Chapter V

Barbara Crandall opened the door for a quick glance, then opened it wide. "Oh. It's you!"

Dusty nodded glumly. "Yeah. Surprised?"

Barbara shrugged. "A bit. When did they let you out?"

"This morning."

"Rough?"

"You said it. Was it rough on you?"

"A little, but it's been made up for."

"How come?" asked Dusty looking up.

She smiled quietly. "I've got legs and a figure," she chuckled. "I've been cheesecaked all over town as the _Star Girl_ and there's talk of my getting a part in the Jack Vandal series over at Cosmic Studios."

"How so? Seems to me that we're both sort of washed up."

Barbara shook her head. "Jack Vandal is a sort of cheerful villain, you know. He takes delight in bumping off the well-protected crook who can't be touched by the law. He's hunted by the police and hated by the underworld--"

"Spare the gruesome details. They haven't changed in a couple of thousand years. How come you're not in the dog house?"

Barbara smiled. "Because the woman in that kind of opus is always a sort of shady lady herself. It wouldn't do to have an innocent virgin for the companion of a buccaneer. So with my slightly tarnished reputation I'm a natural. What happened to you?"

"The lie detector test."

Barbara blinked. "Then didn't that prove your point?"

"I thought it did. But I forgot one thing. Seems that the lie detector, no matter how good, is capable only of showing whether the character is telling a falsehood or not."

Barbara smiled confidently. "So you were telling the truth. Weren't you?"

"Sure," grunted Dusty. "Sure I was. But, quoting what's-his-name in the Bible: 'What is Truth?' One of the court psychologists pointed it out very clearly. If I firmly believe that the moon turned bright purple at ten o'clock last night, under a lie detector I'd be credited with a 'Truth' when I said so. In fact, the damned thing would say that I was telling a lie if I believed that the moon was purple and tried to cover up by saying that it hadn't changed. Follow?"

"So what was the verdict?"

"The verdict was to the effect that I was suffering under some hallucination--possibly induced by alcohol--which led me into this story. Therefore my lie-detector acquittal was valid only to prove that my call for help was, at the time, due to my personal conviction of danger. I was adjudged temporarily incompetent."

"What kind of sentence? They didn't just let you go."

"I've been two weeks in the observation ward of the federal looney locker. You see, to prove me guilty, they had to show that I had willfully and maliciously transmitted a false signal, with intent to deceive and/or for some personal reason. Willful tampering of this nature comes out as malicious mischief; malicious tampering becomes a federal offence. Maybe I've got my terms mixed up, but I think you get the idea, anyway. The end-up was this: Dusty Britton was convinced of his personal danger, his emission of a distress signal cannot be called malicious. I am no longer the top star I was once--in fact Gramer has cancelled my contract on the moral turpitude clause and the McDougall Office has black-balled me from all productions. So after a couple of weeks of observation at the spin-bin, they let me free with an admonition to leave the stuff alone. Barb, have you got a drink?"

"Sure thing. Look, Dusty, I know what you must think, but please don't ask me to corroborate your story. Not again."

* * * * *

Dusty nodded soberly. "I won't. The first time I thought we could convince 'em. But not any more, kid. One of us in the mud is enough. We've got to find a new attack."

Barbara handed Dusty a highball which he sipped before he said, "Barbara, we've got to do something."

"Why?"

He looked at her, stunned. "Why?" he cried.

Barbara took a sip of her own highball. "We won't lose a damned thing and you know it," she said quietly.

"A thousand years--"

"So what?" she asked simply. "Supposing that they were a bit more accurate than Scyth predicted. Suppose that they took this thousand years out of our life at a time when you weren't looking at the sun. Do you realize--" Barbara's voice lowered a bit dramatically, "--or have you been watching the night sky to see whether they have already?"

"I have," he admitted with rising excitement.

"All right," she replied complacently. "Then you surely must realize that this thousand years out of your life isn't going to change the stock market a point, or anything else."

Dusty nodded. "This I can realize. But do you think I like losing everything but my other shirt? Do you realize that as of this moment I've got only a couple of thousand bucks tucked away and about as much prospect of landing another job as a dead fly?"

