(author of "The Lithium Mountain")
Slim Coleman's brain-finder worked all too well!
If, as has often been contended, the brain contains a complete
record of all events the individual has experienced, consciously or
otherwise, then a mechanical means of exploring someone's past
might be found. It would show the discrepancies between the most
reliable memories of events, and actual sense-impressions received
at the time, for example. But few people would like such a device,
and those few might like it much too much!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Future combined with Science Fiction Stories July 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
This was a warm day in August--a very warm day. Slim Coleman, my
partner in detection work, says the sun is ninety million miles away,
but this day it must have sneaked up pretty close. You could even see
the heat waves coming up off the sidewalk. You can't fry an egg on the
pavement in Fort Worth, though, because you can't stay out in the sun
that long.
I mopped my brow, slung the water off my fingertips, and went into
the lobby of the National Bank Building. The washed air made it cool
and nice in there, and I slowed down to enjoy it. But one of the
elevators came down, the door slid open, and the first man to get off
was Swanberg, the building manager--our landlord--all dressed up in
striped trousers and a fancy vest and wearing a high wing collar and a
genuine cravat. He looked impeccable, immaculate--and cool.
I wheeled and marched back outside into the sun. Slim and I were three
months behind with the rent, and I figured the only reason Swanberg
hadn't ordered us out was that he just hadn't gotten around to it.
I didn't want to run into him. If we could have paid our rent I
wouldn't have been carrying ham sandwiches and a bottle of coffee in my
coat-pockets up to Slim Coleman while he worked on the Brain-Finder.
The heat almost smothered me after the coolness of the lobby. Damn
that guy Swanberg, anyway. He was always so perfect, so completely
unaffected by the weather, so supercilious and so cold, so mechanical.
You knew he'd never had any trouble and never would have, because he
would never be swayed by anything but cold logic. It's only we humans
with sentiments who get in trouble.
It was his untouchableness that griped me. He was so inhumanly perfect
he always made me feel rough and uncouth. You know how it is. If I
could just get something on him to throw off that complex, I'd be happy
even if we did have to vacate. I guess I spent my time day-dreaming
about Swanberg--Swanberg wearing an old-fashioned night-cap, Swanberg
slurping his coffee, Swanberg sleeping with his socks on--anything
human.
What wouldn't I have given to have a picture of him in the roller
coaster the way I had been the night of July the Fourth, with a
perfectly strange, perfectly gorgeous, slim blonde throwing her arms
around his neck the way that one had around mine. I was willing to bet
he had a big, hefty wife at home who made him step.
I shivered whenever I thought about that blonde. She was the kind I
would have liked to marry, only one like that was way out of my reach.
I didn't have much education and I didn't always know what to do around
a real high-class female. That's why I had been riding the roller
coaster alone.
* * * * *
Well, there was nothing for it now but the coal-chute. A truck was
backed up to the sidewalk and two very black-faced men were pushing
coal down a steel chute through a manhole in the sidewalk. I ducked
into the alley, unrolled the bundle under my arm, and threw out a pair
of khaki coveralls. I hated this, but I did it anyway; I had to. We
couldn't afford to have my suit cleaned every time I went in through
the sidewalk, so I got into the coveralls and zipped them up. I watched
around the corner. When the truckers raised the steel bed, I walked up
to the open hole in the sidewalk and dropped in casually.
I'm a short man anyway, a little on the chunky side, and that coal-hole
was like a furnace. The sweat poured down my back and chest and the
coal-dust poured into my nostrils. I got out of there as fast as I
could and took the freight elevator to the twenty-second floor. I went
through the hall, unlocked the door, got inside, and locked it again.
"That you, Doc?" came Slim Coleman's deep voice.
"Yeah." I held the coveralls out of the window, slapped the coal-dust
out of them, took off my damp suit-coat and laid it on top of the desk,
got the electric iron out of the desk-drawer and plugged it in. Our
sign said _Coleman & Hambright, Private Investigators_, and we had
to maintain appearances, but I wished we could afford a store-bought
pressing. I brushed my pants, but they were damp, too, so I took them
off and laid them out on the desk-top, over some papers, with the
creases pinched tight. I mopped my brow and went into the other room.
Slim Coleman looked up from a work-bench covered with wires,
tubes, condensers, and all kinds of electrical gadgets. He had
a soldering-iron poised above something that looked like a
forty-eight-tube radio. He had deep, deep brown eyes that always looked
through everybody, but Slim was a hundred-per-cent. In fact, it was
his loyalty that had us behind the eight-ball now. If he had dissolved
partnership instead of offering to pay the damages the time I fell from
a second-story window and went through a skylight into a whole tableful
of expensive orchids--but no, Slim paid it all--twenty-two hundred
dollars before he got through, because the cold air ruined a lot more
orchids. And I hadn't even gotten the evidence I was after. (No, it was
just happenstance that I fell from the bedroom window of a movie star.)
