The missing link!
Several inches of the caliper were missing.
Ben nodded.
Peter reached forward gingerly and passed his fingers through the
space. He felt of the ends. They were microscopically smooth, true
planes of cleavage. The far end, that acted as anvil for the main ram
was solid and immobile despite being separated from the framework by
six inches of--nothing.
"You see," said Ben, "we need only a small port in the item we're
building. For instance--" and Ben opened the closet door a crack, slid
the far end inside, and then closed the door. He shoved forward and
rapped the door panel with the main ram. Then pulled back and--
Rapped the inside of the door panel with the hidden end.
"If we were riveting, now, we could slip in our rivet and pull the
trigger. Follow?"
"I follow, but where's the missing piece? What holds it that way?"
"The missing piece is coming," said Ben, retrieving his instrument and
sitting down.
"I ... ah--" started Joe Simpkins, and then taking Peter Wright's arm
in a viselike grip, pointed dramatically to his office door. "The
wind," he gasped.
* * * * *
Wright shook his head. It was far too much for him. He was strictly out
of his element, and struggling madly to keep up. The door, he saw, was
swinging shut, propelled by the wind. He recalled what they had said
at the portal upon entry, something about the door should be open. With
a shout and a leap, Peter raced for the door.
It slammed, and Peter grabbed for the knob.
Then the glass erupted in his face; in shards it fell to the floor,
and a metal piece came soaring through the air, through the glass, and
circled the room. Peter's jaw was slack as he watched it flying about
with no apparent plan. It poised for a minute before his chair, where
Ben had held up the blindy riveter for his inspection. In Peter's
imagination, he saw himself sitting there, passing his ghostly fingers
through the spot where that piece of steel now hung immobile. It headed
for the closet, and Ben, watching, opened the door wide. The piece slid
in, moved this way and that, rapped forward against nothing and then
rapped backwards toward the room--against nothing, and then floated
rapidly toward the riveter itself.
With precision it approached the riveter. It came to rest easily,
slipping into place with no shock, and the cleavage lines disappeared.
The blindy was complete again.
"See?" said Simpkins.
"Yeah," gulped Peter, weakly.
Laconically, a workman entered, cleaned up the glass on the floor, and
started to replace the shattered panel.
"I see--but I don't really believe it," said Peter, flopping into his
chair.
The two men laughed uproariously.
Ben sat down and Simpkins started. "You see, the time field," he said
by way of explanation. "I haven't the vaguest notion of how it works
or why. I admit it. But what does happen is that during the workday,
the missing sections of all blindy tools are stored in the tool room.
At the end of the day, their respective tools are returned to the tool
room where they restore completely. About seven to eight o'clock, the
midsections emerge from the tool room and go through the motions made
by the entire tool, eventually following their ah ... owners ... back
to the tool room where they join. At this point, those tools required
for use on the following day are placed in the temporal treater, and
treated for whatever period of action is required."
"If it takes four hours for work, they're treated for four hours," put
in Ben.
"And once the day's work is finished, the work itself must be moved,
since where the tool fits across a barrier, now the missing piece
occupies that same space. If it does not find room, the man handling
the tool several hours before will not be able to set his tool."
"Which was why I couldn't enter with the riveter," added Ben.
"It acts quite normally," said Simpkins, though with some doubt. "You
couldn't bring the thing through a barrier if no time-difference
exists. Actually, there is a temporal offset in the thing. It may pass
through the same space as another time, but not at the same time."
"And you can't lick it," said Ben solemnly. "I purposely left the
door open. But if I had really left the door open, I'd have had no
resistance in the first place--I found no trouble in hooking it over
the closet door--because when the mislink appeared, I opened the door
for it. It does help, sometimes," grinned the shop foreman, "because we
can tell when a piece of work is not going to be moved. Then it impedes
the work."
"How do you know whether the impedance caused by not moving the work
is responsible for the work not having been moved?" asked Simpkins,
wonderingly.
"I don't mind being on either horn of a dilemma," said Ben. "But I've
yet to see the dilemma that I'd ride both horns simultaneously on."
"Um, a bad animal, the dilemma," laughed Simpkins. "Well, Wright, I
trust the demonstration was successful?"
"Successfully confusing," admitted the insurance adjuster. "I gather
that the injured party got in the way of a missing link?"
"Whoever it will be was in the way of a mislink from a box-car crane."
"Bad, huh?"
"Could be--we'll know in a while."
* * * * *
Ben lit a cigarette and said: "The box-car crane is a gadget made
possible by the temporal treating. Prior to its use they put heavy
machinery into the box car by running to the door on a crane and then
they dropped it on a dolly and slid and levered it inside and in
place. Now they have a crane with a mislink between the pulley block
and the grab hook. They hook it on, lift it up, and slide it inside
the car, suspended on the mislink that permits the roof of the car to
intervene."
