The door was closed, and on it in big letters were the words NARCOTICS
BUREAU. I carefully opened the door and looked inside.
* * * * *
It was a small room, and there were only four men in it. Three of
them were bent intently over their desks. But the fourth man had
tilted back in his chair for a moment’s reflection and contemplation.
His hands were clasped behind his head, and everything about him was
normal--except his eyes. No human eyes should ever protrude the way his
did.
Krome hung suspended from the ceiling. Everything below his collar bone
was in plain sight, and most of it was thrashing around noiselessly.
For about ten seconds it continued thus--the immobile narcotics expert,
the quivering Krome. Then Krome managed to turn on the energy field
in the upper part of the suit. Without a sound he slipped out of the
ceiling, fell through the floor, and disappeared.
Nobody saw him go except me and the thinker. That amazing gentleman
swallowed hard and sat upright. A quick glance convinced him that none
of the others had noticed anything wrong. He swallowed again, sighed
heavily, and then methodically began to clean out his desk.
As I was sadly closing the door, I realized with sudden consternation
that Krome was dropping toward the Search Room on the ground floor. And
the ceiling there was over twenty feet high. I began to run again.
The Search Room was quiet when I burst into it, holding my tattered and
blood-caked clothing tightly around me. The occupants of the room gave
me strange looks, but they were so used to having screwballs around
that nobody said anything. I kept my eyes on the ceiling.
For a moment there was no sign of Krome. Then off to one side, over
near the entrance where the patent bundles were kept, a foot appeared
from the ceiling. It moved around as if seeking a firm place to
stand, and then quickly withdrew back into the ceiling. It cautiously
reappeared a moment later, closer to the huge pillars that stretched
down to the floor. Again it sought a footing.
I heaved a sigh of relief. Krome evidently knew where he was, and was
taking no chances. As I stared the foot vanished for the second time.
It came into view again an instant later, this time about eighteen
inches from the arch at the summit of the pillars. It flitted around
and found the pillar. Hands flashed through the ceiling as Krome
paddled himself over, and then carefully lowered himself out of the
ceiling and into the arch at the top. Large portions of him were now in
plain view.
The uproar from the floors above had been steadily increasing in
volume. The people in the Search Room were glancing questioningly at
one another. And just as Krome was about to complete his transfer to
the pillar one of the patent stenographers saw him.
Her screams all but shattered every window in the block-long room.
Everybody froze. All eyes followed the stenographer’s hand that was
pointing to where Krome was just beginning to descend, half in and
half out of the pillar. A long moment of stark silence gave a kind of
funeral dirge significance to what followed.
There were only two exits. I was smart this time. I stood off to one
side as the terrified occupants of the room leaped over the search
tables like gazelles fleeing from a lion. Chairs were crushed to
pulpwood. Many people had been back in the stacks when the commotion
started, and were now emerging with their arms loaded with bundles of
patents. Instantly the air was thick with flying documents.
I couldn’t help but admire the consummate skill with which Krome
descended the column. His rear end protruded as he stepped slowly down.
Every four or five feet, he’d stop, turn around, and thrust his head
out to make sure where he was. Then he’d disappear for a moment, out
would come his backside again, and the slow descent would resume.
There was a revolving fan fastened to the pillar about seven feet above
the floor. I watched, fascinated, as Krome got closer and closer to
it. Finally fan and fanny met. The blades flowed into long slivers of
metal that shot across the room and _spanged_ off the walls. The motor,
relieved of its load, began to race faster and faster.
Krome must have felt the gentle blows of the blades because his hand
reached out of the pillar and brushed at them as though he were shooing
a fly. His hand passed through the fan support. There was a shower of
sparks and a little smoke curled up. The fan sagged forward on its
support and then solidified as Krome’s hand moved on through. I never
saw a sorrier looking device than that fan once Krome got through with
it. The electricians would be in for a bad few hours trying to figure
out what had happened to it.
Krome finally reached the floor, stepped out of the pillar, turned
off the suit, and heaved a big sigh. He turned around and for the
first time got a good look at the Search Room. Most of the chairs were
reduced to rubble. Many of the large search tables were overturned and
broken and Krome himself stood knee-deep in patents.
Krome gave one puzzled and uncomprehending glance at all this. Then
he looked at the clock over the door. “Good grief!” he groaned. “Two
thirty-five! The Commissioner!” He turned and ran through one of the
archways that opened into the stacks. I lit out after him.
He had turned the suit on again, except for the soles of the feet. This
gave him a decided advantage over me. He could take short cuts through
solid walls. He went through the back wall of the stacks without even
slowing down.
I cut off to one side through the door that led into the foreign art. I
stopped and listened. From the other end of the long law room I heard a
sudden splintering crash. I raced on in trepidation. A man was standing
near the Swedish art. A broken pint bottle lay at his feet and whiskey
was lapping at the soles of his shoes. His forefinger was half-crooked
in front of his face. But it was his bulging eyes, aimed at a section
of the wall, which pointed out the direction Krome had taken. As I
turned from him he collapsed, head in hands, and began to sob quietly.
