"All right then," said Manning grimly, "we'll give you proof. What
could you do, Ben, if we told you what was happening on the stock market
in New York ... _without you having to wait the 45 minutes it takes the
quotations to get here_?"
Wrail sprang to his feet. "What could I do? Why, I could run the pants
off every trader in the exchange! I could make a billion a minute!" He
stopped and looked at the image. "But this isn't like you. This isn't
the way you'd do things."
"I don't want you to hurt anyone but Chambers," said Manning. "If
somebody else gets in the way, of course they have to take the rap along
with him. But I do want to give Chambers a licking. That's what I came
here to see you about."
"By Heaven, Greg, I'll do it," said Wrail. He stepped quickly forward,
held out his hand to close the deal, and encountered only air.
Manning's image threw back its head and laughed.
"That's your proof, Ben. Good enough?"
"I'll say it is," said Wrail shakily, looking down at the solid-seeming
hand that his own had gone right through.
* * * * *
November 6, 2153, was a day long remembered in financial circles
throughout the Solar System. The Ranthoor market opened easy with little
activity. Then a few stocks made fractional gains. Mining dropped
fractionally. Martian Irrigation still was unexplainably low, as was
Pluto Chemical and Asteroid Mining.
Trading through two brokers, Ben Wrail bought 10,000 shares of Venus
Farms, Inc. when the market opened at 83-1/2. A few minutes later they
bought 10,000 shares of Spacesuits Ltd. at 106-1/4. The farm stocks
dropped off a point. Spacesuits gained a point. Then suddenly both rose.
In the second hour of trading the Venus stocks had boomed a full five
points and Wrail sold. Ten minutes later they sagged. At the end of the
day they were off two points from the opening. In late afternoon Wrail
threw his 10,000 shares of Spacesuits on the market, sold them at an
even 110. Before the close they had dropped back with a gain of only
half a point over the opening.
Those were only two transactions. There were others. Spaceship
Fabrication climbed three points before it fell and Wrail cashed in on
that. Mercury Metals rose two points and crashed back to close with a
full point loss. Wrail sold just before the break. He had realized a
cool half million in the day's trade.
The next day it was a million and then the man who had always been a
safe trader, who had always played the conservative side of the market,
apparently sure of his ground now, plunged deeper and deeper. It was
uncanny. Wrail knew when to buy and when to sell. Other traders watched
closely, followed his lead. He threw them off by using different brokers
to disguise his transactions.
Hectic day followed hectic day. Ben Wrail did not appear on the floor.
Calls to his office netted exactly nothing. Mr. Wrail was not in. So
sorry.
His brokers, well paid, were close-mouthed. They bought and sold. That
was all.
Seated in his office, Ben Wrail was busy watching two television screens
before him. One showed the board in the New York exchange. In the other
was the image of Gregory Manning, hunched in a chair in Page's mountain
laboratory back on Earth. And before Greg likewise were two screens, one
showing the New York exchange board, the other trained on Ben Wrail's
office.
"That Tourist stuff looks good," said Greg. "Why not buy a block of it?
I happen to know that Chambers owns a few shares. He'll be dabbling in
it."
Ben Wrail grinned. "It's made a couple of points, hasn't it? It's
selling here for 60 right now. In 45 minutes it'll be quoted at 62."
He picked up a telephone. "Buy all you can of Tourist," he said. "Right
away. I'll tell you when to sell. Get rid of whatever you have in Titan
Copper at 10:30."
"Better let go of your holdings of Ranthoor Dome," suggested Greg. "It's
beginning to slip."
"I'll watch it," promised Ben. "It may revive."
They lapsed into silence, watching the board in New York.
"You know, Greg," said Ben finally, "I really didn't believe all this
was true until I saw those credit certificates materialize on my desk."
"Simple," grunted Greg. "This thing we've got can take anything any
place. I could reach out there, grab you up and have you down here in a
split second."
Ben sucked his breath in between his teeth. "I'm not doubting anything
any more. You sent me half a billion two days ago. It's more than
doubled now."
He picked up the phone again and spoke to his broker on the other end.
"Unload Ranthoor Dome when she reaches 79."
* * * * *
The real furor came on the Ranthoor floor when Wrail cornered Titan
Copper. Striking swiftly, he purchased the stock in huge blocks. The
shares rocketed as the exchanges throughout the System were thrown into
an uproar. Under the cover of the excitement he proceeded to corner
Spacesuits Ltd. Spacesuits zoomed.
For two days the main exchanges on four worlds were in a frenzy as
traders watched the shares climb swiftly. Operators representing
Interplanetary Power made offerings. No takers were reported. The shares
climbed.
Within one hour, however, the entire Wrail holdings in both stocks were
dumped on the market. The Interplanetary Power traders, frantic over the
prospect of losing control of the two important issues, bought heavily.
The price plummeted.
Spencer Chambers lost three billion or more on the deal. Overnight Ben
Wrail had become a billionaire many times over. Greg Manning added to
his own fortune.
"We have enough," said Greg. "We've given Chambers what he had coming to
him. Let's call it off."
"Glad to," agreed Ben. "It was just too damned easy."
"Be seeing you, Ben."
"I'll get down to Earth some day. Come see me when you have a minute.
Drop in for an evening."
"That's an invitation," said Greg. "It's easy with this three-dimension
stuff."
He reached out a hand, snapped a control. The screens in Wrail's office
went dead.
Wrail reached for a cigar, lit it carefully. He leaned back in his
chair, put his feet on the desk.
"By Heaven," he said satisfiedly, "I've never enjoyed anything so much
in all my life."
