[Illustration]

 BY PROXY

 By DAVID GORDON

 _It's been said that the act of creation is a solitary thing--that teams never create; only individuals. But sometimes a team may be needed to make creation effective. . . . _

 Illustrated by Van Dongen

Mr. Terrence Elshawe did not conform to the mental picture that popsinto the average person's mind when he hears the words "news reporter. "Automatically, one thinks of the general run of earnest, handsome, firm-jawed, level-eyed, smooth-voiced gentlemen one sees on one's TVscreen. No matter which news service one subscribes to, the reportersare all pretty much of a type. And Terrence Elshawe simply wasn't thetype. 

The confusion arises because thirty-odd years of television has resultedin specialization. If you run up much Magnum Telenews time on yourmeter, you're familiar with the cultured voice and rugged good looks ofBrett Maxon, "your Magnum reporter, " but Maxon is a reporter only in thevery literal sense of the word. He's an actor, whose sole job is to makeMagnum news sound more interesting than some other telenews service, even though he's giving you exactly the same facts. But he doesn't goout and dig up those stories. 

The actual leg work of getting the news into Maxon's hands so that hecan report it to you is done by research reporters--men like TerrenceElshawe. 

Elshawe was a small, lean man with a large, round head on which grewclose-cropped, light brown hair. His mouth was wide and full-lipped, andhad a distinct tendency to grin impishly, even when he was trying tolook serious. His eyes were large, blue, and innocent; only when thelight hit them at just the right angle was it possible to detect thecontact lenses which corrected an acute myopia. 

When he was deep in thought, he had a habit of relaxing in his deskchair with his head back and his eyes closed. His left arm would beacross his chest, his left hand cupping his right elbow, while the righthand held the bowl of a large-bowled briar which Elshawe puffedmethodically during his ruminations. He was in exactly that positionwhen Oler Winstein put his head in the door of Elshawe's office. 

"Busy?" Winstein asked conversationally. 

In some offices, if the boss comes in and finds an employee in a poselike that, there would be a flurry of sudden action on the part of theemployee as he tried frantically to look as though he had only pausedfor a moment from his busy work. Elshawe's only reaction was to open hiseyes. He wasn't the kind of man who would put on a phony act like that, even if his boss fired him on the spot. 

"Not particularly, " he said, in his slow, easy drawl. "What's up?"

Winstein came on into the office. "I've got something that might make agood spot. See what you think. "

If Elshawe didn't conform to the stereotype of a reporter, so much lessdid Oler Winstein conform to the stereotype of a top-flight TV magnate. He was no taller than Elshawe's five-seven, and was only slightlyheavier. He wore his hair in a crew cut, and his boyish face made himlook more like a graduate student at a university than the man who hadput Magnum Telenews together with his own hands. He had an office, buthe couldn't be found in it more than half the time; the rest of thetime, he was prowling around the Magnum Building, wandering into studiosand offices and workshops. He wasn't checking up on his employees, andnever gave the impression that he was. He didn't throw his weightaround and he didn't snoop. If he hired a man for a job, he expected thejob to be done, that was all. If it was, the man could sleep at his deskor play solitaire or drink beer for all Winstein cared; if the workwasn't done, it didn't matter if the culprit looked as busy as ananteater at a picnic--he got one warning and then the sack. The onlyreason for Winstein's prowling around was the way his mind worked; itwas forever bubbling with ideas, and he wanted to bounce those ideas offother people to see if anything new and worthwhile would come of them. 

He didn't look particularly excited, but, then, he rarely did. Even themost objective of employees is likely to become biased one way oranother if he thinks his boss is particularly enthusiastic about anidea. Winstein didn't want yes-men around him; he wanted men who couldand would think. And he had a theory that, while the tenseness of anemergency could and did produce some very high-powered thinking indeed, an atmosphere of that kind wasn't a good thing for day-in-and-day-outwork. He saved that kind of pressure for the times that he needed it, sothat it was effective because of its contrast with normal procedure. 

 * * * * *

Elshawe took his heavy briar out of his mouth as Winstein sat down onthe corner of the desk. "You have a gleam in your eye, Ole, " he saidaccusingly. 

"Maybe, " Winstein said noncommittally. "We might be able to worksomething out of it. Remember a guy by the name of Malcom Porter?"

Elshawe lowered his brows in a thoughtful frown. "Name's familiar. Waita second. Wasn't he the guy that was sent to prison back in 1979 forsending up an unauthorized rocket?"

Winstein nodded. "That's him. Served two years of a five-year sentence, got out on parole about a year ago. I just got word from a confidentialsource that he's going to try to send up another one. "

"I didn't know things were so pleasant at Alcatraz, " Elshawe said. "Heseems to be trying awfully hard to get back in. "

"Not according to what my informant says. This time, he's going to askfor permission. And this time, he's going to have a piloted craft, not aself-guided missile, like he did in '79. "

"Ho_ho_. Well, there might be a story in it, but I can't see that itwould be much of one. It isn't as if a rocket shoot were somethingunusual. The only thing unusual about it is that it's a privateenterprise shoot instead of a Government one. "

Winstein said: "Might be more to it than that. Do you remember the trialin '79?"

"Vaguely. As I remember it, he claimed he didn't send up a rocket, butthe evidence showed overwhelmingly that he had. The jury wasn't outmore than a few minutes, as I remember. "

"There was a little more to it than that, " Winstein said. 

"I was in South Africa at the time, " Elshawe said. "Covering the civilwar down there, remember?"

"That's right. You're excused, " Winstein said, grinning. "The thing wasthat Malcom Porter didn't claim he hadn't sent the thing up. What he didclaim was that it wasn't a rocket. He claimed that he had a new kind ofdrive in it--something that didn't use rockets. 

"The Army picked the thing up on their radar screens, going straight upat high acceleration. They bracketed it with Cobra pursuit rockets andblew it out of the sky when it didn't respond to identification signals. They could trace the thing back to its launching pad, of course, andthey nabbed Malcom Porter. 

"Porter was furious. Wanted to slap a suit against the Government forwanton destruction of private property. His claim was that the lawforbids unauthorized rocket tests all right, but his missile wasn'tillegal because it wasn't a rocket. "

"What did he claim it was?" Elshawe asked. 

"He said it was a secret device of his own invention. Antigravity, orsomething like that. "

"Did he try to prove it?"

"No. The Court agreed that, according to the way the law is worded, only'rocket-propelled missiles' come under the ban. The judge said that ifMalcom Porter could prove that the missile wasn't rocket-propelled, he'ddismiss the case. But Porter wanted to prove it by building anothermissile. He wouldn't give the court his plans or specifications for thedrive he claimed he'd invented, or say anything about it except that itoperated--and I quote--'on a new principle of physics'--unquote. Said hewouldn't tell them anything because the Government was simply using thisas an excuse to take his invention away from him. "

Elshawe chuckled. "That's as flimsy a defense as I've heard. "

"Don't laugh, " said Winstein. "It almost worked. "

"What? How?"

"It threw the burden of proof on the Government. They thought they hadhim when he admitted that he'd shot the thing off, but when he deniedthat it was a rocket, then, in order to prove that he'd committed acrime, they had to prove that it _was_ a rocket. It wasn't up to Porterto prove that it _wasn't_. "

"Hey, " Elshawe said in admiration, "that's pretty neat. I'm almost sorryit didn't work. "

 * * * * *

"Yeah. Trouble was that the Army had blown up the evidence. They knew itwas a rocket, but they had to prove it. They had recordings of the radarpicture, of course, and they used that to show the shape andacceleration of the missile. They proved that he'd bought an oldobsolete Odin rocket from one of the small colleges in the Midwest--onethat the Army had sold them as a demonstration model for their rocketengineering classes. They proved that he had a small liquid air plantout there at his place in New Mexico. In other words, they proved thathe had the equipment to rebuild the rocket and the fuel to run it. 

"Then they got a battery of high-powered physicists up on the stands toprove that nothing else but a rocket could have driven the thing thatway. 

"Porter's attorney hammered at them in cross-examination, trying to getone of them to admit that it was possible that Porter had discovered anew principle of physics that could fly a missile without rockets, butthe Attorney General's prosecutor had coached them pretty well. They allsaid that unless there was evidence to the contrary, they could notadmit that there was such a principle. 

