Frances didn’t understand but she didn’t let Steve know it.
“How can the difficulty be overcome?” she asked.
“Free electrons, roaming around in a wire, by pure accident sometimes, pile up at one end,” Steve went on. “When they do, that’s an electric current. The kid said those currents are accidents and could I make them when I wanted to. And that was all I needed. Of course I could! I took a bit of wire and used the crater-stone. All the electrons in it could only move toward one end, as if Clerk Maxwell’s demons were on the job. Of course, that cooled off the wire. And of course it gave a current!”
He looked at her triumphantly.
“Then I wondered if that accidental condition could be made permanent, and it could. After I’ve treated a bit of wire, the electrons can only travel in one direction in it, and so they do. They pile up, new free electrons form where they came from, and we have power, the wire gets cold and absorbs more heat to produce more electricity, and it’s a D.C. generator with no moving parts, that needs no fuel, and that will keep on working till the cows come home. We’ll never worry about fuel any more. We can run machines and automobiles and ships and airplanes on heat we take out of the air. Sunpower, when you think of it. That’s a good first step toward a new civilization.”
Frances smiled warmly at him. He freed her hand to gesticulate.
“I was working then with electrons. I tried it next with molecules. They have random motions because of heat. It’s more pronounced in gases and liquids but it’s always there. When I was able to make all the molecules in a glass of water try to move in the same direction at the same time, I knew I had the next big thing lined up. I was trying to fix some iron the same way when you came in to try to make me eat.”
Then Steve stopped short and looked at her. His expression became one of intense self-disgust.
“Lord! Frances! Here I’m talking rot instead of going after grub for you! Why do you stay here and listen, anyway?”
“I thought,” said Frances ingenuously, “that maybe when you got through you might kiss me again.”
They went out of the laboratory some ten minutes later, with Frances smiling contentedly and patting her hair back into place.
“And we’re both hungry,” Steve said to her, marveling. “It must be love!”
They were laughing when they went in search of Bob, the boy. He had labored magnificently, but his creation looked like nothing that had ever been before on earth, or in the heavens above or the waters under the earth. It was an incredibly intricate arrangement of bits of second-hand wire and salvaged bottles from the former trash-dump. Some of the bottles were filled with liquid and had wires inserted, in them, but others seemed completely empty save for wires which had no apparent purpose.
“These are our jewels, I think,” said Steve. “I’ll check it over and get some of our whiskered allies to work it. Since Bob, here, made it, they may not think I’m a witch if it works. But they’ll keep him busy for the next month or so explaining it to them.”
He verified the meanderings of wires which were definitely not in any circuit which could be classed as electronic. It was something completely new, and it looked insane.
“A good job, Bob. Let’s show it to the others.”
The boy gulped, and ran. In minutes the others came to see. The boy stood back, trembling with excitement.
Steve smiled at the men who still regarded him with a mixture of faith and dark suspicion.
“This is a machine to cause accidental happenings,” he said. “Our young friend Bob made it. He’ll explain to you how it works. There are all sorts of accidents. Some are good ones and some are bad. This is supposed to cause good ones.” He pointed to the bearded man who had been first to say that even if Steve had defeated the late looters with the devil’s aid he was glad of it. “You, there! If you’ll take hold of those two handles and think of what we need to have h appen, I believe you’ll get your wish.”
The bearded man stepped forward. His face contorted with sudden terrific emotion, He held the handles.
Nothing happened.
Steve touched his shoulder and he stepped back.
“I wished,” said the bearded man fiercely, “that every murderer and looter in the world should drop dead, and every man who had anything to do with the bombs!”
“I’m afraid our gadget isn’t up to anything on so large a scale,” said Steve drily. “We’ll have to be a bit more modest. That couldn’t happen by accident. It couldn’t happen by chance.”
The boy whispered to Steve.
“But it works, sir! I tried it. I—pulled for it that someday I’ll know as much as you do, and the wires glowed!”
Steve looked at him, and could make no comment. He turned to the other men.
