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17 - The Foreign Hand Tie · Space Odyssey Sci-Fi Anthology

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  Speaker 1: The Foreign Hand Tie by Randall Garrett as David Gordon.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Ben Tucker. The Foreign
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Hand Tie by Randall Garrett. From Instanbul and Turkish thrace
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  Speaker 1: to Moscow U S. S R. Is only a couple
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  Speaker 1: of hours outing for a round trip in a fast
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  Speaker 1: jet plane, a shade less than eleven hundred miles in
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  Speaker 1: a bee line. Unfortunately, mister Raphael Poe had no way
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  Speaker 1: of chartering a bee. The United States cruiser wound Socket,
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  Speaker 1: having made its placid way across the Mediterranean, up the
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  Speaker 1: A G and C and through the Dardanelles to Bosfors,
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  Speaker 1: stopped overnight at Istanbul and then turned around and went back.
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  Speaker 1: On the way in, it had stopped at Gibraltar, Barcelona, Marseilles, Genoa, Naples,
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  Speaker 1: and Athens, the main friendly ports on the northern side
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  Speaker 1: of the Mediterranean. On the way back, it performed the
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  Speaker 1: same ritual on the African side of the sea. Its
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  Speaker 1: most famous passengers were the American Secretary of State, two senators,
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  Speaker 1: and three representatives. Its most important passenger was mister Rafael Poe.
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  Speaker 1: During the voyage in mister Rafael Poe remained locked in
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  Speaker 1: a state room all by himself, towidling his thumbs restlessly
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  Speaker 1: and playing endless games of solitaire, making bets with himself
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  Speaker 1: on how long it would be before the ship hit
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  Speaker 1: the next big wave, and wondering how long it would
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  Speaker 1: take a man to go nuts in isolation. On the
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  Speaker 1: voyage back, he was not aboard the wound socket at all,
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  Speaker 1: and no one missed him because only the captain and
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  Speaker 1: two other navy men had known he was aboard, and
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  Speaker 1: they knew that he had been dropped overboard at Istanbul.
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  Speaker 1: The sleek, tapered celindroid might easily have been mistaken for
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  Speaker 1: a naval torpedo, since it was roughly the same size
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  Speaker 1: and shape. Actually, it was a sort of hybrid combining
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  Speaker 1: the torpedo and two man submarine that the Japanese had
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  Speaker 1: used in World War II, plus refinements contributed by such
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  Speaker 1: apparently diverse arts as skin diving, cybernetics, and nucleonics. Inside
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  Speaker 1: this one man underwater vessel, Rafael Poe lay prone guiding
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  Speaker 1: the little atomic powered submarine across the Black Sea, past
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  Speaker 1: Odessa and up the Dnieper. The first leg, the four
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  Speaker 1: hundred miles from the Bosphorus to the mouth of the river,
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  Speaker 1: was relatively easy. The two hundred and sixty miles from
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  Speaker 1: there to the Napropovosque was a little more difficult, but
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  Speaker 1: not terribly so. It became increasingly more difficult as the
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  Speaker 1: deneeper narrowed and became more shallow. On to Kiev, his
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  Speaker 1: course changed to Napropvosque from northeast to northwest for the
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  Speaker 1: next two hundred and fifty miles. At Kiev, the river
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: changed course again, heading north. Three hundred and fifty miles
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  Speaker 1: farther on. At Smolensk he was heading almost due east.
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  Speaker 1: It had not been an easy trip. At night, he
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: had surfaced to get his bearings and to recharge the
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  Speaker 1: air tanks. Several times he had had to take to
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  Speaker 1: the land using the caterpillar treads on the little machine
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  Speaker 1: because of obstacles in the river. At the end of
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  Speaker 1: the ninth day, he was still one hundred and eighty
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  Speaker 1: miles from Moscow, but at that point he got out
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  Speaker 1: of the submarine and prepared himself for the trip overland.
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  Speaker 1: When he was ready, he pressed a special button on
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  Speaker 1: the control panel of the expensive little craft. Immediately the
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  Speaker 1: special robot brain took over. It had recorded the trip upstream.
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  Speaker 1: By applying that information in reverse, a mirror image, so
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  Speaker 1: to speak, it began guiding itself back toward Istanbul, applying
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  Speaker 1: the necessary corrective factors that made the difference between an
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  Speaker 1: upstream and a downstream trip. If it had made a
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  Speaker 1: mistake or had been discovered, it would have blown itself
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  Speaker 1: to bits. As a tribute to modern robotics in ultra microminiaturization.
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  Speaker 1: It is a fact that the little craft was picked
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  Speaker 1: up five days later, a few miles from Istanbul by
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  Speaker 1: the us S Paducah. By that time, a certain Vladimir Turensky,
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  Speaker 1: a shambling, not too bright, deaf mute, had made his
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  Speaker 1: fully documented appearance in Moscow. Spies, like fairies and other
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  Speaker 1: such elusive sprites, traditionally come in rings. The reason for
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  Speaker 1: this circumstructural metaphor is obscure, but it remains the fact
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  Speaker 1: that a single spy all by himself is usually of
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  Speaker 1: very little use to anybody. Espionage on any useful scale
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  Speaker 1: requires organization. There is, as there should be a reason
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  Speaker 1: for this. The purpose of espionage is to gather information,
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  Speaker 1: preferably useful information, against the wishes of and in spite
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  Speaker 1: of the efforts of a group usually referred to as
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  Speaker 1: the enemy, which is endeavoring to prevent that information from
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  Speaker 1: getting into other hands than their own. Such activities obviously
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  Speaker 1: imply communication. An espioneur working for side A who finds
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  Speaker 1: a bit of important information about Side B must obviously
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  Speaker 1: communicate that bit of information to Side A, or it
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  Speaker 1: is of no use whatsoever. All of these factors pose
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  Speaker 1: complex problems. To begin with, the espioneur must get himself
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  Speaker 1: into a position in which he can get hold of
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  Speaker 1: the information he wants. Usually that means he must pass
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  Speaker 1: himself off as something he is not, a process which
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  Speaker 1: requires time. Then, when he gets them information he is after,
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  Speaker 1: he must get it to his employers quickly. Information like fish,
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  Speaker 1: becomes useless after a certain amount of time, and unlike fish,
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  Speaker 1: there is no known way of refrigerating it to retard spoilage.
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  Speaker 1: It is difficult to transmit information these days. It is
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  Speaker 1: actually easier for the espioneur to transmit it than to
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  Speaker 1: get it, generally speaking, but it is difficult for him
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  Speaker 1: to do both. Jobs at once. So the spy rings
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  Speaker 1: two major parts consist of the ones who get the
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  Speaker 1: information from the enemy and the ones who transmit it
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  Speaker 1: back to their employers. Without magic, it is difficult for
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  Speaker 1: a single spy to be of any benefit, and magic
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  Speaker 1: in this case can be defined as some method by
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  Speaker 1: which information can be obtained or transmitted without fear of
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  Speaker 1: discovery by the enemy. During World War One, a competent
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  Speaker 1: spy equipped with a compact transistorized short wave communication system
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  Speaker 1: could have had himself a ball. If the system had
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  Speaker 1: included a miniature full color television camera, he could have
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  Speaker 1: gone hog wild. In those days, such equipment would have
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  Speaker 1: been magic. All this is not opera Poe of nothing.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Rafael Poe was, in his own way, a magician.
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  Speaker 1: It is not to be supposed that the United States
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  Speaker 1: of America had no spy rings. In the Union of
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  Speaker 1: Soviet Socialist Republics at that time, there were plenty of them.
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  Speaker 1: Rafael Poe could have, if it were so ordained, availed
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  Speaker 1: himself of the services of any one or all of them.
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  Speaker 1: He did not do so for two reasons. In the
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  Speaker 1: first place, the more people who are in on a secret,
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  Speaker 1: the more who can give it away. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: a ring, like a chain, is only as strong as
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  Speaker 1: its weakest section in the second place. Rafael Poe didn't
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  Speaker 1: need any assistance in the first place. That is, he
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  Speaker 1: needed no more assistance than most magicians do a shill
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  Speaker 1: in the audience. In this particular case, the shill was
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  Speaker 1: his brother, Leonard Poe. Operation Map Case was as ultra
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  Speaker 1: secret as it could possibly be. Although there were perhaps
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  Speaker 1: two dozen men who knew of the existence of the
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  Speaker 1: operation by its code name, such as the naval officers
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  Speaker 1: who had helped get Rafael Poe to his destination, there
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  Speaker 1: were only five men who really knew what Operation Map
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  Speaker 1: Case was all about. Two of these were, of course,
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  Speaker 1: Rafael and Leonard Poe. Two others were the President of
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  Speaker 1: the United States and the Secretary of Defense. The fifth
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  Speaker 1: was Colonel Julius T. Spalding of the United States Army Intelligence.
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  Speaker 1: On the seventh day after Rafael Poe's arrival in Moscow,
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  Speaker 1: the other four men met in Blair House, across the
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  Speaker 1: street from the White House, in a room especially prepared
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  Speaker 1: for the purpose. No one but the President knew the
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  Speaker 1: exact purpose of the meeting, although they had an idea
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  Speaker 1: that he wanted more information of some kind. The President
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  Speaker 1: himself was the last to arrive, leaving two Secret service
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  Speaker 1: men standing outside the room. He carefully closed the door
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  Speaker 1: and turned to face the Secretary of Defense, Colonel Spalding,
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  Speaker 1: and Leonard Poe. Sit down, gentlemen, he said, seating himself
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  Speaker 1: as he spoke, gentlemen, before we go any further, I
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  Speaker 1: must conduct one final experiment in order to justify Operation
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  Speaker 1: map Case. I will not explain it just yet. He
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  Speaker 1: looked at Lenny Poe, a small, dark haired man with
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  Speaker 1: a largish nose. Mister Poe, can you contact your brother
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  Speaker 1: at this moment? Lenny Poe was a man who was
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  Speaker 1: not over awed by any one and had no inclination
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  Speaker 1: to be formal, not even toward the President. Yeah, sure,
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  Speaker 1: he said, matter of factly. The President glanced at his watch.
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  Speaker 1: It is now five minutes of ten. That makes it
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  Speaker 1: five minutes of six in the evening of Moscow. Is
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  Speaker 1: your brother free to move around? That is, can he
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  Speaker 1: go to a certain place in the city. Lenny closed
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  Speaker 1: his eyes for a moment, then opened them. Rafe says,
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  Speaker 1: he can go any place that the average citizen would
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  Speaker 1: be allowed to go. Excellent, said the President. He gave
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  Speaker 1: Lenny an address, an intersection of two streets, not far
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  Speaker 1: from Red Square. Can he get there within fifteen minutes?
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  Speaker 1: Make it twenty, said Lenny, very well, twenty minutes. When
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  Speaker 1: he gets there, I'll ask you to relay further instructions.
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  Speaker 1: Lenny Poe closed his eyes, folded his arms, and relaxed
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  Speaker 1: in his chair. The other three men waited silently. Night
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  Speaker 1: Minutes later, Lenny opened his eyes and said, Okay, he's there.
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  Speaker 1: Now what there's a lamp post on that corner, I believe,
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  Speaker 1: said the President. Can your brother see it? Lenny closed
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  Speaker 1: his eyes again. Sure, the guy leaning against it. The
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  Speaker 1: President's eyes brightened. Describe him Lenny's eyes still closed. That
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  Speaker 1: five feet ten have he set, gray hair, dark rim glasses,
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  Speaker 1: brown suit, flashy necktie. By the cut of his clothes,
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  Speaker 1: I'd say he was either British or American, probably American,
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  Speaker 1: fifty five of fifty six years old. It was obvious
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  Speaker 1: to the Secretary of Defense and to Colonel Spalding that
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  Speaker 1: the President was suppressing some inward excitement. Very good, mister Poe,
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  Speaker 1: he said. Now you will find a box of colored
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  Speaker 1: pencils and a sketch pad in that desk over there,
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  Speaker 1: Can you draw me a fairly accurate sketch of that man? Yeah? Sure,
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  Speaker 1: Lenny opened his eyes, moved over to the desk, took
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  Speaker 1: out the pencils and sketch pad, and went to work.
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  Speaker 1: He had to close his eyes occasionally, but his work
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  Speaker 1: was incredibly rapid and at the same time almost photographically accurate.
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  Speaker 1: As the picture took form, the President's inward excitement increased perceptibly.
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  Speaker 1: When it was finally finished, Lenny handed the sketch to
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  Speaker 1: the President without a word. The President took it eagerly,
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  Speaker 1: and his face broke out in his famous grin excellent perfect.
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  Speaker 1: He looked at Lenny. Your brother hasn't attracted the man's
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  Speaker 1: attention in any way, has he? Nope, said Lenny, Fine,
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  Speaker 1: the experiment is over. Relay my thanks to your brother.
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  Speaker 1: He can go ahead with whatever he was doing now.
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  Speaker 1: I don't quite understand, said the Secretary of State. I
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  Speaker 1: felt it necessary to make one final experiment of my
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  Speaker 1: own devising, the President said. I wanted Rafael Poe to
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  Speaker 1: go to a particular place at a particular time, with
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  Speaker 1: no advance warning, to transmit a picture of something he
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  Speaker 1: had never seen before. I arranged this test myself, and
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  Speaker 1: I am positive that there could be no trickery never
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  Speaker 1: seen before, the Secretary repeated, bewilderedly. He gestured at the sketch.
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  Speaker 1: Why that's obviously, Bill Donovan of the Moscow delegation. Poe
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  Speaker 1: could have seen a photograph of him somewhere before. Even so,
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  Speaker 1: the President pointed out, there would be no way of
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  Speaker 1: knowing that he would be at that spot. But that's
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  Speaker 1: beside the point. Look at that necktie. I had noticed it,
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  Speaker 1: the Defense Secretary admitted. It was certainly an outstanding piece
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  Speaker 1: of neckwear, as drawn by Leonard Poe. It was a
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  Speaker 1: piece of brilliant chartreuse silk, fully three and a half
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  Speaker 1: inches wide at its broadest. Against that background rose pink
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  Speaker 1: nude girls were cavorting with pale mauve satyrs. That tie,
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  Speaker 1: said the President, was sent to me fifteen years ago
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  Speaker 1: by one of my constituents when I was in Congress.
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  Speaker 1: I never wore it, of course, but it would have
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  Speaker 1: been criminal to have thrown away such a magnificently obscene
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  Speaker 1: example of bad taste as that. I sent it to
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  Speaker 1: Donovan in a sealed diplomatic pouch by special courier with
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  Speaker 1: instructions to wear it at this time. He of course,
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  Speaker 1: has no idea why he is standing there. He is
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  Speaker 1: merely obeying orders. Gentlemen, this is completely convincing me. Absolutely
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  Speaker 1: no one but myself knew what I had in mind.
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  Speaker 1: It would have required to lepathy, even to cheat. Thank
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  Speaker 1: you very much, mister Poe. Colonel Spaulding, you may proceed
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  Speaker 1: with operation map case as planned. Doctor malkronovno, well, your
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: initial des requisition forms please. Doctor Sonya Malakronova, a dowdy
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: looking middle aged woman with unplucked eyebrows and a mole
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  Speaker 1: on her chin, adjusted her still rimmed glasses, took the
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  Speaker 1: proffered papers from the clerk, ran her eyes over them,
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  Speaker 1: and then put her initials on the bottom of each page.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, comrade, doctor, said the clerk, when she handed
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  Speaker 1: back the sheaf of papers. Certainly, comrade, and the two
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: of them went about their business. Not far away, in
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  Speaker 1: the Cathedral of Saint Basil, Vladimir Tarinsky alias Rafael Poe
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: was also apparently going about his business. The cathedral had
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: not seen or heard of liturgy of the Russian Orthodox
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Church or any other church for a good many decades.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: The Bolsheviks, in their zeal to protect the citizens of
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the Soviet unions from the pernicious influence of religion, had
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: converted it into a museum as soon as possible. It
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: was the function of Tovarich Turinsky to push a broom
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: around the floors of the museum, and this he did
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: with great determination and efficiency. He also cleaned windows and
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: polished metal work when the occasion demanded. He was only
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: one of a large crew of similarly employed men, but
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: he was a favorite with the head custodian, who not
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: only felt sorry for the simple minded, deaf mute, but
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  Speaker 1: appreciated the hard work he did. If on occasion Comrade
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Tarinsky would lean on his broom and fall into a
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: short reverie, who was excusable because he still managed to
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  Speaker 1: get all his work done. Behind Comrade Tarinsky, a guide
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: was explaining a display to a group of tourists, but
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Tornsky ignored the distraction and kept his mind focused on
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  Speaker 1: the thoughts of doctor Sonya mahler Konova. After nearly ten
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: months of patient work, Rafao Poe had hit upon something
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: that was, to his way of thinking, more important than
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: all the information he had transmitted to Washington. Thus far,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: picking brain's telepathically was not even for him an easy job.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: He had the knack and the training, but in addition,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: there was the necessity of establishing a rapport with the
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: other mind. Since he was a physicist and not a politician,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: it was much easier to get information from the mind
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: of Sonya Malakronova than to get it from the premiere.
