Binder1, page 7
He would use the little case again—oh, yes. But there was no hurry. First, he’d have to work out a few angles.
His disbelief was completely gone. . . .
Tharn showed up the next night and scared the daylights out of Kelvin again. Prior to that, the reporter had failed to find his baggage tickets, and was only ;consoled by the two hundred bucks in his wallet. He ;took a room—paying in advance—at a medium-good ;hotel, and began wondering how he might apply his ;pipe-line to the future. Very sensibly, he decided to ;continue a normal life until something developed. At ;any rate, he’d have to make a few connections. He tried ;the Times, the Examiner, the News, and some others. ;But these things develop slowly, except in the movies. ;That night Kelvin was in his hotel room when his ;unwelcome guest appeared.
It was, of course, Tharn.
He wore a very large white turban, approximately twice the size of his head. He had a dapper black ;mustache, waxed downward at the tips like the mustache of a mandarin, or a catfish. He stared urgently at ;Kelvin out of the bathroom mirror.
Kelvin had been wondering whether or not he needed a shave before going out to dinner. He was rubbing his ;chin thoughtfully at the moment Tharn put in an appearance, and there was a perceptible mental lag between occurrence and perception, so that to Kelvin it ;seemed that he himself had mysteriously sprouted a ;long moustache. He reached for his upper lip. It was ;smooth. But in the glass the black waxed hairs quivered ;as Tharn pushed his face up against the surface of the ;mirror.
It was so shockingly disorienting, somehow, that Kelvin was quite unable to think at all. He took a quick step backward. The edge of the bathtub caught him behind ;the knees and distracted him momentarily, fortunately ;for his sanity. When he looked again there was only his ;own appalled face reflected above the wash-bowl. But ;alter a second or two the face seemed to develop a ;cloud of white turban, and mandarin-like whiskers began to form sketchily.
Kelvin clapped a hand to his eyes and spun away. In about fifteen seconds he spread his fingers enough to ;peep through them at the glass. He kept his palm ;pressed desperately to his upper lip, in some wild hope ;of inhibiting the sudden sprouting of a moustache. What ;peeped back at him from the mirror looked like himself. ;At least, it had no turban, and it did not wear hornrimmed glasses. He risked snatching his hand away for ;a quick look, and clapped it in place again just in time ;to prevent Tharn from taking shape in the glass.
Still shielding his face, he went unsteadily into the bedroom and took the flat case out of his coat pocket. ;But he didn’t press the button that would close a mental synapse between two incongruous eras. He didn’t ;want to do that again, he realized. More horrible, somehow, than what was happening now was the thought of ;reentering that alien brain.
He was standing before the bureau, and in the mirror one eye looked out at him between reflected fingers. It ;was a wild eye behind the gleaming spectacle-lens, but ;it seemed to be his own. Tentatively he took his hand ;away. . . .
This mirror showed more of Tharn. Kelvin wished it hadn’t. Tharn was wearing white knee-boots of some ;glittering plastic. Between them and the turban he ;wore nothing whatever except a minimum of loincloth, ;also glittering plastic. Tharn was very thin, but he ;looked active. He looked quite active enough to spring ;right into the hotel room. His skin was whiter than his ;turban, and his hands had seven fingers each, all right.
Kelvin abruptly turned away, but Tharn was resourceful. The dark window made enough of a reflecting surface to show a lean, loin-clothed figure. The feet showed bare, and they were less normal than Tharn’s hands.
And the polished brass of a lampbase gave back the picture of a small, distorted face not Kelvin’s own.
Kelvin found a corner without reflecting surfaces and pushed into it, his hands shielding his face. He was still ;holding the flat case.
Oh, fine, he thought bitterly. Everything’s got a string on it. What good will this rapport gadget do me if ;Tharn’s going to show up every day? Maybe I’m not ;crazy. I hope so.
Something would have to be done unless Kelvin was prepared to go through life with his face buried in his ;hands. The worst of it was that Tharn had a haunting ;look of familiarity. Kelvin discarded a dozen possibilities, from reincarnation to the deja vu phenomenon, ;but—
He peeped through his hands, in time to see Tharn raising a cylindrical gadget of some sort and leveling it ;like a gun. That gesture formed Kelvin’s decision. He’d ;have to do something, and fast. So, concentrating on ;the problem—I want out!—he pressed the button in ;the surface of the flat case.