“Somebody pull for something that’s simply improbable,” he suggested curtly. “I want you people to realize that this is simply machinery but that it does produce a definite result.”
A younger man took the two handles. One of the bottles with wires and liquid suddenly bubbled. The wire seemed to grow incandescent under the liquid. It stayed that way. Another wire, exposed to air, glistened wetly. The wetness clouded. The wire covered with frost. Then, gradually, the incandescence died away. The young man, a little bit frightened, let go of the handles.
“We’re all on short rations,” he explained apologetically. “I wished the snares we’ve got in the woods will get filled up so we’ll all have a good supper.”
“That is what science is for!” said Steve approvingly. “Right now, anyhow. Let’s see what we see.”
An hour later the men began to come back from their round of the snares. They had more than twenty rabbits, two ruffed grouse, and a partridge. Steve nodded in satisfaction.
“I guess we can keep game coming in to feed us,” he told Frances. “But we’ve got to be careful, at that. If there’s a migration of game this way, there’ll be people following it. We’ll have to go in for wild-fowl, instead of ground-game. Say, a dozen or so ducks or geese or whatnot to land on the pond each day.
“Somehow too, we’ve got to get vegetables, and some iron and stuff to work with.” He sighed. “I’m not going to feel comfortable, though, until we’ve got some kind of a defense against atomic bombs and attacks by the guerillas who might be sent to hunt us down.”
“I wish you had more time to be with me, Steve,” Frances said wistfully.
“I wish that those two men who went off to hunt for the women would come back,” said Steve. “And Lucky would be handy to have around. I can cook up gadgets, Frances, but I guess I’m not practical. Everybody’s been hungry because I wasn’t. And we’ve got to be practical.
“The people with planes and bombs do know that something odd happened around here. Their man had reported it before I killed him. And it’s a fact that, if we’re let alone, sooner or later we’ll be dangerous. But right now they could crush us as we step upon ants.”
There were thirty people in the house, of whom Steve and a sixteen-year-old boy alone could make a device which controlled chance, and therefore constituted the whole body of useful science left upon earth.
The rest of the continent of North America was a waste, roamed by ever-more-desperate looting bands who inevitably tore down any traces of civilization they came upon, guided by the spies of people who were resolved that America should become unpeopled save by savages.
But the two men who had set out days before, came back that afternoon. They had two women and three small children with them. The women and the children were nearly half-starved. One of the women had been a prisoner of a small band of looters, a fragment of the bands which had hunted the refugees across country. Her captors were now dead. The two men were filled with bitterest rage. The shorter of the men had four fresh scalps dangling on his belt.
That was disturbing. Civilization could not be based on scalps. But as Steve was thinking it over in his mind, later on, there was a hail from the new-fallen night.
Lucky C
onnors had come back.
CHAPTER XII
Ominous News
Uttering a cry of delight Frances hugged Lucky and Steve found himself unexpectedly jealous. But Lucky put out his hand and grinned.
“You been goin’ places, fella,” Lucky said. “You really got things done. Whew, electric lights! You got a whole tribe around you. You got plenty of grub?”
“We’ll do,” said Steve. “I’ve been needing you, Lucky. I seem to be the absentminded professor type. But there’s a kid here who used to play with television.”
“Migosh!” said Lucky. “Stop him, fast! Those guys with planes and bombs can track down anything like that. Look!”
He unslung a pack from his back and tumbled out a half dozen small flat objects.
“These here, are some kinda short-wave sets,” he said earnestly. “Spies for the guys with planes carry ’em. They can spot anything that runs by electricity with ’em. They can talk with planes with ’em. And they can find each other and know each other with ’em. If there’s somebody playin’ with television around here he’d better quit right off!”
Steve nodded.
“We’re safe as far as that goes. I got one of these same things from a spy I killed. If you open them the wrong way they blow up, though.”
Lucky grinned again. They were in the big room of the house with electric lights, but as there was a serious shortage of bulbs, a great fire was burning in the fireplace. The farmers, who now gave Steve great respect, had gathered to listen. Lucky seemed to be in fine fettle.
