Part 2
"We can get four or five stages of sub-electronic amplification, I think. It'll take some working."
"O.K., Charley. Cook ahead. We do not know whither we are heading, but it looks darned interesting."
"Yeah," added Walt, "it's a darned rare scientific fact that can't be used for something, somewhere. Well, Don, now what?"
"I guess we now progress to the office and run through a few reams of paper-work. Then we may relax."
"O.K. Sounds good to me. Let's go."
* * * * *
Hellion Murdoch pointed to the luminous speck in the celestial globe. His finger stabbed at the marker button, and a series of faint concentric spheres marked the distance from the center of the globe to the object, which Murdoch read and mentioned: "Twelve thousand miles."
"Asteroid?" asked Kingman.
"What else?" asked Murdoch. "We're lying next to the Asteroid Belt."
"What are you going to do?"
"Burn it," said Murdoch. His fingers danced upon the keyboard, and high above him, in the dome of the _Black Widow_, a power intake tube swiveled and pointed at Sol. Coupled to the output of the power intake tube, a power-output tube turned to point at the asteroid. And Murdoch's poised finger came down on the last switch, closing the final circuit.
Meters leaped up across their scales as the intangible beam of solar energy came silently in and went as silently out. It passed across the intervening miles with the velocity of light squared, and hit the asteroid. A second later the asteroid glowed and melted under the terrific bombardment of solar energy directed in a tight beam.
"It's O.K.," said Hellion. "But have the gang build us three larger tubes to be mounted turretwise. Then we can cope with society."
"What do you hope to gain by that? Surely piracy and grand larceny are not profitable in the light of what we have and know."
"I intend to institute a reign of terror."
"You mean to go through with your plan?"
"I am a man of my word. I shall levy a tax against each and every ship leaving any spaceport. We shall demand one dollar solarian for every gross ton that lifts from any planet and reaches the planetary limit."
"How do you establish that limit?" asked Kingman interestedly.
"Ironically, we'll use the Channing Layer," said Murdoch with dark humor. "Since the Channing Layer describes the boundary below which our solar beam will not work. Our reign of terror will be identified with Channing because of that; it will take some of the praise out of people's minds when they think of Channing and Interplanetary Communications."
"That's pretty deep psychology," said Kingman.
"You should recognize it," smiled Murdoch. "That's the kind of stuff you legal lights pull. Mention the accused in the same sentence with one of the honored people; mention the defendant in the same breath with one of the hated people--it's the same stunt. Build them up or tear them down by reference."
"You're pretty shrewd."
"I am," agreed Murdoch placidly.
* * * * *
"Mind telling me how you found yourself in the fix you're in?"
"Not at all. I've been interested for years in neuro-surgery. My researches passed beyond the realm of rabbits and monkeys, and I found it necessary to investigate the more delicate, more organized, the higher-strung. That means human beings--though some of them are less sensitive than a rabbit and less delicate than a monkey." Murdoch's eyes took on a cynical expression at this. Then it passed and he continued: "I became famous, as you know. Or do you?"
Kingman shook his head.
"I suppose not. I became famous in my own circle. Lesser neuro-surgeons sent their complex cases to me; unless you were complex, you would never hear of Allison Murdoch. Well anyway, some of them offered exciting opportunities. I--frankly, experimented. Some of them died. It was quite a bit of cut and try because not too much has been written on the finer points of the nervous system. But there were too few people who were complex enough to require my services, and I turned to clinical work, and experimented freely."
"And there you made your mistake?"
"Do you know how?"
"No. I imagine that with many patients you exceeded your rights once too often."
"Wrong. It is a funny factor in human relationship. Something that makes no sense. When people were paying me three thousand dollars an hour for operations, I could experiment without fear. Some died, some regained their health under my ministrations. But when I experimented on charity patients, I could not experiment because of the 'Protection' given the poor. The masses were not to be guinea pigs. Ha!" laughed Murdoch, "only the rich are permitted to be subjects of an experiment. Touch not the poor, who offer nothing. Experiment upon those of intellect, wealth, fame, or anything that sets them above the mob. Yes, even genius came under my knife. But I couldn't give a poor man a fifty-fifty chance at his life, when the chances of his life were less than one in ten. From a brilliant man, operating under fifty-fifty chances for life, I became an inhuman monster that cut without fear. I was imprisoned, and later escaped with some friends."
