Part 23
Wes loosened a set screw on the main tube anode and set the anode forward a barely perceptible distance. He checked it with a vernier rule and tightened the screw. He made other adjustments on the works of the tube itself, and then motioned outside. They left the blister, Wes closed the air-tight, and cracked the valve that let the air out of the blister. He snapped the switch on the outside panel and then leaned back in his chair while the cathode heated.
"With electrical scanning, you'll have curvature of field with this gadget. That isn't too bad, I suppose, because the restorer will have the same curvature. But you're going to scan three ways, which means correction for the linear distance from the tube as well as the other side deflections and their aberrations. Now if we could scan the gadget mechanically, we'd have absolute flatness of field, perfect focus, and so forth."
Walt grinned. "Thinking of television again? Look, bright fellows, how do you move an assembly of mechanical parts in quanta of one atomic diameter? They've been looking for that kind of a gadget for centuries. Dr. Rowland and his gratings would turn over in their graves with a contrivance that could rule lines one atom apart."
"On what?" asked Don.
"If it would rule one atom lines, brother, you could put a million lines per inch on anything rulable with perfection, ease, eclat, and savoir faire. You follow my argument? Or would you rather take up this slip of my tongue and make something out of it?"
"O.K., fella, I see your point. How about that one, Wes?"
Wes Farrell grinned. "Looks like I'd better be getting perfect focus with the electrical system here. I hadn't considered the other angle at all, but it looks a lot tougher than I thought."
He squinted through a wall-mounted telescope at the set-up on the inside of the blister. "She's hot," he remarked quietly, and then set to checking the experiment. Fifteen minutes of checking, and making notes, and he turned to the others with a smile. "Not too bad that way," he said.
"What are you doing?"
"I've established a rather complex field. In order to correct the aberrations, I've got non-linear focussing fields in the places where they tend to correct for the off-axis aberrations. To correct for the height-effect, I'm putting a variable corrector to control the whole cone of energy, stretching it or shortening it according to the needs. I think if I use a longer focal length I'll be able to get the thing running right.
"That'll lessen the need for correction, too," he added, cracking the blister-intake valve and letting the air hiss into the blister. He opened the door and went inside, and began to adjust the electrodes. "You know," he added over his shoulder, "we've got something here that might bring a few dollars on the side. This matter-bank affair produces clean, clear, and practically pure metal. You might be able to sell some metal that was rated 'pure' and mean it."
"You mean absolutely, positively, guaranteed, uncontaminated, unadulterated, perfectly chemically pure?" grinned Don.
"Compared to what 'chemically pure' really means, your selection of adjectives is a masterpiece of understatement," laughed Walt.
"I'm about to make one more try," announced Wes. "Then I'm going to drop this for the time being. I've got to get up to the machine shop and see what they're doing with the rest of the thing."
"We'll take that over if you wish," said Don.
"Will you? I'll appreciate it. I sort of hate to let this thing go when I feel that I'm near an answer."
"We'll do it," said Walt, definitely.
They left the laboratory and made their way to the elevator that would lift them high into the relay station where the machine shop was located. As they entered the elevator Don shook his head.
"What's the matter?"
"Well, friend Wes is on the beam again. If he feels that we're close to the answer, I'll bet a hat that we're hanging right on the edge. Also, that kind of work would kill me dead. He likes to stick on one thing till the bitter end, no matter how long it takes. I couldn't do it."
"I know. About three days of this and you're wanting another job to clear your mind. Then you could tackle that one for about three hours and take back on the first."
"Trying to do that to Farrell would kill both him and the jobs," said Don. "But you and I can keep two or three projects going strong. Oh, well, Wes is worth a million."
"He's the best we've got," agreed Walt. "Just because he has a peculiar slant on life is no sign he's not brilliant."
"It's you and I that have the cockeyed slant on life," grinned Don. "And frankly, I'm proud of it." He swung the elevator door aside and they walked down the corridor. "This isn't going to be much to see, but we'll take a look."
The machine shop, to the man, was clustered around the one cabinet under construction. They moved aside to permit the entry of Channing and Franks.
