The Steam-Driven Boy (22 page)

On landing, Ralph took the banker for a walk, while Doris refreshed herself at an elaborate and up-to-date beauty parlour. The two men walked past store windows displaying an astonishing variety of modern goods: waterless hand cleansers, soap powders that were kind to hands, tiny cigars, furniture of aluminium tubing and woven glass, sun-tanning lotions, shoes of artificial rubber and clothes of strange new materials, electrical toothbrushes, radios hardly bigger than cigar boxes, electrical self-stimulators, comfortable trusses and a breathtakingly realistic replica of dog excrement. Jerome V8 marvelled at mysteriously luminous crucifixes, metal-plated baby shoe mementos, a dribble glass, coin-operated drycleaners’ and photographers’ establishments, and at new artificial fabrics which looked and felt like ordinary wool, but were far more expensive.

‘I wanted the opportunity of talking to you, sir,’ Ralph said. ‘I know this may seem forward of me, but I’d like to ask if you have any objection to my – my calling upon your daughter.’

‘Done!’ cried the old banker, wringing his hand. ‘Now let’s go see how Doris is getting along.’

As they approached the beauty parlour, a rude stranger, carrying a heavy bundle, brushed past them. Ralph scarcely glanced at the swarthy man, whose countenance was shaded by the peak of a cloth cap. But Jerome V8 looked at the stranger, staggered and grew pale. ‘It is –‘ he gasped and, clutching his chest, slumped to the ground. Ralph bore him inside and looked for Doris.

She was nowhere to be found.

Chapter IV. Voice from the Grave

‘His heart has stopped. Something must have given him a terrible shock,’ muttered Ralph, bending over the disagreeable old corpse.

‘I’m a heart surgeon,’ said a man, stepping forward from the crowd of curious onlookers. ‘Can I help?’

‘You might attempt to re-graft some veins from the old man’s legs into his heart,’ Ralph suggested. ‘I know it has seldom been attempted, but here’s how it might work.’ Rapidly he sketched a schematic diagram upon the old man’s stiff shirtfront. Then he turned to the staff of the beauty parlour. ‘I want all the light and mirrors directed upon this massage table over here. Boil this set of manicure knives and scissors, and get plenty of clean towels.’ In another minute he had converted an electrical hair dryer into an emergency heart-lung machine.

Several days later, the old banker everyone had given up for dead spoke – a voice from the grave. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that account is an ingrown cheese …’

Still later, Ralph asked him about his heart attack. ‘Yes, it was seeing that man carrying the bundle – he looked just like Fenster 2814T. If I hadn’t knowed better, I’d have guessed that he had Doris in that bag. Where is Doris, by the way?’ At that moment the old man expired a second time, this time from
old age
– the killer and crippler science will never defeat.

Doris abducted! Ralph bit his lip until the blood ran cold, for he had no doubt that the stranger
was
Fenster, and that he had kidnapped Doris XK100! But where could he have taken her?

‘Where can they be?’

Chapter V. The Turning Point

‘I think I can help you there,’ said a newsboy with an honest manner. ‘Fenster 2814T and his lovely victim are most likely at his secret laboratory – an artificial moon circling about the earth.’

Chapter VI. Fenster’s Mistake

In one corner of the magnesium room sat a clergyman, chained to a rubidium chair by unbreakable ytterium chains. In his bound hands was a prayerbook, opened at the marriage service. Strapped to a vanadium table in the centre of the laboratory lay Doris. Fenster stood lowering at her and gloating.

‘So you won’t marry me, eh?’

Doris wept and struggled against the iridium straps, to no avail. Fenster spoke again.

‘Not good enough for you, I spose, like your precious inventor, the accursed Ralph 4F! But now you
must
marry me, will-ye or nill-ye, and there’s nothing Ralph can do about that. Ha ha ha, I’d like very much to see him invent his way out of this one!’

At that moment Ralph 4F burst open the curium door, rushed across the room, and delivered Fenster such a compliment upon the face that the blood flowed freely. Two policemen appeared, ready to drag the cowardly 2814T away.

‘But how –?’ he gasped.

Ralph smiled. ‘You made one mistake, Fenster – that of gloating over your victim for thirteen weeks. I located your “moon” lab by means of an electrical telescope that greatly increases my powers of observation. Then I used my radio transmitter to draw off all the aether between you and earth, so that you sank gently to the ground and were, as we say, electrically “grounded”. Then I took the nearest police station to pieces, brought them here via airship and reassembled them all around you. You’re in jail, Fenster, and if you hadn’t been so busy smirking, a glance at your altimeter would have told you as much.’

The baffled criminal was dragged away and beaten.

Doris and Ralph clasped hands; their eyes announced their engagement. ‘My name will be yours,’ she said, ‘4F Ralph. Like this:

4 F R

For ev-er!’

Ralph took up the game:

‘U R Y I * 2 ¢ I M 4 U 4 F R

‘You are why I start to sense I am for you forever!’

‘X QQ me,’ she replied. ‘I ½ 2 P.’

B
Y
H
ITLER
I. E. B
ONNER

Jeremiah Lashard had a string of letters behind his name as long as his arm, which was itself exceptionally long. Since his days as boxing champion of M.I.T., this misanthrope hadn’t particularly felt the need of asking favours of anyone. No one had helped him become a chess Grand Master, a world-renowned oenologist, an Olympic medal winner, frisbee expert and astronaut. No one had given him a hand with his hit plays and best-selling novels. No one helped discover ‘light water’, name a new family of spider, invent the Lashard bearing or create ‘Lashard’s Law’ of capital gains.

Lashard lived in seclusion on Thunder Crag, though by no means alone. Today he sat on the veranda at his specially-built typewriter, pounding out a pulp science-fiction story, while simultaneously dictating a botanical paper to his butler.

Jerry Lashard’s butler was an attractive young woman, as were all his servants. It saved time.

He paused to sample his highball, a secret mixture in which a single honeybee floated like a cherry. Over the rim of his glass he studied the young woman climbing the path to his house. Lashard approved of the way the twisting path dealt with her curves.

‘Hello,’ she called.

‘Baby, if you’re a reporter you’ve had a long climb for nothing. Take my advice, go back to town and make up a story of your own. It’s the only interview you’ll ever get.’

‘You big lunk! I’m no reporter, I’m Dr Janet Cardine, your new assistant!’

‘My apologies, Jan. It’s just that I’ve been having a lot of trouble lately, from reporters and – others. Trudy will show you to your room. Valerie will get you a sandwich, Conchita will make you a highball, and while Lana changes your bed linen and Maureen unpacks your bag, Sylvia will bring you back here, so I can show you the lab.’

Half an hour later he led Jan to the great underground laboratory.

‘Wow! You must have hollowed out the whole mountain!’

‘I did. Needed more room because this part of the lab is going to be a factory.’

‘A factory? What on earth for?’

‘Long story. Suppose we go for a swim, while I explain. The pool is right in there, and I’ll bet Gloria or Velma has a bikini that’ll fit you.’

The swim enabled him to appraise her other qualifications, while
picking her brain about power sources.

‘There’s solar power, of course,’ she said, ‘and wind, running water, tides, any heat source, nuclear reactors, fossil fuels … but why do you want to know so much about power?’

‘For my factory.’

‘Yes, but how about the light company? Surely it would be cheaper to have them string power pylons up the mountain side –’

‘But the light company has reasons for not wanting me to become a manufacturer. For one thing, they know how I like to save time and effort. I think they’re afraid I’ll find some way to cut my power needs in half.’

‘But surely half is better than nothing. Jerry.’

‘They have another reason: Some of their biggest customers make fountain pens and ink.’

He handed her a peculiar pen. ‘This can make me one of the richest men in the world, and it can make a lot of people happy – but it also means the ruin of the big pen companies.’

She examined it closely. ‘Looks like any other pen to me – no, wait – there’s something funny about the point.’

