Arthur C. Clarke - Tales from The White Hart

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INGENIOUS, HILARIOUS, WHOLLY DELIGHTFUL

stories such as these could come only from a man who has mastered both science and fiction—in

short, from Arthur C. Clarke.

In the smoky and comfortable gloom of the White Hart pub—"somewhere in London"—the

fraternity of British scientists, S-F writers and fans gather nightly to listen to the magnificent

stories of Harry Purvis. Whether you believe all that Harry Purvis says or not (Mr. Clarke doesn't

commit himself), you will be astonished, amused and amazed by his hilarious tales of

.... a home-brew whiskey of explosive power .... a meat-eating orchid with a vicious disposition

.... the curious fate of Ermintrude Inch

The mixture is definitely not "as before," and the book is definitely surprising. For Mr. Clarke,

who has established a reputation for impeccable science —both in his nonfiction and his novels—

appears here in a new role: the Baron Munchausen of science fiction.

"A book by Clarke is always an event, and this one is a first edition extraordinary.... Don't Miss!"

—King Features Syndicate

Other Books by Arthur C Clarke

NONFICTION

Interplanetary Flight

The Exploration of Space

Going into Space

The Coast of Coral

The Making of a Moon

The Reefs of Taprobane

Voice Across the Sea

The Challenge of the

Spaceship

The Challenge of the Sea

Profiles of the Future

Voices from the Sky

The Treasure of the

Great Reef

Indian Ocean Adventure

The Promise of Space

Report on Planet Three

With Mike Wilson

The First Five Fathoms

Boy Beneath the Sea

Indian Ocean Treasure

With R. A. Smith The Exploration of the Moon

With the Editors of Life Man and Space

With the Apollo 11 Astronauts First on the Moon

With Robert Silverberg Into Space

With Chesley Bonestell Beyond Jupiter

FICTION

Prelude to Space

Islands in the Sky

The Lion of Comarre &

Against the Fall of Night

The Sands of Mars

Childhood's End

Expedition to Earth

Earthlight

Reach for Tomorrow

The City and the Stars

Tales from the "White Hart"

The Deep Range

The Other Side of the Sky

A Fall of Moondust

Tales of Ten Worlds

Dolphin Island

Glide Path

The Wind from the Sun The Lost Worlds of 2001

With Stanley Kubrick 2001: A Space Odyssey

ANTHOLOGIES

Across the Sea of Stars

From the Ocean, from

the Stars

The Nine Billion Names

of God

Prelude to Mars

TALES FROM THE "WHITE

HART"

by Arthur C. Clarke

BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

To Lew and his Thursday night customers

"Silence Please," "Big Game Hunt," "Patent Pending" and "Armaments Race" were copyrighted 1954 by Popular

Publications, Inc.; "What Goes Up" was copyrighted 1955 by Mercury Publishing, Inc.; "The Next Tenants" and "The

Reluctant Orchid" were copyrighted 1956 by Renown Publishing Co., Inc.; "The Pacifist" was copyrighted

1956 by King Size Magazines, Inc.; "The Ultimate Melody" was copyrighted 1956 by Quinn Publishing Company,

Inc.; "Sleeping Beauty" was copyrighted 1957 by Royal Publications, Inc.; "Critical Mass" was copyrighted

1957 by Republic Feature Syndicate, Inc.

©, 1957, by Arthur C. Clarke

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 56-12821

SEN 345-24165-7-150

First Printing: January, 1957 Second Printing: October, 1961 Third Printing: November, 1966 Fourth Printing: March,

1969 Fifth Printing: September, 1969 Sixth Printing: March, 1970 Seventh Printing: October, 1971 Eighth Printing:

October, 1972 Ninth Printing: March, 1973 Tenth Printing: January, 1975

Printed in the United States of America

BALLANTTNE BOOKS

A Division of Random House, Inc.