"Hm-m-m," said Don. "Looks like a refrigerator and incinerator combined."
It did. It stood five feet tall, three feet square, and was sealed in front by a heavy door. There was a place intended for the tube that Farrell was tinkering in the blister, and the lines to supply the power were coiled behind the cabinet.
"Partly wired?" asked Don.
"Just the power circuits," answered Warren, "We'll have this finished in a couple of days now. The other one is completed except for Wes Farrell's section."
Channing nodded, and said: "Keep it going." He turned to Walt and after the passage of a knowing glance the pair left. "Walt, this is getting on my nerves. I want to go down to Joe's and drink myself into a stupor which will last until they get something cogent to work on."
"I'm with you, but what will Arden say?"
"I'm going to get Arden. Self-protection. She'd cut my feet off at the knees if I went off on a tear without her."
"I have gathered that," grinned Walt. "You're afraid of her."
"Yeah," drawled Don. "After all--she's the cook."
"I'm waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"If and when. If you two go on as you have for another year without one of you turning up with a black eye, I may be tempted to go forth and track me down a babe of my own."
* * * * *
The cabinet stood in the north end of Venus Equilateral but it was not alone. It may even be the record for all times; certainly no other cabinet three by three by five ever had twenty-seven men all standing in a circle awaiting developments. The cabinet at the south end of Venus Equilateral was no less popular, though the number of watchers was less by one. Here, then, were winner and runner-up of inanimate popularity for the ages. The communicator system set in the walls of the two rooms carried sounds from the north room to the south, and those sounds in the south room could be heard in the north room. Channing grinned boyishly at Arden.
"This, my love, is a device which may make it quite possible for me to send you back to mother."
Arden smiled serenely. "No dice," she said. "Mother went back to grandmother last week. When is this thing going to cook?"
"Directly."
"What are we waiting for?"
"Walt."
"I'm ready," came Walt's voice through the speaker.
"About time, slowpoke."
"Really, it was not his fault," objected Wes. "I wanted to check the scanner-synchronization."
"He's precious," chortled Arden in Don's ear. "He wouldn't think of letting Walt, the big bum, take the blame for anything that wasn't Walt's fault."
"That's a good line," grinned Don. "Walt's faults. After we set this thing aside as a finished project, we'll set that 'Walt's Faults' to music. Ready, Walt?"
"Right. I am now slipping the block into the cabinet. The door is closed. Have you got the preliminary synchronizing signal in tick?"
Channing called: "Wait a minute, I'm lagging a whole cycle."
"Cut your synchronization input and let the thing catch up."
"O.K. Um-m-m--Now, Walt."
"Has anyone any last words to say?" asked Walt.
No answer.
"Then since no one has any objections at this time, I assume that everything may be run off. Silence, people, we are going on the air!"
"There was a very faint odor of corn in Walt's last remark," said Don.
"I think the corn was on his breath," said Arden.
"Done!" announced Walt. "Don, crack the door so that the rest of us can laugh if it don't work."
Channing swaggered over and opened the door. He reached inside and took out the--object.
He held it up.
"Walt," said he, "what are you giving me?"
"Huh?"
"I presume that you shipped me one of the cubes?"
"Right."
"Well, what we got at this end would positively scare the right arm off of a surrealist sculptor."
"Hang onto it. I'll be right up."
"Hang on to it?" laughed Don. "I'm afraid to touch it."
It was three miles from one end of Venus Equilateral to the other and Walt made it in six minutes from the time he stepped into the little runway car to the time he came into the north-end laboratory and looked over Channing's shoulder at the--thing--that stood on the table.
"Um," he said. "Sort of distorted, isn't it?"
"Quite," said Don. "This is glass. It was once a three-inch cube of precision, polish, and beauty. It is now a combination of a circular stairway with round corners and a sort of accordion pleat. Hell's bells!"
"Be not discouraged," gurgled Walt. "No matter what it looks like, we did transmit matter."
Arden tapped Don on the shoulder. "May I say it now?"
"You do--!"
