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Title: If You're Smart—

Author: Malcolm Jameson

Release Date: February 24, 2020 [EBook #61498]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ***

"IF YOU'RE SMART—"

By Colin Keith

Seems a pretty obvious crack for a business sharper

to make to an inventor. "If you're so smart, why

don't you make some money yourself?" Maybe so.

But this scientist had an even better answer—

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Astounding Science-Fiction April 1942.

Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that

the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

"If you're so damn smart, why ain't you rich?"

That hoary wisecrack must have been all of three centuries old when Wolf Carmichael pulled it on Dr. Claud Kellog. The Wolf of Saturn loved it and used it often. That day he lay back in his swivel chair, chuckling offensively somewhere in the fatty depths of his triple chin, as he threw it. But his roving, piggish eyes showed no mirth. They were hard and scheming, the ruthless eyes that had made him master of all commerce and industry throughout the Saturnian system. To his money-grubbing mentality, this question was the ultimate in triumphant repartee.

"A scholar named Archimedes was asked that question once," replied Dr. Kellog, flushing angrily, "and to prove he could be rich if he wished, he knocked off his important mathematical researches long enough to buy up all the wine presses in the country. It was winter, then, but when the next fall came the vintners had to have their presses back or else lose the grape crop. Archimedes made a tidy profit."

"Never heard of him," snorted Carmichael. "Musta been some little fellow on Venus. If he was a real big shot in the booze racket, he'd be on the board of Interplanetary Distillers. He aint."

Carmichael threw away the stump of the cigar he was smoking and lit another.

"To get back to this gadget of yours," he resumed indifferently. "Maybe it's as good as you say, maybe not. But George Carmichael was always the boy to give a struggling inventor a chance—"

Kellog winced. Yeah. Wolf would back anything that promised sure profit and no loss—provided he was given control.

"—so here's what I'm willing to do. Your proposition to have me lend you enough to get your machines built is out—the machines might flop, then where'd I be? What we'll do is this—incorporate your whatchamacallit—"

"Antichron."

"Antichron, huh? We'll incorporate it first, then put it into production. I get fifty-five percent of the stock for promotion fee, we sell twenty to the public for working capital, and all the rest is yours. See?"

Kellog saw. It was a typical Carmichael proposition. Kellog would furnish the work and brains, the sucker public the money. If the venture failed, Carmichael couldn't be hurt; if it succeeded, he would rake in the lion's share. Kellog reached for his hat and jammed it on his head.

"That's pure burglary, Mr. Carmichael," he said fairly evenly, mustering all his powers of self-restraint. "I'll see you in hell first."

"Tut, tut, my boy," said Carmichael with a repetition of his nasty chuckle, "how fiery you are! That's bad. You should never mix emotion with business. Take me. Am I offended? No. I'll be here tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, ready to do business with you. You'll come back—they always do."

Kellog only glared at him, then strode from the room, boiling at the arrogance of the grasping capitalist. And as he angrily made his way down the main street of Saturnport, everything he saw added to his rage—and to his gloom, too. For every enterprise of any magnitude on Titan, or on any of the other Saturnian satellites, was owned or controlled by Carmichael. The list was an imposing one. Carmichael was the president of the Titanic Trust Co., the only bank. He owned the Saturnport Supply Co. and Titan Shipyards outright. He had a fat finger in Rhean Ranches, Miman Mines, Titan Radio Power, the Dione angrauk packeries, and the ruby pits on Enceladus. What burned up Kellog the most was Trans-Saturnian Lighter Service.

That line of small intersatellite freighters had been established and built by his father, years before. It supplied a much-needed service, for the great interplanetary ships stopped only at Saturnport. The little lighters carried the slaughtered angrauks from Rhea to the packeries of Dione, and thence to the big port. They hauled ores from the mines of Mimas to the smelters on Titan, and did other chores of the kind. Carmichael saw it was a profitable line and tried to buy into it. The elder Kellog resisted. Carmichael shut down his mines for a year, cutting off important revenue. A quarantine on angrauks was mysteriously promulgated; taxes on intersatellite shipping increased. The bank called Kellog's notes. His lighter service was forced into bankruptcy.

