Not that such an idea was important at present. Later, when he had solved the problem at hand, he intended to make NAPA pay through the nose for the idea; or perhaps it would be more amusing to compete with them. He wondered when their basic patents ran out - must look it up
Despite inefficiencies the deKalb receptors should work every time, all the time, without failure. He went happily about finding out why they did not
He had suspected some obvious - obvious to him - defect in manufacture. But the inoperative deKalbs which Stevens had delivered to him refused to give up their secret. He X-rayed them, measured them with micrometer and interferometer, subjected them to all the usual tests and some that were quite unusual and peculiarly Waldo-ish. They would not perform
He built a deKalb in his shop, using one of the inoperative ones as a model and using the reworked metal of another of the same design, also inoperative, as the raw material, he used his finest scanners to see with and his smallest waldoes -tiny pixy hands, an inch across - for manipulation in the final stages. He created a deKalb which was as nearly identical with its model as technology and incredible skill could produce
It worked beautifully
Its elder twin still refused to work. He was not discouraged by this. On the contrary, he was elated. He had proved, proved with certainty, that the failure of the deKalbs was not a failure of workmanship, but a basic failure in theory. The problem was real
Stevens had reported to him the scandalous performance of the deKalbs in McLeod's skycar, but he had not yet given his attention to the matter. Presently, in proper order, when he got around to it, he would look into the matter. In the meantime he tabled the matter. The smooth apes were an hysterical lot; there was probably nothing to the story. Writhing like Medusa's locks, indeed! He gave fully half his time to Grimes's problem
He was forced to admit that the biological sciences - if you could call them science! - were more fascinating than he had thought. He had shunned them, more or less; the failure of expensive ‘experts' to do anything for his condition when he was a child had made him contemptuous of such studies. Old wives nostrums dressed up in fancy terminology! Grimes he liked and even respected, but Grimes was a special case
Grimes's data had convinced Waldo that the old man had a case. Why, this was serious! The figures were incomplete, but nevertheless convincing. The curve of the third decrement, extrapolated not too unreasonably, indicated that in twenty years there would not be a man left with strength enough to work in the heavy industries. Button pushing would be all they would be good for
It did not occur to him that all he was good for was button pushing; he regarded weakness in the smooth apes as an old-style farmer might regard weakness in a draft animal. The farmer did not expect to pull the plough - that was the horse's job
Grimes's medical colleagues must be utter fools
Nevertheless, he sent for the best physiologists, neurologists, brain surgeons, and anatomists he could locate, ordering them as one might order goods from a catalogue. He must understand this matter
He was considerably annoyed when he found that he could not make arrangements, by any means, to perform vivisection on human beings. He was convinced by this time that the damage done by ultra short-wave radiation was damage to the neurological system, and that the whole matter should be treated from the standpoint of electromagnetic theory. He wanted to perform certain delicate manipulations in which human beings would be hooked up directly to apparatus of his own design to find out in what manner nerve impulses differed from electrical current. He felt that if he could disconnect portions of a man's nervous circuit, replace it in part with electrical hookups, and examine the whole matter in situ, he might make illuminating discoveries. True, the man might not be much use to himself afterwards
But the authorities were stuffy about it; he was forced to content himself with cadavers and with animals
Nevertheless, he made progress. Extreme short-wave radiation had a definite effect on the nervous system - a double effect: it produced ‘ghost' pulsations in the neurons, Insufficient to accomplish muscular motor response, but, he suspected, strong enough to keep the body in a continual state of inhibited nervous excitation; and, secondly, a living specimen which had been subjected to this process for any length of time showed a definite, small but measurable, lowering in the efficiency of its neural impulses. If it had been an electrical circuit, he would have described the second effect as a decrease in insulating efficiency
The sum of these two effects on the subject individual was a condition of mild tiredness, somewhat similar to the malaise of the early stages of pulmonary tuberculosis. The victim did not feel sick; he simply lacked pep. Strenuous bodily activity was not impossible; it was simply distasteful; it required too much effort, too much willpower
But an orthodox pathologist would have been forced to report that the victim was in perfect health - a little run-down, perhaps, but nothing wrong with him. Too sedentary a life, probably. What he needed was fresh air, sunshine, and healthy exercise
Doc Grimes alone had guessed that the present, general, marked preference for a sedentary life was the effect and not the cause of the prevailing lack of vigour. The change had been slow, at least as slow as the increase in radiation in the air. The individuals concerned had noticed it, if at all, simply as an indication that they were growing a little bit older,‘slowing down, not so young as I used to be'. And they were content to slow down; it was more comfortable than exertion
Grimes had first begun to be concerned about it when he began to notice that all of his younger patients were ‘the bookish type'. It was all very well for a kid to like to read books, he felt, but a normal boy ought to be out doing a little hell raising too. What had become of the sand-lot football games, the games of scrub, the clothes-tearing activity that had characterized his own boyhood? Damn it, a kid ought not to spend all his time poring over a stamp collection
Waldo was beginning to find the answer
The nerve network of the body was not dissimilar to antennae. Like antennae, it could and did pick up electromagnetic waves. But the pickup was evidenced not as induced electrical current, but as nerve pulsation - impulses which were maddeningly similar to, but distinctly different from, electrical current. Electromotive force could be used in place of nerve impulses to activate muscle tissue, but emf was not nerve impulse. For one thing they travelled at vastly different rates of speed. Electrical current travcls at a speed approaching that of light; neural impulse is measured in feet per second
Waldo felt that somewhere in this matter of speed lay the key to the problem
He was not permitted to ignore the matter of McLeod's fantastic skycar as long as he had intended to. Dr Rambeau called him up. Waldo accepted the call, since it was routed from the laboratories of NAPA. ‘Who are you and what do you want?' he demanded of the image
Rambeau looked around cautiously. ‘Sssh! Not so loud,' he whispered. ‘They might be listening.
‘Who might be? And who are you?
‘"They" are the ones who are doing it. Lock your doors at night. I'm Dr Rambeau.
‘Dr Rambeau? Oh yes. Well, Doctor, what is the meaning of this intrusion?
The doctor leaned forward untilhe appeared about to fall out of the stereo picture. ‘I've learned how to do it,' he said tensely
‘How to do what?
‘Make the deKalbs work. The dear, dear deKalbs.' He suddenly thrust his hands at Waldo, while clutching frantically with his fingers. ‘They go like this: Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle!
Waldo felt a normal impulse to cut the man off, but it was overruled by a fascination as to what he would say next. Rambeau continued, ‘Do you know why? Do you? Riddle me that.
‘Why?
Rambeau placed a finger beside his nose and smiled roguishly. ‘Wouldn't you like to know? Wouldn't you give a pretty to know? But I'll tell you!
‘Tell me, then.
Rambeau suddenly looked terrifie
d. ‘Perhaps I shouldn't. Perhaps they are listening. But I will, I will! Listen carefully: Nothing is certain
‘Is that all?' inquired Waldo, now definitely amused by the man's antics
‘"Is that all?" Isn't that enough? Hens will crow and cocks will lay. You are here and I am there. Or maybe not. Nothing is certain. Nothing, nothing, NOTHING is certain! Around and around the little ball goes, and where it stops nobody knows. Only I've learned how to do it.
‘How to do what?
‘How to make the little ball stop where I want it to. Look.' He whipped out a penknife. ‘When you cut yourself, you bleed, don't you? Or do you?' He sliced at the forefinger of his left hand. ‘See?' He held the finger close to the pickup; the cut though deep, was barely discernible and it was bleeding not at all
Capital! thought Waldo. Hysteric vascular control - a perfect clinical case. ‘Anybody can do that,' he said aloud. ‘Show me a hard one.
