The Collection (18 page)

"Mike!"

^"
Yes, Doc?"

"Mike you
^'
re a genius."

"Me? You
^'
re kidding."

Dr. Hale groaned. "Mike, I'm going to have to go to the
university to work this out. So I can have access to the library and the
star-globe there. You
^'
re making an honest man out of me, Mike.
Whatever kind of Scotch this is, wrap me up a bottle."

^"
It
^'
s Tartan Plaid. A quart?"

"A quart, and make it snappy. I've got to see a man
about a dog-star."

"Serious, Doc?
^"

Dr. Hale sighed audibly.
^"
You brought that
on yourself, Mike, Yes, the dog-star is Sirius. I wish I
^'
d never
come in here, Mike. My first night out in weeks, and you ruin it.
^"

***

He took a cab to the university, let himself in, and turned
on the lights in his private study and in the library. Then he took a good
stiff slug of Tartan Plaid and went to work.

First, by telling the chief operator who he was and arguing
a bit, he got a telephone connection with the chief astronomer of Cole
Observatory.

"This is Hale, Armbruster," he said.
^"
I
^'
ve
got an idea, but I want to check my facts before I start to work on it. Last
information I had, there were four hundred and sixty-eight stars exhibiting new
proper motion. Is that still correct?
^"

"Yes, Milton. The same ones are still at it, and no
others.
^"

"Good. I have a list, then. Has there been any change
in speed of motion of any of them?
^"

"No. Impossible as it seems, it's constant. What is
your idea?"

^"
I want to check my theory first. If it
works out into anything, I
^'
ll call you.
^"
But he
forgot to.

It was a long, painful job. First, he made a chart of the
heavens in the area between Ursa Major and Leo. Across that chart he drew four
hundred and sixty-eight lines representing the projected path of each of the
aberrant stars. At the border of the chart, where each line entered, he made a
notation of the apparent velocity of the star—not in light years per hour—but
in degrees per hour, to the fifth decimal.

Then he did some reasoning.

"Postulate that the motion which began simultaneously
will end simultaneously,
^"
he told himself. "Try a guess at
the time. Let's try ten o
^'
clock tomorrow evening."

He tried it and looked at the series of positions indicated
upon the chart. No.

Try one o'clock in the morning. It looked almost like
—sense!

Try midnight.

That did it. At any rate, it was close enough. The
calculation could be only a few minutes off one way or the other, and there was
no point now in working out the exact time. Now that he knew the incredible
fact.

He took another drink and stared at the chart grimly.

A trip into the library gave Dr. Hale the further
information he needed. The address!

Thus began the saga of Dr. Hale's journey. A useless
journey, it is true, but one that should rank with the trip of the message to
Garcia.

He started it with a drink. Then, knowing the combination,
he rifled the safe in the office
of the president of the university. The
note he left in the safe was a master-piece of brevity.

It read:

TAKING MONEY. EXPLAIN
LATER

Then he took another drink and put the bottle in his pocket.
He went outside and hailed a taxicab. He got in.
^"
Where to,
sir?" asked the cabby.

Dr. Hale gave an address.

"Fremont Street?" said the cabby. "Sorry,
sir, but I don
^'
t know where that is.
^"

^"
In Boston," said Dr. Hale.
^"
I
should have told you, in Boston."

"Boston? You mean Boston, Massachusetts? That's a long
way from here.
^"

"Therefore, we better start right away,
^"
said Dr. Hale reasonably. A brief financial discussion and the passing of
money, borrowed from the university safe, set the driver's mind at rest, and
they started.

It was a bitter cold night, for March, and the heater in the
cab didn't work any too well. But the Tartan Plaid worked superlatively for
both Dr. Hale and the cabby, and by the time they reached New Haven, they were
singing old-time songs lustily.

"Off we go, into the wide, wild yonder ..." their
voices roared.

***

It is regrettably reported, but possibly untrue that, in
Hartford, Dr. Hale leered out of the window at a young woman waiting for a late
streetcar and asked her if she wanted to go to Boston. Apparently, however, she
didn't, for at five o'clock in the morning, when the cab drew up in front of
614 Fremont Street, Boston, only Dr. Hale and the driver were in the cab.

Dr. Hale got out and looked at the house. It was a
millionaire's mansion, and it was surrounded by a high iron fence with barbed
wire on top of it. The gate in the fence was locked, and there was no bell
button to push.

But the house was only a stone
^'
s throw from the
sidewalk, and Dr. Hale was not to be deterred. He threw a stone. Then another.
Finally he succeeded in smashing a window.

After a brief interval, a man appeared in the window. A
butler, Dr. Hale decided.

"I'm Dr. Milton Hale," he called out.
^"
I
want to see Rutherford R. Sniveley, right away. It's important.
^"

"Mr. Sniveley is not at home, sir," said the
butler. "And about that window—"

^"
The devil with the window," shouted
Dr. Hale. "Where is Sniveley?"

"On a fishing trip."

^"
Where?
^"

^"
I have orders not to give that information.
^"

Dr. Hale was just a little drunk, perhaps. "You
^'
ll
give it just the same," he roared. "By orders of the President of the
United States!"

The butler laughed. "I don't see him."

"You will," said Hale.

He got back in the cab. The driver had fallen asleep, but
Hale shook him awake.

"The White House," said Dr. Hale.

"I-huh?"

"The White House, in Washington,
^"
said
Dr. Hale.
^"
And hurry!
^"
He pulled a
hundred-dollar bill from his pocket. The cabby looked at it, and groaned. Then
he put the bill into his pocket and started the cab.

A light snow was beginning to fall.

As the cab drove off, Rutherford R. Sniveley, grinning,
stepped back from the window. Mr. Sniveley had no butler.

