Part 2

"Then you do understand some of this?"

Maculay grinned and nodded.

"But Doctor Maculay will be able to figure this thing out?"

Cliff nodded again, and smiled. "Good thing, too," he chuckled. "He is the only man in the system that can handle it without going off half-cocked. Maculay may be a stuffed shirt but he is no imbecile. Tinkering with inverted space--or pouring a quart of nitric acid over a half-gallon of glycerine--might be deadly unless you understand what you're doing. Maculay is super-cautious about anything that he does not understand completely. I cannot say the same for his underlings, who casually point out that mankind had been using electricity for years and years before they knew anything about it. But," he said with a laugh, "enough of the manifestation of the unreal roots of variable-matrix wave mechanics. Maculay's wastrel--but interesting--nephew is about to enjoy life."

Cliff winked at Dorothy, patted Helen on a bare shoulder, and then led Alice towards the dance floor.

"Doesn't this mean anything to you?" she asked him.

"Uh-huh," he said with a smile. "At about three cents per word; that black shaft of energy is an idea coming to life."

"What kind of idea?"

"Um--let's see. That black shaft of energy was really a spacecraft, passing through the solar system at a velocity higher than the speed of light. Some extra-solar race, colonizing the galaxy. What we detected was the space-wake of such a craft. You have no idea of the energy kicked up when a body passes through space at a velocity higher than that of light. Then Our Hero, bullied by his superiors, shows that he has measured the energy-curve and solved the secret of interstellar travel."

A slight frown came to Maculay's face. "The trouble is that this super-galactic race has learned how to create negative space before the ship and re-create positive space behind it to keep from having the--the--" A bead of sweat came upon Maculay's face and he became nervous. He looked around, almost wildly, before continuing, "the--entire universe," he concluded lamely. "Negative space is self-propagating, you know." Maculay finished this last with a wince of pain.

Then Maculay straightened up with a laugh. "That's lousy," he said. "Larimore wouldn't buy it. We'll have him go out and meet some four-armed monsters who think that human meat is superb. That's crummy too, but it's an idea. C'mon, m'lady, let's dance!"

* * * * *

The telephone rang on Doctor Hanson's desk. It was Ava, from the outer office. "Man by the name of Redmond to see you, doctor," she reported.

"Has he an appointment?"

"No, that's why I'm calling. He claims it is a matter of impor--No, Mister Redmond, you cannot go--"

The doctor's door opened abruptly and the man called Redmond strode in. "Where is Maculay?" he demanded sharply.

Doctor Hanson looked up at Redmond calmly. With insulting deliberation, Hanson eyed the man, while Redmond began to fume. Redmond was tall and thin, a bit too tall and a bit too thin in the doctor's estimation. He was thirty to Maculay's thirty-eight, but did not smoothe his impatience and ambition behind a cloak of politeness.

"Sit down, Mister Redmond. I'm interested in you."

"Where is Maculay?" came the repeated demand.

Hanson smiled slowly. "I'm interested in trying to discover just what it is about abstract mathematicians that makes them think that they can stamp their way through life, disregarding not only the rights of others, but their own as well."

"Enough of this damned foolishness--"

"Shut up, you young whippersnapper!" roared the doctor in a voice that rattled the windows. Redmond shut up. "I'll have respect from you, Redmond. And if I don't get it, you'll leave. Understand?"

Redmond bristled.

"Relax," said Hanson. "I'm no longer able to punch your face as you request by your actions, but I know several men who would be most happy to help me in this matter. Now, what is it that you want?"

"I want to know where Maculay is."

"I don't know."

"Damn it, you do know."

"Redmond, I'm not a liar."

Redmond leaned forward over the doctor's desk. "Maculay came here," he said, "and I know why. Maculay did not return from here, and I want to know why."

Hanson leaned back in his chair. "Doctor Maculay came here and discussed his difficulties with me," he said. "During the course of the discussion, it became quite evident that Maculay was on the verge of a nervous breakdown because of too much hard work and too little relaxation. I convinced him that a long vacation would enable him to live and be productive longer than he might enjoy if he went back and killed himself on his job."