"When the prosecutor presented his case to the jury, he really hadhimself a ball. I'll give you a transcript of the trial later; you'llhave to read it for yourself to get the real flavor of it. The gist ofit was that things had come to a pretty pass if a man could claim ascientific principle known only to himself as a defense against a crime. 

"He gave one analogy I liked. He said, suppose that a man is foundspeeding in a car. The cops find him all alone, behind the wheel, whenthey chase him down. Then, in court, he admits that he was alone, andthat the car was speeding, but he insists that the car was steeringitself, and that he wasn't in control of the vehicle at all. And whatwas steering the car? Why, a new scientific principle, of course. "

Elshawe burst out laughing. "Wow! No wonder the jury didn't stay outlong! I'm going to have to dig the recordings of the newscasts out ofthe files; I missed a real comedy while I was in Africa. "

Winstein nodded. "We got pretty good coverage on it, but our worthycompetitor, whose name I will not have mentioned within these sacredhalls, got Beebee Vayne to run a commentary on it, and we got beat outon the meters. "

"Vayne?" Elshawe was still grinning. "That's a new twist--getting acomedian to do a news report. "

"I'll have to admit that my worthy competitor, whose name et cetera, does get an idea once in a while. But I don't want him beating us outagain. We're in on the ground floor this time, and I want to hog thewhole thing if I can. "

"Sounds like a great idea, if we can swing it, " Elshawe agreed. "Do youhave a new gimmick? You're not going to get a comedian to do it, areyou?"

"Heaven forbid! Even if it had been my own idea three years ago, Iwouldn't repeat it, and I certainly won't have it said that I copy mycompetitors. No, what I want you to do is go out there and find outwhat's going on. Get a full background on it. We'll figure out thepresentation angle when we get some idea of what he's going to do thistime. " Winstein eased himself off the corner of Elshawe's desk andstood up. "By the way--"

"Yeah?"

"Play it straight when you go out there. You're a reporter, looking fornews; you haven't made any previous judgments. "

Elshawe's pipe had gone out. He fired it up again with his desk lighter. "I don't want to be, " he said between puffs, "too cagey. If he's got . . . Any brains . . . He'll know it's . . . A phony act . . . If I overdo it. " Hesnapped off the lighter and looked at his employer through a cloud ofblue-gray smoke. "I mean, after all, he's on the records as being acrackpot. I'd be a pretty stupid reporter if I believed everything hesaid. If I don't act a little skeptical, he'll think I'm either ablockhead or a phony or both. "

"Maybe, " Winstein said doubtfully. "Still, some of these crackpots flyoff the handle if you doubt their word in the least bit. "

"I'll tell you what I'll do, " Elshawe said. "He used to live here in NewYork, didn't he?"

"Still does, " Winstein said. "He has a two-floor apartment on CentralPark West. He just uses that New Mexico ranch of his for relaxation. "

"He's not hurting for money, is he?" Elshawe asked at random. "Anyway, what I'll do is look up some of the people he knows and get an idea ofwhat kind of a bird he is. Then, when I get out there, I'll know morewhat kind of line to feed him. "

"That sounds good. But whatever you do, play it on the soft side. Myconfidential informant tells me that the only reason we're getting thisinside info is because Malcom Porter is sore about the way ourcompetition treated him four years ago. "

"Just who is this confidential informant, anyway, Ole?" Elshawe askedcuriously. 

Winstein grinned widely. "It's supposed to be very confidential. I don'twant it to get any further than you. "

"Sure not. Since when am I a blabbermouth? Who is it?"

"Malcom Porter. "

 * * * * *

Two days later, Terrence Elshawe was sitting in the front seat of a bigstation wagon, watching the scenery go by and listening to the drivertalk as the machine tooled its way out of Silver City, New Mexico, andheaded up into the Mogollon Mountains. 

"Was a time, not too long back, " the driver was saying, "when a mancouldn't get up into this part of the country 'thout a pack mule. Stillplaces y'can't, but the boss had t' have a road built up to the ranchso's he could bring in all that heavy equipment. Reckon one of thesedays the Mogollons 'll be so civilized and full a people that a fellamight as well live in New York. "

Elshawe, who hadn't seen another human being for fifteen minutes, feltthat the predicted overcrowding was still some time off. 

"'Course, " the driver went on, "I reckon folks have t' live some place, but I never could see why human bein's are so all-fired determined tobunch theirselves up so thick together that they can't hardly move--likea bunch of sheep in a snowstorm. It don't make sense to me. Does it toyou, Mr. Skinner?"

That last was addressed to the other passenger, an elderly man who wassitting in the seat behind Elshawe. 

"I guess it's pretty much a matter of taste, Bill, " Mr. Skinner said ina soft voice. 

"I reckon, " Bill said, in a tone that implied that anyone whose tasteswere so bad that he wanted to live in the city was an object of pity whoprobably needed psychiatric treatment. He was silent for a moment, inobvious commiseration with his less fortunate fellows. 

Elshawe took the opportunity to try to get a word in. The chunkyWesterner had picked him up at the airport, along with Mr. SamuelSkinner, who had come in on the same plane with Elshawe, and, afterintroducing himself as Bill Rodriguez, he had kept up a steady stream ofchatter ever since. Elshawe didn't feel he should take a chance onpassing up the sudden silence. 

"By the way; has Mr. Porter applied to the Government for permission totest his . . . Uh . . . His ship, yet?"

Bill Rodriguez didn't take his eyes off the winding road. "Well, now, Idon't rightly know, Mr. Elshawe. Y'see, I just work on the ranch upthere. I don't have a doggone thing to do with the lab'r'tory atall--'cept to keep the fence in good shape so's the stock don't get intothe lab'r'tory area. If Mr. Porter wants me to know somethin', he tellsme, an' if he don't, why, I don't reckon it's any a my business. "

"I see, " said Elshawe. _And that shuts_ me _up_, he thought to himself. He took out his pipe and began to fill it in silence. 

"How's everything out in Los Angeles, Mr. Skinner?" Rodriguez asked thepassenger in back. "Haven't seen you in quite a spell. "

Elshawe listened to the conversation between the two with half an earand smoked his pipe wordlessly. 

He had spent the previous day getting all the information he could onMalcom Porter, and the information hadn't been dull by any means. 

Porter had been born in New York in 1949, which made him just barelythirty-three. His father, Vanneman Porter, had been an oddball in hisown way, too. The Porters of New York didn't quite date back to the timeof Peter Stuyvesant, but they had been around long enough to acquire thefeeling that the twenty-four dollars that had been paid for ManhattanIsland had come out of the family exchequer. Just as the Vanderbiltslooked upon the Rockefellers as newcomers, so the Porters looked on theVanderbilts. 

For generations, it had been tacitly conceded that a young Portergentleman had only three courses of action open to him when it came timefor him to choose his vocation in life. He could join the firm ofPorter & Sons on Wall Street, or he could join some other respectablebusiness or banking enterprise, or he could take up the Law. (Corporation law, of course--_never_ criminal law. ) For those few whofelt that the business world was not for them, there was a fourthalternative--studying for the priesthood of the Episcopal Church. Anything else was unheard of. 

So it had been somewhat of a shock to Mr. And Mrs. Hamilton Porter whentheir only son, Vanneman, had announced that he intended to studyphysics at M. I. T. But they gave their permission; they were quitecertain that the dear boy would "come to his senses" and join the firmafter he had been graduated. He was, after all, the only one to carry onthe family name and manage the family holdings. 

[Illustration]

But Vanneman Porter not only stuck to his guns and went on to a Ph. D. ;he compounded his delinquency by marrying a pretty, sweet, but notoverly bright girl named Mary Kelley. 

Malcom Porter was their son. 

 * * * * *

When Malcom was ten years old, both his parents were killed in a smashupon the New Jersey Turnpike, and the child went to live with his widowedgrandmother, Mrs. Hamilton Porter. 

