The Great Gray Plague Part 5

Something had to be done.

Fenwick hadn't realized it before, but this was the thought that had been churning in his cortex for the last hour. Something had to be done about Bill Baker.

But, short of murder, what?

Getting rid of Baker physically was not the answer, of course. If he were gone, a hundred others like him would fight for his place.

Baker had to be shown. He had to be shown that high-grading was costing him the very thing he was trying to find. It must be proven to him that flotation methods work as well in mining human resources as in mining metal. That the extra trouble paid off.

This was known--a long time ago--Fenwick thought. Somewhere along the way things got changed. He glanced toward the Jefferson Memorial. Tom Jefferson knew how it should be, Tom Jefferson, statesman, farmer, writer, and amateur mechanic and inventor. It was not only every gentleman's privilege, it was also his duty to be a tinkerer and amateur scientist, no matter what else he might be.

Fenwick glanced in the distance toward the Lincoln Memorial. Abe had done his share of tinkering. His weird boot-strap system for hoisting river boats off shoals and bars hadn't amounted to much, but Abe knew the principle that every man has the right to be his own scientist.

And then there was Ben Franklin, the n.o.blest amateur of them all! He had roamed these parts, too.

Somewhere it had been lost. The Bill Bakers would have laughed out of existence the great tinkerers like Franklin and Lincoln and Jefferson.

And the Pasteurs and the Mendels--and the George Durrants and the Jim Ellerbees, too.

Fenwick started the car. Something had to be done about Bill Baker.

Baker leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily. "So it worked, did it? He showed you something that made you think he had a real working device."

"There was no 'think' about it," said Fenwick. "I saw it with my own eyes. That boy's got something terrific!"

Baker sobered and thumbed through the Ellerbee file again. "Any freshman math major could poke holes all through this mathematical explanation he offers. Right? Secondly, a device such as he claims to have produced violates all the basic laws of science. Why, it's even against the Second Law of Thermodynamics!"

"I don't care what it's against," said Fenwick. "It works. I want you to come with me to Ellerbee's and see for yourself. His device will revolutionize communications."

Baker shook his head sadly. "It's always tougher when they show you something that seems to work. Then you've got to waste a lot of time looking for the gimmick if you're going to follow it through. I just haven't got the time--"

"You've got to, Bill!"

"I'll tell you what I'll do. You go out there and look over his setup.

If you can't find his gimmick in half a day, I'll come out and show it to you. But I warn you, some of these things are very tricky--like the old perpetual motion machines. You've got to have your wits about you.

Is that fair enough?"

"Fair enough," Fenwick agreed.

Baker smiled broadly. "I'll do even more. If this Ellerbee device should prove to be on the level, I'll give you the research grant you want for Clearwater."

"I'm not so sure I want it on those terms," said Fenwick.

"Well, it's a purely academic matter. You won't have to worry about it.

But, on the other hand, I'll expect you to agree that when Ellerbee is exposed you'll not persist in your request to this office."

"Well, now--"

"That's a fair offer. I'm giving you a chance to prove I'm wrong in setting up the Index to screen out people like Ellerbee--"

"--And inst.i.tutions like Clearwater."

"And inst.i.tutions like Clearwater," Baker agreed.

"All right," said Fenwick. "I'll gamble with you--for one more stake: If Ellerbee's device is on the level, you'll make a grant to Clearwater _and_ other inst.i.tutions of like qualifications, and you'll sc.r.a.p that insane Index--"

Baker tapped the desk placatingly. "The grant to Clearwater, yes. As for the Index, if it should fail in its applicability to this clear-cut Ellerbee case I would be the first to want to know why. But I a.s.sure you there is no flaw in the Index. It has been tried too many thousands of times."

Ellerbee's place was in Virginia, in a dairying area in the hills. The last ten miles of the road were not the kind to attract visitors. The road was steep and narrow in places that turned sharply around the hillsides. No guardrails blocked the descent into the steep gullies. It was definitely a region for people who liked solitude. The farms that lay in the valleys of the hills were neat and well-cared for, however.

The people Fenwick pa.s.sed on the road didn't look like the recluse type.

Ellerbee's farm was one of the best looking in the vicinity. It had the look of being cared for by a man who could do everything. The huge barn and the corrals were as neat as a garden, and the large white frame farmhouse stood out like a monument against the green pasture.

A woman and two children were in the garden beside the house as Fenwick drove up. "May I help you? I'm Mrs. Ellerbee," the woman said.

Fenwick explained who he was and his purpose in coming. "Jim's been expecting you," the woman said. "His laboratory is the long white building back of the house. He's out there now."

Jim Ellerbee met him at the door. "You didn't bring Dr. Baker," he said almost accusingly.

"Later," said Fenwick. "I came, as I promised. Dr. Baker wants my report on your facilities and production methods. Then he will come up to make his own inspection."

There was doubt in Ellerbee's eyes, as if he was used to such stories.

"Maybe it would be best if I marketed the crystals in any form I can,"

he said.

He led Fenwick through a number of rooms of expensive, precision electronic equipment. Then they pa.s.sed through a set of double doors, which Fenwick observed acted as a thermal lock between the crystal growing room and the rest of the building. It reminded him of George Durrant's laboratory at Clearwater.

"This is where the crystals are grown," said Ellerbee. "I suppose you're familiar with such processes. Here we must use a very precisely controlled sequence of co-crystallization to get layers of desired thickness--"

Fenwick wasn't listening. He had suddenly observed the second man in the room, a rather small, swarthy man, who moved with quiet precision among a row of tanks on the far side of the room. There was a startling quality about the man that Fenwick was unable to define, a strangeness.

Ellerbee caught the direction of his glance. "Oh," he said. "You must meet my neighbor, Sam Atkins. Sam is in this as deep or even deeper than I am. I think perhaps he's more responsible for the communicator crystals."

The man turned as his name was mentioned, and came toward them. "You were the one who developed the crystals," he said in a soft, persuasive voice, to Jim Ellerbee.

"This is my setup," Ellerbee explained with a wave of his hand to indicate the laboratory surroundings. "But Sam has been working with me for about a year on this thing. When Sam moved in, we found we were both radio hams and electronic bugs. I'd been fooling around with crystal growing, trying to design some new type transistors. Then Sam suggested some experiments in co-crystallization--using different chemicals that will crystallize in successive layers in one crystal.

"We stumbled on one combination that made a terrific amplifier. Then we found it would actually radiate to a distant point all by itself.

Finally, we discovered that its radiation was completely nonelectromagnetic. There is no way we have yet found of detecting the radiation from the crystal--except by means of another piece of the same crystal.

"I know it's against all the rules in the books. It just doesn't make sense. But there it is. It works."

Sam Atkins had turned away for a moment to attend to one of the tanks, but Fenwick found himself intensely aware of the man's presence. There was nothing he could put his finger on. He just knew, with such intense certainty, that Sam Atkins was _there_.

"What does Mr. Atkins do?" Fenwick asked. "Does he have a dairy farm, too?"