Super Science Stories – May 1940
(1940)
Ray Cummings
Forty years—and Blakinson came back to see Georg Arton, the man whose wife he had stolen. Arton had made a discovery, a new source of wealth. Was it also—a weapon for vengeance?
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THE hissing spluttering wires gave off a lurid green glare. It mingled with the opalescent sheen of the fluorscent tubes and drove the flicker ing shadows back into the laboratory corners. The acrid smoke rose in swirling wisps which gathered and hung in layers like ghostly shrouds up by the vaulted ceiling of the big metal laboratory room.
Painted by the glare, the thin bent figure of Georg Arton stood at one of his metal work-tables, with his gloved hands adjusting two naked electrodes. The sparks shed from his metal-woven smock. The lurid glared on his huge goggles of amber glassite. As he moved intently at his tasks, he could have been a huge, crooked pseudo-human insect, with mailed jointed body and goggling lens-eyes—a being from another planet engaged here in something infernal.
These weird thoughts flooded burly James Blakinson as in the doorway arcade of Arton's laboratory he stood peering, holding his breath, watching. Blakinson was no scientist. Things like this were awesome; a bit frightening. What was Arton doing?
To Blakinson's fancy, this was not the experimental workshop of a skilled physicist, but rather the lair of a dabbler in necromancy—a probing at Nature's secrets which should not be probed. A prying into the Unknown; and it seemed to Blakinson that rebellious Nature must be drawing back, snarling at this interloper. An outraged Nature, cowed perhaps for a moment, but waiting its chance to strike in reprisal—to strike and to kill this human meddler who dared trespass upon things forbidden.
Blakinson felt himself shuddering. But still he stared, watching Arton who did not yet know he was being observed. What was this thing which the townspeople said the cracked old scientist had discovered? A thing—so it was said—that would make its possessor fabulously rich. The actual creation of wealth, here 'in this weird, cloistered metal room? Modern magic. They said that.
And down in the village Blakinson had seen what seemed undeniable proof—the records of the assay office which had analyzed a fragment of metal that Arton had brought to them.
The unnameable metal. No one could say where it had come from, or what it was. Weird treasure. An ounce of it would be worth two decimars. How much of it did Arton have here? Was he a super-modern alchemist, transmuting baser metals into this weird alloy which among other things seemed to be a mixture of gold and platinum and radium? That's what the townspeople were saying.
THE two spluttering electrodes which Arton's gloved hands were holding were in metal clamps now. The clamps were part of an intricate mechanism so that as Arton began twirling a series of small dial-knobs, the spluttering electrodes were moving sidewise and forward, approaching each other in the empty space above the work-table. They had been a foot apart; now they were only six inches.
The goggled Arton was tense and hurried now. Blakinson, a dozen feet away in the shadows of the arcade doorway, held his breath as he watched. The two long rows of fluorescent tubes, linked in series, boiled and bubbled more furiously with a maelstrom of bombarding electrons. Arton was bending forward. His gloved hands, gripping calipers, seemed carefully measuring the location of the two hissing crackling electrodes as they neared each other.
What was this thing of riches which Arton was creating?
A layer of acrid fumes that floated up by the vaulted ceiling, fluttered in a vagrant draft of air, came down and momentarily enveloped the lurking Blakinson so that he coughed involuntarily. At the sudden sound old man Arton turned, ripped off his glassite goggles and peered. And then he gasped,
"You? Why—why you, Blakinson?"
The big burly Blakinson started; recovered himself. Then he looped his cape over his arm with a gesture of nonchalance; and gripped his hat and gloves and cane in one hand—his cane, metal-tipper, with a heavy gargoyle metal knob.
"The door was partly open," he said. "I didn't use the buzzer—you seemed busy—I hated to disturb you."
He tried to smile ingratiatingly. But why should he bother? He saw the old hatred leaping now for Arton's grey eyes. Without the goggles it was the Arton of their boyhood, changed by time to be a shell of the handsome, fierly young fellow whom Blakinson remembered. Like the embers of a fire, shriveled, shrunken down yet still holding a semblance of what it was. The years had not treated Arton too kindly. He looked eighty now, though Blakinson knew he was only sixty-five—only three years older than the powerful Blakinson himself.