"And Carmichael bought it for a song," muttered Doc, bitterly, "had the new taxes repealed and the quarantine rescinded. It broke dad's heart."

That was the way the Wolf of Saturn did things. Honeyed words, cash advances, at first, anything for a foothold. Then squeeze, squeeze until the enterprise was his. Now that he had the colonies of the Saturnian system well under his thumb, he was branching out into larger fields. He had ambitions of going back to the Earth one day and taking his place among the mighty in Wall Street, where the Systemic Stock Exchange was. He wanted to lock horns with such magnates as Aalman, head of Venus Exploitation, Inc., and chairman of the board of the Tellurian Master Bank. He wanted a bigger say-so in the operation of the Interplanetary Transport Co. and a directorship on Etherways, the planets' communication system. Therefore, when he was not in his office at the Carmichael Building, he could be found in the brokerage office of Neville & Beardsley, trading fiercely in securities, trying to match wits with Aalman and the other tycoons.

Doc Kellog knew all that and knew how hopeless his fight was. Yet that illiterate taunt still rang in his ears. He was smart, but he wasn't rich. There must be something wrong with his approach to things. Other men with half his brains got along and prospered; why couldn't he? That thought was uppermost in his mind when he reached his laboratory.

"What luck, Doc?" asked cheery Billy Wade, his chief assistant.

"The usual," growled Kellog. "He wants to hog the show, otherwise no dice. I told him to go to hell."

"Swell," grinned Billy Wade, admiringly, "but where do we get off? Fold up and get jobs somewhere?"

"Maybe." Doc Kellog's anger had cooled somewhat and dejection had succeeded it. But he was not quite ready to surrender. The memory of that sneering challenge still rankled. Kellog sat down and stared at the floor in deep thought.

Things looked black. The single model of his antichron worked perfectly. It had proved that his theory was correct. He could warp space-time, given power enough, and bring all the planets together, just as centuries before the introduction of telegraph and radio brought all the countries of the Earth together. But his money was gone, his bills mounting, and he was forced to deal with interlocking monopolies for all his supplies, power and credit. Carmichael knew that as well as he did and was waiting for the plum to drop in his lap. Kellog knew that Carmichael would fight him tooth and nail unless he cut him in. And that Kellog was resolved not to do.

He had never thought of his invention in terms of money before, but rather in terms of the immense boon it would be to all humanity, taking it for granted that his own compensation would be just and adequate. But now he was racking his brain for a way to turn it into money—lots of money—and quickly. He had exhausted all his own resources in building the one model he had, and the power bills were eating him up. If they were not paid by the end of the week, Titan Power would attach his laboratory and its contents, which was the same as saying Carmichael would.

Antichron—what were its chief virtues? What could he cash in on now? For he must not only save what he had, but construct other machines to introduce to the public. He sat up and looked at his model thoughtfully. It was a clumsy-looking device, a monster machine taking up the whole side of the room. Its main feature was a six-foot-square crystal window, framed by shiny steel panels studded with knobs, dials, glowing tubes, buttons and cranks. The crystal resembled an ordinary televise scanner of the type used by Etherways, except that it was thicker and double-faced. Whatever form of energy, whether heat, electricity or light, impinged on one face was immediately transmitted to the other. Where it differed from the standard models was that its two faces could be split apart when subjected to antichronic stresses, and separated by any number of millions of miles. But the same antichronic stresses also created a warp in space-time so that the interval seemed not to exist. It was a window that with the proper manipulations of its complex controls could be made to look upon any spot in the universe and receive energy impulse from it then.

That "then" was its great virtue. Long before space travel was an actuality, mathematicians had known that there was no such thing as simultaneity. Time, like space, was relative. They had had their first practical demonstration of it when they tried to use two-way television between the Earth and Moon. Radio waves took a little over a second to travel each way. A man would speak, then wait for two seconds before his answer began coming back to him. Later, that time lag became almost intolerable. From Callisto it was three quarters of an hour—you activated the machine, waited forty or so minutes for it to light up, and then you waited an equal period for the inquiring face looking at you to register understanding and begin his reply. Obviously, where an hour and a half intervened between question and answer, sprightly conversation was impossible. The antichron would cure that. With the space between warped out of existence, instantaneous response could be had.

