By Proxy, Randall Garrett [ebook reader web txt] 📗

But I warn you, brother—I'm going to take that ship up!"

Feldstein's jaw muscles had tightened at Porter's tone when he began, but he had relaxed by the time the millionaire had finished, and was even managing to look smugly tolerant. Elshawe had thumbed the button on his minirecorder when the conversation had begun, and he was chuckling mentally at the thought of what was going down on the thin, magnetite-impregnated, plastic thread that was hissing past the recording head.

Feldstein said: "Mr. Porter, we came here to remind you of the law, nothing more. If you intend to abide by the law, fine and dandy. If not, you'll go back to prison.

"That ship is not airworthy, and—"

"How do you know it isn't?" Porter roared.

"By inspection, Mr. Porter; by inspection." Feldstein looked exasperated. "We have certain standards to go by, and an aircraft without wings or control surfaces simply doesn't come up to those standards, that's all. Even a rocket has to have stabilizing fins." He paused and zipped open his briefcase.

"In view of your attitude," he said, pulling out a paper, "I'm afraid I shall have to take official steps. This is to notify you that the aircraft in question has been inspected and found to be not airworthy. Since—"

"Wait a minute!" Porter snapped. "Who are you to say so? How would you know?"

"I happen to be an officer of the CAA," said Feldstein, obviously trying to control his temper. "I also happen to be a graduate aeronautical engineer. If you wish, I will give the ... the ... aircraft a thorough inspection, inside and out, and—"

"Oh, no!" said Porter. His voice and his manner had suddenly become very gentle. "I don't think that would do much good, do you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you'd condemn the ship, no matter what you found inside. You couldn't O.K. a ship without airfoils, could you?"

"Of course not," said Feldstein, "that's obvious, in the face of—"

"All right, then give me the notification and forget the rest of the inspection." Porter held out his hand.

Feldstein hesitated. "Well, now, without a complete inspection—"

Again Porter interrupted. "You're not going to get a complete inspection, Buster," he said with a wolfish grin. "Either serve that paper or get off my back."

Feldstein slammed the paper into Porter's hand. "That's your official notification! If necessary, Mr. Porter, we will be back with a Federal marshal! Good day, Mr. Porter. Let's go, Granby."

The two of them marched back to their aircar and climbed inside. The car lifted with a roar of blowers and headed back over the mountains toward Albuquerque.

But long before they were out of sight over the ridge, Malcom Porter had turned on his heel and started back toward the cluster of buildings. He was swearing vilely in a rumbling monotone, and had apparently forgotten all about Elshawe.

The reporter followed in silence for a dozen paces, then he asked: "What's your next step, Mr. Porter?"

Porter came to an abrupt stop, turned, and looked at Elshawe. "I'm going to phone General Fitzsimmons in Washington! I'm—" He stopped, scowling. "No, I guess I'd better phone my lawyer first. I'll find out what they can do and what they can't." Then he turned again and strode rapidly toward the nearest of the buildings.

Seventy-two hours later, Terry Elshawe was in Silver City, talking to his boss over a long-distance line.

"... And that's the way it lines up, Ole. The CAA won't clear his ship for take-off, and the Space Force won't either. And if he tries it without the O.K. of both of them, he'll be right back in Alcatraz."

"He hasn't violated his parole yet, though?" Winstein's voice came distantly.

"No." Elshawe cursed the fact that he couldn't get a vision connection with New York. "But, the way he's acting, he's likely to. He's furious."

"Why wouldn't he let the Space Force officers look over his ship?" Winstein asked. "I still don't see how that would have hurt him if he's really got something."

"It's on the recording I sent you," Elshawe said.

"I haven't played it yet," Winstein said. "Brief me."

"He wouldn't let the Space Force men look at his engine or whatever it is because he doesn't trust them," Elshawe said. "He claims to have this new drive, but he doesn't want anyone to go nosing around it. The Space Force colonel ... what's his name? ... Manetti, that's it. Manetti asked Porter why, if he had a new invention, he hadn't patented it. Porter said that he wasn't going to patent it because that would make it available to every Tom, Dick, and Harry—his very words—who wanted to build it. Porter insists that, since it's impossible to patent the discovery of a new natural law, he isn't going to give away his genius for nothing. He said that Enrico Fermi was the prime example of what happened when the Government got hold of something like that when the individual couldn't argue."

"Fermi?" Winstein asked puzzledly. "Wasn't he a physicist or something, back in the Forties?"

"Right. He's the boy who figured out how to make the atomic bomb practical. But the United States Government latched onto it, and it took him years to get any compensation. He never did get the money that he was entitled to.

"Porter says he wants to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen to him. He wants to prove that he's got something and then let the Government pay him what it's worth and give him the recognition he deserves. He says he has discovered a new natural law and devised a machine that utilizes that law. He isn't going to let go of his invention until he gets credit for everything."

There was a long silence from the other end. After a minute, Elshawe said: "Ole? You there?"

"Oh. Yeah ... sure. Just thinking. Terry, what do you think of this whole thing? Does Porter have something?"

"Damned if I know. If I were in New York, I'd say he was a complete nut, but when I talk to him, I'm halfway convinced that he knows what he's talking about."

