“Why didn’t you try the big firms, then?”
His grandfather broke into a fit of coughing. When it subsided he said, “Where was I? Ah yes. The commercial possibilities of superconductors at ordinary temperatures are enormous. A completely lossless conductor. Even for power lines, just carrying brute electricity, it would be a tremendous step forward, as you’d appreciate if you’ve ever tried to run a two-horsepower motor on too long a lead. But in the really subtle fields, in cybernetics, plasma physics, it would revolutionize them. Apart from what it might open up in organic cell structure itself, but we won’t go into that.
“I cooked up various molecules and got various working samples. There’s only a handful of firms in this country—in the world—equipped for that kind of work, but I commissioned a pretty fair outfit. Only the working single samples didn’t work. There’s one thing about this field, if you’ve got it you’ve got it, and if you haven’t you know soon enough. Like catalysts. The failures don’t even yield much information. It’s just a matter of altering the structure slightly and starting again.
“And finally I got it—or as near as dammit got it it. Only I got carried away a bit. I was so cocksure that I gave it the works. The next I knew I was in here.
“But work this out. I put fifty thousand volts through a wafer of that stuff before it gave way. And it didn’t give way in any ordinary fashion. Maddox, the manager of the company, was in to see me yesterday and I got him believing that it was a buildup of the charge I gave the strip that was responsible for what was evidently one hell of an explosion. When he’s had time to think about it, if he can bring himself to it, he’ll realize as well as I do that it couldn’t have been.
“For one thing, you can induce a current in a closed superC circuit and it will build up, because there’s no power loss. But this was direct transmission in a hookup. I had it loaded with enough impedance—the circuit, I mean, but the power was going through that strip, and it was acting perfectly as a superconductor—until I stepped the power up. Then it happened.
“On the other hand, it couldn’t be a chemical reaction. Even if there was a chemical explosive potential in that strip, it wasn’t big enough to shake the roof.”
“Perhaps it was a combination of the two.”
“Then it might have lifted the roof, but that’s about all. Anyway, that molecule has got about as much ordinary chemical explosive potential as a lump of frog-spawn, pumped full of volts or not. No, the violence of that explosion was of a subatomic order. Atomically there would have been enough energy in that strip to have! blown half of Belvedere Marshes off the map. But the setup was all wrong for that. Or was it? What have I discovered—a do-it-yourself low-power atom bomb? Not on your life. Do you know what I think?”
The boy shook his head.
“That molecule’s organic—quasi-alive. I think I’ve somehow unlocked another dimension of energy—the energy inherent in life.”
The boy’s eyes widened.
“Ach no,” the old man went on. “That’s going back to Paracelsus and vital fluid.”
He fell silent, staring into space.
“Enough,” he said finally. “It’s no good speculating in a vacuum. Not that I won’t go on doing just that until they let me out of here. Then I’ve got to get back into Hypertronics. That’s the first step. I’ll make a last attempt to get them to let me carry on. For their own stupid sake. I can put millions into their laps if they’ll only let me—and plenty enough for myself to investigate the other effect.
“But to hell with them and their job. The important is to get in there somehow and have a good look wreckage before some stupid bastard tidies it all up.”
Five
Adolphe Quy stood before the gates. They weren’t barricaded. They weren’t as solid, even, as the ones that had .been wrecked in the blast. They were wire over an angle-iron frame, a slightly more strutted segment of the rest of the temporary fence. But the guardian at the gates was as solid as he had always been. And the gates were closed.
“Hello, Fred,” Quy said cheerfully.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Quy,” said Fred, his big red face uncomfortable over his blue uniform collar. He took in the empty overcoat sleeve, the arm, still slung, beneath it. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, Fred. They let me out of hospital this morning.” It was five days after the accident. The resident had finally given way, despite his voiced misgivings about the risk of complications at Quy’s age. “I’ll soon have this blasted sling off. Will you kindly tell Mr. Maddox that I’m here.”
