Fashion model blondes wear mink in midsummer, magazine editors search for stories of snow and ice and old St. Nick, and Santa’s little helpers gather themselves for the annual show of the National Toymen’s Association.
Center lobby spots at the show are prize plums, and sometimes there’s quite a tussle among Santa’s jolly assistants to determine who gets the best spots. Dr. Martin Nagle, new to the trade, was somewhat dazed by the cutthroat techniques practiced among the builders of child-size death-ray guns and miniature furniture for little homemakers. But he had to have the center lobby space. Only in the open, away from the overhanging mezzanine, could he have adequate height for his own display. And so he got it, much to the astonishment of old and experienced hands in the rough and tumble toy business.
He had only one toy, too, a circumstance which further annoyed his neighbors with big lines. It was a simple rocketship which rose from the floor, circled twice near the lobby ceiling, then drifted gently down with ports glowing and fire spitting from the tail jets.
Sam Marvenstein, president of Samar Toys, came across from his company’s booth as the finishing touches were being put on the displays. He took the cigar from his mouth and glanced up as the miniature spaceship made its second turn and began descending.
“Makes a nice display,” said Sam critically, “but it’ll never sell. You can’t expect the merchandiser to put in a big, high-ceilinged display of this kind. A few of the big city places will rig up a set of wires like you got here, sure, but not the little stores, and that’s where you got to count on the big volume sales. And it’s a cinch that kids’ dads aren’t going to be fooled into any elaborate rigging like that.
“Yeah, it looks real pretty up there,” he admitted again. “You can hardly see the wires, even.”
“Maybe that’s because there aren’t any,” said Mart. “The ship rises and descends on its own self-contained power, and is pre-set for steering.”
“No wires, huh —” Sam entered the booth and passed a hand through the space beneath the descending ship. “Worse yet, then. Too bad, too. It could have been an awfully nice piece of merchandise.”
“What’s the matter with it now?” said Mart anxiously. “Why shouldn’t it sell?”
“Fire hazard. No parent is going to let his kid have something flying around the house with fire spitting out the end of it like that. What kind of fuel do you use, anyway? Whatever it is, the fire underwriters are going to clamp down on you quick.”
Sam Marvenstein shook his head sadly as the little rocket spun down to the floor with sparks pourly madly from its jets.
“Oh, that —” said Mart in relief. “That’s just for show. We borrowed it from the toy train people. By increasing the intensity we get a nice simulation of rocket fire.”
“Then how does it go? What kind of a trick are you selling, anyway?” said Sam almost belligerently.
Mart picked up a model lying on the counter and unscrewed the nose. A nest of three flashlight batteries could be seen side by side in the interior. “Battery power,” he said to Sam. “Three cells give approximately five hours of flying.”
“Yeah... but how does that —?”
“Antigravity,” said Mart. “A small antigravity unit is concealed in the tail under the batteries. The lever on the side of the ship is pre-set for the flight pattern desired. Very simple. Practically foolproof. We even guarantee them for three weeks.”
Sam Marvenstein replaced the cigar in his mouth slowly. He picked up one of the toys and turned it end for end, squinting into the dark interior.
“Antigravity. Whadya know? Now that’s really something. I used to read about that in the magazines my kid brings home, but I didn’t know they had it out yet.” He wandered away with the rocket in his hands to show his partners in his own booth. “Antigravity, that’s really something, now —”
It was really something, as things turned out. Sam’s comment was a feeble understatement, and the Nagle Rocket stole the show completely — along with quite a few thousands of dollars worth of orders that would have otherwise gone to the producers of more conventional toys.
By the second day of the show, the hotel lobby was somewhat like the interior of a poorly regulated beehive. Rockets were taking off at all angles from the hands of delighted toy buyers. They banged the ceiling and soared over the mezzanine to collisions with rival exhibitors and other patrons. And Martin Nagle’s pockets were stuffed with orders he couldn’t possibly fill.
On the fourth day, Sam Marvenstein strolled over from his own nearly deserted booth and pressed through the crowd. Traffic regulations had been imposed by the hotel people so that no more than two rocketships could be in flight at any one time, and one of these was required to be launched by the proprietor of the exhibit. It made it difficult for Mart to accept the buyers’ cash and write down the orders and fly the ships at the same time.
“Maybe I could help,” said Sam. “There’s not much doing over my way.”
“That would be swell, but I don’t want to take you away from your own show.”
“Ah, it’s nothing. People don’t want to buy a mere rocket-firing jet plane today, anyway.”
“All right. Just write down the people’s orders and take their deposits while I keep the ships going.”
The show closed at eleven that night. By then Sam was slightly staggered at the sum of the deposits he had taken in for Mart, and by the magnitude of the orders waiting to be filled. He multiplied that by the four days of the show gone by, and added the sum for the remaining five. He wiped his brow and looked glumly across the lobby to the deserted Samar Toy Town, stacked high with rocket-firing jet planes.
