25 Short Stories and Novellas Part 17

"You'll see," promised the alien. He fumbled in the back of the machine, drew forth a cord, and plugged it into a wall socket. A small tube in the heart of the machine glowed cherry red and the pistons began to move, first slowly, then more rapidly. After a while, it was humming away at an even, steady clip, pistons barreling back and forth in purposeless but inexorable motion.

Kemridge bent and peered as close to the workings of the gadget as he dared. "It's an engine. What of it?"

"It's a special kind of engine," Plorvash said. "Suppose you take the plug out."

The Earthman worked the plug from its socket and looked at the machine. Then the plug dropped from his limp hand and skittered to the floor.

"It -- doesn't stop going, does it?" Kemridge asked quietly. "The pistons keep on moving."

"This is our power source," Plorvash said smugly. "We use them in vehicles and other such things. It's the third problem."

"We'll give it a try," Marner tried to say casually.

"I'll be most interested in the results," Plorvash said, "And now I must bid you a good day."

"Sure," Marner said weakly. "Cheers."

They watched the broadbeamed alien waddle gravely out of the laboratory, waited till the door was closed, and glanced at the machine.

It was still moving.

Marner licked his lips and looked pleadingly at Kemridge. "Dave, can we build a perpetual-motion machine?"

The Domerangi machine worked just as well plugged in or unplugged, once it had tapped some power source to begin with. The pistons threaded ceaselessly up and down. The basic components of the thing seemed simple enough.

"The first step to take," Marner said, "is to shut the d.a.m.ned thing off so we can get a look at its innards."

"How do we do that?"

"By reversing the power source, I suppose. Feed a negative pulse through that power input and that ought to do it. We'll have to reverse the polarity of the signal."

Half an hour's hard work with the tools and solder had done that. They plugged the scrambled cord into the socket and the machine coughed twice and subsided.

"Okay," Marner said, rubbing his hands with an enthusiasm he did not feel. "Let's dig this baby apart and find out what makes it tick." He turned and stared meaningfully at Kemridge. "And let's adopt this as a working credo, Dave: inasmuch as the Domerangi have already built this thing, it's not impossible. Okay?"

"That seems to be the only basis we can approach it on," Kemridge agreed.

They huddled around the device, staring at the workings. Marner reached down and pointed at a part. "This thing is something like a tuned-plate feedback oscillator," he observed. "And I'll bet we've almost got a thyratron tube over here. Their technology's a good approximation of ours. In fact, the whole thing's within our grasp, technically."

"Hmm. And the result is a closed regenerative system with positive feedback," Kemridge said dizzily. "Infinite energy, going round and round the cycle. If you draw off a hundred watts or so -- well, infinity minus a hundred is still infinity!"

"True enough." Marner wiped a gleaming bead of perspiration from his forehead. "Dave, we're going to have to puzzle this thing out from scratch. And we don't dare fail."

He reached doggedly for a screwdriver. "Remember our motto. We'll use our natural savvy and a little perspiration, and we ought to do it."

Three weeks later, they had come up with their first trial model -- which wobbled along for half an hour, then gave up.

And a month after that, they had a machine that didn't give up.

Hesitantly, they sent for Plorvash. "There it is," Marner said, pointing to the bizarre thing that stood next to the original model. Both machines were humming blithely, plugs dangling from the sockets.

"It works?" Plorvash whispered, paling. "It hasn't stopped yet," Marner said. There were heavy rings under his eyes and his usually plump face was drawn, with the skin tight over his cheekbones. It had been two months of almost constant strain and both Earthmen showed it.

"It works, eh?" Plorvash asked. "_How_?"

"A rather complex hypers.p.a.ce function," Kemridge said. "I don't want to bother explaining it now -- you'll find it all in our report -- but it was quite a stunt in topology. We couldn't actually duplicate your model, but we achieved the same effect, which fulfills the terms of the agreement."

"All as a matter of response to challenge," said Marner. "We didn't think we could do it until we _had_ to -- so we did."

"I didn't think you could do it, either," Plorvash said hoa.r.s.ely. He walked over and examined the machine closely. "It works, you say? Honestly, now?" His voice was strained.

"Of course," Marner said indignantly. "We have just one question." Kemridge pointed to a small black rectangular box buried deep in a maze of circuitry in the original model. "That thing down there -- it nearly threw us. We couldn't get it open and so we had to bypa.s.s it and subst.i.tute a new system for it. What in blazes is it?"

Plorvash wheeled solidly around to face them. "That," he said in a strangled voice, "is the power source. It's a miniature photoelectric amplifier that should keep the model running for -- oh, another two weeks or so. Then the jig would have been up."

"How's that?" Marner was startled.

"It's time to explain something to you," the alien said wearily. "_We don't have any perpetual-motion machines._ You've been cruelly hoaxed into inventing one for us. It's dastardly, but we didn't really think you were going to do it. It took some of our best minds to rig up the model we gave you, you know."

Marner drew up a lab stool and sat down limply, white-faced. Kemridge remained standing, his features blank with disbelief.

Marner said, "You mean we invented the thing and you didn't -- you -- "

Plorvash nodded. "I'm just as astonished as you are," he said. He reached for a lab stool himself and sat down. It groaned under his weight.

Kemridge recovered first. "Well," he said after a moment of silence, "now that it's all over, we'll take our machine and go back to Earth. This invalidates the contest, of course."

"I'm afraid you can't do that," Plorvash said. "By a statute enacted some seven hundred years ago, any research done in a Domerangi government lab is automatically government property. Which means, of course, that we'll have to confiscate your -- ahem -- project."

"That's out of the question!" Marner said hotly.

"And, furthermore, we intend to confiscate _you_, too. We'd like you to stay and show us how to build our machines."

"This is cause for war," Kemridge said. "Earth won't let you get away with this -- this kidnapping!"

"Possibly not. But in view of the way things have turned out, it's the sanest thing we can do. And I _don't_ think Earth will go to war over you."

"We demand to see our Consul," said Marner.

"Very well," Plorvash agreed. "It's within your rights, I suppose."

The Earth Consul was a white-haired, st.u.r.dy gentleman named Culbertson, who arrived on the scene later that day.

"This is very embarra.s.sing for all of us," the Consul said. He ran his hands nervously down his traditional pin-striped trousers, adjusting the crease.

"You can get us out of it, of course," Marner said. "That machine is our property and they have no right to keep us prisoners here to operate it, do they?"

"Not by all human laws. But the fact remains, unfortunately, that according to _their_ laws, they have every right to your invention. And by the treaty Of 2716, waiving extraterritorial sovereignty, Earthmen on Domerang are subject to Domerangi laws, and vice versa." He spread his hands in a gesture of sympathetic frustration.

"You mean we're stuck here," Marner said bluntly. He shut his eyes, remembering the nightmare that was the Domerangi equivalent of a bar, thinking of the morbid prospect of spending the rest of his life on this unappetizing planet, all because of some insane dare. "Go on, tell us the whole truth."

The Consul put the palms of his hands together delicately. "We intend to make every effort to get you off, of course -- naturally so, since we owe a very great debt to you two. You realize that you've upheld Earth's pride."

"Lot of good it did us," Marner grunted.

"Nevertheless, we feel anxious to make amends for the whole unhappy incident. I can a.s.sure you that we'll do everything in our power to make your stay here as pleasant and as restful as -- "

"Listen, Culbertson," Kemridge said grimly. "We don't want a vacation here, not even with dancing girls twenty-four hours a day and soft violins in the background. We don't like it here. We want to go home. You people got us into this -- now get us out."

The Consul grew even more unhappy-looking. "I wish you wouldn't put it that way. We'll do all we can." He paused for a moment, deep in thought, and said, "There's one factor in the case that we haven't as yet explored."

"What's that?" Marner asked uneasily.

"Remember the two Domerangi engineers who went to Earth on the other leg of this hookup?" The Consul glanced around the lab. "Is this place wired anywhere?"

"We checked," Kemridge said, "and you can speak freely. What do they have to do with us?"

Culbertson lowered his voice. "There's a slim chance for you. I've been in touch with authorities on Earth and they've been keeping me informed of the progress of the two Domerangi. You know they got through their first two projects as easily as you did."

The two Earthmen nodded impatiently.

The old diplomat smiled his apologies. "I hate to admit this, but it seems the people at the Earth end of this deal had much the same idea the Domerangi did."

"Perpetual motion, you mean?"