‘Anybody? Certainly anybody can - if they know how. Try this one.' He jabbed the point of the penknife straight into the palm of his left hand, so that it stuck out the back of his hand. He wiggled the blade in the wound, withdrew it, and displayed the palm. No blood, and the incision was closing rapidly. ‘Do you know why? The knife is only probably there, and I've found the improbability!
Amusing as it had been, Waldo was beginning to be bored by it. ‘Is that all?
‘There is no end to it,' pronounced Rambeau, ‘for nothing is certain any more. Watch this.' He held the knife flat on his palm, then turned his hand over
The knife did not fall, but remained in contact with the underside of his hand
Waldo was suddenly attentive. It might be a trick; it probably was a trick - but it impressed him more, much more, than Rambeau's failure to bleed when cut. One was common to certain types of psychosis; the other should not have happened. He cut in another vicwphonc circuit. ‘Get me Chief Engineer Stevens at North American Power-Air,' he said sharply. ‘At once!
Rambeau paid no attention, but continued to speak of the penknife. ‘It does not know which way is down,' he crooned, ‘for nothing is certain any more. Maybe it will fall - maybe not. I think it will. There - it has. Would you like to see me walk on the ceiling?
‘You called me, Mr Jones?' It was Stevens
Waldo cut his audio circuit to Rambeau. ‘Yes. That jumping jack, Rambeau. Catch him and bring him to me at once. I want to see him.
‘But Mr Jo-
‘Move!' He cut Stevens off, and renewed the audio to Rambeau
‘-uncertainty. Chaos is King, and Magic is loose in the world!' Rambeau looked vaguely at Waldo, brightened, and added, ‘Good day, Mr Jones. Thank you for calling.
The screen went dead
Waldo waited impatiently. The whole thing had been a hoax, he told himself. Rambeau had played a gigantic practical joke. Waldo disliked practical jokes. He put in another call for Stevens and left it in
When Stevens did call back his hair was mussed and his face was red. ‘We had a bad time of it,' he said
‘Did you get him?
‘Rambeau? Yes, finally.
‘Then bring him up.
‘To Freehold? But that's impossible. You don't understand. He's blown his top; he's crazy. They've taken him away to a hospital.
‘You assume too much,' Waldo said icily. ‘I know he's crazy, but I meant what I said. Arrange it. Provide nurses. Sign affidavits. Use bribery. Bring him to me at once. It is necessary.~ ‘You really mean that?
‘I'm not in the habit of jesting.
‘Something to do with your investigations? He's in no shape to be useful to you, I can tell you that.
‘That,' pronounced Waldo, ‘is for me to decide.
‘Well,' said Stevens doubtfully, ‘I'll try.
‘See that you succeed.
Stevens called back thirty minutes later. ‘I can't bring Rambeau.
‘You clumsy incompetent.
Stevens turned red, but held his temper. ‘Never mind the personalities. He's gone. He never got to the hospital.
‘What?
‘That's the crazy part about it. They took him away in a confining stretcher, laced up like a corset. I saw them fasten him in myself. But when they got there he was gone. And the attendants claim the straps weren't even unbuckled.
Waldo started to say, ‘Preposterous,' thought better of it. Stevens went on
‘But that's not the half of it. I'd sure like to talk to him myself. I've been looking around his lab. You know that set of deKalbs that went nuts -. the ones that were hexed?
‘I know to what you refer.
‘Rambeau's got a second set to do the same thing!' Waldo remained silent for several seconds, then said quietly, ‘Dr Stevens-
‘Yes.
‘I want to thank you for your efforts. And will you please have both sets of receptors, the two sets that are misbehaving, sent to Freehold at once?
