Double or Nothing, Page 3
Jack Sharkey
back onto the scale, andlost a lot of symmetry and a couple of rivets.
"What's Plan C?" I said to Artie.
"_Quiet!_" he said, either because I'd interrupted his thinking orbecause that was our next goal.
* * * * *
The next four days were spent in the arduous and quite tricky businessof reaming acoustically spaced holes along the flanges. Artie's theorywas that if we simply ("simply" was his word, not mine) fixed it sothat the sound made by each flange (anything whirly with a hole or twoin it is bound to make a calculated noise) was of the proper number ofvibrations to intermesh with the compression/rarefaction phases of thesounds made by the other flanges, a veritable sphere of silence would bethereby created, since there'd be no room for any sound waves to passthrough the already crowded atmosphere about the machine.
"It'll make less noise than a mouse in sneakers drooling on a blotter!"enthused Artie, when I had it rigged again, and ready to go.
"Still," I said uncertainly, "whether we _hear_ it or not, all thatsoundwave-energy has to do _something_, Artie. If it turns ultrasonic,we may suddenly find ourselves in a showerbath of free electrons andeven _worse_ subatomic particles from disrupted air molecules. Or thelab might turn molten on us. Or--"
"Oh, turn it _on_, Burt!" said Artie. "That's just a chance we have totake."
"Don't see why we _have_ to take it...." I groused, but I'm as curiousas the next man, so I turned it on. (I could have arranged to do it byremote control, except for two pressing deterrents: One--At a remotepoint of control, I wouldn't be able to watch what, if anything,the machine did, and Two--Who knows where the _safe_ spot is wheresoundwaves are concerned? With some sonic forces, you're safer the_nearer_ you get to the source.) So, like I said, I turned it on.
Silence. Beautiful, blissful, silence. There before us twirled the rowsof shiny cones, lifting slowly into the air, and there was nothingto hear at all. Beside me, Artie's lips moved, but I couldn't catcha syllable. This time around, we'd looped a rope through a few metalgrommets in the base of the machine, and as it rose, Artie slipped thetrailing ends under his arms from behind, and proceeded to lash itacross his chest, to test the thing's lift-power. As he fumbled with theknot, I shouted at him, "Use a firm hitch!"
* * * * *
Nothing came out, but Artie wasn't a bad lip-reader. He scowled, andhis lips made a "_What?!_" motion, so I repeated my caution. Next thingI knew, he was taking a poke at me, and I, to fend him off, ended upwrestling on the floor with him, while the untended machine burred itsway into the ceiling, until the engine overheated and burned away theelectrical insulation on the wires, and the machine, plus a good twofeet square of lab-ceiling, once more descended to demolish the scale.
"--your language!" Artie was snarling, as sound returned.
"All I said was 'Use a firm hitch!'" I pleaded, trying to shove hisshins off my floor-pinned biceps.
Artie stared at me, then rocked off my prostrate body, convulsed ina fit of laughter. "Say it silently in front of a mirror, sometime,"he choked out. Before I had time to see what he was talking about,I smelled smoke, above and beyond that engendered by the scorchedinsulation.
I ran to the door, and opened it to observe the last glowing,crackling timbers of the house, the theatre, and the heliport vanishinto hot orange sparks, in the grip of a dandy ring of fire that--ina seventy-yard path--had burned up everything in a sixty-five tohundred-thirty-five yard radius of the lab.
"I told you those soundwaves had to do something," I said. "Ready togive up?"
But Artie was already staring at the debris around the scale and makingswift notes on a memo pad....
* * * * *
"It looks awfully damned complex--" I hedged, eight days later,looking at the repaired, refurbished, and amended gadget on the table."Remember, Artie, the more parts to an invention, the more things can gowrong with it. In geometric progression...."
"Unh-uh," he shook his head. "Not the more parts, Burt. The more_moving_ parts. All we've done is added a parabolic sound-reflector, toforce all the waves the cones make down through a tube in the middle ofthe machine. And we've insulated the tube to keep extraneous vibrationfrom shattering it with super-induced metal fatigue."