There was another long pause. This time, Elshawe waited. Finally, Oler Winstein said: "You think Porter's likely to do something drastic?"

"Looks like it. The CAA has already forbidden him to lift that ship. The Space Force flatly told him that he couldn't take off without permission, and they said he wouldn't get permission unless he let them look over his gizmo ... whatever it is."

"And he refused?"

"Well, he did let Colonel Manetti look it over, but the colonel said that, whatever the drive principle was, it wouldn't operate a ship. He said the engines didn't make any sense. What it boils down to is that the CAA thinks Porter has rockets in the ship, and the Space Force does, too. So they've both forbidden him to take off."

"Are there any rocket motors in the ship?" Winstein asked.

"Not as far as I can see," Elshawe said. "He's got two big atomic-powered DC generators aboard—says they have to be DC to avoid electromagnetic effects. But the drive engines don't make any more sense to me than they do to Colonel Manetti."

Another pause. Then: "O.K., Terry; you stick with it. If Porter tries to buck the Government, we've got a hell of a story if his gadget works the way he says it does. If it doesn't—which is more likely—then we can still get a story when they haul him back to the Bastille."

"Check-check. I'll call you if anything happens."

He hung up and stepped out of the phone booth into the lobby of the Murray Hotel. Across the lobby, a glowing sign said cocktail lounge in lower-case script.

He decided that a tall cool one wouldn't hurt him any on a day like this and ambled over, fumbling in his pockets for pipe, tobacco pouch, and other paraphernalia as he went. He pushed open the door, spotted a stool at the bar of the dimly-lit room, went over to it and sat down.

He ordered his drink and had no sooner finished than the man to his left said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Elshawe."

The reporter turned his head toward his neighbor. "Oh, hello, Mr. Skinner. I didn't know you'd come to town."

"I came in somewhat earlier. Couple, three hours ago." His voice had the careful, measured steadiness of a man who has had a little too much to drink and is determined not to show it. That surprised Elshawe a little; Skinner had struck him as a middle-aged accountant or maybe a high school teacher—the mild kind of man who doesn't drink at all, much less take a few too many.

"I'm going to hire a 'copter and fly back," Elshawe said. "You're welcome if you want to come along."

Skinner shook his head solemnly. "No. Thank you. I'm going back to Los Angeles this afternoon. I'm just killing time, waiting for the local plane to El Paso."

"Oh? Well, I hope you have a good trip." Elshawe had been under the impression that Skinner had come to New Mexico solely to see the test of Porter's ship. He had wondered before how the man fitted into the picture, and now he was wondering why Skinner was leaving. He decided he might as well try to find out. "I guess you're disappointed because the test has been called off," he said casually.

"Called off? Hah. No such thing," Skinner said. "Not by a long shot. Not Porter. He'll take the thing up, and if the Army doesn't shoot him down, the CAA will see to it that he's taken back to prison. But that won't stop him. Malcom Porter is determined to go down in history as a great scientist, and nothing is going to stop him if he can help it."

"You think his spaceship will work, then?"

"Work? Sure it'll work. It worked in '79; it'll work now. The way that drive is built, it can't help but work. I just don't want to stick around and watch him get in trouble again, that's all."

Elshawe frowned. All the time that Porter had been in prison, his technicians had been getting together the stuff to build the so-called "spaceship," but none of them knew how it was put together or how it worked. Only Porter knew that, and he'd put it together after he'd been released on parole.

But if that was so, how come Skinner, who didn't even work for Porter, was so knowledgeable about the drive? Or was that liquor talking?

"Did you help him build it?" the reporter asked smoothly.

"Help him build it? Why, I—" Then Skinner stopped abruptly. "Why, no," he said after a moment. "No. I don't know anything about it, really. I just know that it worked in '79, that's all." He finished his drink and got off his stool. "Well, I've got to be going. Nice talking to you. Hope I see you again sometime."

"Sure. So long, Mr. Skinner." He watched the man leave the bar.

Then he finished his own drink and went back into the lobby and got a phone. Ten minutes later, a friend of his who was a detective on the Los Angeles police force had promised to check into Mr. Samuel Skinner. Elshawe particularly wanted to know what he had been doing in the past three years and very especially what he had been doing in the past year. The cop said he'd find out. There was probably nothing to it, Elshawe reflected, but a reporter who doesn't follow up accidentally dropped hints isn't much of a reporter.

He came out of the phone booth, fired up his pipe again, and strolled back to the bar for one more drink before he went back to Porter's ranch.

Malcom Porter took one of the darts from the half dozen he held in his left hand and hurled it viciously at the target board hung on the far wall of the room.

Thunk!

"Four ring at six o'clock," he said in a tight voice.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

The other five darts followed in rapid succession. As he threw each one, Porter snapped out a word. "They ... can't ... stop ... Malcom ... Porter!" He glared at the board "Two bull's-eyes; three fours, and a three. Twenty-five points. You owe me a quarter, Elshawe."

The reporter handed him a coin. "Two bits it is. What can you do, Porter? They've got you sewed up tight. If you try to take off, they'll cart you right back to The Rock—if the Army doesn't shoot you down first. Do you want to spend the next ten years engrossed in the scenic beauties of San Francisco Bay?"

"No. And I won't, either."

"Not if the Army gets you. I can see the epitaph now: