Part 3

"Then you intend to try it out?"

"I most certainly do!"

Edith Ward stood up. "I've nothing more to say. You force me to take action."

"I'm sorry, Miss Ward. If it is battle you want, you'll get it. You'll find it harder to quell Tom Barden The Successful than you found it a year ago when you shut off Tom Barden The Theorist with a word of scorn. I'm sorry--I really am."

"Sorry?" she repeated with disbelief.

"Sure," he said. "Barden Laboratories and Solar Labs could really go places if we weren't fighting. Only one more thing, Miss Ward."

"What?" she replied impatiently.

"_Divide and conquer_ is not uniquely Terran!"

* * * * *

After she left, Barden wondered whether his final shot had hit anything. He returned to work and forgot about it, sensibly admitting that if it did he would not be bothered and if it did not he wouldn't stop anyway, and so he might as well get to work. He rather hoped to avoid the possible delay that would follow official action.

Dr. Edith Ward answered him within twenty-four hours. Her word was accepted as valid in many places; had been the final authority on such matters for some time. Up to now there had never been any defense. Plus the fact that his side of the argument had never been voiced.

Barden didn't scourge the court for their decision. With only one accredited side of the evidence in, they could but take action. So Barden shrugged, grinned to himself, and spent several days in intense study, laying out the program that was to continue in his absence. Then he took the flier for the Terran Capital.

It was not a court hearing. It was more of a high-powered debate before a group of qualified judges and investigators. Barden looked into the background of his judges and was glad that the old system of appointment to investigating committees had been stopped. Though these men were not qualified physicists, they were not the old-line politician, who took an arbitrary stand because he thought that waving a banner with a certain device would sound good to his constituents. There would be little personal opinion or personal ambition in this hearing, and not one of the judges would sacrifice either contestant on the altar of publicity.

By unspoken agreement, neither he nor Edith Ward mentioned the source of their information. This Barden admitted was hard on the female physicist's argument for she could claim only mathematical analysis and he could claim experimental evidence.

They heard her side and then asked for his. He gave his arguments simply and answered every point she brought up. There was rebuttal and rejoinder and finally open discussion.

"I claim that this man is not a qualified physicist," she stated firmly. "As such he has not the experience necessary to judge the validity of my argument."

"I admit that I hold no degrees," said Barden. "Neither did Thomas Edison. Is Miss Ward convinced that no man without a string of college degrees is qualified to do anything but dig ditches?"

That hurt, for the investigators were not blessed with doctor's degrees in philosophy; the scattering of LLDs were about half honorary degrees and their owners though gratified for the honor knew how it was earned.

"Of course not," snapped Miss Ward. "I merely state--"

"If Miss Ward is so firm in her belief, why doesn't she bring forth some experimental evidence. She has the entire holdings of the Solar Space Laboratory at her disposal. If this is as important as she claims, then the financial argument may be dispensed with. For no amount of money is capable of paying for total destruction of the solar system."

"I need no experiments," she snapped.

"Or is Miss Ward trying to tell us that any line of research that she does not sponsor is not worth bothering with? Or is she trying to stop me so that she can take up? Or has she started--late--and wants me stopped before I get to the answer. That would make the famous Solar Space Laboratory look slightly second-rate, wouldn't it."

* * * * *

"Gentlemen," cried Miss Ward facing the committee and ignoring Barden, "his statements are invidious. He is accusing me of jealousy, personal ambition, and egomania. This is not fair!"

"Miss Ward, I regret that you are not a man--or that I am not a woman. Then we would have an even chance before a committee of our contemporaries."

"Mr. Barden," she said in an icy voice, "I've been accused of flaunting my sex every time a question is raised. I've also been told by many that my position was gained in the same way. Just because I prefer to be a physicist instead of some man's housekeeper, I am viewed with suspicion, hatred, jealousy, and dislike. Well, Mr. Barden, you accuse me of using my sex. It is as much a hindrance as an aid, because I find that a woman has to be three times as good as the man in the same job in order to get the same recognition. If she isn't, nobody trusts her at all! Now," she said facing the committee, "I'll make my final plea. I've had mathematical physicists at work for almost a year. They agree with me. Thomas Barden has earned his position, I admit. But I still claim that he is moving forward along an unknown road because he is unable to make the necessary predictions. I've explained where this road leads to, and the consequences of following it blindly. He must be stopped!"

"Mathematics," said Barden, "and I quote Dr. Murdoch of the Board of Review of the Terran Physical Society: 'And may I add that when mathematics and experiment do not agree, it is the math that is changed. As witness Galileo's experiments with the falling bodies.' No one can make a certain prediction postulated on mathematics unless he has cognizance of every term. Miss Ward, are you aware of every factor?"

"No but--"

"Then your mathematics is faulty. And your opinion is, therefore, reduced to a personal opinion and not a scientific statement of fact. I've heard that a physicist is a learned one who leaps from an unfounded opinion to a foregone conclusion."

"You sound like an orator," snapped Edith Ward, "and orators seldom follow full fact unless it enhances their point."

"I'm sorry that you have that opinion," said Barden. "However, Miss Ward and gentlemen, regardless of what you do, of how you attempt to restrain me, I shall pursue this matter to the bitter end. If you deny me the right to work on Terra or any other solid body of the system, I shall take my laboratory into space and then we shall have two space laboratories--one of which will function in the medium for which it was named!"

Barden nodded affably, turned, and left the room.

One of the committeemen smiled sardonically and said: "I think he has just said, 'To Hell with us'!"

Another one nodded glumly and said: "Me, I think he's right. No one can stand in the way of progress."

Edith Ward blazed. "Progress! Progress! Is destruction progress? Well, if the ultimate goal of mankind is to go out in a blazing holocaust of his own making, then this is true progress. One proper step toward the final Gotterdammerung!"

The committeeman smiled at her tolerantly. "Twilight of the Gods, Miss Ward? Oh come now, we aren't gods and I daresay that the universe will continue to function without man's aid and abetment."

Edith Ward snorted through her patrician nose. "Correct," she snapped. "But after we leave, who's here to care?"

* * * * *

Dr. Edith Ward was surprised by his arrival at the Solar Space Laboratory. She didn't expect him. He had won his battle, and she knew he was not the kind of man to gloat over a defeated enemy. Therefore she reasoned that she might never see him again for certainly she would not go to his place to see him--and eventually the whole system would go up, triggered by the untrained hand of Thomas Barden.

Then to have him call--it bothered her. Why--?

He entered, carrying a small olive branch, and he smiled boyishly as he handed it to her with a small bow.

"A truce," he suggested.

"There can be no truce," she said stonily. "It will either be you or me that is shown right."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," he said with a smile. "Look, Miss Ward, I've never disregarded the possibility that you might be correct. All I've wanted was a chance to prove it instead of merely writing it off on the grounds of possible danger. One never knows what will happen until one tries. Therefore I wanted to continue. I've completed the ship and it is awaiting a trial. Any time we're ready."

"Is this a last attempt at mollification--a salving of your somewhat rusty conscience?"

"Not at all," he said. "I want you to go along with me as a qualified observer."

"To observe what? Terra going up in flames?"

"Nope. Not necessary. The ship still retains its normal drive. We'll take it out beyond the orbit of Pluto by a couple of billion miles and let it go out there. I daresay that if you are correct, the fury of a few hundred tons of spacecraft going up in sheer energy will not damage the solar system much. Especially from that distance. Then if it does run, we're also on our way to one of the nearby stars. Like?"

"Sounds reasonable."

"Certainly," he said. "Frankly I've considered that ever since you mentioned the problem."

"I wonder if my informant considered it, too?" she said slowly.

"Probably."

"Then his warning was truly helpful."

"Iffen and providen again," he grinned. "But if he is so nicely altruistic, why didn't he tell us how to get a real superspeed drive?"

