A large anthology of sci.., p.226
A Large Anthology of Science Fiction, page 226
But Jeff North had already caught sight of the girl with long, dark hair, and delicate, smiling features. His heart beating as wildly as it ever had, he was walking toward her.
“Every man to his pleasure,” Captain Finley said, beaming.
“You know,” Raleigh said, an indulgent frown on his face, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he planned the whole thing just so he could get to see that girl again!”
THE RAY THAT FAILED
Albert Bernstein
Not even the genie of Aladdin’s lamp could do the things this strange atomic ray accomplished . . .
I WAS reading in the paper how these four bandits held up the bank in Herrington, which is just a hundred miles from our town, when all of a sudden my father called me.
“Horace,” he yelled, “come into the backyard!”
His voice was raised high with excitement, just like it always was when he’d invented something or other, so I knew I was in for another of those half hour lectures on how a pile of junk worked. I threw down the paper and unfolded my lanky frame from the couch upon which I had been comfortably reclining, and shuffled out of the back door into the yard.
“What is it now?” I inquired grumpily. Then I gasped.
There was a cigar-shaped contraption resting right in mother’s flower garden. It was about four feet high and ten feet long, made of metal, and it had a lot of big pipes running from what was evidently the front of the thing to the rear. Father pointed at the contraption proudly as he looked at me.
“Well, what do you think of it?” he asked. The little white hairs on the top of his head moved gently in a slow breeze.
“First, tell me what it is,” I begged.
“That’s a space ship,” father stated in a definite tone of voice.
I was absolutely flabbergasted. This was a little too much. No, this was a lot too much.
“Space ship!” I scoffed. “There aren’t any yet! Anyway, where did you get this—this thing?”
Father pointed to a box at his feet. It was a black box of wooden construction, crowded with queerly shaped tubes and wires and spare parts. One end of the brainchild protruded slightly, giving it a kind of camera appearance.
Father said: “I made the space ship out of our old Buick.” I kept my mouth shut. “You see,” he continued, “this invention of mine gives out energy rays that infiltrate instantly into whatever object I point it at. Son, with this invention I can transform any object into any other sort of object I choose!”
I still kept my mouth shut.
“First I reflect the energy rays off a sketch or photograph of the thing I want to make. These rays bounce off the picture like gamma rays. When they hit a mass of material—that is to say, a complete atomic unit—they cause that object to assume the form and substance of the reflected picture!
“Instead of just an image being formed, as in the case of the projection of films on a silver screen, these streams of reflected energy ‘bombard’ the selected object into the exact likeness of the picture. Er—is that clear?”
“Father,” I murmured, “I shan’t follow in your footsteps.”
There was a sort of sliding door on the freak space ship, and in half a second father had slipped inside. He turned some switches and a lot of fire and black smoke shot from the pipes. But the ship didn’t do more than shudder a little.
Finally, father stepped out. “It doesn’t work,” he admitted sadly.
“No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t. But how about the Buick, Father? That worked and I need it tonight. I’ve got a date.”
A gleam came into father’s eyes. “Son,” he said slowly, “how would you like a 1940 Cadillac?”
I stared at him unbelieving. “We can’t afford it,” I stated finally.
FATHER bent over and reached into the magic box that had all the peculiarly shaped tubes. From it he drew out a small picture. It was a sketch of the space ship. He put it in his pocket; and from the same pocket he drew out another picture. It was a miniature photograph of the newest and swankiest Cadillac. Then, before my goggling eyes he inserted this into the box. He pointed the protruding camera end of the contraption at the “space ship,” turned a switch and said,
“Watch!”
I watched. A minute passed; and then all of a sudden I noticed that the ship was losing its capsule shape. The body of the space machine was squirming around as though it were alive! Terrific waves of heat came from it, and almost animal grunts. One of those screwy metamorphoses was taking place! Three minutes later, a brand-new Cadillac rested where the space ship had stood![*]
Wordlessly, I climbed inside and pushed the starter switch. The motor purred smoothly as it came to life. Father climbed in beside me and I drove around the block. Neighbors gaped at us. Father sat up straight and proud, and so did I. Father chuckled:
“Wait until Sakanoff sees this. He’ll eat his heart out in envy. Drive down his street, Horace.”