"You're not really worried, are you, Dusty?"

"Why shouldn't I be?"

"Because as soon as this barytrine field goes on and off and we find ourselves around another sun, in another sky, you'll be corroborated."

He looked at her. "Of course--and I've kept my big trap shut, too."

"You've what?"

"You don't think I'd be nuts enough to go around telling people 'Well, if you don't believe me, just wait until next month!' do you?"

"Why not?"

"Because then they'd have carefully kept me on ice until after the big event."

"After which your story would be corroborated and you'd--"

"I'd have nothing," said Dusty sharply. "It's not good enough. Sure, I'd be corroborated, but then I'd be blamed for not being effectual enough to convince people in the first place. I'd be blamed for not being the guy I've been depicting on the stage. I've been Dusty Britton, The Great Hero. But when it comes down to really doing something, I'm Dusty Britton, Liar First Class. Next it is going to be Dusty Britton, Helpless Incompetent. I can't just fold my hands and tell 'em that they can wait and see, and then yelp 'I told you so!' because if there's anything that people hate it's 'I told you so!' characters."

Barbara Crandall looked at Dusty pityingly. "Dusty," she asked softly, "Just what do you hope to accomplish?"

"I hope I'll be able to--"

"No. I know what you want to do. But what I want to know is how."

"There must be some way--" his voice trailed off.

"I can't see it. Scyth has probably gone to Marandis to get his generator. Dusty, do you know where the hell is Marandis?"

"Somewhere towards the galactic center."

"I'm told that the galaxy is a hell of a big place. You've about as much chance of getting there as you have of swimming the Pacific Ocean with one arm tied behind you. Scyth is gone from here so far that it takes light thousands of years to get that far. Hell, Dusty, at this moment, the best resources of all the science of the Earth and the so-called planetary income couldn't move a housebrick from here to Venus in less than a matter of months. Alpha Centauri is actually no more than a dreamer's symbol so far as we're concerned. In fact, you and I know that Scyth's little friends are somewhere on the dark side of Mercury getting ready to make Sol a variable. We couldn't get there for months and months, and then we'd have a hell of a time locating them, even if we had whatever it might take to get there."

* * * * *

Barbara thought for a minute and then went on, "And if we could direct the entire Earth, and could call upon anything or anyone, we wouldn't know where to start. What is a phanoband? Why is a barytrine field? Even I know that there are a couple of dozen rather brilliant men who believe that the speed of light is not a limiting velocity, but this is only a conviction, not founded on any experimental evidence. So maybe you've got a firm inner drive to go out and prove yourself. But how in the hell are you going to make headway against a race that considers us primitive?"

"We've got to make contact."

"How? Shall we call Mercury on the phanoband communicators? And what was that intermediary step? The machinus fields? It sounds like double-talk to me."

"It was something about abandoning general relativity for the machinus theory of space-time," said Dusty, bringing into focus all the science fiction he had ever read.

"Got any theories?" asked Barbara pointedly. "Frankly, Dusty, I'd like to help, but I feel too much like a man trying to come all the way from the stone age to the atom bomb in ten days. In order to circumvent their foul plan we've got to abandon a very workable theory in favor of an unknown something called the machinus theory of space-time, and then from that we develop something called phanoband radiation, which produces factors enabling us to reduce the theory to practise and eventually we take to deep space, find Marandis, and put our case in front of some sort of bureaucratic something-or-other. Can't see it, Dusty."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"Sit and take it. What else can you do? Darn it, Dusty, you can't fight them, and you aren't in any position to join them. We haven't got the initiation fee, we don't have the address, and we hardly talk the language."

Dusty looked at her sourly. "I'd hoped you'd help," he said unhappily. "You at least know what the score is."

"Dusty, I'd like to help. I do know what the score is. It's hopeless. You're trapped in an awkward position. And like a lot of other people, you are in a position where you can't do a damned thing about it. So you might as well save your high blood pressure and start looking around to see what you can make out of it."