"Maybe there is none."

"Then," said Barden, "why knock out a solar system that is so far away that nothing it does can have any effect upon you?"

"A very valid point," said Edith Ward. Her eyes opened wide and her jaw fell slack. "Goodness," she breathed.

"Are we?" he asked hollowly. His expression was one of wonder and amazement.

"Well, if we win and it works, they've hazarded nothing and still have their science. If we lose, they will not miss us in the first place and also they'll quickly abandon that point."

"Guinea pigs," snorted Edith. She stood up and put one slim hand in his. She gave it a hearty shake and a firm grasp. "I'm in--from right now to the point where the whole cosmos goes up in a cloud of nuclear particles! I'll be at your place in the morning with my case packed for a six months' trip. Now I'm getting a whole case of feminine curiosity!"

"Yes?" he said cheerfully. "What, this time?"

"Well, if your informant was tossing us an experiment, hoping to get an answer, then why did mine warn me? They'll never see a spaceship burst at a distance of a half dozen light-years. They might never really know."

"We'll find out," he said firmly. "There is something about both sides that I do not like!"

* * * * *

True to her word, Edith Ward turned up at the first glimmer of daylight with her case of personal belongings. "Where'll I have it put?" she asked.

"Ship Two, Stateroom Three," he said. "I have two crates fixed up so that if you're right, we can still get home without taking to the lifecraft."

One hour later, the two ships lifted on their ordinary space drive and sped with constant acceleration directly away from the sun. At three times gravity they went, and as the seconds and the minutes and the hours passed, their velocity mounted upward. In both ships, the men worked quietly on their instruments, loafed noisily, and generally killed time. Everything had been triply checked by the time that turnover came, six days after the start. Then for six more days the ships decelerated at three gravities while the sun dwindled in size. Between Tom Barden and Edith Ward there was much talk, but no solution to the problem. They covered nearly all aspects of the possibilities and came up with the same result: Insufficient evidence to support any postulate.

About the only thing that came to complete agreement was the statement that there was more to this than was clear, and it was suspicious.

The feud that had existed faded away. It may have been the common interest, or if you will, the common menace. For though no true menace had shown, it was a common bond between Barden and Ward against a question that annoyed them simultaneously. It may have been simply the fact that man and woman find it hard to continue a dislike when they have something in common. Nature seems to have made it so. It may have been the thrill of adventure, prosaic as it was to be racing through unchangeable space for hour upon hour and day upon day with nothing but the sheerest of boredom outside of the ship. Perhaps it might have been that the sight out of any window was exactly the same today as it was yesterday and would be tomorrow or a hundred years from now--or even a thousand, for though the stars do move in their separate paths, the constellations are not materially different. The utter constancy of the sky without may have turned them inward to seek the changing play of personality.

Regardless of the reason, by the time they reached that unmarked spot outside of the orbit of Pluto where the ships became close to motionless with respect to Sol--there was no way of telling true zero-relative motion and true zero was not important anyway--they were friends.

The ships were rather closer together than they'd anticipated, and it took only a couple of hours of juggling to bring them together. Then the skeleton crew of the one was transferred to the other ship. It drew away--and away and away.

"We've got more radio equipment aboard these crates than the Interplanetary Network owns," grinned Barden. "Everything on the darned crate is controlled and every meter, instrument, and ding-bat aboard her will ship the answer back here. There must be a million radio-controlled synchros aboard these ships, and cameras on both to read every factor."

"That's fine," answered Edith with a smile. "What happens if it works like a charm and takes off at superspeed? How do your radio-controlled gadgets work then?"

"We'd lose the ship, of course, if we didn't have a time clock on the drive. If all goes well, the first drive will run for exactly ten seconds. Then we'll have about a ten-day flight to find it again because it will be a long way from here--straight out!" He smiled. "Of course, if we want to take a small chance, we could turn it on its own primary drive and superspeed it back if all goes well. But the radio controls will be as sluggish as the devil because there should be about a three or four hour transmission delay."

