Part 25

_Don Channing turned from the court and made his way through the room to the hallway. In his hand he bore one of the judge's watch-replicas. In his mind he had the world by the tail._

_He was going to leave the court, make his way to Venus Equilateral and launch a new era._

_He didn't know that he had launched one already._

PANDORA'S MILLIONS

_"A lot has been written about mankind starving amid plenty. But never before was a civilization confronted with the prospect of luxury amid bankruptcy--"_

Keg Johnson was the executive type. He was the chief executive of Interplanet Transport, a position of no mean height. Keg had become the chief executive by sheer guts, excellent judgment, and the ability to gamble and win.

Like any high executive in a culture based on a technical background, Keg was well aware of science. He was no master of the scientific method nor of laboratory technique. He was able to understand most of the long-haired concepts if they were presented in words of less than nine syllables, and he was more than anxious to make use of any scientific discovery that came from the laboratory. He knew that the laboratory paid off in the long run.

Keg Johnson was strictly a good business man. He played a good game and usually won because he could size up any situation at a glance and prepare his next move while his opponent was finishing his preparatory speech.

So when Keg Johnson met Don Channing in the hallway of the courtroom in Buffalo, he was dangling an exact replica of the judge's watch--a timepiece no longer a rare collector's item.

He waved the watch before Channing's face.

"Brother," he said with a worried smile, "what have you done!"

"We won," said Channing cheerfully.

"You've lost!" said Keg.

"Lost?"

Keg's eyes followed the Terran Electric's lawyer, Mark Kingman, as he left the courtroom.

"He's been trying to put you out of business for a couple of years, Don, without any success. But you just put your own self out of comish. Venus Equilateral is done for, Channing."

"Meaning?" asked Don, lowering his eyebrows. "Seems to me that you're the one that should worry. As I said, we'll give you your opportunity to buy in."

"Interplanet Transport is finished," agreed Johnson. He did not seem overly worried about the prospect of tossing a triplanetary corporation into the furnace. "So is Venus Equilateral."

"Do go on," snapped Don. "It seems to me that we've just begun. We can take over the job of shipping on the beams. The matter-transmitter will take anything but life, so far. Pick it up here, shove it down the communications beams and get it over there. Just like that."

"That's wonderful," said Keg in a scathing voice. "But who and why will ship what?"

"Huh?"

"Once they get recordings of Palanortis Whitewood logs on Mars, will we ship? Once they get recordings of the Martian Lagel to Northern Landing, who will take the time to make the run by ship?"

"Right," agreed Channing.

"The bulk of your business, my brilliant friend, comes not from lovesick swains calling up their gal friends across a hundred million miles of space. It comes from men sending orders to ship thirty thousand tons of Venusian Arachnia-web to Terra, and to ship ten thousand fliers to Southern Point, Venus, and to send fifty thousand cylinders of acetylene to the Solar Observatory on Mercury, and so forth. Follow me?"

"I think so," said Channing slowly. "There'll still be need for communications, though."

"Sure. And also spacelines. But there's one more item, fella."

"Yes?"

"You've got a terrific laboratory job ahead of you, Don. It is one that must be done--and quick! You owe it to the world, and to yourself, and to your children. You've brought forth the possibility of a system of plenty, Don, and left it without one very necessary item.

"_Channing, can you make one item that can not be duplicated?_"

"No, but--"

"Uh-huh. Now we go back to the barter and exchange."

"Golly!"

"Furthermore, chum, what are you going to barter with? A ton of pure gold is the same value as a ton of pure silver. That is, aside from their relative technical values. A ton of pure radium won't bother us at all, and if we want Uranium 235, we make it by the ton also. _Oh, brother, you've really screwed the works this time._"

"Now what?"

"You and your crew start looking for something that is absolutely un-reproducible. It should be a light, metalloid substance of readily identifiable nature, and it should be ductile and workable. We need a coin-metal, Channing, that cannot be counterfeited!"

"Yum. That's one for the book. Meanwhile, we'll retrench on Venus Equilateral and get set for a long, long drought."

"Check. I'm about to do likewise with Interplanet Transport. You don't know anybody who'd like to buy the major holdings in a spaceline, do you? It's on the market, cheap. In fine condition, too, in spite of the depredations of Hellion Murdoch."

"Might swap you a communications company for your spaceline, Keg."

Johnson smiled. "No dice. I'm looking for a specialized business, Don. One that will pay off in a world where there is no money!"

"What are you going to sell--and for what?"

"I'm going to sell security--for service!"

"So?"

"Those are items that your devil-gadget won't duplicate, Channing. Barter and exchange on the basis of a washed car's worth of dug postholes."

* * * * *

Linna Johnson looked up with some annoyance as Keg entered her room. She was a tall woman, lissome in spite of her fifty years, but the artificial stamp of the "woman-of-fashion" spoke louder than her natural charm.

"Yes?" she asked without waiting for salutation.

"Linna, I need a hundred and seventy thousand dollars."

"Remarkable. What do you want me to do about it?"

"You've got a quarter of a million tied up in baubles. I want 'em."

"Give up my jewelry?" scoffed Linna. "What sort of a tramp deal have you got into this time, Keg?"

"No tramp deal, Linna," he said. "I've just sold the spaceline."

"So--you've sold your spaceline. That should have brought you in a pretty penny. What do you need more for?"

"I want to buy Fabriville."

"Who or what is Frabri ... what-is-it?"

"Fabriville. A fairly large manufacturing village south of Canalopsis, here. They have a complete village, assembly plant, stores, and all that's needed to be self-sufficient if you permit a thorough income and out-go of fabricated articles."

"Never heard of it."

"Well," said Keg dourly, "there are a lot of things you have never heard of nor taken the interest to find out, Linna. Better shell out the baubles. They won't be worth an exhausted cathode inside of a year."

"Why?"

"The economic structure of the system is about to be shot to pieces in a box. Nothing will be worth anything in money. A diamond as big as your fist will be just so much carbon crystal. I want to butter us up, Linna, before the crash. That's the way to do it."

"What is this crash coming from?"

"Don Channing and Walt Franks have just developed a gadget that will transmit articles any distance. That shoots Interplanet. The articles--or the signal impulses from them--can be recorded, and the recording can be used to duplicate, exactly, the same thing as many times as you want it."

"You idiot," scorned Linna, "why not just get one and duplicate your present money?"

"Merely because an operator as large as myself cannot palm off two hundred $1,000 bills with the serial number AG334557990HHL-6. Counterfeiting will become a simple art soon enough, Linna, but until it is accepted, I'm not going to break any laws. I can't if I'm going to shove ahead."

"But my jewels."

"So much junk."

"But everything I have is tied up in jewelry."

"Still so much junk."

"Then we're bankrupt?"

"We're broke."

"But the house ... the cars...."

"Not worth a farthing. We'll keep 'em, but their trade-in value will be zero."

"If we have no money," said Linna, "how are we going to pay for them?"

"Not going to. They'll pay for themselves. We'll send 'em back and keep duplicates which we'll make."

"But--"

"Look, Linna. Shell out. I've got to hit the market this afternoon if I'm going to grab Fabriville."

"Seems to me that getting that place is slightly foolish," objected Linna. "If nothing will have any value, why bother?"

"Oh, certain items will have value, Linna. That's what I'm working on."

"I still do not like the idea of giving up my jewels."

"If the junk is that important," exploded Keg, "I'll promise to replace them all with interest as soon as we get running."

"Promise?" whined Linna.

"Yes," said Keg wearily. "It's a promise. I've got to make an option payment immediately. From then on in, the place will be mine."

"But if you gamble and lose?" asked Linna worriedly. "I'll lose my jewelry."

"I can't lose."

"But if the economic structure falls?"

"I can't miss. All I want to do is get out what I need before the bottom falls out. Inflation of the worst kind will set in, and the wheels will stop dead--except at Fabriville. That's where I enter the picture."