201 East 50th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

PREFACE

These stories were written in spurts and spasms between 1953 and 1956 at such diverse spots on the

globe as New York, Miami, Colombo, London, Sydney, and various other locations whose names now

escape me. In some cases the geographical influence is obvious, though curiously enough I had never

visited Australia when "What Goes Up. . . ." was written.

It seems to me that there is room—one might even say a long unfelt want—for what might be called

the "tall'* science-fiction story. By this I mean stories that are intentionally unbelievable; not, as is too

often the case, unintentionally so. At the same time, I should hate to say exactly where the Great

Divide of plausibility comes in these tales, which range from the perfectly possible to the totally

improbable.

In at least two cases, science has practically caught up with me in the few years since I wrote these

stories. The technique described hi "Big Game Hunt" has already been used on monkeys, so there is

no reason to suppose that it could not be adapted to other creatures. For a more successful conclusion

to this particular hunt—and the rest of the quotation from Herman Melville—I refer you to my novel

"The Deep Range."

It is in the field touched upon in "Patent Pending," however, that the most hair-raising discovery has

been made—a discovery which should stop anyone worrying about such minor menaces as the

hydrogen bomb. The first report of the work that may end our civilization will be found in James Old's

article "Pleasure Centers in the Brain" (Scientific American, October 1956). Briefly, it has been found

that an electric current flowing into a certain area in the brain of a rat can produce intense pleasure. So

much so, in fact, that when the rat learns that it can stimulate itself at will by pushing a little pedal, it

loses interest in anything else—even in food. I quote: "Hungry rats ran faster to reach an electric

stimulator than they did to reach food. Indeed, a hungry animal often ignored available food in favor

of the pleasure of stimulating itself electrically. Some rats . . . stimulated their brains more than 2,000

times per hour for 24 consecutive hours!"

The article concludes with these ominous words: "Enough of the brain-stimulating work has been

repeated on monkeys ... to indicate that our general conclusions can very likely be generalized

eventually to human beings —with modifications, of course."

Of course. For the record (written, not electroencephalographic) I believe the first writers to use the

theme of "Patent Pending" were Fletcher Pratt and Laurence Manning, back in the '30's. And quite

recently, in "The Big Ball of Wax," Shepherd Mead has given it a much more ribald treatment than

mine. I thought his book very funny before I read Mr. Old's article. You may still do so.

Another item for which I cannot claim originality is the newspaper quotation in "Cold War." It is

perfectly genuine. It may even have been true.

I must confess that, having chosen the title of this volume some years ago, I was a little disconcerted

when Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt brought out their "Tales from Gavagan's Bar." But as most

of the odd goings-on at Mr. Cohan's establishment are concerned with the supernatural, I feel that

there is plenty of room for both taverns—especially as they are separated by the width of the Atlantic.

Finally, a word to any readers of my (pause for modest cough) more serious works, who may be

distressed to find me taking the universe so light-heartedly after my earlier preoccupation with such

themes as the Destiny of Man and the Exploration of Space (Advt.) My only excuse is that for some

years I've been irritated by critics who keep claiming that science fiction and humor are incompatible.

Now they have a chance to prove it and shut up.

New York, October, 1956

Contents

PREFACE vii

SILENCE PLEASE 1

BIG GAME HUNT 13

PATENT PENDING 19

ARMAMENTS RACE 30

CRITICAL MASS 38

THE ULTIMATE MELODY 45

THE PACIFIST 53

THE NEXT TENANTS 63

MOVING SPIRIT 73

THE MAN WHO PLOUGHED THE SEA 86

THE RELUCTANT ORCHID 103

COLD WAR 113

WHAT GOES UP 120

SLEEPING BEAUTY 131

THE DEFENESTRATION OF ERMINTRUDE INCH 142

SILENCE PLEASE

You COME upon the "White Hart" quite unexpectedly in one of these anonymous little lanes

leading down from Fleet Street to the Embankment. It's no use telling you where it is: very few

people who have set out in a determined effort to get there have ever actually arrived. For the first

dozen visits a guide is essential: after that you'll probably be all right if you close your eyes and

rely on instinct. Also—to be perfectly frank—we don't want any more customers, at least on our

night. The place is already uncomfortably crowded. All that I'll say about its location is that it

shakes occasionally with the vibration of newspaper presses, and that if you crane out of the win-

dow of the gent's room you can just see the Thames.

From the outside, is looks like any other pub—as indeed it is for five days of the week. The

public and saloon bars are on the ground floor: there are the usual vistas of brown oak paneling

and frosted glass, the bottles behind the bar, the handles of the beer engines . . . nothing out of the

ordinary at all. Indeed, the only concession to the twentieth century is the juke box in the public

bar. It was installed during the war in a laughable attempt to make G.I.'s feel at home, and one of

the first things we did was to make sure there was no danger of its ever working again.

At this point I had better explain who "we" are. That is not as easy as I thought it was going to be

when I started, for a complete catalogue of the "White Hart's" clients would probably be

impossible and would certainly be excruciatingly tedious. So all I'll say at this point is that "we"

fall into three main classes. First there are the journalists, writers and editors. The journalists, of

course, gravitated here from Fleet Street. Those who couldn't make the grade fled elsewhere: the

tougher ones remained. As for the writers, most of them heard about us from other writers, came

here for copy, and got trapped.

Where there are writers of course, there are sooner or later editors. If Drew, our landlord, got a

percentage on the literary business done in his bar, he'd be a rich man. (We suspect he is a rich man,

anyway.) One of our wits once remarked that it was a common sight to see half a dozen indignant

authors arguing with a hard-faced editor in one corner of the "White Hart", while in another, half a

dozen indignant editors argued with a hard-faced author.

So much for the literary side: you will have, I'd better warn you, ample opportunities for close-ups

later. Now let us glance briefly at the scientists. How did they get in here?

Well, Birkbeck College is only across the road, and King's is just a few hundred yards along the

Strand. That's doubtless part of the explanation, and again personal recommendation had a lot to do

with it. Also, many of our scientists are writers, and not a few of our writers are scientists. Confusing,

but we like it that way.

The third portion of our little microcosm consists of what may be loosely termed "interested laymen".

They were attracted to the "White Hart" by the general brouhaha, and enjoyed the conversation and

company so much that they now come along regularly every Wednesday— which is the day when we

all get together. Sometimes they can't stand the pace and fall by the wayside, but there's always a fresh

supply.

With such potent ingredients, it is hardly surprising that Wednesday at the "White Hart" is seldom

dull. Not only have some remarkable stories been told there, but remarkable things have happened

there. For example, there was

the time when Professor---------, passing through on his

way to Harwell, left behind a brief-case containing—well, we'd better not go into that, even though we

did so at the time. And most interesting it was, too. . . . Any Russian agents will find me in the corner

under the dartboard. I come high, but easy terms can be arranged.

Now that I've finally thought of the idea, it seems astonishing to me that none of my colleagues has

ever got round to writing up these stories. Is it a question of being so close to the wood that they can't

see the trees?

Or is it lack of incentive? No, the last explanation hardly hold: several of them are quite as hard up \

and have complained with equal bitterness about "NO CREDIT" rule. My only fear, as I type these

words on my old Remington Noiseless, is that John Christopher or George Whitley or John Beynon

are already hard at work using up the best material. Such as, for instance, the story of the Fenton

Silencer. . . .

I don't know when it began: one Wednesday is much like another and it's hard to tag dates on to them.

Besides, people may spend a couple of months lost in the "White Hart" crowd before you first notice

their existence. That had probably happened to Harry Purvis, because when I first came aware of him

he already knew the names of most of the people in our crowd. Which is more than I do these days,

now that I come to think of it.

But though I don't know when, I know exactly how it all started. Bert Huggins was the catalyst, or, to

be more accurate, his voice was. Bert's voice would catalyze anything. When he indulges in a

confidential whisper, it sounds like a sergeant major drilling an entire regiment. And when he lets

himself go, conversation languishes elsewhere while we all wait for those cute little bones in the inner

ear to resume their accustomed places.