And instantly the teleportation method he had forgotten was perfectly clear to him. Other matters, however, were obscure. The smells—someone was thinking—were ;adding up to a—there was no word for that, only a ;shocking visio-auditory ideation that was simply dizzying. Someone named Three Million and Ninety Pink ;had written a new Hatch. And there was the physical ;sensation of licking a twenty-four-dollar stamp and sticking it on a postcard.
But, most important, the man in the future had had—or would have—a compulsion to think about the ;teleportation method, and as Kelvin snapped back ;into his own mind and time, he instantly used that ;method. . . .
He was falling.
Icy water smacked him hard. Miraculously he kept his grip on the flat case. He had a whirling vision of stars in ;a night sky, and the phosphorescent sheen of silvery light on a dark sea. Then brine stung his nostrils.
Kelvin had never learned how to swim.
As he went down for the last time, bubbling a scream, he literally clutched at the proverbial straw he was ;holding. His finger pushed the button down again. ;There was no need to concentrate on the problem; he ;couldn’t think of anything else.
Mental chaos, fantastic images—and the answer. ; ; ;,
It took concentration, and there wasn’t much time left. Bubbles streamed up past his face. He felt them, ;but he couldn’t see them. All around, pressing in avidly, was the horrible coldness of the salt water. . . .
But he did know the method now, and he knew how it worked. He thought along the lines the future mind ;had indicated. Something happened. Radiation—that ;was the nearest familiar term—poured out of his brain ;and did peculiar things to his lung-tissue. His blood ;cells adapted themselves. . . .
He was breathing water, and it was no longer strangling him.
But Kelvin had also learned that this emergency adaptation could not be maintained for very long. Teleportation was the answer to that. And surely he could remember | ;the method now. He had actually used it to escape from ;Tharn only a few minutes ago.
Yet he could not remember. The memory' was expunged cleanly from his mind. So there was nothing else to do but press the button again, and Kelvin did ;that, most reluctantly.
Dripping wet, he was standing on an unfamiliar street.
It was no street he knew, but apparently it was in his i own time and on his own planet. Luckily, teleportation ;seemed to have limitations. The wind was cold. Kelvin ;stood in a puddle that grew rapidly around his feet. He ;stared around.
He picked out a sign up the street that offered Turkish
Baths, and headed moistly in that direction. His thoughts were mostly profane. . . .
He was in New Orleans, of all places. Presently he was drunk in New Orleans. His thoughts kept going ;around in circles, and Scotch was a fine palliative, an ;excellent brake. He needed to get control again. He ;had an almost miraculous power, and he wanted to be ;alone to use it effectively before the unexpected happened ;again. Tharn. . . .
He sat in a hotel room and swigged Scotch. Gotta be logical!
He sneezed.
The trouble was, of course, that there were so few points of contact between his own mind and that of the ;future-man. Moreover, he’d got the rapport only in ;times of crisis. Like having access to the Alexandrian ;Library, five seconds a day. In five seconds you couldn’t ;even start translating. . . .
Health, fame and fortune. He sneezed again. The robot had been a liar. His health seemed to be going ;fast. What about that robot? How had he got involved, ;anyway? He said he’d fallen into this era from the future, but robots are notorious liars. Gotta be logical. . . .
Apparently the future was peopled by creatures not unlike the cast of a Frankenstein picture. Androids, ;robots, so-called men whose minds were shockingly ;different . . . Sneeze. Another drink.
The robot had said that the case would lose its power after Kelvin had achieved health, fame and fortune. ;Which was a distressing thought. Suppose he attained ;those enviable goals, found the little push-button useless, and then Tharn showed up? Oh, no. That called ;for another shot.
Sobriety was the wrong condition in which to approach a matter that in itself was as wild as delirium tremens, even though, Kelvin knew, the science he had ;stumbled on was all theoretically quite possible. But ;not in this day and age. Sneeze.