"Good," said Linna in a bored voice. "As long as I am assured of my jewelry, I don't care how you play the market. Run along, Keg. I've got a dinner engagement. May I have just a few, though? I'll feel naked without at least a ring."

"Take what you need," said Keg, and was immediately appalled at the necessities of life.

An hour later, Keg Johnson was making some quiet trading and slowly but surely gaining control over the manufacturing village of Fabriville. The market was steady and strong. The traders worked noisily and eagerly, tossing millions back and forth with the flick of a finger. It was a normal scene, this work of theirs, and when it was done, they would take their usual way home to a quiet evening beside a roaring fireplace.

But this was surface quiet. Deep down below there was a miniscule vortex that churned and throbbed, and other equally minute forces fought the vortex--and strove in a battle that was lost before it began.

Terran Electric bought a full page advertisement in every paper. A five-minute commercial assailed the ears from every radio that listened to the Interplanetary Network. A full column emerged from the morning news-facsimile machines. Terran Electric, it said, was announcing the most modern line of household electrical appliances. Everything from deep-freezers to super-cookers. Everything from cigarette lighters to doorbell chimes.

The prices they quoted were devastating.

But on page seventeen, hidden among the financial and labor-situation news, was a tiny, three-line squib that told the story to those who knew the truth. Terran Electric had just released sixty percent of their production-line labor.

Don Channing caught the squib, and headed for Evanston less than fifteen minutes after reading it.

* * * * *

Unannounced, Don Channing entered Kingman's office and perched himself on the end of Kingman's desk. His bright blue eyes met Kingman's lowering brown eyes in a challenge.

"Meaning?" asked Kingman.

"You utter fool," snapped Don. He lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke at Kingman, making the other cough.

"Am I?"

"You idiot. How long do you think this will last?"

"Not long," admitted Kingman, "but while it does, I'm going to get mine."

"What good will it do you?"

"Plenty. Until the crash comes, I'm laying in a stock of stuff for my personal use."

"Lovely set-up," grunted Channing. "Have you started duplicating the duplicating machines yet?"

"Just today."

"Don't do it, Kingman. Venus Equilateral has all the rights sewed up tight."

"What shall I do, Dr. Channing?" asked Kingman sourly. The title grated on Don's ears, and Kingman knew it.

"Stop the whole thing."

"And what are you going to do about it?" asked Kingman. "Take me to court, Channing. Go ahead. Get some litigation started."

"Oh, sure. And you'll tie the thing up for seventy years. And all the time the plant here will be duplicating the whole solar system into the worst mess it ever got itself into. Better stop until we can get something sensible figured out to take care of the conversion."

"That in itself will take ten years," said Kingman. "Meanwhile, money is still of value because the thing is not widespread. People will buy and sell, and I'm going to buy up enough to keep me and mine in the running until things settle down. You have no idea how much stuff is needed to keep a man running ten years, Channing. Especially when you try to store it all away at once. Oh, sure. Recordings. I know. I'm making them. Also making recordings of everything that I can think of that I might like. But getting originals takes money at the present time, and I'm going to ride the inflation market right up to the peak by being one step ahead all the way."

"How?"

"When butter is ten dollars a pound, Channing, I'll be producing and selling its equivalent at fifteen."

"Very nice gesture, Kingman. But it doesn't work that way. You're licked."

"Am I?"

"You're licked. You'll be no better off than any of us in the long run. What happens when everyone has duplicators in their own homes and are having their Sunday dinner coming out of the gadget complete; hot, delicious, and costlessly complete from the salt-cellar to the butter square? What price butter?"

"That'll happen," admitted Kingman. "But by the time it does, I'll be able to weather the storm."

"You make it sound very easy, Mark. But it isn't going to work that way."

"This is going to be a nice, level civilization by the time we get through with it," said Kingman. "There'll be no more shopping for food. No more working thirty hours a week for your pay so that you can buy the niceties of life. With your household duplicator, you can make everything you need for life, Channing. The Terran Electric label on your duplicator is the label of the New Way of Living."