Terry Elshawe had gathered that young Malcom Porter's life had not beenexactly idyllic from that point on. Grandmother Porter hadn't approvedof her son's marriage, and she seemed to have felt that she must doeverything in her power to help her grandson overcome the handicap ofhaving nonaristocratic blood in his veins. 

Elshawe wasn't sure in his own mind whether environment or heredity hadbeen the deciding factor in Malcom Porter's subsequent life, but he hada hunch that the two had been acting synergistically. It was likely thatthe radical change in his way of life after his tenth year had as muchto do with his behavior as the possibility that the undeniably brilliantmental characteristics of the Porter family had been modified by thegenes of the pretty but scatter-brained wife of Vanneman Porter. 

Three times, only his grandmother's influence kept him from beingexpelled from the exclusive prep school she had enrolled him in, and hisfinal grades were nothing to mention in polite society, much less boastabout. 

In her own way, the old lady was trying to do her best for him, but shehad found it difficult to understand her own son, and his deviationsfrom the Porter norm had been slight in comparison with those of hisson. When the time came for Malcom to enter college, Grandmother Porterwas at a total loss as to what to do. With his record, it was unlikelythat any law school would take him unless he showed tremendousimprovement in his pre-law courses. And unless that improvement was ageneral one, not only as far as his studies were concerned, but in hishandling of his personal life, it would be commercial suicide to put himin any position of trust with Porter & Sons. It wasn't that he wasdishonest; he simply couldn't be trusted to do anything properly. He hada tendency to follow his own whims and ignore everybody else. 

The idea of his entering the clergy was never even considered. 

It came almost as a relief to the old woman when Malcom announced thathe was going to study physics, as his father had done. 

The relief didn't last long. By the time Malcom was in his sophomoreyear, he was apparently convinced that his instructors were dunderheadsto the last man. That, Elshawe thought, was probably not unusual amongcollege students, but Malcom Porter made the mistake of telling themabout it. 

One of the professors with whom Elshawe had talked had said: "He actedas though he owned the college. That, I think, was what was his troublein his studies; he wasn't really stupid, and he wasn't as lazy as somesaid, but he didn't want to be bothered with anything that he didn'tenjoy. The experiments he liked, for instance, were the showy, spectacular ones. He built himself a Tesla coil, and a table with hiddenAC electromagnets in it that would make a metal plate float in the air. But when it came to nucleonics, he was bored. Anything less than athermonuclear bomb wasn't any fun. "

The trouble was that he called his instructors stupid and dull for beinginterested in "commonplace stuff, " and it infuriated him to be forced tostudy such "junk. "

As a result, he managed to get himself booted out of college toward theend of his junior year. And that was the end of his formal education. 

Six months after that, his grandmother died. Although she had marriedinto the Porter family, she was fiercely proud of the name; she had beenborn a Van Courtland, so she knew what family pride was. And therealization that Malcom was the last of the Porters--and a failure--wasmore than she could bear. The coronary attack she suffered should havebeen cured in a week, but the best medico-surgical techniques on Earthcan't help a woman who doesn't want to live. 

Her will showed exactly what she thought of Malcom Porter. The Porterholdings were placed in trust. Malcom was to have the earnings, but hehad no voice whatever in control of the principal until he was fiftyyears of age. 

 * * * * *

Instead of being angry, Malcom was perfectly happy. He had an incomethat exceeded a million dollars before taxes, and didn't need to worryabout the dull details of making money. He formed a small corporation ofhis own, Porter Research Associates, and financed it with his own money. It ran deep in the red, but Porter didn't mind; Porter ResearchAssociates was a hobby, not a business, and running at a deficit savedhim plenty in taxes. 

By the time he was twenty-five, he was known as a crackpot. He had amotley crew of technicians and scientists working for him--some withPh. D. 's, some with a trade-school education. The personnel turnover inthat little group was on a par with the turnover of patients in amaternity ward, at least as far as genuine scientists were concerned. Porter concocted theories and hypotheses out of cobwebs and becamefurious with anyone who tried to tear them down. If evidence came upthat would tend to show that one of his pet theories was utter hogwash, he'd come up with an _ad hoc_ explanation which showed that thisparticular bit of evidence was an exception. He insisted that "the basisof science lies in the experimental evidence, not in the pronouncementsof authorities, " which meant that any recourse to the theories ofEinstein, Pauli, Dirac, Bohr, or Fermi was as silly as quotingAristotle, Plato, or St. Thomas Aquinas. The only authority he wouldaccept was Malcom Porter. 

Nobody who had had any training in science could work long with a manlike that, even if the pay had been high, which it wasn't. The onlypeople who could stick with him were the skilled workers--the welders, tool-and-die men, electricians, and junior engineers, who didn't caremuch about theories as long as they got the work done. They listenedrespectfully to what Porter had to say and then built the gadgets hetold them to build. If the gadgets didn't work the way Porter expectedthem to, Porter would fuss and fidget with them until he got tired ofthem, then he would junk them and try something else. He never blamed atechnician who had followed orders. Since the salaries he paid wereproportional to the man's "ability and loyalty"--judged, of course, byPorter's own standards--he soon had a group of technician-artisans whoknew that their personal security rested with Malcom Porter, and thatpersonal loyalty was more important than the ability to utilize thescientific method. 

Not everything that Porter had done was a one-hundred-per cent failure. He had managed to come up with a few basic improvements, patented them, and licensed them out to various manufacturers. But these were purely anaccidental by-product. Malcom Porter was interested in "basic research"and not much else, it seemed. 

He had written papers and books, but they had been uniformly rejected bythe scientific journals, and those he had had published himself were ona par with the writings of Immanuel Velikovsky and George Adamski. 

And now he was going to shoot a rocket--or whatever it was--to the moon. Well, Elshawe thought, if it went off as scheduled, it would at least beworth watching. Elshawe was a rocket buff; he'd watched a dozen or moremoon shots in his life--everything from the automatic supply-carriers tothe three-man passenger rockets that added to the personnel of Moon BaseOne--and he never tired of watching the bellowing monsters climb upskywards on their white-hot pillars of flame. 

And if nothing happened, Elshawe decided, he'd at least get a laugh outof the whole episode. 

 * * * * *

After nearly two hours of driving, Bill Rodriguez finally turned off themain road onto an asphalt road that climbed steeply into the pine forestthat surrounded it. A sign said: _Double Horseshoe Ranch--PrivateRoad--No Trespassing_. 

Elshawe had always thought of a ranch as a huge spread of flat prairieland full of cattle and gun-toting cowpokes on horseback; a mountainsidefull of sheep just didn't fit into that picture. 

After a half mile or so, the station wagon came to a high metal-meshfence that blocked the road. On the big gate, another sign proclaimedthat the area beyond was private property and that trespassers would beprosecuted. 

Bill Rodriguez stopped the car, got out, and walked over to the gate. Hepressed a button in one of the metal gateposts and said, "Ed? This'sBill. I got Mr. Skinner and that New York reporter with me. "

After a slight pause, there was a metallic click, and the gate swungopen. Rodriguez came back to the car, got in, and drove on through thegate. Elshawe twisted his head to watch the big gate swing shut behindthem. 

After another ten minutes, Rodriguez swung off the road onto anotherside road, and ten minutes after that the station wagon went over asmall rise and headed down into a small valley. In the middle of it, shining like bright aluminum in the sun, was a vessel. 

_Now I know Porter is nuts_, Elshawe thought wryly. 

Because the vessel, whatever it was, was parallel to the ground, lookinglike the fuselage of a stratojet, minus wings and tail, sitting on itslanding gear. Nowhere was there any sign of a launching pad, with itsgantries and cranes and jet baffles. Nor was there any sign of a rocketmotor on the vessel itself. 

As the station wagon approached the cluster of buildings a hundred yardsthis side of the machine, Elshawe realized with shock that the thing_was_ a stripped-down stratojet--an old Grumman _Supernova_, _circa_1970. 

"Well, Elijah got there by sitting in an iron chair and throwing amagnet out in front of himself, " Elshawe said, "so what the hell. "

"What?" Rodriguez asked blankly. 

"Nothing; just thinking out loud. Sorry. "

Behind Elshawe, Mr. Skinner chuckled softly, but said nothing. 