"And that's when you stole the _Hippocrates_ and decided that the solar system should pay you revenge-money?"
"I would have done better if I had not made that one mistake. I forgot that in the years of imprisonment, I fell behind in scientific knowledge. I know now that no one can establish anything at all without technical minds behind him."
Kingman's lips curled. "I wouldn't agree to that."
"You should. Your last defeat at the hands of the technicians you scorn should have taught you a lesson. If you had been sharp, you would have outguessed them; outengineered them. They, Kingman, were not afraid to rip into their detector to see what made it tick."
"But I had only the one--"
"They knew one simple thing about the universe. That rule is that if anything works once, it may be made to work again." He held up his hand as Kingman started to speak. "You'll bring all sorts of cases to hand and try to disprove me. You can't. Oh, you couldn't cause a quick return of the diplodocus, or re-enact the founding of the solar government, or even reburn a ton of coal. But there is other carbon, there will be other governmental introductions and reforms, and there may some day be the rebirth of the dinosaur--on some planet there may be carboniferous ages now. Any phenomena that is a true phenomena--and your detector was definite, not a misinterpretation of effect--can be repeated. But, Kingman, we'll not be outengineered again."
"That I do believe."
* * * * *
"And so we will have our revenge on Interplanetary Communications and upon the system itself."
"We're heading home now?"
"Right. We want this ship fitted with the triple turret I mentioned before. Also I want the interconnecting links between the solar intake and the power-projectors beefed up. When you're passing several hundred megawatts through any system, losses of the nature of .000,000,1% cause heating to a dangerous degree. We've got to cut the I^2R losses. I gave orders that the turret be started, by the way. It'll be almost ready when we return."
"_You_ gave orders?" said Kingman.
"Oh yes," said Hellion Murdoch with a laugh. "Remember our last bout with the stock market? I seem to have accumulated about forty-seven percent. That's sufficient to give me control of our company."
"But ... but--" spluttered Kingman. "That took money--"
"I still have enough left," said Murdoch quietly. "After all, I spent years in the Melanortis Country of Venus. I was working on the _Hippocrates_ when I wasn't doing a bit of mining. There's a large vein of platiniridium there. You may answer the rest."
"I still do not get this piracy."
Murdoch's eyes blazed. "That's my interest. That's my revenge! I intend to ruin Don Channing and Venus Equilateral. With the super turret they'll never be able to catch us, and we'll run the entire system."
Kingman considered. As a lawyer, he was finished. His last try at the ruination of the Venus Equilateral crowd by means of pirating the interplanetary communications beam, well that was strictly a violation of the Communications Code. The latter absolutely prevented any man or group of men from diverting communications not intended for them and using these communications for their own purpose. His defense that Venus Equilateral had also violated the law went unheard. It was pointed out to him that Venus Equilateral tapped his own line, and the tapping of an illegal line was the act of a communications agent in the interest of the government. He was no longer a lawyer, and in fact he had escaped a long jail term by sheer bribery.
He was barred from legal practice, and he was barred from any business transactions. The stock market could be manipulated, but only through a blind, which was neither profitable nor safe.
His holdings in Terran Electric was all that stood between him and ruin. He was no better off than Murdoch, save that he was not wanted.
But--
"I'm going to remain on Terra and run Terran Electric like a model company," he said. "That'll be our base."
"Right. Except for a bit of research along specified lines, you will do nothing. Your job will be to act apologetic for your misdeeds. You will grovel on the floor before any authority, and beseech the legal profession to accept you once more. I will need your help, there. You are to establish yourself in the good graces of the Interplanetary Patent Office and report to me any applications that may be of interest. The research that Terran Electric will conduct will be along innocuous lines. The real research will be conducted in a secret laboratory. The one in the Melanortis Country. Selected men will work there, and the Terran Electric fleet of cargo-carriers will carry the material needed. My main failure was not to have provided a means of knowing what the worlds were doing. I'll have that now, and I shall not be defeated again."
