"Doctor Jay Hanson."
"Doctor Rober is busy at the moment; may I have him call you back?"
Hanson roared: "I know he's busy. Tell him it's Jay Hanson and see what
happens."
A moment later there came a grumpy voice: "Hullo. What's so infernal
important?"
"Steve? This is Jay."
"That's what the gal said; it better be important."
"To hell with your precious telescope, Steve; I want some information."
"You'd think we had nothing to do but cast horoscopes," growled the
astronomer. "Or answer damned fool questions about the end of the
world."
"Answer me one more."
"The world has been here for two times ten to the ninth years at least;
you'll not live to see the end of it."
"Look, Steve, this may be important. Tell me, have any of your
instruments shown any difference in setting since that streak of energy
went through the solar system a few days ago?"
"Not that we can measure."
"But--"
"Jay, the best information we can collect is that the original streak
was a long cylinder about a half mile in diameter. Dammitall, you could
take a chunk a half mile in diameter and stretching from one end of the
universe to the other, remove it from the universe and let the rest of
space curl in to fill up what was missing; and when you were done, no
one could measure it. A half mile is a small peanut compared to the
immensity of space. Now can I go back to work?"
"In a minute, Steve. What do you know about Maculay's Equations?"
"Maculay's Equations? What do _you_ know about them? I mean, what do
you _want_ to know about them?"
"I'm no abstract mathematician, Steve, but I'm forced to fumble in
the dark with some very cockeyed theories that make no sense. Maculay
has the idea that the generation of some sort of negative space would
permit gross matter to exceed the velocity of light, but that this
negative space would destroy by mutual cancellation this present, or
positive space. Does that make sense to you?"
"Y'know what I think?"
"No."
"I think that old saw about the shoemaker sticking to his last is
applicable. Stay with your neurones and your pills, witch-doctor, and
leave the juggling of space to people who can sight nothing, falling
from a vacuum into a void, and explain it."
"Fine," rasped Hanson. "Now that I've been properly roasted for
meddling, what gives you to think that no one but an astronomer can
think?"
"Steve--if I started to outline medicine to you, it would sound no
better than your outline of Maculay's Theories did to me."
* * * * *
Hanson chuckled. "So we're both stupid, according to the other. Now
admitting that I'm stupid and get my income tax fouled up, cannot
understand the degrees of infinity, and am completely baffled by the
predominance of the value Pi in electricity, do I have a layman's grasp
of Maculay's Equation?"
"Barely."
"Then suppose I postulate. Suppose that streak of energy had been a
spacecraft passing by at a speed faster than light. And as it passed,
its own field of negative space cancelled out a wake of real space as
it went."
"That's a fine idea," said Rober. "You might as well postulate that
as anything else. Furthermore, the cancellation energy derived might
be used to drive the ship; and as far as the loss is concerned, a
half mile of space is like bailing Lake Michigan with a teaspoon. The
expanding universe is expanding much faster than mankind's puny efforts
to trim it down at a half mile per trim."
"Why didn't you tell me this before instead of giving me a lot of
guff?" roared Hanson.
"Because the shoe is on the other foot," snapped Rober. "This time you
need help. And like the rest of us idiots who show our ignorance when
we ask medical questions, you show your ignorance of physics by the
damfool questions you ask. But I've done some piddling with Maculay's
Equations and the guy has something real and something far above my
head, too. Why not ask Maculay?"
"He's not available right now."
"Tough. Probably working on the streak itself, huh? Good thing. He'll
get it ironed out. But if you can't get Maculay, get his assistant
Redmond. Redmond is a young squirt, but he'll talk if he's urged."
"I've met Redmond."
"Um," grunted Rober. "So that's why you're calling me? Say! Redmond
didn't scare you, did he?"
"Sure did."
"Don't let him; Maculay will keep him down."
Hanson decided that this was the time to let the story out. "Redmond
came here seeking Maculay. Maculay is on Venus having himself a
vacation at my orders, and Redmond wanted him back."
"Wanted him back my foot! Redmond--if anything--wanted to be certain
that Maculay was out of the way so that he could plunge into the secret
files, using the emergency as reason. What are you doing about it?"
Hanson smiled to himself. "I've done it," he said. "I was just
confirming some of my fears by calling you. I've just sent Miss
Longacre to get him."
"Pray that she hurries," said Rober. "Redmond is the guy made from the
same mold as the Sorcerer's Apprentice."
"You mean the kind of student we used to explain the process of making
nitroglycerine to carefully because we knew they'd make it anyway, and
blow hell out of themselves if they didn't violate the rules correctly?"
