Nearly Complete Short Fiction, page 48
“The revitalizers are very precious now, in the beginning,” Trowson soothed him. “After a while, the novelty will wear off and you’ll be able to investigate at your leisure. Could it be solar power?”
“No!” Mainzer shook his huge head positively. “Not solar power—solar power I am sure I could recognize. As I am sure that the power supply of their ships and whatever runs these—these revitalizers are two entirely separate things. On the ships I have given up. But the revitalizers I believe I could solve. If only they would let me examine them. Fools! So terribly afraid I might damage one, and they would have to travel to another city for their elixir!”
We patted his shoulder, but we weren’t really interested. Andy and Dandy left that week, after wishing us well in their own courteous and complex fashion. Whole population groups blew kisses at their mineralladen ships.
Six months after they left, the revitalizers stopped.
“AM I CERTAIN? Trowson snorted at my dismayed face. “One set of statistics proves it: look at your death rate. It’s back to pre-Betelgeuse normal. Or ask any doctor. Any doctor who can forget his U. N. security oath, that is.
There’ll be really wild riots when the news breaks, Dick.”
“But why?” I asked him. “Did we do something wrong?”
He started a laugh that ended with his teeth clicking frightenedly together. He rose and walked to the window, staring out into the star-diseased sky. “We did something wrong, all right. We trusted. We made the same mistake all natives have made when they met a superior civilization. Mainzer and Lopez have taken one of the re-vitalizer engine units apart. There was just a trace of it left, but this time they found the power source. Dick, my boy, the revitalizers were run on the fuel of completely pure radioactive elements!”
I needed a few moments to file that properly. Then I sat down in the easy chair very, very carefully. I made some hoarse, improbable sounds before croaking: “Prof, do you mean they wanted that stuff for themselves, for their own revitalizes? That everything they did on this planet was carefully planned so that they could con us with a maximum of friendliness all around? It doesn’t seem—it just can’t—why, with their superior science, they could have conquered us if they’d cared to. They could have—”
“No, they couldn’t have,” Trowson whipped out. He turned to face me and flung his arms across each other. “They’re a decadent, dying race; they wouldn’t have attempted to conquer us. Not because of their ethics—this huge, horrible swindle serves to illustrate that aspect of them—but because they haven’t the energy, the concentration, the interest. Andy and Dandy are probably representative of the few remaining who have barely enough git-up-and-go to trick backward peoples out of the all-important, life-sustaining revitalizer fuel.”
The implications were just beginning to soak in my cortex. Me, the guy who did the most complete and colossal public relations job of all time—I could just see what my relations with the public would be like if I was ever connected with this shambles.
“And without atomic power, prof, we won’t have space travel!”
He gestured bitterly. “Oh, we’ve been taken, Dick; the whole human race has been had. I know what you’re going through, but think of me! I’m the failure, the man responsible. I’m supposed to be a sociologist! How could I have missed? How? It was all there: the lack of interest in their own culture, the overintellectualization of esthetics, the involved methods of thought and expression, the exaggerated etiquette, even the very first thing of theirs we saw—their ship—was too heavily stylized and intricately designed for a young, thrusting civilization.
“They had to be decadent; every sign pointed to that conclusion. And, of course, the fact that they resort to the methods of fueling their revitalizers that we’ve experienced—when if we had their science, what might we not do, what substitutes might we not develop! No wonder they couldn’t explain their science to us; I doubt if they understand it fully themselves. They are the profligate, inadequate and sneak-thief heirs of what was once a soaring race!”
I WAS following my own unhappy images. “And we’re still hicks. Hicks who’ve been sold the equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge by some dressed-up sharpies from Betelgeuse.”
Trowson nodded. “Or a bunch of poor natives who have sold their island home to a group of European explorers for a handful of brightly colored glass beads.”