"Yeah," I said, "but about that _insulation_, Artie--"
"You got a _better_ idea?" he snapped. "We tried rubber; it charredand flaked away. We tried plastics; they bubbled, melted, extruded,or burned. We tried metal and mineral honeycombs; they distorted,incandesced, fused or vaporized. Ceramic materials shattered. Fabricstore, or petrified and cracked. All the regular things failed us. Sowhat's wrong with trying something new?"
"Nothing, Artie, nothing. But--_Cornflakes_?"
"Well, we sogged 'em down good with water, right? And they've still gotenough interstices between the particles to act as sound-baffles, right?And by the time they get good and hot and dry, they'll cook onto themetal, right? (Ask anyone who ever tried to clean a pot after scorchingcereal just how hard they'll stick!) And even when most of them flakeaway, the random distribution of char will circumvent any chance thesoundwaves have of setting up the regular pulse-beat necessary tofatigue the metal in the tube, okay?"
"Yeah, sure, Artie, it's okay, but--_Cornflakes_?"
"I take it your objections are less scientific than they are esthetic?"he inquired.
"Well, something like that," I admitted. "I mean, aw--For pete's sake,Artie! The patent office'll laugh at us. They'll start referring us tothe copyright people, as inventors of cookbooks!"
"Maybe not," he said philosophically. "The thing _still_ may not _work_,you know."
"Well, _there's_ one bright spot, anyhow!" I agreed, fiddling with thestarting switch. "So okay, I'm game if you are."
"Let 'er rip," he pontificated, and I flicked the switch.
* * * * *
It worked beautifully. Not even a faint hum. The only way we could tellit was working was from the needle on the--rebuilt again--scale, as itdropped lazily down to the zero mark. Our ears didn't sting, no glasswent dusting into crystalline powder, and a quick peek through the doorshowed no ring of fire surrounding the lab.
"We may just have _done_ it!" I said, hopefully, as the silver-nosedmachine began to float upward (We hadn't _had_ to mount the parabolicreflector in the position of a nose-cone, but it made the thing lookneater, somehow.)
It seemed a little torpid in its ascent, but that could be credited tothe extra weight of the reflector and cornflakes, not to mention thefact that the helices had to suck all their air in under the lip of thesilvery nose-cone before they could thrust properly. But its rise wassteady. Six inches, ten inches--
Then, at precisely one foot in height, something unexpected happened.Under the base of the machine, where the sound-heated air was at itsmost torrid, a shimmering disc-like thing began to materialize, andwarp, and hollow out slightly, and beside it, a glinting metal rod-thingflattened at one end, then the flat end went concave in the center andkind of oval about the perimeter, and something brownish and shreddyplopped and hissed into the now-very-concave disc-like thing.
"Artie--!" I said, uneasily, but by then, he, too, had recognized theobjects for what they were.
"Burt--" he said excitedly. "Do you realize what we've done? We'veinvented a _syntheticizer_!"
Even as he was saying it, the objects completed their mid-airmaterialization (time: five seconds, start to finish), and clatteredand clinked onto the scale. We stood and looked down at them: A bowl ofcornflakes and a silver spoon.
"How--?" I said, but Artie was already figuring it out, aloud.
"It's the soundwaves," he said. "At ultrasonic, molecule-disruptingvibrations, they're doing just what that Philosopher's Stone wassupposed to: Transmuting. Somehow, we didn't clean out the reflectorsufficiently, and some of the traces of our other trial insulationsremained inside. The ceramics formed the bowl, the metals formed thespoon, the cornflak
es formed the cornflakes!"
"But," I said logically (or as logically as could be expected under thecircumstances), "what about the rubber, or the fabrics?"
* * * * *
Artie's face lit up, and he nodded toward the machine, still hovering atone foot above the scale. In its wake, amid the distorting turbulence ofthe sound-tortured air, two more objects were materializing: a neatlyfolded damask napkin, and a small rubber toothpick. As they dropped downto join their predecessors, the machine gave a satisfied shake, androse steadily
"What's Plan C?" I said to Artie.