When the station wagon pulled up next to one of the cluster of whiteprefab buildings, Malcom Porter himself stepped out of the wide door andwalked toward them. 

Elshawe recognized the man from his pictures--tall, wide-shouldered, dark-haired, and almost handsome, he didn't look much like a wild-eyedcrackpot. He greeted Rodriguez and Skinner rather peremptorily, but hesmiled broadly and held out his hand to Elshawe. 

"Mr. Elshawe? I'm Malcom Porter. " His grip was firm and friendly. "I'mglad to see you. Glad you could make it. "

"Glad to be here, Dr. Porter, " Elshawe said in his best manner. "It'squite a privilege. " He knew that Porter liked to be called "Doctor"; allhis subordinates called him that. 

But, surprisingly, Porter said: "Not 'Doctor, ' Mr. Elshawe; just'Mister. ' My boys like to call me 'Doctor, ' but it's sort of a nickname. I don't have a degree, and I don't claim one. I don't want the publicthinking I'm claiming to be something I'm not. "

"I understand, Mr. Porter. "

Bill Rodriguez's voice broke in. "Where do you want me to put all thisstuff, Doc?" He had unloaded Elshawe's baggage from the station wagonand set it carefully on the ground. Skinner picked up his singlesuitcase and looked at Porter inquiringly. 

"My usual room, Malcom?"

"Yeah. Sure, Sam; sure. " As Skinner walked off toward one of the otherbuildings, Porter said: "Quite a load of baggage you have there, Mr. Elshawe. Recording equipment?"

"Most of it, " the reporter admitted. "Recording TV cameras, 16mm moviecameras, tape recorders, 35mm still cameras--the works. I wanted to getgood coverage, and if you've got any men that you won't be using duringthe take-off, I'd like to borrow them to help me operate this stuff. "

"Certainly; certainly. Come on, Bill, let's get this stuff over to Mr. Elshawe's suite. "

 * * * * *

The suite consisted of three rooms, all very nicely appointed for aplace as far out in the wilderness as this. When Elshawe got hisequipment stowed away, Porter invited him to come out and take a look athis pride and joy. 

"The first real spaceship, Elshawe, " he said energetically. "The firstreal spaceship. The rocket is no more a spaceship than a rowboat is anocean-going vessel. " He gestured toward the sleek, shining, metal ship. "Of course, it's only a pilot model, you might say. I don't havehundreds of millions of dollars to spend; I had to make do with what Icould afford. That's an old Grumman _Supernova_ stratojet. I got itfairly cheap because I told 'em I didn't want the engines or the wingsor the tail assembly. 

"But she'll do the job, all right. Isn't she a beauty?"

Elshawe had his small pocket recorder going; he might as well get allthis down. "Mr. Porter, " he asked carefully, "just how does this vesselpropel itself? I understand that, at the trial, it was said that youclaimed it was an antigravity device, but that you denied it. "

"Those idiots!" Porter exploded angrily. "Nobody understood what I wastalking about because they wouldn't listen! Antigravity! _Pfui!_ Whenthey learned how to harness electricity, did they call itanti-electricity? When they built the first atomic reactor, did theycall it anti-atomic energy? A rocket works against gravity, but theydon't call _that_ antigravity, do they? My device works _with_ gravity, not against it. "

"What sort of device is it?" Elshawe asked. 

"I call it the Gravito-Inertial Differential Polarizer, " Porter saidimportantly. 

Elshawe was trying to frame his next question when Porter said: "I knowthe name doesn't tell you much, but then, names never do, do they? Youknow what a transformer does, but what does the name by itself convey?Nothing, unless you know what it does in the first place. A cyclotroncycles something, but what? A broadcaster casts something abroad--what?And how?"

"I see. And the 'how' and 'what' is your secret, eh?"

"Partly. I can give you a little information, though. Suppose there wereonly one planet in all space, and you were standing on its surface. Could you tell if the planet were spinning or not? And, if so, how fast?Sure you could; you could measure the so-called centrifugal force. Thesame thing goes for a proton or electron or neutron or even a neutrino. But, if it _is_ spinning, what is the spin relative to? To the particleitself? That's obvious nonsense. Therefore, what is commonly called'inertia' is as much a property of so-called 'empty space' as it is aproperty of matter. My device simply utilizes spatial inertia bypolarizing it against the matter inertia of the ship, that's all. "

"Hm-m-m, " said Elshawe. As far as his own knowledge of science went, that statement made no sense whatever. But the man's manner waspersuasive. Talking to him, Elshawe began to have the feeling thatPorter not only knew what he was talking about, but could actually dowhat he said he was going to do. 

"What's that?" Porter asked sharply, looking up into the sky. 

Elshawe followed his gaze. "That" was a Cadillac aircar coming over aridge in the distance, its fans making an ever-louder throaty hum as itapproached. It settled down to an altitude of three feet as it neared, and floated toward them on its cushion of air. On its side, Elshawecould see the words, UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT, and beneath that, insmaller letters, _Civil Aeronautics Authority_. 

"Now what?" Porter muttered softly. "I haven't notified anyone of myintentions yet--not officially. "

"Sometimes those boys don't wait for official notification, " Elshawesaid. 

Porter glanced at him, his eyes narrowed. "You didn't say anything, didyou?"

"Look, Mr. Porter, I don't play that way, " Elshawe said tightly. "As faras I'm concerned, this is your show; I'm just here to get the story. Youdid us a favor by giving us advance notice; why should we louse up yourshow for you?"

"Sorry, " Porter said brusquely. "Well, let's make a good show of it. "

The CAA aircar slowed to a halt, its fans died, and it settled to itswheels. 

 * * * * *

Two neatly dressed, middle-aged men climbed out. Both were carryingbriefcases. Porter walked briskly toward them, a warm smile on his face;Elshawe tagged along behind. The CAA men returned Porter's smile withsmiles that could only be called polite and businesslike. 

Porter performed the introductions, and the two men identifiedthemselves as Mr. Granby and Mr. Feldstein, of the Civil AeronauticsAuthority. 

"Can I help you, gentlemen?" Porter asked. 

Granby, who was somewhat shorter, fatter, and balder than his partner, opened his briefcase. "We're just here on a routine check, Mr. Porter. If you can give us a little information. . . ?" He let the half-questionhang in the air as he took a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. 

"Anything I can do to help, " Porter said. 

Granby, looking at the papers, said: "In 1979, I believe you purchased aGrumman _Supernova_ jet powered aircraft from Trans-American Airlines?Is that correct?"

"That is correct, " Porter agreed. 

Granby handed one of the papers to Porter. "That is a copy of theregistration certificate. Is the registration number the same as it ison your copy?"

[Illustration]

"I believe so, " Porter said, looking at the number. "Yes, I'm sure itis. "

Granby nodded briskly. "According to our records, the machine was soldas scrap. That is to say, it was not in an airworthy condition. It was, in fact, sold without the engines. Is that correct?"

"Correct. "

"May I ask if you still own the machine in question?"

Porter gave the man a look that accused Granby of being stupid or blindor both. He pointed to the hulking fuselage of the giant aircraft. "There it is. "

Granby and Feldstein both turned to look at it as though they had nevernoticed it before. "Ah, yes, " Granby said, turning back. "Well, that'sabout all there is to it. " He looked at his partner. "It's obvious thatthere's no violation here, eh, Feldstein?"

"Quite, " said Feldstein in a staccato voice. 

"Violation?" Porter asked. "What violation?"

"Well, nothing, really, " Granby said, deprecatingly. "Just routine, as Isaid. People have been known to buy aircraft as scrap and then repairthem and re-outfit them. "

"Is that illegal?" Porter asked. 

"No, no, " said Granby hastily. "Of course not. But any ship sore-outfitted and repaired must pass CAA inspection before it can leavethe ground, you understand. So we keep an eye on such transactions tomake sure that the law isn't violated. "

"After three years?" Porter asked blandly. 

"Well . . . Ah . . . Well . . . You know how it is, " Granby said nervously. "These things take time. Sometimes . . . Due to . . . Clerical error, weoverlook a case now and then. " He glanced at his partner, then quicklylooked back at Porter. 

"As a matter of fact, Mr. Porter, " Feldstein said in a flat, cold voice, "in view of your record, we felt that the investigation at this time wasadvisable. You bought a scrap missile and used it illegally. You canhardly blame us for looking into this matter. "

"No, " said Porter. He had transferred his level gaze to the taller ofthe two men, since it had suddenly become evident that Feldstein, notGranby, was the stronger of the two. 

"However, " Feldstein went on, "I'm glad to see that we have no cause foralarm. You're obviously not fitting that up as an aircraft. By theway--just out of curiosity--what _are_ you doing with it?" He turnedaround to look at the big fuselage again. 

Porter sighed. "I had intended to hold off on this for a few days, but Imight as well let the cat out now. I intend to take off in that shipthis week end. "

 * * * * *

Granby's eyes opened wide, and Feldstein spun around as though someonehad jabbed him with a needle. "_What?_"

Porter simply repeated what he had said. "I had intended to makeapplication to the Space Force for permission to test it, " he added. 

Feldstein looked at him blankly for a moment. 

Then: "The _Space_ Force? Mr. Porter, civilian aircraft come under thejurisdiction of the CAA. "

"How's he going to fly it?" Granby asked. "No engines, no wings, nocontrol surfaces. It's silly. "

"Rocket motors in the rear, of course, " said Feldstein. "He's convertedthe thing into a rocket. "

"But the tail is closed, " Granby objected. "There's no rocket orifice. "

"Dummy cover, I imagine, " Feldstein said. "Right, Mr. Porter?"

"Wrong, " said Porter angrily. "The motive power is supplied by amechanism of my own devising! It has nothing to do with rockets! It's assuperior to rocket power as the electric motor is to the steam engine!"

Feldstein and Granby glanced at each other, and an almost identicalexpression of superior smugness grew over their features. Feldsteinlooked back at Porter and said, "Mr. Porter, I assure you that itdoesn't matter what you're using to lift that thing. You could be usingdynamite for all I care. The law says that it can't leave the groundunless it's airworthy. Without wings or control surfaces, it isobviously not airworthy. If it is not a rocket device, then it comesunder the jurisdiction of the Civil Aeronautics Authority, and if youtry to take off without our permission, you'll go to jail. 

"If it _is_ a rocket device, then it will be up to the Space Force toinspect it before take-off to make sure it is not dangerous. 

"I might remind you, Mr. Porter, that you are on parole. You still havethree years to serve on your last conviction. I wouldn't play aroundwith rockets any more if I were you. "

Porter blew up. "Listen, you! I'm not going to be pushed around by youor anyone else! I know better than you do what Alcatraz is like, and I'mnot going back there if I can help it. This country is stillConstitutionally a democracy, not a bureaucracy, and I'm going to see toit that I get to exercise my rights!

"I've invented something that's as radically new as . . . As . . . As theLaw of Gravity was in the Seventeenth Century! And I'm going to getrecognition for it, understand me?" He gestured furiously toward thefuselage of the old _Supernova_. "That ship is not only airworthy, but_space_worthy! And it's a thousand times safer and a thousand timesbetter than any rocket will ever be!

"For your information, Mister Smug-Face, I've already flown her!"

Porter stopped, took a deep breath, compressed his lips, and then said, in a lower, somewhat calmer tone, "Know what she'll do? That baby willhang in the air just like your aircar, there--and without benefit ofthose outmoded, power-wasting blower fans, too. 

"Now, understand me, Mr. Feldstein: I'm not going to break any lawsunless I have to. You and all your bureaucrat friends will have a chanceto give me an O. K. On this test. But I warn you, brother--_I'm going totake 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 waseven managing to look smugly tolerant. Elshawe had thumbed the button onhis minirecorder when the conversation had begun, and he was chucklingmentally at the thought of what was going down on the thin, magnetite-impregnated, plastic thread that was hissing past therecording 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 lookedexasperated. "We have certain standards to go by, and an aircraftwithout wings or control surfaces simply doesn't come up to thosestandards, that's all. Even a rocket has to have stabilizing fins. " Hepaused and zipped open his briefcase. 

"In view of your attitude, " he said, pulling out a paper, "I'm afraid Ishall have to take official steps. This is to notify you that theaircraft 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 youknow?"

"I happen to be an officer of the CAA, " said Feldstein, obviously tryingto control his temper. "I also happen to be a graduate aeronauticalengineer. If you wish, I will give the . . . The . . . Aircraft a thoroughinspection, inside and out, and--"

"Oh, no!" said Porter. His voice and his manner had suddenly become verygentle. "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 theinspection. " Porter held out his hand. 

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

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

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

The two of them marched back to their aircar and climbed inside. The carlifted with a roar of blowers and headed back over the mountains towardAlbuquerque. 

But long before they were out of sight over the ridge, Malcom Porter hadturned on his heel and started back toward the cluster of buildings. Hewas swearing vilely in a rumbling monotone, and had apparently forgottenall 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 goingto 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 theycan do and what they can't. " Then he turned again and strode rapidlytoward the nearest of the buildings. 

 * * * * *

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

". . . And that's the way it lines up, Ole. The CAA won't clear his shipfor take-off, and the Space Force won't either. And if he tries itwithout 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 camedistantly. 

"No. " Elshawe cursed the fact that he couldn't get a vision connectionwith 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'sreally 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 itis because he doesn't trust them, " Elshawe said. "He claims to have thisnew drive, but he doesn't want anyone to go nosing around it. The SpaceForce colonel . . . What's his name? . . . Manetti, that's it. Manetti askedPorter why, if he had a new invention, he hadn't patented it. Portersaid that he wasn't going to patent it because that would make itavailable to every Tom, Dick, and Harry--his very words--who wanted tobuild it. Porter insists that, since it's impossible to patent thediscovery of a new natural law, he isn't going to give away his geniusfor nothing. He said that Enrico Fermi was the prime example of whathappened when the Government got hold of something like that when theindividual 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 bombpractical. But the United States Government latched onto it, and it tookhim years to get any compensation. He never did get the money that hewas entitled to. 

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

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

"Oh. Yeah . . . Sure. Just thinking. Terry, what do you think of thiswhole 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'stalking about. "

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

"Looks like it. The CAA has already forbidden him to lift that ship. TheSpace Force flatly told him that he couldn't take off withoutpermission, and they said he wouldn't get permission unless he let themlook over his gizmo . . . Whatever it is. "

"And he refused?"

"Well, he did let Colonel Manetti look it over, but the colonel saidthat, whatever the drive principle was, it wouldn't operate a ship. Hesaid the engines didn't make any sense. What it boils down to is thatthe CAA thinks Porter has rockets in the ship, and the Space Forcedoes, 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 bigatomic-powered DC generators aboard--says they have to be DC to avoidelectromagnetic effects. But the drive engines don't make any more senseto me than they do to Colonel Manetti. "

Another pause. Then: "O. K. , Terry; you stick with it. If Porter tries tobuck the Government, we've got a hell of a story if his gadget works theway he says it does. If it doesn't--which is more likely--then we canstill 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 theMurray Hotel. Across the lobby, a glowing sign said _cocktail lounge_ inlower-case script. 

He decided that a tall cool one wouldn't hurt him any on a day like thisand ambled over, fumbling in his pockets for pipe, tobacco pouch, andother paraphernalia as he went. He pushed open the door, spotted a stoolat 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 leftsaid, "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 thecareful, measured steadiness of a man who has had a little too much todrink and is determined not to show it. That surprised Elshawe a little;Skinner had struck him as a middle-aged accountant or maybe a highschool teacher--the mild kind of man who doesn't drink at all, much lesstake a few too many. 

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

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

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

"Called off? Hah. No such thing, " Skinner said. "Not by a long shot. NotPorter. 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'tstop him. Malcom Porter is determined to go down in history as a greatscientist, 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 thatdrive is built, it can't help but work. I just don't want to stickaround and watch him get in trouble again, that's all. "

Elshawe frowned. All the time that Porter had been in prison, histechnicians had been getting together the stuff to build the so-called"spaceship, " but none of them knew how it was put together or how itworked. Only Porter knew that, and he'd put it together after he'd beenreleased 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 hisdrink and got off his stool. "Well, I've got to be going. Nice talkingto 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 aphone. Ten minutes later, a friend of his who was a detective on the LosAngeles police force had promised to check into Mr. Samuel Skinner. Elshawe particularly wanted to know what he had been doing in the pastthree 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, Elshawereflected, but a reporter who doesn't follow up accidentally droppedhints isn't much of a reporter. 