"Why ain't I rich, huh?" repeated Kellog, sourly, and began thinking on how men got rich. Not by inventing useful things or hard work, necessarily. He thought of Carmichael's career, and Aalman's, and those of others. They had one common denominator—they were men who bought and sold, bought cheap and sold dear. And where did they find their sellers and buyers? Why, on the Stock Exchange, of course. Kellog's eyes lit up and he almost trembled with excitement as the full implications of that chance thought dawned upon him. He jumped up and called Wade to him.

"How much money have we?" he asked excitedly.

Billy Wade pulled out a wallet and squinted at its contents.

"There's about a thousand here of my own and the three thousand you gave me to keep for the power bill."

"Willing to gamble?"

Wade just grinned and handed over the money.

"Quick, now. Grab the current 'Ephemerides' and find the Earth's present position and rate of relative movement. Then look up the exact latitude and longitude of the lower tip of Manhattan Island—that's in New York."

Kellog ran over to the antichron and began setting the dials as Wade called out the figures. Then he threw a master switch and the machine hummed into activity. In a moment the screen was glowing, then transparent. It was as if Kellog were looking out of a window high over a green park surrounded on three sides by water. He adjusted the mechanism and caused the projected screen to lower itself to a great sprawling building that lay below. He forced it through a wall, and there he was—looking in on the trading floor of the nerve center of the Solar System, the Systemic Stock Exchange!

Thousands of men were milling about beneath, gesticulating and shouting. At the other end of the vast hall an immense annunciator board stood, on which names and numbers appeared. A flickering screen beside it was displaying news flashes.

"A notebook! Hurry!" exclaimed Doc Kellog. He jotted down quotations as he watched. Callistan Radioactives was high and climbing—a sale at 423-1/2, then another at 428, then at 430-1/4. A flash came over the screen saying Martian Gems had passed its dividend. Martian Gems promptly dropped twelve points. Etherways and I. P. T. were strong. The market generally was strong.

"Let her run," Doc shouted, shoving the book into his pocket. "Damn the power bill. If I'm right, it won't matter; if I'm wrong, it won't matter either. I'll be seeing you."

Then he was out and gone, hurrying to Neville & Beardsley.

Mr. Neville took the money, but he looked at the young scientist dubiously.

"Small margin accounts are dangerous," he warned. "We accept them, but we don't solicit them. Those wolves out there will take the shirt off your back so quick it will make your head swim."

"Fair enough," answered Kellog cheerfully. "As a matter of fact, I am in the market for a few wolfskins myself. Here, buy me some Callistan Radioactives and sell some Martian Gems; all you can for the money."

Neville grunted disapprovingly, but took the money. Nobody but an ignorant fool would sell Martian short, and Callistan was no bargain above 400. Kellog went on into the board room and sat down behind the group of local capitalists who were scanning the board in a listless, bored way. Kellog had a hard time restraining his elation, for the figures on the board they were looking at were ancient history to him. His information was over an hour ahead of it. After a while he got up and phoned Wade from a booth.

"Read me the latest dope," he said. Then listened as Wade gave him the quotations. Martian had stopped falling; there was a flurry in Oberon Metals. He hung up and stopped at Neville's desk on the way back to his chair.

"Cover that Martian sale, then buy me some Oberon."

Neville blinked. Oberon had been inactive for days. But he noticed Kellog had doubled his money on the Martian transaction, and had a nice paper profit on his Callistan stock.

"Beginner's luck," he cautioned, as he filed the order.

When Kellog got the day's close from Wade, he closed out his line. It was not a bad day's work. His cash balance on Neville's books was over fourteen thousand. He left it there; tomorrow was another day.

The next day he ran the fourteen thousand up to forty-five. The day after that he finished up with a couple of hundred. He drew enough of it to pay the power bill, then walked on to the booking office of Titan General Shops.

"Last week," said Kellog to the clerk, "I left an order here for some parts for a special televise machine—"

"It's N. G.," said the insolent clerk. "Credit disapproved."

