Operation Interstellar (1950)

by George O. Smith

  Paul’s clenched fist came down upon the palm of his other hand in a loud, determined smack! By all that was holy, Paul intended to find out. He answered his question honestly: Yes. There are women who could play any act, do literally anything humanly possible to obtain their wants. On the other hand, Nora might have run afoul of whatever interest it was that apparently stood in his way towards linking Sol and Neosol by Z-wave.

  Had he been uninterested in her as a person, he could have shrugged it off with but a minimum of hurt and wonder. But Paul made up his mind to find out about her, to take either one of two courses as far as Nora Phillips went. If Nora were in league with those who stood against him, he wanted the dubious pleasure of showing her that she could have been better off by following a more naturally honest plan.

  And if Nora Phillips w ere in trouble because she was seen in Paul’s company, he wanted the extreme pleasure of belting the living hell out of her abductors personally, while she watched wide-eyed, and then escorting her gallantly to some place where pain and strife could be relegated to the background.

  To do either, Paul must not stop working towards his goal. With determined step, Paul headed for the offices of the Terran Physical Society with his personal recorder, upon which the semi-conversation from the Z-wave was impressed.

  This time it would be Grayson’s Theory. And it would be presented to the T.P.S. without the possibility of Haedaecker’s interference or scorn.

  Charles Thorndyke was a man well worthy of the scientific honors he owned. Unlike Haedaecker, lie did not flaunt them at every hand. He used them only when it was necessary.

  And unlike Chadwick Haedaecker, Thorndyke was the kind of man who would have rejected his own pet theory instantly upon the first glimmer of proof that he was in error.

  He listened to Paul’s tale with growing interest and then he listened to the recording.

  “This is a big thing,” he told Paul after Grayson was finished.

  “It is my greatest hope realized.”

  “We have a lengthy paper on extra-solar gravitational phenomena to be presented next Tuesday. I am going to cancel that for your presentation.” Thorndyke looked at the ceiling.

  “The chance of voice communication with Neosol is as great an advancement as the discovery of the telegraph,” he said. “It must not be delayed one moment!”

  “I’ve always believed that,” said Paul.

  “Why didn’t you speak up before?”

  “Doctor Haedaecker has always vetoed any such suggestion.”

  “Why, for the Love of Heaven?”

  “He said that everything had been tried.”

  “Balderdash!” exploded Thorndyke. “Negative evidence is never conclusive!”

  “I could not argue with him.”

  Thorndyke smiled. He nodded. Being armed with a hope and a firm belief is poor weapon against a man as deeply entrenched as Haedaecker, whose minor pronouncements made news and whose hand could write an appropriation for a million dollars to pursue some experiment.

  “Once this is presented, you will no longer be a small voice crying out in a veritable wilderness. You will probably end up with a job to do as big as Haedaecker’s. I can’t understand him.

  “Nor can I.”

  “You’re certain that you presented your idea correctly?”

  “So far as I know. I’ve been talking about this thing for years, ever since I got the idea.”

  Thorndyke laughed. “I know what happened,” he said. “Your initial idea was but half formed and therefore incorrect. But as you improved upon it, your own arguments became trite to yourself and even less convincing to Haedaecker, who was convinced against your idea. He’ll have to change his tune next Tuesday.”

  Paul left in a fine state of mind. He was ahead of the game for the first time in his life and he enjoyed the feeling.

  The Question of who or what wanted to stop him was something that he could never find out until the other side made another move. As for Nora Phillips, following her trail was a job for an experienced man like Stacey. The third item was Haedaecker.

  Paul did not agree with Thorndyke. Haedaecker was not merely misled in this thing. Haedaecker had good reasons why he wanted the Z-wave experiment hushed up. Haedaecker’s Theory had been the making of the man himself. Once that theory was broken down and shown incorrect, Haedaecker would no longer be the great mind that he had been. Haedaecker liked power and adulation and naturally was disinclined to let it go lightly.