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

 * * * * *

Malcom Porter took one of the darts from the half dozen he held in hisleft hand and hurled it viciously at the target board hung on the farwall 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 athree. 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'llcart you right back to The Rock--if the Army doesn't shoot you downfirst. Do you want to spend the next ten years engrossed in the scenicbeauties of San Francisco Bay?"

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

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

 _Malcom Porter, with vexation, Thought he could defy the nation. He shot for space with great elation-- Now he's dust and radiation. _

Beneath it, they'll engrave a spaceship argent with A-bombs rampant on afield sable. "

Porter didn't take offense. He grinned. "What are you griping about? Itwould make a great story. "

"Sure it would, " Elshawe agreed. "But not for me. I don't write theobituary column. "

"You know what I like about you, Elshawe?"

"Sure. I lose dart games to you. "

"That, yes. But you really sound worried. That means two things. One:You like me. Two: You believe that my ship actually will take off. That's more than any of those other reporters who have been prowlingaround and phoning in do. "

Elshawe shrugged silently and puffed at his pipe. Malcom Porter's egowas showing through. He was wrong on two counts. Elshawe didn't likehim; the man's arrogance and his inflated opinion of himself as ascientific genius didn't sit well with the reporter. And Elshawe didn'treally believe there was anything but a rocket motor in that hulloutside. A new, more powerful kind of rocket perhaps--otherwise Porterwouldn't be trying to take a one-stage rocket to the Moon. But a rocket, nonetheless. 

"I don't want to go back to prison, " Porter continued, "but I'll riskthat if I have to. But I won't risk death just yet. Don't worry; theArmy won't know I'm even gone until I'm halfway to the Moon. "

"Foo!" said Elshawe. "Every radar base from Albuquerque to the Mexicanborder has an antenna focused on the air above this ranch. The minuteyou get above those mountains, they'll have a fix on you, and a minuteafter that, they'll have you bracketed with Cobras. 

"Why don't you let the Government inspectors look it over and give youan O. K. ? What makes you think they're all out to steal your invention?"

"Oh, they won't _steal_ it, " Porter said bitterly. "Heaven's-to-Betsy_no_! But this invention of mine will mean that the United States ofAmerica will be in complete control of the planets and the spacebetween. When the Government wants a piece of property, they try to buyit at their price; if they can't do that, they condemn it and pay theowner what they think it's worth--not what the owner thinks it's worth. The same thing applies here; they'd give me what they thought I ought tohave--in ten years or so. Look what happened to Fermi. 

"No, Elshawe; when the Government comes begging to me for thisinvention, they can have it--on _my_ terms. "

"Going to keep it a secret, eh? You can't keep a thing like that secret. Look what happened with atomic energy after World War Two. We kept it asecret from the Russians, didn't we? Fine lot of good that did us. Assoon as they knew it was possible, they went to work on it. Natureanswers any questions you ask her if you ask her the right way. As soonas the Government sees that your spaceship works, they'll put some oftheir bright physicists to work on it, and you'll be in the sameposition as you would have been if you'd showed it to them in the firstplace. Why risk your neck?"

Porter shook his head. "The analogy isn't valid. Suppose someone hadinvented the A-bomb in 1810. It would have been a perfectly safe secretbecause there wasn't a scientist on Earth who included such a thing asatomic energy in his philosophy. And, believe me, this drive of mine isjust as far ahead of contemporary scientific philosophy as atomic energywas ahead of Napoleon's scientists. 

"Suppose I told you that the fuel my ship uses is a gas lighter thanhydrogen. It isn't, but suppose I told you so. Do you think anyscientist today could figure out how it worked? No. They _know_ thatthere's no such thing as a gas with a lighter atomic weight thanhydrogen. They know it so well that they wouldn't even bother toconsider the idea. 

"My invention is so far ahead of present-day scientific thought that noscientists except myself could have even considered the idea. "

"O. K. ; O. K. , " Elshawe said. "So you're going to get yourself shot downto prove your point. "

Porter grinned lopsidedly. "Not at all. You're still thinking in termsof a rocket. Sure--if I used a rocket, they'd knock me down fast, justas soon as I lifted above the mountains. But I don't have to do that. All I have to do is get a few feet of altitude and hug the ground allthe way to the Pacific coast. Once I get out in the middle of thePacific, I can take off straight up without being bothered at all. "

"All right. If your machine will do it, " the reporter said, trying tohide his skepticism. 

"You still think I've got some kind of rocket, don't you?" Porter askedaccusingly. He paused a moment, then, as if making a sudden decision, hesaid: "Look, Elshawe, I trust you. I'm going to show you the inside ofthat ship. I won't show you my engines, but I _will_ prove to you thatthere are no rocket motors in her. That way, when you write up thestory, you'll be able to say that you have first-hand knowledge of thatfact. O. K. ?"

"It's up to you, " the reporter said. "I'd like to see it. "

"Come along, " said Malcom Porter. 

 * * * * *

Elshawe followed Porter out to the field, feeling rather grateful thathe was getting something to work on. They walked across the field, pastthe two gun-toting men in Levis that Porter had guarding the ship. Overhead, the stars were shining brightly through the thin mountain air. Elshawe glanced at his wrist watch. It was a little after ten p. M. 

He helped Porter wheel the ramp up to the door of the ship and thenfollowed him up the steps. Porter unlocked the door and went inside. TheGrumman had been built to cruise in the high stratosphere, so it was asair-tight as a submarine. 

Porter switched on the lights. "Go on in. "

The reporter stepped into the cabin of the ship and looked around. Ithad been rebuilt, all right; it didn't look anything like the inside ofa normal stratojet. 

"Elshawe. "

"Yeah?" The reporter turned to look at Porter, who was standing a littlebehind him. He didn't even see the fist that arced upward and smashedinto his jaw. All he saw was a blaze of light, followed by darkness. 

The next thing he knew, something was stinging in his nostrils. Hejerked his head aside, coughing. The smell came again. Ammonia. 

"Wake up, Elshawe, " Porter was saying. "Have another whiff of thesesmelling salts and you'll feel better. "

Elshawe opened his eyes and looked at the bigger man. "I'm awake. Takethat stuff away. What's the idea of slugging me?"

"I was afraid you might not come willingly, " Porter said apologetically. "I needed a witness, and I figured you'd do better than anyone else. "

Elshawe tried to move and found that he was tied to the seat andstrapped in with a safety belt. "What's this for?" he asked angrily. Hisjaw still hurt. 

"I'll take that stuff off in a few minutes. I know I can trust you, butI want you to remember that I'm the only one who can pilot this ship. Ifyou try anything funny, neither one of us will get back alive. I'll letyou go as soon as we get up to three hundred miles. "

Elshawe stared at him. "Where are we?"

"Heading out toward mid-Pacific. I headed south, to Mexico, first. We'reover open water now, headed toward Baja California, so I put on theautopilot. As soon as we get out over the ocean, we can really maketime. You can watch the sun come up in the west. "

"And then?" Elshawe felt dazed. 

"And then we head straight up. For empty space. "

Elshawe closed his eyes again. He didn't even want to think about it. 

 * * * * *

". . . As you no doubt heard, " Terrence Elshawe dictated into the phone, "Malcom Porter made good his threat to take a spaceship of his owndevising to the Moon. Ham radios all over North America picked up hisspeech, which was made by spreading the beam from an eighty-footdiameter parabolic reflector and aiming it at Earth from a hundredthousand miles out. It was a collapsible reflector, made of thin foil, like the ones used on space stations. Paragraph. 

"He announced that the trip was made with the co-operation of the UnitedStates Space Force, and that it represented a major breakthrough in theconquest of space. He--"

"Just a sec, " Winstein's voice broke in. "Is that the truth? Was hereally working with the Space Force?"