_CHAPTER EIGHT_
A giant cylindrical hull of finest beryl steel, the ship loomed in the
screen. A mighty ship, braced into absolute rigidity by monster cross
beams of shining steel. Glowing under the blazing lamps that lighted the
scene, it towered into the shadows of the factory, dwarfing the
scurrying workmen who swarmed over it.
"She's a beauty," said Russ, puffing at his pipe.
Greg nodded agreement. "They're working on her day and night to get her
finished. We may need it some day and need it in a hurry. If Chambers
really gets that machine of his to rolling, space will be the only place
big enough to hide in."
He chuckled, a grim chuckle, deep in his throat.
"But we won't have to hide long. Just until we get organized and then
will come the time when we'll call for the showdown. Chambers will have
to spread his cards."
Russ snapped the television switch and the screen went blank. The
laboratory suddenly was a place of queer lights and shadows, bulging
with grotesque machines, with sprawling apparatus, a place that hinted
darkly of vast power and mighty forces.
The scientist sat up in his chair. "We've come a long way, Greg. A long,
long way. We have the greatest power man has ever known; we have an
almost incomprehensible space drive; we have three-dimensional
television."
"And," said Greg dryly, "we took Chambers to the cleaners on the
market."
They sat in silence. Greg smelled the smoke from Russ's pipe, mixed with
the taint of lubricant and the faint lingering scent of ionized air.
"We mustn't underrate Chambers, however," he declared. "The man made one
mistake. He underrated us. We can't repeat his mistake. He is dangerous
all the time. He will stop at nothing. Not even murder."
"He's going easy now," said Russ. "He's hoping Craven can find something
that will either equal our stuff or beat it. But Craven isn't having any
luck. He's still driving himself on the radiation theory, but he doesn't
seem to make much headway."
"If he got it, just what would it mean?"
"Plenty. With that he could turn all radiations in space to work. The
cosmics, heat, light, everything. Space is full of radiation."
"If it hadn't been for Wilson," Greg said, his voice a snarl, "we
wouldn't have to be worrying about Chambers. Chambers wouldn't know
until we were ready to let him know."
"Wilson!" ejaculated Russ, suddenly leaning forward. "I had forgotten
about Wilson. What do you say we try to find him?"
* * * * *
Harry Wilson sat at his table in the Martian Club and watched the exotic
Martian dance, performed by near-nude girls. Smoke trailed up lazily
from his drooping cigarette as he watched through squinted eyes. There
was something about the dance that got under Wilson's skin.
The music rose, then fell to whispering undertones and suddenly,
unexpectedly, crashed and stopped. The girls were running from the
floor. A wave of smooth, polite applause rippled around the tables.
Wilson sighed and reached for his wine glass. He crushed the cigarette
into a tray and sipped his wine. He glanced around the room, scanning
the bobbing, painted faces of the night--the great, the near-great, the
near-enough-to-touch-the-great. Brokers and businessmen, artists and
writers and actors. There were others, too, queer night-life shadows
that no one knew much about, or that one heard too much about ... the
playboys and the ladies of family and fortune, correctly attired men,
gorgeously, sleekly attired women.
And--Harry Wilson. The waiters called him Mr. Wilson. He heard people
whispering about him asking who he was. His soul soaked it in and cried
for more. Good food, good drinks, the pastels of the walls, the soft
lights and weird, exotic music. The cold but colorful correctness of it
all.
Just two months ago he had stood outside the club, a stranger in the
city, a mechanic from a little out-of-the-way laboratory, a man who was
paid a pittance for his skill. He had stood outside and watched his
employers walk up the steps and through the magic doors. He had watched
in bitterness....
But now!
The orchestra was striking up a tune. A blonde nodded at him from a
near-by table. Solemnly, with the buzz of wine in his brain and its
hotness in his blood, he returned the nod.
Someone was speaking to him, calling him by name. He looked around, but
there was no one looking at him now. And once again, through that flow
of music, through the hum of conversation, through the buzzing of his
own brain, came the voice, cold and sharp as steel:
"Harry Wilson!"
It sent a shudder through him. He reached for the wine glass again, but
his hand stopped half-way to the stem, paused and trembled at what he
saw.
* * * * *
For there was a gray vagueness in front of him, a sort of shimmer of
nothingness, and out of that shimmer materialized a pencil.
As he watched, in stricken terror, the point of the pencil dropped to
the tablecloth and slowly, precisely, it started to move. He stared,
hypnotized, unbelieving, with the fingers of madness probing at his
brain. The pencil wrote:
Wilson, you sold me out.
The man at the table tried to speak, tried to shriek, but his tongue and
throat were dry and only harsh breath rattled in his mouth.
The pencil moved on mercilessly:
But you will pay. No matter where you go, I will find you. You
cannot hide from me.
The pencil slowly lifted its point from the table and suddenly was gone,
as if it had never been. Wilson, eyes wide and filled with terrible
fear, stared at the black words on the cloth.
Wilson, you sold me out. But you will pay. No matter where you go, I
will find you. You cannot hide from me.
The music pulsated in the room, the hum of conversation ran like an
undertone, but Wilson did not hear. His entire consciousness was
centered on the writing, the letters and the words that filled his soul
with dread.
Something seemed to snap within him. The cold wind of terror reached out
and struck at him. He staggered from the chair. His hand swept the wine
glass from the table and it shattered into chiming shards.
"They can't do this to me!" he shrieked.
There was a silence in the room a silence of terrible accusation.
Everyone was staring at him. Eyebrows raised.
* * * * *