Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930
Page 9
The Power and the Glory
_By Charles W. Diffin_
There were papers on the desk, a litter of papers scrawled over, in thecareless writing of indifferent students, with the symbols of chemistryand long mathematical computations. The man at the desk pushed themaside to rest his lean, lined face on one thin hand. The other arm,ending at the wrist, was on the desk before him.
[Sidenote: Sadly, sternly, the old professor reveals to his brilliantpupil the greater path to glory.]
Students of a great university had long since ceased to speculate aboutthe missing hand. The result of an experiment, they knew--a hand thatwas a mass of lifeless cells, amputated quickly that the living armmight be saved--but that was some several years ago, ancient history tothose who came and went through Professor Eddinger's class room.
And now Professor Eddinger was weary--weary and old, he told himself--ashe closed his eyes to shut out the sight of the interminable papers andthe stubby wrist that had ended forever his experiments and the delicatemanipulations which only he could do.
He reached slowly for a buzzing phone, but his eyes brightened at thevoice that came to him.
"I've got it--I've got it!" The words were almost incoherent. "This isAvery, Professor--Avery! You must come at once. You will share in it; Iowe it all to you ... you will be the first to see ... I am sending ataxi for you--"
Professor Eddinger's tired eyes crinkled to a smile. Enthusiasm likethis was rare among his youngsters. But Avery--with the face of a poet,a dreamer's eyes and the mind of a scientist--good boy, Avery!--a longtime since he had seen him--had him in his own laboratory for twoyears....
"What's this all about?" he asked.
"No--no!" said a voice; "I can't tell you--it is too big--greater thanthe induction motor--greater than the electric light--it is the greatestthing in the world. The taxi should be there now--you must come--"
A knock at the office door where a voice said, "Car for ProfessorEddinger," confirmed the excited words.
"I'll come," said the Professor, "right away."
* * * * *
He pondered, as the car whirled him across the city, on what thisgreatest thing in the world might be. And he hoped with gentleskepticism that the enthusiasm was warranted. A young man opened the cardoor as they stopped. His face was flushed, Eddinger noted, hair pushedback in disarray, his shirt torn open at the throat.
"Wait here," he told the driver and took the Professor by the arm tohurry him into a dilapidated building.
"Not much of a laboratory," he said, "but we'll have better, you and I;we'll have better--"
The room seemed bare with its meager equipment, but it was neat, asbecame the best student of Professor Eddinger. Rows of reagent bottlesstood on the shelves, but the tables were a litter of misplacedinstruments and broken glassware where trembling hands had fumbled inheedless excitement.
"Glad to see you again, Avery." The gentle voice of Professor Eddingerhad lost its tired tone. "It's been two years you've been working, Ijudge. Now what is this great discovery, boy? What have you found?"
The younger man, in whose face the color came and went, and whose eyeswere shining from dark hollows that marked long days and sleeplessnights, still clung to the other's arm.
"It's real," he said; "it's great! It means fortune and fame, and you'rein on that, Professor. The old master," he said and clapped a handaffectionately upon a thin shoulder; "I owe it all to you. And now Ihave--I have learned.... No, you shall see for yourself. Wait--"
* * * * *
He crossed quickly to a table. On it was an apparatus; the eyes of theolder man widened as he saw it. It was intricate--a maze of tubing.There was a glass bulb above--the generator of a cathode ray,obviously--and electro-magnets below and on each side. Beneath was acrude sphere of heavy lead--a retort, it might be--and from this therepassed two massive, insulated cables. The understanding eyes of theProfessor followed them, one to a terminal on a great insulating blockupon the floor, the other to a similarly protected terminal of carbonsome feet above it in the air.
The trembling fingers of the young man made some few adjustments, thenhe left the instrument to take his place by an electric switch. "Standback," he warned, and closed the switch.
There was a gentle hissing from within glass tubes, the faint glow of ablue-green light. And that was all, until--with a crash like the rippingcrackle of lightning, a white flame arced between the terminals of theheavy cables. It hissed ceaselessly through the air where now the tangof ozone was apparent. The carbon blocks glowed with a brilliantincandescence when the flame ceased with the motion of a hand whereAvery pulled a switch.