"So where did he go on this vacation?"

"Maculay admitted that if a single soul knew his address, they'd be sending him problems within a week. He took off, destination unknown."

"Did he say when he would be back?"

"In one year."

"A year! My God! We can't wait!"

"Can't is an impossible word," remarked Hanson.

"But we must find him."

"You might start combing the solar system," suggested the doctor.

"Impossible. Yet--"

"Redmond, there have been many indispensable men in history who were not so indispensable that their leaving caused affairs to stop short. I admit that their plans often flopped, or that history took a little longer to get itself made when their driving force died. But not a man on record has ever been truly indispensable."

"But you don't understand," complained Redmond. "It's about that blast of energy that shocked space."

"I guessed as much. What is--or was it?"

"We don't know; Maculay does, or can deduce its meaning."

* * * * *

Redmond started to stride up and down the office at this point, talking half to himself and half to the world in general. Through the still open door. Ava could hear him, and since the danger of attack had been averted, she decided to close the door. But Hanson waved her inside where she sat in one of the inconspicuous chairs along the far wall. Both Ava and the doctor watched Redmond quietly.

"From what little we know of it by direct observation it came all at once--a shaft of energy as instantaneous as birth. Where once was empty space, this bolt of energy was created. The energies it created showed no directional qualities, and it extends as far in either direction from here as we care to imagine. The distant energies are still coming in from both directions, diminishing because of the tremendous distances, but still showing nothing directional."

"But this shaft of energy must have come from somewhere?"

"Did it?" exploded Redmond. "Did it come from somewhere--or did it burst into being instantly from one end of the universe to the other like the creation of a rope from nothing all along its length? Actually, we know this: Its duration was as close to instantaneous as anything might be. The rest of the phenomenon was merely persistence of the energies it created."

"Those are questions that I cannot answer."

"Maculay could."

"You assume that this thing might be in Maculay's field?"

Redmond nodded. "We charted the energy-curve," he said. "Then one of the boys integrated the curve and came up with a formula for the curve which I saw and without any trouble at all reduced to one of Maculay's Equations. Do you know what this means?"

"No. Of course not."

"This means that the validity of Maculay's Equations is proven fact. Just as Maxwell's Equations were proved by the existence of electromagnetic waves in nature, so are Maculay's Equations proved by the existence of this manifestation of the real and unreal roots of space, occurring in nature." Redmond resumed pacing again. "What is maddening," he said, "is the fact that we do not know where it came from."

Hanson shrugged. "You said it sort of leaped into being."

* * * * *

Redmond paused and beat one fist down on the doctor's desk for emphasis. "So it seems to our blind, deaf, stupid senses who plod along the universe limited to the speed of light or sound. Man--the fleet bullet snaps past your ear at a speed faster than sound. Can your limited senses tell me whence it came?"

"Yes."

Redmond shook his head. "Not from the sound of the _Snap_!" he snapped. "You tell from the sound of the gun--which comes later! With a silencer, you would be unable to line the flight up. So," said Redmond, staring at the wall again, "something fired a bolt of energy that propagated faster than light, creating its own negative space as it passed. What it was we shall never know. But--" and he bored at Hanson with sharp eyes,--"get me Maculay and we shall follow it into interstellar space!"

"And if Maculay were to die tomorrow?"

"Then we would follow it sooner or later anyway. A bit more fumbling, a bit more walking an unfamiliar way in the dark, but we would get there." Redmond looked at the doctor solemnly for a moment. "A year?"

"A year."

"Hell," snapped Redmond, "in a year we can do it ourselves! A year! Hanson, Cliff Maculay has always kept a volume of data from me. I am going to open his desk and get that volume, and go to work on this thing myself. Were he here he would forbid me, but he is not here. I--"

"Why are you telling me this?" asked Hanson.

"Someone must be told, and I--" Redmond trailed off uncertainly. Then he nodded and left the office as abruptly as he had come in.

Ava blinked. "What do you make of him?" she asked uncertainly.

