CHAPTER 1.

The moment Park Hamilton sat down behind his desk and saw the shocking pink envelope lying atop the neat little rectangular tower that represented his morning’s mail, he felt a distinct sense of foreboding. For, while Hamilton was not psychic, in the course of his six-year tenure of the difficult office of executive operations director for Science Projects Research, he had become highly sensitive to the tumbler fallings of small events as indicative of larger patterns.

Reaching slowly for the shocking pink envelope, he tried to tell himself that it was his job that was making him jumpy. Keeping SPR together and afloat on the swirling tides of politics and opinion in a far from united world was a job that would have caused Atlas to throw down his burden in despair and face willingly the wrath of the gods. Or so Hamilton had more than once told his familiars in moments of despondency.

SPR had been born in the disturbed 1950’s as a modest revolt among scientists—first in England, then in the United States—against the nationalistic restrictions imposed upon them by governments inextricably involved in the Gilbertian paradoxes of the so-called Cold War. And, as a divided world somehow worked its way toward peace, it had grown, little by little, to include most of the truly able scientific brains on Earth.

Dedicated to the pure research few governments or industries could afford, it supported itself on a sort of ASCAP arrangement, by which its members turned over to SPR all of their royalties and were paid in return a guaranteed income according to the earnings of the more practical results of their work. Oddly enough, the plan was liked.

Ultimately, SPR had grown so unwieldy, and so rich, that Hamilton’s predecessor had managed to put it loosely under the aegis of the United Nations, thus protecting the fiercely independent organization, at least in part, from nationalist pressure. The great SPR Proving and Testing Laboratories in Antarctica had been set up when the UN took mandate over that much-claimed and almost uninhabited continent.

But winning agreement to his great plan from the individualistic and anarchic SPR members had proved almost more difficult than putting through the UN and Antarctic projects. Jacques Swanson, the man responsible, had died shortly after the first ground—or rather ice—was broken south of Ross Sea. And Park Hamilton was his successor.

He had never allowed himself to believe that the job was a sinecure. But he was firmly convinced that if he had been aware of the endless problems to which it would give rise he would have shot himself before considering it. Which, as his personal assistant, Miss Alderman, invariably reminded him, was so much blather.

“You thrive on it,” she told him when this mood was upon him. “You look five years younger.”

“That,” was his usual reply, “is because, in a Freudian sense, I’m trying to work my way back to the womb. But one of these days you’ll come in here and find me quite literally curled up in a foetal position. Then what will you do?”

“Buy you a lollipop,” had been her most recent retort.

All in all, a thankless business—and, opening the shocking pink envelope, Hamilton had a definite hunch that the day ahead was going to be even more thankless than usual.

His foreboding was based on a number of things. Each of them was small in itself, but in toto, they shaped up to a pattern he disliked. First, for several days, everything connected with SPR had been running far too smoothly. No member scientist had come up with a demand for a half billion dollars to build a machine that would take him under the Earth’s crust.

Moreover, no greedy power had been plotting in the UN Assembly to subvert to its own use the discovery of one of its nationals, solely to avoid paying SPR patent royalties. And no major industrial cartel had been stirring up trouble, charging scientist-slavery, from the same motives.

What was even more suspicious and disturbing, the reliable Miss Alderman had not yet arrived at her office—and had not phoned in an explanation. Shirley, the Eurasian receptionist, had given him this information quite casually on the way in.

And on top of that, Hamilton had walked under a ladder coming off the high-level ramp, where some rim repairmen had been fixing a warped edge on the helicoptor roof. This last occurrence was the most annoying, because Hamilton knew it was foolishness and superstition. Yet he could not help feeling as he did.

Now—the shocking pink envelope. Its color alone indicated two things. One, that it was an emergency message from Antarctica too vital to be entrusted to the usual coding channels. And two, that it must have come in during the past half hour—since he had left his apartment uptown. Otherwise it would have been relayed to him there. He was sure it could only mean trouble.

It read: SRYAN OFF HELIJET CIRCA 2200 EDST. VACATION TIME. HAMESSAGE RESTRAINING TOO LATE. WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN—CANTSPR. Translated, it meant that S. Ryan had taken off in a helijet about 10 p.m., New York time, on an overdue vacation. A message from Hamilton asking that he delay his departure had arrived too late. Ryan’s present whereabouts was not known. Chief, Antarctic Science Projects Research.

Hamilton said, “Damn!” in very forcible accents. Then, deciding the oath was still too mild and too trite for the occasion, he added a few more lurid expletives in several languages, including the Portuguese. These last he had picked up while doing a job as consulting biologist on the Amazon Delta Reclamation Plan—where his work had won him admission to SPR, class AAAA, and had led directly to his present job.

He flipped the visicommunicator switch to Miss Alderman’s office, and received in return nothing but a blank screen. He next switched over to Shirley, the receptionist, and was instantly rewarded with a view of her flowerlike Eurasian face. She said, “Miss Alderman’s apartment does not answer. And she has not called in.”

He flipped off with a scowl and lit a cigarette. His foreboding had been justified. He wondered just how his message to Ryan had been bungled in Antarctica. Or had Ryan simply defied restraint and taken off, and were Cantspr, Witherspoon and the rest down there covering for him? Exhaling wearily, he decided he could hardly blame either Witherspoon and his able staff, or Ryan himself.

Sven Ryan was an inventor and a man of genius. As an inventor he had just successfully tested what might well prove the most important single development in human gadgetry since the long-haired discovery of the wheel. And, as a genius, he had to be given some leeway. But Ryan, free-roaming and talking just now—Hamilton tried but failed to suppress a shudder at the thought.