Fred, behind the wire, shifted as if his boots had suddenly got too tight.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Quy, I’ve got strict orders that you’re not to be admitted.”
“Well, just give him a buzz and tell him that I’d like to see him. Tell him—” he nodded to the suave, immaculately tailored, rather portly man by his side—“that I’ve got my lawyer with me.”
“Well all right. But don’t try any funny business, please, Mr. Quy.”
“Funny business?”
Fred looked even more uncomfortable. “It’s Mr. Maddox, Mr. Quy. He’s like a man frightened of his own shadow. He comes down and briefs me every day, warning me to watch out for you. Some of the things he says about you aren’t very nice at all.”
“That’s all right, Fred. If you’ll just—”
Fred retreated to his hut, another temporary structure. Quy pretended not to notice that the gateman was keeping a wary eye on him and his companion as he spoke into the phone, but looked past the hut at what remained of the works beyond.
“Gawd, it is a bit of a mess, isn’t it?” he said more to himself than to his companion.
The nearer end was a skeleton of new girders. The far end was shrouded in tarpaulins. An earth mover was gulping at the place where the stores had stood. The office block was latticed with scaffolding. The air was noisy with the clatter of cement mixers, the whine of lorries and other vehicles moving over the crowded landscape.
Fred came out of the hut. “Mr. Maddox says he’ll be right down.”
“Thank you, Fred. How’s Charlie, by the way? It was Charlie who was on duty that night, wasn’t it?”
“Charlie’s no longer with us, Mr. Quy.”
“Oh dear. I hope that wasn’t on my account.”
“Well, only indirectly, you might say. They’ve got round-the-clock gangs working on the rebuilding. The contractors have got their own night watchman. Union rules, or something. So Charlie was redundant. He was offered a job working on the rebuilding. The management has kept on all the workers. There’s enough work, Gawd knows, sorting out this lot. A few of them, mostly skilled men, left. So did Charlie. Only he wasn’t skilled, by any stretch of the imagination. Reckoned he had some kind of weakness in the back.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But—”
He broke off at sight of Maddox’s square figure picking its way between the concrete-mixers and the lorries. He was puffing somewhat as he approached the gate and set himself firmly before it.
“Well, Quy?”
“I received your letter, tearing up my contract with Hypertronics.”
“Determining it forthwith. I know. It was sent registered.”
“You gave similar grounds to those you mentioned at the hospital last Sunday. I thought you might have seen reason since then.”
“If you mean that I or the company might have changed out minds, the answer’s no.”
“Very well, before I bring suit against you for—”
“Please,” said the character by his side. “Let me handle this.” He spoke to Maddox. “My name is Goodman. I’m Mr. Adolphe Quy’s legal representative. He doesn’t mean before he files suit, but to safeguard himself in the event of any action. But I’m sure we can settle this without going to arbitration. He is merely stating his right to know the extent of the alleged damage.”
“Alleged! Look around you. The contractors will be able to render a very accurate bill for t
he extent of the damage. If you want to go ahead and dispute them, the burden of proof would be on you.”
“Not at all, I’m afraid, sir,” Mr. Goodman said smoothly. “The contract, dated 19th September 1972, is the immediate res disputandum. Your primary grounds for setting it aside are that my client committed willful damage. If it were established that you or the company or any agent thereof in any way concealed the true facts from my client, I’m afraid that things would be prejudiced against you. A priori grounds of concealment. Mr: Quy doesn’t wish to compound any alleged malfeasance. All he wants to do is look at the damage.”
“He’s looking at it right now.”
“But the alleged willful damage is alleged to have been generated in, at, and about a specific building, named in your letter as Special Research Building A. Can you see that building from here, Mr. Quy? Or any part thereof?”
“It’s on the other side of the main building,” Quy told him.
“You mean it was,” Maddox said, impotent savagery in his voice.
“I do trust you haven’t sought to remove any of the evidence already?” Goodman said suavely.