"Then I won't say it doesn't matter."
"I'm ignoring your crude remark. Walt, we did accomplish something. It wasn't too good. Now let's figure out why this thing seems to have been run over with a fourth dimensional caterpillar-tread truck."
"Well, I can hazard a guess. The synchronizing circuits were not clamped perfectly. That gives the accordion-pleat effect. The starting of the trace was not made at the same place each time due to slippage. We'll have to beef up the synchronization impulse. The circular staircase effect was probably due to phase distortion."
"Could be," said Don. "That means we have to beef up the transmission band so it'll carry a higher frequency."
"A lower impedance with corrective elements?"
"Might work. Those will have to be matched closely. We're not transmitting on a line, you know. It's sheer transmission-tube stuff from here to there. Well, gang, we've had our fun. Now let's widen the transmission band and beef up the sync. Then we'll try number two."
Number two was tried the following afternoon. Again, everybody stood around and watched over Don's shoulder as he removed the cube from the cabinet.
"Nice," he said, doing a little war dance.
Franks came in puffing, took the cube from Don's fingers and inspected it. "Not too bad," he said.
"Perfect."
"Not by a jug full. The index of refraction is higher at this edge than at the other. See?" Walt held the cube before a newspaper and they squinted through the glass block.
"Seems to be. Now why?"
"Second harmonic distortion, if present, would tend to thin out one side and thicken up the other side. A sine-wave transmission would result in even thickness, but if second harmonic distortion is present, the broad loops at the top create a condition where the average from zero to top is higher than the average from zero to the other peak. Follow?"
"That would indicate that the distortion was coming in at this end. If both were even, they would cancel."
"Right. Your scanning at one end is regular--at the other end it is irregular, resulting in non-homogeneity."
"The corners aren't sharp," objected Arden.
"That's an easy one. The wave-front isn't sharp either. Instead of clipping sharply at the end of the trace, the signal tapers off. That means higher frequency response is needed."
"We need a term. Audio for sonics; radio for electronics; video for television signals--"
"Mateo," said Arden.
"Um--sounds sort of silly," grinned Walt.
"That's because it's strange. Mateo it is," said Don. "Our mateo amplifier needs higher frequency response in order to follow the square wave-front. Might put a clipper circuit in there, too."
"I think a clipper and a sharpener will do more than the higher frequency," said Farrell. He was plying a vernier caliper, and he added: "I'm certain of that second harmonic stuff now. The dimension is cockeyed on this side. Tell you what, Don. I'm going to have the index of refraction measured within an inch of its life. Then we'll check the thing and apply some high-powered math and see if we can come up with the percentage of distortion."
"Go ahead. Meanwhile, _we'll_ apply the harmonic analyzer to this thing and see what we find. If we square up the edges and make her homogeneous, we'll be in business."
"The space lines will hate you to pieces," said Arden.
"Nope. I doubt that we could send anything very large. It might be more bother to run a huge job than the money it costs to send it by spacer. But we have a market for small stuff that is hard to handle in space because of its size."
"I see no reason why Keg Johnson wouldn't go for a hunk of it," offered Wes Farrell.
"I've mentioned it to Keg; the last time I was in Canalopsis," said Walt. "He wasn't too worried--provided he could buy a hunk."
"Interplanet is pretty progressive," mused Don. "There'll be no reason why we can't make some real handy loose change out of this. Well, let's try it again tomorrow."
"O.K. Let's break this up. Will we need any more blocks from Terran Electric?"
* * * * *
It was less than a month later that a newspaper reporter caught the advance patent notice and swallowed hard. He did a double take, shook his head, and then read the names on the patent application and decided that someone was not fooling. He took leave and made the run to Venus Equilateral to interview the officials. He returned not only with a story, but with a sample glass block that he had seen run through the machine.
The news pushed one hatchet murder, a bank robbery, a football upset, and three political harangues all the way back to page seven. In terms more glowing than scientifically accurate, the matter transmitter screamed in three-inch headlines, trailed down across the page in smaller type, and was embellished with pictures, diagrams, and a description of the apparatus. The latter had been furnished by Walt Franks, and had been rewritten by the reporter because Walt's description was too dry.