But of course we were both wrong, Alvarez. Neither Trowson nor I had figured on Mainzer or Lopez or the others. Like Mainzer said, a few years earlier and we would have been licked. But Man had entered the atomic age sometime before 1945 and people like Mainzer and Vinthe had done nuclear research back in the days when radioactive elements abounded on Earth. We had that and we had such tools as the cyclotron, the betatron. And, if our present company will pardon the expression, Alvarez, we are a young and vigorous race.
All we had to do was the necessary research.
The research was done. With a truly effective world government, with a population not only interested in the problem, but recently experienced in working together—and with the grim incentive we had, Alvarez—the problem, as you know, was solved.
We developed artificial radioactives and refueled the revitalizers. We developed atomic fuels out of the artificial radioactives and we got space travel. We did it comparatively fast, and we weren’t interested in a ship that just went to the Moon or Mars. We wanted a star ship. And we wanted it so bad, so fast, that we have it now, too.
Here we are. Explain the situation to them, Alvarez, just the way I told it to you, but with all the knee-bending and gobbledegook that a transplanted Brazilian with twelve years Oriental trading experience can put into it. You’re the man to do it—I can’t talk like that. It’s the only language those decadent slugs understand, so it’s the only way we can talk to them. So talk to them, these slimy snails, these oysters on the quarter shell, these smart-alecky slugs. Don’t forget to mention to them that the supply of radioactives they got from us won’t last forever. Get that down in fine detail.
Then stress the fact that we’ve got artificial radioactives, and that they’ve got some things we know we want and lots of other things we mean to find out about.
Tell them, Alvarez, that we’ve come to collect tolls on that Brooklyn Bridge they sold us.
A Matter of Frequency
It was the biggest human interest story of all time!
DR. AMADEUS BALLYHOCK pointed with pride across the enormous campus of Meg, Beth, & Hal Thurman University.
“There,” he unctuated to the eager group about him. “That completely streamlined building decorated with diagonal stripes. The glory of M.B. & H.T.U. and the very latest addition to our magnificent educational facilities. The Dimenocommunaplex!”
“A whole building,” the young woman at his right said in man-pleasing awe. “And one machine!”
The university president smiled affably from her to the rest of his visitors. His broad chest expanded visibly under the expensively-tailored clear-glass shirt he wore. “Yes. One machine.”
“The only thing, sir,” an extremely handsome fellow who was the star of Tuesday’s TV Tabloid said uncertainly, “the only thing, doctor, is that the Dimenocommunaplex can hardly be considered educational. I mean—since it won’t be used for teaching. I mean—it’s a research tool, isn’t it? For a Nut?”
All the other journalists looked thoughtful at this and began to scratch well-shampooed heads with extremely well-manicured fingernails.
“You know, Steve,” the pretty girl commented slowly. “I think you have something there. If it’s for a Nut, it can’t be very educational. It’s Opening New Frontiers stuff, not the kind of material any sponsor is paying for. When a Nut is involved in a story, you have to take notes, it gets so technical. And once you take notes, what happens to the spontaneity of good TV journalism?”
“There isn’t any, Laura,” the young man nodded. “Not with notes that you have to read from in order to explain things. I mean—no human interest. Then you might as well get back to dry-as-dust paper reporting like they used to have in the old. days.”
“The days of the Nuts,” someone else said. “The twentieth century.” Everybody shuddered.
Dr. Ballyhock shook himself abruptly. “Not at all,” he said loudly. Then, as they all looked at him, he repeated reassuringly: “Not at all! Not at all!”
“How do you mean, sir?” Steve asked. “Anything with a name like Dimenocommunaplex must be a Nut project.”
“Quite. But, first of all, my dear fellow, the Nut involved is under careful guard and the supervision of some of our poorest minds. And may I comment here, parenthetically and with pride, on our faculty and student body, which this year possesses the very lowest average intelligence quotient of any college in the entire country?”
“You don’t say!” Laura looked around enthusiastically. “That is worth a plug on my show. I like to talk about progress. It makes my audience feel we’re advancing, kind of. Know what I mean?”
