[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Astounding Science-Fiction December 1945.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Thomas Lionel Ph.D., M.M. bounded out of bed with a cheerful bit of
off-tune song. He glanced at the calendar and then the clock and he
grinned because life was just too good to be true.
Everything was according to plan. He'd won his first battle. Up to
now it had been touch and go; at last he had established his right
to co-occupy the mind along with the engineer. No longer could the
engineer claim that he was an expensive detriment. He had forced
the engineer into agreeing that his offering, though not directly
productive, was a causative factor in the development of success. Then
to top it all, he retained enough technology to be a necessary item. He
must be permitted to remain if only for a source of information.
The engineer's trap had been excellent. But the trap had turned and
caught the engineer. Those reams of data on the poltergeist effect had
been the basis for an entirely new science that only a real physicist
could appreciate--and no engineer could hope to thread his way through
them without a research physicist's assistance.
He stood over the chessboard in the living room for a few minutes.
The engineer was not making any great moves. Therefore the physicist
thought that he might best consolidate his position. He castled to the
queen's side, burying his king behind a bulwark of defenses that would
defy a master chess player to penetrate in less than ten or fifteen
moves.
During breakfast, he perused a thin volume of recent publication. He
did not entirely agree with the theories presented; after all, the book
had been written for the express purpose of getting reader's viewpoints
and Thomas knew it. In fact, the book was not too interesting to Thomas
but he knew that the engineer would fume, fret, and howl at the idea
of having a well-thumbed volume of "_Theory of Multi-Resonant Wave
Guides_" in the library.
Thomas wouldn't look at the engineer's volume, laying on the table
opposite. It was too un-physical. It was un-erudite. It was "_Basic
Theory in Micro-Wave Transmission_" and the edges of the pages were
loaded with application formulas, diagrams, and working sketches.
He was near the end of breakfast when the glint of reflected sunshine
arrowed through the window and caught his eye. He looked, and wondered
who was landing on his lawn in a helicopter.
Then he did a double take.
"Helicopter" stemmed from Greek, the "helix" or screw plus the "opter"
a machine. This contrivance did not. It was not operated with air
screws.
It looked like a three-wheeled coupé. It looked like the industrial
designer's dream of the Plan For Tomorrow, excepting those three
wheels. The Plan For Tomorrow should, by all rights, have four wheels.
And, if the thing is going to fly, it should have some sort of overhead
vanes, or wings, or engines, or jets, or even a skyhook. But there it
was, coming down as light as a feather to make a neat landing on the
back lawn.
By the time the door was open, and the passenger stepped to the ground,
Thomas was standing before the little sky car, looking somewhat dazed
at the name: