Empire Part 7

Within an hour a complete television sending apparatus was placed within the field and a receptor screen set up in the laboratory.

The two moved chairs in front of the screen and sat down. Russ reached out and pulled the switch of the field control. The screen came to life, but it was only a gray blur.

"It's traveling too fast," said Greg. "Slow it down."

Russ r.e.t.a.r.ded the lever. "When that thing's on full, it's almost instantaneous. It travels in a time dimension and any speed slower than instantaneity is a modification of that force field."

On the screen swam a panorama of the mountains, mile after mile of snow-capped peaks and valleys ablaze with the flames of autumn foliage.

The mountains faded away. There was desert now and then a city. Russ dropped the televisor set lower, down into a street. For half an hour they sat comfortably in their chairs and watched men and women walking, witnessed one dog fight, cruised slowly up and down, looking into windows of homes, window-shopping in the business section.

"There's just one thing wrong," said Greg. "We can see everything, but we can't hear a sound."

"We can fix that," Russ told him.

He lifted the televisor set from the streets, brought it back across the desert and mountains into the laboratory.

"We have two practical applications now," said Greg. "s.p.a.ce drive and television spying. I don't know which is the best. Do you realize that with this television trick there isn't a thing that can be hidden from us?"

"I believe we can go to Mars or Mercury or anywhere we want to with this thing. It doesn't seem to have any particular limits. It handles perfectly. You can move it a fraction of an inch as easily as a hundred miles. And it's fast. Almost instantaneous. Not quite, for even with our acceleration within time, there is a slight lag."

By evening they had an audio apparatus incorporated in the set, had wired the screen for sound.

"Let's put this to practical use," suggested Greg. "There's a show at the New Mercury Theater in New York I've been wanting to see. Let's knock off work and take in that show."

"Now," said Russ, "you really have an idea. The ticket scalpers are charging a fortune, and it won't cost us a cent to get in!"

_CHAPTER FIVE_

Pine roots burned brightly in the fireplace, snapping and sizzling as the blaze caught and flamed on the resin. Deep in an easy chair, Greg Manning stretched his long legs out toward the fire and lifted his gla.s.s, squinting at the flames through the amber drink.

"There's something that's been worrying me a little," he said. "I hadn't told you about it because I figured it wasn't as serious as it looked.

Maybe it isn't, but it looks funny."

"What's that?" asked Russ.

"The stock market," replied Greg. "There's something devilish funny going on there. I've lost about a billion dollars in the last two weeks."

"A _billion_ dollars?" gasped Russ.

Greg swirled the whiskey in his gla.s.s. "Don't sound so horrified. The loss is all on paper. My stocks have gone down. Most of them cut in half. Some even less than that. Martian Irrigation is down to 75. I paid 185 for it. It's worth 200."

"You mean something has happened to the market?"

"Not to the market. If that was it, I wouldn't worry. I've seen the market go up and down. That's nothing to worry about. But the market, except for a slight depression, has behaved normally in these past two weeks. It almost looks as if somebody was out to get me."

"Who'd want to and why?"

Greg sighed. "I wish I knew. I haven't really lost a cent, of course. My shares can't stay down for very long. The thing is that right now I can't sell them even for what I paid for them. If I sold now I'd lose that billion. But as long as I don't have to sell, the loss is merely on paper."

He sipped at the drink and stared into the fire.

"If you don't have to, what are you worrying about?" asked Russ.

"Couple of things. I put that stock up as collateral to get the cash to build the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. At present prices, it will take more securities than I thought. If the prices continue to go down, I'll have the bulk of my holdings tied up in the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. I might even be forced to liquidate some of it and that would mean an actual loss."

He hunched forward in the chair, stared at Russ.

"Another thing," he said grimly, "is that I hate the idea of somebody singling me out as a target. As if they were going to make a financial example of me."

"And it sounds as if someone has," agreed Russ.

Greg leaned back again, drained his gla.s.s and set it down.

"It certainly does," he said.

Outside, seen through the window beside the fireplace, the harvest moon was a s.h.i.+eld of silver hung in the velvet of the sky. A lonesome wind moaned in the pines and under the eaves.

"I got a report from Belgium the other day," said Greg. "The s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p is coming along. It'll be the biggest thing afloat in s.p.a.ce."

"The biggest and the toughest," said Russ, and Greg nodded silent agreement.

The s.h.i.+p itself was being manufactured at the great s.p.a.ce Works in Belgium, but other parts of it, apparatus, engines, gadgets of every description, were being manufactured at other widely scattered points.

Anyone wondering what kind of s.h.i.+p the finished product would be would have a hard time gathering the correct information, which, of course, was the idea. The "anyone" they were guarding against was Spencer Chambers.

"We need a better television set," said Russ. "This one we have is all right, but we need the best there is. I wonder if Wilson could get us one in Frisco and bring it back."

"I don't see why not," said Greg. "Send him a radio."

Russ stepped to the phone, called the s.p.a.ceport and filed the message.

"He always stays at the Greater Martian," he told Greg. "We'll probably catch him there."

Two hours later the phone rang. It was the s.p.a.ceport.

"That message you sent to Wilson," said the voice of the operator, "can't be delivered. Wilson isn't at the Greater Martian. The clerk said he checked out for New York last night."

"Didn't he leave a forwarding address?" asked Russ.

"Apparently not."

Russ hung up the receiver, frowning. "Wilson is in New York."