I quickly found my way to the back corridor. As I proceeded down it,
the now-familiar ruckus started up in the Mail Room. Women screamed,
men shouted, and heavy objects thumped on the floor. Krome had used
very poor judgment in cutting through the Mail Room. But how was he to
know that the people in it were not scientifically-minded?
I waited until one of the doors stopped spewing people, and then leaped
resolutely inside. One glance convinced me that the Patent Office would
not be running smoothly for a considerable period to come. Several of
the clerks had dropped to their knees and were praying, some quietly,
some loudly.
There were papers everywhere. And an empty mailbag dangled limply
from an overhead light, looking startlingly like the victim of an
over-wrought hangman. One man sat on the floor in front of a pile of
thousands of newly-arrived applications. He was laughing insanely and
tossing repeated handfuls of applications high overhead. Petitions,
checks, notarized oaths, drawings, and fragments of applications
slithered through the air like snowflakes in a blizzard. Krome had
passed through, all right.
I walked amidst the bedlam unnoticed seeking some sign of Krome. I
couldn’t figure out where he had gone. Then suddenly I had it--his
two-thirty appointment with the Commissioner.
I jumped to a window and looked out. My heart almost stopped beating at
what I saw.
A girl was walking away from me along the sidewalk, her hips swinging
up and down like the ends of a seesaw. Krome was plowing along right
behind her, completely out of control, getting closer all the time. He
was tilted forward pawing at the ground with his hands, now submerged
to his neck, now above ground to his ankles. The girl had ignored his
first frantic warnings, so Krome shouted again. She threw an annoyed
glance back over one shoulder and--the seesaw froze.
Krome churned closer and closer. My heart was in my mouth. I had no
idea what would happen when the diving suit bumped into a live human
being. I stopped breathing.
Closer and closer! Then just as a collision seemed inevitable Krome
executed a rather neat surface dive into the pavement which carried
him safely and spectacularly underneath her feet. Almost instantly
he reappeared on the other side doing a strong overhand stroke which
quickly put a safe distance between himself and the grievously
threatened young lady. She toppled over in a dead faint.
I dashed into the next building, into an office where a short, heavyset
man stood bending over a huge desk. I recognized him in a flash. The
Commissioner of Patents!
At the Commissioner’s desk side sat a man in uniform--a two-star
general.
It added up. I thought fast. Krome--the Commissioner--the general.
I cleared my throat as they looked up blankly. “I beg your pardon,” I
said politely. “I’m Mr. Saddle, Dr. Marchare’s attorney in the diving
suit case. Mr. Krome suggested I be here during his appointment on this
matter.”
“Really?” grunted the Commissioner. “And where is Mr. Krome?”
“He said he’d be passing through any moment now,” I said hurriedly.
Just then Krome walked in through the north wall. Fortunately neither
the general nor the Commissioner saw him until he stepped out from the
wall.
The Commissioner glared at Krome, then at his desk clock. “You’re
late,” he chided. “However, since you brought the suit, that’ll
save time. Gentlemen, this is General Bond, Secret Weapons Bureau,
Department of Defense.”
Krome got it immediately too. But, like other people who live by their
wits, my reflexes were faster. I said smoothly, “Mr. Krome and I have
just been giving the suit a tryout, and he invited me along to the
conference.” I beamed sideways at Krome. “He finds all the claims
allowable, and my client stands prepared to license the Secretary of
Defense to manufacture, at a very reasonable royalty, any and all--”
“But--” sputtered Krome.
“Mr. Krome has applied to most stringent tests.” I continued hurriedly
as I sidled over toward the encased, protesting figure. And in patting
him jovially on the back, I somehow brushed against the mike button,
chopping off the torrent in mid-cascade. “Oops, how careless of me! Oh,
well, Mr. Krome will tell you himself, as soon as I get the helmet off.”
“How long will that take?” demanded General Bond.
“Not more than three or four hours,” I said. “If it doesn’t jam.”
“Can’t wait.” He turned curtly to the Commissioner. “Phone me the
patent number as soon as the application is passed to issue.”
“Yes, sir,” the Commissioner replied.
“And you, Mr. Saddle,” said the general sternly, “had better inform Dr.
Marchare about the penalties of profiteering against his government.
We’ll give him a trial order for ten thousand suits, but if he holds
out for more than five thousand dollars per suit, we’ll seize the
patent by Eminent Domain.”
“I suppose the good doctor won’t mind taking a loss on a small trial
order,” I said reluctantly, “But, of course, on a mass scale, my client
would at least have to make expenses, particularly if he adds certain
improved features.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” declared the Commissioner. “There’s something
funny about this. Look at Krome. Tears are pouring down his cheeks!”
“I’m sure that’s sweat.” I mopped my face hurriedly. “It’s warm in here
too, isn’t it? Dr. Marchare intends to air-condition the suit. That’ll
bring it up to an even six thousand.”
“Five thousand five hundred,” clipped the general.
I hesitated a moment. “You’re a hard man, general,” I sighed. “But--all
right, five thousand five hundred it is.”
And I led Krome out of the room.
Transcriber’s note:
This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, November 1955 (Vol. 4,
No. 4.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.
Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor
inconsistencies have been retained as printed.