He laughed. ‘Exactly. And that “something funny” means three things: One, this pen will write for
six months
without refilling. Two, it will never leak. Three – I’ll show you.’ He took the pen and a piece of paper, dived to the bottom of the pool, and came back almost at once, shaking water from the curly black thatch on his chest. He handed Jan the paper.

‘Why – it writes under water!’

‘And how! Do you realize what this means? Undersea explorers can make maps, notes and sketches on the job. Naturalist-divers can sketch new species without surfacing. Underwater demolition, sea mining, oceanic agriculture – it opens up a new universe!’

‘You big lug! Kiss me!’

Lashard smiled. ‘No time to bill and coo now, sister. The light company is playing for keeps. We’ve got to think of a power source they can’t tamper with.’

‘What about solar power?’

He shook his head. ‘I put up a set of parabolic reflectors last week. The next day they got a court order, forcing me either to remove them or paint them black. Claimed the reflectors constituted a forest fire hazard. I went to court yesterday. It was no use trying to explain to the judge how it was impossible for parabolic reflectors to cause a forest fire – like most judges and other officials, he still had some doubts about the earth’s being round.’

‘I see what you’re up against, you big ape. Any rivers near-by?’

‘Just a trickle of drinking water. And the wind is light and gusty, and we’re a hundred miles from the ocean, which rules out tide power, too.’

‘Hmm.’ She hit her underlip thoughtfully. ‘We’ll need something new, then.’

‘That’s the spirit, kid. You keep thinking about it, while I rig up some robot machinery to run the assembly line. The ink companies managed to
infiltrate my union, and the whole shop walked out on me yesterday.’

That afternoon he showed her around his mountain empire, as self-contained as a submarine, and introduced her to Adele, Agnes, Amber, Angela, Ava, Beth, Billie, Brenda and all the rest.

‘I can’t think of any power sources that won’t cost money,’ Jan said, as they rode the elevator back to the surface. ‘So it’s lucky you’re rich.’

‘That’s just it. I’m not.’ As they settled with drinks in the den, he explained. ‘The fountain pen companies have combined against me. They’ve managed to manipulate the stock market so as to all but wipe me out. All I have left is this place, a few government bonds, a couple of rocket research companies and a share or two in snap-brim hats.’

‘Did I hear you say
rocket
research? What is this, some lame-brained idea of putting men on the Moon?’ She began to laugh, but stopped, seeing his expression.

‘Better than that, sweetheart. I have reason to believe that the Moon is one great big chunk of U-238. And I want to stake the whole shebang as my claim. But for now, I’ve just got enough money to get
one
rocket up there, only I can’t get it back.’

‘Moon rockets, huh? You big hunk of scientific curiosity, you. Say, I have an idea. Have you ever thought of
using the Moon for power?
’

‘You mean mining the uranium 238 and then –?’

‘No,
directly.
Like moonlight reflectors or something.’

He began to pace the room as he always did while an idea was brewing. ‘Naw, the reflectors would have to be bigger than Texas. But hey, how’s this for a neat idea? Why not stick a long pole up there, with a wheel on the end of it, and connect it to a generator?’

She performed some calculations with his special pen. ‘It might work at that. The Moon is 216,420 miles away at its nearest, and 247,667 miles away at its farthest. That means our pole would need a shock absorber in the middle. That’s no problem. But how about bracing? Think of the wind resistance on a pylon that high!’

Lashard grinned, taking her in his arms. ‘Sweetheart, you may be a good power engineer, but you’re one hell of a bad astronomer,’ he said. ‘You forget that outer space is airless – there is
no wind in space.
So nix on the braces, my brain child.’

Jan frowned. ‘One more thing – this I
do
know about – it’ll be duck soup to generate power at the Moon end of our pylon, but just how are we supposed to get the power back to Earth? Without going into details, it just isn’t possible to transmit that much power over a quarter million miles. Wires are no good, and neither is radio transmission. I’ll have to think of some new way.’