"Very simple. His is the case of not-quite-genius working at the feet of true genius. His pattern is poorly aped after Maculay's forcefulness, but obviously lacks Maculay's weight. He wants to give the impression that he is cut of the same cloth as Maculay. He is uncertain of himself, or he would not bluster and threaten; nor would he be so completely at sea without Maculay. He has a frustration; Maculay's secret data has been withheld from him. He is jealous of Maculay and also fears Maculay or he would not make a confession to me that he was about to break orders. Furthermore, he is convinced that he can solve this thing without Maculay's help, but wants other people to believe it also."

"But could he get into trouble?"

Hanson laughed tolerantly. "Any man who has lived beyond the age of eighteen months can get into trouble," he said. "And it's good for a man to get into a bit of trouble occasionally. Security is a fine goal, but it is danger that sharpens the wits and eventually sets the character into such self-confidence that his security comes from within rather than without."

He leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment. He was not quite correct in telling Redmond that he understood nothing of Maculay's work. During the hours Hanson had hypnotic rapport with Cliff, he had absorbed quite a bit of Maculay's theories. Not that Hanson could stand in Maculay's shoes--or even his baby slippers for that matter--but he had a fair idea of what Maculay was driving at. He took this on faith rather than a real understanding--as any man might nod his head and accept the formulation of the three degrees of infinity because some bright man told him that such existed, one still might not understand why the number of spots on a line and the number of spots on a plane--when a plane has an infinite number of lines and each line an infinite number of spots--were both of the same degree of infinity.

Something niggled at Hanson's mind--something important in just plain horse-logic that had come to him fouled up in a barrage of words and formulations that were so much triple-talk to the man untutored in abstract theory on variable-matrix wave mechanics. In the maze of completely confusing theories, it was like the sighting of a shaped stone arrowhead in the rubble of a landslide, or finding an empty tomato can lying on the absolutely barren and completely useless fifth satellite of Saturn.

Someone had shouted "Two plus two equals four" amid the babble of an insane asylum, and it made sense.

Hanson ordered his whirling thoughts, marshalled them as only a man who has pursued the mysteries of the human mind for fifty years could do, and made his recollections come out consecutively.

And then he hit the desk with his hand. "Negative space depends upon the generation of a negative-gravitic field," he muttered. "Which produces the unreal root, and positive and negative space are mutually inimical."

"What was all that?" asked Ava.

Hanson shook his head. "Damn it, Redmond is right. We _need_ Maculay!"

* * * * *

Ava stared at the doctor. "But...."

"Ava, from what I gather, Redmond is about to get into the production of a negative-gravitic field, which will generate negative space, which will destroy this space. Doubtless that shaft of energy, so called, was nothing but a shaft of negative space that met with and cancelled real space with the resulting outburst of energy."

"But--"

"We need Maculay," said Hanson solemnly. "No one will believe me, for I obviously know far too little of the facts. I admit that I am just guessing, but I have the feeling that the error in Cliff's Equations was no error at all. What drove Maculay into a mental whirly-gig was the fact that he had discovered at the end of his fingertips the ability to destroy the solar system--or destroy something equally as big. His was the shock of the child who has been playing with matches in a powder-house and discovers long afterwards just what fate he had escaped by sheer luck."

"But what are we going to do?"

Hanson smiled confidently. "We're going to get Maculay back here long enough to tell us the truth."

"But you don't know where he's gone."

"Since Cliff now has all of the instincts of a tomcat," chuckled Hanson, "all we need do is to imagine where a tomcat would go--and go there. Ava, if you were a brazen hussy, where would you go to huss?"

Ava froze. "I'm not!" she snapped, "and I wouldn't know."

"Maculay went to Venus," said the doctor, "where reformers, theologians, and politicians have not taken all of the fun, chance, and sting out of life."

"But how are you going to get him back?"

Hanson shook his head. "I'm not," he said; "no spaceline would take me. I'm seventy, a little creaky in the arthritis, a bit leaky in the pump, and a trifle sclerosic in the arterios. I admit that I am the healthiest doddering old man on earth--but it is on earth that I shall stay."