"Hell, no, " said Elshawe. "But they'll have to claim he was now. Let mego on. "

"Shoot. "

". . . He also beamed a message to the men on Moon Base One, telling themthat from now on they would be able to commute back and forth from Lunato Earth, just as simply as flying from New York to Detroit. Paragraph. 

"What followed was even more astounding. At tremendous acceleration, Malcom Porter and Terrence Elshawe, your reporter, headed for Mars. Inside Porter's ship, there is no feeling of acceleration except for asteady, one-gee pull which makes the passenger feel as though he is onan ordinary airplane, even though the spaceship may be accelerating atmore than a hundred gravities. Paragraph. 

"Porter's ship circled Mars, taking photographs of the Red Planet--thefirst close-ups of Mars to be seen by the human race. Then, at the sametremendous rate of speed, Porter's ship returned to Earth. The entiretrip took less than thirty-six hours. According to Porter, improvedships should be able to cut that time down considerably. Paragraph. "

[Illustration]

"Have you got those pics?" Winstein cut in. 

"Sure. Porter gave me an exclusive in return for socking me. It wasworth it. Remember back in the Twenties, when the newspapermen talkedabout a scoop? Well, we've got the biggest scoop of the century. "

"Maybe, " said Winstein. "The Government hasn't made any announcementyet. Where's Porter?"

"Under arrest, where'd you think? After announcing that he would land onhis New Mexico ranch, he did just that. As soon as he stepped out, acouple of dozen Government agents grabbed him. Violation of parole--heleft the state without notifying his parole officer. But they couldn'ttouch me, and they knew it. 

"Here's another bit of news for your personal information. A bomb wentoff inside the ship after it landed and blew the drive to smithereens. The only information is inside Porter's head. He's got the Governmentwhere the short hair grows. "

"Looks like it. See here, Terry; you get all the information you can andbe back here by Saturday. You're going to go on the Weekend Report. "

"Me? I'm no actor. Let Maxon handle it. "

"No. This is hot. You're an eye-witness. Maxon will interview you. Understand?"

"O. K. ; you're the boss, Ole. Anything else?"

"Not right now, but if anything more comes up, call in. "

"Right. 'Bye. " He hung up and leaned back in his chair, cocking his feetup on the desk. It was Malcom Porter's desk and Malcom Porter's chair. He was sitting in the Big Man's office, just as though he owned it. Hisjaw still hurt a little, but he loved every ache of it. It was hard toremember that he had ever been angry with Porter. 

Just before they had landed, Porter had said: "They'll arrest me, ofcourse. I knew that when I left. But I think I can get out of it. Therewill be various kinds of Government agents all over the place, but theywon't find anything. I've burned all my notebooks. 

"I'll instruct my attorney that you're to have free run of the place sothat you can call in your story. "

 * * * * *

The phone rang. Elshawe grabbed up the receiver and said: "MalcomPorter's residence. " He wished that they had visiphones out in thecountry; he missed seeing the face of the person he was talking to. 

"Let me talk to Mr. Terrence Elshawe, please, " said the voice at theother end. "This is Detective Lieutenant Martin of the Los AngelesPolice Department. "

"This is me, Marty. "

"Good! Boy, have I had trouble getting to you! I had to make it anofficial call before the phone company would put the call through. Howdoes it feel to be notorious?"

"Great. What's new?"

"I got the dope on that Skinner fellow. I suppose you still want it? Orhas success gone to your head?"

Elshawe had almost forgotten about Skinner. "Shoot, " he said. 

The police officer rattled off Samuel Skinner's vital statistics--age, sex, date and place of birth, and so on. Then: "He lived in New Yorkuntil 1977. Taught science for fifteen years at a prep school there. He--"

"Wait a second, " Elshawe interrupted. "When was he born? Repeat that. "

"March fourth, nineteen-thirty. "

"Fifty-three, " Elshawe said, musingly. "Older than he looks. O. K. ; goon. "

"He retired in '77 and came to L. A. To live. He--"

"Retired at the age of forty-seven?" Elshawe asked incredulously. 

"That's right. Not on a teacher's pension, though. He's got some kind ofannuity from a New York life insurance company. Pays pretty good, too. He gets a check for two thousand dollars on the third of every month. Ichecked with his bank on that. Nice, huh?"

"Very nice. Go on. "

"He lives comfortably. No police record. Quiet type. One servant, aChinese, lives with him. Sort of combination of valet and secretary. 

"As far as we can tell, he has made four trips in the past three years. One in June of '79, one in June of '80, one in June of '81, and thisyear he made the fourth one. In '79, he went to Silver City, New Mexico. In '80 and '81, he went to Hawaii. This year, he went to Silver Cityagain. Mean anything to you?"

"Not yet, " Elshawe said. "Are you paying for this call, or is the Cityof Los Angeles footing the bill?"

"Neither. You are. "

"Then shut up and let me think for a minute. " After less than a minute, he said: "Martin, I want some more data on that guy. I'm willing to payfor it. Should I hire a private detective?"

"That's up to you. I can't take any money for it, naturally--but I'mwilling to nose around a little more for you if I can. On the otherhand, I can't put full time in on it. There's a reliable detectiveagency here in L. A. -- Drake's the guy's name. Want me to get in touchwith him?"

"I'd appreciate it. Don't tell him who wants the information or that ithas any connection with Porter. Get--"

"Hold it, Terry . . . Just a second. You know that if I uncover anyindication of a crime, all bets are off. The information goes to mysuperiors, not to you. "

"I know. But I don't think there's any crime involved. You work it fromyour end and send me the bills. O. K. ?"

"Fair enough. What more do you want?"

Elshawe told him. 

When the phone call had been completed, Elshawe sat back and made cloudsof pipe smoke, which he stared at contemplatively. Then he made twocalls to New York--one to his boss and another to a private detectiveagency he knew he could trust. 

 * * * * *

The Malcom Porter case quickly became a _cause célèbre_. Somebodygoofed. Handled properly, the whole affair might have been hushed up;the Government would have gotten what it wanted, Porter would havegotten what _he_ wanted, and everyone would have saved face. But somebureaucrat couldn't see beyond the outer surface of his spectaclelenses, and some other bureaucrat failed to stop the thing in time. 

"Gall, gall, and bitter, bitter wormwood, " said Oler Winstein, perchinghimself on the edge of Terry Elshawe's desk. 

"You don't Gallic, bitter, wormy, or wooden. What's up?"

"Got a call from Senator Tallifero. He wants to know if you'll consentto appear before the Joint Congressional Committee for InvestigatingMilitary Affairs. I get the feeling that if you say 'no, ' they'll send aformal invitation--something on the order of a subpoena. "

Elshawe sighed. "Oh, well. It's news, anyway. When do they want me to bein Washington?"

"Tomorrow. Meanwhile, Porter, of course, is under arrest and in closeconfinement. Confusion six ways from Sunday. " He shook his head. "Idon't understand why they just didn't pat him on the back, say they'dbeen working on this thing all along, and cover it up fast. "

"Too many people involved, " Elshawe said, putting his cold pipe in thehuge ashtray on his desk. "The Civil Aeronautics crowd must have had aspotter up in those mountains; they had a warrant out for his arrestwithin an hour after we took off. They also notified the parole board, who put out an all-points bulletin immediately. The Army and the AirForce were furious because he'd evaded their radar net. Porter steppedon so many toes so hard that it was inevitable that one or more wouldyell before they realized it would be better to keep their mouths shut. "

"Well, you get up there and tell your story, and I dare say he'll comeout of it. "

"Sure he will. They know he's got something, and they know they have tohave it. But he's going to go through hell before they give it to him. "

Winstein slid off the desk and stood up. "I hope so. He deserves it. Bythe way, it's too bad you couldn't get a story out of that Sam Skinnercharacter. "

"Yeah. But there's nothing to it. After all, even the FBI tried to findout if there was anyone at all besides Porter who might know anythingabout it. No luck. Not even the technicians who worked with him knewanything useful. Skinner didn't know anything at all. " He told the liewith a perfectly straight face. He didn't like lying to Winstein, butthere was no other way. He hoped he wouldn't have to lie to theCongressional Committee; perjury was not something he liked doing. Thetrouble was, if he told the truth, he'd be worse off than if he lied. 