He had just lost his temper with John Christopher (we all do this at some time or other) and the

resulting detonation had disturbed the chess game in progress at the back of the saloon bar. As usual,

the two players were surrounded by backseat drivers, and we all looked up with a start as Bert's blast

whammed overhead. When the echoes died away, someone said: "I wish there was a way of shutting

him up."

It was then that Harry Purvis replied: "There is, you know."

Not recognizing the voice, I looked round. I saw a small, neatly-dressed man in the late thirties. He

was smoking one of those carved German pipes that always makes me think of cuckoo clocks and the

Black Forest. That was the only unconventional thing about him: otherwise he might have been a

minor Treasury official all dressed up to go to a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee.

"I beg your pardon?" I said.

He took no notice, but made some delicate adjustments to his pipe. It was then that I noticed that

it wasn't, as I'd thought at first glance, an elaborate piece of wood carving. It was something much

more sophisticated—a contraption of metal and plastic like a small chemical engineering plant.

There were even a couple of minute valves. My God, it was a chemical engineering plant. . . .

I don't goggle any more easily than the next man, but I made no attempt to hide my curiosity. He

gave me a superior smile.

"All for the cause of science. It's an idea of the Biophysics Lab. They want to find out exactly

what there is in tobacco smoke—hence these filters. You know the old argument—does smoking

cause cancer of the tongue, and if so, how? The trouble is that it takes an awful lot of— er—

distillate to identify some of the obscurer bye-products. So we have to do a lot of smoking."

"Doesn't it spoil the pleasure to have all this plumbing in the way?"

"I don't know. You see, I'm just a volunteer. I don't smoke."

"Oh," I said. For the moment, that seemed the only reply. Then I remembered how the

conversation had started.

"You were saying," I continued with some feeling, for there was still a slight tinnitus in my left

ear, "that there was some way of shutting up Bert. We'd all like to hear it—if that isn't mixing

metaphors somewhat."

"I was thinking," he replied, after a couple of experimental sucks and blows, "of the ill-fated

Fenton Silencer. A sad story—yet, I feel, one with an interesting lesson for us all. And one day—

who knows?—someone may perfect it and earn the blessings of the world."

Suck, bubble, bubble, plop. . , .

"Well, let's hear the story. When did it happen?"

He sighed.

"I'm almost sorry I mentioned it. Still, since you insist—and, of course, on the understanding that

It doesn't go beyond these walls."

"Er—of course."

"Well, Rupert Fenton was one of our lab assistants. A very bright youngster, with a good

mechanical background, but, naturally, not very well up in theory. He was always making gadgets

in his spare time. Usually the idea was good, but as he was shaky on fundamentals the things

hardly ever worked. That didn't seem to discourage him: I think he fancied himself as a latter-day

Edison, and imagined he could make his fortune from the radio tubes and other oddments lying

around the lab. As his tinkering didn't interfere with his work, no-one objected: indeed, the

physics demonstrators did their best to encourage him, because, after all, there is something

refreshing about any form of enthusiasm. But no-one expected he'd ever get very far, because I

don't suppose he could even integrate e to the x."

"Is such ignorance possible?" gasped someone.

"Maybe I exaggerate. Let's say x e to the x. Anyway, all his knowledge was entirely practical—

rule of thumb, you know. Give him a wiring diagram, however complicated, and he could make

the apparatus for you. But unless it was something really simple, like a television set, he wouldn't

understand how it worked. The trouble was, he didn't realize his limitations. And that, as you'll

see, was most unfortunate.

"I think he must have got the idea while watching the Honours Physics students doing some

experiments in acoustics. I take it, of course, that you all understand the phenomenon of

interference?"

"Naturally," I replied.

"Hey!" said one of the chess-players, who had given up trying to concentrate on the game

(probably because he was losing.) "/ don't."

Purvis looked at him as though seeing something that had no right to be around in a world that

had invented penicillin.

