In the lab, Tom surveyed ruefully the damage the fire and water had
done. He stood for a long time staring at the spot on the wall where
the painting had hung, then sighed and shook his head. I had the
impression that he was sorry for the whole human race.
"I want you to pick up all the scraps of paper that were on the big
table," he said. "It doesn't matter if they are scorched or soaked.
Enough will remain for me to reassemble my own equations that I
developed from the painting. Bring these to the old lab. Then I want
you to make certain that I have all the black coffee on hand I can
drink. Then--" He hesitated. "Do you think they will be back?" he said
at last.
"I hope so." I said.
I collected the scraps of paper and took them to the old lab and set
up an electric coffee maker that would keep the black brew hot at all
times. Digging a folding cot out of the basement, I put it across the
door. Putting my gun within easy reach, I lay down on the cot. The last
glimpse I had of Tom before I went to sleep, he was frowning at the
pieces of paper on the table in front of him. With the bandages on his
face, he looked like a mummy in grave clothes risen from the tomb to
try to solve the riddle of the Sphinx, and not doing very well with the
problem.
During the night I awakened. Tom was still at the table. When morning
came, he was still there, but his head was beginning to droop. When I
tried to coax him to take a turn on the cot, he glared at me as if I
were crazy.
"I can't afford to sleep. Go get me some benezedrine."
From the drug store, I called the hospital. "Miss Briscoe is very low,"
Dr. Crane told me. "How is my other patient?"
"Alive," I answered. Returning to the lab with the benezedrine tablets,
I didn't tell him about Ann. I spent the morning throwing out Herker
and more inspectors from the insurance companies. I didn't want any of
Long Jaw's pals to slip in under the pretense that they were insurance
adjustors.
In the late afternoon Tom yelled, "I've got it, Luke. Here! Get these
items for me." Hastily scribbling what he wanted, he handed the slip
of paper to me. "Burn up the road, Luke. Move!" I moved.
When I returned with the parts he wanted, he got busy assembling the
weirdest-looking gadget I have ever seen. It seemed to be electronic
in nature but it also seemed to include elements that started where
electronics left off. All night long, he continued to work on it.
Dozing on my cot, I awakened once to find him pacing the floor.
"Uh-huh," I thought. "He hasn't got all the bugs out of it yet."
Sometime during the night the unlisted phone rang. "What the hell?" I
wondered, getting up to answer it. Nobody knew this number.
Dr. Crane was on the wire. "Miss Briscoe gave me this number," he said.
"She asked me to call Mr. Calhoun and tell him that she needs him."
"I'll tell him," I said.
"You might also tell him that she can't possibly last out the night."
Crane's dry objective voice went into quiet silence as he replaced the
phone on its cradle.
* * * * *
Tom hadn't heard the phone ring. I had to shake him to get his
attention. When I told him what Crane had said, he nodded as if this
was exactly what he had been expecting. "Okay, Luke, we'll go to her."
He picked up the breadboard on which his gadget was mounted.
"What are you taking that with you for?" I demanded.
"Ann worked hard helping me solve the secret of the painting," he
answered. "She deserves to see its first performance. Get yourself into
over-drive, Luke."
At the hospital, a nurse took us directly to Ann's room. Lying on the
bed, swathed in bandages, she was a mummy that did not move. Deep in
sedation now, she did not know we were present. On the far side of her
bed, whole blood was being dripped into her arm. Dr. Crane looked up
from checking her pulse as we entered. "Everything we could do to give
her strength has failed," he said.
"What about infection?" Tom asked.
The doctor gave him a sharp look as if to ask what he meant by hinting
that infection could exist in a properly run hospital. "There is no
serious infection. Her burns were so severe that she simply lacks the
strength to rally." His voice was as grim as my thoughts.
Tom set his breadboard on the foot of the bed and ran an extension cord
to an electric outlet.
"What do you have there?" Crane asked.
"A way to give her strength," Tom answered.
The doctor leaned back on his heels. He looked at the instrument, which
certainly did not impress him, and started to shake his head. Then he
looked at Tom. The headshake turned into tightly clenched lips. "I am
familiar with your reputation, Mr. Calhoun, but this--" The headshake
came back.
"There was a first time for a hypodermic injection, a time when
somebody first gave blood, a time when somebody took the first
antibiotic," Tom said.
