Читать книгу The New Adam - Stanley G. Weinbaum - Страница 9

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BOHN AND HOFFMAN presented themselves at Edmond's home promptly in accordance with their appointment. Magda admitted them, and directed them to the upper rear room that served as his laboratory. They found him seated facing the door, idle, and toying with little Homo who chattered furiously at them. Edmond returned their cold greetings without rising, indicating two wooden chairs beside the long table.

Hoffman sat down quietly and faced Edmond, but his companion's eyes ranged sharply about the room. Bohn noted the blackened windows, and a peculiar shade in the illumination of the room struck him. He glanced at the lights—two bulbs of high capacity of the type called daylight, under whose blue-white glare the group assumed a corpse-like grayness. Their host was hideous, Bohn thought; curious thing, he continued mentally, since his features were not irregular. The repulsion was something behind appearances, some fundamental difference in nature. He continued his inspection, considering now the equipment of the laboratory. A small motor-generator in the far corner, probably as a direct-current source, beside it a transformer, and next to that the condenser and hollow cylinder of a rather large high-frequency coil. A flat bowl of mercury rested on a little turn-table at his elbow; he gave it a twist, and it spun silently, the liquid metal rising about the sides of the bowl in a perfect parabolic mirror. Struck by a sudden thought, he glanced at the ceiling; there was a shutter there that might open on a skylight. For the rest, jars of liquid, some apparently containing algae, a sickly plant or two on a shelf below the black window, and two white rabbits dolefully munching greens in a cage on the windowless wall. Simple enough equipment!

Edmond meanwhile had dismissed the monkey, who backed away from the group, regarded the strangers with bright intelligent eyes and scampered out into the hallway.

'You are not impressed, Mr. Bohn.'

'Hardly.' Bohn bitterly resented the implied sneer.

'The tools are less important than the hand that wields them.'

'Let's get down to business,' said Bohn.

'Very well,' said their host. 'Will you be so kind as to lift that reflector to the table?'

He indicated one of several wooden bowls perhaps eighteen inches across whose inner surfaces seemed blackened as if charred or rubbed with graphite. Bohn stooped to lift it; it was surprisingly heavy, necessitating the use of both his hands. He placed it on the table before Edmond.

'Thank you. Now if you will watch me....'

He opened a drawer in the table, removing from it a spool of heavy wire and a whitened cardboard square perhaps four inches to a side.

'This is lead wire. This cardboard is coated with calcium fluoride.'

He passed the articles to Bohn, who received them with patient skepticism.

'I want you to see that the wire is inactive. I will extinguish the lights'—the room was suddenly and mysteriously dark 'and you will note that the board does not fluoresce.'

Bohn rubbed the wire across the square, but there was no result whatsoever. The lights were suddenly glowing again; the wire and square were unchanged save for a scratch or two on the latter's white surface.

'Your demonstration is convincing,' said Bohn sardonically. 'We feel assured that the wire is innocent and harmless.'

Tass it here, then, and I will give it its fangs.'

Edmond unwound some six inches from the spool, leaving it still attached, extended out like a little wand. He drew three cords from points on the edge of his reflector; at the apex of the tetrahedron thus formed he gathered the ends. To mark this elusive point in space he moved a ring stand beside the bowl setting a clamp to designate the intersection of his bits of string which he allowed to drop.

'A simple method of locating the focus,' he explained. 'As the black surface of my reflector does not reflect light, I have to use other means. The focal length, as you see, is about thirty centimeters. The reflector itself is not parabolic, but spherical. I do not desire too sharp a focus, as I wish to irradiate the entire volume of the lead wire—not merely a single point.'

The two visitors watched without comment. Their host passed the six-inch rod of lead back and forth through the point indicated by the clamp, back and forth perhaps a dozen times. Then he tossed the spool to Bohn.

'Hold it by the spool, Mr. Bohn. It will bite now.'

Bohn examined the little rod, which seemed utterly unchanged.

'Well?' he said sharply.

'We will try the fluorescent screen. I will extinguish the lights'—and again the lights were dark. Bohn placed the rod of lead above the square; at once a pallid blue-white glow spread over the surface. The scratches Bohn had made were outlined in white fire, and the square shone like a little window opening on a cloudy night sky. The cold white flame rippled as he moved the rod above it.

The voice of their host sounded: 'Try your diamond, Mr. Hoftrnan.' Hoffman slipped a ring from his finger, and held it toward the glowing square. As it approached the wire, the gem began to glow in its setting; it glistened with an icy blue fire far brighter than the square. Hoffman withdrew it, but it continued to flame with undiminished brilliance. The lights flashed on, catching the two engineers blinking down at the glowing diamond.

'It will fluoresce for some time to come,' said Edmond. 'At least you may be assured that the gem is genuine; imitations will not react.' He paused. 'Is there anything further?'

We are convinced,' said Bohn shortly. 'Will you explain your methods?'

'In part.' Edmond drew a cigarette from a box beside him, and passed them to the engineers. Hoffman accepted one, but Bohn shook his head and drew out his pipe. Their host exhaled a long plume of smoke.

'Obviously,' he continued, 'the simplest way to break up an atom is through sympathetic vibration. The same principle as breaking a glass goblet by playing a violin above it at the proper pitch.'

'That's an old idea,' said Hoffman, 'but it never worked.'

'No; because no one has been able to produce a vibration of great enough frequency. The electrons of most substances have revolution periods measurable in millionths of a second.

