by Various
That did it.
Brinton got out a scratch pad and drew a little diagram.
Then he went to talk to Dr. Ferber.
"Would it be possible that Harrison started with a multi-ringed phenol?" he asked. Dr. Ferber nodded. Dr. Brinton showed him the drawing. "Does that remind you of any geometrical figure?"
Dr. Ferber looked. There was a pause, then his eyes lit up.
"Of course," he said. "Since formulae are usually drawn in one plane, I doubt if anyone ever noticed that before. And when it comes under stress by compression, it's only natural that it should fold." He paused and looked at the calendar, "Four weeks?" he asked.
"That'll do fine," said Dr. Brinton. "I'll arrange the details. You look after the fuel. Harrison can give us the details of this one, but there are probably any number of fuels based on this principal. Some will be even more efficient, too."
He excused himself, went to a phone, and asked for a Washington number. The call was answered.
"Hello, Senator MacNeill?" he said. "How would you like to be guest of honor at a party?"
* * * * *
Brinton peered through the ring of reporters over to the head table where Senator MacNeill was speaking, and speaking, and speaking.
"He's on his home state," Dr. Brinton said. "About half an hour to go. Now, gentlemen, you were asking about the new fuel. You all received press handouts containing the information. You will probably receive copies of the Senator's speech. And the broadcast from our first men on the Moon went out over several networks hours ago. It seems to me that you have enough for several stories."
One of the reporters asked bewilderedly, "What is a tesseract? I read the handout twice and I still don't understand."
"A mathematician would be better qualified to explain," said Dr. Brinton, "but I'll try. A tesseract is a fourth dimensional cube. A line has one dimension, a square has two, a cube has three, and a tesseract has four. A cube can be unfolded into six squares, and a tesseract unfolds to eight cubes. The new fuel had a molecular structure resembling an unfolded tesseract. When pressure is applied, it folds up into a tesseract so that it takes up less room and relieves the pressure.
"The practical application is that we can get eight pounds of it into a one pound can. The other seven pounds of it are riding around in the fourth dimension. As soon as it starts to burn, the structure is destroyed, so that it comes back out of the fourth dimension. Several people have assured me that it can't work. They're probably right, except that it does. Oh, I'll be back in a minute."
He went over to another group and spoke to one of its members. The man addressed nodded his head and left. Dr. Brinton returned.
"If there are no more questions, I suggest we do some serious drinking. I am now out of a job and I want to celebrate."
* * * * *
Promptly at seven-thirty, a relay clicked and the alarm clock went into its usual daily routine with the chimes, window, lights, and bath water.
Dr. Brinton woke up enough to reach out a lazy arm and flip a newly installed toggle switch beside his bed. Everything returned to normal. The light and the chimes both faded away, the window reopened, and a soft gurgling came from the bathroom.
A slight gurgling also came from the bed, where Dr. Brinton, with a happy little smile on his face, had gone peacefully back to sleep, perfectly satisfied that he had worked himself into unemployment by finding the fuel that would power spaceships to--and from--any part of the Solar System.
* * *
Contents
CELEBRITY
By James McKimmey, Jr.
June 19, 1978. Celebrity day.
The city stretched. Empty streets glistened from the bath of a water truck. Dew-wet grass winked at the fresh peeping sun, like millions of shimmering diamonds. A bird chirped. Another. The city yawned.
Rows of houses lay like square ivory beads on patches of green felt. A boy drove his bicycle down the middle of an elm-bordered avenue, whistling loudly, while tightly rolled newspapers arced from his hand and slapped against porches.
Lights snapped on in a thousand windows, shining yellowly against the cool whiteness of dawn. Men blinked and touched beard-stubbled chins. Women moved sleepily toward porcelain and chrome kitchens.
A truck roared and garbage pails rattled. There was a smell of sour orange rinds and wet leaves and unfolding flowers. Over this came the smell of toasting bread and frying bacon.
Doors swung open, slippered feet padded across porches and hands groped for the rolled newspapers. The air was stricken with the blaring sound of transcribed music and the excited voices of commercial announcers. The doors swung shut and the sounds were muted.
A million people shifted and stretched and scratched. The sun rose above the horizon.
Celebrity day.
* * * * *
Doors slammed again, and half-consumed cups of coffee lay cooling behind. Children wiped at sleepy eyes and mothers swept crumbs, touching self-conscious fingers at their own bed-ruffled hair. Laborers and clerks and lawyers and doctors strode down sidewalks and climbed into automobiles and busses and sleek-nosed elevated trains. The city moved.
To the center of the city, where the tall buildings stretched to the lighting sky, came the horde, like thousands of ants toward a comb of honey. Wheels sang and whined. Horns blasted. Whistles blew.
And waiting, strung above the wide streets between the cold marquees and the dead neon tubes, were the banners and the flags and the bunting.
The air warmed and the sun brightened. Voices chattered. Elbows nudged. Mouths smiled, teeth shone, and there was the sound of laughter, rising over the pushing throngs. The city was happy.
The bunting dipped and the banners fluttered and the flags whipped. At the edge of the city, the airport tightened itself. Waiting, waiting for the silver and blue rocket. The rocket of the Celebrity.
A large hotel, towering above the pulsing streets, began the quiver of activity. As though a great electric current had been run through its cubes and shafts and hollows, the hotel crackled. Desk clerks clicked bells and bell boys hopped. Elevators rose and fell. In the cellar, wine bottles were dusted by quick, nervous hands. In the kitchen, a towering cake was frosted and decorated. Orders cracked. Hands flew and feet chattered against tile. In one rich expansive suite a giant hoop of multi-colored flowers was placed in the center of a room.
It was in the air. Laughter, awe, worship, excitement!
Ropes went up and stretched between lamp posts. Blue-coated men on horses began blocking streets. Old women with wooden boxes, children with flashing eyes, men in rich suits and tattered suits began filling the sidewalks.
Curbs became lined with people. Bars threw open doors and fresh air met stale air. Men with fat faces, thin faces, white faces, red faces, twitching with the anticipation of holiday freedom, gulped jiggers of raw whiskey and shuddered happily.
Children giggled and yelled and sprinted in crazy zig-zags. Men in white caps hustled in front of the lined curbs, shouting, carrying their boxes of ice-cream. Men with buttons, men with pennants, men with balloons joined the shouting, and the sound rose in the air and the city smiled and shifted and its heart pounded.
The hotel whirred inside itself. The airport tensed and searched the sky.
* * * * *
Time moved and the swelling throngs jammed the sidewalks, raising their strengthening sound between the tall buildings. Windows popped open and faces beamed. Tentative showers of confetti drifted down through the air.
The city waited, its pulse thumping.
The rocket was a black point in the sky. It grew. White-suited men scattered over the landing strip. Photographers crouched. Bulbs snapped into reflectors. Cameras pointed.
The rocket landed. A door snapped open. Blue uniforms converged and flash bulbs popped. There were shouts and orders and men running. Gates swung and there was a blue-rimmed movement to a black open car. Sirens moaned, screamed. And the black car was moving swiftly into the cit
y.
Beneath the buildings, marching bands in red and blue and yellow uniforms stood assembled. Girls in short skirts and tasseled hats spun silver batons into the warm air. Bare legs kicked. Black boots flashed.
The crowd swayed against the ropes, and there was laughter and sweating and squinting.
The black car reached the heart of the city. Sirens died. Rows of men snapped to attention. Policemen aligned their motorcycles.
A baton shimmered high against the sun and came down.
A cymbal crashed. Drums cracked. Music blared. And there was a movement down the street.
The black car rolled along, while tape swept down from the buildings in long swirling ribbons. There was a snow of confetti. And from the throats of the people came the first roar. It grew, building, building in volume, and the city thundered its welcome to the man sitting upon the back of the open car, the small man who tipped his hat and smiled and blinked behind his glasses: Joseph S. Stettison, B.A., B.S., M.S., M.D., Ph.D., L.M. (Hon.), F.R.C.O.G.