Dr. Crane hesitated. A struggle was going on within his mind. He
moved to the bed and felt Ann's pulse. A thin trace of perspiration
appeared on his forehead. "She's dying," he whispered. "Under any other
circumstances, I would say no. But--Oh, hell, Mr. Calhoun, if you know
a way to give her strength, go ahead."
Tom closed a switch. A soft hum came from the instrument. A cone
that looked like a small transmitting antennae was mounted on the
breadboard. Tom lined up the cone so that it pointed at Ann's body. He
glanced at me. Sweat was visible on his face too. Without a word, I lit
a cigarette and gave it to him. The sweat was very clear on his face
now. Or was it tears?
"You knew all the time that Ann had no chance to get well?" I asked.
"That's why you worked so hard, on this?"
"Yes," he answered. "It was a race against time. It still is." He
turned his attention to his instruments.
I shut up. It got very still in that hospital room. In the corridor
outside feet lisped on tip-toe as a nurse hurried on an errand of
mercy. In the far distance a car hooted impatiently as somebody bucked
for his place in the emergency receiving room. Dr. Crane stood without
moving. His eyes went from Tom to the instrument, then on to Ann, then
retraced their course. Tom closed another switch. A white radiation
leaped from the cone. It touched Ann's body at the knees. Part of it
seemed to dive through the bandages there and flow inward. The rest
of it passed upward along the body, penetrating where it touched. It
turned the bandages the color of old silver, well polished.
"What is that?" Dr. Crane asked. His voice was a taut whisper.
"The white light that you see is the visible component of invisible
radiations," Tom answered. "It means my generator is not working
properly. Otherwise, there would be nothing to see."
"Is this the bug you were worrying about?" I asked.
"Yes. I didn't have time to clean it up."
* * * * *
The doctor stepped forward and took Ann's wrist in his fingers. A
startled expression appeared on his face. "Her pulse is getting
stronger," he said.
"She is receiving energy, her whole body is being bathed in it," Tom
said. "Seen from one viewpoint, energy is all that exists." His voice
suddenly had the dry tones of a professor addressing a class in atomic
physics. "Energy in motion at one rate of speed we call light. Energy
whose motion has been slowed to a crawl, we call matter. The two
are interchangeable. Even the human body, with all of its marvelous
glands, its nervous system, and its wonderful brain, falls into the
last category. If we could see our bodies as they actually exist, we
would be aware of an infinite number of dancing points of light, the
infinitesimally minute particles of energy that compose it." He paused.
The doctor stood absolutely motionless. "So there is energy--and
something else." Tom continued. His voice seemed to come from miles
away.
"What is this something else?" the doctor asked.
"I call it _mind_," Tom answered. "It works with energy, directs it,
and moulds it into a thousand different shapes and forms." His voice
was soft with awe and reverence.
The doctor reached forward to check Ann's pulse. An exclamation of
surprise came from his lips. He lifted her arm, then snapped on a
light. His surprise grew greater. Snatching a pair of scissors, he cut
swiftly through the bandages that swathed her arm.
"New flesh!" the doctor gasped. "Where there was only burned meat,
now there is new flesh. And n--new skin!" A stutter appeared in the
doctor's voice. A glaze came into his eyes. His chest heaved. "Medicine
knows nothing like this." His voice was heavy with wonder.
"It knows something like this now," Tom said. "Remove the rest of the
bandages."
The doctor's fingers shook as he applied the scissors. Her body was
revealed. The burns had vanished. Instead there was the warm pink flesh
of a child, built there by the energy flowing from the cone.
She stirred sleepily on the bed. "I have been having the most wonderful
dream--that I have a new body."
Under heavy sedation, she knew nothing that had been going on. She
thought she was having a dream. The three of us in that room knew how
wonderful that dream really was.
Cool air breathed across my neck. I don't know how I knew what had
happened but I knew. As I turned, my eyes confirmed my hunch. The door
was open. Three men were coming through it. Long Jaw was in the lead.
I hit with all my strength. The protruding jaw was within range. My
fist landed full on the button with a thud that I felt all the way
through my body. Never in my life had I hit a man that I enjoyed
hitting as much. Long Jaw went over backwards.
I found myself looking at guns in the hands of the two men who were
following him. "Get your hands up!" the first one said. Since I had no
choice, I obeyed. As my hands went up, the second man stepped forward
and slugged me in the pit of the stomach. As I doubled up from the
pain, he hit me in the jaw.