Dusty finished his drink and left. In a trash-can by the alley was a Dusty Britton Blaster, complete with holster and a tin medal for sharpshooting. The school-store across the street was displaying a Jack Vandal mask and a small case containing ten candy cigarettes and a secret compartment suitable for concealing ten-thousand dollar bills lifted from lawless characters who might have used the dough to bribe juries or buy professional gunmen.

Dusty made his way along the street unrecognized.

* * * * *

The guard at the front gate looked at Dusty with suspicion. Dusty looked back defiantly; for a number of years the guard had practically bowed thrice as Dusty approached, Dusty hoped that the habit of deference was well established.

"Have you a pass, Mr. Britton?"

"Now see here, Sam, I don't need a pass and--"

"Mr. Britton, I've got orders to--"

"Look Sam. Let's not stall. I want in and I'm going to--"

"One minute, Mr. Britton. I'll have to call."

Dusty grunted. "I want to see Doctor Ross."

"Oh. Well, just a minute."

The guard called, and Dusty could hear the roar of Martin Gramer, "Throw the louse out!"

"Sorry, Mr. Britton. We can't let you in."

"Look, Sam, I've got trouble. You've got trouble. Do you remember your younger days, Sam? When you were the top boy at Graphic Arts?"

"Sure do. Great days, too."

"What happened, Sam?"

The smile faded from Sam's face. "I got too old."

"Sam, all I want is to gab with Dr. Ross for a minute or two. I've got a great idea. And I'll make you a promise, Sam."

"Promise?"

"Sure. I'll promise you that if you let me in right now, and this idea of mine goes through, that I'll see that you get a good bit in anything I'm in. We'll work it up from character actor until you're playing bigger and bigger bits. You can make a comeback, Sam, and I'll help you then if you help me now. How's about it?"

Sam looked through the studio gates for a moment, and the thinking could almost be seen in operation. He had darned little to lose; he could always blame Dusty's entrance on some dreamed-up excuse, and if Dusty's idea worked, he might even be able to take credit for having used some initiative.

"It's a deal, Mr. Britton. But don't forget me."

"I won't."

Dusty went inside, found the main idea-office, and talked himself into the office of Dr. Ross. These hurdles he found less difficult than the front gate; possibly due to the fact that once a man was inside the fence, everyone thought he belonged there.

Doctor Harold Ross greeted Dusty with surprise.

"Dusty! How goes it?"

"Not good. I'm a professional louse."

"How come?"

"Don't you read? Forget it. Look, Doc, you're actually the only scientist I know, so I want to ask a couple of questions."

"I'll try. But let's not lose sight of the fact that I'm not a credited scientist, as you put it. I'm a sort of cockeyed physicist whose job is to see that actors squinting through telescopes see Saturn at the right angle, and that birds looking through spectroscopes don't point at a blue triplet and call it the Sodium D Lines."

"You might be even better than a real physicist of the research kind," said Dusty.

"Thanks for them kind words, Dusty. Flattery will get you nowhere."

"I'm not trying flattery. You've been in this make-believe business for a long time. That's why you might be able to think it out."

"Go on, man. Spill your idea. What do you want me to do?"

"Let's assume that Dusty Britton's wild tale about a man named Scyth Radnor, from Marandis, is right. And that this guy came out of a spacecraft parked in the ocean, sitting on the sill of the spacelock waiting for me. He talked about the death of the general relativity theory in favor of something called the machinus theory of space-time, phanobands, menslators and all sorts of things."

"Yeah? We've been having space warps ever since the days of Jack Williamson."

* * * * *

Dusty grinned, perhaps for the first time in weeks. "Look," he said. "I know the patter well enough. Doc Smith invented the Bergenholm and Murray Leinster came along with the superdrive and George O. Smith developed the matter transmitter to a fare-thee-well, but all this guff is so much birdfood."

"What are you getting at, Dusty?"

"I wish I had studied a bit more science," said Dusty plaintively. "But dammit, I don't know a microfarad from a polysyllabic neutron. But I'm telling you that my so-called strange fancy is the God's Truth. Some time in the next couple of weeks the Earth is going to get itself transplanted. You can either help me now or you can come back later and tell me that you're damned sorry you tossed me out. Take it or leave it."