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  Speaker 1: The only person with whom he could keep in contact
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: over any great distance was his brother, and that only
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: because the two of them had grown up together. He
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: could pick up the strongest thoughts of any nearby person
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  Speaker 1: very easily. He did not need to hear the actual words,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: for instance, of a nearby conversation in order to follow
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: it perfectly, because the words of verbal communication were strong
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: in a person's mind. But getting deeper than that required
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: an increasing amount of understanding of the functioning of the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: other person's mind. His ability to eavesdrop on conversations had
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: been of immense benefit to watch Rington so far, but
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: it was difficult for him to get close enough to
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the higher ups in the Soviet government to get all
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the data that the President of the United States wanted.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: But now that he had established a firm mental linkage
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: with one of the greatest physicists in the Soviet Union,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: he could begin to send information that would be of
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: tremendous value to the United States. He brushed up a
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: pile of trash, pushed it into a dust pan, and
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: carried it off toward the disposal chute that led to
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the trash cans in the room where the brooms were kept.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: He paused and closed his eyes. Lenny, are they picking
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: this up? She'll a rafe. I'm ready with the drawing
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: board any time you are as. Doctor Sonya Malakronovna stood
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: in her laboratory looking over the apparatus she was perfecting
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: for the glory of the Soviet State. She had no
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: notion that someone halfway around the world was also looking
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: at it over her shoulder, or rather through her own eyes.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Lenny started with the fives first and worked his way
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: up to the larger denominations five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty, five, thirty, forty,
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  Speaker 1: fifty sixty. He muttered happily to himself, two fifty three,
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  Speaker 1: three fifty four, four fifty. It was all there, So
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: he smiled benevolently at the man in the pay window.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Thank you, muchley. Then he stepped aside to let another
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: lucky man cash a winning ticket. His horse had come
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  Speaker 1: in at fifteen six ten four fifty for straight place
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: and show, and sixty bucks on the nose had paid
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: off very nicely. Lenny Poe took out his copy of
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the daily Racing Form and checked over the listing for
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: the next race. Hmm, huh, purse seventy five hundred four
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: year olds enough handicap, seven furlongs, tough course. Lenny Poe
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: had a passion for throwing his money away on any
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: unpredictable event that would offer him odds. He had, deep
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: down an artistic soul, but he didn't let that interfere
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: with his desire to lay a bet at the drop
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: of an old fedora. He had already decided several hours
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: before that duck Soup in the next race would win
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: handily and would pay off at something like twenty or
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: twenty five to one, but he felt it his duty
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: to look one last time at the previous performance record,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: just to be absolutely positive. Satisfied, he folded the racing
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: for him, shoved it back into his pocket, and walked
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: over to the fifty dollars window. Give me nine tickets
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: on duck soup and the seventh, he said, plunking the
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: handful of bills down on the counter. But before the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: man behind a window grating could take the money, a huge,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: hamlike and rather hairy hand came down on top of
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: his own hand, covering it in the money. At the
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: same time, hold it, Lenny, said a voice. At the
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: same time, Lenny jerked his head around to his right
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and looked up to see a largish man who had
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: cop written all over him. Another such individual crowded past
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Lenny on his left to flash a badge on the
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: man in the betting window so that he would know
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: that this wasn't a hold up, Hey, said Lenny. His
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: mind was thinking fast. He decided to play his favorite role,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: that of indignant Italian. What's the matter with you? Huh?
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: This and no free country A man got no rights.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Come on, mister Poe, the big man said, quietly, this
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: is important, Paul, you are of your mind. That's the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: name of a river or a raven. I'm gonna forget
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: a witch. My name is a Manelli e skewzy Signori,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the big man said, with exaggerated politeness. Masile a vermente italiano,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: no ne loomo che serchiamo. Lennie's Italian was limited to
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: a handful of words. He knew he was trapped, but
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: he faced the situation with a plume. That's a lie.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: I was in a Chicago that night, A cose cordero avanti,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: saca Santoni. He jerked his thumb toward the gate. Let's go,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Lenny muttered something that the big man didn't quite catch.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: What you say, not per United States, the northern United States,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Lenny said, calmly, shoving his four hundred fifty bills into
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: his pocket. That's where Chicago is. Never mind, come in, boys,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: back to the drawing board. The two men escorted Lenny
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to a big, powerful Lincoln. He climbed into the back
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: seat with the big one while the other one got
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: behind the wheel. As soon as they had left the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: race track and were well out on the highway, the
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: driver said, you want to call in Mario. This traffic
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: is pretty heavy. The big man beside Lenny leaned forward
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: over the back of the front seat, unhooked the receiver
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: of the scrambler equipped radiophone, and sat back down. He
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: thumbed a button on the side of the handset and
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: said this is seven o two. After a short silence,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: he said, you can call off the net you want
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: him brought in. He listened for a moment. Okay, are
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: we clear through the mink gate? Okay, off. He leaned
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: forward to replace the receiver, speaking to the driver as
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: he did so. Straight to the air Force base. They've
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: got a jet there waiting for him. He settled back
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: comfortably and looked at Lenny. You could at least tell
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: people where you're going, very well, said Lenny. He folded
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: his arms, closed his eyes and relaxed. Right now, I'm
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: going off to dreamland. He waited a short while to
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: see if the other would say anything. He didn't, so
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Lennie proceeded to do exactly what he had promised to do.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: He went off to dreamland. He had not been absolutely
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: sure when he made the promise that he would actually
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: do just that, but the odds were in favor of it.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: It was now one o'clock in the morning in Moscow,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and Lenny's brother Raphael, was a man of regular habits.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Lenny reached out. When he made contact, all he got
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: was a jumble of hash. It was as though someone
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: had made a movie by cutting bits and snippets from
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: a hundred different films, no bit more than six or
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: seven frames long, with the soundtrack that might or might
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: not match, and projected the result through a drifting fog
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: using an ever changing lens that rippled like the surface
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: of a wind ruffled pool. Sometimes one figure would come
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: into sharp focus for a fraction of a second, sometimes
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: in color, sometimes not. Sometimes Lenny was merely observing the show.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Sometimes he was in it. Rife, Hey, Rife, Wake Up.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: The jumble of hash began to stabilize, becoming more coherent.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Lennie sat behind the far desk watching his brother come
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: up the Primrose Path in a unicycle. He pulled it
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: to a halt in front of the desk, opened the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: pilet's canopy, threw out a rope ladder, and climbed down.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: His gait was a little awkward in spite of the
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: sponge rubber floor, because of the huge flowered carpet back.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: He was carrying a battered top hat, sat precariously on
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: his blonde, curly hair. Lenny Boy, am I glad to
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: see you? I got it. The whole trouble is in
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the Wonkler, where the spatulator comes across the trellis grid.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: He lifted the carpet bag and sat it down on
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: the lab table. Connect up the gravel meter. We'll show
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: those pentagon pickles. Who has the push and go here, raf,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Lenny said, gently, wake up, you're dreaming. You are asleep.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I want to talk to you. I know. He grinned widely,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: And you don't want any back talk from me. Yak, yak, yak.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Just wait till I show you. In his hands, he
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: held an object which Lenny did not at first understand.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Then Rafe's mind brought it into focus. This, Rafe held
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: it up, is a rocket motor. Raife, wake up, Lenny said.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: The surrounding stabilized a little more will in just a minute, Lenny.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Rafe was apologetic, But let me show you this. It
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: did bear some resemblance to a rocket motor. It was
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: about as long as a man's forearm and consisted of
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: a bulbous chamber at one end, which narrowed down into
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: a throat and then widened into a horn like exhaust nozzle.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: The chamber was black, the rest was shiny chrome. Rafe
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: grasped it by the throat with one hand, the other.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: He clasped firmly around the combustion chamber. Watch now, watch,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: He gave the bulbous rubbery chamber a hard squeeze. Squawk,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: went the horn, Raife. Lenny shouted, wake up, wake up.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Rafe blinked as the situation clarified. What just a second, Lenny,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Just a second? Raphael Poe blinked his eyes open. The
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: moon was shining through the dirty windows of the dingy
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: little room. That was all he could call home for
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: a while. At least outside the window were the gray
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: streets of Moscow. His brother's thoughts resounded in his fully
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: awaken brain. Raife, you like, sure, sure, what is it?
