Again Porter interrupted. "You're not going to get a complete
inspection, Buster," he said with a wolfish grin. "Either serve that
paper or get off my back."
Feldstein slammed the paper into Porter's hand. "That's your official
notification! If necessary, Mr. Porter, we will be back with a Federal
marshal! Good day, Mr. Porter. Let's go, Granby."
The two of them marched back to their aircar and climbed inside. The car
lifted with a roar of blowers and headed back over the mountains toward
Albuquerque.
But long before they were out of sight over the ridge, Malcom Porter had
turned on his heel and started back toward the cluster of buildings. He
was swearing vilely in a rumbling monotone, and had apparently forgotten
all about Elshawe.
The reporter followed in silence for a dozen paces, then he asked:
"What's your next step, Mr. Porter?"
Porter came to an abrupt stop, turned, and looked at Elshawe. "I'm going
to phone General Fitzsimmons in Washington! I'm--" He stopped, scowling.
"No, I guess I'd better phone my lawyer first. I'll find out what they
can do and what they can't." Then he turned again and strode rapidly
toward the nearest of the buildings.
* * * * *
Seventy-two hours later, Terry Elshawe was in Silver City, talking to
his boss over a long-distance line.
"... And that's the way it lines up, Ole. The CAA won't clear his ship
for take-off, and the Space Force won't either. And if he tries it
without the O.K. of both of them, he'll be right back in Alcatraz."
"He hasn't violated his parole yet, though?" Winstein's voice came
distantly.
"No." Elshawe cursed the fact that he couldn't get a vision connection
with New York. "But, the way he's acting, he's likely to. He's furious."
"Why wouldn't he let the Space Force officers look over his ship?"
Winstein asked. "I still don't see how that would have hurt him if he's
really got something."
"It's on the recording I sent you," Elshawe said.
"I haven't played it yet," Winstein said. "Brief me."
"He wouldn't let the Space Force men look at his engine or whatever it
is because he doesn't trust them," Elshawe said. "He claims to have this
new drive, but he doesn't want anyone to go nosing around it. The Space
Force colonel ... what's his name? ... Manetti, that's it. Manetti asked
Porter why, if he had a new invention, he hadn't patented it. Porter
said that he wasn't going to patent it because that would make it
available to every Tom, Dick, and Harry--his very words--who wanted to
build it. Porter insists that, since it's impossible to patent the
discovery of a new natural law, he isn't going to give away his genius
for nothing. He said that Enrico Fermi was the prime example of what
happened when the Government got hold of something like that when the
individual couldn't argue."
"Fermi?" Winstein asked puzzledly. "Wasn't he a physicist or something,
back in the Forties?"
"Right. He's the boy who figured out how to make the atomic bomb
practical. But the United States Government latched onto it, and it took
him years to get any compensation. He never did get the money that he
was entitled to.
"Porter says he wants to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen to
him. He wants to prove that he's got something and then let the
Government pay him what it's worth and give him the recognition he
deserves. He says he has discovered a new natural law and devised a
machine that utilizes that law. He isn't going to let go of his
invention until he gets credit for everything."
There was a long silence from the other end. After a minute, Elshawe
said: "Ole? You there?"
"Oh. Yeah ... sure. Just thinking. Terry, what do you think of this
whole thing? Does Porter have something?"
"Damned if I know. If I were in New York, I'd say he was a complete nut,
but when I talk to him, I'm halfway convinced that he knows what he's
talking about."
There was another long pause. This time, Elshawe waited. Finally, Oler
Winstein said: "You think Porter's likely to do something drastic?"
"Looks like it. The CAA has already forbidden him to lift that ship. The
Space Force flatly told him that he couldn't take off without
permission, and they said he wouldn't get permission unless he let them
look over his gizmo ... whatever it is."
"And he refused?"
"Well, he did let Colonel Manetti look it over, but the colonel said
that, whatever the drive principle was, it wouldn't operate a ship. He
said the engines didn't make any sense. What it boils down to is that
the CAA thinks Porter has rockets in the ship, and the Space Force
does, too. So they've both forbidden him to take off."
"_Are_ there any rocket motors in the ship?" Winstein asked.
"Not as far as I can see," Elshawe said. "He's got two big
atomic-powered DC generators aboard--says they have to be DC to avoid
electromagnetic effects. But the drive engines don't make any more sense
to me than they do to Colonel Manetti."
Another pause. Then: "O.K., Terry; you stick with it. If Porter tries to
buck the Government, we've got a hell of a story if his gadget works the
way he says it does. If it doesn't--which is more likely--then we can
still get a story when they haul him back to the Bastille."
"Check-check. I'll call you if anything happens."
* * * * *
He hung up and stepped out of the phone booth into the lobby of the
Murray Hotel. Across the lobby, a glowing sign said _cocktail lounge_ in
lower-case script.
He decided that a tall cool one wouldn't hurt him any on a day like this
and ambled over, fumbling in his pockets for pipe, tobacco pouch, and
other paraphernalia as he went. He pushed open the door, spotted a stool
at the bar of the dimly-lit room, went over to it and sat down.
He ordered his drink and had no sooner finished than the man to his left
said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Elshawe."
The reporter turned his head toward his neighbor. "Oh, hello, Mr.
Skinner. I didn't know you'd come to town."
"I came in somewhat earlier. Couple, three hours ago." His voice had the
careful, measured steadiness of a man who has had a little too much to
drink and is determined not to show it. That surprised Elshawe a little;
Skinner had struck him as a middle-aged accountant or maybe a high
school teacher--the mild kind of man who doesn't drink at all, much less
take a few too many.
"I'm going to hire a 'copter and fly back," Elshawe said. "You're
welcome if you want to come along."
Skinner shook his head solemnly. "No. Thank you. I'm going back to Los
Angeles this afternoon. I'm just killing time, waiting for the local
plane to El Paso."
"Oh? Well, I hope you have a good trip." Elshawe had been under the
impression that Skinner had come to New Mexico solely to see the test of
Porter's ship. He had wondered before how the man fitted into the
picture, and now he was wondering why Skinner was leaving. He decided he
might as well try to find out. "I guess you're disappointed because the
test has been called off," he said casually.
"Called off? Hah. No such thing," Skinner said. "Not by a long shot. Not
Porter. He'll take the thing up, and if the Army doesn't shoot him down,
the CAA will see to it that he's taken back to prison. But that won't
stop him. Malcom Porter is determined to go down in history as a great
scientist, and nothing is going to stop him if he can help it."
"You think his spaceship will work, then?"
"Work? Sure it'll work. It worked in '79; it'll work now. The way that
drive is built, it can't help but work. I just don't want to stick
around and watch him get in trouble again, that's all."
Elshawe frowned. All the time that Porter had been in prison, his
technicians had been getting together the stuff to build the so-called
"spaceship," but none of them knew how it was put together or how it
worked. Only Porter knew that, and he'd put it together after he'd been
released on parole.
But if that was so, how come Skinner, who didn't even work for Porter,
was so knowledgeable about the drive? Or was that liquor talking?
"Did you help him build it?" the reporter asked smoothly.
"_Help_ him build it? Why, I--" Then Skinner stopped abruptly. "Why,
no," he said after a moment. "No. I don't know anything about it,
really. I just know that it worked in '79, that's all." He finished his
drink and got off his stool. "Well, I've got to be going. Nice talking
to you. Hope I see you again sometime."
"Sure. So long, Mr. Skinner." He watched the man leave the bar.
Then he finished his own drink and went back into the lobby and got a
phone. Ten minutes later, a friend of his who was a detective on the Los
Angeles police force had promised to check into Mr. Samuel Skinner.
Elshawe particularly wanted to know what he had been doing in the past
three years and very especially what he had been doing in the past year.
The cop said he'd find out. There was probably nothing to it, Elshawe
reflected, but a reporter who doesn't follow up accidentally dropped
hints isn't much of a reporter.
He came out of the phone booth, fired up his pipe again, and strolled
back to the bar for one more drink before he went back to Porter's
ranch.
* * * * *
Malcom Porter took one of the darts from the half dozen he held in his
left hand and hurled it viciously at the target board hung on the far
wall of the room.
_Thunk!_
"Four ring at six o'clock," he said in a tight voice.
_Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!_
The other five darts followed in rapid succession. As he threw each one,
Porter snapped out a word. "They ... can't ... stop ... Malcom ...
Porter!" He glared at the board "Two bull's-eyes; three fours, and a
three. Twenty-five points. You owe me a quarter, Elshawe."
The reporter handed him a coin. "Two bits it is. What can you do,
Porter? They've got you sewed up tight. If you try to take off, they'll
cart you right back to The Rock--if the Army doesn't shoot you down
first. Do you want to spend the next ten years engrossed in the scenic
beauties of San Francisco Bay?"
"No. And I won't, either."
"Not if the Army gets you. I can see the epitaph now:
_Malcom Porter, with vexation,
Thought he could defy the nation.
He shot for space with great elation--
Now he's dust and radiation._
Beneath it, they'll engrave a spaceship argent with A-bombs rampant on a
field sable."
Porter didn't take offense. He grinned. "What are you griping about? It
would make a great story."
"Sure it would," Elshawe agreed. "But not for me. I don't write the
obituary column."