The trick would be to pose the right problem and use the case at some time when you weren’t drowning or ;being menaced by that bewhiskered android with his ;seven-fingered hands and his ominous rod-like weapon. Find the problem.
But that future-mind was hideous.
And suddenly, with drunken clarity, Kelvin realized that he was profoundly drawn to that dim, shadowy ;world of the future.
He could not see its complete pattern, but he sensed it somehow. He knew that it was right, a far better ;world and time than this. If he could be that unknown ;man who dwelt there, all would go well.
Man must needs love the highest, he thought wryly. Oh, well. He shook the bottle. How much had he ;absorbed? He felt fine.
Gotta be logical.
Outside the window street-lights blinked off and on. Neons traced goblin languages against the night. It ;seemed rather alien, too, but so did Kelvin s own ;body. He started to laugh, but a sneeze choked that off.
All I want, he thought, is health, fame and fortune. Then I’ll settle down and live happily ever after, without a care or worry. I won’t need this enchanted case ;after that. Happy ending.
On impulse he took out the box and examined it. He tried to pry it open and failed. His finger hovered over ;the button.
“How can I—” he thought, and his finger moved half an inch. . . .
It wasn’t so alien now that he was drunk. The future man’s name was Quarra Vee. Odd he had never realized that before, but how often does a man think of his ;own name? Quarra Vee was playing some sort of game ;vaguely reminiscent of chess, but his opponent was on a ;planet of Sirius, some distance away. The chessmen were ;all unfamiliar. Complicated, dizzying space-time gambits flashed through Quarra Vee’s mind as Kelvin listened in. Then Kelvin’s problem thrust through, the compulsion hit Quarra Vee, and—
It was all mixed up. There were two problems, really. How to cure a cold—coryza. And how to become healthy, rich and famous in a practically prehistoric ;era—for Quarra Vee.
A small problem, however, to Quarra Vee. He solved it and went back to his game with the Sirian.
Kelvin was back in the hotel room in New Orleans.
He was very drunk or he wouldn’t have risked it. The method involved using his brain to tune in on another ;brain in this present twentieth century that had exactly ;the wave-length he required. All sorts of factors would ;build up to the sum total of that wave-length—experience, ;opportunity, position, knowledge, imagination, honesty— ;but he found it at last, after hesitating among three ;totals that were all nearly right. Still, one was righter, to ;three decimal points. Still drunk as a lord, Kelvin ;clamped on a mental tight beam, turned on the teleportation, and rode the beam across America to a well-equipped laboratory where a man sat reading.
The man was bald and had a bristling red moustache. He looked up sharply at some sound Kelvin made.
“Hey!” he said. “How did you get in here?”
“Ask Quarra Vee,” Kelvin said.
“Who? What?” The man put down his book.
Kelvin called on his memory. It seemed to be slipping. He used the rapport case for an instant, and refreshed his mind. Not so unpleasant this time, either. ;He was beginning to understand Quarra Vee’s world a ;little. He liked it. However, he supposed he’d forget ;that too.
“An improvement on Woodward’s protein analogues,” he told the red-moustached man. “Simple synthesis will ;do it.”
“Who the devil are you?”
“Call me Jim,” Kelvin said simply. “And shut up and
listen.” He began to explain, as to a small, stupid child. (The man before him was one of America’s foremost ;chemists.) “Proteins are made of amino acids. There are ;about thirty-three amino acids—”
“There aren’t.”
“There are. Shut up. Their molecules can be arranged in lots of ways. So we get an almost infinite variety of proteins. And all living things are forms of ;protein. The absolute synthesis involves a chain of amino ;acids long enough to recognize clearly as a protein ;molecule. That’s been the trouble.”
The man with the red moustache seemed quite interested. “Fischer assembled a chain of eighteen,” he said, blinking. “Abderhalden got up to nineteen, and Woodward, of course, has made chains ten thousand units ;long. But as for testing—”
“The complete protein molecule consists of complete sets of sequences. But if you can test only one or two ;sections of an analogue you can’t be sure of the others. ;Wait a minute.” Kelvin used the rapport case again. ;“Now I know. Well, you can make almost anything out ;of syntheized protein. Silk, wool, hair—but the main ;thing, of course,” he said, sneezing, “is a cure for ;coryza.”
