Short Fiction, Stanley G. Weinbaum [chromebook ebook reader .TXT] 📗

even measured that. A chronon is the length of time it takes one quantum of energy to push one electron from one electronic orbit to the next. There can obviously be no shorter interval of time, since an electron is the smallest unit of matter and the quantum the smallest unit of energy. And a spation is the exact volume of a proton. Since nothing smaller exists, that is obviously the smallest unit of space.”

“Well, look here,” I argued. “Then what’s in between these particles of space and time? If time moves, as you say, in jerks of one chronon each, what’s between the jerks?”

“Ah!” said the great van Manderpootz. “Now we come to the heart of the matter. In between the particles of space and time, must obviously be something that is neither space, time, matter, nor energy. A hundred years ago Shapley anticipated van Manderpootz in a vague way when he announced his cosmo-plasma, the great underlying matrix in which time and space and the universe are embedded. Now van Manderpootz announces the ultimate unit, the universal particle, the focus in which matter, energy, time, and space meet, the unit from which electrons, protons, neutrons, quanta, spations, and chronons are all constructed. The riddle of the universe is solved by what I have chosen to name the cosmon.” His blue eyes bored into me.

“Magnificent!” I said feebly, knowing that some such word was expected. “But what good is it?”

“What good is it?” he roared. “It provides⁠—or will provide, once I work out a few details⁠—the means of turning energy into time, or space into matter, or time into space, or⁠—” He sputtered into silence. “Fool!” he muttered. “To think that you studied under the tutelage of van Manderpootz. I blush; I actually blush!”

One couldn’t have told it if he were blushing. His face was always rubicund enough. “Colossal!” I said hastily. “What a mind!”

That mollified him. “But that’s not all,” he proceeded. “Van Manderpootz never stops short of perfection. I now announce the unit particle of thought⁠—the psychon!”

This was a little too much. I simply stared.

“Well may you be dumbfounded,” said van Manderpootz. “I presume you are aware, by hearsay at least, of the existence of thought. The psychon, the unit of thought, is one electron plus one proton, which are bound so as to form one neutron, embedded in one cosmon, occupying a volume of one spation, driven by one quantum for a period of one chronon. Very obvious; very simple.”

“Oh, very!” I echoed. “Even I can see that that equals one psychon.”

He beamed. “Excellent! Excellent!”

“And what,” I asked, “will you do with the psychons?”

“Ah,” he rumbled. “Now we go even past the heart of the matter, and return to Isaak here.” He jammed a thumb toward the robot. “Here I will create Roger Bacon’s mechanical head. In the skull of this clumsy creature will rest such intelligence as not even van Manderpootz⁠—I should say, as only van Manderpootz⁠—can conceive. It remains merely to construct my idealizator.”

“Your idealizator?”

“Of course. Have I not just proven that thoughts are as real as matter, energy, time, or space? Have I not just demonstrated that one can be transformed, through the cosmon, into any other? My idealizator is the means of transforming psychons to quanta, just as, for instance, a Crookes tube or X-ray tube transforms matter to electrons. I will make your thoughts visible! And not your thoughts as they are in that numb brain of yours, but in ideal form. Do you see? The psychons of your mind are the same as those from any other mind, just as all electrons are identical, whether from gold or iron. Yes! Your psychons”⁠—his voice quavered⁠—“are identical with those from the mind of⁠—van Manderpootz!” He paused, shaken.

“Actually?” I gasped.

“Actually. Fewer in number, of course, but identical. Therefore, my idealizator shows your thought released from the impress of your personality. It shows it⁠—ideal!”

Well, I was late to the office again.

A week later I thought of van Manderpootz. Tips was on tour somewhere, and I didn’t dare take anyone else out because I’d tried it once before and she’d heard about it. So, with nothing to do, I finally dropped around to the professor’s quarter, found him missing, and eventually located him in his laboratory at the Physics Building. He was puttering around the table that had once held that damned subjunctivisor of his, but now it supported an indescribable mess of tubes and tangled wires, and as its most striking feature, a circular plane mirror etched with a grating of delicately scratched lines.

“Good evening, Dixon,” he rumbled.

I echoed his greeting. “What’s that?” I asked.

“My idealizator. A rough model, much too clumsy to fit into Isaak’s iron skull. I’m just finishing it to try it out.” He turned glittering blue eyes on me. “How fortunate that you’re here. It will save the world a terrible risk.”

“A risk?”

“Yes. It is obvious that too long an exposure to the device will extract too many psychons, and leave the subject’s mind in a sort of moronic condition. I was about to accept the risk, but I see now that it would be woefully unfair to the world to endanger the mind of van Manderpootz. But you are at hand, and will do very well.”

“Oh, no I won’t!”

“Come, come!” he said, frowning. “The danger is negligible. In fact, I doubt whether the device will be able to extract any psychons from your mind. At any rate, you will be perfectly safe for a period of at least half an hour. I, with a vastly more productive mind, could doubtless stand the strain indefinitely, but my responsibility to the world is too great to chance it until I have tested the machine on someone else. You should be proud of the honor.”

“Well, I’m not!” But my protest was feeble, and after all, despite his overbearing mannerisms, I knew van Manderpootz liked me, and I was positive he would not have exposed me to any real danger. In the end