"What luck?" said Slim in his husky voice.
"I served them, but look, Slim, I hope you get that Brain-Finder going
pretty quick. Not that I mind crawling under the length of three
pullman cars and cutting my ankles on the cinders to serve divorce
papers on Tom Ellingbery, who's worth a million. Not that I mind doing
all that for a measly five bucks, but when I have to come through the
sidewalk in the summertime to duck the landlord--"
Coleman's face lighted up. "The Brain-Finder is ready for a tryout," he
said. "Shall I show you yourself the night of July the Fourth?"
Well, partly because I guess I didn't have much real faith in the
gadget, I said "Okay," and went to get the four ham sandwiches and the
coffee in a milk-bottle out of my coat-pockets. That was why I couldn't
take off the coat when I put on the coveralls--for fear of spilling the
coffee. Then I groaned and ran for the desk. There was a brown puddle
spreading on the desk and soaking up my coat. I very nearly said "Damn!"
"I've got your brain wave-length," Slim was saying. I started mopping
up with my handkerchief while I hung the coat up to dry. "Now, all I
have to do is--come here, Doc!"
I put the sandwiches on the bench in front of him, but for once Slim
didn't even reach. He looked at me and his deep-set eyes were burning.
"We are going to be the greatest private investigators in history,"
he said. "In fact, we'll _make_ history. Doc, we'll be the most
important men in America."
I should have been more enthusiastic, but things were going so
badly--"I don't care," I told him, "about being a great man, if I can
just quit ducking the landlord. I want to walk in under his nose and
not be scared of him. If you want to fill my cup to overflowing, just
let me use that thing long enough to get something on him."
* * * * *
Slim was already turning dials. Tubes were lighting up. The set was
humming. Pretty soon he pointed to a screen, and I damn near lost my
breath. There on a screen about twelve by eighteen inches, big enough
so there wasn't any mistake, I saw myself on the night of July Fourth,
just as I bought one ticket for the roller coaster.
I guess my eyes stuck out a foot, for Slim was looking at me with that
kind of sad smile. "Roller coasters," he said gently. "Got enough, Doc?"
I gulped. "Plenty. Cut it off, please." In the screen I saw the blonde
just behind me, and I didn't want Slim to see her put her arms around
me when the roller coaster went over the dip.
[Illustration: It was hard to make out the faces.]
Slim smiled and snapped a bunch of switches. The lights in the tubes
went out. "Think what this will mean in criminal prosecutions, to
be able to follow a man in the past. Present-day testimony will be
archaic. The courts won't have to take anybody's word for anything;
they can follow a man and watch him in the past."
"Judge Monday wouldn't admit that kind of evidence," I pointed out.
"Naturally not. It will take twenty-five years to get this kind of
evidence admitted in court. In the meantime, we'll have to go easy. But
we can make millions, just by bluffing. When we _know_ that a man
was playing poker in Jones's basement until six o'clock Sunday morning,
then we can bluff and put it over. Just so we don't tangle with a real
tough guy the first time. For instance--sh! Somebody's at the door."
Slim ran to the door while I ran for my pants. I ducked back into the
other room and got them on. I heard the voice. It was a man's voice,
and I had heard it before--just recently. I peeked out. Yes, it was Tom
Ellingbery. I stayed quiet.
"A pot-bellied little guy just served divorce papers on me," he said
harshly. "I got off the train and came here. A friend of mine sent me;
I want your services."
"Yes," said Slim.
"Here's a hundred-dollar bill," Tom Ellingbery said. "Start shadowing
my wife; get something on her. I'll give you five thousand to get
something--ten if it's necessary," he said with a slight leer.
Slim gravely picked up the C note. "We don't do business that way," he
said; "but if your wife has been misbehaving we'll find it out."
Ellingbery was a big man with a sharp go-getter look about him. He
stared hard at Slim and Slim stared back. Ellingbery's expression
didn't show anything; then he left.
* * * * *
Slim locked the door after Ellingbery, and I took off my pants and set
up the ironing-board on the desk. Slim went back to adjust the dials on
his machine.
"This gadget is a sort of super-sensitive radar," he said as it warmed
up. "I can tune it to your brain-waves and pick you up anywhere within
forty miles or three months."
A purple indicator began to wink. "It proves I've got brains, anyway,"
I pointed out.
"Yes, your waves come in at a frequency of approximately 1,832,956,000.
That's as close as I can tune it so far, but that's plenty close
enough. There are other characteristics, such as power and damping and
height of crest and so on, that make it selective enough to pick out
any one person in the United States if it could reach that far."
"And then you can see everything I do?"
"No, I can see only what you see with your own eyes."
Then I must have been staring at the blonde. I held my breath when I
asked, "Can you tell what I'm thinking?"
"No."