A large anthology of sci.., p.339
A Large Anthology of Science Fiction, page 339
Strangely, the universe of super-space seemed almost identical with the universe of infra-space!
“Larger, larger, larger!” Spruce continued to drone; and as I watched I saw how those galaxies, composed of hundreds of millions of worlds, were receding into illimitable distance; and how they formed themselves into clusters, into super-galaxies, in each of which a conglomeration of millions or billions of worlds was no more than a mote of dust in a wind storm. And those super-galaxies themselves retreated, shining dim and ghostly against the background of night, until they, were mere specks amid vastly greater aggregations. And after a time, to my utter bewilderment, all those clusters of clusters of supergalaxies shrank until I saw no more than a single point of light whirling about an invisible center; and I heard the tones of Spruce, calm and composed as ever, “Behold, Clifton, an atom! All those galaxies of galaxies form but an atom in super-space! And that atom is but one of an inconceivable multitude comprising the worlds of super-space, so immeasurably vast that they must forever remain beyond range of our vision. To the creatures of those worlds, time moves so slowly that all the eons which have passed since the evolvement of the earth from the primal nebula would hardly be long enough for the winking of an eye. And all the universe that we can see with our most powerful telescopes is too minute for the lenses of their microscopes.”
“But how do you know all that, Spruce?” I demanded. “My God, how do you know all that?”
His speech was slow and measured, his smile undisturbed as ever as he replied, “I know it, Clifton, because it is the law—the law of relativity. I know it because my researches have demonstrated that the infinitely small is a reproduction of the infinitely great, and the infinitely great of the infinitely small. Universe within universe within universe is the basis of all creation.”
He still smiled in that tantalizingly serene manner, like one beyond hurt by man or circumstance. And gazing at that unruffled countenance, I was unable to decide whether Spruce were a hopeless lunatic, or the supreme scientist and discoverer of all time. In any case, remembering the worlds beyond worlds beyond worlds which he had revealed to me in infra-space and in super-space, I could understand why he was so boundlessly calm about the storms and upheavals and the personal incidents of this unthinkably tiny fragment of reality that calls itself the earth.
* * *
I still felt much the same a month later, when I learned one day that Spruce had been found dead in his rooms, the victim of a heart attack. I was not really disturbed for his sake, for I knew that he was a free man at last, free to enter those awe-inspiring realms which his spirit had roamed even while his body dwelt on earth. There was, however, one respect in which I did feel regret. Despite the pains he had taken to show me the wonders of the Universe Ranger, he had forgotten to reveal the secrets of its operation to me or anyone else—perhaps only a natural lapse of memory in one whose mind dwelt in the vastnesses among the sub-atoms and the super-galaxies. The Universe Ranger was indeed still present, but it was a mere blind machine, which no one could warm into action. For days we pondered over it and experimented with it in vain; for days we searched among Spruce’s papers, but all that we could find were some illegible scrawls—some formulae and symbols that no one thus far has been able to decipher.
But we have not yet given up. We still hope that some lucky clue will sometime reward the seekers; and when that hour comes, the Universe Ranger will again make its spectacular revelations, and the gulfs of the infinitesimal and the peaks of the infinite will once more become visible to earthly eyes.
THE FATAL TECHNICALITY
Rog Phillips
Jurisprudence no longer was in the hands of a fallible judge—it was in the mind of a robot brain, rendered to the letter!
THE ringing of the car telephone brought George out of the depths of his morose thoughts enough to enable him to reach out and pluck the phone from its spring holders and lift it to his ear. The mechanical voice that sounded over it only served to send him deeper into gloom, though.
“You are found guilty of traffic violations,” the voice said. “Pull over to the curb and wait for the arresting officer to arrive. Not obeying this order will result in prison confinement upon apprehension.”
George was careful not to express his feelings vocally until he had shoved the phone back into its holder.
“Darn this mechanized traffic supervision,” he said bitterly. “Thirty miles in a twenty-five mile zone, and bingo, your car squeak on you. You’re tried and convicted by a bunch of radio tubes, and you have to pay five bucks a month for the phone they use to give you the works.”
The “bench of radio tubes” was not interested in what George might be saying. It was making similar calls to motorists at the rate of ten a minute. It was, further, checking back files on each case, cracking down on habitual traffic violators, and giving first warning calls to violators with no past record. Further, it was giving overtime tickets to parked cars at the rate of three a second, all over the city.
In addition, it was trying two hundred and forty-three criminal cases, eight hundred and sixty-seven civil cases, and eight thousand divorce cases at the time it called George on his car telephone.
George pulled over to the curb. Five impatient minutes later a police car stopped beside him and collected the five-dollar fine, giving him a receipt and clearing him through the court.
He drove on, careful not to go above the speed limit. He observed all the laws carefully, conscious of the scanners that watched him from street corners.
When he parked his car in the parking lot the attendant grinned at his departing back, reading on his face that he had been given a ticket.
It was two blocks to the office building. At the first street crossing he stepped off the curb while the light was still red.
A loudspeaker ten feet above the sidewalk beside him said metallically: “Get back on the sidewalk until the light turns green.”
He got back on the sidewalk. The scanner had seen him step off, had identified it as jaywalking and spoken its warning. At the same time, the “bunch of radio tubes” had convicted a killer and sentenced him to the gas chamber. It could handle over fifty thousand separate thought trains on the one circuit.
In the office George found nothing to improve his disposition. There was a letter from Olsen, Olsen, Skinner, and Olsen informing him that their representative would consult with a representative from Goldstein, Goldstein, Silverstein and Goldstein, his own lawyers, sometime within the next ten days, on the matter of George Sanders (himself) versus Samuel Grant.
He crumpled the letter in his hands and talked earnestly to himself in the universal language of adjectives for a few minutes until his temper had cooled off. The adjectives modified one Samuel Grant in various and unique ways.
Then he stabbed at the button on his desk that would summon his secretary, breaking his fingernail in the process. The modifying the adjectives were doing switched to the buzzer and the broken fingernail.
Samuel Grant, known as Sam Grant except where legal papers contained his name, was one of the “huge” type of people. His hugeness started with his barrel chest and big hands. It extended to his feet, his face, and even to his heart. The people who said his heart was gold didn’t mean it was heavy, metallic, and yellow.
However, for three days it had been very heavy. The reason for its heaviness was the death of his only son, Fred Grant, in a plane crash.
Sam’s huge frame was pressing the castors of his office chair into the hardwood flooring behind his desk when his secretary brought in the mail.
“There are several personal letters for you, Sam,” his secretary said timidly, standing in the doorway of his office. “Would you care to look at them?”
Sam reached out and took the half dozen letters she held toward him. She retreated silently, closing the door with extreme care so as not to make a sound.
The letters were unopened. They were all marked personal. Sighing, Sam pulled open the center drawer of his desk, took out his letter knife and slit them all open before starting to read them.
The first three were from friends offering condolences for the loss of his son. He opened the fourth feeling almost cheerful. It did a man good to know his friends sympathized enough to drop him a letter.
The very first words of the fourth letter changed all that. They were:
“You dirty, low-dealing crook.”
Sam’s eyes glanced up at the letterhead. It was from the firm owned by George Sanders. The signature at the end of the letter was that of George Sanders.
His face slack and expressionless, Sam’s eyes went back to the letter’s contents.
“You dirty, low-dealing crook,” it read. “You aren’t satisfied with my unjustly being tagged as at fault in that accident on highway 42. You have the crust to try to make me pay on top of it. I’m instructing my lawyers not to make any kind of settlement with you. You’ll have to take it to court or drop it. If you take it to court I’ll bring in as evidence the fact that your son just died in an accident, and point out that careless driving runs in your family. You should consider yourself lucky that I don’t sue you myself. The reason I don’t is that I’m a nice guy. Too bad you aren’t.”
Sam let the letter hang slack in his fingers while, in his mind’s eye, he reviewed the accident. He had pulled into the center lane to make a left turn. Also he had held out his hand for a hundred yards in a clear signal.
He hadn’t looked back to see if anyone was coming; but there was no need to, since it would have been illegal for anyone to have cut around him on the wrong side of the highway. That was evidently why Sanders considered him at fault—for not looking back and seeing him, and not waiting for him to get around him in an illegal passing.
He had started his turn, and Sanders had run into the side of his car, damaging the whole side. He had called the police at once, and the portable scanner on the police car had recorded the cars where they stood. The automatic action of the robot judicial system had immediately rendered a verdict that Sanders was at fault—which he was. And since he was at fault it was only fair that he pay for the damage he did.
Not even morally could Sam see himself to blame. And this letter. He eyed it distastefully. The thing to do with it was turn it over to his lawyers to use as a basis for adding punitive damages onto the eight hundred dollars in repair bills and lawyer’s fees he was asking for.
Still, there was this to consider: Sanders was upset. He would be upset too if he had to shell out eight hundred dollars, if he didn’t think he was in the wrong.
But it was a dirty thing to do, bring his son into it so callously right now, and also come right out and call him names.
Sam compressed his lips into a firm line. His finger pressed the buzzer calling his secretary. When she came in he dictated a letter.
George Sanders hit the roof—almost literally—when he got the letter. It said, simply: “Your letter received and contents noted. Have turned said letter over to my lawyers with instructions that they use it as a basis for suit for punitive damages in addition to those already asked.”
His hands trembling in the intensity of his anger, George called his lawyers. Their secretary answered.
“Hello-o,” she sang.
“Hello,” George shouted. “Is Mr. Goldstein there?”
“I’m sorry,” she answered. “He’s in court today.”
“Well, is Mr. Silverstein there?” George asked.
“No he isn’t,” the secretary answered. “He’s out of town until Friday. Would you like to speak to Mr. Goldstein?”
