"Don't be an idiot! Just because one race makes iron steamships it is
no sign that iron floats on water."
"But it stands to reason--"
"You'd bank your life on it?"
"Yes."
Cliff Maculay took the two handles, one in each hand. His eyes glazed
a bit, and he laughed uncertainly. "Maybe the creation of the universe
was started by some fool who created negative space," he said thickly.
"You simple idiot, this is exactly the danger that almost drove me
nuts; you haven't solved a thing!"
Maculay stood there, watching Redmond. Then the frown left his face,
and his body tightened. His eyes lost the hard glitter and took on
a luminous air, which became half-humorous and half cynical as the
corners of his mouth quirked up.
Hanson took a deep breath. Maculay the physicist had become Cliff
Maculay the hell-raiser in just that short a time, because he was once
more faced with the insoluble.
"No!" yelled Hanson.
But Maculay laughed. "Might as well wreck it," he jeered. "Better to
wreck this fool's work than destroy the universe. Damn idiot, Clifford
Maculay. Better--"
Maculay slammed the _Upper_ switch to the right.
"--let the ne'er-do-well foul it right!"
Maculay slammed the _Lower_ switch to the left.
There was a perceptible shift in the frame of reference, a hiatus in
the solidity of things, like the rug slipping on the polished floor,
like the fancy movable steps in the Fun House, like the bottom of the
quicksand lake, like space itself being warped.
Then Arcturus passed the nearby viewport in a single flash of
blue-white, and seconds afterwards a second star flashed, then a third.
"The backward sort," chortled Maculay. He was neither Maculay the
Physicist now, nor was he Maculay the hell-raiser; he was a glad
mixture of both. "It came to me," he told Hanson, "just like _That_!"
"But--?"
"Easy. Easy. The output from the upper generator creates negative
space. But before it can establish an expanding field, the output of
the lower generator nullifies it. For the lower generator is making a
field of positive space equal to the force from above. Take unity. Add
unity and you have two. Cancel one unity and you have unity--plus a
spacedriver!"
* * * * *
Thirty thousand light years away, a recorder wiggled, a bell rang, and
a sentient creature came out of a quiet complacence with a roar. Then
came the clangor of a huge alarm and other creatures came tumbling into
the huge room. They watched the recorder anxiously; then as it levelled
off they left, slowly. Six remained; the others got into a small
spacecraft and took off. There would be no nova for the suppression
squad to extinguish; all that was needed was for the safety squad to go
there and teach newcomers how not to play with fire.