"More'n that," said Rober. "I said Sorcerer's Apprentice and I meant
just that. Redmond is the kind of dope who would start manufacturing
negative space and not be able to stop the process."
"Someone--or something--has done it."
"Yeah. But they--and Maculay alone on earth--knows what they're doing.
And Maculay when I last saw him knew enough to leave it alone."
"Well, it's up to Ava Longacre."
"Hope she's successful."
Hanson remembered the girl's new attitude. "She'll get him," he said.
* * * * *
Doctor Hanson would not have been able to locate Maculay at all. But he
had equipped Ava with the same set of ideas, plus the desire to catch
up with the physicist wherever he might have gone; because she was thus
equipped, Ava went where Maculay would--and had--gone.
Melaxis, Venus, was a mad mixture of culture and frontier. It boiled
with the same sort of teeming millions as New York City; it was a
modern city, with white granite buildings, subways, and broad streets
filled with racing traffic. But along these broad streets went the
rough-shod colonists. They were, for the most part, cut of the same
cloth as the colonists of Early America. Men who went to Venus to
escape whatever particular hell they felt on earth. Men who objected
to taxes, laws, responsibilities, oppressions, regimentations,
legalities, religions, and the rest. They were a hardy lot, a bit quick
on the trigger and quite inclined to stand upon their own personal
integrity. They were just, but their justice was hard-boiled. A man was
innocent--or he was guilty enough to get the works.
And it was among this churning metropolis that Ava Longacre landed to
seek out Maculay.
Her progress from the spaceport to Maculay was not too arduous, since
she knew about where to find him. Ava found a lavish hotel, dragged
the bar, picked up a likely-looking character who wanted to visit a
gambling hell. Enjoying a chance to show off before this interesting
female, the character took her to a mid-town casino where, he told her,
"Mac" was likely to be this night.
"Mac?" she asked.
"Mac is a gambler from way back," he told her. "Luckier than hell."
"Let's go," said Ava.
"That's Mac," he said. It was. Cliff Maculay was sitting before a large
card table playing Red Dog. Before him he had a large pile of blue
chips, and standing at his elbow watching the pile was a dark-eyed
Venusian girl, who swayed langorously to the strains of the music
coming from the dance floor next door.
"Would you like to make a hundred?" asked Ava.
"Who do you want killed?"
"Pick up that woman from Mac."
"What's the pitch?" he demanded; "a hundred ain't enough to get me
killed."
Ava looked him in the eye. "This is the end of your line," she told
him. "If you expect any fun tonight, you'll be better off trying for
her, because you're out of a girl friend and Maculay is going to be
swapping women shortly."
He looked at Ava, compared her against the Venusian girl in a brazen
mental listing of their charms, and repeated a statement made earlier:
"Luckier than hell, Mac."
Ava went over to the Red Dog table and stood so that her hip brushed
Maculay's arm. Cliff looked up in annoyance, but the frown ceased as he
saw her. "Hello," he said cheerfully.
It was obvious that he did not know her, and it was equally obvious
that the Venusian girl did not care for the competition. "How are we
doing?" she asked.
"Fine," he said.
"Yes, we are," said the Venusian girl, emphasizing her use of the 'we'.
"Cliff will do better now," said Ava.
"The lady knows me," chuckled Maculay.
"Every sharpshooter in Melaxis knows you," snapped the Venusian. "But
do you know her?"
Ava laughed. Her voice was a pleasant contralto, throaty, suggestive
as she said, "No, he doesn't know me. Yet. Which, darling, gives me an
advantage, doesn't it?"
"Don't darling me--"
* * * * *
Ava's previous escort was a man of experience, possessor of a fresh
hundred, and willing to play the game. His was the simple logic of the
wolf; far better to have a woman you might be able to get than one who
wanted someone else. Furthermore, he knew enough about human nature to
toss a few cupfuls of oil on an already interesting fire. "See here,"
he said to Maculay, "what's the idea of making passes at my girl?"
Maculay laughed uproariously. He pushed his chair back and stood up,
alert. "If she were your girl she'd not be asking me how 'we're'
doing," he told the man.
Housemen started to move, slowly, towards the scene of imminent battle.
Ava's escort was willing to start a fire, but he was in no way
interested in getting his face pushed in to keep it burning. Yet he
could not back out without some show of determination. "I suppose she's
_your_ girl?" he asked superciliously.
The housemen relaxed. Badinage and billingsgate made noise but it
ruined no furniture. The contestants were talking; the kind of fight
the housemen were prepared to stop was the kind that took the:
"Who--Me?" "Yes, You," Whack! formula which left one of the contenders
ready to avenge the lump on his jaw, and willing to use the furniture
to do the job.