"Not quite," Culbertson said. "They rigged up a phony anti-gravity machine and told the Domerangi to duplicate it just as was done here. Our psychologies must be similar."

"And what happened?" Marner asked.

"Nothing, yet," the Consul said sadly. "But they're still working on it, I'm told. If they're as clever as they say they are, they ought to hit it sooner or later. You'll just have to be patient and sweat it out. We'll see to it that you're well taken care of in the meantime, of course, and -- "

"I don't get it. What does that have to do with us?" Marner demanded.

"If they keep at it, they'll invent it eventually."

Marner scowled. "That may take years. It may take forever. They may _never_ discover a workable anti-grav. Then what about us?"

The Consul looked sympathetic and shrugged.

A curious gleam twinkled in Kemridge's eye. He turned to Marner. "Justin, do you know anything about tensor applications and gravitational fields?"

"What are you driving at?" Marner said.

"We've got an ideal lab setup here. And I'm sure those two Domerangi down there wouldn't mind taking credit for someone else's anti-grav, if they were approached properly. What do you think?"

Marner brightened. "That's right -- they must be just as anxious to get home as we are!"

"You mean," said the Consul, "you'd build the machine and let us smuggle it to Earth so we could slip it to the Domerangi and use that as a talking-point for a trade and -- "

He stopped, seeing that no one was listening to him, and looked around. Marner and Kemridge were at the far end of the lab, scribbling equations feverishly.

Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another.

by Robert Silverberg.

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IT MIGHT be heaven. Certainly it wasn't Spain and he doubted it could be Peru. He seemed to be floating, suspended midway between nothing and nothing. There was a s.h.i.+mmering golden sky far above him and a misty, turbulent sea of white clouds boiling far below. When he looked down he saw his legs and his feet dangling like child's toys above an unfathomable abyss, and the sight of it made him want to puke, but there was nothing in him for the puking. He was hollow. He was made of air. Even the old ache in his knee was gone, and so was the everlasting dull burning in the fleshy part of his arm where the Indian's little arrow had taken him, long ago on the sh.o.r.e of that island of pearls, up by Panama.

It was as if he had been born again, sixty years old but freed of all the harm that his body had experienced and all its myriad acc.u.mulated injuries: freed, one might almost say, of his body itself.

"Gonzalo?" he called. "Hernando?"

Blurred dreamy echoes answered him. And then silence.

"Mother of G.o.d, am I dead?"

No. No. He had never been able to imagine death. An end to all striving? A place where nothing moved? A great emptiness, a pit without a bottom? Was this place the place of death, then? He had no way of knowing. He needed to ask the holy fathers about this.

"Boy, where are my priests? Boy?"

He looked about for his page. But all he saw was blinding whorls of light coiling off to infinity on all sides. The sight was beautiful but troublesome. It was hard for him to deny that he had died, seeing himself afloat like this in a realm of air and light. Died and gone to heaven. This is heaven, yes, surely, surely. What else could it be?

So it was true, that if you took the Ma.s.s and took the Christ faithfully into yourself and served Him well you would be saved from your sins, you would be forgiven, you would be cleansed. He had wondered about that. But he wasn't ready yet to be dead, all the same. The thought of it was sickening and infuriating. There was so much yet to be done. And he had no memory even of being ill. He searched his body for wounds. No, no wounds. Not anywhere. Strange. Again he looked around. He was alone here. No one to be seen, not his page, nor his brother, nor De Soto, nor the priests, nor anyone. "Fray Marcos! Fray Vicente! Can't you hear me? d.a.m.n you, where are you? Mother of G.o.d! Holy Mother, blessed among women! d.a.m.n you, Fray Vicente, tell me -- tell me -- "

His voice sounded all wrong: too thick, too deep, a stranger's voice. The words fought with his tongue and came from his lips malformed and lame, not the good crisp Spanish of Estremadura but something shameful and odd. What he heard was like the spluttering foppishness of Madrid or even the furry babble that they spoke in Barcelona; why, he might almost be a Portuguese, so coa.r.s.e and clownish was his way of shaping his speech.

He said carefully and slowly, "I am the Governor and Captain-General of New Castile."

That came out no better, a laughable noise.

"Adelantado -- Alguacil Mayor -- Marques de la Conquista -- "