by Kirby Brooks
Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Space Science Fiction May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
all that goes up
BY KIRBY BROOKS
ILLUSTRATED BY SMITH
At fifty, a man should be too old to go around flying off the handle, or wandering around on the ceiling. But what could a man do when he had a son who insisted on being a genius?
* * * * *
For a man my age, the middle 50's, life has a number of compensations.There're children--we have two; there's a good wife, and I'm certainlyblessed in that respect with Mary; and there's the joy of coming home,slipping on my slippers, having a good dinner, then relaxing withcoffee and a pipe. There's no compensation for being plastered to theceiling. But, more of that later.
The after dinner coffee with a dash of rum in it, tasted very good,and so did the pipe. The meal was satisfying too. Thank goodness forthat meal, because it was the last decent one I've had for quite sometime. Oh, I've eaten all right, but you'd have to stretch yourimagination to call any of it a meal. Can you picture eating food thatkeeps trying to move away from your face? That is, if you can keep theplate from moving away too?
As I say, Mary and I had just finished dinner, when Jim, our22-year-old gangly son, who's home on summer vacation from MIT, calledme.
"Can you come here a minute, Dad?"
"Sure," I said, heading down the hall to his combination laboratory,dark room, aviary, and just plain bedroom. Fortunately it was a bigroom so there was space for a bed in addition to all the stuff a boycan collect who becomes enamored of science while in High School, andwho consummates the wedding with studying electronics in college.
I pushed his door open a little wider and looked in before entering; atrick the family had acquired when Jim was in the Zoological-Biological,or frog-collecting age. "What do you want, son?"
"Just want to show you something," he said, pointing to the floor. Hewas bent over looking intently at what seemed to be a sheet of thatfluorescent plastic that's used for signs. It was lying on the floor,was about two feet square, and was glowing a dim pink. Whether fromlight within itself, or from the desk lamp, I couldn't tell.
"What is it?"
"I don't really know, Dad, but watch what happens." So saying, hepicked up a glove from the desk, tossed it onto the plastic plate. Ishould say he tossed it _at_ the plate, because it didn't land, butrose fast, straight up! I watched it hit the ceiling with a splat!Where it stuck. It was then I noticed several other things allplastered to the panelling too; the mate to the glove, a package ofcigarettes, a cigarette lighter and a golf ball or two.
* * * * *
Well, I had learned years ago in the Prestidigitation Age, or, "Youtoo can amaze your friends with feats of Magic" that quite often Jimwould go to great lengths to mystify anybody handy. I wasn't tooimpressed.
"Next thing will be to make a rope stand up, or saw a woman in half, Isuppose?"
"No, Dad, this is no trick. Fact is, I think I've stumbled ontosomething that could be important ... anti-gravity. Or, something thatlooks like it."
"Well," I said, "It could be, but just what is this thing?"
"Up at school I started fooling around with various metals, and oneidea I had was to suspend them in tiny particles, colloidally almost,in plastic. Then I'd run various voltages and varying frequenciesthrough the plastic."
"Yes, but why?"
"Well, the thing I had in mind originally was a wall or ceiling panelthat would serve as a source of either cold light using a givenvoltage and frequency, or as a source of radiant heat, using someother voltage and frequency. All from the same panel."
"And you wind up with this?"
"Yes, and I'll be darned if I can explain just what this is. I'mreally going to have to do some digging."
While Jim was talking, I had been looking the rig over. It consistedof the plastic plate lying on the floor, with two sets of wiresrunning into it, and out of it. In turn, these four wires led intowhat I took to be a transformer of some sort. Such as you'd use for atoy electric train. It had roughly calibrated dials on the top of it.A regular AC line from the transformer was plugged into the wallsocket.
"What I can't figure," Jim mused, "Is why it does what it does. Themeasly three years I've spent at school don't even qualify me to makea good guess. Does it only work on small things that can be liftedwithout too much effort anyway? Or, if I increase the size of theplate will I also have to increase the voltage? Will it...?"
"Look boy, I'm confused enough already. What do you say we sit downand think about this a bit? It'll give you a chance to collect yourwits, and besides that, I want another cup of coffee."
* * * * *
Four cups and two pipes later, after Johnny, that's ourfourteen-year-old, and Mary had gone to bed, Jim and I were still justsitting. He was obviously thinking, and I was mostly sitting. Not muchthinking. The trouble with my thinking was that a background ofselling everything from Encyclopedias to, at present, used cars, andan education consisting mostly of high school and hard knocks justdidn't qualify me in Jim's league. The silence lengthened. Pretty soonhe stirred in his chair, cleared his throat and said, "Let's go lookagain."
"Have you come to any conclusions?"
"Well, yes and no," Jim said. "Look at it this way Pop; suppose thisis not a fluke and I'm able to duplicate this thing. Suppose I'm ableto take this transformer and duplicate it too. All on a larger scale.How could it be used to good advantage? It'd probably do away withelevators in most cases, except you'd have to walk down. But then, bymaking the field weaker, maybe I could fix it so's you'd float down.Then too, I wonder if it can be applied to aircraft of any kind ... Isuppose you could take it and ..." his eyes were shining.
I interrupted; "Jim, you haven't really tested what the thing will doand it _is_ late, so before you go into many more schemes, let's sleepon it. We can get right after it in the morning. You can, that is,because all I can do is watch."
The next morning bright and early I was awakened by Johnny, who wasdancing around the room, shouting something on the order of "Hey!Somebody's gottoget'erdown! Somebody's gottoget'erdown!"
Making myself heard over the din, I hollered, "Who's got to get whodown? For Pete's sake, stop yelling so loud!"
Having been out-shouted, Johnny calmed down enough to catch his breathand gasp, "Say, Dad, Duchess is in Jim's room and she's on theceiling, and yougottoget'erdown!"
Well, it dawned on me then what he was talking about. Duchess is ournine-months-old Great Dane pup. Weighs about a hundred pounds. So,pulling on bathrobe and slippers, I went down stairs, and hurried intoJim's room. Sure enough, plastered on the ceiling and looking mightyscared and sick and sheepish was Duchess. When I came in she wagged afeeble tail at me and squirmed a bit. Mary, Johnny and Jim were allstanding looking at her.
"Dad, I don't know how it happened," Jim said. "Guess I forgot to pull theplug last night. First I knew was when I heard a thump and a yelp ... wokeup and she was practically right over my bed."
Duchess was apparently unhurt, so I walked over and reached up to coaxher down. Just then Jim shouted, "Dad! Don't do...!" And my head hitthe ceiling! Like a fool I had walked right over the plastic plate!
* * * * *
As soon as I could get my eyes to focus properly, I shut them againquickly. I was lyi
ng, (lying!) next to Duchess, on the ceiling, andshe was thrashing me in the face with her tail. As soon as I pushedher around so my face was out of range I could see the dumbfoundedlooks on the rest of the family.
"Ralph," said Mary, in a tone of exasperation, "You and that dog comeright down from there this minute!"
"Honey, I'd just be delighted to come down there, and if you and theboys will shove that bed under us, we'll try. Soon as Jim turns thisdamn thing off."
By this time, Johnny was lying on the floor about to bust a gussetlaughing at his father and long-legged Duchess sprawled on theceiling, and even Jim, who is always rather