“I certainly do,” Dr. Ballyhock told her, smiling warmly at the pleasing curves of her body completely visible through the green-tinged transparent frock she wore. “Now, you journalists will need to take no notes on the Dimenocommunaplex, for the simple but entirely sufficient reason that none of you will even begin to understand its operation. It has been made so thoroughly a Nut Project that only the most degraded Nuts can figure out how it works. Humans, like you, me, and your TV audience, can do no more than describe its operation and effects—if any.”
There was a general sigh of relief. Steve came forward and offered his hand. “My apologies, doctor. I really didn’t mean to imply that—that—that—well you know.”
Dr. Ballyhock nodded. “Quite. A journalist reaching millions of sets cannot be too careful. We have had more than enough of Nut thinking in this country! Now that we understand each other again, may I suggest that the explanation of the educational significance of the Dimenocommunaplex wait until we are all on our scooters and on our way to it? The experiment is due to begin at four-thirty sharp. And an unstable individual is being kept waiting.”
THEY MOUNTED THE gaily colored little conveyances again, pulled the beribboned handlebar switches and floated off to the agreeable accompaniment of tiny silver bells clustered on the miniature rear bumpers.
“What is the significance of the Dimenocommunaplex educationally?” the university president began once more from his position in the lead scooter. “Well, first there is the merely visual interest of the student body in such a very complex piece of machinery. We will give one credit for every hour spent in the building looking at the apparatus. Surely this is not an unpleasant or, should I say, nutty way of spending one’s compulsory college time? Surely that group entering the Arithmetic Building will prefer it to the hour they must now willy-nilly spend on Long Division and Decimals? These youngsters may go on to acquire a Doctorate in Administration like mine; they will then have to harness and be responsible for the dangerous mental energies of from ten to a hundred Nuts. What better place for them to meet the creatures than in their early college years?”
“And the rest of the educational aspect is communication,” Laura said. “At least that’s what I read in the university throwaway my studio received. Dimensional communication. What’s that?”
“That’s a Nut’s phrase,” Dr. Ballyhock shrugged; “a Nut will therefore have to explain it. My intelligence quotient is well below the hundred-and-twenty danger point. I am happy to say. Dimensional communication? It would seem to imply communication between the dimensions. What good that would do I cannot imagine. But, as with all Nut developments, you never can tell. It might lead to this or it might lead to that. For example, the scooters we are on at the moment are powered by a kind of radiant energy discovered by an astronomical Nut who was fooling around with Cosmic Rays. Another less degraded Nut—one who was almost human, in fact—applied it to vehicles in an engineering design that enabled normal human technicians to manufacture scooters for the rest of us. That’s why all the expense we go to in feeding and taking care of Nuts is so very necessary. You never know when one of their attacks of applied science—or even an absolute fit of pure science, for that matter—is going to lead to something useful.”
“Or dangerous!” This came from a young matron floating at the edge of the group. “Remember atomic bombs, philosophy, dynamite—all those terrible things Nuts used to make in the old days?” She pulled the pink glassite jacket about her shoulders and shuddered fastidiously.
“The old days. That’s just the point. Remember your history, please,” Dr. Ballyhock admonished. “First man domesticated life in the form of the lower animal to provide him with food. Then he domesticated matter in the form of machines to do his work for him. Then came his greatest and most recent achievement! He domesticated mind in the form of Nuts to do his thinking for him.”
They arrived at the striped building with backswept buttresses and alighted. Steve pointed to a barbed-wire-enclosed compound of low and old-fashioned brick buildings directly behind it. “Is that the Nut school, doctor? I mean I know you have one on your campus. I did a human interest expose on it three years ago.”
“Yes. Please don’t look so upset, ladies. The creatures are not in a dangerously large quantity, and they are very well guarded. Our national educational laws still require universities to maintain at least one college—with separate but equal facilities—for those pathetically high IQ’s; but the day is not too far distant, I hope, when they will all be segregated—as most of them already are—in safe and sound institutions under the unbluncking supervision of Nut specialists.”