He turned to Mart, who was straightening up the last of the rockets on the counter. “I've been looking up some dope about you, Doc,” he said. "You’re Dr. Martin Nagle, lately of West Coast University, and more recently of ONR. You have within the past six months set up an office as Basic Research Consultants, in partnership with one Dr. Kenneth Berkeley, psychologist. You don’t own a toy factory, and have never been near one as far as I was able to find out. Now, your business is certainly your own, Doc, but I sure am interested in what you intend to do with orders for” — he glanced down at the paper on which he had done a little computing — “one million, four hundred and eighty-six thousand, one hundred and nineteen Nagle Rockets.”
Mart straightened soberly. “It just so happens, Sam, that I have also done a little checking on you. I discover that the Samar Toy Plant is probably the best equipped and most modern plant of its kind in the country for producing toys of the complexity of my little rocket. It is also financially sound and respected in the industry. I’m sorry that people aren’t buying rocket-firing jet fighters this season, but it seems to me that a little expansion could convert the Samar plant to production of Nagle Rockets with profit to both of us. In short, the patents on the rockets are available for licensing to interested parties. And the contracts you have in your hand are for sale.”
“I’m an interested party, Doc,” said Sam. “I don’t mind telling you that we counted on making it this year. We thought we had the merchandise that would do it. And we would have, if it hadn’t been for you. No hard feelings, you understand, that’s all part of the racket. How about a cup of coffee while we see if we can make a deal?”
Mart nodded. “Let me finish here. I think we can come to an agreement — but you should know, right from the start, that there is likely to be a rather large amount of contention stirred up by the appearance of the Nagle Rocket. It probably won’t take very long, either.”
It didn’t. The newsmen, after making routine reports on the toy show, came back for a second look at the phenomenal Nagle Rocket. Science editors checked the basic patents on the toy, and for one day it made the front pages across the country. That same afternoon, Martin Nagle got the call he had been expecting from Washington. Kenneth Berkeley relayed it from their offices in Basic Research Consultants.
“As predicted,” said Berk, “Keyes wants to have some words with you. You probably ought to go down tonight and see him first thing in the morning.”
“Was he sore?”
“He would have been happier if I’d admitted robbing Fort Knox instead of telling him that the stories about the Nagle Rocket are true. He’s going to shut us down and throw us behind bars for the rest of our lives — unless you can convince him we are innocent of national treachery.”
“Maybe you ought to go instead. Or at least go with me. You knew him first. You persuaded him to open Project Levitation.”
“No. He wants to see you. You’re the physicist and he understands your language far better than mine, even though he did co-operate on Levitation. It’s up to you, Mart.”
“All right. I’ll get started. We knew this was coming. The sooner it’s over, the better.”
“What about the booth? Shall I come down tomorrow?”
“No. Sam is here. It’s practically his baby, anyway, since he’s closed his own display and is working with me on conversion of his place to produce our rockets. I’ll come over to the office on the way.”
It was a gray Washington morning when Mart got off the train and took a taxi for the Office of National Research. As he reached the building, marked by self-conscious newness, he had a moment of doubt about the wisdom of the thing he was doing. He had to have the trust and support of Keyes and other men like him, and now he was close to the thin edge of renunciation of all such trust.
He went directly to Keyes’ office and the secretary kept him only a moment before ushering him in. Keyes had obviously been waiting. The director’s face was dull and colorless as he indicated a chair with abruptness bordering on the uncivil.
“I think I know all there is to know of this so-called toy of yours,” he said, “but I’d rather hear it from your own lips. If there’s any possible fragment of excuse to relieve the brand of treachery upon what you have done, I want to be the first to know it.”
Mart felt a momentary overpowering fatigue. This was the moment he had dreaded — and the one he had not known how to avoid. He had gone over it a thousand times in his mind, but now he hesitated, trying to find the right word to begin.
“Berk and I —” he began. “No, leave Berk’s name out of it. I’m speaking for myself, and I take full responsibility. For reasons of my own, I have left basic research and have gone into business — the toy manufacturing business. I told you at the completion of Project Levitation that I could not afford to remain with ONR, neither there nor at the University. I have three children — and there may be more as time goes on — whose care and education I have to provide. I have a home to maintain for them and my wife and myself, which I have no desire to maintain on the fringe of desperation, wondering whether the mortgage payment can be made next month or not. I desire to maintain my home and family in adequate comfort and security.
“This I cannot do on any salary available to me at ONR or at any other Government agency or at the University. It was necessary to go into some suitable business to maintain my finances at the proper level. Some of my colleagues would perhaps consider the toy business trivial and incongruous with my past profession, but it will provide for my family in a way that research has never done or could do. The toy business is an honorable one and I have no apologies for it.”
“And I’m not asking for any!” said Keyes almost savagely. “All this is beside the point. The wastage of your own brilliant talent, the virtual betrayal of your profession are all matters that concern me not at all — although they once would have concerned me greatly.
“What matters now is that you have taken the results of the highly confidential research which you performed here at ONR, research which was vitally essential to the security of our nation, and you have broadcast it to the whole world, including the very enemies we are bound to destroy in self-defense. You give it to them in the form of this miserable toy which you have marketed in order to buy a more sumptuous house, a better car, and perhaps a mink coat to holster the ego of your wife and yourself.” Dr. Keyes clapped his hands to the top of the desk and leaned forward sharply, his face pleading momentarily. “Why, Martin? Why did you do it?”