“Wait here,” Maddox said. He turned on his heel and strode to the hut. Quy could see him lift the phone and speak into it. He spoke at some length. It was several minutes before he came out again.
“All right, Quy. I’ve been on to our lawyers. You can have ten minutes to inspect what’s left of your research building. Under supervision. And it’ll be my supervision. Fred, get young Chalmers on the gate and you come along with us.”
There was a slight wait for Fred’s stand-in to appear, then they duly made their way round to the back of the ruined main building, picking their way over duckboards.
“Strewth,” Quy exclaimed when he saw the remains of the workshop. “You weren’t exaggerating, Maddox.”
“And we’ve got photographs to prove that this was the state of the place immediately after the incident.”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” Quy said, in all sincerity. Maddox looked at him warily, and kept close to him as he stepped onto the concrete floor. It was bare and hardly marked, except for where four bolts had obviously been wrenched violently out of it. Quy recognised them as the sockets where the stanchions of his main bench had been bedded.
“Well, there’s not much left to inspect,” Quy said. He walked over to the pitted remains of the walls, bent down and peered at them. He took a screwdriver from a pocket of his ragged overcoat.
“Wait!” said Maddox. “I said inspect, not tamper.”
“Oh lord, Maddox, anybody would think they were made of priceless marble. They’re not much use to anybody now. Another hole won’t hurt them. But if you’re worried that I’m trying to conceal anything, or plant it, all you have to do is watch closely.”
He ferreted in the brickwork without further protest, then held up a tiny scrap of metal. “That’s all I was winkling out. It’s a bit of copper off the rig. Just establishing that it was my rig that blew up.”
“Did you have any doubt that it was?”
“I’ve had no previous evidence. Don’t forget that I don’t have any direct knowledge of the accident at all. The first I knew about it was when I woke. up in hospital and I was told.”
“Well, are you satisfied now?”
“I suppose so. No, wait just a minute.” He squatted down again. His eyebrows rose involuntarily. “No blue!” he muttered.
Maddox was standing by his elbow. “What did you Bay?”
“Nothing important.” He made an entire circuit of the brickwork, half-stooping as he went, looking like a bad imitation of Groucho Marx. Maddox followed close behind him, so close that when Quy stopped suddenly and straightened he almost ran into him.
“That’ll be all, Maddox,” the old man said. “Thank you for your courtesy.”
Safely outside, old Quy chuckled hugely. “Come on, Sid, I’ll buy you a drink.”
Over a scotch at the nearest pub, Goodman said, “Well, did you find what you were looking for?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know what I was looking for. Let’s say that now I start looking for what I found.”
“You’re a dark horse all right, Mr. Quy,” Goodman laid, shaking his head.
“And so are you, Sid. Where did you get that fine flow of legal phraseology?”
“Off TV. I hope I got it right.”
“Don’t ask me. But it sounded very authentic. You should have made it your career.”
Sid glowed. “Do you really think so?” He sighed. “But it’s too late now. You know how it is, you get a wife and family to support. Maybe you have big dreams, but you have to put them to one side. You build up a business. You hope it’ll build up to be a big business, so you can retire early and do what you really want to do. By the time you find out that it’ll never be a big business you’re trapped, it’s too late to change. You’ll never be Goodman’s of Park Lane and Fifth Avenue, but just the twelve-quid tailor down the Cally.” He shrugged. “But you got to be philosophical. If I’d built up a big business, I probably wouldn’t have been satisfied. I’d have wanted a bigger one.”
“Everything’s relative,” Quy agreed.
“You call say that again. It’s best to settle for what you got. You can still be Clarence Darrow or Alekhine in your dreams. Talking of Alekhine, Mr. Quy, when arc you coming round for a game of chess again?”
“Just as soon as I get this problem licked. Life’s pretty complicated at the moment.”
Sid downed his drink.
“Have another,” Quy said.