"You know what I like about you, Elshawe?"
"Sure. I lose dart games to you."
"That, yes. But you really sound worried. That means two things. One:
You like me. Two: You believe that my ship actually will take off.
That's more than any of those other reporters who have been prowling
around and phoning in do."
Elshawe shrugged silently and puffed at his pipe. Malcom Porter's ego
was showing through. He was wrong on two counts. Elshawe didn't like
him; the man's arrogance and his inflated opinion of himself as a
scientific genius didn't sit well with the reporter. And Elshawe didn't
really believe there was anything but a rocket motor in that hull
outside. A new, more powerful kind of rocket perhaps--otherwise Porter
wouldn't be trying to take a one-stage rocket to the Moon. But a rocket,
nonetheless.
"I don't want to go back to prison," Porter continued, "but I'll risk
that if I have to. But I won't risk death just yet. Don't worry; the
Army won't know I'm even gone until I'm halfway to the Moon."
"Foo!" said Elshawe. "Every radar base from Albuquerque to the Mexican
border has an antenna focused on the air above this ranch. The minute
you get above those mountains, they'll have a fix on you, and a minute
after that, they'll have you bracketed with Cobras.
"Why don't you let the Government inspectors look it over and give you
an O.K.? What makes you think they're all out to steal your invention?"
"Oh, they won't _steal_ it," Porter said bitterly. "Heaven's-to-Betsy
_no_! But this invention of mine will mean that the United States of
America will be in complete control of the planets and the space
between. When the Government wants a piece of property, they try to buy
it at their price; if they can't do that, they condemn it and pay the
owner what they think it's worth--not what the owner thinks it's worth.
The same thing applies here; they'd give me what they thought I ought to
have--in ten years or so. Look what happened to Fermi.
"No, Elshawe; when the Government comes begging to me for this
invention, they can have it--on _my_ terms."
"Going to keep it a secret, eh? You can't keep a thing like that secret.
Look what happened with atomic energy after World War Two. We kept it a
secret from the Russians, didn't we? Fine lot of good that did us. As
soon as they knew it was possible, they went to work on it. Nature
answers any questions you ask her if you ask her the right way. As soon
as the Government sees that your spaceship works, they'll put some of
their bright physicists to work on it, and you'll be in the same
position as you would have been if you'd showed it to them in the first
place. Why risk your neck?"
Porter shook his head. "The analogy isn't valid. Suppose someone had
invented the A-bomb in 1810. It would have been a perfectly safe secret
because there wasn't a scientist on Earth who included such a thing as
atomic energy in his philosophy. And, believe me, this drive of mine is
just as far ahead of contemporary scientific philosophy as atomic energy
was ahead of Napoleon's scientists.
"Suppose I told you that the fuel my ship uses is a gas lighter than
hydrogen. It isn't, but suppose I told you so. Do you think any
scientist today could figure out how it worked? No. They _know_ that
there's no such thing as a gas with a lighter atomic weight than
hydrogen. They know it so well that they wouldn't even bother to
consider the idea.
"My invention is so far ahead of present-day scientific thought that no
scientists except myself could have even considered the idea."
"O.K.; O.K.," Elshawe said. "So you're going to get yourself shot down
to prove your point."
Porter grinned lopsidedly. "Not at all. You're still thinking in terms
of a rocket. Sure--if I used a rocket, they'd knock me down fast, just
as soon as I lifted above the mountains. But I don't have to do that.
All I have to do is get a few feet of altitude and hug the ground all
the way to the Pacific coast. Once I get out in the middle of the
Pacific, I can take off straight up without being bothered at all."
"All right. If your machine will do it," the reporter said, trying to
hide his skepticism.
"You still think I've got some kind of rocket, don't you?" Porter asked
accusingly. He paused a moment, then, as if making a sudden decision, he
said: "Look, Elshawe, I trust you. I'm going to show you the inside of
that ship. I won't show you my engines, but I _will_ prove to you that
there are no rocket motors in her. That way, when you write up the
story, you'll be able to say that you have first-hand knowledge of that
fact. O.K.?"
"It's up to you," the reporter said. "I'd like to see it."
"Come along," said Malcom Porter.
* * * * *
Elshawe followed Porter out to the field, feeling rather grateful that
he was getting something to work on. They walked across the field, past
the two gun-toting men in Levis that Porter had guarding the ship.
Overhead, the stars were shining brightly through the thin mountain air.
Elshawe glanced at his wrist watch. It was a little after ten p.m.
He helped Porter wheel the ramp up to the door of the ship and then
followed him up the steps. Porter unlocked the door and went inside. The
Grumman had been built to cruise in the high stratosphere, so it was as
air-tight as a submarine.