"So? You remembered me at once?" Blakinson added awkwardly. "Quite a while—forty years. That was in 1939 we saw each other, wasn't it?"
"In 1939—the year you stole her," Arton said slowly. His withered old voice throbbed to match the hatred of his eyes.
For that moment the two men fronted each other in the center of the lurid laboratory. They were alone here, in the metal building which was Arton's home on a lonely^ mound a mile from the town. Outside the latticed windows moonlight was straggling through the grove of trees which enveloped the little terraced metal structure.
For just that moment their glances crossed like swords; and an idiotic thrill of fear darted through the burly Blakinson. Idiotic because with one hand he could grip Arton's withered old throat and strangle him ...
THEN Blakinson flung away his fear and smiled—-crafty smile as he remembered why he had come here. "Well," he said, "aren't you going to ask me to sit down? Just happened to be spending a day in Jameston—and they told me about you. "So I came-—an old friend—after forty years—"
Still Arton could only stand, staring with that glowing hatred in his eyes. And Blakinson hooked a little padded metal bench forward with his cane and sat down. But he was very alert. Was this madness gleaming now with the hatred in Arton's eyes? What of it? Arton had discovered something, here with his puttering science. The creation of gold, platinum and radium? ... No one knew that Blakinson was here.
If only now he could learn this secret, and go away; and the villagers would find old Arton dead, here in his laboratory. An accident, they would say. Something going wrong with an experiment, so that the old man had fallen and cracked his head, dashing out his brains against a corner post of one of these metal chairs.
How easy that would be to contrive! ...
"In 1939—that was the year you stole her," Arton was repeating slowly. With the emotion of his hatred all the little color had faded from his sunken cheeks and pinched lips so that he was livid, with his breath a panting gasp. Was he ill? He looked it. He looked almost as though he were about to totter and fall.
Blakinson hooked another little bench forward, and Arton collapsed to it, still staring.
"Well, I'm a motor-oiler," Blakinson said with an uneasy smile, "if I stole your wife—how silly. We're men now—not impetuous, idealistic boys. Mary loved me—and I took her."
"Yes—that's right. You took her."
Blakinson laughed. "That was a little startling to you, back in 1939, wasn't it? But it isn't really outlawed by the Social Code now. 1979—and we know more about the laws of life and love now, don't we? The needs and the inherent right of love to take what it wants. I was unceremonious, forty years ago. Today I'd file
Declaration of Love with the Social Manager, Arton—but the thing is the same, whatever you call it—"
"Stop!" Arton cried. "You—you damned blasphemer—"
"And Mary would sign the Declaration—"
"You lie! She wouldn't. She—she never really loved you. You just tricked her—"
Arton gasped it out. Then on the bench he sank back, panting, breathless; and a groan escaped him as one of his withered hands clutched convulsively at his chest. Blakinson saw that he was suddenly in horrible physical agony but still his eyes showed burning hatred for this man who had stolen his wife.
Then Blakinson jumped to his feet. "You're ill, Arton. What's the matter with you?"
God, the old fellow seemed about to gasp his last. If he died, his secret would die with him. A sudden apprehension shot through Blakinson. A chance to get quickly rich was here. Heaven knows,' Blakinson needed it. A thousand decimars—he was short fully that much in his accounts at the Federal Citizen-Loan Bank in New York. An embezzler; they'd trap him within a month or two and he'd be outlawed for life in one of the ghastly Polar Prisons of Antarctica.
"What is it, Arton? Let me help you." He bent over the stricken scientist.
"My heart," Arton gasped. "Angina—"
"The shock of seeing me. Oh, I'm sorry."
"My medicine—over there—the taboret—"
Blakinson jumped for it; came back with the small triangular vial and a glass of water.
"These Arton? How many?"
"Two—Oh, hurry—"
ARTON'S face was twisted with the terrible pain now. The opalescent glow from the electronic tubes painted his
contorted features so luridly that he seemed something less than human. His thin white fingers like claws fumbled with the agony in his chest. But still his eyes burned with that smouldering hatred. There was terror mingled with it now.