* * * * *

The other ship was a minute speck in the distance. Then a ship-alarm rang and the entire crew came to the alert. Barden said: "This is it!" in a strained voice and he pulled the big switch.

Along the wall was the bank upon bank of synchrometers, reading every possible factor in the controlled ship. Before the panel were trained technicians, each with a desk full of controls. Behind them were the directors with the master controls, and behind them stood Barden and Edith Ward. From holes above peeked the lenses of cameras recording the motions of every technician, and behind the entire group, more cameras pointed at the vast master panel. The recorders took down every sound, and the entire proceeding was synchronized by crystal-controlled clocks running from a primary standard of frequency.

At the starting impulse, the warm-up time pilot lit and the relays clicked as one, like a single, sharp chord of music. When the warm-up period ended the pilot changed from red to green and another bank of relays crashed home with a flowing roar, each tiny click adding to the thunder of thousands of others like it.

"That's the end of the rattle," observed Barden. "From here on in we're running on multi-circuit thyratrons."

The meter panel flashed along its entire length as the myriad of Ready lights went on. The automatic starter began its cycle, and the synchrometers on the vast panel began to indicate. Up climbed the power, storing itself in the vast reservoir bit by bit like the slow, inexorable winding of a mighty clock spring. Up it went, and the meters moved just above the limit of perception, mounting and passing toward the red mark that indicated the critical point.

As slow as their climb was, each meter hit the red mark at the same instant.

There was a murmur of low voices as each technician gave his notes to the recorders. No scribbling here, the voice itself with its inflection, its ejaculation, and its personal opinion under stress would be set down.

Then the master switch went home with a tiny flare of ionized gases--

And silently every panel went dead.

* * * * *

"Oh!" said Edith Ward in a solemn tone.

"Not yet," Barden objected. "This may be success."

"But--?"

"How do you hope to control a radio-controlled drone that is traveling higher than the velocity of propagation?"

"But how will you ever know?"

"When we--"

He was interrupted by the chatter of the radiation counter. Light splashed in through the tiny ports in a brilliant flare.

"Well, we won't," said Barden helplessly.

"Won't what?"

"Ever catch up with it! Not where it's gone!"

"So--?"

"So we've solved that problem," he said bitterly. "Your informant was right. From what the counter says, that was a vicious number. Well, I guess I am licked, finally. I admit it."

"Somehow," said Edith solemnly, "I know I should feel elated. But I am not. Fact of the matter is, I am ashamed that there is a portion of my brain that tells me that I am proven correct. I ... fervently wish it were not so."

"Thanks," he said. "I wish but one thing."

"What?"

"I'd have preferred to have been aboard that crate!"

"Tom!" she said plaintively. "Not--oblivion."

"No," he said with a wistful smile. "At superspeed, my recording instruments could record nothing. Perhaps if I'd been aboard I could have found out what really happened. There is no way."

"But what can we do?"

"Build another one and spend my time trying to find out how to get a recording from a body that isn't really existent in this space at all."

"That sounds impossible."

"Then there is but one answer," he said, "and that is to go out with it and hope that by some machination I can control the reaction before it gets beyond stopping."

"Tom," she said quietly, "you are still convinced that such a thing is possible?"

"I am," he said. And then he stopped as his face filled with wonder.

"What?" she asked, seeing the change.

"Look," he said, his voice rising in excitement. "We caught radiation. Right?"

"Right."

"That means that the ship was not exceeding the velocity of light when it went up!"

"Yes, but--?"

"Then on the instantaneous recorders there must be a complete record of what every instrument _should have been reading_ but did not due to the mechanical inertia of these meters! Right?"