"In that case," he said coldly, "I suppose I had better do some explaining." He waved aside our

indignant protests. "No, I insist. It's precisely those who don't understand these things who need to be

told about them. If someone had only explained the theory to poor Fenton while there was still time. . .

He looked down at the now thoroughly abashed chess player.

"I do not know," he began, "if you have ever considered the nature of sound. Suffice to say that it

consists of a series of waves moving through the air. Not, however, waves like those on the surface of

the sea—oh dear no! Those waves are up and down movements. Sound waves consist of alternate

compressions and rarefactions." "Rare-what?" "Rarefactions."

"Don't you mean 'rarefications'?" "I do not. I doubt if such a word exists, and if it does, it shouldn't,"

retorted Purvis, with the aplomb of Sir Alan Herbert dropping a particularly revolting neologism into

his killing-bottle. "Where was I? Explaining sound, of course. When we make any sort of noise, from

the faintest whisper to that concussion that went past just now, a series of pressure changes moves

through the air. Have you ever watched shunting engines at work on a siding? You see a perfect

example of the same kind of thing. There's a long line of goods-wagons, all coupled together. One end

gets a bang, the first two trucks move together—and then you can see the compression wave moving

right along the line. Behind it the reverse thing happens—the rarefaction —I repeat, rarefaction—as

the trucks separate again.

"Things are simple enough when there is only one source of sound—only one set of waves. But

suppose you have two wave-patterns, moving in the same direction? That's when interference arises,

and there are lots of pretty experiments in elementary physics to demonstrate it. All we need worry

about here is the fact—which I think you will all agree is perfectly obvious—that if one could get two

sets of waves exactly out of step, the total result would be precisely zero. The compression pulse of

one sound wave would be on top of the rarefaction of another—net result—no change and hence no

sound. To go back to my analogy of the line of wagons, it's as if you gave the last truck a jerk and a

push simultaneously. Nothing at all would happen.

"Doubtless some of you will already see what I am driving at, and will appreciate the basic principle

of the Fenton Silencer. Young Fenton, I imagine, argued in this manner. 'This world of ours,' he said

to himself, 'is too full of noise. There would be a fortune for anyone who could invent a really perfect

silencer. Now, what would that imply . . . ?'

"It didn't take him long to work out the answer: I told you he was a bright lad. There was really very

little in his pilot model. It consisted of a microphone, a special amplifier, and a pair of loudspeakers.

Any sound that happened to be about was picked up by the mike, amplified and inverted so that it was

exactly out of phase with the original noise. Then it was pumped out of the speakers, the original wave

and the new one cancelled out, and the net result was silence.

"Of course, there was rather more to it than that. There had to be an arrangement to make sure that the

canceling wave was just the right intensity—otherwise you might be worse off than when you started.

But these are technical details that I won't bore you with. As many of you will recognize, it's a simple

application of negative feed-back."

"Just a moment!" interrupted Eric Maine. Eric, I should mention, is an electronics expert and edits

some television paper or other. He's also written a radio play about space-flight, but that's another

story. "Just a moment! There's something wrong here. You couldn't get silence that way. It would be

impossible to arrange the phase . . ."

Purvis jammed the pipe back in his mouth. For a moment there was an ominous bubbling and I

thought of the first act of "Macbeth". Then he fixed Eric with a glare.

"Are you suggesting," he said frigidly, "that this story is untrue?"

"Ah—well, I won't go as far as that, but . . ." Eric's voice trailed away as if he had been silenced

himself. He pulled an old envelope out of his pocket, together with an assortment of resistors and

condensers that seemed to have got entangled in his handkerchief, and began to do some figuring.

That was the last we heard from him for some time.

"As I was saying," continued Purvis calmly, "that's the way Fenton's Silencer worked. His first

model wasn't very powerful, and it couldn't deal with very high or very low notes. The result was

rather odd. When it was switched on, and someone tried to talk, you'd hear the two ends of the

spectrum—a faint bat's squeak, and a kind of low nimble. But he soon got over that by using a

more linear circuit (dammit, I can't help using some technicalities!) and in the later model he was

able to produce complete silence over quite a large area. Not merely an ordinary room, but a full-

sized hall. Yes. . . .