The solicitous Blakinson, hurrying to administer the medicine, fearful that Arton would die before revealing his secret, saw the terror in Arton's eyes and thought that it was only physical agony and the fear of death. He could not know that Arton feared sudden death only because it would leave unfinished something which for all these years he had wanted to do.
"Two," Blakinson was saying. "Here they are."
The little triangular pellets wafted up their aromatic fumes as Blakinson drew them from the vial. Arton gulped them down; then for a long time he lay on the bench, gasping, while Blakinson solicitously held his cold dank hand.
"Better now?"
"Yes—I'll—be over it presently."
"I'm sorry, Arton. Shouldn't have come—giving you a shock like that. And I shouldn't have spoken that way about things. About poor Mary. Forget it, Arton."
"Yes," Arton murmured. "Just—forget it. She—Mary—she died—peacefully?"
"You're not well enough to talk," Blakinson remonstrated. "Take it easy now."
"But I am—well enough." Arton was struggling erect. Color was coming back into his face; the paroxysm was over.
"Mary died—peacefully?" he insisted.
"Why sure—sure."
"I heard—that was years ago—I heard, Blakinson, that you weren't—treating her very well. But you had gone to the Soviet then—I couldn't find you. Then I heard that she had died—over there—"
"Don't let's talk of it," Blakinson said soothingly. "All that you heard—that was a lie. Mary was always very happy." He gazed around the opalescent-glowing room. The apparatus on the big metal table along the opposite wall was still humming; the electronic tubes were still bubbling with flourescence.
"You're quite a scientist I hear," Blakinson added. "Different from me—I'm just a money-monger." He expanded his bulky chest. "Done pretty well by myself—piling up the decimars. How have you fared, Arton? They tell me you've struck riches here."
HE HELD his breath for the answer. Queer how Arton's face lighted up. And his eyes sparkled.
"I'm just about to strike it rich now," Arton said. A new vigor had come to his weak, quavering voice. He stood up, swaying.
"Easy," Blakinson said. "Don't overtax your strength."
"I'm all right now. I feel—much better now." His glowing eyes clung to Blakinson's face. "Would you—would you want to see what I'm doing? Shall I explain it to you—how it works?"
Falling into Blakinson's trap. So easy! It was like Arton to be fatuous. He had always been naive, trusting. He had been the last one to realize what was going on between his wife and his friends. Forty years hadn't changed him. He was willing now to show Blakinson his secret.
"If it won't tire you," Blakinson said. "Mighty interesting, of course." He struggled to hold his voice casual. "What have you done, discovered a way to create gold? And radium?"
"And platinum," Arton said. "Those metals—queerly combined—and queerly radioactive. A nameless metal. But I don't exactly create it. No, you won't call it that."
He was shakily walking back to his work-table, donning his goggles. "Rather, I produce it," he added. "Or, let's say, I find it and make it exist. 1 secured one little piece—that was about a month ago, but I've been disappointed ever since. All I've got is what seems to be an even baser metal than lead. And sometimes I just get nothing. There seems to be a lot of empty space around here, mingled with the metal."
Just a demented old fellow. Disappointment struck at Blakinson. Was Arton, with premature senility and the angina that starved his heart of its blood—was he just addle-witted now? Forty years of brooding because he had lost his wife, so that now he was having hallucinations of his own scientific genius?
But somehow, it didn't seem just that. "Why—that's too bad," Blakinson stammered. "Needs perseverance, you mean? Trial and error, until you get what you're after."
"Exactly so." Behind the huge glassite goggles, Arton's eyes were masked. But his lips were smiling. "That's it, Blakinson. You always get—what you're after if you never give up. No matter how long it takes, your chance will come."
"That's right," Blakinson agreed.
"And when your chance comes," Arton said, "you seize it. Because maybe it only comes just once ... Here, put on a pair 01 goggles. The light—it's worse than actinic—might damage the retina. We'll try again—see what we can get this time."
Blakinson could feel his heart pounding as he donned the goggles, backed away and stood watching.
"I'll finish the trial I was starting when you came," Arton added.
...
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