At that moment, I would cheerfully have destroyed both of them with my
bare hands. All I could do was glare at them. As I fell back against
the wall, I saw that Dr. Crane was looking at them. Judging from the
expression on his face, I think he would gladly have used his best
surgical knives to cut their hearts out, if he had had the chance. He
started to move. A gun swung to cover him. "Just stand pat, doc," he
was advised.
Tom, at the foot of Ann's bed, did not even look around. His attention
was completely engrossed in his gadget.
"You can't get away with this," I said. "This man is working on a
project that is vital to national defense. The FBI will hound you to
Siberia." I was bluffing and I knew it. So did they.
* * * * *
Long Jaw got slowly to his feet. "Is that so?" he said. He moved toward
Tom. "Come on. We want you--and your machine."
For the first time, Tom looked up. "I'll come with you in just a few
minutes," he said, nodding toward Ann. "Her life is not quite out of
danger yet."
"To hell with that," a new voice spoke from the doorway. "Get the
machine--and the inventor."
I didn't have to turn to know that voice. Herker! He was standing in
the doorway waving a bunch of papers.
"I always knew you had the makings of a crook," I said. "You at least,
ought to have the sense to know that you can't get away with it."
"These men are in my employ." Herker waved his fingers toward the
three. "I have a court order here empowering me to seize any and all
company property in order to conserve the assets of the corporation."
His face was very smug and self-assured. "It's all legal. There's
nothing you can do about it."
I would have rocked back on my heels if the wall hadn't already been
behind me. "What about Tom?" I finally managed to say. "Have you got a
court order to seize him too, as a company asset?"
Herker fingered through his papers. "Yes," he said. "I have an order
here empowering me to bring him before a lunacy commission."
For the first time, Tom looked up. "What you are really trying to say
is that these men came to you and offered you more millions than you
can count for my discovery and for the chance to force me to tell them
how it works."
Herker acted as if somebody had slugged him in the throat. He gulped
and tried to find words. "How--how did you know?"
"They approached me first," Tom answered. "I refused to talk to them."
"But why? There's millions in it!" In all his life, he had never been
able to see anything more important than a dollar.
"Enough of this," Long Jaw said, taking command of the situation. "We
want you and your invention."
He moved toward the bed, but Tom held up his hand. "There on the bed
you see proof of what this invention can do in the way of saving life.
Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"Sure, sure," Long Jaw answered. "You'll be well taken care of. Just as
soon as you demonstrate it to the big boys, your future will be safe."
"I'll demonstrate it now," Tom said.
He swung the cone so that the radiation from it would strike Long Jaw,
then closed a switch.
A burst of blackness leaped from the cone. It struck Long Jaw.
Instantly it seemed to flow over his body, engulfing him. I heard him
scream, once, a sound that seemed to get farther and farther away.
Then the space he had occupied was empty.
Moving with the speed of light, the blackness leaped on to engulf the
other two men. They went as Long Jaw had gone, into the blackness,
swallowed up in an instant.
Herker dropped the papers. The black light hit him. He screamed and was
gone into the darkness, gone instantly, gone forever.
The wall behind started to vanish as Tom cut the switch.
"The energy that heals can also destroy," Tom said. He turned the cone
back to Ann and changed the switch again. Again the white light flowed
out. I stepped forward and picked up the papers. The doctor, who had
stood rooted to the floor, roused himself with a jerk. "I swear I saw
four men come in here. Where did they go? What happened? Somebody tell
me what happened!" His voice was rising.
"Perhaps your nerves are a little overstrained," Tom said, his voice
very kind. "A mild sedative might help."
Without a word the doctor went from the room.
Tom switched off the light and moved to the edge of the bed. "Ann..."
he whispered. "Ann..."
Even under sedation, she heard his voice. The smile that came over her
face seemed to light the whole room.
I went outside and closed the door and stood guard over it. They had
some things to talk about which didn't need my presence, or they would
have some things to talk about as soon as Ann regained consciousness
and found that her dream was true.
In time the world of tomorrow would have something to talk about too, a
secret that some scientist of the long-gone time almost found, and hid
in a painting in the hope that in some future day some unborn genius
would discover his secret again, and perfect it, and give it to the
world. Awe was in me, at the wonders of the world in which I lived, and
gratitude, that such men as Tom Calhoun inhabited it.