"We'll say that one together!" said Kingman. He flipped open a large book and set the autopilot from a set of figures. The _Black Widow_ turned gently and started to run for Terra at 2-G.
* * * * *
Walt Franks frowned at the memorandum in his hand. "Look, Don, are we ever going to get to work on that deal with Keg Johnson?"
"Uh-huh," answered Don, without looking up.
"He's serious. Transplanet is getting the edge, and he doesn't like it."
"Frankly, I don't like dabbling in stuff like that either. But Keg's an old friend, and I suppose that's how a guy gets all glommed up on projects, big business deals, and so forth. We'll be going in directly. Why the rush?"
"A bit of personal business on Mars which can best be done at the same time, thus saving an additional trip."
"O.K.," said Don idly. "Might as well get it over with. Can you pack in an hour?"
"Sure. I'll be there."
Actually, it was less than an hour before the _Relay Girl_ went out of the South End Landing Stage, turned, and headed for Mars. Packing to the Channings was a matter of persuading Arden not to take everything but the drapes in the apartment along with her, while for Walt Franks it was a matter of grabbing a trunkful of instruments and spare parts. Space travel is a matter of waiting for days in the confines of a small bubble of steel. Just waiting. For the scenery is unchanging all the way from Sol to Pluto--and is the same scenery that can be seen from the viewports of Venus Equilateral. Walt enjoyed his waiting time by tinkering; having nothing to do would have bored him, and so he took with him enough to keep him busy during the trip.
At two Terran gravities, the velocity of the _Relay Girl_ built up bit by bit and mile by mile until they were going just shy of one thousand miles per second. This occurred an hour before turnover, which would take place at the twenty-third hour of flight.
And at that time there occurred a rarity. Not an impossibility like the chances of collision with a meteor, those things happen only once in a lifetime, and Channing had had his collision. Nor was it as remote as getting a royal flush on the deal. It happened, not often, but it did happen to some ships occasionally.
Another ship passed within detector range.
The celestial globe glimmered faintly and showed a minute point at extreme range. Automatic marker-spheres appeared concentrically within the celestial globe and colures and diameters marked the globe off into octants. A dim red line appeared before the object, giving the probable course of the object.
Bells rang briefly, and the automatic meteor-circuits interpreted the orbit of the oncoming object and decided that the object was not dangerous. Then they relaxed. Their work was done until another object came within range for them to inspect. They were no longer interested, and they forgot about the object with the same powers of complete oblivion that they would have exerted on a meteor of nickel and iron.
They were mechanically incapable of original thought. So the object, to them, was harmless.
Channing looked up at the luminescent spot, sought the calibration spheres, made a casual observation, and forgot about it. To him it was a harmless meteor.
Even the fact that his own velocity was a thousand miles per second, and the object's velocity was the same, coming to them on a one hundred and seventy degree course and due to pass within five thousand miles did not register. Their total velocity of two thousand miles did not register just because of that rarity with which ships pass within detector range, while meteors are encountered often.
Had Channing been thinking about the subject in earnest, he would have known--for it is only man, with all too little time, who uses such velocities. The universe, with eternity in which to work her miracle, seldom moves in velocities greater than forty or fifty miles per second.
Channing forgot it, and as the marker-spheres switched to accommodate the approaching object, he turned to more important things.
In the other ship, Hellion Murdoch frowned. He brightened, then, and depressed the plunger that energized his solar beam and projector. He did not recognize the oncoming object for anything but a meteor, either, and his desire was to find out how his invention worked at top speeds.
Kingman asked: "Another one?"
"Uh-huh," said Murdoch idly. "I want to check my finders."
"But they can't miss."