“Now look—” said the red-moustached man.
“Some of the viruses are chains of amino acids, aren’t they? Well, modify their structure. Make ’em harmless. ;Bacteria too. And synthesize antibiotics.”
“I wish I could. However, Mr.—”
“Just call me Jim.”
“Yes. However, all this is old stuff.”
“Grab your pencil,” Kelvin said. “From now on it’ll be solid, with riffs. The method of synthesizing and ;testing is as follows—”
He explained, very thoroughly and clearly. He had to use the rapport case only twice. And when he had ;finished, the man with the red moustache laid down his ;pencil and stared.
“This is incredible,” he said. “If it works—”
“I want health, fame and fortune,” Kelvin said stubbornly. “It’ll work.”
“Yes, but—my good man—”
However, Kelvin insisted. Luckily for himself, the mental testing of the red-moustached man had included briefing for honesty and opportunity, and it ;ended with the chemist agreeing to sign partnership ;papers with Kelvin. The commercial possibilities of the ;process were unbounded. Dupont or GM would be glad ;to buy it.
“I want lots of money. A fortune.”
“You’ll make a million dollars,” the red-moustached man said patiently.
“Then I want a receipt. Have to have this in black and white. Unless you want to give me my million ;now.”
Frowning, the chemist shook his head. “I can’t do that. I’ll have to run tests, open negotiations—but don’t ;worry about that. Your discovery is certainly worth a ;million. You’ll be famous, too.”
“And healthy?”
“There won’t be any more disease, after a while,” the chemist said quietly. “That’s the real miracle.”
“Write it down,” Kelvin clamored.
“All right. We can have partnership papers drawn up tomorrow. This will do temporarily. Understand, the ;actual credit belongs to you.”
“It’s got to be in ink. A pencil won’t do.”
“Just a minute, then,” the red-moustached man said, and went away in search of ink. Kelvin looked around ;the laboratory, beaming happily.
Tharn materialized three feet away. Tharn was holding the rod-weapon. He lifted it.
Kelvin instantly used the rapport case. Then he thumbed his nose at Tharn and teleported himself far ;away.
He was immediately in a cornfield, somewhere, but ;undistilled com was not what Kelvin wanted. He tried again. This time he reached Seattle.
That was the beginning of Kelvin’s monumental two-week combination binge and chase.
His thoughts weren’t pleasant.
He had a frightful hangover, ten cents in his pocket, and an overdue hotel bill. A fortnight of keeping one ;jump ahead of Tharn, via teleportation, had frazzled his ;nerves so unendurably that only liquor had kept him ;going. Now even that stimulus was failing. The drink ;died in him and left what felt like a corpse.
Kelvin groaned and blinked miserably. He took off his glasses and cleaned them, but that didn’t help.
What a fool.
He didn’t even know the name of that chemist!
There was health, wealth and fame waiting for him just around the corner, but what comer? Some day he’d ;find out, probably when the news of the new protein ;synthesis was publicized, but when would that be? In ;the meantime, what about Tharn?
Moreover, the chemist couldn’t locate him, either. The man knew Kelvin only as Jim. Which had somehow ;seemed a good idea at the time, but not now.
Kelvin took out the rapport case and stared at it with red eyes. Quarra Vee, eh? He rather liked Quarra Vee ;now. Trouble was, a half hour after his rapport, at most, ;he would forget all the details.
This time he used the push-button almost as Tharn snapped into bodily existence a few feet away.
The teleportation angle again. He was sitting in the middle of a desert. Cactus and Joshua trees were all the ;scenery. There was a purple range of mountains far ;away.
No Tharn, though.
Kelvin began to be thirsty. Suppose the case stopped working now? Oh, this couldn’t go on. A decision hanging fire for a week finally crystallized into a conclusion ;so obvious he felt like kicking himself. Perfectly obvious!
Why hadn’t he thought of it at the very beginning?
He concentrated on the problem: How can I get rid of Tharn? He pushed the button. . . .