  Paul expected trouble with the physicist.

  And Paul would have preferred to circumvent trouble, to go around it, to avoid it. But Paul was experienced enough to know that the act of avoiding trouble more often made the trouble pile up until it reached terrifying proportions.

  So instead of staying strictly away from Haedaecker’s office, Paul strode boldly in. Forewarning the enemy of your intentions is said to be bad. But now and then, telling the enemy what you are going to do—and then daring him to try and stop you —will make him back up, because it tends to convince him that you are equipped to do as you want to do, regardless of opposition.

  Chadwick Haedaecker greeted Paul cordially. “Everything go all right?” he asked.

  Paul nodded. “The reports on the radio signal have been turned in, complete with recordings and my own comments.”

  “Good.” Haedaecker turned to a map on the wall. He consulted a list beside the map. Then he turned with a smile. “That was the first,” he said. “The next signal doesn’t come in for almost six months. Then, my young friend, you will be the busiest man in space for the next two years, hopping hither and thither to check in the network. I’m glad that everything went as expected.”

  “Everything did.”

  “Good. This first one was the one that proves we’re right. Now that we’ve got one checked in, we can take the rest with less wonder and concern.” Haedaecker looked at Paul sharply. “But this isn’t all you came to tell me about.”

  “No,” said Paul quietly. “It is not. Doctor Haedaecker, I am not one to fly a false flag. I dislike the idea of thrusting a man’s ideas back down his throat abruptly and in public.”

  “Just what are you driving at?” demanded Haedaecker.

  “Upon Proxima Centauri I, I definitely proved tire error of Haedaecker’s Theory. I received a Z-wave—”

  “Ridiculous!”

  “I did,” stated Paul flatly. “And so I am telling you because I feel that you should have some opportunity to protect yourself.”

  “I need no protection.”

  “You have always defended your theory viciously. You have never permitted the merest possibility that you could be wrong. I have proof, now.”

  “Impossible.”

  “I have,” said Paul. “And I intend to show it. So, if you care to make any statements which will change your previous attitude, do so.”

  Haedaecker looked at Paul queerly. “Just what would you recommend?” he asked.

  Paul smiled. “If I were you,” he said, “I would accept the defeat of your theory graciously.”

  “Indeed.”

  Paul made an exasperated noise. “I’m only trying to save your embarrassment—”

  “You insolent young puppy! You—trying to help me!”

  Paul took a deep breath. This was not going well at all. But on the other hand, Paul knew that he was no longer a small voice, to be throttled by the mere gesture from Haedaecker. Paul was in full control of the situation whether Haedaecker realized it or not. Furthermore, the years-long awe of Haedaecker and his iron-handed rule had not left their ineradicable mark. Unlike the child, ruled by stern parents, who defers to their orders long after maturity because of habit, Paul’s former deference was gone. Perhaps the only difference was that parents seldom lose their command of respect because the maturing offspring learns as the years go past that their seemingly arbitrary rules were actually born of wisdom that the child could not understand. Whereas Haedaecker was a god with feet of low
-grade clay. When the mighty fall, they fall far and hard.

  “I was trying to save you embarrassment,” snapped Paul. “Once the truth is known, that you refused to permit any experiment because it might shake the foundations of Haedaecker’s Theory, your entire policy will be destroyed.”

  “So what would you have me do?”

  “Why not sponsor this idea?” suggested Paul. “Be the first to proclaim, happily, that Haedaecker’s Theory was in error and that you now join in the hope of connecting Sol and Neosol by real communications.”

  Haedaecker shook his head coldly. “I’ll sponsor no such ridiculous thing,” he said. “Because it can not be! You—”

  “But I have proof!”

  Haedaecker stood up. “You have not!”

  “I have!” thundered Paul. “And I intend to show it!” Haedaecker sat down again and placed the fingertips of each hand against the other, making a sort of cage. “Now I’ll warn you,” he told Paul. “Your proof is false, whatever it is. And if you should make the mistake of making a public spectacle of your efforts to disparage a well-founded law of physics, I shall take measures to ensure that you never make such an idiotic error again.”