"No? Look, lawyer, you're not running a job that may be given a stay or a reprieve. The finders run on light velocities. The solar beam runs on the speed of light squared. We'll pass that thing at five thousand miles and at two thousand accumulative miles per second. A microsecond of misalignment, and we're missing, see? I think we're going to be forced to put correction circuits in so that the vector sums and velocities and distances will all come out with a true hit. It will not be like sighting down a searchlight beam at high velocity."
"I see. You'll need compensation?"
"Plenty, at this velocity and distance. This is the first time I've had a chance to try it out."
The latter fact saved the _Relay Girl_. By a mere matter of feet, and inches; by the difference between the speed of light and the speed of light squared at a distance of five thousand miles, plus a slight miscompensation. The intolerably hot umbra of Murdoch's beam followed below the pilot's greenhouse of the _Relay Girl_ all the way past, a matter of several seconds. The spill-over was tangible enough to warm the _Relay Girl_ to uncomfortable temperatures.
Then with no real damage done, the contact with ships in space was over, but not without a certain minimum of recognition.
"Hell!" said Kingman. "That was a space craft."
"Who?"
"I don't know. You missed."
"I'd rather have hit," said Murdoch coldly. "I hope I missed by plenty."
"Why?"
"If we scorched their tails any, there'll be embarrassing questions asked."
"So--?"
"So nothing until we're asked. Even then you know nothing."
* * * * *
In the _Relay Girl_, Channing mopped his forehead. "That was hell itself," he said.
Arden laughed uncertainly. "I thought that it would wait until we got there; I didn't expect hell to come after us."
"What--exactly--happened?" asked Walt, coming into the scanning room.
"That--was a spaceship."
"One of this system's?"
"I wonder," said Don honestly. "It makes a guy wonder. It was gone too fast to make certain. It probably was Solarian, but they tried to burn us with something."
"That makes it sound like something alien," admitted Walt. "But that doesn't make good sense."
"It makes good reading," laughed Channing. "Walt, you're the Boy Edison. Have you been tinkering with anything of lethal leanings?"
"You think there may be something powerful afloat?"
"Could be. We don't know everything."
"I've toyed with the idea of coupling a solar intake beam with one of those tubes that Baler and Carroll found. Recall, they smashed up quite a bit of Lincoln Head before they uncovered the secret of how to handle it. Now that we have unlimited power--or are limited only by the losses in our own system--we could, or should be able to, make something rather tough."
"You've toyed with the idea, hey?"
"Uh-huh."
"Of course you haven't really tried it?"
"Of course not."
"How did it work?"
"Fair," grinned Walt. "I did it with miniatures only, of course, since I couldn't get my hooks on a full-grown tube."
"Say," asked Arden, "how did you birds arrive at this idea so suddenly? I got lost at the first premise."
"We passed a strange ship. We heated up to uncomfortable temperatures in a matter of nine seconds flat. They didn't warm us with thought waves, or vector-invectives. Sheer dislike wouldn't do it alone. I guess that someone is trying to do the trick started by our esteemed Mr. Franks here a year or so ago. Only with something practical instead of an electron beam. Honest-to-goodness energy, right from Sol himself, funneled through some tricky inventions. Walt, that experiment of yours. Did you bring it along?"
Walt looked downcast. "No," he said. "It was another one."
"Let's see."
"It's not too good--"
"Same idea?"
Walt went to get his experiment. He returned with a tray full of laboratory glassware, all wired into a maze of electronic equipment.
Channing went white. "You, too?" he yelled.
"Take it easy, sport. This charges only to a hundred volts. We get thirteen hundred microfarads at one hundred volts. Then we drain off the dielectric fluid, and get one billion three hundred million volts charge in a condenser of only one hundred micro-microfarads. It's an idea for the nuclear physics boys. I think it may tend to solidify some of the uncontrollables in the present system of developing high electron velocities."
"That thirteen million dielectric constant stuff is strictly electro-dynamite, I think," said Channing. "Farrell may have developed it as a by-product, but I have a hunch that it will replace some heretofore valuable equipment. The Franks-Farrell generator will outdo Van-Der Graf's little job, I think."