"Then--" said Ava uncertainly. Her eyes began to widen with growing understanding and she backed away slightly.

Hanson nodded. "You're going to go get him."

"I'm not."

Hanson shook his head. "You'll be safe," he said. "At the present moment you have too many inhibitions to rouse a stir in Cliff Maculay."

Ava snorted angrily. She was still forgetting Maculay; in fact she forgot him four or five times each day. Each time she reminded herself that it was a good thing that she did not 'go' for his type of man since the two of them would never get along.

Defensively, Ava said, "I'm to go to Venus and comb the entire planet for a man on a binge?"

Doctor Hanson chuckled. "For he who knows the answer, Cliff Maculay would leave a trail a mile wide," he said. "But you'd never make the grade, Ava."

"You're quite right," she said.

Hanson grunted unintelligibly. It sounded like agreement to Ava, but was actually a grunt of disgust. The doctor was old enough to be beyond the sparring age, and he was disgusted at the sidelong mental attitude of a race that admitted that love, marriage, and a family were at the bottom of all effort--and then invented croquet, television, and chaperones to make it difficult.

* * * * *

Hanson looked at his nurse, and shook his head slowly. He was willing to bet his hat that Ava remembered every line in Maculay's face. And that her dislike of Maculay was as genuine as a seven dollar bill, Hanson would also bet money on. He had not been untying mental knots for fifty years without being able to listen to one statement and hear the truth unspoken between the words. He watched her stand there uncomfortably, and knew that she was uncomfortable because she knew that he knew what she was trying to hide to herself. Deliberately letting her squirm, Hanson began to fiddle with his watch chain.

He was thinking with the back part of his brain, now. He needed Maculay; he had here before him a girl that could, if she were willing to admit it, go forth and get Cliff. But not the way she was, with her defensive armor all set up to fight against the Clifford Maculay that had kissed her and then patted her on the head and left to go in search of beer and beauty.

Hanson fiddled with his watch chain, then began to swing the Phi Beta Kappa key around his forefinger, winding it up and then reversing it to unwind and rewind in the opposite direction.

Ava stood there uncertainly, watching him whirl the chain. She could not leave without some explanation regarding her reticence about going to Venus for Maculay. Obviously Hanson was not finished with this conversation, yet he sat there deep in thought. Ava anticipated that he would come out of it with a more practical idea than sending her for Maculay, since that would not work.

"Relax," said Hanson quietly, after some time. "I wouldn't send you after Cliff Maculay; I wouldn't hurt you for the world, Ava."

"I know," she said. "I--"

"You've been dwelling on that subject too long," he told her.

She nodded.

"Probably losing sleep, too."

"I wouldn't say that."

"But you look as though you needed sleep."

"I don't really."

"Then why are you yawning?"

"Am I?"

"You yawn frequently. You should get more sleep. Why not rest? Sit down and relax. Sleep is the great restorer; you should take a short nap. Sleep, Ava. Go to sleep. I'll see that no one harms you. Sleep."

Her eyes fixed on the whirling watch charm, Ava slowly let herself down into the doctor's consultation chair and leaned her head against the back.

He passed a hand before her open eyes and she did not blink. With a quiet chuckle, Hanson dropped the watch chain into his vest pocket and sat back. "I'm going to help you."

"I know," she replied.

"You resent Maculay."

"I do."

"But it is true that your resentment of Maculay is because he is attractive to you--but wants a more vivacious and interesting type of woman."

"Yes."

"You also resent the fact that this desire of his is false, that any alliance he may make will also be false while a true love awaits in you, unwanted so long as he is under my post-hypnotic suggestion."

"Yes."

"Then since you and he are quite alike in so many ways when normal, if you are reversed in personality as he is, you will then match his mood and desire."

* * * * *

With Ava, Hanson had much less difficulty; he had known the woman for ten years, known her moods, her likes and dislikes, and her personality. He had, lightly, worked her over from time to time until his control over her was quite complete. It took him about two hours to turn Ava's personality inside out and to suggest that she remain extroverted until Maculay was returned to earth. For travelling expenses he filled her wallet and gave her hypnotic reason for possessing that sum of money. Then he snapped her awake and watched her leave the office with a cheerful stride.