Channing snorted and crushed out his cigarette with a vicious gesture. "You've been reading your own advertising," he gritted. "Kingman, what do you hope to gain?"

Kingman leaned back in his chair and put both of his feet on the desk. "I don't mind telling you," he said gloatingly. "Venus Equilateral is going to have the name of having invented and developed the matter transmitter and matter duplicator. That's fine. It will carry quite an honor, that reputation, up to the time that the big crash comes, when people realize they're being trapped. Terran Electric, selling duplicators for home use at a song, will emerge as the savior of mankind. All I'm going to gain out of this is security for Mark Kingman and a big black eye for Venus Equilateral."

Channing swore. He stood up. "You fool," he snapped, "you blind, bigoted fool. A little co-operation on your part would save a lot of trouble, but you prefer to let a petty quarrel ruin the entire economic system immediately. We could work this out sensibly, Kingman. Will you help?"

"No. Nothing you can say will convince me that I'm doing wrong."

"But why fire your help? That's what is going to hurt."

"I don't need a production line full of people, Channing, to sit around and watch a duplicator turn out vacuum cleaners, complete in their packing cartons."

Channing took Kingman's under ankle where they were crossed on the edge of the desk. He lifted, and the pudgy attorney went over backwards with a roaring crash, hitting his head on the carpet and spilling over backwards out of the chair onto the floor behind his desk. He arose with a roar of hate, but the door slammed behind Channing before Kingman could become coherent.

Channing returned to Venus Equilateral immediately, a trip that took four days. In touch with events by driver beam, Don heard the news-advertising agencies announcing the Terran Electric Duplicator of a size suitable for a medium home, complete with a recording attachment and a supply of disks. Channing gritted his teeth and stepped up the drive of the _Relay Girl_ another notch. His first query upon reaching the Station was to Wes Farrell.

"Nothing yet, Don," answered Wes. "We've been running some very interesting experiments, though."

Channing was interested in nothing but the non-duplicatable material, but he nodded. Wes Farrell's sideline experiments often paid off more than the main line of research.

"By inserting a filter circuit in the transmission beam, we can filter out other responses," said Wes. "Meaning that we can take a cube of regular iron, for instance, and run it through. The integrated iron in the receiver is pure iron, the purity of which is dependent upon the band-pass of the filter. Using alloy selectivity disks for filters in the circuits, we can make iron that is 99.99997% pure."

"Might be useful for metallurgical work, and so forth," mused Don. "Nine-nines iron is valuable and almost impossible--and it takes a gadget that destroys value to make it. Nice paradox, that."

"Another thing," said Wes. "We re-transmit the pure iron and heterodyne the impulses into other elements. We can start with iron and end up with any of the other elements, merely by introducing the proper heterodyning impulse."

"That's not bad."

"I've got several elements that start off where the Periodic Chart ends. The boys in the chemistry lab are investigating the properties of Venium, Channium, Frankine, Ardenium, and Farrelline right now."

"Who picked the names?" grinned Don.

"Arden."

"O.K., Wes, but keep looking for that non-reproducible substance."

"I will. It may be--"

Farrell was interrupted by the insistent call on the station intercom for Don Channing. Don went to his office to find the Terran beam awaiting his presence. He lifted the phone and identified himself.

"This is P. L. Hughes of the Interplanetary Criminal Office," came the answer.

"I didn't do it," grinned Channing. "Besides, I gotta alibi."

"O.K.," came the amused answer. "No use talking then."

"Just a minute," said Don. "I might as well know what I'm being suspected of. Whom have I murdered?"

"No one, yet. Look, Channing, we're having a time here."

"What kind?"

"Phony money."

"So?"

"Yes. The trouble is that it isn't phony. You can always detect spurious coins and counterfeit bills by some means or another. We have bits of nita-fluorescin in the bills that is printed into the paper in a pattern which is symbolically keyed to the issue--date, the serial number, and the identifying marks on the face of the bill. It takes a bit of doing to duplicate the whole shooting-match, but we've been getting stuff that we know is phony--but, Channing, I have the original and the duplicate here on my desk and I can't tell which is which!"