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: The conversation that followed was not in words or pictures,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: but a weird combination of both, plus a strong admixture
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of linking concepts that were neither in essence. Lenny merely
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: reported that he had taken the day off to go
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: to the races, and that Colonel Spaulding was evidently upset
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: for some reason. He wondered if Rafe were in any
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: kind of trouble. No trouble. Everything's fine at this end,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: But doctor Mala Kronova won't be back on the job
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: until tomorrow afternoon or this afternoon rather, I know, Lenny replied,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: that's why I figured I could take time off for
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: a go at the ponies. I wonder why they're in
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: such a fuss. Then, Rafe thought, I'll let you know
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: when I find out. Lenny said, go back to sleep
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: and don't worry. In a small office in the Pentagon,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Colonel Julius T. Spalding cradled the telephone on his desk
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and looked at the Secretary of Defense Laws. The airfield
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Poe will be here shortly. We'll get to the bottom
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: of this pretty quickly, I hope so, Julius. The secretary
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: said heavily. The President is beginning to think we're both nuts.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: The colonel, a lean, nervous man with dark, bushy eyebrows
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: and a mustache to match, rolled his eyes upward toward
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the ceiling. I'm beginning to agree with him, The Defense
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Secretary scowled at him. What do you mean anybody who
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: takes telepathy seriously is considered a nut, said the colonel. True,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: said the secretary. But that doesn't mean we are nuts.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. The colonel took a cigar out of his
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: mouth and gestured with it. Anybody who'd do something that
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: convinces all his friends these nuts must be nuts. The
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: secretary smiled widly. I wish you wouldn't be so logical.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: He almost convince me. Don't worry, said the colonel. I'm
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: not ready to have this room measured for sponge, rubber
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: wallpaper just yet. Operation map Case has helped a lot
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: in the past few months, and it will help even more.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: All you have to do is get the bugs out
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: of it, said the secretary. If we did that, Colonel
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Spalding said flatly, the whole operation would fold from like
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: a personnel. Just carry on the best you can, the
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Secretary said gloomily as he got up to leave. I'll
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: let you handle it fine, I'll call you later. Twenty
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: minutes after the Defense Secretary had gone, Lenny Poe was
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: shown into Colonel Spalding's office. The agent who had brought
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: him in closed the door gently, leaving him alone with
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: a colonel. I told you i'd be back this evening.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: What were you in such a hurry about. You're supposed
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: to stay in touch, Colonel Spalding pointed out. I don't
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: mind your penchant for ponies, particularly, but i'd like to
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: know where to find you if I need you, I
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: wouldn't mind in the least, Colonel, I'd phoned you every
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: fifteen minutes if that's what you wanted. Except for one thing.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: What's that? Lenny jerked a thumb over his shoulder. You're
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: linguistically talented, flat feet. Did you ever try to get
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: into a floating crap game where you would being followed
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: by a couple of bruises who looked more like cops
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: than cops do? Look, Poe, I can find you plenty
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: of action right here in Washington, if it won't offend
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: your tender sensibilities to shoot crap with a sin he too. Meanwhile,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: sit down and listen. This is important. Lennie sat down reluctantly. Okay,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: what is it? Doctor Davenport and his crew were unhappy
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: about that last batch of drawings you and I gave him.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: What's the matter? Don't they like the color scheme? I
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: never thought scientists had any artistic taste anyway, It's got
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with that. The phone ring. Colonel Spalding
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: scooped it up and identified himself. Then what yeah, all right?
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Send him in. He hung up and looked back at
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Lenny Davenport, we can get a story firsthand. Just sit
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: there and look important. Lenny nodded. He knew that Doctor
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Amadeus Davenport was aware that the source of those drawings
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: was Soviet Russia, but he did not know how they
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: had been obtained. As far as he knew, it was
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: just plain ordinary spy work. He came in briskly. He
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: was a tall, intelligent looking man with a rather craggy
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: face and thoughtful brown eyes. He put a large briefcase
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: on the floor, and after the preliminaries were over, he
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: came right to the point. Colonel Spalding. I spoke to
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: the second retaied defense, and he agreed that perhaps the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: situation might be cleared up if I talked directly with you,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: I hope. So. The colonel said, just what is it
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: that seems to be bothering you? These drawings, Davenport said,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: don't make any sense. The device they're supposed to represent
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: couldn't do anything. Look, I'll show you. He took from
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: his briefcase photostatic copies of some of the drawings Lenny
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: had made. Five of them were straight blueprint type drawings.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: The sixth was a copy of Lenny's near photographic paintings
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: of the device itself. Let's component here, he said, gesturing
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: at the set of drawings, simply baffles us. Where of
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the opinion that your agents are known to the Soviet
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: government and have been handed a set of phony plans.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: What's it supposed to do, Lenny asked. We don't know
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: what it's supposed to do. The scientist said, but it's
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: doubtful that it would actually do anything. He selected one
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: of the photocopies. See that thing, the one shaped like
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: the letter Q with an offset tale. According to the specifications,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: it is supposed to be hated emerald green, but there's
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: no indication of what it is. Lenny Poe reached out,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: picked up a photocopy and looked at it. It was,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: or had been, an exact copy of the drawing that
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: was used by doctor Sonya Malakronovna. But whereas the original
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: drawing had been labeled entirely in cyrillic characters, these labels
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: were now in English. The drawings made no sense to
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Lenny at all. They hadn't when he had made them.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: His brother was a scientist, but Lenny understood none of it.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Who translated the ration into English. He asked, Hey, mister Burnsky,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: he's one of her best experts on the subject. I
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: assure you the translations are accurate, doctor Davenport said, But
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: if you don't know what the thing is, the colonel objected,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: how can you say the device won't work. Maybe it
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: would if that Q shaped thing was I know what
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: you mean, Davenport interrupted, But that's not the only part
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: of the machine that doesn't make any sense. He went
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: on to explain other discrepancies he had detected in the drawings,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: but none of it penetrated to Lenny, although Colonel Spalding
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: seemed to be able to follow the physicist's conversation fairly readily. Well,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: what's your suggestion, doctor, the colonel asked at last, If
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: your agents can get further data, the physicist said, carefully,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: it might be of some use. At the same time,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I'd check up on the possibility that your agents are
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: known to the NKVD. I'll see what can be done,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: said the colonel. Would you mind leaving those copies of
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the drawings with me for a while, Go right ahead,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Davenport said. One other thing. If we assume this device
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: is genuine, then it must serve some purpose might help
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: if we knew what the device is supposed to do.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I'll see what can be done, Colonel Spalding repeated. When
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Davenport had gone, Spalding looked at Poe. Got any explanation
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: for that one? Now, Lenny admitted, I can do his
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: check with Rafe. He won't be awake for a few
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: hours yet. I'll check on it and give you an
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: answer in the morning. Early next morning, Colonel Spalding walked
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: through his outer office. He stopped at the desk where
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: pretty Brunette W a C Sergeant was typing. Industriously leaned
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: across the desk and gave her his best leer. I
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: borrow a day tonight music lover, he asked, dos Wrangold
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: is playing tonight A night at the opera? Would do
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: you good? I'm sorry, sir, she said, Primly you know
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: enlisted women aren't allowed to date officers. Make out an
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: application for o CS. I'll sign it, she smiled at him.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: But then I wouldn't have any excuse for turning you down.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: And then what would my husband say. I'll bribe him.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I'll send him to o c S. He's not eligible.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Officers are automatically disqualified. Colonel Spaldings sighed, I can't win
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: against competition like that. Anything new this morning, mister Poe
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: was waiting in your office. Other than that, there's just
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: the routine things. He went on into his office. Lenny
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Poe was seated behind the colonel's desk, leaning back in
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: the swovel chair, his feet on top of the desk.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: He was sound asleep. The colonel walked up to the desk,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: took his cigar from his mouth, and said, good morning,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Colonel Spalding. Lenny snapped, awake. I'm not Colonel Spalding. He
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: said the Why are you sitting in Colonel Spalding's chair?