The following morning Venus Equilateral had nine rush telegrams. Three were from cranks who wanted to go to Sirius and set up a restorer there to take people; four were from superstitious nuts who called Channing's attention to the fact that he was overstepping the rights given to him by his Creator; one was from a gentleman who had a number of ideas, all of which were based on the idea of getting something for nothing and none of which were legal; and the last one was a rather curt note from Terran Electric, pointing out that this device came under the realm of the power-transmission tube and its developments and that they wanted a legal discussion.
"Have they got a leg to stand on?" asked Walt.
"I doubt it."
"Then to the devil with them," snapped Walt. "We'll tell 'em to go jump in the lake."
"Nope. We're going to Terra and slip them the slug. If we clip them now, they'll have nothing to go on. If we wait till they get started, they'll have a fighting chance. Besides, I think that all they want to do is to have the facts brought out. Are we or are we not under the terms of that contract?"
"Are we?"
"We're as safe as Sol. And I know it. That contract pertained to the use of the solar beam only, plus certain other concessions pertaining to the use of the power-transmission tubes and other basic effects as utilized in communications."
"Why can't we tell them that?"
"It's got to be told in a court of law," said Don. "Kingman's mind runs to legal procedure like Blackstone."
"We'll take the gadgets?"
"Right. What are you using for power?"
"What other? Solar beams, of course. We don't bother about running stuff around any more. We plug it in the 115-volt line, it energizes the little fellows just long enough to make them self-sustaining from Sol. All the 115-volt line does is to act as a starting circuit."
"You and Farrell had better dream up a couple of power supplies then. We can't use the solar beam on Terra."
"I know. We're a little ahead of you on that. Wes and one of the Thomas boys cooked up a beam-transducer power supply that will get its juice from any standard 115-volt, sixty-cycle line socket. We've got two of them--and they run the things easily."
"Good. I'll 'gram Terran Electric and let 'em know we're on our way for the legal tangle. You load up the _Relay Girl_ and we'll be on our way. Stock up the usual supply of bars, blocks, gadgets, and traps. Might include a bar magnet. When we show that it is still magnetized, we'll gain a point for sure."
"If we take a magnet, we'd better take the fluxmeter to show that the magnetic field hasn't dropped."
"Right. Take anything you can think of for a good show. We can knock them dead!"
* * * * *
Mark Kingman put his assistant legal counsel on the witness stand. "You will state the intent of the contract signed between Terran Electric and Venus Equilateral."
"The contract holds the following intent: 'Use of the power-transmission tubes for communications purposes shall fall under the jurisdiction of Venus Equilateral. For power transmission, the tubes and associated equipment shall be under the control of Terran Electric. In the matter of the solar beam tubes, the contract is as follows: Venus Equilateral holds the control of the solar beam in space, on man-made bodies in space, and upon those natural bodies in space where Venus Equilateral requires the solar power to maintain subsidiary relay stations.'"
"Please clarify the latter," said Kingman. "Unless it is your intent to imply that Terra, Mars, and Mercury fall under the classification of 'places where Venus Equilateral requires power.'"
"Their control on natural celestial objects extends only to their own installations and requirements. Basically, aside from their own power requirements, Venus Equilateral is not authorized to sell power. In short, the contract implies that the use of the sub-etheric phenomena is divided so that Venus Equilateral may use this region for communications, while Terran Electric uses the sub-ether for power. In space, however, Venus Equilateral holds the rights to the power beam."
Frank Tinken, head legal man of Venus Equilateral, turned to Don and said: "We should have this in a technical court."
Don turned his attention from the long discussion of the contract and asked: "Why not change?"
"Judges hate people who ask for changes of court. It is bad for the requestee--and is only done when the judge's disinterest is open to question--and also when the suspicion of dislike is less dangerous than the judge himself."
"Well, this should be in a technical court."
"Want to chance it?"
"I think so. This is more than likely to turn up with differential equations, physics experts, and perhaps a demonstration of atom smashing."
