"And you're still interested?"
"Very much so."
McAllen was silent for a few seconds, biting reflectively at his lower
lip. "Very well," he said again. "You were speaking of my predilection
for fishing. Perhaps you'd care to accompany me on a brief fishing
trip?"
"Now?" Barney asked.
"Yes, now. I believe you understand what I mean ... I see you do.
Then, if you'll excuse me for a few minutes--"
* * * * *
Barney couldn't have said exactly what he expected to be shown. His
imaginings had run in the direction of a camouflaged vault beneath
McAllen's house--some massively-walled place with machinery that
powered the matter transmitter purring along the walls ... and perhaps
something in the style of a plastic diving bell as the specific
instrument of transportation.
The actual experience was quite different. McAllen returned shortly,
having changed into the familiar outdoor clothing--apparently he had
been literal about going on a fishing trip. Barney accompanied the old
physicist into the living room, and watched him open a small but very
sturdy wall safe. Immediately behind the safe door, an instrument
panel had been built in the opening.
Peering over the spectacles, McAllen made careful adjustments on two
sets of small dials, and closed and locked the safe again.
"Now, if you'll follow me, Mr. Chard--" He crossed the room to a door,
opened it, and went out. Barney followed him into a small room with
rustic furnishings and painted wooden walls. There was a single,
heavily curtained window; the room was rather dim.
"Well," McAllen announced, "here we are."
It took a moment for that to sink in. Then, his scalp prickling
eerily, Barney realized he was standing farther from the wall than he
had thought. He looked around, and discovered there was no door behind
him now, either open or closed.
He managed a shaky grin. "So that's how your matter transmitter
works!"
"Well," McAllen said thoughtfully, "of course it isn't really a matter
transmitter. I call it the McAllen Tube. Even an educated layman must
realize that one can't simply disassemble a living body at one point,
reassemble it at another, and expect life to resume. And there are
other considerations--"
"Where are we?" Barney asked. "On Mallorca?"
"No. We haven't left the continent--just the state. Look out the
window and see for yourself."
McAllen turned to a built-in closet, and Barney drew back the window
hangings. Outside was a grassy slope, uncut and yellowed by the summer
sun. The slope dropped sharply to a quiet lakefront framed by dark
pines. There was no one in sight, but a small wooden dock ran out into
the lake. At the far end of the dock an old rowboat lay tethered.
And--quite obviously--it was no longer the middle of a bright
afternoon; the air was beginning to dim, to shift towards evening.
Barney turned to find McAllen's mild, speculative eyes on him, and saw
the old man had put a tackle box and fishing rod on the table.
"Your disclosures disturbed me more than you may have realized,"
McAllen remarked by way of explanation. His lips twitched in the
shadow of a smile. "At such times I find nothing quite so soothing as
to drop a line into water for a while. I've got some thinking to do,
too. So let's get down to the dock. There ought to be a little bait
left in the minnow pail."
* * * * *
When they returned to the cabin some time later, McAllen was in a
pensive mood. He started a pot of coffee in the small kitchen, then
quickly cleaned the tackle and put it away. Barney sat at the table,
smoking and watching him, but made no attempt at conversation.
McAllen poured the coffee, produced sugar and powdered milk, and
settled down opposite Barney. He said abruptly, "Have you had any
suspicions about the reason for the secretive mumbo jumbo?"
"Yes," Barney said, "I've had suspicions. But it wasn't until _that_
happened"--he waved his hand at the wall out of which they appeared to
have stepped--"that I came to a definite conclusion."
"Eh?" McAllen's eyes narrowed suddenly. "What was the conclusion?"
"That you've invented something that's really a little too good."
"Too good?" said McAllen. "Hm-m-m. Go on."
"It doesn't take much power to operate the thing, does it?"
"Not," said McAllen dryly, "if you're talking about the kind of power
one pays for."
"I am. Can the McAllen Tube be extended to any point on Earth?"
"I should think so."
"And you financed the building of this model yourself. Not very
expensive. If the secret leaked out, I'd never know who was going to
materialize in my home at any time, would I? Or with what intentions."
"That," McAllen nodded, "is about the size of it."
Barney crushed out his cigarette, lit a fresh one, blew out a thin
streamer of smoke. "Under the circumstances," he remarked, "it's
unfortunate you can't get the thing shut off again, isn't it?"
McAllen was silent for some seconds. "So you've guessed that, too," he
said finally. "What mistake did I make?"
"None that I know of," Barney said. "But you're doing everything you
can to keep the world from learning about the McAllen Tube. At the
same time you've kept it in operation--which made it just a question
of time before somebody else noticed something was going on, as I did.