"All right. So maybe I'll take it. I've only a couple of weeks to lose. What do you want me to say?"

"Look, Doc, supposing that you were convinced that interstellar travel is possible; that these phanobands do exist. That this menslator is a commercial instrument. And so on. Take the first premise: faster-than-light travel is a commercial fact due to the development of a theory called the machinus theory of space-time. Can you do a bit of hypothetical theorization?"

"Sure thing. I don't mind. We'll take this on the basis of plenic syllogistics. Our first premise will be that this menslator works as your pal Scyth claims."

"It's Scyth. Not scythe."

"Then as I put it, the menslator produces the mental image that Scyth intends. He will say, for instance: 'A gostak distims the doshes,' and because he means that a professional preparer of comestibles has placed an unstated number of crustaceans under an open flame, you receive this statement of Scyth as: 'The cook broiled some lobsters.' Is that clear?"

"I can follow you," said Dusty. "This much Scyth explained."

"Good. Now let's look at our commonly accepted definition of 'Mechanus'. This means that it works. In other words we have him telling us that their culture has developed a 'workable theory of space-time' which has been taken up after the theory of general relativity displayed a number of gaping holes. So their 'mechanus theory of space-time' is a workable theory."

"And where does this lead us?" asked Dusty.

"Right back into a circle," said Dr. Ross thoughtfully. "Because if they've developed interstellar travel due to considerations brought about by the mechanus theory, that means that they have proved their theory by practise."

Dusty grunted half-humorously. "Isn't this like saying that mud is sticky because it's gooey? Or that winter is cold because of a lack of heat?"

Ross nodded. "Or that things fall because of the law of gravity."

"But aren't all these things a case of defining 'A' in terms of 'A'?"

"What isn't?" demanded Dr. Ross. "You're not looking for the Universal Truth, are you?"

"No, but--"

"Look, Dusty, the reason that we can afford to accept the fact that one and one adds up to two is simply due to the fact that one and one adds up to two in a great majority of cases."

"Wait a minute, Doc. One and one is always two."

"Not when you add a quart of alcohol to a quart of water. One and one here adds up to about one point eight."

Dusty waved a hand. "That's different."

"Not by a long shot, Dusty. There are extenuating circumstances. But this is just a proof of the fact that one and one is not always two."

"All right. But where does this leave us?"

"In the same damned circle. Granting that your observations are correct, proper, and unwarped by the addition of bourbon, Scyth and his galactic civilization have developed faster-than-light travel which has resulted in the establishment of a galactic government. But the explanation of how it is done cannot be derived from the nomenclature of the theory. Frankly, I have not the faintest idea of how to go about unravelling the word 'phanoband' unless we take it apart from its roots. Let's see, now."

* * * * *

Brows furrowed and lips pursed, the physicist thought for a long time and then looked apologetically at Dusty.

"I may be off the beam, Dusty, but I have a notion that your own mind put it together this way: Phan probably pertains to the roots of phantom, or unreal, or ghostly, or what is commonly referred to as the 'supernatural.' The so-called supernatural is invariably a phenomenon which cannot be explained by commonly accepted academic theory or empirical practise, mostly because the folks who work with it have neither academic nor empirical data. Incidentally, the 'o' part of this first phase is undoubtedly a conjunctive vowel stuffed into the word so that it can be uttered without losing a couple of front teeth or blowing a vocal fuse, or maybe spraying the listener like a professional German lecturer. So let's accept the concept of 'Phan' as something that you cannot explain in common terms."

"Go on, Doc. You're reducing my case to an absurdity, you know."

"I'm sorry, Dusty, but that's how I see it. Now, let's take the 'Band' part of the word. As a disciple of Maxwell, et al, I am hopelessly incapable of concocting a workable theory of radiation which has nothing to do with some basic concept of frequency. Frequency, when you sit down and start analyzing it, is a nice, stable idea that explains a hell of a lot, Dusty, and as you get into atomics you find that particle radiation can be mathematically reduced to terms of frequency. You can actually compute the equivalent frequency of a thrown baseball or a .22 rifle bullet, you know. Then we get to that high-flung miracle we call 'resonance' and God protect me from having to deliver a thirty-minute explanation of resonance."