"Now Fenton was not one of these secretive inventors who won't tell anyone what they are trying

to do, in case their ideas are stolen. He was all too willing to talk. He discussed his ideas with the

staff and with the students, whenever he could get anyone to listen. It so happened that one of the

first people to whom he demonstrated his improved Silencer was a young Arts student called—I

think—Kendall, who was taking Physics as a subsidiary subject. Kendall was much impressed by

the Silencer, as well he might be. But he was not thinking, as you may have imagined, about its

commercial possibilities, or the boon it would bring to the outraged ears of suffering humanity.

Oh dear no! He had quite other ideas.

"Please permit me a slight digression. At College we have a flourishing Musical Society, which in

recent years has grown in numbers to such an extent that it can now tackle the less monumental

symphonies. In the year of which I speak, it was embarking on a very ambitious enterprise. It was

going to produce a new opera, a work by a talented young composer whose name it would not be

fair to mention, since it is now well-known to you all. Let us call him Edward England. I've

forgotten the title of the work, but it was one of these stark dramas of tragic love which, for some

reason I've never been able to understand, are supposed to be less ridiculous with a musical

accompaniment than without. No doubt a good deal depends on the music.

"I can still remember reading the synopsis while waiting for the curtain to go up, and to this day

have never been able to decide whether the libretto was meant seriously or not. Let's see—the

period was the late Victorian era, and the main characters were Sarah Stampe, the passionate

postmistress, Walter Partridge, the saturnine gamekeeper, and the squire's son, whose name I

forget. It's the old story of the eternal triangle, complicated by the villager's resentment of

change—in this case, the new telegraph system, which the local crones predict will Do Things to

the cows' milk and cause trouble at lambing time.

"Ignoring the frills, it's the usual drama of operatic jealousy. The squire's son doesn't want to

marry into the Post Office, and the gamekeeper, maddened by his rejection, plots revenge. The

tragedy rises to its dreadful climax when poor Sarah, strangled with parcel tape, is found hidden

in a mail-bag in the Dead Letter Department. The villagers hang Partridge from the nearest

telegraph pole, much to the annoyance of the linesmen. He was supposed to sing an aria while he

was being hung: that is one, thing I regret missing. The squire's son takes to drink, or the

Colonies, or both: and that's that.

"I'm sure you're wondering where all this is leading: please bear with me for a moment longer.

The fact is that while this synthetic jealousy was being rehearsed, the real thing was going on

back-stage. Fenton's friend Kendall had been spurned by the young lady who was to play Sarah

Stampe. I don't think he was a particularly vindictive person, but he saw an opportunity for a

unique revenge. Let us be frank and admit that college life does breed a certain irresponsibility—

and in identical circumstances, how many of us would have rejected the same chance?

"I see the dawning comprehension on your faces. But we, the audience, had no suspicion when

the overture started on that memorable day. It was a most distinguished gathering: everyone was

there, from the Chancellor downwards. Deans and professors were two a penny: I never did

discover how so many people had been bullied into coming. Now that I come to think of it, I can't

remember what I was doing there myself.

"The overture died away amid cheers, and, I must admit, occasional cat-calls from the more

boisterous members of the audience. Perhaps I do them an injustice: they may have been the more

musical ones.

"Then the curtain went up. The scene was the village square at Doddering Sloughleigh, circa

1860. Enter the heroine, reading the postcards in the morning's mail. She comes across a letter

addressed to the young squire and promptly bursts into song.

"Sarah's opening aria wasn't quite as bad as the overture, but it was grim enough. Luckily, we

were to hear only the first few bars. . . .

"Precisely. We need not worry about such details as how Kendall had talked the ingenuous

Fenton into it— if, indeed, the inventor realised the use to which his device was being applied.

All I need say is that it was a most convincing demonstration. There was a sudden, deadening

blanket of silence, and Sarah Stampe just faded out like a TV programme when the sound is

turned off. Everyone was frozen hi their seats, while the singer's lips went on moving silently.

