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Read Ebook: Political Application by Peterson John Victor
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Ebook has 62 lines and 5143 words, and 2 pages
POLITICAL APPLICATION
If matter transference really works--neanderthalers can pop up anywhere. And that's very hard on politicians!
Some say scientists should keep their noses out of politics. Benson says it's to prevent damage to their olfactory senses. Benson's a physicist.
I've known Allan Benson for a long time. In fact I've bodyguarded him for years and think I understand him better than he does himself. And when he shook security at White Sands, my boss didn't hesitate to tell me that knowing Benson as I do I certainly shouldn't have let him skip off. Or crisp words to that effect.
My nickname's Monk. I've fought it, certainly, but what can you do when a well-wishing mother names you after a wealthy uncle and your birth certificate says Neander Thalberg? As early as high school some bright pundit noted the name's similarity to that of a certain prehistoric man. Unfortunately the similarity is not in name alone: I'm muscular, stooped, and, I must admit, not handsome hero model material.
Well, maybe the nickname's justified, but still, Al Benson didn't have to give the crowning insult. And yet, if he hadn't, there probably wouldn't be a torchship stern-ending on Mars just about now.
Benson's wife hadn't yielded much info. Sure she described the clothes he was wearing and said he'd taken nothing else except an artist's case. What was in that was anybody's guess; his private lab is such a jumble nobody could tell what, if anything, was missing.
The potray dinged and there was a package in it.
Now matter transference I knew. It put mailmen out of business. There's a potray in every domicile and you can put things in it, dial the destination and they come out there. They come out the same size and weight and in the same condition as they went in, provided they didn't go in alive. Life loses, as many a shade of a hopeful guinea pig could relate.
So the potray dinged and here was this package. At first glance it looked like one of those cereal samples manufacturers have been everlastingly sending through since postal rates dropped after cost of the potrays had been amortized. But cereal samples don't come through at midday; they're night traffic stuff.
The postmark was blurred but I could make out that it had been cast from Grand Central. Time didn't matter. It couldn't have been cast more than a microsecond earlier.
The envelope contained a card upon which was typed:
"Caution! Site on cylinder of 2 ft. radius and 6 ft. height. Unwrap at armslength."
Now what? A practical joke? If so, it must be Benson's work. He's played plenty, from pumping hydrogen sulphide into the air-conditioning system at high school to calling a gynecologist to the launching stage at the Sands to sever an umbilical cord which he neglected to say was on a Viking rocket.
I followed the instructions. As I bent back the first fold of the strange wrapping it came alive, unfolding itself with incredible swiftness.
Something burst forth like a freed djinn--almost instantaneously lengthening, spreading--a thing with beetling brows, low, broad forehead, prognathous jaw, and a hunched, brutally muscular body, with a great club over its swollen shoulder.
I went precipitously backward over a coffee table.
It stabilized, a dead mockery, replica of a Neanderthal.
A placard hung on its chest. I read this:
"Even some of the early huntsmen weren't successful. Abandon the chase, Monk. I've things to do and this--your blood brother, no doubt--couldn't catch me any more than you can!"
Which positively infuriated me.
Do you blame me?
A few cussing, cussed minutes later I realized what Al Benson had apparently done: solved the torchship's fuel problem.
Oh, I'd seen Klein bottles and Mobius strips and other things that twist in on themselves and into other dimensions, twisting into microcosms and macrocosms--into elsewhere, in any event. And here I had visual evidence that Benson had had something nearly six feet tall and certainly two feet in breadth enclosed in a nearly weightless carton less than eight inches on the side!
Sufficient fuel for a Marstrip? Just wrap it up!
The stereo's audio was saying: "... from the Museum of Natural History. Curators are compiling a list of the missing exhibits which we will reveal to you on this channel as soon as it's available. Now we switch to Dick Joy at City Hall with news of the latest exhibit found. Come in, Dick!"
On the steps of City Hall was a full size replica of a mastodon over whose massive back was draped a banner bearing the slogan: "The Universal Party is for you! Don't return to prehistory with Cadigan! Re-elect President Ollie James and go to the stars!"
And there was a closeup of Mayor Cadigan standing pompous and wrathful--and looking very diminutive--behind the emblem of his opposition party.
"The mastodon replica has been examined. A report just handed me says it is definitely that from the Museum and that it could not conceivably have been contained in a shoebox. It's obviously a case of mass hypnotism. The replica must have been trucked here. There's no other possible explanation. Excuse me!"
Dick Joy turned away, then back.
"I have just been handed a notice that Mayor Cadigan wishes to say a few words and I hereby introduce him, His Honor the Mayor, Joseph F. Cadigan!"
His balding, fragmentarily curly-haired Honor glared.
"Friends," he said chokingly, "whatever madman is responsible for this outrageous act will not go unpunished. I call upon the City's Finest to track him down and bring him to justice.
"I am for justice, for equality and peace. I--"
His Honor was apparently determined to use all the time he could. Being a newscast, it was for free.
"Monk," he said, "guess you've seen the stereo. Al's out to fix the Mayor's wagon."
"Say that again," I said, having a brainstorm.
"Now, look--" he started.
"Maybe you've got something there, Chief," I cut in. "Cadigan's got the superduper of all wagons--a seven passenger luxury limousine with bulletproof glass, stereo, a bar, venetian blinds and heaven knows what else. Hot and cold running androids, maybe. He prowls the elevated highways with an 'In Conference' sign flashing over the windshield. So's he can't be wire-tapped or miked, I guess. It'd be a natch for Al Benson to go for."
Pollini grinned.
"So if you were Benson what'd you do to fix the Mayor's wagon?"
"Hitch it to a star," I said, "and the closest spot to a star would be the observation platform of the Greater Empire State."
"You're probably right," the Chief said. "Get going!"
I got.
Ten minutes later I walked out onto the observation platform on the 150th floor of the Greater Empire State Building--and found an incredulous crowd gathered around the mayor's limousine. I felt good. I'd predicted.
I asked a guard, "How'd it get here?"
His eyebrows were threatening a back somersault.
"Don't know," he said. "I was looking over the side; then turned around and here it was! You have any ideas?"
Which is when I spotted Al Benson.
I settled for shoving Benson toward the elevator, being careful since he had a box under each arm. We made the elevator and went down and it stopped on the 120th floor and the operator said, "Change here for all lower floors and the street--"
As we waited on the 120th for the down elevator, the P. A. system barked:
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