"Franks-Farrell?"
"Sure. He thunk up the dielectric. You thunk up the application. He won't care, and you couldn't have done it without. Follow?"
"Oh sure. I was just trying to figure out a more generic term for it."
"Don't. Let it go as is for now. It's slick, Walt, but there's no weapon in it."
"You're looking for a weapon?"
"Uh-huh. Ever since Murdoch took a swing at Venus Equilateral, I've been sort of wishing that we could concoct something big enough and dangerous enough to keep us free from any other wiseacres. Remember, we stand out there like a sore thumb. We are as vulnerable as a half pound of butter at a banquet for starving Armenians. The next screwball that wants to control the system will have to control Venus Equilateral first. And the best things we can concoct to date include projectile-tossing guns at velocities of less than the speed of our ships, and an electron-shooter that can be overcome by coating the ship with any of the metal-salts that enhance secondary emission."
"Remind me to requisition a set of full-sized tubes when we return. Might as well have some fun."
"O.K., you can have 'em. Which brings us back to the present. Question: Was that an abortive attempt upon our ship, or was that a mistaken try at melting a meteor?"
"I know how to find out. Let's call Charley Thomas and have him get on the rails. We can have him request Terran Electric to give us any information they may have on energy beams to date."
"They'd tell you?" scorned Arden.
"If they write _no!_, and we find out that they did, we'll sue 'em dead. They're too shaky to try anything deep right now."
"Going to make it an official request, hey?"
"Right. From the Station, it'll go out in print, and their answer will be on the 'type, too, since business etiquette requires it. They'll get the implication if they're on the losing end. That'll make 'em try something slick. If they're honest, they'll tell all."
"That'll do it all right," said Walt. "They're too shaky to buck us any more. And if they are trying anything, it'll show."
* * * * *
The rest of the trip was without incident. They put in at Canalopsis and found Keg Johnson with an official 'gram waiting for them. Don Channing ripped it open and read:
Interplanetary Communications Attention Dr. Channing:
No project for energy-beam capable of removing meteors under way at Terran Electric, or at any of the subsidiary companies. Ideas suggested along these lines have been disproven by your abortive attempt of a year ago, and will not be considered unless theory is substantiated in every way by practical evidence.
If you are interested, we will delve into the subject from all angles. Please advise.
Terran Electric Co. Board of Legal Operations Mark Kingman, LLD.
Channing smiled wryly at Keg Johnson and told him of their trouble.
"Oh?" said Keg, with a frown. "Then you haven't heard?"
"Heard what?"
"Hellion Murdoch has been on the loose for weeks."
"Weeks!" yelled Channing.
"Uh-huh. He feigned gangrene, was taken to the base hospital where he raised hob in his own, inimitable way. He blasted the communications set-up completely, ruined three spaceships, and made off with the fourth. The contact ship just touched there recently and found hell brewing. If they hadn't had a load of supplies and prisoners for the place, they wouldn't have known about it for months, perhaps."
"So! Brother Murdoch is loose again. Well! The story dovetails in nicely."
"You think that was Hellion himself?"
"I'd bet money on it. The official report on Hellion Murdoch said that he was suffering from a very slight persecution complex, and that he was capable of making something of it if he got the chance. He's slightly whacky, and dangerously so."
"He's a brilliant man, isn't he?"
"Quite. His name is well known in the circles of neuro-surgery. He is also known to be an excellent research worker in applied physics."
"Nuts, hey?" asked Walt.
"Yeah, he's nuts. But only in one way, Walt. He's nuts to think that he is smarter than the entire solar system all put together. Well, what do we do now?"
"Butter ourselves well and start scratching for the answer. That betatron trick will not work twice. There must be something."
"O.K., Walt. We'll all help you think. I'm wondering how much research he had to do to develop that beam. After all, we were five thousand miles away, and he heated us up. He must've thought we were a meteor--and another thing, too--he must've thought that his beam was capable of doing something at five thousand miles distance or he wouldn't have tried. Ergo he must have beaten that two hundred mile bugaboo."