"I've got the money now," added Kellog. But the clerk shook his head and walked away. Over his shoulder he flung:

"You gotta get Wolf's O. K. He stopped it—personally."

"Oh," said Kellog. So he wouldn't be permitted to develop his invention on Titan even if he had money! Carmichael held the reins—the supply house, the shops, the power plant, transportation. Kellog walked slowly back to his laboratory, thinking on the way what his next step would be.

The following day he had better luck. When he looked from his antichron onto the clamoring mob of Wall Street brokers he knew at once that something unusual was afoot. Pandemonium reigned, and often awed faces would turn to stare up at the quotation board with its ever-changing symbols of good and bad news. Kellog read the last bulletin hurriedly.

"Following the suicide early this morning of Charles Bean, general manager of Venus Exploitation, rumors persist that the company's billion-dollar investment in mimil plantations has had to be written off as a total loss. The stock opened at 240, but fell off over a hundred points in the first few minutes of trading. The last sale was at 97—"

Kellog waited, tense. He watched Exploitation sink rapidly to 60, 50, then 40. A gong rang and the screen lighted up again.

"A correction to the last bulletin," it said. "President Aalman has made a statement. He says that Bean's suicide was due entirely to domestic difficulties. The mimil venture has been tremendously successful. So much so that the board of directors announce a one hundred percent stock dividend and an equal amount in cash. He further states that he will buy personally all the stock that is offered under 500."

At once the tumult on the floor increased to a howling typhoon of sound as the brokers suddenly reversed their position and began hunting sellers as fervidly as they had previously been hunting buyers. The bidding was wild, leaping by bounds to ever-higher figures. Exploitation rose from its depths like a soaring skyrocket—up into the hundreds, past the five-hundred mark of Aalman's bid, on to a thousand and upward.

Another gong. Another announcement.

"It is apparent that an effort is being made to corner Venus Exploitation. The Exchange authorities have ordered, dealings in the stock suspended. Speculators short of stock may settle at the rate of two thousand dollars per share."

"Wow!" yelled Doc Kellog, and a moment later he was burning up the road to Neville & Beardsley.

The board room was crowded when he got there. All the big shots of Titan were present, not excepting Carmichael. There was sheer panic in the faces of some as they stared at the earlier bulletins, for Exploitation represented a heavy investment for most of them. Even Wolf's usually expressionless face showed concern as he saw his spare millions dwindle to half and less. He was so intent on following the damning figures that he did not notice the entrance of Kellog, or that he sat down beside him in the chair vacated by a haggard man who had just rushed despairingly from the room.

"It's more of Aalman's skulduggery, the pirate!" growled Carmichael to the fellow sitting on the other side. "He's looted the company, that's what. We're stuck. I'm getting out while I can."

He wrote an order and beckoned to Neville.

"The hell of it is," Wolf added, to his crafty-looking partner, "that while this order is getting to New York, the stock will drop forty points more. Damn that time lag!"

Neville approached, bowed respectfully, and took the order. He looked at it, then remarked:

"This is for more than you own. Are you taking a short position?"

"Right! The stuff's wallpaper. When Aalman milks 'em, they stay milked. Tomorrow I can cover at three. Get rid of this—quick."

Neville bowed again and turned away. Kellog plucked him by the sleeve. He had sneaked a look at the order. The amount he had on balance would margin it.

"I'll take that—at the current price," he whispered. "You needn't send it to New York."

"You're crazy," said Neville, but he noted the order.

Kellog sat back and waited, gloating. In a few minutes the news would come through that the market had reversed itself. He had made a brilliant double play. If Carmichael's selling order had gone through in the regular way, when it hit New York his stock would have brought him hundreds of dollars a share; conversely, if his own buying order had, he would have had to pay the corresponding price. As it was, he got Carmichael's stock at 43, close to the bottom, and for it Wolf received but 43.

"Whipsawed!" Carmichael yelled when Aalman's bullish statement was broadcast. "The dirty rattlesnake. He started the rumors to depress the stock; now he's buying it in at a bargain. Neville! Cancel my selling orders."

Neville was late in coming. In the meantime the later flash showed on the screen—the one telling of suspension of trading and the penalties levied on short-sellers.

"Sorry, sir," said Neville, as placatingly as possible, "but it is already executed. You said quick, so I disposed of it locally."

Carmichael snorted and looked about him.

"What fool—" he began, but Neville simply said, "The gentleman on your right."

Carmichael glared at Kellog. Kellog glared right back.

"You!" howled Wolf, his porcine eyes incredulous.

"Me," grinned Kellog. "You owe me five thousand shares of Exploitation, I believe. I want it."

Carmichael sputtered and gazed questioningly at Neville. It must be a joke—this silly upstart of a scientist holding the whip hand over him. Why, only a few days before he had come whining to his office for the loan of a miserable few thousand. Now he was demanding ten million. Preposterous!

"If you haven't the cash, I'll settle for a deed to Titan Shops, lock, stock and barrel," offered Kellog smoothly, but he could not conceal the triumph in his eyes. "I am rather anxious to get a little job done there, but up to now they haven't been very ... uh ... co-operative."

Carmichael grunted like a prodded boar, frowning. He was in a tight spot; he knew it. He had to settle and he did not have the cash. Moreover, it hurt him to give up a property. But there seemed to be no choice, and he was aware that the other speculators in the room were watching him closely. He couldn't welsh—not openly.

"Done!" he exploded.

That night Kellog took over the Titan General Shops. He and Wade worked late, laying out the program for the following day. Tomorrow they would start construction on the first batch of commercial antichrons. But just at midnight a messenger came, bearing a communication from the power company. It read:

You are hereby notified that due to inadequate generating facilities, Titan Radio Power finds itself compelled to curtail its service. Since our contract to furnish your plant with power was made with Mr. George Carmichael personally and not with the Titan General Shops, the change of ownership voids it. All service will be discontinued within four hours.

"The dirty rat!" blazed Kellog.

"Wolf is the word," corrected Billy Wade with a sigh. "You can't beat him."

"We'll see," said Kellog grimly. "Let's have a look at the electrical hook-up here. Maybe we can use antichron in another way."

Neither he nor Wade attempted to sleep that night. They were much too busy. The machine was retuned and put in search for the New York home of the general manager of Tellurian Power. They found him, aroused him and made their proposition. Yes, the Earth plants had unlimited power. Yes, if Kellog could project a receiving plate into one of Tellurian's generating plants, its men would connect leads to it. The general manager doubted whether power could be transmitted from planet to planet—it had never been done before—but if they would pay for it, he would send it.

Kellog closed the deal. Then he and Wade went about altering the antichron for gathering pure current, not light. They marked the back face to show where the Earthly electrodes should be placed. On the front they attached their own connections. Those led to the shops. Then they set the space-time warper to working. In a moment the back face was gone. No doubt, at that instant, startled engineers were puzzling over the bizarre outlet that had suddenly appeared in their plant.

"Say," said Billy Wade. "He said unlimited power, didn't he? And the rate there is a tenth what it is here. Why not peddle some juice on the side?"

"Right!" yelped Kellog, and he reached for a pad.

POWER FOR SALE, CHEAP

Owing to surplus productive capacity provided by new owners, Titan General Shops is in a position to furnish any quantity of power at the rate of ten cents a mega-watt hour.

"Get that to the Saturnport Herald to be run in the next edition," he told Wade.

"This'll wash up Titan Power, if my guess is any good," remarked Wade cheerfully. "They've been getting away with murder."

"Yep," said Kellog dreamily. Carmichael would have to write off another asset, for local power could not possibly compete with Tellurian now that there was a way to transmit it. And the power monopoly was the biggest plum in Wolf's basket.

In an hour the first surges of energy were coming in from Earth, flowing from the antichron into the local radio distributing emission set. The electricians at the plant simply tuned out on Titan Power and in on the laboratory set. The shift was made.

Carmichael did not take the fresh assault upon him lying down. He promptly went about getting an injunction against the unfranchised sale of power, but it was several days before he could get it issued. In the meantime, with the full facilities of the shop at his disposal, Kellog had completed a batch of sight-sound antichrons for use in communication. He hired and instructed operators. Then the machines were focused on the various important planets, satellites and asteroids. At one stroke Saturnport became the central clearing house of the Solar System for news. If necessary, a Pluto signal could be relayed through Titan to Earth in only the time necessary to make the connections. Etherways was at once ruined. All its equipment was junk, except for nearby use.