The man's voice was quiet now. "You do not know, yet, what you haveseen, but there was a tremendous potential there--an amperage I can'tmeasure with my limited facilities." He waved a deprecating hand aboutthe ill-furnished laboratory. "But you have seen--" His voice trembledand failed at the forming of the words.
"--The disintegration of the atom," said Professor Eddinger quietly,"and the release of power unlimited. Did you use thorium?" he inquired.
The other looked at him in amazement. Then: "I should have known youwould understand," he said humbly. "And you know what it means"--againhis voice rose--"power without end to do the work of the world--greatvessels driven a lifetime on a mere ounce of matter--a revolution intransportation--in living...." He paused. "The liberation of mankind,"he added, and his voice was reverent. "This will do the work of theworld: it will make a new heaven and a new earth! Oh, I have dreameddreams," he exclaimed, "I have seen visions. And it has been given tome--me!--to liberate man from the curse of Adam ... the sweat of hisbrow.... I can't realize it even yet. I--I am not worthy...."
* * * * *
He raised his eyes slowly in the silence to gaze in wonderingastonishment at the older man. There was no answering light, noexaltation on the lined face. Only sadness in the tired eyes that lookedat him and through him as if focused upon something in a dim future--orpast.
"Don't you see?" asked the wondering man. "The freedom of men--theliberation of a race. No more poverty, no endless, grinding labor." Hisyoung eyes, too, were looking into the future, a future of blindinglight. "Culture," he said, "instead of heart-breaking toil, a chance togrow mentally, spiritually; it is another world, a new life--" And againhe asked: "Surely, you see?"
"I see," said the other; "I see--plainly."
"The new world," said Avery. "It--it dazzles me; it rings like music inmy ears."
"I see no new world," was the slow response.
The young face was plainly perplexed. "Don't you believe?" he stammered."After you have seen ... I thought you would have the vision, would helpme emancipate the world, save it--" His voice failed.
"Men have a way of crucifying their saviors," said the tired voice.
The inventor was suddenly indignant. "You are blind," he said harshly;"it is too big for you. And I would have had you stand beside me in thegreat work.... I shall announce it alone.... There will belaboratories--enormous!--and factories. My invention will be perfected,simplified, compressed. A generator will be made--thousands ofhorsepower to do the work of a city, free thousands of men--made sosmall you can hold it in one hand."
The sensitive face was proudly alight, proud and a trifle arrogant. Theexaltation of his coming power was strong upon him.
"Yes," said Professor Eddinger, "in one hand." And he raised his rightarm that he might see where the end of a sleeve was empty.
"I am sorry," said the inventor abruptly; "I didn't mean ... but youwill excuse me now; there is so much to be done--" But the thin figureof Professor Eddinger had crossed to the far table to examine theapparatus there.
"Crude," he said beneath his breath, "crude--but efficient!"
* * * * *
In the silence a rat had appeared in the distant corner. The Professornodded as he saw it. The animal sto
pped as the man's eyes came upon it;then sat squirrellike on one of the shelves as it ate a crumb of food.Some morsel from a hurried lunch of Avery's, the Professorreflected--poor Avery! Yes, there was much to be done.
He spoke as much to himself as to the man who was now beside him. "Itenters here," he said and peered downward toward the lead bulb. Heplaced a finger on the side of the metal. "About here, I shouldthink.... Have you a drill? And a bit of quartz?"
The inventor's eyes were puzzled, but the assurance of his oldinstructor claimed obedience. He produced a small drill and a fragmentlike broken glass. And he started visibly as the one hand workedawkwardly to make a small hole in the side of the lead. But he withdrewhis own restraining hand, and he watched in mystified silence while thequartz was fitted to make a tiny window and the thin figure stooped tosight as if aiming the opening toward a far corner where a brown rat satupright in earnest munching of a dry crust.
The Professor drew Avery with him as he retreated noiselessly from theinstrument. "Will you close the switch," he whispered.
The young man hesitated, bewildered, at this unexpected demonstration,and the Professor himself reached with his one hand for the black lever.Again the arc crashed into life, to hold for a brief instant untilProfessor Eddinger opened the switch.