Your plans for the thing appear to have gone wrong."
McAllen was nodding glumly. "They have," he said. "They have, Mr.
Chard. Not irreparably wrong, but still--" He paused. "The first time
I activated the apparatus," he said, "I directed it only at two
points. Both of them within structures which were and are my property.
It was fortunate I did so."
"That was this cabin and the place on Mallorca?"
"Yes. The main operational sections of the Tube are concealed about my
California home. But certain controls have to be installed at any exit
point to make it possible to return. It wouldn't be easy to keep those
hidden in any public place.
"It wasn't until I compared the actual performance of the Tube with my
theoretical calculations that I discovered there was an unforeseen
factor involved. To make it short, I could not--to use your
phrasing--shut the Tube off again. But that would certainly involve
some extremely disastrous phenomena at three different points of our
globe."
"Explosions?" Barney asked.
"Weee-ll," McAllen said judiciously, "implosions might come a little
closer to describing the effect. The exact term isn't contained in our
vocabulary, and I'd prefer it _not_ to show up there, at least in my
lifetime. But you see my dilemma, don't you? If I asked for help, I
revealed the existence of the Tube. Once its existence was known, the
research that produced it could be duplicated. As you concluded, it
isn't really too difficult a device to construct. And even with the
present problem solved, the McAllen Tube is just a little too
dangerous a thing to be at large in our world today."
"You feel the problem can be solved?"
"Oh, yes." McAllen took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "That
part of it's only a matter of time. At first I thought I'd have
everything worked out within three or four years. Unfortunately I
badly underestimated the expense of some of the required
experimentation. That's what's delayed everything."
"I see. I had been wondering," Barney admitted, "why a man with
something like this on his mind would be putting in _quite_ so much
time fishing."
McAllen grinned. "Enforced idleness. It's been very irritating really,
Mr. Chard. I've been obliged to proceed in the most inexpensive manner
possible, and that meant--very slowly."
Barney said, "If it weren't for that question of funds, how long would
it take to wind up the operation?"
"A year--perhaps two years." McAllen shrugged. "It's difficult to be
too exact, but it certainly wouldn't be longer than two."
"And what would be the financial tab?"
McAllen hesitated. "A million is the bottom figure, I'm afraid. It
should run closer to a million and a half."
"Doctor," Barney said, "let me make you a proposition."
* * * * *
McAllen looked at him. "Are you thinking of financing the experiments,
Mr. Chard?"
"In return," Barney said, "for a consideration."
"What's that?" McAllen's expression grew wary.
"When you retired," Barney told him, "I dropped a nice piece of money
as a consequence. It was the first beating I'd taken, and it hurt. I'd
like to pick that money up again. All right. We're agreed it can't be
done on the McAllen Tube. The Tube wouldn't help make the world a
safer place for Barney Chard. But the Tube isn't any more remarkable
than the mind that created it. Now I know a company which could be top
of the heap in electronics precision work--one-shot specialties is
what they go in for--if it had your mind as technical advisor. I can
buy a controlling interest in that company tomorrow, doctor. And you
can have the million and a half paid off in not much more time than
you expect to take to get your monster back under control and shut
down. Three years of your technical assistance, and we're clear."
McAllen's face reddened slowly. "I've considered hiring out, of
course," he said. "Many times. I need the money very badly. But aren't
you overlooking something?"
"What?"
"I went to considerable pains," said McAllen, "to establish myself as
a lunatic. It was distasteful, but it seemed necessary to discourage
anyone from making too close an investigation of some of my more
recent lines of research. If it became known now that I was again in
charge of a responsible project--"
Barney shook his head. "No problem, doctor. We'd be drawing on outside
talent for help in specific matters--very easy to cover up any leads
to you personally. I've handled that general sort of thing before."
McAllen frowned thoughtfully. "I see. But I'd have--There wouldn't be
so much work that--"
"No," Barney said. "I guarantee that you'll have all the time you want
for your own problem." He smiled. "Considering what you told me, I'd
like to hear that one's been solved myself!"
McAllen grinned briefly. "I can imagine. Very well. Ah ... when can
you let me have the money, Mr. Chard?"
* * * * *
The sun was setting beyond the little lake as Barney drew the shades
over the cabin window again. Dr. McAllen was half inside the built-in
closet at the moment, fitting a pair of toggle switches to the
concealed return device in there.
"Here we go," he said suddenly.
Three feet from the wall of the room the shadowy suggestion of another
wall, and of an open door, became visible.