"But suppose--"

"Look, Edith. The theory of the drive is based upon the development of a monopolar magnetic field that incloses space in upon itself like a blister, twisted off from the skin of a toy balloon. Now that field would collapse if the fission started, because the fission is initiated as you claim by magnetostrictive alignment of the planetary orbits of the field-electrons in the atoms. Obviously the magnetostrictive effect is more pronounced near to the center of the monopolar generator. Ergo that would go first, dropping the speed of the ship to below the velocity of light by a considerable amount. Then as the fission continued, spreading outward, the various instruments would go blooey--but not until they'd had ... did you say thirteen microseconds after initiation the major fission took place?"

"Yes."

"Give it twelve microseconds to drop the ship below the speed of light and I have still one full microsecond for recordings!"

* * * * *

Edith Ward looked up in admiration. "And you'll bet your life on what your instruments can see in one millionth of a second?"

"Shucks," he grinned. "Way way back they used microsecond pulses to range aircraft, and they got to the point where a microsecond of time could be accurately split into several million parts of its own. Besides, I made those instruments!"

"Q.E.D." said Edith Ward quietly. "But how are you going to develop a monopolar magnetic field without the magnetostrictive effect? The prime consideration is not the field, but the fact that aligning the planetary orbits means that two things tend to occupy the same place at the same time. That isn't--they tell me--possible."

"Too bad the reverse isn't true," he said.

"You mean the chance of something occupying two places at the same time?"

"Uh-huh."

"What then?"

"Then we could develop two monopolar fields of opposing polarity to inclose the twin-ship proposition. Then the atomic orbits would not be affected since they would receive the bipolar urge."

"Couldn't you change from one to the other very swiftly?"

"Not without passing through zero on the way. Every time we passed through zero we'd end up at sub-speed. The ship would really jack rabbit."

"Oh."

"But," he said thoughtfully, "what happens if the monopolar field is generated upon a true square wave?"

"A true square wave is impractical."

"You mean because at the moment of transition, the wave front must assume, simultaneously, all values between zero and maximum?"

"Yes," she said, "and it is impossible to have any item operating under two values."

"That is an existent item," said Barden with a smile. "Bringing back H. G. Wells' famous point of whether an instantaneous cube could exist."

"This I do not follow."

"Look, Edith," said Tom patiently. "Any true square wave must have a wave front in which the rise is instantaneous, and assuming all values between zero and maximum for the duration of an instant. An instant is the true zero-time, with a time-quantum of nothing--the indivisible line that divides two adjoining events. Just as a true line has no thickness.

"Now," he went on, "generating the monopolar field on a true square wave would flop us from one field to the other in true no-time. At that instant, we would be existing in all values from maximum negative to maximum positive, at the same time at zero--_but not truly assigned a real value_. Therefore we should not stop.

"However," he went on, "that is an impossibility because the true instant of no duration is impossible to achieve with any mechanism, electrical or otherwise. However, the fields set up to make possible this square wave do permit the full realization of the problem. For a practical duration, however small, the value of the wave does actually assume all values from maximum negative to maximum positive!"

She looked at him with puzzlement. "I thought they taught you only this one science," she said.

"That would have been useless," he grinned. "As useless as trying to teach a Hottentot the full science of electronics without giving him the rest of physics as a basis. No, little lady, I got the full curriculum, including a full training in how to think logically! How else?"

"You win," she said solemnly. "Fudge up your true square wave, and I'll buy a ticket back home in your crate!"

"Thanks, Edith," he said. "That's a high compliment. But there's more of us than we-all. I'll have to take a vote."

* * * * *

There was a roar at Barden's explanation. And his head technician stood up, waving for silence. "There's enough lifecraft aboard," he shouted over the noise. "Anybody who wants to get out can take 'em. They can make Terra from here in a couple of months in a lifecraft if they want to."

That got a roar of approval.

"Lucky I had two ships all fitted out," said Tom. "Also, with all this spare junk for radio-controlling the other crate we've got a shipload of spare parts. Probably take about a week flat to tinker it together, but it is far better to do it out here than to go all the way home to Terra--that'd take about four weeks."