“Frozen waffles indeed,” said my other knee. “Let's whip up a batch of flapjacks.”
“I'm not especially hungry.”
“It's wisest, dear boy, to begin the day with a hearty breakfast.”
“Okay, okay.” I fetched a carton of buttermilk out of the refrigerator.
The Brazilian secret agents, two of them, arrived as I was setting my plate of syrup-drenched pancakes out on the deck table.
They'd apparently tossed grappling hooks up from below and come climbing up thick plastic ropes.
"Bom dia, senhor,” said the first one, “we're here to inquire after your joelhos."
“Your knees,” translated the second one.
“Oh, I'm doing just fine, better, actually, than I expected.” I remained on my feet, smiling blandly. “Certainly nice of you guys to climb all the way up here to ask about—”
“Roll up your pants above the knee,” ordered my right knee.
I obliged, far from certain why I was.
“What's this tolo up to?” the other intruder asked of his partner.
“Now, dear boy, aim your left knee at the nearest Brazilian. We'll do the rest.”
“I see our cover story about being nothing more than concerned neighbors isn't going to work, senhor,” said the farthest agent as he reached inside his blue blazer.
Before I could lift my foot high enough above the redwood deck to aim at my target, the pant leg unrolled and covered the knee again.
“Nitwit,” remarked my other knee. “The dang ultrasonic beam won't work if the knee is covered.
“How the hell am I supposed to know that?” I reached down to tug up the trouser leg again. “If you would be a shade more confiding, then we—”
"Senhor,” said the Brazilian who was now pointing a .38 revolver at me, “we would very much like you to accompany us to our laboratory, se faz favor, so that we can extract your knees and return to Rio with—”
“Aim your damn knee, dude.”
The second South American agent had produced a .45 automatic. He, too, was pointing his gun at me. “We would prefer to perform that operation there, but we are prepared to do the job, albeit in a cruder fashion, right here.”
“Drop your weapons,” suggested someone up on my slanting red tile roof.
I looked up to see a slim, red-haired woman of about thirty-five, clad in a crisp nurse's uniform, standing there with a .38 revolver in each hand. “Nurse Munson,” I said loudly, “what are you doing on my roof?”
Ginger Munson had been my night nurse during my recent stay at the Slesinger Clinic.
Just then, as one of the Brazilians was aiming his gun at Nurse Munson, my knee went off. A thin line of blurred air shot out at the nearest agent. It struck him in the middle of his chest, then vanished.
"Inferno!” He remarked as he fell over onto the deck, bumping against the table and upsetting my plate of syrupy pancakes.
While this was occurring, Ginger had jumped down off the roof to tackle the other Brazilian intruder.
He was now lying face down, unconscious, and she was handcuffing his hands behind his back. “These fellows are from Brazil's Agencia Muito Secreta,” she said as she stood clear of the sprawled man. “This one is Antonio Bulcao.”
“Apparently you're more than a night nurse.”
“I'm with the National Counterspy Bureau. I've been working undercover at—”
“The last person who claimed to be with the NCB,” I cut in as I gathered up the fallen flapjacks, “turned out to be a phony and so—”
“Nix,” warned my right knee. “This cookie is legit.”
“You made a darn favorable impression on me at the clinic, Mr. Whitney,” said the government agent. “So I'm assuming you'll cooperate and return to the clinic and, you know, voluntarily return those knees so that—”
“Whoa, honey,” said my knee. “How come it took you so dang long to get here? If we hadn't been on duty, a stewpot of spies and secret agents might've hauled this poor sap off to—”
“Now, now,” said my other knee, “I'm sure this sweet young lady has a perfectly acceptable explanation. And there's no reason to refer to poor Frank as a sap, now that he's been converted into a—”
“I was reassigned to collect Mr. Whitney after, well, my partner and I didn't succeed in locating Dr. Dowling.”
“Was your partner working undercover at the Slesinger, too?” I asked her.
“Yes, she's Hazel LaMond, but we really must—”
“Huh, the nurse who gave me backrubs.”
“We really must be going,” Ginger told me. “I do hope you'll come along without too much fuss.”
I said, “Suppose you found Dowling and brought him back, Nurse Munson? Do they give bonuses in the NCB?”
She took a step back from me, staring into my face and frowning. “Do you have some idea where he might be?”
“Sister,” said my knee, “if you tag along with us, we'll lead you right to him. How about it?”
* * * *
Midway across the Golden Gate Bridge fog closed in around Ginger's SUV. “Going to make it harder to follow them,” I remarked.
Ginger, wearing dark jeans and a black pullover, was driving. “We know where they're going.”
“Use your noggin,” added my right knee. “We have the ability to track your cheatin’ wife and her banjo beau because of the many technological gadgets built into—”
“The dear boy hasn't quite gotten used to being superhuman,” my other knee reminded.
“I wouldn't call myself superhuman.”
“Don't be so modest, dear boy.”
Ginger asked, “Do they always go on like this?”
“Pretty much.”
“Hush until we get across the bridge,” the redheaded NCB agent suggested.
