Chapter IV

As the tests were set up, Hamilton, Sven Ryan and Ian Harris remained at the near transmitter-post, while Forsythe and Miss Alderman journeyed by jet-sled across a kilometer of concrete to the far terminus, with Jack Witherspoon doing the honors as operator at the terminus post. The transmitter, looking somewhat like an old-fashioned circular heater, or primitive radar receptor, was enclosed in a heated dome-hut. With the complex machinery that surrounded it, it rose more than two meters high.

Ian Harris, regarding it with a dubious gleam in his eye, remarked, “It looks rather like an upended warming pan, doesn’t it?”

Hamilton ignored the remark. “As I get it, Sven, the principle involved is that of atomic transmutation--right?” he asked, prowling about the machine as the inventor set about preparing it for the test with quiet efficiency.

“That’s the basic idea,” Ryan replied. “Actually, it breaks down the cargo into its atomic components, and transmits it over the beam to the terminus, where it is reassembled. The whole process of breakdown, like the reassembly, must take place in one-thousandth of a second--or we’d come up with apple tapioca or something. You should see some of the messes we’ve had. And--” he added with a glance at Hamilton, “I don’t mean the mice.”

“Int’resting,” said Ian Harris, stroking his mustache. “Any chance of an explosion if the timing’s off?”

Ryan shook his copper head. “Not a chance,” he replied firmly. “There’s nothing to trigger a critical mass--and besides, there’s no critical mass to trigger. If there were--” He paused significantly. “If there were we’d have been blown to bits, along with a large chunk of Antarctica, months ago. Some of our timing was so far off it was pitiful.”

Hamilton said, “What about while your beam is operating. Any time limit on that?”

“None that we know of,” was the reply. “Once she’s in beam transmission, she’s static. It’s the breakdown and reassembly stages where every millisecond counts.” He flipped a switch, and a large visiscreen showed Jack Witherspoon preparing a duplicate of the transmitter, with Miss Alderman and hulking Charley Forsythe hovering in the background.

“Ready, Jack?” the inventor asked.

“In a minute,” was the reply. “What are you sending us?”

Sven looked at Ian Harris. “Willing to risk your watch?” he asked. “Park will replace it if anything goes wrong.”

“You can send a watch without hurting it?” the UN liaison man asked.

“Well, we’re going to try,” said Sven, his features impassive.

After a moment of reluctance, the Englishman pulled a slim platinum timepiece from his pocket. “The chain, too?” he asked.

“Sure--why not? Thanks.” The inventor took the objects and placed them in an adjustable holder in the center of the transmitter. “You spoiled my time last night, Mr. Harris,” he said. “Why shouldn’t I spoil yours today?”

“_Hah!_ Very good,” said Harris, looking faintly uncomfortable.

In the screen, Witherspoon said, “Ready here, Sven.”

“Coming at you,” said the redheaded inventor. He pushed a button. Witherspoon unlocked the receiver on the screen and held the Englishman’s watch close to it.

“Jove! It’s still ticking!” said Harris, looking relieved. Moments later, it had been sent back and he was holding it in his hand, an expression of utter incredulity on his habitually impassive face. “Impossible!” he exclaimed faintly.

“But true,” said Sven with a trace of mockery. Hamilton frowned at him and shook his head.

After a half dozen other tests, which included transmission and re-transmission of a kilo of butter, a lump of crude iron, a book, a jet-sled, a handkerchief and a bunch of station-grown grapes, the two parties reassembled and rode the monorail back to the main base, where Witherspoon had them served fine synthetic brandy. Hamilton noted that Ryan took a soft drink instead.

There had been little talk during the journey. In Witherspoon’s quarters, Hamilton noticed an obviously shaken Charley Forsythe and a white-faced Ian Harris gathered in a corner, where they seemed to be reaching some sort of whispered agreement.

Miss Alderman, regarding them anxiously, nudged her chief’s elbow and asked, “Don’t you think we ought to break that up before it goes too far? I’m not scared of either of them. But the thought of them together gives me chills.”

Hamilton shook his head. “Let’s hear what they have to say,” he replied, _sotto voce_. “I’d like to get this whole business thrashed out and settled before we get back to New York. Once they’re on their own again, I’m afraid to imagine what they’ll do.”

He chatted with Sven Ryan and Witherspoon, congratulating them on their achievement. But he kept a weather eye cocked on the conference in the corner. When Forsythe cleared his throat like some giant bullfrog, and stepped forward, he was prepared for anything.

“First,” said the aggressive financier in his great roar of a voice, “I want to congratulate you, Ryan, and all of you in SPR, for what you have shown us this afternoon. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d never have believed it.”

He paused for effect, then went on with, “However, I am sure you are all aware of the momentous consequences of this latest and greatest of human accomplishments. Before I go on, I want to say that Mr. Harris, as the UN representative on the spot, is in full agreement with me.

“As things stand today, if so much as a whisper leaks out that you have accomplished instantaneous matter-transmission, we’ll be facing a financial breakdown that will make the Great Depression of fifty years ago look like a boom. Since we have no guarantee that the secret can or will be kept--no offense, gentlemen and Miss Alderman--both Mr. Harris and I feel we are going to have to put the entire SPR Antarctica Base under security wraps.

