuel was
sucked out of the tanks, hurled into the mass transmitter, and
delivered to the combustion chamber of a reaction motor, already mixed
and reacting. Peter shut off the equipment as the pumps clattered on a
diet of air.

A spaceman sat in the unused fuel tank of the third section of a three
stage rocket and fiddled lovingly with the mass-receiver. In a few
hours they'd be receiving a course-correcting blast of power. For the
present--

They had a hell of a lot of spare room.



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Booby prize" ***


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