* * *
Contents
CONFIDENCE GAME
By James McKimmey, Jr.
George H. Cutter wheeled his big convertible into his reserved space in the Company parking lot with a flourish. A bright California sun drove its early brightness down on him as he strode toward the square, four-story brick building which said Cutter Products, Inc. over its front door. A two-ton truck was grinding backward, toward the loading doors, the thick-shouldered driver craning his neck. Cutter moved briskly forward, a thick-shouldered man himself, though not very tall. A glint of light appeared in his eyes, as he saw Kurt, the truck driver, fitting the truck's rear end into the tight opening.
"Get that junk out of the way!" he yelled, and his voice roared over the noise of the truck's engine.
Kurt snapped his head around, his blue eyes thinning, then recognition spread humor crinkles around his eyes and mouth. "All right, sir," he said. "Just a second while I jump out, and I'll lift it out of your way."
"With bare hands?" Cutter said.
"With bare hands," Kurt said.
Cutter's laugh boomed, and as he rounded the front of the truck, he struck the right front fender with his fist. Kurt roared back from the cab with his own laughter.
He liked joking harshly with Kurt and with the rest of the truck drivers. They were simple, and they didn't have his mental strength. But they had another kind of strength. They had muscle and energy, and most important, they had guts. Twenty years before Cutter had driven a truck himself. The drivers knew that, and there was a bond between them, the drivers and himself, that seldom existed between employer and employee.
The guard at the door came to a reflex attention, and Cutter bobbed his head curtly. Then, instead of taking the stairway that led up the front to the second floor and his office, he strode down the hallway to the left, angling through the shop on the first floor. He always walked through the shop. He liked the heavy driving sound of the machines in his ears, and the muscled look of the men, in their coarse work shirts and heavy-soled shoes. Here again was strength, in the machines and in the men.
And here again too, the bond between Cutter and his employees was a thing as real as the whir and grind and thump of the machines, as real as the spray of metal dust, spitting away from a spinning saw blade. He was able to drive himself through to them, through the hard wall of unions and prejudices against business suits and white collars and soft clean hands, because they knew that at one time he had also been a machinist and then tool and die operator and then a shop foreman. He got through to them, and they respected him. They were even inspired by him, Cutter knew, by his energy and alertness and steel confidence. It was one good reason why their production continually skimmed along near the top level of efficiency.
Cutter turned abruptly and started up the metal-lipped concrete steps to the second floor. He went up quickly, his square, almost chunky figure moving smoothly, and there was not the faintest shortening in his breath when he reached the level of his own office.
Coming up the back steps required him to cross the entire administration office which contained the combined personnel of Production Control, Procurement, and Purchasing. And here, the sharp edge of elation, whetted by the walk past the loading dock and the truck drivers and the machine shop and the machinists, was dulled slightly.
On either side of him as he paced rapidly across the room, were the rows of light-oak desks which contained the kind of men he did not like: fragile men, whether thin or fat, fragile just the same, in the eyes and mouth, and pale with their fragility. They affected steel postures behind those desks, but Cutter knew that the steel was synthetic, that there was nothing in that mimicked look of alertness and virility but posing. They were a breed he did not understand, because he had never been a part of them, and so this time, the invisible but very real quality of employer-employee relationship turned coldly brittle, like frozen cellophane.
The sounds now, the clicking of typewriters, the sliding of file drawers, the squeak of adjusted swivel chairs--all of it--irritated him, rather than giving him inspiration, and so he hurried his way, especially when he passed that one fellow with the sad, frightened eyes, who touched his slim hands at the papers on his desk, like a cautious fawn testing the soundness of the earth in front of him. What was his name? Linden? God, Cutter thought, the epitome of the breed, this man: sallow and slow and so hesitant that he appeared to be about to leap from his chair at the slightest alarm.
