[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
First man to reach the speed of light, I was. But you'll find the good
Albert only hinted at the effects, in a delta-theta 2.3 pi-squared
way. E=mc^2, he said. And for fifty years before they built my rocket,
the _Lighttrick_, slim, tapering, sleek and gy-perpowered, everyone
concentrated on turning matter into energy at a light-squared power.
Big, bright bangs, and congratulations.
It's a pity no one asked what happens to energy _divided_ by the speed
of light. I happen to be the answer to the equation, and by interfering
with the motor of this electric typescripter I can give you my thoughts
on the matter.
The _Lighttrick_ hit full velocity out there between Van Allen and the
asteroids. I'd guess the whole beautiful ship, including me, converted
into energy and, slowing down, reconverted on the wrong side, so to
speak. And there I was, floating without a ship and surrounded by
little round beings, shimmering in a blue haze.
"Good afternoon," I said.
But no sound came out of my mouth. I had a mouth, in a way, but not for
talking; and not at all the sort of mouth I used to have. In fact, the
shimmering blue haze was me. I could find no other parts of me. And
when the little round things touched me on the periphery, there was an
intelligent vibration.
"Frequency and tone?" said the vibration. "Please identify."
"You must take me as you find me," I thought.
"Unidentified frequencies and discordant tones requested not to wander
in spaceways," vibrated the little round things.
"I'm a man," I vibrated back. "We don't have frequencies. We _use_
frequencies in radio, television, radar and so on."
"Not intelligible."
"Where's my ship?"
"Ship?"
I tried to picture the _Lighttrick_ and the long thin gleam on her
hull, the fury of her rockets and the calm ordered keyboard of the
control panels.
"Most interesting," vibrated the round things. "Poetic. Very creative.
Speculative philosopher, yes?"
* * * * *
They seemed to be grasping the general idea, so I concentrated on an
image of myself, square and bearded, staring sternly into space through
the ports, in a pioneer manner, observing hitherto unknown planets.
"Most ingenious," my audience vibrated back. "But unlikely."
Then they started vibrating among themselves.
"Senior e minus says...."
"Mush is mush, that's what I say."
"Now, theoretically...."
"I don't vibrate why not. There are more things in positive and
negative, Horatio, than...."
"Excuse me," I vibrated.
There was a brief pause.
"Perhaps we should illuminate."
"Please do," I vibrated politely.
They gathered round the edges of my haze and explained. It seemed
a very senior e had suggested once that there might, just might,
theoretically be side-effects of mush. The little round things were e
beings. And "mush" was the accepted term for the static and orbital
tracks of electrons in fixed patterns, such as one found here and there
in space. But the very senior e, apparently, had speculated that in
a certain narrow band of light frequencies mush might possibly give
an appearance of "matter"--to coin a word--a kind of condensed or
crystalline energy.
"But no one," they vibrated, "ever suggested there might be forms of
life based on such 'material' structures. We admire your imagination.
Hail bright e! All hail."
A rapid circuit of my haze failed to show anyone else that they might
be vibrating to.
"Do you mean me?" I inquired.
"Naturally. Hail, bright e!"
"I'm an e?"
"What else?"
"Very well," I thought. "Perhaps you'll tell me what an e is."
"An e? We are all e beings."
"So you mentioned earlier. But what is an e being?"
"Ah, you are too deep for us. Highly original philosopher, yes. But
please get off the spaceway. There is a food flood due."
And they edged me firmly down, and down, to a vast doughnut with a hole
in the center.
I ate a piece out of habit. It was insipid and tasteless. But then, a
doughnut several thousand miles across must have some drawbacks.
"The pasture is better inside," they vibrated.
So I sank down into the enormous piece of pastry and came out of
a couple of inner layers to see a big ball of mush. There was no
mistaking it. A vast, tangled, interconnecting mass of tiny points of
light. Mush was a good name for it. But here and there on its surface
were great rivers of liquor and mounds of food in delectable variety.
I stuffed myself for days, browsing here and there across the surface
of the globe of mush.
In fact, I was chewing quietly on an apparently endless streaming
ribbon of--well--trout, steak, caviar, you-name-your-favorite food;
that's what it was to me. And I happened to bite too deeply. There was
a core of this mush stuff inside and, when I bit it, the whole food
supply stopped. The stream of entrancing food just disappeared.
And there I was, hovering on a plain of bare mush.
* * * * *
I was brooding on this and belching contentedly with a sort of cracking
noise, when the skeleton came driving over the surface of the mush
ball. It was in a framework of mush shaped like a jeep but squirting
delicious little fountains of liquor in the front, where the engine
of a real jeep would have been. I moved over and tasted them. And the
whole framework stopped.
"Triple purple hell," said a voice. "The damned thing's broken down
again. Wait till I get my hands on that idiot mechanic!"
"Hey," I vibrated. "Where are you?"
"Now I'll have to walk all the way back, I suppose," the voice added.
The skeleton got out of the mush jeep, walked through me and lifted the
hood.
"Battery flat," the voice said disgustedly. "Not a drop of juice in it."