Sure, I figured the i-Gun was the cause, but the last thing I wanted
was for Leo to get strung up before I laid my hands on that other
device--the one that wouldn't work. I wanted that rig and all the plans
and formulae, and Leo undoubtedly had them hidden deeper than Fort Knox.
He unlocked the door, and I told the others to wait outside. We went
into the hall and closed the door behind us. "So your little toy was
harmless?" I said, grabbing him by his wrinkled lapels. "So it just
shoots stuff off into another dimension?"
He stared at me, his eyes half glazed. "I don't--know. That's what the
notes said." He sank into a chair. "I guess it doesn't, though. It must
ball up the metal object and shoot it out--infinite velocity--reduced
in size--infinite mass--infinite inertia--keeps circling the globe
like--like a satellite. Goes right through anything it hits. Goes on
and on. Forever. Little bullets. Right through steel. Right through
flesh and bones--"
"Simmer down," I said. "You've been reading the papers. I've been
checking the facts."
"What do you mean?"
"That you were right the first time. It does shoot metal objects
into another dimension. But _they don't stay there_. They ooze back.
Slowly. Real slow, so the first edge or corner that sticks back into
our dimension is only a few millionths of an inch thick. Then a few
ten-thousandths, then a few thousandths--and that's about the time they
start making holes in people and objects _that run into them_."
"Run into them?"
"Certainly. There are no holes in buildings or other stationary
objects. The holes are all horizontal. Now look, Baxter, our only
chance is to work on that other device and your brother's notes, and
maybe we can develop an extractor of some kind."
"No. No, you don't understand," he said shaking his head like a
sleep-walker. "It balls up the metal. Shoots it out. Infinite mass.
Infinite veloc--"
"Knock off that nonsense, and tell me where those plans are."
"Trying to steal my brother's other invention, are you? It's not
patented yet. You know that, don't you? Couldn't patent it because I
can't make it work yet. You're smart, but you won't get it from me--"
I had a fair hold on him, but the pure insanity that flared in his
eyes shocked me for just the instant it took him to wrench out of
my hands. He stumbled to the door of the study and burst through it
heading for the window. I didn't hurry after him too fast, because I
knew the boys outside would take him.
Leo Baxter was only three paces into the stale air of the unused
library when he screamed, clasping his hands to his chest and dropped.
A peculiar grating, plucking sound came faintly before he thudded to
the carpet.
I stopped hard in my tracks and wiped the sweat from my face while Leo
Baxter twitched almost at my feet, his heart shredded and bubbling its
last in his perforated chest.
_The paper clips. The ones I had propelled into nothingness weeks ago._
Hat in hand I advanced slowly, waving it before me chest high. Then
it caught suddenly, grated for a split second and passed on in its
arc. Now there were several tiny holes in it. I backed away a foot and
brought my hat down slowly on the same lethal spot of air. Chest-high
it caught and hung suspended.
Leaving it there as a marker I took off my suitcoat, held it before me
and inched forward toward the desk. Something plucked at the dangling
garment, and a chill froze my spine. Had I been walking forward
normally, the tiny speck of metal that barely caught the glint of light
from the window, would have pierced my skin at just about the site of
my appendix. I circled the spot continuing to feel forward with my
coat. That was the paper clip Baxter had fired to demonstrate to me
that first day.
At the phone I called headquarters and told the chief what to do.
"You're so right," he told me, his voice slurring strangely. "Only
you're a little late. The order went out to confiscate the i-Guns. They
think the damned toys might have something to do with the accidents.
And I bought one of the first ones for my little Jerry!" His voice
sounded hollow.
So they were figuring it out! The next question was, how to extract the
deadly particles from the other dimension, or how to keep them from
bleeding back slowly into ours.
I moved cautiously through the old house fanning every inch of air
ahead of me with a phone book. When I got to Calvin Baxter's workshop
I was especially careful, but I needn't have been. The only metal
particles stuck into the thin air seemed to be over his work-bench
where he had been experimenting with his device. All but one.
It was right where I expected to find it--better than six feet in the
air, just forehead high for a man tall as Calvin Baxter. He had fired
his proto-type of the i-Gun just once into the middle of the room.
How long ago? Eight--ten weeks ago?
It seemed impossible that all this horror had occurred in such a short
time.
But there it was, stuck in space, protruding about a hundredth of an
inch from nowhere into clear visibility. So little was showing that I
couldn't be sure, but it looked like the tip of an ordinary little nail
or wood-screw.
This was my "murder-weapon", the cause of Calvin Baxter's accident.
He'd run into it, jerked his head back, and the speck had come out the
same hole it went in.
In twenty minutes by the clock I had the lab crew out from
headquarters, and had explained the whole business to them. First they
measured the length of the protrusion, and my guess was about right. It
measured .0095 inches on the micrometer caliper.
If it were a screw an inch long, at that rate of "bleedback" it would
take another 98 weeks to come the rest of the way out. Almost two years!
Paul Riley, the lab chief, was sharp. He caught it about the same time
I did and turned to look at me. "We've got to figure a way of getting
those things out of the way."