So I drove slowly down Elmhurst Avenue. Sakanoff, who was the one enemy my father had—because Sakanoff, too, was an inventor!—came charging out of his house. I thought he would attempt to hide his envy, but he didn’t.
“Stop the car,” father instructed me as Sakanoff lumbered toward us. Sakanoff’s dark, heavy face was one mass of frowns.
“Oscar Wilbury!” he roared. “You didn’t buy that car with your own money, and don’t tell me you did!”
Father had a very mild expression on his face. Ever since Sakanoff had got the jump on him by inventing a vibration machine that could move heavy boxes around, father had been a little unhappy. Now he was having his revenge.
“No,” he admitted in answer to Sakanoff’s charge, “I didn’t buy it.” Then he exclaimed triumphantly: “I made it with this!” He patted the box with the tubes and wires and gadgets.
“I don’t believe it,” Sakanoff challenged. “Prove it!”
At this point I butted in. I said:
“Listen, you Cossack, if we produce another car like this one by tomorrow, will you take it off our hands for five hundred dollars?”
He gagged, then roared: “Yes!”
“All right,” I said. “Just have the money ready!”
I shifted to first and we drove away. Father was chuckling and enjoying the situation, but I knew there was work to be done. I let him off at the house and drove to the nearest car wrecking lot. I went up to a grimy individual and offered him a ten-spot for a rusty old wreck.
“Twenty,” this person stated, “and she’s yours.”
I acquiesced, and handed over the bills.
Half an hour later, father turned his ray on the dilapidated wreck. Four minutes later another 1940 Cadillac stood in its place!
THE very next morning father and I drove our second Cadillac over to Sakanoff’s home. Sakanoff’s face darkened, and he grew bewildered as I cheerfully offered him the car and asked for the five hundred smackers. But at five hundred bucks the car was a terrific bargain, and he knew it. But the triumphant expression on father’s round, innocent face evidently griped him. Father for once was not behind the eight-ball.
As we left with the five hundred I said:
“D’ya know, Father, we could go into business selling these cars and make a cool fortune.”
Father agreed. So we went over to the auto wrecking lot and had them tow five jallopies to our garage. Then swiftly we turned them into Cadillacs. I drove one to the front of the house. As I was pasting a sign on the windshield, announcing that the car could be had for five hundred dollars, a seedy-looking person wheezing on a cigarette strolled up to me.
“She’s a bargain, Mister,” I said. “We’re practically giving it away.”
The man let his little gray eyes roam over the lines of the Cadillac. Whether the sleek bus met his approval was impossible to tell from his inscrutable face. Finally, he muttered from the corner of his mouth:
“She’s pretty fast, eh?”
I warmed up. “Mister,” I said, “she’s so fast that she meets herself coming and going. She’s so fast that the running boards had to be removed, because otherwise she would fly.”
The stranger looked at her for a moment longer, then reached into his pocket and brought out a wad of bills. He peeled off five and handed them to me. Hundred dollar bills! I hid my amazement until he had driven away, then I dashed into the house to show my father and mother the money.
“Take it to the bank,” mother advised. “Before your father gets any more ideas.”
I did just that. Everything was taking on a rosy hue. But there was one thing father and I hadn’t figured on . . .
During the rest of the day, father and I had fun changing our outmoded radio set into a television receiver, our noisy refrigerator into a streamlined new one, our old furniture into brand new French period furniture. Mother took to bed early with a headache.
Next morning someone banged loudly on our front door. As I sleepily approached to answer, I heard Sakanoff’s booming voice raised in anger. I opened the door just as father came to my side. Sakanoff was bellowing to Sheriff Charlie Abbott and his dull-faced deputy. Then he caught sight of my father.