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: I figured if I was asleep, nobody'd know the difference.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Lenny got up and walked over to one of the
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: other chairs. He just don't lean back comfortably. I can't
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: sleep in him. You're gonna sleep later. I was your
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: session with Rafe, Lenny glowered glumly. I wish you and
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Rafe hadn't talked me into this job. It's a straight
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: on the brain. I don't know how he expects anyone
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: to understand all that garbage. Oh what garbage? Lenny waved
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: a hand aimlessly. Oh this scientific guff. I'm an artist,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: not a scientist. If Rafe can get me a clear
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: picture of something, I can copy it. But when he
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: tries to explain something scientific, he might as well be
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: thinking in Russian, or hold up a middle High Martian
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: or something I know, said Colonel Spalding, looking almost as
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: glum as Lenny. Did you get anything at all that
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: would helped doctor Davenport figure out what those drawings mean?
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Raife said that the translations are all wrong. Lenny said,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I can't get a clear Pictchya, just what is wrong?
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Colonel Spalding thought for a while in silence. Telepathy, at
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: least in so far as the Poe brothers practiced, it,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: certainly had its limitations. Lenny couldn't communicate mentally with anyone
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: except his brother Raefe. Raife could pick up the thoughts
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: of almost anyone if he happened to be close by,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: but couldn't communicate over a long distance with anyone but Lenny.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: The main trouble lay in the fact that it was
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: apparently impossible to transmit a concept directly from brain A
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: to brain B unless the basic building blocks of the
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: concept were already present in brain. B Rafael Poe, for instance,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: had spent a long time studying Russian, reading Dostoevsky, Tolstoy,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: and Tzhenev in the original tongue, familiarizing himself with modern
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Russian thought through the courtesy of Izvestia, Pravda and Krokodile,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: and finally spending time in the United States building and
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: near the Russian embassy in order to be sure that
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: he could understand the mental processes involved. Now, science has
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: a language of its own, or rather a multiplicity of languages,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: each derived partly from the native language of various scientific
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: groups and partly of borrowings from other languages. And the
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: physical sciences, especially the language of mathematics, is a further edition.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: More than that, the practice of the scientific method automatically
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: induces a thought pattern that is different from the type
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: of thought pattern that occurs in the mind of a
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: person who is not scientifically oriented. Lenny's mind was a
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: long way from being scientifically oriented. Worse, he was a bigot.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: He not only didn't know why the light in his
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: room went on when he flipped the switch, he didn't
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: want to know. To him, science was just so much flummery,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: and he didn't want his brain cluttered up with it.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Facts mean nothing to a bigot. He has already made
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: up his mind, and he doesn't intend to have his
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: solid convictions disturbed by anything so unimportant as a contradictory fact.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Lenny was of the opinion that all mathematics was arcane gobbledegook,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: and his precise knowledge of the mathematical odds and pokes
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: or and dice games didn't abate that opinion one whit Obviously,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: a mind like that is utterly incapable of understanding a
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: projected thought of scientific content. Such a thought bounces off
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: the impregnable mind shield that the bigot has set up
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: around his little area of bigotry. Colonel Spalding had been
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: aware of these circumstances since the inception of the Operation
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Map case. Even though he himself had never experienced to
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: lepathy more than half a dozen times in his life,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: he had made a study of the subject and was
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: pretty well aware of its limitations. The Colonel might have dismissed,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: as most men do, his own fleeting experiences as coincidence
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: or imagination if it had not been for the things
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: he had seen and felt in Africa during World War II.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: He had only been a captain then on detached duty
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: with British Intelligence under crusty old Colonel Sir Cecil Haversham,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: who didn't believe a word of all that mystic nonsense.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Colonel Hasham had made the mistake of alienating one of
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: the most powerful of the local witch doctors. The British
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: government had hushed it all up afterwards, of course, but
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Spalding still shuddered when he thought of the broken, spirited,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: shrunken caricature of his old self that Colonel Havisham had
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: become after he told the witch doctor where to get off.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Spalding had known that there were weaknesses and the telepathic
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: communication linkage that was the mainspring of Operation map Case,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: but he had thought they could be overcome by the
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: strength of the system. Lenny had no blockage whatever against
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: receiving visual patterns and designs. He could reproduce an electronic
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: wiring diagram perfectly, because to him it was not a
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: grouping of scientific symbols, but a design of lines, angles
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: and curves. At first, it is true he had a
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: tendency to change them here and there, to make the
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: design balance better, to make it more esthetically satisfying to
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: his artistic eye. But that tendency had been easily overcome,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: and Colonel Spalding was quite certain that that wasn't what
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: was wrong now Still, Lenny, he said, carefully, are you
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: sure you didn't jigger up those drawings to make them
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: look prettier? Lenny Poe gave the colonel a look of disgust.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Positive race checked him over every inch of the way
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: as I was drawn him, and he re checked again
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: last night or this morning on those photostats Davenport gave us.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: That's when he said there was something wrong with the translations,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: but he couldn't make it clear just what was wrong? Emh.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Lenny shrugged, How could anybody make any sense out of
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: that gobbledygook? As beyond me? The colonel blew out a
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: cloud of cigar smoke and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: As long as the diagrams were just designs on paper,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Lenny Poe could pick them up fine, which meant that
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: everything was jim dandy. As long as the wiring diagrams
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: were labeled in the cyrillic alphabet, the labels were just
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: more squiggles to be copied as a part of the design.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: But if the labels were in English, Lenny's mind would
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: try to make sense out of them, and since scientific
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: concepts did not make sense to him, the labels came
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: out as pure nonsense. In one of his drawings, the
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: lead wire had been labeled simply ground to powder, and
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: if the original drawing hadn't been handy to check with,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: it might have taken quite a bit of thought to
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: realize what was meant was to power supply ground. Another time,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: a ge E two N one eight eight A transistor
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: had come out labeled ge z n I S s A.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: There were others much worse. Russian characters, on the other hand,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: didn't have to make any sense to Lenny, so his
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: mind didn't try to force them into a preconceived mold.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Lenny unzipped his leather portfolio he had brought with him,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: especially made carrier that looked somewhat like an oversized briefcase.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Maybe theesel help, he said, We managed to get two
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: good sketches of the gadget, at least as much of
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: it as that Russian lady scientists put together. So far,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: I kind of like the rather abstract effect you get
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: from all those wires sneaking in and around with that
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: green glass tube in the centa pretty, isn't it very,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: said the colonel, without conviction. I wonder if it will
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: help Davenport any. He looked at the pictures for several
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: seconds more, then suddenly his eyes narrowed. Lenny, this piece
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: of green glass, the things shaped like the letter Q. Yeah,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: sort of why you said it was a tube, But
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: you didn't make it look hollow when you drew it.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: It isn't. It's solid. Does the tube have to be hollow? Yeah,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: I guess it does, doesn't it? Well, then it isn't
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: a tube. Colonel Spalding picked up the phone and dialed
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: a number. Colonel Spalding here, he said. After a moment,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: let me speak to doctor Davenport. And after a wait,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: this is Colonel Spalding. Doctor, I think we may have
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: something for you. Good morning, colonel. I'm glad to hear that.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: What is it? The queue shaped gadget, the one that
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: you said was supposed to be painted emerald green? Are
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: you sure that's the right translation of the Russian? Well, um,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: Davenport hesitated, I can't be sure on my own say so,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: of course I don't understand Russian. But I assure you
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: that mister Brinsky is perfectly reliable. Oh, I have no
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: doubt of that, Colonel Spalding said, easily. But tell me,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: does mister Barnsky know how to read a circuit diagram?