The visicommunicator hummed and he flipped it on again, hoping it would be the sorely needed Miss Alderman. Instead, it was Shirley. Impassively she announced in her sweet, thin voice, “Mr. Harris of the UN is here to see you, sir.”

“Dammit, I know Mr. Harris is from the UN!” Hamilton exploded. Then, noting her hurt look, “I’m sorry, Shirley. You’re not the target of my wrath. Send him in.”

Ian Harris, as SPR high-level liaison man for the United Nations, had been working closely with Hamilton for almost five years. They had traveled together, wined and dined together both in public and private, golfed together, and explored each other’s minds and opinions in the closest harmony for hundreds of hours. And yet, at moments such as this, Harris had the knack of putting Hamilton on the defensive.

Hamilton knew he was the better looking. He had viewed himself too many times on too many color projection screens to have any doubts on that score. But his gray-tipped brown hair looked faintly theatrical when contrasted with Harris’ cropped black head, and his upper lip looked naked beside the other man’s neat black mustache. What was even more disconcerting, his features looked looser and more florid, his clothes not nearly so well fitting.

As usual, when Harris entered with a brisk nod Hamilton was annoyed to find the refrain of There’ll Always Be an England running through his head. He said, “Hello, Ian,” waved him to a chair and offered him a cigarette with a defensive geniality.

The Englishman shook his head, settled back with a sigh and regarded his host with an I-say-old-man-is-this-exactly-cricket? expression. It occurred to Hamilton that Harris looked at the moment as sad as a Georgia hound dog whose master had eaten up all the steak.

The silence lasted until Hamilton said, with a trace of irritation he hated himself for revealing, “Ian, if you came over here to put the evil eye on me, I earnestly suggest that you go back to your own office? Let me be your guest.”

The UN representative regarded Hamilton as if he were some animal of a rarely photographed and inexplicable new species. Then he said, mildly, “Park. I find it difficult at times to convince certain regrettably backward branches of our organization that SPR is not a malignant wild growth upon the human social organism—a growth primarily dedicated to the development of disruptive discoveries without regard to their probable effect upon the structure of our society as a whole.”

“For heaven’s sake, get to the point, Ian,” said Hamilton. “We’ve been over this a thousand times before. It’s the job of SPR’s scientists to invent what comes bubbling up to the surface of their perhaps oddly constructed minds. It’s my job—and yours—to fit them into the socio-economic pattern.”

Harris regarded him with a mute disapproval that made Hamilton feel like a small boy caught cheating in a grade-school test. The UN man said, “Do you really think you’re doing your job, old man?”

“I’m doing my best,” said Hamilton, knowing that the toreador capework was about over and the moment of truth about to arrive.

“I’m sure you are.” Having made his point, Harris was disposed to be conciliatory. “But what about this Ryan business?”

Hamilton sighed, and pushed the shocking pink envelope across the desk. “There it is,” he said simply. “Somebody goofed. I sent out a restraining order under special code the moment I heard that Ryan’s tests were successful.”

Harris glanced at the message, frowned, and tossed it back on the desk. “Rough luck, Park,” he said. Then, “Has it occurred to you what it could mean if word gets out generally that this mad genius of yours has developed an instantaneous matter-transmitter?”

“How did you hear of it?” Hamilton asked, instantly suspicious, and remembering that it was absolutely against the UN-SPR pact for the UN to have an informant in Antarctica.

To Hamilton’s amazement, the usually imperturbable Harris countenance turned a bright pink. Нe thought, If I’m not skinned alive over this it will have been worth it—just to see Ian blush. But what is he hiding? The UN man said, with seeming clairvoyance, “It’s not what you think. I—er—picked it up quite inadvertently. I happened to stumble across your man Ryan late last night.”

“If you did,” said Hamilton seriously, “why in the name of heaven didn’t you clamp on to him?”

“I tried to,” was the reply. “But the circumstances were not exactly propitious.”

“Ryan at complete liberty in New York!” Hamilton groaned. “Was he talking?”

“If he was keeping silent,” said Harris, his face resuming its normal pale tan, “would I be here now? I tell you, Park, this may be more serious than you think. I’m qualified to understand his ravings—an ability not shared by many, thank God. But there’s no way of telling how much harm has been done.”

“Have you taken steps?” Hamilton asked, wishing he had looked up before walking under that ladder.

Harris nodded. “I’ve put our UN force on the job. But what can they do? There are only a few score of them. Even if they locate him, they have no real jurisdiction outside of UN territory. All your man has to do is tell them to push off.” He paused, then added, “I came over here to discover your attitude and what steps you are taking.”

“Thanks, Ian,” said Hamilton. Harris didn’t have to detail what it could mean if word got out that a successful instantaneous matter-transmitter had been discovered. It could mean world-wide financial and economic catastrophe. It could mean disaster for every other form of freight and cargo transportation on Earth, from the great rocket airliners with their chains of freight-gliders to the humblest obsolescent tramp steamer plying the ocean waves.

Hearing of it prematurely, people wouldn’t wait to learn its limitations, or the bugs that would have to be worked out before it could be put into operation. They’d dump their stocks and property investments and gilt-edged bonds and the result might well be world-wide chaos.

“We’ll do our very best, never fear,” said Hamilton, accompanying Harris to the office door. But, returning to his desk, he wondered just what they could do. To put either the New York City police or the Federal Authorities on the job would be an iron-clad way of opening up a leak. It was one hell of a mess. He sat down behind his desk, put his face in his hands, and tried desperately to think of something. Nothing came.

The visicommunicator hummed its little tune, and wearily he turned it on again. Miss Alderman’s trim, competent face appeared on the screen. He said, “Just where have you been?”

She said, “I only this minute got home—and I’ve got the mad Minnesotan with me. Chief, are you okay?”