It was just about three thirty in the afternoon when we reached fogbound San Francisco. Earlier we'd staked out Edmond's cottage in Sausalito. Using my recently acquired eavesdropping abilities, I overheard the phone call from one of the UK agents. He'd invited Edmond to rendezvous with him at their hideaway across the bay in San Francisco to go over plans for luring me into their clutches. Since my wife was with the banjo player and not consulting with her publicist, she was allowed to tag along.
The British agents were operating out of a two-story Victorian house in Presidio Heights. As Ginger drove by the Britishers’ lair, I spotted my Toyota sitting in front of the narrow, lemon-yellow house.
We parked the SUV just around the corner on Laurel Street.
“Let's tune in on the Brits,” said my right knee.
Ginger said, “I brought my own surveillance equipment, a sound gun and—”
“I'll broadcast through my knee,” I found myself saying. “We can both hear.”
“Cease babbling,” suggested my knee.
“...sorry, old man, but $25,000 is absolutely the most we can offer. These are tough times in the UK and hence we—”
“But Mavis is betraying her husband,” Edmond pointed out. “That ought to be worth at least $30,000.”
“Look here, old chap,” a second British voice said, “we can simply go over to the lady's house, cosh the bloke on the head, and drag him over here to our hidden lab.
“However, we have a reputation for subtlety and we also rather enjoy luring someone into our web.”
“As opposed to overt violence.”
Mavis said, “All right, okay. We'll take the $25,000. I don't want to have poor Frank suffer any more physical injury than is absolutely necessary.”
Sighing, Ginger gave my arm a sympathetic pat.
A British agent, the one with the more nasal voice, said, “What say we now discuss ways and means to get this Whitney cove to trot into our trap of his own free will?”
“Well, flowerbabe and I have been thinking that maybe—”
“I say, who in blazes is—”
The broadcast abruptly ceased. I inquired, “Why'd you—”
�
��Out your window, dude.”
I turned to see a slim young fellow in a blue blazer leaning toward my window, a snub nose .32 in his hand. I opened the window. “Something?”
“By Jove, this is a blooming bit of luck,” he said, pointing the gun directly at my head. “Rather ironic as well, I must say. While you've been eavesdropping on us, I've been concealed in yonder shrubs using my sound gun to—”
“I'm with the NCB,” Ginger told him. “I'd advise you to put down your weapon and lead us to Dr. Dowling.”
“Hard cheese,” replied the agent. “What's actually going to happen, madam, is that you're going to turn this Whitney chap over to—”
“Look into my eyes,” I found myself telling him.
“Really, old man, this is hardly the time or place for a flirtation.”
“Look deeply into my eyes,” I suggested. “You are growing drowsy. Soon, quite soon, you'll be nodding off.”
“I say, I do feel a mite sleepy now that you mention it.” His eyelids were fluttering, his gun hand dropped to his side.
“I didn't know I could hypnotize people,” I said.
My right knee addressed the hypnotized British agent. “Now here's what you're going to do, dude.”
“Whatever you say, sir.”
* * * *
“I say, Denis,” said the plump, sandy-haired British agent who opened the door of the yellow Victorian, “this is a bit of all right. You've brought in Frank Whitney on your own and now we shan't have to pay his wife and her paramour a blooming cent.”
He stepped back, allowing his colleague to herd us into the corridor. “Yes-it-is-jolly-good-Nigel-old-thing.”
“You're sounding even more stilted and affected than usual,” noticed Nigel. “And why, now that I notice, does he have his trousers rolled up above his knees?”
After kicking the door shut with a backward kick of my foot, I aimed a bare knee at the inquisitive British agent.
“This seems hardly cricket,” he remarked as the sonic beam hit him in the midsection.
Ginger caught him before he dropped, out cold, to the Persian-carpeted hallway floor.
“Okay, Denny old top,” my right knee ordered the hypnotized agent, “escort us to Dr. Dowling.”
“It-will-be-a-pleasure-sir.”
As we followed him down into the cellar lab, Ginger said to me, “I'm going to recommend that they treat you gently, Frank. But, gosh, soon as the doctor is ready to operate, he's probably going to replace your new knees with less complex ones.”
“We'll just see about that,” said my right knee. “This dude ought to get a frigging medal.”
* * * *
Well, Dr. Dowling decided against surgery. What he did was deactivate my knees electronically from without, converting them into just plain artificial knees. He had several other enhancers in the works. The National Counterspy Bureau decided not to brainwash me so that I'd forget about Dowling's invention. That was because Ginger Munson persuaded her chief that I was trustworthy. Also I had to sign several binding agreements that I would never say anything. Mavis, only moderately chagrined at having her affair with Edmond discovered or for trying to sell my knees to a foreign power, decided to move out of our marriage and take up residence with her banjo player.
The fling with Ginger that I alluded to earlier didn't commence until about a week after we'd rescued Dowling. I was living alone in the house by then, me and my perfectly plain and average knees. I'd gotten interested in cooking during the short time I'd been enhanced, and on that particular early evening I was in the kitchen, cookbook spread out on a counter. I was trying to create a mushroom pizza from scratch.
