"Sam, all I want is to gab with Dr. Ross for a minute or two. I've got
a great idea. And I'll make you a promise, Sam."
"Promise?"
"Sure. I'll promise you that if you let me in right now, and this idea
of mine goes through, that I'll see that you get a good bit in anything
I'm in. We'll work it up from character actor until you're playing
bigger and bigger bits. You can make a comeback, Sam, and I'll help you
then if you help me now. How's about it?"
Sam looked through the studio gates for a moment, and the thinking
could almost be seen in operation. He had darned little to lose; he
could always blame Dusty's entrance on some dreamed-up excuse, and if
Dusty's idea worked, he might even be able to take credit for having
used some initiative.
"It's a deal, Mr. Britton. But don't forget me."
"I won't."
Dusty went inside, found the main idea-office, and talked himself into
the office of Dr. Ross. These hurdles he found less difficult than the
front gate; possibly due to the fact that once a man was inside the
fence, everyone thought he belonged there.
Doctor Harold Ross greeted Dusty with surprise.
"Dusty! How goes it?"
"Not good. I'm a professional louse."
"How come?"
"Don't you read? Forget it. Look, Doc, you're actually the only
scientist I know, so I want to ask a couple of questions."
"I'll try. But let's not lose sight of the fact that I'm not a credited
scientist, as you put it. I'm a sort of cockeyed physicist whose job is
to see that actors squinting through telescopes see Saturn at the right
angle, and that birds looking through spectroscopes don't point at a
blue triplet and call it the Sodium D Lines."
"You might be even better than a real physicist of the research kind,"
said Dusty.
"Thanks for them kind words, Dusty. Flattery will get you nowhere."
"I'm not trying flattery. You've been in this make-believe business for
a long time. That's why you might be able to think it out."
"Go on, man. Spill your idea. What do you want me to do?"
"Let's assume that Dusty Britton's wild tale about a man named Scyth
Radnor, from Marandis, is right. And that this guy came out of a
spacecraft parked in the ocean, sitting on the sill of the spacelock
waiting for me. He talked about the death of the general relativity
theory in favor of something called the machinus theory of space-time,
phanobands, menslators and all sorts of things."
"Yeah? We've been having space warps ever since the days of Jack
Williamson."
* * * * *
Dusty grinned, perhaps for the first time in weeks. "Look," he said.
"I know the patter well enough. Doc Smith invented the Bergenholm and
Murray Leinster came along with the superdrive and George O. Smith
developed the matter transmitter to a fare-thee-well, but all this guff
is so much birdfood."
"What are you getting at, Dusty?"
"I wish I had studied a bit more science," said Dusty plaintively. "But
dammit, I don't know a microfarad from a polysyllabic neutron. But
I'm telling you that my so-called strange fancy is the God's Truth.
Some time in the next couple of weeks the Earth is going to get itself
transplanted. You can either help me now or you can come back later and
tell me that you're damned sorry you tossed me out. Take it or leave
it."
"All right. So maybe I'll take it. I've only a couple of weeks to lose.
What do you want me to say?"
"Look, Doc, supposing that you were convinced that interstellar travel
is possible; that these phanobands do exist. That this menslator
is a commercial instrument. And so on. Take the first premise:
faster-than-light travel is a commercial fact due to the development of
a theory called the machinus theory of space-time. Can you do a bit of
hypothetical theorization?"
"Sure thing. I don't mind. We'll take this on the basis of plenic
syllogistics. Our first premise will be that this menslator works as
your pal Scyth claims."
"It's Scyth. Not scythe."
"Then as I put it, the menslator produces the mental image that Scyth
intends. He will say, for instance: 'A gostak distims the doshes,' and
because he means that a professional preparer of comestibles has placed
an unstated number of crustaceans under an open flame, you receive this
statement of Scyth as: 'The cook broiled some lobsters.' Is that clear?"
"I can follow you," said Dusty. "This much Scyth explained."
"Good. Now let's look at our commonly accepted definition of
'Mechanus'. This means that it works. In other words we have him
telling us that their culture has developed a 'workable theory of
space-time' which has been taken up after the theory of general
relativity displayed a number of gaping holes. So their 'mechanus
theory of space-time' is a workable theory."
"And where does this lead us?" asked Dusty.
"Right back into a circle," said Dr. Ross thoughtfully. "Because if
they've developed interstellar travel due to considerations brought
about by the mechanus theory, that means that they have proved their
theory by practise."
Dusty grunted half-humorously. "Isn't this like saying that mud is
sticky because it's gooey? Or that winter is cold because of a lack of
heat?"