  “Why don’t you fire me?” taunted Paul.

  “As soon as you publicly violate my rules, I shall.”

  “Then come to the T.S.P. next Tuesday,” snapped Paul, “and watch me break both your rules and your theory with one fell swoop!”

  Haedaecker shrugged. “I’ll be there to watch you make a fool of yourself,” he said.

  Paul turned on one heel and left.

  CHAPTER 8

  Stacey’s voice was as dry as ever, “Busy, Paul?”

  “Just polishing up my talk,” he said. “I’m due to lecture in an hour.”

  “Well, don’t be nervous.”

  “I’d be less nervous if I knew what was going on.”

  “This might help. First, your corpse was none other than a three-time loser named Clarke and a pot full of aliases, none of which are worth mentioning. As dead as a mackerel.”

  “What are we going to do about him?”

  “It’s been done.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “But isn’t this disposing evidence?”

  “Sure. But if any crime has been committed, he did it, or attempted to. He is no loss to the community.”

  “But that is against the law.”

  “So is kissing a woman who is of no relation to you, in public in this state,” chuckled Stacey. “You’ll only get involved in a lot of official curiosity if you disclose the death. That will get you a grilling and a mess of suspicion to light against, while the birds who set him on you will be forewarned. They’ll be free to plot further while you are busy defending an innocent stand. Besides,” he added with another chuckle, “there is nothing like making them chew a fingernail, wondering just where their plans went a-foul. Let them scurry around instead of you. If I guess right, they are not quite certain whether the man now talking to me is Paul Grayson, bona fide, or their little masquerader.”

  “But why, for the Love of Heaven?”

  “Look, mes infante innocente, this is twice that you’ve met a character made up to resemble you. This means an intended masquerade. I don’t know why. But I’ll bet a hat that there is a motive to it all.”

  The last was so obvious that Paul saw no reason to comment. Stacey continued, “One more item before I go away and leave you to your test tubes. Nora Phillips.”

  “Yes?” came Paul’s eager reply.

  “Posing as a man making a survey, I, me, myself twiggled on the doorbell at 7111 Bridge Avenue this afternoon, after canvassing the entire neighborhood up to that point to make it look good.”

  “Go on.”

  “Nora Phillips is their niece. The elderly gentleman said so. She parked her car there for the time being since her pappy, brother to his wife, is desperately ill on Neosol.”

  “So?”

  “She’ll be back, but they did not know when.”

  “Get her address?”

  “Couldn’t get too curious. No.”

  “Damn.”

  “Why?”

  “Somehow’, Nora is tied up in this. On my side.”

  “Okay, I’m going to follow one other lead. Take it easy, Paul, and give the physicists hell.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I will begin at the beginning,” smiled Paul, wishing he had the air of a professional lecturer and the literary ability of an author, “space was first conquered by rocket propulsion. Eventually a base was established on Luna and the space stations set up. Operating in space, the physicists discovered the supervelocity drive, which like electricity, was used long before people began to understand it.

  “The rocket is a clumsy device and ill-adapted to anything but limited, professional use. But the superdrive made space travel practical for the ordinary man. Space was truly conquered then, and today men live on Venus and on Mars. Precariously and uncomfortably, but they live there. Men have spread throughout the solar system, working in mines and medicinal farms and jungles. Their tenure of employment is dictated by the rigors of life on these inimical planets of Sol.

  “With the superdrive, explorers chased through the nearer galaxy, seeking a planet suitable for colonization. While most stars have been found to have planets, there was not one found that filled the bill until they located Neosol and Neoterra, both of which resemble Sol and the earth to a fine degree.

  “Radio linked the colonies of Sol, and after Neosol was colonized, radio linked its spread-out colonists.