"_Quiet!_" he said, either because I'd interrupted his thinking orbecause that was our next goal.
* * * * *
The next four days were spent in the arduous and quite tricky businessof reaming acoustically spaced holes along the flanges. Artie's theorywas that if we simply ("simply" was his word, not mine) fixed it sothat the sound made by each flange (anything whirly with a hole or twoin it is bound to make a calculated noise) was of the proper number ofvibrations to intermesh with the compression/rarefaction phases of thesounds made by the other flanges, a veritable sphere of silence would bethereby created, since there'd be no room for any sound waves to passthrough the already crowded atmosphere about the machine.
"It'll make less noise than a mouse in sneakers drooling on a blotter!"enthused Artie, when I had it rigged again, and ready to go.
"Still," I said uncertainly, "whether we _hear_ it or not, all thatsoundwave-energy has to do _something_, Artie. If it turns ultrasonic,we may suddenly find ourselves in a showerbath of free electrons andeven _worse_ subatomic particles from disrupted air molecules. Or thelab might turn molten on us. Or--"
"Oh, turn it _on_, Burt!" said Artie. "That's just a chance we have totake."
"Don't see why we _have_ to take it...." I groused, but I'm as curiousas the next man, so I turned it on. (I could have arranged to do it byremote control, except for two pressing deterrents: One--At a remotepoint of control, I wouldn't be able to watch what, if anything,the machine did, and Two--Who knows where the _safe_ spot is wheresoundwaves are concerned? With some sonic forces, you're safer the_nearer_ you get to the source.) So, like I said, I turned it on.
Silence. Beautiful, blissful, silence. There before us twirled the rowsof shiny cones, lifting slowly into the air, and there was nothingto hear at all. Beside me, Artie's lips moved, but I couldn't catcha syllable. This time around, we'd looped a rope through a few metalgrommets in the base of the machine, and as it rose, Artie slipped thetrailing ends under his arms from behind, and proceeded to lash itacross his chest, to test the thing's lift-power. As he fumbled with theknot, I shouted at him, "Use a firm hitch!"
* * * * *
Nothing came out, but Artie wasn't a bad lip-reader. He scowled, andhis lips made a "_What?!_" motion, so I repeated my caution. Next thingI knew, he was taking a poke at me, and I, to fend him off, ended upwrestling on the floor with him, while the untended machine burred itsway into the ceiling, until the engine overheated and burned away theelectrical insulation on the wires, and the machine, plus a good twofeet square of lab-ceiling, once more descended to demolish the scale.
"--your language!" Artie was snarling, as sound returned.
"All I said was 'Use a firm hitch!'" I pleaded, trying to shove hisshins off my floor-pinned biceps.
Artie stared at me, then rocked off my prostrate body, convulsed ina fit of laughter. "Say it silently in front of a mirror, sometime,"he choked out. Before I had time to see what he was talking about,I smelled smoke, above and beyond that engendered by the scorchedinsulation.
I ran to the door, and opened it to observe the last glowing,crackling timbers of the house, the theatre, and the heliport vanishinto hot orange sparks, in the grip of a dandy ring of fire that--ina seventy-yard path--had burned up everything in a sixty-five tohundred-thirty-five yard radius of the lab.
"I told you those soundwaves had to do something," I said. "Ready togive up?"
But Artie was already staring at the debris around the scale and makingswift notes on a memo pad....
* * * * *
"It looks awfully damned complex--" I hedged, eight days later,looking at the repaired, refurbished, and amended gadget on the table."Remember, Artie, the more parts to an invention, the more things can gowrong with it. In geometric progression...."
"Unh-uh," he shook his head. "Not the more parts, Burt. The more_moving_ parts. All we've done is added a parabolic sound-reflector, toforce all the waves the cones make down through a tube in the middle ofthe machine. And we've insulated the tube to keep extraneous vibrationfrom shattering it with super-induced metal fatigue."