Kingman finished his examination and turned away. The judge nodded sourly at Tinken. "Cross-examination?"
Tinken faced the witness, nodded, and then faced the court.
"The witness' statements regarding the contract are true. However, Judge Hamilton, I will attempt to show that this case is highly technical in nature and as such falls under the jurisdiction of the Technical Court. May I proceed?"
"Counsel for the plaintiff assures me that this is not truly a technical case," snapped Hamilton. "However, if you can definitely prove that the case in point hinges on purely technical matters, what you say may be instrumental in having this hearing changed. Proceed."
"Thank you." Tinken turned to the witness. "Exactly what is the point in question?"
"The point in question," said the witness, "is whether or not the matter transmitter falls under Terran Electric's contract or Venus Equilateral's contract."
"Isn't the question really a matter of whether the basic effect is technically communication or power transmission?"
"Objection!" barked Kingman. "The counsel is leading the witness."
"Objection permitted--strike the question from the record."
"I was merely trying to bring out the technical aspect of the case," explained Tinken, "I'll rephrase the question. Is it not true that the contract between Terran Electric and Venus Equilateral is based upon a certain technology?"
"Certainly."
"Then if the case is based upon technical aspects--"
"Objection!" marked Kingman. "More than half of all manufacturing contracts are based upon technical background. I quote the case of Hines versus Ingall in which the subject matter was the development of a new type of calculating machine. This case was heard in a legal court and disposed of in the same."
"Objection permitted."
"No further examination," said Tinken. He sat down and turned to Don, "We're in trouble. Hamilton does not like us."
"Well, we still have the whip hand."
"Right, but before we get done we'll have trouble with Hamilton."
"Before we get done, Kingman will have trouble with us," said Don.
Terran Electric's lawyer called Wes Farrell to the stand. "Mr. Farrell, you are employed by Venus Equilateral?"
"Yes."
"In what capacity?"
"As an experimental physicist."
"And as such, you were involved in some phases of the device under discussion?"
"I was," said Farrell.
"Does the device make use of the solar beam?"
"It does but--"
"Thank you," interrupted Kingman.
"I'm not through," snapped Farrell, "The solar beam is not integral."
"It is used, though."
"It may be removed. If necessary, we can have hand-generators supplied to generate the operating power."
"I see," said Kingman sourly. "The device itself is entirely new and basic?"
"Not entirely. The main components are developments of existing parts, specialized to fit the requirements."
"They are based on specifically what?"
"Certain effects noted in the power-transmission tubes plus certain effects noted in the solar beam tubes."
"And which of these effects is more contributory?"
"Both are about equally responsible. One will be useless without the other."
Kingman turned to the judge. "I intend to show that the use of these effects is stated in the contract."
"Proceed."
"Was there any time during the development of the device any question of jurisdiction?"
"None whatever," said Farrell. "We knew how we stood."
"The statement is hearsay and prejudiced," stated Kingman.
"Strike it from the record," snapped Hamilton.
"It stands at 'none whatever,'" said Kingman.
The secretary nodded.
"Since absolutely no attention was paid to the terms of the contract, doesn't that imply that a certain ignorance of the terms might prevail?"
"Objection!" shouted Tinken. "Counsel's question implies legal carelessness on the part of his opponent."
"How can you be aware of the ramifications of a contract that you do not read?" stormed Kingman.
"Objection overruled."
"May I take exception?" requested Tinken.
"Exception noted. Counsel, will you rephrase your question so that no lack of foresight is implied?"
"Certainly," smiled Kingman. "How were you certain that you were within your rights?"
"If this plan had been open to any question, my superiors would not have permitted me--"
"That will not serve!" snapped Kingman. "You are making an implication--your testimony is biased."
"Naturally," barked Farrell. "No one but an idiot would claim to have no opinion."
"Does that include the court?" asked Kingman suavely.
"Naturally not," retorted Farrell. "I was speaking of interested parties."
"Let it pass. In other words, Dr. Farrell, you were never sure that you were within your rights?"