“Oscar Wilbury!” he roared. “You have swindled me out of five hundred dollars! I shall have you put in jail for this!”
“What . . . what?” father muttered, dazed.
Sakanoff bellowed: “That Cadillac you sold me has turned into a wreck! Before my eyes, it turned into a 1929 Nash!”
I gasped. Then I ran out to the garage. Two of the cars were still Cadillacs, but the other two had changed back into their former dilapidated state! As I reentered the house, father was pulling on his pants. He looked pathetically at me.
“Two of them,” I informed him, “are wrecks.”
FATHER passed a weary hand over his brow. He muttered:
“I guess the best the atomizator can do is to transform matter into a temporary state of change. As soon as the lines of energy lose their force, the matter tends to disintegrate into its previous form.”
“Uh-huh,” I said vaguely. I was horribly disappointed.
Sheriff Abbott intervened. “Give Sakanoff his five hundred dollars back and everything will be all right.” He impaled father with a jaundiced eye. “And that invention of yours: I think it’s illegal. Better bring it down to the station until I can find out whether it is or not!”
The sheriff and his deputy, Sakanoff, father and I crowded into the sheriff’s old car.
“I’ve got the money in the bank,” I told the law officer.
Sakanoff was leering at father’s invention and making sarcastic remarks, and father felt pretty bad about it all. So did I.
Sakanoff snarled: “That brainchild of yours couldn’t raise a blister!”
Father couldn’t say anything. Neither could I. Sheriff Abbott drove grouchily toward the bank. Then suddenly a shot blasted the quiet of the morning! Then another.
“The bank!” the sheriff exclaimed.
His foot jammed down on the gas and the old jallopy jumped forward. We rattled around a corner and came charging out on the main street and in sight of the bank. Three gangsters were just leaving the bank, money bags in one hand and guns in the other. A fourth killer was at the wheel of the car. The sheriff’s deputy drew a gun and shouted:
“Stop!”
A storm of bullets from the trio made him duck. Then the three were in the car and it was screaming away. Suddenly I gasped. For the car the bandits were in was a Cadillac—and one of the bandits was the man I had sold that car to yesterday!
I bleated the news to father, as Sheriff Abbott thrust out his jaw grimly and sent the old bus in pursuit of the bank robbers. Sakanoff reared up and waved his arms excitedly.
The sheriff yelled: “That must be the same gang that held up the Herrington bank!”
“Why, there’s a five thousand dollar reward for them!” I exclaimed.
Meanwhile, the Cadillac was drawing swiftly away. In two minutes the bandits were on the state road and increasing their lead. The sheriff’s jallopy couldn’t do more than forty miles, while the bandit car could do eighty without any trouble.
“We’ll never catch them!” Sakanoff groaned.
In a short while the Cadillac was almost out of sight. Suddenly, father snapped his fingers.
“Stop this car!” he yelled.
“You nuts?” Sheriff Abbott snapped, without turning his head.
Father pointed at his screwy black box.
“I know how to make this car go faster!” he shouted. “You haven’t anything to lose—you can’t catch them anyway!”
The sheriff jammed on the brakes and we swerved to a stop. Father reached into his pocket and brought out some pictures. Meanwhile, we all got hastily out of the rattletrap. I, of course, had an idea of what he was going to do, but the others didn’t. Yet none of us was taking any chances.
Father put a picture into the ray machine, pointed it at the old bus—and presto! The ancient jallopy began to twist and give off heat, and in a few minutes it had turned into a magnificent new Rolls-Royce I We piled into the Rolls-Royce and I took the wheel. Pretty soon I had her doing eighty-five. She was a lot faster than even the Cadillac.
The bandits came into sight in no time, and Sheriff Abbott and the deputy unlimbered their guns for action. When the Cadillac was about twenty-five yards away, the sheriff began shooting.