"Yeah," I said, "but about that _insulation_, Artie--"
"You got a _better_ idea?" he snapped. "We tried rubber; it charredand flaked away. We tried plastics; they bubbled, melted, extruded,or burned. We tried metal and mineral honeycombs; they distorted,incandesced, fused or vaporized. Ceramic materials shattered. Fabricstore, or petrified and cracked. All the regular things failed us. Sowhat's wrong with trying something new?"
"Nothing, Artie, nothing. But--_Cornflakes_?"
"Well, we sogged 'em down good with water, right? And they've still gotenough interstices between the particles to act as sound-baffles, right?And by the time they get good and hot and dry, they'll cook onto themetal, right? (Ask anyone who ever tried to clean a pot after scorchingcereal just how hard they'll stick!) And even when most of them flakeaway, the random distribution of char will circumvent any chance thesoundwaves have of setting up the regular pulse-beat necessary tofatigue the metal in the tube, okay?"
"Yeah, sure, Artie, it's okay, but--_Cornflakes_?"
"I take it your objections are less scientific than they are esthetic?"he inquired.
"Well, something like that," I admitted. "I mean, aw--For pete's sake,Artie! The patent office'll laugh at us. They'll start referring us tothe copyright people, as inventors of cookbooks!"
"Maybe not," he said philosophically. "The thing _still_ may not _work_,you know."
"Well, _there's_ one bright spot, anyhow!" I agreed, fiddling with thestarting switch. "So okay, I'm game if you are."
"Let 'er rip," he pontificated, and I flicked the switch.
* * * * *
It worked beautifully. Not even a faint hum. The only way we could tellit was working was from the needle on the--rebuilt again--scale, as itdropped lazily down to the zero mark. Our ears didn't sting, no glasswent dusting into crystalline powder, and a quick peek through the doorshowed no ring of fire surrounding the lab.
"We may just have _done_ it!" I said, hopefully, as the silver-nosedmachine began to float upward (We hadn't _had_ to mount the parabolicreflector in the position of a nose-cone, but it made the thing lookneater, somehow.)
It seemed a little torpid in its ascent, but that could be credited tothe extra weight of the reflector and cornflakes, not to mention thefact that the helices had to suck all their air in under the lip of thesilvery nose-cone before they could thrust properly. But its rise wassteady. Six inches, ten inches--
Then, at precisely one foot in height, something unexpected happened.Under the base of the machine, where the sound-heated air was at itsmost torrid, a shimmering disc-like thing began to materialize, andwarp, and hollow out slightly, and beside it, a glinting metal rod-thingflattened at one end, then the flat end went concave in the center andkind of oval about the perimeter, and something brownish and shreddyplopped and hissed into the now-very-concave disc-like thing.
"Artie--!" I said, uneasily, but by then, he, too, had recognized theobjects for what they were.
"Burt--" he said excitedly. "Do you realize what we've done? We'veinvented a _syntheticizer_!"
Even as he was saying it, the objects completed their mid-airmaterialization (time: five seconds, start to finish), and clatteredand clinked onto the scale. We stood and looked down at them: A bowl ofcornflakes and a silver spoon.
"How--?" I said, but Artie was already figuring it out, aloud.
"It's the soundwaves," he said. "At ultrasonic, molecule-disruptingvibrations, they're doing just what that Philosopher's Stone wassupposed to: Transmuting. Somehow, we didn't clean out the reflectorsufficiently, and some of the traces of our other trial insulationsremained inside. The ceramics formed the bowl, the metals formed thespoon, the cornflak
es formed the cornflakes!"
"But," I said logically (or as logically as could be expected under thecircumstances), "what about the rubber, or the fabrics?"
* * * * *
Artie's face lit up, and he nodded toward the machine, still hovering atone foot above the scale. In its wake, amid the distorting turbulence ofthe sound-tortured air, two more objects were materializing: a neatlyfolded damask napkin, and a small rubber toothpick. As they dropped downto join their predecessors, the machine gave a satisfied shake, androse steadily