"That ought to hurt," observed Billy Wade, jubilantly. "They say Wolf had a pile of Etherways Preferred."

"Probably," said Kellog. But he was smarting under the injunction. The corrupt local court had forbidden the outside sale of power. Not only that, the Saturnport Council—all creatures of Carmichael—issued an edict prohibiting the importation of power generated outside of Titan. This time the shops did have to close down until Kellog could improvise some old-fashioned magnetic generators of the field-armature type. Not content with inflicting those inconveniences on Kellog, Carmichael might be expected next to bring suit for personal damages ensuing from the collapse of Etherways. Etherways represented the investment of important money, and the men who lost were not the type who would console themselves that their company had been replaced by something incomparably better.

"I've got to go all the way," concluded Kellog, soberly. "If I don't get him, he'll get me."

Again he put his and Wade's head together and designed a new type of antichron. It was three-dimensional—a cubical box, to be exact, with four sides and a bottom, but open at the top. It worked on the same principle as the flat screen, but with slight variations. It operated as a shuttle, not continuously.

Kellog put one of his television machines in focus with the mine on Mimas. Miman Mines was only partly owned by Carmichael; he controlled the industries on the lesser satellites by virtue of his strangle-hold on transportation. So the manager was willing to talk to Kellog.

"What do you pay that buccaneer to haul ore to Titan?" asked Kellog.

"Twenty cents a ton."

"I'll haul it for two."

"You can't," objected the manager. "The Trans-Saturnian Lighter Service's charter says—"

"I know what it says," snapped back Kellog. "My father drew it up. It confers a perpetual monopoly on all intersatellite ship-borne commerce. Now listen. Clear a place about twenty feet square and arrange to dump ore in it from twenty feet or more above. Mark it off with safety lines and don't ever let a man step across the lines. Then watch my smoke."

He cut the connection long enough to send similar instructions to the receiving station by the smelter. Then he watched through the antichron while the preparations were being made at both ends of the line. When they were ready he turned the machine over to Wade.

Wade sat down and got to work. His job was very much like that of the operator of a grab bucket. He kept his eyes on the visual screen, his hands on the controls of the cubical one.

Current!—the empty cube appears on Mimas—an avalanche of ore fills it—shift current—it disappears from Mimas, appears at the smelter on Titan—the unloading cradle on which it materializes tips and dumps the ore—when it is upright again, shift current. Mimas, fill; Titan, dump. Mimas, fill; Titan, dump. That was all there was to it. Hundreds of tons a minute, delivered in Titan the day it is mined.

"That shoots Interplanetary Transportation and Trans-Saturnian all to hell, I should say," drawled the editor of the Herald, who had been invited to watch the demonstration. He was conducting a campaign to have Carmichael's injunction revoked. Now that the people knew cheap power was available, they were angry about it. "Yes," continued the editor, "they're sunk. I'm going to stroll down to the bank and draw out my balance before the run starts."

"What do you mean?" asked Kellog.

"Plenty. The bank is really a sort of holding company for Wolf. Now that his companies are all shot, it'll crash. You may not know it yet, but Carmichael is ruined. He will be a very sick wolf in an hour or so."

Who is the Wolf of Saturn? People on Titan will point out a blowzy, sodden old derelict who hangs out in a dive near the skyport and tell you that "Carmy," as they call him now, used to wear that title. He was a big shot once, they say.

But if you should ask any of the frequenters of the big building on lower Manhattan who the Wolf of Saturn is, they will tell you instantly. It is a crackpot on Titan by the name of Kellog. He was the fellow who ruthlessly and without warning wrecked two of the biggest and most profitable enterprises in the universe—Etherways, Inc., and Interplanetary Transport—and many of the smartest financiers of the System with it. What a guy! Not only that, but he wrecked the System's entire price structure with his cheap services. "Benefactor?" they will squall. "He's a wild man—a wolf!"

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of If You're Smart—, by Malcolm Jameson

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