IMMEDIATELY the gangsters returned the fire. One bullet ploughed through the windshield.
“Let me out!” Sakanoff suddenly screeched. Then a front tire whistled and went flat. The steering wheel began to jump around under my hands, and I had to stop the car.
“Well, we lose!” I murmured. “We’ll never catch them now.”
The others slumped down disgustedly and glared at the disappearing Cadillac. In a minute the bandits would be out of sight. All at once father woke up.
“Look!” he shouted. We looked. The Cadillac was changing shape! It was turning back into the junk heap I’d got from the wrecking lot!
At the same time the bandits realized something was wrong, but too late As it collapsed into its former state, the once beautiful automobile began to fly apart. The old jallopy simply couldn’t take such extreme speeds. It swerved madly from one side of the road to the other, threatening to turn turtle. Finally, a wheel came off. The wreck turned over and over, and at last it slammed into a ditch, looking as though a demolition bomb had struck it.
Despite the punctured tire, I drove our Rolls-Royce to the bandit car.
Sheriff Abbott and his deputy jumped out with ready guns, but the four gangsters were sprawled out cold.
FATHER and I got two-fifths of the reward for capturing the killers. Sakanoff took his thousand without protest.
Father has never patented his invention. But he threatens more or less vaguely that he will.
“As soon as my atomizator can transform objects into—er—permanent shapes,” is his way of putting it.
Meanwhile, mother and I walk around with our fingers crossed.
[*] Perhaps this machine of Father’s performed the miracle of transformation by a sort of atomic “suggestion” fostered by the likeness of the picture. Since the original object was a motor car, the new car would have all the requisite parts to make it capable of operation, and each part would be the modernization of the original part, following the “suggestion” of the picture in its formation. Since the old auto body was a Buick body, the new suggestion of a Cadillac body would be followed out to its ultimate form by the rearranging of the atoms in the picture pattern. Similarly with the carburetor, naturally not visible in the photograph, but a part of the “suggestion” nevertheless. Thus, the new car is as capable of real performance as the old one.
EQUATION FOR TIME
R.R. Winterbotham
THERE is no one today who has seen a living horse. The creature became extinct a couple of centuries ago, about the year 2,800. Man, who betrayed the horse into what he became, hardly regretted the passing.
However, and I speak with all sincerity, there will be men of the future who will see a horse. Perhaps men of the future may ride horseback like knights and cowboys of the Middle Ages.
The secret of time travel has been discovered. No one has traveled through time as yet, although man has explored the universe for more than twenty light years from the sun. But the day of time travel is not far distant. It had simple beginnings. All great things began in simple ways. Newton and the apple were the beginnings of modern understanding of the laws of the physical world; Watts and the teakettle were the origins of industry and the machine age. A very beautiful young woman and an unscrupulous man were responsible for time travel.
I met the man early in the morning of July 2, 3002. I remember the date because on the day before I had visited in Alexandria, Egypt, and I had eaten dinner in Shanghai, China. It was nearly midnight when I reached the rocket port in Chicago and a jam in the pneumatics delayed my arrival home until nearly one o’clock in the morning.
Blake, fully dressed, met me at the door. There was a worried look in his eyes.
“There is a gentleman to see you, sir,” Blake said. “I explained that you would not return until quite late and I tried to get him to leave, but he said it was urgent that he see you the minute you returned.” Blake glanced over his shoulder toward the library and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I was a little frightened of him, sir. He doesn’t seem quite—ah—quite right, sir, if you know what I mean. Shall I call the police?”
“No, Blake.” I felt confident of licking my weight in madmen and I entered the library.
A tall, distinguished, dark haired gentleman rose to greet me.
“Ah! Dr. Huckins! I was afraid you would not get here in time!”
As he spoke I noticed a peculiar light in his eyes. It seemed to be a reflection from the fluorescent lamps of the library, but it showed a little too much of the whites of his eyes and I thought of what Blake had said about the man not being “quite right.”