“I got me a spy, early,” he said contentedly. “Remember I told you I was gonna hunt down one of the fellas who report to the guys doin’ the bombin’s? And I said I was gonna make him talk? When I left here, I pulled hard to meet one of those fellas. First day after I left, I struck on south. Then west. I went on three days and never saw a livin’ soul. I didn’t feel agreeable, and maybe it was just as well.
“On the fourth day I found a dead man, new-killed. He looked like he’d been eatin’ regular, so I hunted for a trail an’ went on after the folks who’d killed ’im. ‘Bout nightfall I caught up with ’em, settin’ around a fire. I went in to the fire an’ says, ‘I’m Lucky Connors and I’m a gamblin’ fool. I got a rifle I’ll gamble against grub or what have you, with y’own dice.’ That kinda broke the ice.”
Steve grimaced. With a crater-stone, controlling chance, Lucky Connors could not lose shooting crap unless he wanted to, no matter what dice he rolled.
“Them that woulda killed me for the rifle, figured it’d be more fun to roll me for it,” said Lucky. “But I cleaned up the camp, usin’ their own dice, and some of them was the crookedest dice I ever did see! Then I ate hearty and said, ‘I’m Lucky Connors, fellas, and I can’t carry all this stuff I won. You fellas take it back and let me in on the party, whatever it is.’ And I set back and waited for ’em to call the play. But I was in.”
Lucky paused and grinned.
“They coulda killed me, but every one of ’em wanted to find out how I made their own dice misbehave,” he went on. “So we set around cordial and they told me what they were aimin’ for. They’d heard there was a farm that hadn’t been raided and there was a coupla women and plenty of grub there, so they were goin’ over to see. So I joined ’em for the raid, and I pulled for the folks we were goin’ after to light out before we got there.”
He pulled forth a pipe and tobacco. He filled and lighted his pipe. The watching men stirred hungrily.
“Smoke up on me,” Lucky said hospitably. “I got some more.”
He tossed a bulging bag to the nearest man. It went from hand to hand. Some of the men had not smelled tobacco for weeks.
“They’d cleared out, all right, but we looted the place of grub,” he added. ‘We burned the house, too, and set fire to the crops in the field. It was the boss of the gang who done that. That fella kinda—uh—int’rested me. How’d he know about a farm that hadn’t been raided, and why’d he want to burn crops that coulda been come back for after they was ripe?”
The atmosphere was not cordial. These men were farmers, too, and half their number had been killed by looters exactly like those Lucky said he’d joined.
“I kinda figured things out,” said Lucky. “If I was right, he’d have some kinda report to make, that night. So I didn’t go off to sleep like the others. I hid out an’ watched. And when everybody else was snorin’, the boss of the gang he walked off beyond the fire, and he listened awhile, and he went on a ways farther, and then he started mutterin’ like he was mutterin’ to himself.
“I let him talk himself out, and when he quit and started back to the fire I jumped ’im. Knocked him cold. I tied him up an’ heaved him on my back and carried him till I was tired. Then I made sure he was tied tight and went to sleep.”
Steve felt a light touch against his shoulder. It was Frances, sitting on the floor beside him to listen to Lucky. She leaned comfortably, unconsciously, against Steve. Any trace of jealousy he might have felt evaporated on the instant.
“Come mornin’ I woke up with a shot-gun in my middle. There was a man and two women there, and the man was ready to blow me to here-and-gone. He was the farmer that we’d burned his house and crops. He’d watched us loot and burn his place. He’d have shot me whilst I was asleep, only he recognized the man I was carryin’ all tied up as the guy who’d fired his wheatfield. So he was curious to know what it was all about, and he meant to ask me before he killed me. I told him.”
Lucky grinned and puffed on his pipe. He enjoyed an audience, did Lucky. A little while before, most of his present hearers had been favorably impressed by his present of tobacco, and then turned to instinctive hatred by his narration of a share in a guerilla raid. Now they wavered. They did not know what to think. And Lucky enjoyed their indecision.