“That’s who I asked for in the first place,” George said angrily.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the secretary said. “Mr. Goldstein just left the officer. He won’t be back for an hour. Bull I can let you talk to Mr. Goldstein if you wish.”
A rattling noise drowned out George’s sputtering.
“Hello,” a male voice sounded.
“Who is this?” George asked suspiciously.
“This is Mr. Silverstein,” the voice answered.
“Your secretary said you were out of town,” George said accusingly.
“Oh no,” Mr. Silverstein answered. “That’s Mr. Goldstein. Who’s talking?”
“This is George Sanders,” George said.
“Oh yes, Mr. Sanders,” Mr. Silverstein said. “We have a letter from Olsen, Olsen, Skinner and Olsen, from Mr. Olson himself.” There was a pause filled with hmmms. “I’m afraid you’ll have to empower us to read a settlement out of court, Mr. Sanders. You’ll save yourself a hundred dollars lawyers fees and about eighty dollars court costs that way. Perhaps more.”
“It’s too late for that now,” George said. Briefly he told Mr. Silverstein about his letter and Sam’s reply.
“I see,” Mr. Silverstein said heavily. “That casts a different light on. it, of course. I’m afraid it’s going to cost you money, unless—”
“Unless what?” George asked.
“Suppose you drop over to my office, Mr. Sanders,” Mr. Silverstein’s voice sounded, cautiously!
“Then we could discuss ways and means in complete privacy.”
“I’ll be right over,” George said.
“Have a drink?” Mr. Silverstein asked after shaking hands warmly with George Sanders and returning to his chair behind his desk.
“I need one,” George said, dropping into the chair nearest him. “What’s the scheme? Going to scare up some witnesses to prove the accident was Sam Grant’s fault?”
“That’s impossible,” Mr. Silverstein said, pouring the two drinks and handing George one.
“Why?” George demanded. “I know of half a dozen guys that would swear they were there and saw the whole thing, for twenty bucks.”
“You don’t seem to understand,” Mr. Silverstein said slowly. “Court procedure isn’t the same as it was two years ago, before they installed the automatic jurisprudence setup. The masterbrain goes from fact to fact. It has on file the findings of the highway patrol scanner. That television eye identified everyone at the scene of the accident, and every detail of the post-collision setup. Its finding are final and can’t be altered by any trumped-up evidence—although we’d be more than glad to help out a client that way if it could be done.
“But all they have me on,” George objected. “Is that it’s supposed to be against the law to pass going in the oncoming lanes. I had to, because all the right hand lanes were occupied. But can’t you get around that ordinance? Aren’t there any exceptions?”
“Not in automatic jurisprudence,” Mr. Silverstein said, shaking his head with finality. “The laws and ordinances, and even the Constitution, are built right into the thought processes of the robot brain that renders the decisions. It couldn’t act contrary to those built-in laws if it wanted to.
“In a way it’s a distinct improvement over the old system. If Congress passes a law it goes into the basic setup of the robot brain, and if it’s inconsistent with existing laws or the Constitution, that comes out at once.
“But in another way it’s bad. We lawyers can’t use oratory or tricks of law any more. The old orators who swayed juries are out of a job now. The modern lawyer has to know his law—or else!”
“But what about extenuating circumstances?” George persisted. “Couldn’t I say my brakes were suddenly faulty? I know a garage mechanic who would appear and swear they were when I brought my car to him right after. You could point out that I was forced to swing into an illegal lane or deliberately hit someone.”
“It wouldn’t work,” Mr. Silverstein said patiently. “The robot renders its decisions according to law, not extenuating circumstances. There are no extenuating circumstances any more in court trials. Especially in cut-and-dried traffic cases.”
“Then Sam Grant can collect?” George asked.
“He’s sure to collect if it goes to court,” Mr. Silverstein said. “And that letter will ensure him an extra thousand dollars punitive damages. Not only that, unless I’m wrong it will bring him more than that, if you dictated it to your secretary. Did you?”
“Yes,” George said, bewildered. “But what’s that got to do with it?”
“That makes it public,” Mr. Silverstein said. “As such, Mr. Grant can sue you for slander. He can get a judgment for ten thousand against you.”
George stared at Mr. Silverstein.
“Unless,” Mr. Silverstein went on. “We can force him to drop the whole thing.”
“How can we do that?” George asked.
“How much capital do you have?” Mr. Silverstein asked. “The reason I ask is that there might be a possibility that Mr. Grant’s business has a few notes outstanding that we could lay our hands on. Most businesses are vulnerable in some way. If you have the capital we might be able to sew him up tight so we could force him to drop this suit.”
George shook his head.
“I don’t have that kind of capital,” he said. “In fact, it’s the other way around. Grant could buy me out with his credit alone. I’m running on a shoestring.”
“Well,” Mr. Silverstein said. “Maybe we could help you a little on this. Could you raise five thousand?”