He took the plane that night for Washington, and spent the next threedays answering questions while he tried to keep his nerves undercontrol. Not once did they even approach the area he wanted them toavoid. 

On the plane back, he relaxed, closed his eyes, and, for the first timein days, allowed himself to think about Mr. Samuel Skinner. 

 * * * * *

The reports from the two detective agencies on the East and West Coastshadn't made much sense separately, but together they added up to enoughto have made it worth Elshawe's time to go to Los Angeles and tackleSamuel Skinner personally. He had called Skinner and made anappointment; Skinner had invited him out to his home. 

It was a fairly big house, not too new, and it sat in the middle of alot that was bigger than normal for land-hungry Los Angeles. 

Elshawe ran through the scene mentally. He could see Skinner's mild faceand hear his voice saying: "Come in, Mr. Elshawe. "

They went into the living room, and Skinner waved him toward a chair. "Sit down. Want some coffee?"

"Thanks; I'd appreciate it. " While Skinner made coffee, the reporterlooked around the room. It wasn't overly showy, but it showed a sort ofsubdued wealth. It was obvious that Mr. Skinner wasn't lacking incomforts. 

Skinner brought in the coffee and then sat down, facing Elshawe, inanother chair. "Now, " he said bluntly, "what was that remark you made onthe phone about showing up Malcom Porter as a phony? I understood thatyou actually went to Mars on his ship. Don't you believe the evidence ofyour own senses?"

"I don't mean that kind of phony, " Elshawe said. "And you know it. I'llcome to the point. I know that Malcom Porter didn't invent theGravito-Inertial Differential Polarizer. _You_ did. "

Skinner's eyes widened. "Where did you get that information?"

"I can't tell you my sources, Mr. Skinner. Not yet, anyhow. But I haveenough information to tell me that you're the man. It wouldn't hold upin court, but, with the additional information you can give me, I thinkit will. "

Skinner looked baffled, as if not knowing what to say next. 

"Mr. Skinner, " Elshawe went on, "a research reporter has to have alittle of the crusader in him, and maybe I've got more than most. You'vediscovered one of the greatest things in history--or invented it, whatever you want to call it. You deserve to go down in history alongwith Newton, Watt, Roentgen, Edison, Einstein, Fermi, and all the rest. 

"But somehow Malcom Porter stole your invention and he intends to takefull credit for it. Oh, I know he's paid you plenty of money not to makeany fuss, and he probably thinks you couldn't prove anything, anyway. But you don't have to be satisfied with his conscience money any more. With the backing of Magnum Telenews, you can blow Mister Glory-houndPorter's phony setup wide open and take the credit you deserve. "

Skinner didn't look at all the way Elshawe had expected. Instead, hefrowned a little and said: "I'm glad you came, Mr. Elshawe. I didn'trealize that there was enough evidence to connect me with his project. "But he didn't look exactly overjoyed. 

"Well, " Elshawe said tentatively, "if you'll just answer a fewquestions--"

"Just a minute, Mr. Elshawe. Do you mind if I ask you a few questionsfirst?"

"Go ahead. "

Skinner leaned forward earnestly. "Mr. Elshawe, who deserves credit foran invention? Who deserves the money?"

"Why . . . Why, the inventor, of course. "

"The inventor? Or the man who gives it to humanity?"

"I . . . Don't quite follow you. "

He leaned back in his chair again. "Mr. Elshawe, when I invented thePolarizer, I hadn't the remotest idea of what I'd invented. I taughtgeneral science in the high school Malcom Porter went to, and I had alab in my basement. Porter was a pretty bright boy, and he liked to comearound to my lab and watch me putter around. I had made this gadget--itwas a toy for children as far as I was concerned. I didn't have any ideaof its worth. It was just a little gadget that hopped up into the airand floated down again. Cute, but worthless, except as a novelty. And itwas too expensive to build it as a novelty. So I forgot about it. 

"Years later, Porter came around to me and offered to buy it. I dug itout of the junk that was in my little workshop and sold it to him. 

"A couple of years after that, he came back. He said that he'd inventedsomething. After beating all around the bush, he finally admitted thathis invention was a development of my little toy. He offered me amillion dollars if I'd keep my mouth shut and forget all about thething. "

"And you accepted?" Elshawe asked incredulously. 

"Certainly! I made him buy me a tax-paid annuity that pays me more thanenough to get by on. I don't want wealth, Mr. Elshawe--just comfort. Andthat's why I gave it to him. "

 * * * * *

"I don't follow you. "

"Let me tell you about Malcom Porter. He is one of that vast horde ofpeople who want to be _someone_. They want to be respected and looked upto. But they either can't, or won't, take the time to learn the basicsof the field they want to excel in. The beautiful girl who wants to bean actress without bothering to learn to act; the young man who wants tobe a judge without going through law school, or be a general withoutstudying military tactics; and Malcom Porter, the boy who wanted to bea great scientist--but didn't want to take the trouble to learnscience. "

Elshawe nodded. He was thinking of the "artists" who splatter up cleancanvas and call it "artistic self-expression. " And the clodheads whowrite disconnected, meaningless prose and claim that it's free verse. The muddleminds who forget that Picasso learned to paint within thestrict limits of classical art before he tried new methods, and thatJames Joyce learned to handle the English language well before he wrote"Finnegan's Wake. "

"On the other hand, " Skinner continued, "I am . . . Well, rather a shyman. As soon as Malcom told me what the device would do when it wasproperly powered, I knew that there would be trouble. I am not afighter, Mr. Elshawe. I have no desire to spend time in prison or bevilified in the news or called a crackpot by orthodox scientists. 

"I don't want to fight Malcom's claim, Mr. Elshawe. Don't you see, he_deserves_ the credit! In the first place, he recognized it for what itwas. If he hadn't, Heaven only knows how long it would have been beforesomeone rediscovered it. In the second place, he has fought and foughthard to give it to humanity. He has suffered in prison and spentmillions of dollars to get the Polarizer into the hands of the UnitedStates Government. He has, in fact, worked harder and suffered more thanif he'd taken the time and trouble to get a proper education. And it gothim what he wanted; I doubt that he would have made a very goodscientist, anyway. 

"Porter deserves every bit of credit for the Polarizer. I am perfectlyhappy with the way things are working out. "

Elshawe said: "But what if the FBI gets hold of the evidence I have?"

"That's why I have told you the truth, Mr. Elshawe, " Skinner saidearnestly. "I want you to destroy that evidence. I would deny flatlythat I had anything to do with the Polarizer, in any case. And thatwould put an end to any inquiry because no one would believe that Iwould deny inventing something like that. But I would just as soon thatthe question never came up. I would rather that there be no whisperwhatever of anything like that. "

He paused for a moment, then, very carefully, he said: "Mr. Elshawe, youhave intimated that the inventor of the Polarizer deserves some kind ofreward. I assure you that the greatest reward you could give me would beto help me destroy all traces of any connection with the device. Willyou do that, Mr. Elshawe?"

Elshawe just sat silently in the chair for long minutes, thinking. Skinner didn't interrupt; he simply waited patiently. 

After about ten minutes, Elshawe put his pipe carefully on a nearbytable and reached down to pick up his briefcase. He handed it toSkinner. 

"Here. It contains all the evidence I have. Including, I might say, therecording of our conversation here. Just take the tape out of theminirecorder. A man like you deserves whatever reward he wants. Take it, Mr. Skinner. "

"Thanks, " said Skinner softly, taking the briefcase. 

 * * * * *

And, on the plane winging back to New York from the Congressionalinvestigation, Mr. Terrence Elshawe sighed softly. He was glad none ofthe senators had asked anything about Skinner, because he knew he wouldcertainly have had to tell the truth. 

And he knew, just as certainly, that he would have been in a great dealmore hot water than Porter had been. Because Malcom Porter was going tobecome American Hero Number One, and Terry Elshawe would have ended upas the lying little sneak who had tried to destroy the reputation of thegreat Malcom Porter. 

Which, all things considered, would have been a hell of a note. 

THE END

Transcriber's Note:

 This etext was produced from _Astounding Science Fiction_ September 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S. Copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.