"I won't ask you to, Doc. But aren't you getting involved in your own traps?"

"Yes, I am. And I'm sorry. But I can't help it. But you can follow my fumblings, Dusty. In the first place the radiation is not understood, which explains your accepting the mental concept as 'Phano' and because the physics of the radiation must be other than electromagnetic--which would call for the menslation into 'spectrum' the somewhat ambiguous term 'band' is assigned in your mental concept of the idea. So the literal menslation of the word is: 'Unknown mode of radiation' which--"

"But where are we getting, Doc?"

"That's what I was approaching, Dusty. This harangue boils down to the following: these people have a form or type of energy level which is completely inexplicable to terrestrial science at the present state of the art. Their terms, when menslated into our level of appreciation, come out as 'something that works' and 'something that cannot be defined' which, after all, is like trying to explain to a savage why a hunk of black rock always turns toward one direction."

"Hell!"

* * * * *

The doctor continued. "Sure. It's hell. Even your own term 'menslator' which I've picked up as a fine concept is only your own feeble transliteration of the definition. It does not carry any of the basic theory. So the fantastic gizmo merely aids in the conveying of an idea from one mind to another, despite the fact that the two minds place different values upon the definition of words."

"But this isn't what I'm getting at, Doc. What I want to know is: granting the possibility of faster-than-light velocities, what have we got to explain it?"

"Nothing. Nothing but your own statements that you believe that this is possible and that someone has done it. None of us have any evidence that it is possible, except you. And I am afraid that I must question your training as a scientific observer."

"But, Doc, I--"

"Let's face it, Dusty. You swing about as much weight in scientific circles as Suzy Richtmeyer, voted last year as Miss Alphatron, parked on the Caltech boo-hucky showing about three yards of shapely nylon and thirty-two well-polished teeth. She was gorgeous but ill-educated, Dusty. She wasn't afraid of getting sterile in a radiation lab. She was afraid of getting pregnant. But if you sit there and ask me how anybody could possibly make any sound and workable theory out of what you describe, I can't see it."

"Look, Doc, maybe I can't deliver much. But they were there and that's what the guy told me."

"There's only one hope, Dusty."

Dusty Britton looked at Dr. Ross; with a voice of determination he said, "Doc, if there's any hope, let me know how?"

"You've claimed that this galactic gang have some humanitarian instincts. They aren't just going to set fire to good old Sol and let us alternately fry and freeze."

"Stop kidding me."

"Maybe I'm not kidding. I'm still promulgating on your own cockeyed plenum."

"You're not giving me much--"

Dr. Ross sat back confidently. "No, dammit, I can't say that I give much credit to your cockeyed story, Dusty."

"Now see here--"

"Now _you_ see here," snapped the physicist sternly, "I won't deny that anything is possible. But I am a firm believer in the law of least reaction, and I think that this covers the case. If this character Scyth is at all concerned about our welfare--still granting that he does exist elsewhere but in your own mind--then get this, Dusty Britton: he will be back to see how you've made out in your program of preparing people for the big change before he turns on this barytrine generator."

Dusty eyed Dr. Ross sourly. "And what is your explanation of that word?"

"Easy, and it means no more than anything else when it is what you call menslated. 'Bary' stems from the root 'heavy' as in 'barytone' referring to something of heavy voice or highly accented. 'Trine' refers to something threefold in astronomical or--er--astrological (haruumpf) meaning. My God, Dusty, the word itself pertains to something as three-times-as-heavy. You don't expect me--or any other scientist--to come up with something sensible from a bunch of half-baked definitions, do you? All you've given me so far is a workable theory, an unknown medium of radiation, and something that is three-times-heavy. Tell you what, chum. Bring me your Scyth Radnor and introduce me. I know guys who would analyze MacBeth's three witches' brew if they could get a microgram sample. But not from that gobble-gabble about the 'fillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil & bake!' line out of Shakespeare." The physicist went on in an undertone, "Eye of frog and tongue of newt," until Dusty stood up and prepared to leave.