"Give me more."

"I have a hundred dollar bill here--two of them in fact. They are absolutely alike. They are both bona fide as far as I or my men can tell from complete analysis, right down to the bits of stuff that get ground into a bill from much handling. I have coinage the same way. Isn't there something that can be done?"

"We are trying to find a substance that cannot be duplicated," explained Channing. "Given time, we will. Until then, I'm helpless."

"What do you suggest?"

"I don't know. I've been hoping that we could control the situation until something sensible could be worked out. It slipped out of hand. I'd suggest that you'd stop operations because of the absolute impossibility of keeping your thumb on things. I'd forget the counterfeiting angle entirely and start building up a force to guard against riots, mob rule and minor, intercommunity warfare."

"I think you're right," said Hughes, and Channing knew that the head of the Interplanetary Criminal Office was nodding his head.

Channing hung up the telephone and toyed with three copies of the judge's watch that were keeping identical time. He shook his head and wondered how it was all going to end.

* * * * *

Conversion from production line to duplicator came all over the Solar System in about ten days. Terran Electric's own staff fabricated a duplicator capable of handling an object the size of a locomotive, and plant-sized duplicators were formed, one after the other on flat cars that rolled from the maw of the huge machine. For payment, Terran Electric accepted blocks of stock in the purchasing companies, and the wealth and holdings of Terran Electric mounted high and began to look like the major company that would ultimately control all merchandising and manufacture in the System.

And thirty days after the conversion came, the wheels ground to a stop. Industry was finished. Work had ceased. Plants lay idle, nothing to do--and no one to do it for them.

Keg Johnson looked up as Linna entered. There was a worried look on her face that caused Keg to inquire immediately as to its cause.

She tossed a diamond bracelet on the desk and snorted: "That!"

Keg picked it up. "Looks all right to me," he said. "Like the real article. What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing that I can tell," grumbled his wife. "Excepting that my maid has one like it. Exactly."

"I'm not too surprised," laughed Keg. "I've been warning you of that."

"But what's the world coming to? If my maid can afford a diamond bracelet like this, she won't be working for me very long."

"At that, you're probably right. I'd treat her with the most delicate of care," said Keg.

"She's my maid!"

"Look, Linna. You're not up-to-date. I can predict people sleeping in gold beds and eating from solid platinum dishes before the hysteria dies out. The economic set-up has gone to pot, Linna, and we're trying to work it out."

"But what's the world coming to?"

"It isn't a matter of what it's coming to, it's a matter of where it has gone. My technicians tell me metals will be rated in value as per their atomic number. Uranium is more expensive than lithium because the transmutation-factor is higher. It takes a little more power and more matter from the matter bank in the instrument to make uranium than lithium, ergo uranium will cost more."

"Then if this diamond bracelet is worthless, can't we get some uranium jewelry?"

"Sure--if you want it. But remember it is radioactive and therefore not to be worn too close to the skin. It isn't as bad as radium, for instance, but it is bad enough. Besides, Linna, the matter of uranium's value over lithium is a matter of a few tenths of a per cent."

"Um. And how much is a pound of uranium worth, these days?"

"In Terran dollars about forty-seven million, six hundred fifty-two thousand, three hundred and eight."

"Are you kidding?" demanded Linna. "How can Marie afford--"

"Linna, dollars are worthless, these days. Monetary holdings are worthless. Stocks and bonds are likewise useless. Interplanet isn't shipping a thing. Venus Equilateral is handling sentimental messages only, and they'd be running at a loss if it weren't for the fact that they're out in space where power comes from Sol."

"But what is going on?"

"The death of an economic system."

"But why? Keg, you know I've never questioned your ability. You have always enjoyed the run of big business. Whenever I've needed or wanted anything, it has been available. I write checks and never question the balance. But this has me stopped. What has happened, specifically?"

"Channing and Franks invented a gadget that will reproduce anything."

"It is just that?"

"That and only that," said Keg.

"But it seems to me that this would make everybody live in a world of plenty."