"Well," demanded Avery, "what's all the show? Do you think you areteaching me anything--about my own instrument?" There was hurt pride andjealous resentment in his voice.
"See," said Professor Eddinger quietly. And his one thin hand pointed toa far shelf, where, in the shadow, was a huddle of brown fur and a bitof crust. It fell as they watched, and the "plop" of the soft body uponthe floor sounded loud in the silent room.
"The law of compensation," said Professor Eddinger. "Two sides to themedal! Darkness and light--good and evil--life ... and death!"
* * * * *
The young man was stammering. "What do you mean?--a death ray evolved?"And: "What of it?" he demanded; "what of it? What's that got to do withit?"
"A death ray," the other agreed. "You have dreamed, Avery--one must inorder to create--but it is only a dream. You dreamed of life--a fullerlife--for the world, but you would have given them, as you have justseen, death."
The face of Avery was white as wax; his eyes glared savagely from darkhollows.
"A rat!" he protested. "You have killed a rat ... and you say--yousay--" He raised one trembling hand to his lips to hold them fromforming the unspeakable words.
"A rat," said the Professor--"or a man ... or a million men."
"We will control it."
"All men will have it--the best and the worst ... and there is nodefence."
"It will free the world--"
"It will destroy it."
"No!"--and the white-faced man was shouting now--"you don'tunderstand--you can't see--"
The lean figure of the scientist straightened to its full height. Hiseyes met those of the younger man, silent now before him, but Avery knewthe eyes never saw him; they were looking far off, following the wingsof thought. In the stillness the man's words came harsh and commanding--
"Do you see the cities," he said, "crumbling to ruins under the coldstars? The fields? They are rank with wild growth, torn and gullied bythe waters; a desolate land where animals prowl. And the people--thepeople!--wandering bands, lower, as the years drag on, than the beaststhemselves; the children dying, forgotten, in the forgotten lands; apeople to whom the progress of our civilization is one with the agespast, for whom there is again the slow, toiling road toward the light.
"And somewhere, perhaps, a conquering race, the most brutal and callousof mankind, rioting in their sense of power and dragging themselves downto oblivion...."
* * * * *
His gaze came slowly back to the room and the figure of the man stillfighting for his dream.
"They would not," said Avery hoarsely; "they'd use it for good."
"Would they?" asked Professor Eddinger. He spoke simply as one statingsimple facts. "I love my fellow men," he said, "and I killed them inthousands in the last war--I, and my science, and my poison gas."
The figure of Avery slumped suddenly upon a chair; his face was buriedin his hands. "And I would have been," he groaned, "the greatest man inthe world."
"You shall be greater," said the Professor, "though only we shall knowit--you and I.... You will save the world--from itself."
The figure, bowed and sunken in the chair, made no move; the man washeedless of the kindly hand upon his shoulder. His voice, when he spoke,was that of one afar off, speaking out of a great loneliness. "You don'tunderstand," he said dully; "you can't--"
But Professor Eddinger, a cog in the wheels of a great educationalmachine, glanced at the watch on his wrist. Again his thin shoulderswere stooped, his voice tired. "My classes," he said. "I must begoing...."
* * * * *
In the gathering dusk Professor Eddinger locked carefully the door ofhis office. He crossed beyond his desk and fumbled with his one hand forhis keys.
There was a cabinet to be opened, and he stared long in the dim light atthe object he withdrew. He looked approvingly at the exquisiteworkmanship of an instrument where a generator of the cathode ray and anintricate maze of tubing surmounted electro-magnets and a round leadbulb. There were terminals for attaching heavy cables; it was abeautiful thing.... His useless arm moved to bring an imaginary handbefore the window of quartz in the lead sphere.
"Power," he whispered and repeated Avery's words; "power, to build acity--or destroy a civilization ... and I hold it in one hand."
He replaced the apparatus in the safety of its case. "The saviors ofmankind!" he said, and his tone was harsh and bitter.
But a smile, whimsical, kindly, crinkled his tired eyes as he turned tohis desk and its usual litter of examination papers.
"It is something, Avery," he whispered to that distant man, "to belongin so distinguished a group."