"A hell of a note when the fate of the universe depends on libido and post-hypnosis," he grunted.

* * * * *

Seven hours later the _Evening Star_ took off for Venus, and even Doctor Hanson might have had trouble in recognizing his nurse. Gone were the glasses, the mousy clothing, and the flat heels. From pedicure to hair-do and from hide to handbag. Ava Longacre was as changed as her personality.

And where Maculay had leaned against the bar, regaling a couple of women with idle chatter, Ava sat and watched four dazzled males vie against one another for the privilege of a dance, a smile, the purchase of a corsage or a drink--or the spacecraft itself.

She enjoyed it, but she remained a bit aloof; she had a job on her hands. She knew where she was going, and exactly how to find Cliff Maculay.

3

Alone in his office at night, while the _Evening Star_ was starting the hike to Venus, Doctor Hanson sat thinking. He was piecing it together; and it was like playing with a jigsaw puzzle that had three-quarters of the pieces missing. He never would get the completed picture; it just took too many years of a man's life in study and application to finish the job. All he could do was to fit the meager pieces in where he thought they might fit, and then try to ignore the blank spaces that he could not possibly reconstruct.

At midnight, Hanson took to the telephone and called California.

He heard the operator say: "Chicago is calling Doctor Rober."

The switchboard girl at the far end asked: "Who is calling, please?"

"Doctor Jay Hanson."

"Doctor Rober is busy at the moment; may I have him call you back?"

Hanson roared: "I know he's busy. Tell him it's Jay Hanson and see what happens."

A moment later there came a grumpy voice: "Hullo. What's so infernal important?"

"Steve? This is Jay."

"That's what the gal said; it better be important."

"To hell with your precious telescope, Steve; I want some information."

"You'd think we had nothing to do but cast horoscopes," growled the astronomer. "Or answer damned fool questions about the end of the world."

"Answer me one more."

"The world has been here for two times ten to the ninth years at least; you'll not live to see the end of it."

"Look, Steve, this may be important. Tell me, have any of your instruments shown any difference in setting since that streak of energy went through the solar system a few days ago?"

"Not that we can measure."

"But--"

"Jay, the best information we can collect is that the original streak was a long cylinder about a half mile in diameter. Dammitall, you could take a chunk a half mile in diameter and stretching from one end of the universe to the other, remove it from the universe and let the rest of space curl in to fill up what was missing; and when you were done, no one could measure it. A half mile is a small peanut compared to the immensity of space. Now can I go back to work?"

"In a minute, Steve. What do you know about Maculay's Equations?"

"Maculay's Equations? What do _you_ know about them? I mean, what do you _want_ to know about them?"

"I'm no abstract mathematician, Steve, but I'm forced to fumble in the dark with some very cockeyed theories that make no sense. Maculay has the idea that the generation of some sort of negative space would permit gross matter to exceed the velocity of light, but that this negative space would destroy by mutual cancellation this present, or positive space. Does that make sense to you?"

"Y'know what I think?"

"No."

"I think that old saw about the shoemaker sticking to his last is applicable. Stay with your neurones and your pills, witch-doctor, and leave the juggling of space to people who can sight nothing, falling from a vacuum into a void, and explain it."

"Fine," rasped Hanson. "Now that I've been properly roasted for meddling, what gives you to think that no one but an astronomer can think?"

"Steve--if I started to outline medicine to you, it would sound no better than your outline of Maculay's Theories did to me."

* * * * *

Hanson chuckled. "So we're both stupid, according to the other. Now admitting that I'm stupid and get my income tax fouled up, cannot understand the degrees of infinity, and am completely baffled by the predominance of the value Pi in electricity, do I have a layman's grasp of Maculay's Equation?"

"Barely."

"Then suppose I postulate. Suppose that streak of energy had been a spacecraft passing by at a speed faster than light. And as it passed, its own field of negative space cancelled out a wake of real space as it went."