THE GUARD SWUNG THE barred doors open at Dr. Ballyhock’s nod.
Inside, the building—which was one room and one electronic machine—looked as if a wire-spinning spider had danced out an all-time arachnidan master piece within its walls. Banks of transformers awaited action about their compact cores; tubes, spattered like raindrops upon a huge metal plate in the center of the room, sat energyless and unwinking.
Near the metal plate was a heavily-laden switchboard at which stood a man, unkempt, somewhat hairy, and scowling. Delicate metallic threads encircled both his ankles and disappeared into a hole in the floor: it was evident that as he walked away from the hole, they unwound from a subterranean spool; and, as he came closer to it, the slack was pulled in. Two guards walked with him; the one on his right carrying an efficient little blaster, the one on his left a tiny radio switch which controlled the action of the restraining thread.
“Ladies and gentlemen’of the TV tabloids,” the president intoned. “This is Physics Nut 6B306, or, as he was entered on his birth certificate, Raymond J. Tinsdale. He was born of entirely normal parents who had no suspicion of his mental flaws until a series of clever childish inventions forced them to a child-test administrator who revealed the truth.”
“How awful!” Laura moaned. “It almost makes you not want to have children; it could happen to anybody!”
Dr. Ballyhock nodded gravely. “It could. The consolation is that the freak would be well taken care of for the rest of its life: the parents would never have to see it again. And of course we use them in a kind of occupational therapy upon each other.”
“The zoo,” said Physics Nut 6B306 bitterly. “The traveling zoo come to look at people. And now they’ll want to be entertained. Does it matter to them that my rig isn’t even ready?”
“Now, now, now,” the president warned. “Don’t get obstreperous or we’ll have to deprive you of equipment and books for a week. Please start explaining what it is you have here. And guard! Make him put on his shirt. There are ladies present!”
AS HE SQUIRMED BACK into the shirt proffered by the guard, Physics Nut 6B306 shook his head. “The atmosphere itself is air-conditioned; the seasons are controlled; every blasted tinted garment is completely transparent—yet you can’t take a single scrap off, no time, no place! What a world!” He beat a fist into an open palm and sighed. “All right. We call this rig a Dimenocommunaplex. Not because we want to, but we had to call it something and Jo Jo here thought we should christen it the Ballyhocker. So it’s a Dimenocommunaplex. It’s intended for interdimensional communication.”
“Like the fourth?” Steve suggested brightly.
“No, not like the fourth. There are an infinite number of dimensional universe, coexisting with us but neither in our time nor in our space. They adjoin us on the entropy gradient.”
A rustle of inattention and discomfort. “Nut words like entropy,” someone muttered. “Entropy gradient! Make him start.”
“Entropy might be defined as the increasing randomness of energy,” Physics Nut 6B306 went on more rapidly as he tried to ignore Dr. Ballyhock’s signals. “The rate at which our universe is proceeding to its own space-time death. A universe whose entropy gradient is steeper would be imperceptible to our senses and instruments. In that case, furthermore, all radiation in it would operate at much higher frequencies than in our universe. How much higher we can only estimate. And since this is a communicative—”
“Please begin,” the president ordered. “We are normal humans and interested in results, not explanations. Theory can come later.”
“The problem in communicating with such an adjoining universe,” the guarded man went on defiantly, “is chiefly one of finding the correct frequency at which their equivalent of, say, electromagnetic or radio wave patterns occur. Going up past our highest conceivable frequencies with the interdimensional translating device I have developed, we might still create only heat waves in their plenum. Approximation is all we can do each time; continued careful experimentation must go on. In turn, assuming intelligent creatures in such an adjoining universe, their problem would be to find a sufficiently low frequency (in their terms) with which they could reach us. Again, they would—”