The cell phone resting on the counter rang. I wiped a splotch of tomato sauce off my hand and answered. “Hello?”
“How are you, Frank?” inquired Ginger. “Do you miss your former knees or powers?”
“Not too much, no.” That was only partly true. I didn't miss the heckling, but some of the added abilities I wouldn't mind having still. “How are you doing?”
“Turns out I'm not posing as a nurse tonight, and I don't have any other NCB chores,” she said. “Might I drop by if you're free? Possibly we could go out to dinner. I might be able to put it on my expense account.”
“Hey, we don't have to go out,” I told her. “I'm making a pizza.”
“I'll stop and get ingredients for a salad.”
“I'm making the salad, too.”
“Well, then I'll just bring wine. Or are you making that, too?”
“Nope. About eight?”
“Fine.”
The call ended and setting the phone down, I returned to my cooking. I still had to roll out the dough.
“Hey, dopey, let me help out. If you screw up you ain't going to impress your tootsie.”
I dropped the small rolling pin. It hit the floor, rolled, bumped into a leg of the table. “You've been deactivated,” I told my right knee.
“The old biddy who was your left knee is long gone, pal,” said the knee. “But, c'mon, you didn't think Dowling could knock off someone as clever and crafty as me, did you?”
“What exactly are you up to?”
“We make, I have to admit, a pretty good team.”
“Oh, so?”
“Let's cook up the pizza,” said my returned knee. “Then you can impress the broad, maybe fool around a little. Later, dude, we can talk business.”
Copyright (c) 2007 Ron Goulart
* * * *
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* * *
Reader's Department: THE ALTERNATE VIEW: EINSTEIN AND THE ETHER
by JEFFERY D. KOOISTRA
What a fast ten years that was!
This column marks the tenth anniversary of my first appearance in the Alternate View slot. At the time, I didn't expect to take over for G. Harry Stine—I was simply filling in for him while a legal matter was being settled. But then the legal issue dragged on, and one column became two, then three, and then Stine passed away and Stan asked me to just keep writing them.
My first column was called “Big Rocks,” and when I wrote it I was certain that my future lay in applying my knowledge of physics to questions about how the ancients could have accomplished some of their amazing feats of engineering. I have nothing to disavow in that first column, but I sure was wrong about the path my future would take. I never did get around to doing any experimental archeology because Dr. Thomas Phipps Jr. sent me a little paper by a guy named Wesley about a dingus he called “the Marinov motor,” and life was never the same after that.
Instead of studying the engineering feats of the distant past, I began studying the intellectual feats of those physicists of the nineteenth century who were trying to understand the nature of the aether. It came as quite a surprise to me to find out that Einstein, the man who “eradicated the aether,” would later come to see the need for a “new ether,” the nature of which he tried to ascertain for the rest of his life.
In a previous column ("Aether One or the Other” in the March 2000 issue), I quoted Einstein from his 1920 Leyden (or Leiden) speech in which he said: “As to the part the new ether is to play in the physics of the future we are not yet clear. We know that it determines the metrical relations in the space-time continuum ... but we do not know whether it has an essential share in the structure of the elementary particles.... It would be a great advance if we could succeed in compreh
ending the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field together as one unified conformation.” (You can find the entire lecture online at (www.tu-harburg.de/rzt/rzt/it/ Ether.html) However, when I used this quote, I didn't know the story behind it. Though everyone knows that Einstein rejected the ether when he presented his Special Theory of Relativity, almost nobody knows that he changed his mind later, let alone why he changed his mind.
I didn't know why he changed his mind either until I discovered Einstein and the Ether by Ludwick Kostro (Apeiron, 2000. ISBN 0-9683639-4-8). Professor Kostro is the Director of the Department for Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science at the University of Gdansk. He made extensive use of Einstein's letters (most of them exchanges with other well-known physicists of the era) and lectures, as well as Einstein's published papers. He also explains how Einstein's views were, in part, shaped by the prevailing philosophy and politics of his time. And the thing most important to many of you who are wondering if you should get this book, it is essentially equation-free. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in either Einstein or aether studies. (Note: Spelling the word “aether” or “ether” is mostly a matter of taste. Though I prefer the former spelling, Kostro uses the latter, so I'll use that spelling for the rest of this column.)
Though it is true that Einstein rejected “the ether,” what he specifically had in mind was the ether as presented by the great nineteenth-century physicist Lorentz. One interesting fact Kostro has uncovered is that Einstein didn't actually reject the ether he thought he was rejecting. That is to say, though Einstein was strongly influenced by the work of Lorentz, in his early days he learned much about Lorentz's achievements from the book Handbook of Optics by the German physicist P. Drude, himself greatly influenced by Lorentz. However, in his zest to spread Lorentz's ideas, Drude oversimplified Lorentz's view of the ether. As Kostro puts it on page 18, “Drude treated the ether as space having physical properties and remaining at absolute rest. That was not how the ether was originally understood by Lorentz.” What Lorentz actually claimed was that “some parts of the ether remained at a standstill with respect to one another, and that the ether at rest constituted a privileged reference system.”
Analog SFF, January-February 2008 Page 25