“That guerilla boss, he sure got eloquent. I never heard any man beg for his life so hard. So the farmer, he took my word for what I was after—the evidence was pretty good—and we staked that guerilla boss out and we built a fire and begun to ask him questions. When he started lyin’ we stripped him—that was when I found the first one of the dinguses, Steve—and got some brands ready, and then he told the truth.”
The eyes of the refugees burned, now. They no longer hated Lucky. They waited hungrily to hear of torture.
“What nationality was he, Lucky,” Steve said suddenly. “What language did he speak into that transmitter?”
“Huh!” said Lucky scornfully. “He was nothin’ but a lowdown looter! He talked American same as you and me. He’d been bossin’ a kinda small gang, lootin’ and burnin’ and killin’, and fellas would turn up and join and drop out again, and he wasn’t makin’ out so good. But a fella turned up and offered confidential to give him guns and whisky to build his gang up with if he’d take tips by short-wave radio and report what he seen and done.”
Lucky turned and gave Steve a quick glance.
“You and me, Steve, woulda shot that guy for a spy, but this boss guerilla took him up. And the fella gave him a short-wave set and told him how to use it—but he warned him not to open it—and sure enough, next night the short-wave set told him where to find a cache of whisky and a few guns, and he began to prosper. He had thirty—forty men under him when I joined up. Mostly they were raidin’ farms that the short-wave told him about, burnin’ ’em and gettin’ the grub and killin’ the people just for the deviltry of it.”
He paused.
“It took us a right long time to get all the details outa him,” he added drily. “Once we had to start a little bit of fire on his middle. But he told us everything he knew, and I treated him fair.” His tone was virtuous. “I done just like I promised I would, if he told me everything he knew without holdin’ back none.”
A bearded man leaned forward, his eyes burning.
“You didn’t let him go, man!”
“Shucks, no!” said Lucky in surprise. “But I kept to my promise. The farmer wanted to do it, so I let
him, but that fella got just what I promised him—killed quick, with one shot. It took a lotta argument to get him to be satisfied with that, but I—uh—persuaded him.” Lucky’s eyes glowed with a satisfaction that comes when a long pent-up hatred is released by brutal revenge.
Frances’ hand, in Steve’s, tightened convulsively. Steve made no move. There could be no ethics in a war such as was now being fought.
“And after that, Lucky?” Steve said evenly. “That’s only one transmitter. Here are a half dozen.”
“Oh, we found out how to get from him. There’s other fellas like him that got transmitters, and there’s fellas that pass ’em out The ones who pass ’em out are from the folks with planes and bombs. One of those dials is for locatin’ another fella who’s got one. It’s so they can join up and know each other and not waste time fightin’ each other. He explained all about it. So the farmer and me, we used that one. We set it to make a kinda call, like he told us how, and we set and waited. Two-three days later some fellas come by and one of ’em told the others to go on ahead while he set down. When his fellas were outa sight, he came straight toward our sendin’ set. I killed him.”
Lucky’s air was tranquil; his tone conversational.
“That fella had two pistols and more ammunition than you’d think one man could carry! And he had another set just like the one I had. I give it to the farmer and he said he was gonna go in the business of sendin’ out calls for fellas with those sets. They’d always arrange to meet him quiet—naturally. And it’d be profitable work, when you think of it. Anybody hidin’ out would give a lotta grub for a gun or pistol and some shells, and him and the two women, all havin’ guns, could take care of themselves easy.
“Him and the women went off to where he said he knew there was another fella hidin’ out. He said he guessed he’d set his friend up in the business too, if it turned out good. In fact, he might set up several fellas, killin’ off men with sendin’ sets that talk with the folks that have planes an’ bombs.
“So I arranged a recognition-signal that everybody in that business would use to know everybody else, and we parted. A right nice fella, that farmer. He said he hoped I’d come to see him some time if things ever got better and he got his house built back up again.”
The Second Murray Leinster Megapack Page 41