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: He does, Davenport said, somewhat testily. Of course, he wasn't
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: shown the diagram itself. We had the Russian label's and
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: he translated from a list. I had a sneaking suspicion
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: that was it, said Spalding. Tell me, doctor, what does
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: L E A D spell? Lead? Said the doctor promptly,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: pronouncing it l eed. Then, after a pause, he said,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: or lead, this time pronouncing it l ed. It would
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: depend on the context. Suppose it was on a circuit diagram,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: the colonel prompted, Then it would probably be lead. What's
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: all this leading up to, Colonel bear with me. Suppose
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: you had a cable coming from a storage battery, and
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: you wanted to make sure that the cable was reasonably
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: resistant to corrosion, so you order it made out of
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: the metal lead. It would be a l ed l
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: E ed, wouldn't it, I suppose. So you might get
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: pretty confused if you didn't have a circuit diagram in
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: front of you to tell you what the label was
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: talking about. Mightn't you I see what you mean, the
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: scientist said, slowly. But we can't show those circuit diagrams
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: to Bernsky. The Secretary of Defense himself has classified them
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: as Class triple, a ultra hypo top secret that puts
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: them just below the burn the contents before reading class.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: And Brenski doesn't have that kind of clearance, then get
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: somebody else, Colonel Spalding said, tiredly. All you need is
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: a man who can understand technical Russian and has a
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: top level secrecy clearance. If we haven't got at least
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: one man in these United States with such simple qualifications
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: as those, then we might as well give the country
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: over to the reds or back to the Redskins, since
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: our culture is irreprievably doomed. And he lowered the phone
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: gently to its cradle. There's no such word as irreprievably,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Lenny pointed out, There is now, said Colonel Spalding. Rafael
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Poe moseyed through the streets of Moscow in an apparently
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: aimless manner. The expression on his face was that of
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: a reasonably happy moron. His aimless manner was only apparent. Actually,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: he was heading toward the Lenin Soviet People's Higher research laborator.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Doctor Sonya Borisovna Malokronova would be working late this evening,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: and he wanted to get as close as possible in
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: order to pick up as much information as he could.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Raife had a great deal of admiration for that woman,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: He admitted to himself. She was granted as plain as
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: unsalted Matza. Now that was an understatement. If it were
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: possible to die of the uglies, Sonya Borisovna would have
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: been dangerously ill. Her disposition did nothing to alleviate that drawback.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: She fancied herself as cold, hard, analytical, and ruthless. Actually
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: she was waspish, arrogant, overbearing, and treacherous. What she considered
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: in herself to be scientific detachment was really an isolation
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: board of fear and distrust of the entire human race.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: To her, Communism was a religion. Das Capital and the
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Communist Manifesto were wholly writ in shrining the dogmata of Marxism.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Leninism and the conflict with the West was a jihad,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: a holy war in which God in his manifestation, as
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: dialectic materialism would naturally win out in the end, all
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: of which goes to show that a scientific bent in
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: itself does not necessarily keep one from being a bigot.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Rafe's admiration for the woman stemmed solely from the fact that,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: in spite of all the powerful drawbacks that existed in
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: her mind, she was still capable of being a brilliant,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: if somewhat erratic scientist. There was a more relaxed air
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: in Moscow these days. The per capitive production of the
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Soviet Union still did not come up to that of
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: the United States, but the recent advances in technology did
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: allow a feeling of accomplishment, and the hard drive for
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: superiority was softened a trifle. It was no longer considered
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: the height of indolence and unpatriotic time wasting to sit
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: on a bench and feed pigeons. Nor was food so
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: scarce and costly that throwing away a few bread crumbs
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: could be considered sabotage. So Rafe Poe found himself a
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: quiet corner near the linen Soviet people's laboratories, took out
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: a small bag of dried bread crumbs, and was soon
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: surrounded by pigeons. Doctor Malakronova was carefully calibrating and balancing
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: the electronic circuits that energize and activated and controlled the
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: output of the newly installed beam generator, a ring of
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: specially made greenish glass that had a small cylinder of
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: the same glass projecting out as a tangent. Her assistant, Alexis,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: a man of small scientific ability, but a gifted mechanic,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: worked stolidly with her. It was not an easy job
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: for Alexis. Sonya Borisovna was by no means an easy
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: woman to work with. There was, as there should have been,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: a fifty to fifty division in all things a proper
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: state of affairs and a people's republic. Alexis Andreyevitch did
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: half the physical work, got all the blame when things
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: went wrong, and none of the credit when things went right.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Sonya Borisovna got the remaining fifty percent. Sonya Borisovna Malakronova
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: had been pushing herself too hard, and she knew it,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: but she told herself, for the glory of the Soviet peoples,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: the work must go on. After spending two hours taking
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: down instrument readings, she took the results to her office
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: and began to correlate them. After replace that one point
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: zero micro micro fought it too frequency control on stage
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: two with something more sensitive, she thought, and the field
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: modulation coils require closer adjustment. She took off her glasses
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: and rubbed at her tired eyes while she thought, perhaps
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: the twenty five microflora twelve vote electrolytic condenser could be
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: used to feed the pigeons, substituting a bread crumb capacitor
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: in the sidewalk circuit. She opened her eyes suddenly and
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: stared at the blank wall in front of her pigeons.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: She said, wonderingly, what a crumb capacitor? Am I losing
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: my mind? What kind of nonsense is that? She looked
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: back down at her notes, then replaced her glasses so
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: that she could read them. Determined not to let her
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: mind wander in that erratic fashion again, she returned her
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: attention to the work at hand. She found herself wondering
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: if it might not be better to chuck the whole
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: job and get out while the getting was good. The
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: old gal, she thought, is actually tapping my mind. She's
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: picking up everything. Sonya Borisovna sat bolt upright in her chair,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: staring at the blank kualigan. Why am I thinking such nonsense?
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: She said aloud, and why should I be thinking in English?
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: When her words registered on her ears, she realized that
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: she was actually speaking in English. She was thoroughly acquainted
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: with the language, of course, but it was not normal
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: for her to think in it unless she happened to
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: be conversing with someone in that tongue. The first whisper
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: of a suspicion began to take form in the mind
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: of doctor Sonya Borisovna Malokronovna. Half a block away, Raphael
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Poe emptied the last of his bread crumbs on the
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: sidewalk and began walking away. He kept his mind as
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: blank as possible while his brow broke out in a
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: cold sweat. That said Colonel Julius Spaulding scathingly. There's as
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: pretty a mess as I've seen in years. It's a
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: bread board circuit, I'll admit, doctor Davenport said defensively. But
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: it's built according to the schematics who gave us, doctor,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: said the colonel. During the war, the British dropped our
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: group a radio transmitter. It was the only way to
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: get the stuff into Africa quickly, the parachute failed to open.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: The transmitter felt two thousand feet, hit the side of
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: a mountain and tumbled down another eight hundred feet. When
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: we found it four days later, its wiring was in
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: better shape than that thing is now. It's quite sufficient
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: to test the operation of the device, Davenport said coldly.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Spalding had to admit to himself that it probably was.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: The thing was a slap dash affair. The colonel had
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: a strong feeling that Davenport had assigned the wiring job
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: to an apprentice and gave him half an hour to
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: do the job. But the soldiering jobs looked tight enough,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: and the components didn't look as though they'd all been
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: pulled out of the salvage bin. What irritated Colonel Spalding
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: was Davenport's notion that the whole thing was a waste
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: of time, energy, money, and materials, and therefore there was
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: no point in doing a decent job of testing it
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: at all. He was glad that Davenport didn't know how
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: the information about the device had been transported to the
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: United States as it was. He considered the drawings a
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: hoax on the part of the Russians. If he had
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: been told that they had been sent telepathically, he would
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: probably have gone into fit of acute exasperation over such idiocy.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: The trouble with Davenport was that since the device didn't
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: make any sense to him, he didn't believe it would
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: function at all. Oh it will do something, all right,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: he'd said once, But it won't be anything that needs
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: all that apparatus. Look here, he pointed towards the schematic.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Where do you think all that energy is going. All
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: you're going to get is a little light, a lot
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: of heat, and a couple of burned out coils. I
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: could do the same job cheaper with a dozen to
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: und fifty white light bulbs. To be perfectly honest with himself,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: Spalding had to admit that he wasn't absolutely positive that
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the device would do anything in particular either. His own
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: knowledge of electronic circuitry was limited to him radio experience,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: and even that was many years out of date. He
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: couldn't be absolutely sure that the specifications for the gadget
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: hadn't been garbled in transmission the Q shaped gizmo, for instance,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: it had taken the better part of a week for
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Raphael Poe. To transmit the information es central to the
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: construction of that enigmatic bit of glass, Rafe had had
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: to sit quietly in the privacy of his own room
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: and print out the specifications in Russian, then sit and
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: look at the paper while Lenny copied the design. Then
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: each paper had to be carefully destroyed, which wasn't easy
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: to do. You don't go around burning papers in a
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: crowded Russian tenement unless you want the people in the
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: next room to wonder what you're up to. Then the
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: drawings Lenny had made had had to be translated into
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: English and the piece carefully made to specifications. Now Here
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: it was all hooked up and presumably ready for action.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Colonel Spaulding fervently hoped there would be some action. He
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: didn't like the smug look on doctor Amadeus Davenport's face.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: The device was hooked up on a testing room circuit
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: and controlled from outside. The operation could be watched through
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: a heavy pane of bulletproof glass. With all that power
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: going into it, Davenport said, I don't want anyone to
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: get hurt by spatters of molten metal when those field
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: coils blow. They went outside to the control console and
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: doctor Davenport flipped the energizing switch. After the device had
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: warmed up on low power, Davenport began turning knobs slowly
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: increasing the power flow in the testing room. The device
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: just sat there doing nothing visible, but the meters on
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: the control console showed that something was going on. A
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: greenish glow came from the housing that surrounded the Q
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: shaped gadget. Where the Russians made their mistake in trying
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: to fool anyone with that thing was in their design
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: of that laser component, said doctor Davenport. Or I should
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: say that thing that is supposed to look like a
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: laser component, laser, said Colonel Spaulding, uncomprehendingly. It means light
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Davenport explained. Essentially, a
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: laser consists of a gas filled tube or a solid
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: ruby bar with parallel mirrors at both ends. By exciting
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: the atoms from outside, light is generated within the tube,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: and some of it begins to bounce back and forth
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: between the mirrors at the ends. The stends to have
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: a cascade effect on the atoms which have picked up
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: the energy from outside, so that more and more of
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: the light generated inside the tube tends to be parallel
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: to the length of the tube. One of the mirrors
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: is only partially silvered, and eventually the light bouncing back
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: and forth becomes powerful enough to flash through the half
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: silvered end, giving a coherent beam of light. Maybe that's
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: what this is supposed to be, said the Colonel. Davenport
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: chuckled dryly. Not a chance, not with an essentially circular
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: tube that isn't even silvered. Lenny Poe, the colonel noticed,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: wasn't the only person around who didn't care whether the
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: thing he referred to as a tube was hollow or not.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Is it doing anything, Colonel Spalding asked, anxiously, trying to
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: read the meters over Davenport's shoulder. It's heating up, Davenport
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: said dryly. Spalding looked back at the apparatus. A wisp
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: of smoke was rising slowly from a big coil. A
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: relay clicked minutely. What for a confused second, everything seemed
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: to happen at once, but it didn't. There was a
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: definite order to it. First, a spot on the ceramic
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: tile wall of the room became suddenly red orange, white hot.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: Then there was a little crater of incandescent fury, as
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: though a small volcano had erupted in the wall. Following that,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: there was a sputtering and crackling from the ards of
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: the device itself, and a cloud of smoke arose, suddenly
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: obscuring things in the room. Finally, there was the crash
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: of circuit breakers as they reacted to the overload from
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: the short circuit. There was silence for a moment, then
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: the hiss of the automatic fire extinguishers in the testing
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: room as they poured a cloud of carbon dioxide snow
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: on the smoldering apparatus there, said Davenport, with utter satisfaction.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: What did I tell you? You hadn't told me this
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: thing was a heat ray projector, said Colonel Spalding. What
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: are you talking about, doctor Davenport said, disdainfully. Develop the
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: film in those automatic cameras, Spalding said, and I'll show
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: you what I'm talking about. As far as Colonel Spalding
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: was concerned, the film showed clearly what it had happened.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: A beam of energy had leaped from the tail of
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: the que tube, hit the ceramic tile of the wall,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: and burned its way through In half a second or so,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: the hole in the wall surrounded by fuse ceramic was
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: mute evidence of the occurrence of what Spalding had seen,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: But doctor Davenport poo pooed the whole thing. Evidence to
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: the contrary. He was quite certain that no such thing
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: had happened. A piece of hot glass from a broken
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: vacuum tube had done it. He insisted a piece of
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: hot glass had burned its way through half an inch
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: of tile and a wall. Davenport muttered something about the
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: destructive effects of shaped charges. He was more willing to
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: believe that something as wildly improbable as that had happened
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: than admit that the device had done what Colonel Spalding
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: was quite certain it had done. Within three hours, Davenport
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: had three possible explanations of what had happened, each of
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: which required at least four unlikely things to happen. Coincidentally,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: Colonel Spalding stalked back to his office in a state
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: of angry disgust. Just because the thing was foreign to
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Davenport's notions, he had effectively tied his own hands in
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Colonel Spaulding's too. Where's Lenny Poe, he asked the wac sergeant,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: I want to talk to him. She shook her head.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know, sir. Lieutenant Fesner called in half an
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: hour ago. Mister Poe has eluded them again. Colonel Spalding
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: gazed silently at the ceiling for a long moment. Then
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Nuggett take a letter to the President of the
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: United States, sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, d C. Dear Sir,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: consider this my resignation. I've had so much experience with
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: jackasses lately that I have decided to change my name
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: to Hackenbush and become a veterinarian. Here's truly, etc. Got that, yes, sir,
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: said the sergeant. Burn it. When fumble Fingers, Peesner and
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: his boys find Lenny Poe again, I want to know immediately,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: he stalked on into his office. Raphael Poe was beginning
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: to feel distinctly uncomfortable. Establishing a close rapport with another
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: mind can be a distinct disadvantage. At times, a spy
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: is supposed to get information without giving any A swapping
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: of information is not at all to his advantage. It
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: was impossible to keep his mind a perfect blank. What
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: he had to do was keep his strongest surface thoughts
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: entirely on innocuous things. The trouble was that it made
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: it extremely difficult to think about some way to get
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: out of the jam. He was in. Thinking on two
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: levels at once, while not impossible, required a nicety of
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: control that made wire walking over Niagara look easy. The
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: thing to do was to make the surface thoughts automatically repetitive.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: A song in a hall of strange description antiquarian Egyptian
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: figuring his monthly balance sheet, A troubled monarch sat with
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: a frown upon his forehead, hurling interjections horrid at the
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: state of his finances, for his pocket book was flat. Simultaneously,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: he kept a picture in his mind's eye. It had
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: to be something vivid that would be easy to concentrate on.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: The first thing that came to mind was the brilliant
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: necktie that the President had used in his test several
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: months before. He conjured it up in all its chartruse glory.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: Then he animated it. Mauv Satyr's danced with rose pink
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: nymphs and chased them over the yellow green landscape. Not
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: a solitary single copper scent had he to jingle in
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: his pocket and his architects had gone off on a strike,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: leaving pyramids unfinished, for their wages had diminished and their
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: credit vanished, likewise in a way they didn't like. Rafe
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: could tell that doctor Malakranova's mind was trying to reject
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: the alien ideas that were coming into her mind. She
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: wasn't consciously trying to pick up Rafe's thoughts, but the
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: rejection was ineffective because of its fascination the old business
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: about the horse's tail. If you see a white horse,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: you'll soon get rich if you can keep from thinking
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: about the horse's tail until it's out of sight. The
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: first thought that comes to mind is I mustn't think
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: about the horse's tail, a self defeating proposition. If Sonya
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Borisovna had been certain that she was receiving the thoughts telepathically,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: she might have been able to reject them, but her
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: mind rejected the idea of telepathy instead, so she was
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: susceptible to the thoughts because she thought they were her own.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: The cavorting of the nymph and satyrs became somewhat obscene,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: but Rafe didn't bother to correct it. He had more
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: to worry about than offending the rather prim mind of
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: doctor Malakronova. It was harder for his Royal Highness than
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: for sons of toil. For the horny handed workmen only
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: eight three fig per day, while the King liked sweet potatoes, puddings,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: pies and canned tomatoes, boneless ham and blue point oysters
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: cooked some prehistoric Whay, what to do now? Should he
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: try to get out of Russia? Was there any quick
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: way out? He had all the information he needed on
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: the heat beam projector that doctor Malakronova was building. The
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: theory behind it was perfectly clear. All it needed was
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: further experimentation. If it worked out according to theory, it
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: would be an almost perfect defense against even the fastest
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: intercontinental ballistic missiles. As he growled, the Royal Grumbler spied
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: a bit of broken tumbler in a long, undusted corner
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: just behind the chamber door. When his hungry optic spied it,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: he stood silently and eyed it. Then he smote his
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: thigh with ecstasy and danced about the floor. Maybe he
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: should try to make a run for the American embassy. No,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: no one there knew him, and they probably couldn't get
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: him out of the country anyway. Besides, it would take
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: him too long to explain the situation to them. By
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: the widow Cyrus gave me the same bit of glass
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: shall save me. I shall sell it as a diamond
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: at some stupendous price, and whoever I asked to take
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: it will find for his own sweet sake. It will
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: be better not to wait until I have to ask
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: him twice. The theory behind the heat projector was simply
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: an extension of the laser theory plus a few refinements.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: Inside a ring made of the proper material, The light
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: acted upon by exterior magnetic fields tended to move in
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: a circle, so that the photon cascade effect was all
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: in one direction instead of bouncing back and forth between
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: a pair of mirrors. That light could be bent around
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: corners by making it travel through a glass rod was
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: well known, and the malacronova Q tube took advantage of
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: that effect in a way. The principle was similar to
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: that of the cyclotron, except that instead of spinning ions
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: around in a circle to increase their velocity, a beam
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: of coherent light was circulated to increase its intensity. Then,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: at the proper moment, a beam of intense coherent light
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: shot out of the tangent that formed the tail of
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: the QUE tube. If the material of the CUE was
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: properly constructed and contained atoms that fluoressed strongly in the infrared,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: you had a heat beam that delivered plenty of power.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: And since the radiation was linear and in step, the
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Q tube didn't heat up much at all. The cascade
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: effect took most of the energy out as radiation. Then
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: a royal proclamation was dispatched throughout the nation, most imperatively,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: calling to appear before the King under penalties most cruel
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: every man who sold a jewel, or who bought and
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: bartered precious stones, and all that sort of thing. But
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: knowing all that didn't help Rafael Poe or the United
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: States of America when whit if the information couldn't be
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: gotten out of Russia and into Colonel Spalding's hands, Lenny
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: had told him of the trouble the colonel was having
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: with doctor Davenport. If he could only communicate with Lenny.
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: But if he did, doctor Malokronovo would pick up every
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: bit of it and that would be the end of that. No,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: he had to figure out some way to get him
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: himself and the information both out of the country. Meanwhile,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: he had to keep thinking of an animated necktie, and
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: he had to keep singing. Thereupon, the jeweler's nether joints
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: all quick and knocked together as they packed their saratogas
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: in lugubrious despair. It was ever their misfortune to be
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: pillaged by extortion, and they thought they smelled a rodent
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: on the sultry desert air. Lenny Poe shoved open the
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: door of Colonel Spaulding's outer office with a violence that
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: startled Sergeant Nugget Ispalding in he barked, I think he's
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: expecting you, she said. There was no time to buzz.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: The Colonel Poe was already opening the door. Rafe's in trouble,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: Lenny said, hurriedly, slamming the door behind him. Where have
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: you been snapped the colonel? Never mind that rape's in trouble,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: I said. We got to figure a way to get
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: him out of it. Colonel Spalding dropped off, thought of
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: bawling out Poe, what do you say, what's the trouble.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: All he's doing is broadcast in that necktie like an
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: animated cartoon in technicolor, and he's singing, singing, singing, what
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: as they faced the great Propylon with an apprehensive smile
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: on Sculptured there in hieroglyphic six feet wide and nine
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: feet high was the thread of King Rameses to chop
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: off every man to pieces, who, when showed the royal diamond,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: would dare refuse to buy. Colonel Spalding blinked, that's pretty
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: what does it mean? Nothing? It's a song, that's all.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: That female Russian scientist can read Rafe's mind, and he's
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: broadcasting the stuff. To cover up Quickly, he told Spalding
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: what the situation was, as he had been able to
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: piece it together from Rafe's secondary thoughts. Ye gots, Colonel
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: Spalding slapped at his brow. Then he grabbed for the
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: telephone and started dialing. Lenny dropped into one of the chairs,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: closed his eyes and concentrated Rafe. Rife, listen to me, Rife.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: Then the richest dealer, Mulai Hassan, eyed the gem and
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: coolly said, the thing is but a common tumble bottom,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: nothing more. Whereupon the King's assassin drew his sword and
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: Mulai Hassan never pedaled rings again. Upon the nile's primeval shore.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: But below the interference came Rafe's thoughts, and the one
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: thing of primary importance to him was to get the
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: information on the heat beam generator to the United States.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: No bigotry, no matter how strong, is totally impregnable. Even
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: the most narrow minded racial bigot will make an exception.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: If a person of the despised race risks his own
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: life to save the life of the bigot, or somewhat
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: the bigot loves, the bigotry doesn't collapse, not by a
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: long shot, but an exception is made. In that one case,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Lenny Poe made an exception, and the information that was
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: worth his brother's life was important. Therefore it was not
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: could not be scientific gobbledoo, no matter how it sounded, Rafe,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: give it to me, try me, I can copy it.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: Then Abdullah Abdolmadi faintly said the stone was shoddy, but
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: he thought that in a pinch he might bid fifty
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: cents himself. There ensued a slight commotion where he could
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: repent the notion. At Abdullah was promoted to the Oriental shelf. Rafe,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: stop singing that stupid song and give me the stuff.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: She can't learn anything if you just think about that
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: theory stuff she already knows that, come on, give Lenny
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Poe grabbed a pencil and a sheaf of paper from
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: the colonel's desk and began writing frantically as the song
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: of the Egyptian Diamond stopped. Suddenly, words nonsense, words, That's
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: all most of the stuff was. To Lenny. It didn't matter.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: He spelled them as he thought they should be, and
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: if he made a mistake, Rafe would correct him. Rafe
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: tried to keep a picture of the words as they
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: would look if printed, while he thought them verbally, and
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: that helped the information came across in the only way
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: it could come across, not as concepts, but as symbols.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: Lenny hardly noticed that the Secretary of Defense and the
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: President had come into the room. He didn't even realize
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: that Colonel Spalding was feeding him fresh sheets of paper.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: Lenny didn't seem to notice the time passing, nor the
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: pain in his hand as the muscles tired. He kept writing.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: The President left with the Defense Secretary and came back
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: again after a while, but Lennie ignored them, and when
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: it was over, he pushed pencil and paper aside and
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: massaging his right hand with his left. Sat there with
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: his eyes closed, Then slowly a smile spread over his face. Well,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: I'll be damned, he said, slowly and softly. Poe said
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: the President, is there any danger that your brother will
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: be captured within the next hour. Lenny looked up with
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: a startled grin. Oh hi, and I didn't notice you,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: mister President. What'd you say? The President repeated his question.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: Oh no, there's nothing to worry about. The little men
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: and white coats came after doctor Molakronova. She started screaming
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: that telepathic spies were stealing a secret. She smashed all
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: her apparatus and burned all her papers on top of
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: the wreckage. Before they could stop her. She keeps shouting
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: about a pink and purple orgy and singing a song
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: about glass diamonds and Egyptian kings. I wouldn't say she
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: was actually insane, but she is very disturbed. Then your
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: brother is safe, as safe as he ever was, mister President.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: Thank heaven for that, said the President. If they'd ever
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: capture him and made him talk, he stopped. I forgot,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: he said lamely. After a moment, Lenny grinned, that's all right,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: mister President. I sometimes forget it myself. But it was
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: his handicap, I guess that made him concentrate on tillpathy
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: so that he doesn't need his ears to hear what
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: people are saying. Maybe I could read minds the way
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: he does if I'd been born that way. Come to
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: think of it, I doubt if the Russians would have
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: believed he was a spy if they'd caught him. Unless
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: they really did believe he was telepathic. A physical examination
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: would show immediately that he was born without ear drums,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: and that the inner ear bones are fused. They wouldn't
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: try to make a man talk of an examination showed
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: that he really was a deaf mute. The buzzer on
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: the colonel's tercom sounded else, said Spalding. Doctor Davenport is here,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: said Sergeant Nugget. He wants to talk to you, cert
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: de men, said Colonel Spalding, gleefully. I've a nice scientific
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: theory I want to shove down his throat. End of
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: the Foreign Hand Tie by Randall Garrett