Sid looked at his watch. “No, there’s just time to catch the twelve forty-five. I may be only the twelve-quid tailor down the Cally, but I can’t afford to be away too long. Such a dumkopf, my Bernie. Are you coming?”
“No, I’ve got a few things to clear up down here first.” Sid turned to go. “But you’re forgetting something.” Quy reached into the folds of his coat with his one good hand.
“What, the five quid? Keep it, Mr. Quy. Business ain’t that bad. It was worth it, every minute of it.”
Six
There was a rat-a-tat on the rickety door, and Alan I burst in breathlessly.
“I came as soon as I could.”
His grandfather looked at him amusedly. “What, did you run all the way?”
“I came by bike.”
“Well, bring it in. What have I told you before? There’s room in the scullery. People round here would do anything for you, but they’ve got a certain—ah—communal view of property.”
Alan dutifully went out and wheeled his bike in, then joined his grandfather.
“Take a seat, son.”
Alan picked his way through the clutter in the dimly lit basement room, found a clear spot on a divan and sat down.
Quy squinted at a battered alarm clock. “Five o’clock. You didn’t cut any classes today, then.”
“Couldn’t—worse luck. It’s our mock O-Levels this week.”
“If I’d known that I wouldn’t have rung you this morning. You ought to be indoors doing some last-minute swotting.”
“Tomorrow’s math. That’s one subject I can skate. Wish I found all the rest as easy. Funny, isn’t it, you can learn one subject easily, but another one seems so blooming hard. Especially when the ones you find hard are just a lot of facts, whereas—well, math, for instance, you’ve got to understand that.”
“It’s a question of what you want to understand. Feeling in your bones that there’s some purpose in understanding.”
“You don’t believe in gifts, then—that somebody has a certain talent for a particular subject?”
“Nope. Well—I don’t know. One thing I could never master was music. Your grandmother was a good pianist. I bought her a grand piano once. Once I tried to learn myself. I thought that it couldn’t be too difficult, especially if you brought a bit of scientific method to it. But the scientific method got in the way. The books I read talked about minor chords and F Majo
rs, but I wanted to know how many vibrations a second and how some discords could be pleasant to the ear. Like the one at the beginning of the slow movement of the Moonlight Sonata. I plugged away, in between times, for weeks. The cure came when I went into a pub and there was a fellow playing away like bloody Paderewski, and when I went over and bought him a beer I found he was a moron.
“That taught me something—something more, I mean, than the fact that I would never make a pianist or even a tin whistle player. That man was a moron only by the standards of the education peddlers. He’d accepted that role because that was the way he had been graded from the time they first started to try to teach him to read and write. He was probably illiterate. But a kid, when he starts school, has got to accept certain concepts that are jammed down his throat—that a vertical stroke with two arms sticking out of it is in some way the noise you make when you try and expel air from your mouth with your top teeth on your bottom lip.
“So the good little boys do as their teacher tells them, jump through the hoop and get labeled bright. But how about the kid who says to hell with this junk, first they’ve got to show me why? Of course, no kid is quite so aware as that, but it’s an attitude. What happens to He probably winds up doing something he can see sense in, like that chap at the piano. There was a man in America, didn’t learn to read until he was eleven—or speak much. Then—he must have come to terms the setup. He finished up a doctor and a writer. His was David Keller. That was a man of talent. But a genius, Einstein. He wasn’t exactly bright at school, either.”
“But, if you mean there are no morons, how do you allow for geniuses?”
“I didn’t say there weren’t morons. Of course there You can’t teach a Mongolian idiot calculus. And there are a few people, a very few, who refuse so flatly to imbibe the ideas that are spoon-fed to them, who are so determined to impose their own ideas, that they mould the world, not the world them. And I don’t mean your bloody Napoleons or even your Lenins; I mean your Einsteins and Newtons. Empires, systems, rise and fall. right, knowledge gets lost too, usually because of your conquerors, but the geniuses change history once for all, they change the way men look at the world.
The Quy Effect Page 4