There was no doubt about it. Once he had seen them with his own eyes, watched the inexplicable squirming of the antennae, applied such tests as suggested themselves to his mind, Waldo was forced to conclude that he was faced with new phenomena, phenomena for which he did not know the rules
If there were rules
For he was honest with himself. If he saw what he thought he saw, then rules were being broken by the new phenomena, rules which he had considered valid, rules to which he had never previously encountered exceptions. He admitted to himself that the original failures of the deKalbs should have been considered just as overwhelmingly upsetting to physical law as the unique behaviour of these two; the difference lay in that one alien phenomenon was spectacular, the other was not
Quite evidently Dr Rambeau had found it so; he had been informed that the doctor had been increasingly neurotic from the first instance of erratic performance of the deKalb receptors
He regretted the loss of Dr Rambeau. Waldo was more impressed by Rambeau crazy than he had ever been by Rambeau sane. Apparently the man had had some modicum of ability after all; he had found out something - more, Waldo admitted, than he himself had been able to find out so far, even though it had driven Rambeau insane
Waldo had no fear that Rambeau's experience, whatever it had been, could unhinge his own reason. His own self-confidence was, perhaps, fully justified. His own mild paranoid tendency was just sufficient to give him defences against an unfriendly world. For him it was healthy, a necessary adjustment to an otherwise intolerable situation, no more pathological than a callous, or an acquired immunity
Otherwise he was probably more able to face disturbing facts with equanimity than ninety-nine per cent of his contemporaries. He had been born to disaster; he had met it and had overcome it, time and again. The very house which surrounded him was testimony to the calm and fearless fashion in which he had defeated a world to which he was not adapted
He exhausted, temporarily, the obvious lines of direct research concerning the strangely twisting metal rods. Rambeau was not available for questioning. Very well, there remained one other man who knew more about it than Waldo did. He would seek him out. He called Stevens again
‘Has there been any word of Dr Rambeau?
‘No word, and no sign. I'm beginning to think the poor old fellow is dead.
‘Perhaps. That witch doctor friend of your assistant - was Schneider his name?
‘Gramps Schneider.
‘Yes indeed. Will you please arrange for him to speak with me?
‘By phone, or do you want to see him in person?
‘I would prefer for him to come here, but I understand that he is old and feeble; it may not be feasible for him to leave the ground. If he is knotted up with spacesickness, he will be no use to me.
‘I'll see what can be done.
‘Very good. Please expedite the matter. And, Dr Stevens-
‘Well?
‘If it should prove necessary to use the phone, arrange to have a portable full stereo taken to his home. I want the circumstances to be a
s favourable as possible.
‘OK.
‘Imagine that,' Stevens added to McLeod when the circuit had been broken. ‘The Great-I-Am's showing consideration for somebody else's convenience
‘The fat boy must be sick,' McLeod decided
‘Seems likely. This chore is more yours than mine, Mac. Come along with me; we'll take a run over into Pennsylvania.
‘How about the plant?
‘Tell Carruthers he's "It". If anything blows, we couldn't help it anyway.
Stevens mugged back later in the day. ‘Mr Jones-
‘Yes, Doctor?
‘What you suggest can't be arranged.
‘You mean that Schneider can't come to Freehold?
‘I mean that and I mean that you can't talk with him on the viewphone.
‘I presume that you mean he is dead.
‘No, I do not. I mean that he will not talk over the view-phone under any circumstances whatsoever, to you or to anyone. He says that he is sorry not to accommodate you, but that he is opposed to everything of that nature - cameras, einécams, television, and so forth. He considers them dangerous. I am afraid he is set in his superstition.
‘As an ambassador, Dr Stevens, you leave much to be desired.
Stevens counted up to ten, then said, ‘I assure you that I have done everything in my power to comply with your wishes. If you are dissatisfied with the quality of my cooperation, I suggest that you speak to Mr Gleason.' He cleared the circuit
‘How would you like to kick him in the teeth?' McLeod said dreamily
‘Mac, you're a mind reader.
Waldo tried again through his own agents, received the same answer. The situation was, to him, almost intolerable; it had been years since he had encountered a man whom he could not buy, bully, nor - in extremity - persuade. Buying had failed; he had realized instinctively that Schneider would be unlikely to be motivated by greed. And how can one bully, or wheedle, a man who cannot be seen to be talked with? It was a dead end - no way out. Forget it
Waldo Page 6