  “Forty years ago, Carrington discovered the Z-wave, an outgrowth of the superdrive. Then the instantaneous Z-wave replaced the slow radio transmissions that required teletype and code communications, and voice to -voice contacts prevailed throughout the solar system, and throughout the system of Neosol.

  “But the Z-wave did not cross the gulf of interstellar space, and years of experimentation followed, all of which failed. Then, twenty years ago, Chadwick Haedaecker suggested the theory now known as Haedaecker’s Theory, which tended to show that the Z-wave propagated because of the fields of force generated in the central cores of stars. Since that date, only desultory attempts have been made to test the Z-wave in deep space. Experimentation had stopped, for all practical purposes. About the only people who have given the matter much thought are students of theory, and a couple of hardy souls like myself, who—I have been accused and of which I must admit—hoped to become rich and famous by making some extraordinary discovery.

  “I will now advance the idea that I hope will be eventually known as Grayson’s Principle.

  “The basis of Grayson’s Principle is that the Z-wave will not propagate between points that have not previously been linked by electromagnetic waves!”

  This caused a storm in the auditorium. A showing of frantic hands flowered above the sea of faces and the hall broke into a growling murmur of muttering voices, discussing pro and con.

  The chairman came forward and spoke to Paul: “Shall I call order, or would you prefer to have a mid-lecture discussion?”

  Paul smiled nervously. “I was prepared for this,” he said. “The rest of this will run better if we get this one point settled. It will be too long from now to the end of my lecture to make these men hold their questions.”

  “Good!” smiled Thorndyke. He rapped for order. “Gentlemen,” he said, speaking over the incomplete attention, “Mister Grayson has just made a rather shocking statement, which is cause for controversy. He has suggested himself that a mid-lecture period of questions will hasten our understanding of his theory.”

  There was a burst of applause and the flowering of hands went up again.

  “Edwin Johnson,” said the first man naming himself. “Granting that it takes light one hundred and forty years to cross between here and Neosol, I suggest that the entire galaxy has been coupled by electromagnetic waves for two thousand million years.”
/>
  “I said ‘linked’,” explained Paul easily. “This question is one that stumped me for a long time and was possibly the one thing that prevented the advancement of the principle long before. But the detectors we employ to detect those frequencies we term ‘light’ are not similar to those we use for the longer frequencies of radio, even though both are electromagnetic waves. Light will not travel along a conductor, although it is true that the longer waves will be transmitted through a waveguide made of dielectric that is transparent to them. Ergo, it is the means we use to handle these frequencies that establish the ‘linkage’ rather than the medium or the wave itself.”

  “I am Fred Hughes,” said the second. “Do you mean to state that the Z-wave has never been known to operate between points not previously linked by radio?”

  “That is right.”

  “You’ve investigated everything?”

  “Mine is negative evidence, I admit. This is why it is hard to establish as truth. But remember, the solar system was linked by radio long before the Z-wave was discovered.”

  “How about spacecraft?”

  “Once the Z-wave linkage is established by its forerunner of radio, it is complete and can not be broken.”

  “A spacecraft employs radio until it reaches the superdrive point. Then—?”

  “I have had no opportunity to check this point as yet. I believe it has to do with the doppler effect. Remember that the selectivity of the radio used in space is such that a doppler shift will not detune it grossly. Obviously, superdrive will completely ruin such tuning.”

  “But this has been tried?”

  “Yes. It was once hoped that we could link to Neosol that way. The connection failed as soon as the ship entered superdrive.”

  “But interplanetary ships employ Z-wave.”

  “I have had no opportunity to check this on an interstellar scale. I shall at the earliest opportunity. It is my belief that the radio beacons between earth and Venus, for instance, are maintained at both ends by receiver and transmitter, the receiver being used to control the transmitter and keep the beam properly centered and to check its presence. This contact made in both directions along the spacelanes, maintains the operation of the Z-wave on the ship, running at higher than the speed of light. The radio is, of course, useless. But the Z-wave, propagating at some figure we cannot measure yet, suffers no doppler effect.”