If Dr. Hale had been more familiar with the peculiarities
of the eccentric Mr. Sniveley, he would have known Sniveley kept no servants in
the place overnight but lived alone in the big house at 614 Fremont Street.
Each morning at ten o
^'
clock, a small army of servants descended upon
the house, did their work as rapidly as possible, and were required to depart
before the witching hour of noon. Aside from these two hours of every day, Mr.
Sniveley lived in solitary splendor. He had few, if any, social contacts.

Aside from the few hours a day he spent administering his
vast interests as one of the country's leading manufacturers, Mr. Sniveley's
time was his own, and he spent practically all of it in his workshop, making
gadgets.

Sniveley had an ashtray which would hand him a lighted cigar
any time he spoke sharply to it, and a radio receiver so delicately adjusted
that it would cut in automatically on Sniveley-sponsored programs and shut off
again when they were finished. He had a bathtub that provided a full orchestral
accompaniment to his singing therein, and he had a machine which would read
aloud to him from any book which he placed in its hopper.

His life may have been a lonely one, but it was not without
such material comforts. Eccentric,
yes,
but Mr. Sniveley could afford to
be eccentric with a net income of four
million dollars a year. Not had
for a man who
^'
d started life as the son of a shipping clerk.

Mr. Sniveley chuckled as he watched the taxi drive away, and
then he went back to bed and to the sleep of the just.

^"
So somebody has figured things out nineteen
hours ahead of time," he thought. "Well, a lot of good it will do
them!
^"

There wasn't any law to punish him for what he'd done.

Bookstores did a land-office business that day in books on
astronomy. The public, apathetic at first, was deeply interested now. Even
ancient and musty volumes Newton
^'
s
Principia
sold at premium
prices.

The ether blared with comment upon the new wonder of the
skies. Little of the comment was professional, or even intelligent, for most
astronomers were asleep that day. They
^'
d managed to stay awake for
the first forty-eight hours from the start of the phenomena, but the third day
found them worn out mentally and physically and inclined to let the stars take
care of themselves while they—the astronomers, not the stars—caught up on
sleep.

Staggering offers from the telecast and broadcast studios
enticed a few of them to attempt lectures, but their efforts were dreary
things, better forgotten. Dr. Carver Blake, broadcasting from KNB, fell soundly
asleep between a perigee and an apogee.

Physicists were also greatly in demand. The most eminent of
them all, however, was sought in vain. The solitary clue to Dr. Milton Hale's
disappearance, the brief note, "Taking money. Explain later, Hale,"
wasn't much of a help. His sister Agatha feared the worst.

For the first time in history, astronomical news made banner
headlines in the newspapers.

Snow had started early that morning along the northern
Atlantic seaboard and now it was growing steadily worse. Just outside
Waterbury, Connecticult, the driver of Dr. Hale's cab began to weaken.

It wasn't human, he thought, for a man to be expected to
drive to Boston and then, without stopping, from Boston to Washington. Not even
for a hundred dollars.

Not in a storm like this. Why, he could see only a dozen
yards ahead through the driving snow, even when he could manage to keep his
eyes open. His fare was slumbering soundly in the back seat. Maybe he could
get away with stopping here along the road, for an hour, to catch some sleep.
Just an hour. His fare wouldn
^'
t ever know the difference. The guy
must be loony, he thought, or why hadn
^'
t he taken a plane or a
train?

Dr. Hale would have, of course, if he'd thought of it. But
he wasn't used to traveling and besides, there
^'
d been the Tartan
Plaid. A taxi had seemed the easiest way to get anywhere—no worrying about
tickets and connections and stations. Money was no object, and the plaid condition
of his mind had caused him to overlook the human factor involved in an extended
journey by taxi.

When he awoke, almost frozen, in the parked taxi, that human
factor dawned upon him. The driver was so sound asleep that no amount of
shaking could arouse him. Dr. Hale's watch had stopped, so he had no idea where
he was or what time it was.

Unfortunately, too, he didn
^'
t know how to drive a
car. He took a quick drink to keep from freezing and then got out of the cab,
and as he did so, a car stopped.

It was a policeman—what is more it was a policeman in a
million.

Yelling over the roar of the storm, Hale hailed him.
"I'm Dr. Hale," he shouted. "We're lost, where am I?
^"

"Get in here before you freeze," ordered the
policeman. "Do you mean Dr. Milton Hale, by any chance?
^"

"Yes."

^"
I've read all your books, Dr. Hale,"
said the policeman.
^"
Physics is my hobby, and I've always
wanted to meet you. I want to ask you about the revised value of the
quantum."

"This is life or death," said Dr. Hale.
^"
Can
you take me to the nearest airport, quick:"

^"
Of course, Dr. Hale."

^"
And look—there
^'
s a driver in
that cab, and he'll freeze to death unless we send aid."

"I
^'
ll put him in the back seat of my car and
then run the cab off the road. We'll take care of details later."

"Hurry, please.
^"

The obliging policeman hurried. He got in and started the
car.

^"
About the revised quantum value, Dr.
Hale," he began, then stopped talking.

Dr. Hale was sound asleep. The policeman drove to Waterbury
Airport, one of the largest in the world since the population shift from New
York City in the 1960s and 70s had given it a central position. In front of the
ticket office, he gently awakened Dr. Hale.

^"
This is the airport, sir,
^"
he said.

Even as he spoke, Dr. Hale was leaping out of the car and
stumbling into the building, yelling, "Thanks," over his shoulder and
nearly falling down in doing so.

The warm-up roaring of the motors of a superstratoliner out
on the field lent wings to his heels as he dashed for the ticket window.

"What plane
^'
s that?
^"
he
yelled.

"Washington Special, due out in one minute. But I don
^'
t
think you can make it.