Mart made no answer, and Keyes slumped back in his chair. “There are penalties, of course. They will be applied. But what rankles most is that you have given abroad even more than you gave here. You achieved the thing which we directly sought and did not find on Project Levitation, a low-capacity antigravity device. And you have given it, literally, to the enemy instead of preserving it for your own. Can you give me any explanation for such insanity?”
Mart inhaled deeply. “Yes. I can give you a great many answers in due time. But only a few of them now. First, I was granted a patent on the antigravity device used in my toy. Have you read that patent?”
Keyes held up the pile of papers at the side of the desk. “I have read nothing else but it and the news accounts in the last thirty-six hours!”
“You have noted, then, the very precise specifications given in disclosing the mechanism of the toy. You have noted that the patent states this is based on a newly discovered Law of Nature.”
“Indeed I have!” said Keyes bitterly. “And what Law of Nature may I assume it to be?”
“ Not the one we found during Project Levitation!” said Mart in sudden intensity. “ Not that one — do you understand what that means, Dr. Keyes? I have not betrayed the confidences and work of Project Levitation.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Project Levitation produced antigravity. You utilize the principle of antigravity in these toys of yours. Therefore you utilize the results of Project Levitation, which you were sworn to protect in all secrecy.”
“No.” Mart shook his head firmly. “There is more than just one principle. To make a crude analogy: One might produce a motor car powered by steam or electricity or gasoline engines. The car would perform the same operations, within limits, regardless of the type of power. Beyond those limits, of course, the similarity would vanish.
“So it is with Project Levitation and my little toy. You wanted us to find a means of building a Buck Rogers flying belt. We didn’t do it, but we did find a means of powering thousand-ton airships and spaceships.
“No possible utilization of the particular principle involved in the work of Project Levitation would produce a flying belt. On the other hand, my little toy, as described in the patent, will never be extrapolated to produce spaceships. Its maximum capacity is a little over two pounds, and cannot be scaled up. It is true that new, and at present unknown, designs based on this new Law of Nature can produce spaceships or flying belts — but they are not inherent in the Nagle Rocket toy. I have not violated the secrecy which I swore in connection with my work at ONR. I have not betrayed you. Believe me, I have not!”
“How can you defend such a position?” Keyes demanded. “All the world knows that antigravity is now available, in principle at least.”
“You will note that I was careful not to state that principle in my patent disclosure. I could not patent the principle itself, of course, and it was not required to be disclosed, so it remains unknown.”
“For how long? Without being the least bit prescient I can state that at this very moment a Nagle Rocket is being dissected in Moscow. Within days, or weeks at most, they will have the principle. From there they will go on to the larger principles of spaceship construction.
“Why, that thought was even part of the speech Berkeley prepared for me to give you at that first meeting of Project Levitation. I said that since this fictitious Dunning had discovered antigravity from known scientific material one young Russian could do likewise!”
“Yes. And the key in your statement is the phrase ‘known scientific material.’ The Nagle Rocket is not based on what would be considered known scientific material. It is a second or even a third-order development. There is the crux of the matter. You might think upon that.”
“Think of it —!” Keyes rose and strode suddenly to the window, his back to Mart. “I’m sick of thinking of it! You’re not fools, you and Berkeley —” He turned abruptly and faced the physicist. “Berkeley... why didn’t I think of that before? It’s his doing! It’s another one like Project Levitation! Tell me: is it?”
He strode back to Mart, forcing the physicist to rise to meet that face in which fear, anger, bewilderment and disappointment mingled in turmoil. “Is it?” Keyes demanded again. “I’ve got a right to know. I’ve got to know!”
“There are a score of principles,” Mart said slowly, “perhaps even more, by which antigravity can be achieved, just as you can run an automobile by steam, electricity, or gas — or atomic power, if you choose.
“The very obvious conclusion that anyone is going to make is the one that you have made for yourself: that there is only one principle of antigravity. When the Russians begin dissecting, the Nagle Rocket, they will be searching for that one principle. They will scale up the little engine I have designed — and their laboratories will be demolished in the most curious kind of destruction. Implosion-explosion effects. Matter altered as to dimension and properties.
“ And they will not find the principle because it is a higher than first-order development of any science they know anything about! Their search will take them farther and farther from the principles of Project Levitation. Rather than betray the Project, it will actively block revelation of its secrets. That, perhaps, you must take on trust for the moment. But it is true, I assure you.”
“I would be an absolute fool to believe a word of that,” said Keyes. He flung his hands aside in a gesture of loss. “But... almost... you leave me nothing else to do. If I accuse you openly of betraying us, the Russians will know for certain that we have a developed spaceship. If I believe you, I risk the entire future air and space development of the United States. I will believe you — if you will tell me one thing: Why?”
Mart shook his head slowly. “Not yet. I do not know if we shall succeed in this. If we fail, we shall try again. But if you knew our goal at this time I do not believe you would be willing to uphold us. That, we cannot risk. On the other hand, you cannot risk believing I have been disloyal, because you know within yourself that it is not true.”