"And the victim fell afoul of one of these?"
Ben nodded.
"You're absolutely certain?"
"Of course not," he said. "A number of things might have caused the
trouble. This one is a boom-type crane. The mislinks are in the booms,
and when it was swinging back from dropping a case inside, it hit
something."
"Something? Can this be identified?"
"With a minor interference, we can feel it," said Simpkins. "With a
mislink screwdriver, we can feel the interference. If it is hard, we
know that someone has--or will drop something in the way."
"And if it is soft, and moves, you can estimate it to be animal," added
Ben.
"Can't you probe with a feeler of some sort?"
"We do--and did. There was a body on the ground after the accident."
"No identification possible?"
"None. Probing with a rod in the dark makes identification difficult.
We've tried to make some sort of study, such as wearing a magnetic
badge with a key-impression on its face--the magnetic to locate and
the key to identify, but frankly," and Simpkins frowned deeply, "it's
psychologically dangerous. The accident can not be averted. After all,
it has happened. And we tried it once, and the man who was hurt--well,
knowing he was to be hurt, he went into a mental funk far worse than
the accident."
"Why didn't you send him home or have him guarded over carefully?"
"We tried, kept him guarded closely. Aside from putting him in
an air-tight case, we did about everything. When the accident
occurred--well, he and his guards went to watch the first time that the
thing could be fooled.
"It happened, all right," said Simpkins. "First, another man caught a
mislink on his shoulder, which laid him out slightly. That, we thought,
was it! And if it was, the time-factor was all screwed up. But we
all ran forward to measure, and as we did, our man got clipped with
another. The first accident had gone unnoticed by the operator."
"How can you tell that such an accident will happen?" asked Peter.
"Seems to me that a hundred tons of crane might not notice a few pounds
of human in its way."
"We erect guard-wires that register. That is for one reason only. We
use it to summon the medicos and the hospital ambulance, and prepare
for action. That's about all we can do."
"I wonder if you could take a picture of such?" suggested Peter.
"Huh?"
"Take a picture with a camera controlled by the operator--you know,
temporal treat the camera, film, and all but the range finder and the
shutter release."
"Look, fellow, that would take a picture of the accident as it happens,
all right. It's also done. Makes excellent records. But as for
pre-accident stuff, know what happens?"
"No, of course not."
"Well," smiled Ben, "you'll see. Anyway, the camera comes roaring
out, is poised in midair, and is snapped. The timing isn't too good,
however. Well, you'll see the camera come out and snap around the place
when the accident happens. Remember this is not time travel, and you
can't go forward and take a picture and then come back."
"For what good it does, we can tell about when a piece of goods will
move by leaning a long-time mislink against it and waiting for it to
fall."
"Does electricity cross the gap?"
"Nope. Only force and motion. The television idea isn't good either,
young man."
"Um, how did you know?" asked Peter.
"We go through this regular. You're not the first that has been trying
to avert accidents."
"You understand that I represent I.I.I.?"
"Yes," said Simpkins. "As such, it is your responsibility to do as much
as possible to save your company money. That is your job."
"Right. I still say that there is some means of averting the accident,
somehow."
* * * * *
"Well, Ben, we've always claimed that we'd tried everything. But they
didn't try the electric light until Edison got the idea, and the
airplane was a new science when they went to work on it. Young man,"
said Simpkins, to Peter Wright, "you are a young man with a bright mind
for legal intricacies. It usually makes little difference so long as
the mind is capable of handling the intricacies, just what the mind was
specialized in. You are a fresh mind and we've all seen fresh minds
enter and lick a problem that stuck the original men for months. You
think you can lick it?"
"I don't know. It just seems to me that there must be some way."
"Don't forget," said Ben, "that this is not much different from a
regular problem. In construction, I mean. We have accidents where a man
is hit by a flying grab hook that is not in any way temporal treated.
Common accidents. The real problem, Peter, is to stop accidents. Not to
try to avert them after they have happened."
"But this one--"
"So far as the temporal treatment goes, is--or has happened."
"Could you temporal treat the stuff so the mislinks pass through first?"
"Sure," laughed Ben. "Not practical. They have no forewarning then.
They just go where the tools will go when used. We can't tell when one
of the men will try to grind a mislink chisel. As it is, we can clear
the area where the tools have been."
"Just remember that this is fact: For a one-hour mislink, we treat the
tools for one hour. They are then ready for use for one hour. At the
end of that time, the mislinks start to follow, and follow for one
hour, at which time the temporal difference decreases on a fourth power
curve, and the mislink catches up with the tool and falls back into
place."