“Mind you, this is only a temporary fiat, as yet unbacked by either UN or United States mandate. But, in view of the appalling potential of your discovery, both Mr. Harris and I feel that no other steps will suffice.”

Hamilton _shushed_ an irate Sven Ryan, who looked ready to do battle with his fists. He stepped forward, wishing fugitively that he didn’t have to look up to the financier. Turning to Harris, he said, “Ian, do you really want to clamp down on SPR?”

The Englishman looked miserable--but helpless. He said, “I detest the step and you know it. But what else is there to do, old man?”

Hamilton sighed. “Instead of suppressing knowledge--a step that has never worked for long in all history--why don’t you prepare the world to accept this new miracle?”

Forsythe boomed, “It’s too big a risk, Park. They’ll never adjust to the idea without a bad crash. This is going to take _years_ of preparation. It’s like asking Australian bushmen to drive helicars in New York overhead traffic.”

“Perhaps it’s not as big a jump as you fear,” said Hamilton quietly. “Charley, you’ve been looking for a loophole to crack down on SPR--pardon the scrambled metaphor--all your life. You’re jumping at the chance to suppress something you can’t control. Ian, you’re not really frightened--you’re being lazy. You are afraid of the work that has to be done.”

Stung, the Englishman said, “Possibly, Park. But consider the full implications of the ability to transport an endless flood of material across any ocean you wish--instantaneously. Why should any shipper on Earth even consider our present modes of transport?”

“Because,” said Hamilton, with a half-wink at an obviously bursting Sven Ryan, “the present modes of transport are the only means of getting their goods where they want them to go.”

“What are you talking about?” Forsythe boomed.

“But with our own eyes, we saw--” began Harris.

Hamilton raised his hand. “You witnessed matter-transmission, never fear,” he told them. Then he went on to detail what the inventor had told him in the helirocket, adding a detail or two he knew himself. “So you see,” he concluded, “to transmit matter over any distance would mean the building of immense towers and loading platforms. The transmitter cannot send through the curve of the Earth. And it cannot be bounced off the Heavyside Layer.”

Forsythe and Harris exchanged puzzled glances. It was the UN official who said, “Then you mean the device is impractical? If it is, what are we so excited about?”

“Precisely what I was wondering,” said Hamilton. “Good artificial jewels have been made for more than a century. But real gems have not lost an iota of their value.” He paused to sip his brandy, added, “So you gentlemen have let the mere words _matter-transmission_ terrify you.”

“If the words alarmed _us_,” said Harris, “consider their effect on humanity at large.”

“Probably much less than you suppose,” said Hamilton. “Remember, humanity at large has much less immediately at stake in the various forms of transportation than either of you.”

Forsythe seemed to have lost interest. “You’re right, Park, much as I hate to admit it. We’re up against nothing a little well-guided public relations campaign won’t handle. And you--SPR--have come up with another impractical invention.”

“Impractical?” said Hamilton, looking one by one at the others in the room. “I wouldn’t say so. Sven Ryan, you set out to develop a means of making space-flight economically feasible. When your transmitter proved unable to send living creatures intact, you thought you had failed.”

“What have you got in mind, Park?” the inventor asked.

“Just this,” said Hamilton. “What has made any successful establishment of posts on the Moon or any of the planets impossible? It is not the transportation of _men_. It is the transportation of material both ways to maintain them and make their operation profitable--scientifically as well as economically. Sven, there’s no Earth curvature between here and the near side of the Moon. Once we set up a transfer-terminus on the near side, the supply problem would be licked.”

Ryan leaped on Hamilton, and gave him a bear-hug. “Chief!” he almost shouted. “You’ve done it! You’ve got the answer!”

Half-laughing, Hamilton got clear of the inventor and said, “I may have an answer, but _you_ did it.” He turned toward Harris and Forsythe, adding, “Well, what do you gentlemen think now of our impractical gadget?”

Harris could only nod. From his relieved expression, from the glint of excitement in his eyes, there was no question where his true sympathies lay. Charley Forsythe stepped forward again, grabbed Ryan and said, “By God, when you get it worked out, I want to go up there.”

“You’re too big--and too fat!” said the inventor.

“Gentlemen,” said Hamilton, moving in again, “a toast to the transmitter, and to its inventor--and to the Moon and all the moons and planets beyond!”

“Passage to anywhere,” Miss Alderman murmured as she lifted her glass.

Later, riding back to New York with her in the helirocket, Hamilton felt limp, washed out, distinctly sorry for himself. “Why do I have to get back so soon?” he inquired, a trifle peevishly. “Charley and Ian are having all the fun back there in Antarctica, celebrating.”

“Duty calls, Chief,” she said with an indulgent smile.

He ignored her. “And all I get is a hug from Sven Ryan. For five bucks, I’d pay Molly Sadler a visit and meet some of those stunners of hers in the flesh.”

“Not for five dollars, you wouldn’t,” said Miss Alderman with a half-smile. “Besides, you’re not the type.”

“Dammit, do you have to remind me now?” he said. He settled lower in his seat and wished he had a hat to pull over his eyes. He wished Nancy Alderman weren’t so damnably puritanic. He wished....

Moments later, Mrs. Nancy Hamilton leaned across him and made sure his jacket would not get rumpled while he slept.

Transcriber’s note:

This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, February 1956 (Vol. 5, No. 1.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.