Cutter broke his aloofness long enough to glare at the man, and Linden turned his frightened eyes quickly to his desk and began shuffling his papers nervously. Some day, Cutter promised himself, he was going to stop in front of the man and shout, "Booo!" and scare the poor devil to hell and back.
He pushed the glass doors that led to his own offices, and moving into Lucile's ante-room restored his humor. Lucile, matronly yet quick and youthfully spirited, smiled at him and met his eyes directly. Here was some strength again, and he felt the full energy of his early-morning drive returning fully. Lucile, behind her desk in this plain but expensive reception room, reminded him of fast, hard efficiency, the quality of accomplishment that he had dedicated himself to.
"Goddamned sweet morning, eh, Lucy?" he called.
"Beautiful, George," she said. She had called him by his first name for years. He didn't mind, from her. Not many could do it, but those who could, successfully, he respected.
"What's up first?" he asked, and she followed him into his own office. It was a high-ceilinged room, with walls bare except for a picture of Alexander Hamilton on one wall, and an award plaque from the State Chamber of Commerce on the opposite side of the room. He spun his leather-cushioned swivel chair toward him and sat down and placed his thick hands against the surface of the desk. Lucile took the only other chair in the office, to the side of the desk, and flipped open her appointment pad.
"Quay wants to see you right away. Says it's important."
Cutter nodded slightly and closed his eyes. Lucile went on, calling his appointments for the day with clicking precision. He stored the information, leaning back in his chair, adjusting his mind to each, so that there would be no energy wasted during the hard, swift day.
"That's it," Lucile said. "Do you want to see Quay?"
"Send him in," Cutter said, and he was already leaning into his desk, signing his name to the first of a dozen letters which he had dictated into the machine during the last ten minutes of the preceding day.
Lucile disappeared, and three minutes later Robert Quay took her place in the chair beside Cutter's desk. He was a taller man than Cutter, and thinner. Still, there was an athletic grace about him, a sureness of step and facial expression, that made it obvious that he was physically fit. He was single and only thirty-five, twelve years younger than Cutter, but he had been with Cutter Products, Inc. for thirteen years. In college he had been a Phi Beta Kappa and lettered three years on the varsity as a quarterback. He was the kind of rare combinatio
n that Cutter liked, and Cutter had offered him more than the Chicago Cardinals to get him at graduation.
Cutter felt Quay's presence, without looking up at him. "Goddamned sweet morning, eh, Bob?"
"It really is, George," Quay said.
"What's up?" Cutter stopped signing, having finished the entire job, and he stared directly into Quay's eyes. Quay met the stare unflinchingly.
"I've got a report from Sid Perry at Adacam Research."
"Your under-cover agent again, eh?"
Quay grinned. Adacam Research conducted industrial experimentation which included government work. The only way to find out what really went on there, Cutter had found out, was to find a key man who didn't mind talking for a certain amount of compensation, regardless of sworn oaths and signatures to government statements. You could always get somebody, Cutter knew, and Quay had been able to get a young chemist, Sidney Perry.
"Okay," Cutter said. "What are they doing over there?"
"There's a fellow who's offered Adacam his project for testing. They're highly interested, but they're not going to handle it."
"Why not?"
Quay shrugged. "Too touchy. It's a device that's based on electronics--"
"What the hell is touchy about electronics?"
"This deals with the human personality," Quay said, as though that were explanation enough.
Cutter understood. He snorted. "Christ, anything that deals with the human personality scares them over there, doesn't it?"
Quay spread his hands.
"All right," Cutter said. "What's this device supposed to do?"
"The theory behind it is to produce energy units which reach a plane of intensity great enough to affect the function of the human ego."
"Will it?" Cutter never wasted time on surprise or curiosity or theory. His mind acted directly. Would it or wouldn't it? Performance versus non-performance. Efficiency versus inefficiency. Would it improve production of Cutter Products, Inc., or would it not?