"Uh-huh. Well, I'm new at it, gentlemen, but it is my guess that this
accident you anticipate need not happen."
"You forget," corrected Ben. "It's happened."
"Then where's the body?" demanded Peter Wright.
"It ... ah--"
"Has it really happened?"
"It will with certainty."
"Thus proving the utter futility of all effort?"
"Ah--"
"See?" laughed Peter.
* * * * *
They left the office and proceeded into the factory. Here, where
things should have been humming, all was at a standstill. Men sat
on the benches and smoked nervously. They looked into one another's
eyes with that "Will it be me?" stare, and they worried visibly. An
electrician who tinkered hourly with lethal voltages as his day's work
sat and chewed his fingernails. A machinist, sitting on the bedplate
of a forming press large enough to stamp out an automobile body around
the place where he sat, was biting his lips and looking out through
the opened door to the shipping platform. Men outside were working
feverishly, however.
"Why?" asked Peter.
"They want to get done. They must get done so that the engine can
remove the car where the accident will happen."
"Where is this scene?" asked Peter.
It was out on the loading platform. A mislink crane shunted large cases
from the platform, swung around in an arc, and the missing section
passed through the door and the crane ran down the length of the car,
dropping the case at the far end. The mislink crane returned, the far
end reappeared, and another case was hooked to the boom. The operation
was repeated. The cases were fitted in the box car with neatness and
dispatch. The pile of cases diminished, and the box car was sealed as
the crane went to work on the next car in line. It took time, though,
to fill each car, and the men working out here sweated visibly, partly
in fear and partly from the hurried work.
They had little time to stare into one another's faces and wonder which
of them would be taking the brunt of the accident. As time wore along,
the siren of the ambulance arriving caused some nervousness. The doctor
and his corps of nurses came slowly forward, inquired as to the scene,
and proceeded to lay out a fairly well equipped emergency operating
set-up.
"I'm beginning to feel the morbidity of this," said Peter. "The doctor,
the ambulance, the insurance agent. We're like a bunch of vultures
awaiting the faltering step of the desert wanderer."
"A bunch of undertakers waiting for the accident to happen," said Ben.
"No, I'm not calloused. I'm scared slightly green. I can't take it
unless I joke about it. It's the uncertain certainty--the wondering
just which one of us gets caught in the certain accident."
"It seems uncanny to talk about the certainty of accident," said Peter.
"The training at I.I.I. would instill a bit of the perfection of
the statistical method in you," nodded Simpkins. "By the time your
statistical bureau gets all done checking the chances of a new account,
no one would bet against it. I.I.I. also puts the kiss of death on,
too. Just try to hire men for a plant that can't be insured by your
outfit. They'll ask a thousand credits a day."
"What time is this affair going to happen?" asked Peter.
"Not too long. They're about finished. Then they inert everything as
usual and we'll all retreat to the inside wall and wonder."
"Why not all go home?"
"You can't win," said Ben solemnly. "We did all go home once."
"And the accident happened anyway?"
"Certainly. A thief broke in and it clipped him. Just don't forget that
this isn't a probability, it's certain. And the same mob-instinct that
makes people gather around an injured man will keep the entire gang
here, morbidly waiting to see who gets it in what way. There is that
element of wonder, too, you know. Every man in the place knows that
someone is going to get clipped with that crane. They're all cagey and
very careful. It will be an accident despite planning, and therefore
the unforeseen something will be out of the ordinary."
* * * * *
"Quite a problem, Peter," said Simpkins.
"I see it is."
"A lot of this veiling is sheer psychiatry. We've consulted the best
behavior specialists in the system. Keeping the fact secret is worse
than permitting free knowledge, according to them. But identifying the
victim is far worse than to have everybody in a slight tizzy."
"Why?"
"Well, when it happens, we have a victim that realizes that part of
the chance was his, and shock is not so great than it would be if no
warning took place in light of the management knowing all about it
beforehand. On the other hand, all the men who were not hurt get as
much uplift after it happens as their downswing of anticipation. On the
third hand--pardon the numbers, Peter--if the victim were positively
identified, the rest would be no better off, but the victim would be a
mental case from then on, and shock would set in prior to the accident.
Then we'd be likely to run up the casualty rate. Follow?"
"It seems like a hard row to hoe."
"Well, usually we keep people out of danger areas. We know where
they'll be, of course. It's these darned accidents that happen twice in
time."
"Twice in time?"
"Yes. The accident happens once invisibly, and once visibly. Once in
the future controlled by the present, and then as the future unfolds,
it is an accident happening in the present, controlled by the past.
It's blind time, and there is nothing we can do about it."
"That fatalistic attitude again."
"Well--"