'However, certain rays are known that have frequencies of this order; I refer to the so-called cosmic rays.'

'Bah!' said Bohn. 'I suppose you produce cosmic rays!'

'No,' said Edmond, staring coldly at him.

'To continue: It has also been observed that lead exposed to the weather for a long period of years becomes mildly radioactive. All the fools now occupying chairs of research have attributed this to sunlight. Of course, they are wrong; it is due to the cosmic rays.

'Therefore, I have designed this reflector'—he tapped the bowl—'which brings the cosmic rays which enter this room to a focus, intensifying their effect a thousandfold. That is what starts the disintegration of the lead; once begun, the process is self-continuous.' He paused again. 'Do you wish to ask any questions?'

'Yes,' said both men at once. Hoffman fell silent, and Bohn spoke, apparently somewhat subdued.

'I have always understood that cosmic rays have unparalleled penetrative power, passing far into the deepest mines, and that even gold is very transparent to them. It is generally believed that nothing will reflect them.'

'Almost nothing, Mr. Bohn. My reflector will.'

'But what material do you use?'

'Did you ever hear of neutronium, Mr. Bohn?'

'Neutronium!' both men spoke.

That,' said Hoffman, 'is the stuff that's left after all the electrons are driven off. Neutronium is solid protons, and weighs about one ton to the cubic inch.'

'But that stuff is simply hypothetical,' objected Bohn.

'Not quite hypothetical, Mr. Bohn. It occurs in the dwarf stars, for instance, and in other places.'

'Where, for example?'

'In this room, Mr. Bohn. I have caused an infinitesimal layer of it to be created on the reflecting side of this wooden bowl, a deposit inconceivably thin—perhaps only two or three protons deep. Nevertheless, it is sufficient. Doubtless you noticed the weight.'

'Yes.' He stared at the black concavity on the table. 'By what means do you perform this?'

'By means I shall not reveal, because it is dangerous.'

'Dangerous! You needn't be solicitous of our safety!'

'I am not, but of my own. The process is economically dangerous.'

'Bah! That's what people thought about every practical advance, from steam engines, on.'

'Yes,' said Edmond, 'and I know of none that has not been perverted to destruction.' For the first time in the interview he smiled, and the men flushed angrily. 'Would you place hand grenades in the paws of all the apes in the zoo, Mr. Bohn? Neither shall I.' He crushed out his cigarette in an ash tray with an air of closing the subject, and turned to Hoffman.

'You wished to ask a question, Mr. Hoffman.'

The other leaned forward, peering at Edmond through his eye-glasses.

'Will this process disintegrate other elements besides lead, Mr. Hall?'

'A few, but the process is infinitely slower.'

'Why is that?'

'There are several reasons. Primarily, because lead is itself more or less unstable in structure. Then, neutronium in this very thin deposit reflects the particular ray that affects lead in greater degree; in other words, my reflector has a sort of cosmic color. Again, the lead radiations form the greater portion of the cosmic rays themselves, for a reason I have not bothered to ascertain; they too are leaden-hued. That is of course why leaden roofs and gutters are activated after long exposure to weather, while zinc or iron or copper ones are not.'

'I see,' said Hoffman slowly. 'Say, how long have you been working on this, Mr. Hall?'

'About six weeks,' said Edmond coldly, ignoring the look of amazement on the faces of his guests. He continued: 'I think we have covered sufficient ground here. You may send for these four reflectors; they will treat enough lead for your present capacity. Should increased production necessitate any addition, I will supply them. You may install these in any part of your plant; the cosmic rays are but slightly diffused by passing through the building. The technique of the actual handling of the filament I will leave to you, but be sure to safeguard your workers with lead-foil lined gloves against radium burns.'

He rose, and the others followed.

'I'll take this one with me, if you don't mind,' said Bohn, lifting the wooden bowl from the table with some effort. The three passed into the hall 'Homo!' called Edmond sharply, and from somewhere in the darkness of the hall the monkey scampered, leaping to his shoulder, and crouching there. As they were descending the stairs, Hoffman noticed their host glance backward at the lighted rectangle of laboratory door; instantly the lights went out. The engineer made no comment, but drew a deep breath when the front door had closed upon them. He followed Bohn, who staggered ahead under the weight he bore, and helped him slide the bowl to the floor of their car.

'What d'you think of it, Carl?' said Hoffman, as the car moved.

'Don't know.'

'D'you believe that stuff about cosmic rays and neutronium?'

'We'll damn soon find out when I get to the lab. I got some lead there that I know isn't doctored.'

They were silent for several blocks.

'Say, Carl, did you see him put out the lights?'

'Trick. He did it with his feet.'

'But he put 'em out from the hall when we were going.'

'Switch in the hall.'

But Hoffman, less solid in outlook, more mystical than Bohn, remained unconvinced. The curious Edmond had impressed him deeply, and he found his character far less repulsive at this second meeting. There was a sort of fascination about the man.

'Do you think he knows as much as he says he does?'

'If he does, he's the devil.'

'Yes, I thought that too, Carl.'

The car drew up before the Stoddard plant, and the two scrambled out.

'Lend me a hand, Mac, and I'll damn soon find out what this thing is.'

But Bohn never did. He blunted innumerable knives on the black surface, and dented it very easily with a chisel, but never managed to collect enough of the stuff to analyze. The deposit was far too thin, a tenuous coating of something heavy that nothing could dislodge.