Then she too realised what had happened. Her mouth opened in what would 'have been a piercing

scream in any other circumstances, and she fled into the wings amid a shower of postcards.

"Thereafter, the chaos was unbelievable. For a few minutes everyone must have thought they had

lost the sense of hearing, but soon they were able to tell from the behavior of their companions

that they were not alone in their deprivation. Someone in the Physics Department must have

realised the truth fairly promptly, for soon little slips of paper were circulating among the V.I.P.'s

in the front row. The Vice-Chancellor was rash enough to try and restore order by sign-language,

waving frantically to the audience from the stage. By this time I was too sick with laughter to

appreciate such fine details.

"There was nothing for it but to get out of the hall, which we all did as quickly as we could. I

think Kendall had fled—he was so overcome by the effect of the gadget that he didn't stop to

switch it off. He was afraid of staying around in case he was caught and lynched. As for Fenton—

alas, we shall never know his side of the story. We can only reconstruct the subsequent events

from the evidence that was left.

"As I picture it, he must have waited until the hall was empty, and then crept in to disconnect his

apparatus. We heard the explosion all over the college."

"The explosion?" someone gasped.

"Of course. I shudder to think what a narrow escape we all had. Another dozen decibels, a few

more phons— and it might have happened while the theatre was still packed. Regard it, if you

like, as an example of the inscrutable workings of providence that only the inventor was caught in

the explosion. Perhaps it was as well: at least he perished in the moment of achievement, and be-

fore the Dean could get at him."

"Stop moralizing, man. What happened?"

"Well, I told you that Fenton was very weak on theory. If he'd gone into the mathematics of the

Silencer he'd have found his mistake. The trouble is, you see, that one can't destroy energy. Not

even when you cancel put one train of waves by another. All that happens then is that the energy

you've neutralized accumulates somewhere else. It's rather like sweeping up all the dirt in a

room—at the cost of an unsightly pile under the carpet.

"When you look into the theory of the thing, you'll find that Fenton's gadget wasn't a silencer so

much as a collector of sound. All the time it was switched on, it was really absorbing sound

energy. And at that concert, it was certainly going flat out. You'll understand what I mean if

you've ever looked at one of Edward England's scores. On top of that, of course, there was all the

noise the audience was making—or I should say was trying to make—• during the resultant

panic. The total amount of energy must have been terrific, and the poor Silencer had to keep on

sucking it up. Where did it go? Well, I don't know the circuit details—probably into the

condensers of the power pack. By the time Fenton started to tinker with it again, it was like a

loaded bomb. The sound of his approaching footsteps was the last straw, and the overloaded

apparatus could stand no more. It blew up."

For a moment no-one said a word, perhaps as a token of respect for the late Mr. Fenton. Then

Eric Maine, who for the last ten minutes had been muttering in the corner over his calculations,

pushed his way through the ring of listeners. He held a sheet of paper thrust aggressively in front

of him.

"Hey!" he said. "I was right all the time. The thing couldn't work. The phase and amplitude

relations. . . ." Purvis waved him away.

"That's just what I've explained," he said patiently. "You should have been listening. Too bad that

Fenton found out the hard way."

He glanced at his watch. For some reason, he now seemed hi a hurry to leave.

"My goodness! Tune's getting on. One of these days, remind me to tell you about the

extraordinary thing we saw through the new proton microscope. That's an even more remarkable

story."

He was half way through the door before anyone else could challenge him. Then George Whitley

recovered his breath.

"Look here," he said hi a perplexed voice. "How is it that we never heard about this business?"

Purvis paused on the threshold, his pipe now burbling briskly as it got into its stride once more.

He glanced back over his shoulder.

"There was only one thing to do," he replied. "We didn't want a scandal—de mortuis nil nisi

bonum, you know. Besides, in the circumstances, don't you think it was highly appropriate to—

ah—hush the whole business up? And a very good night to you all."

BIG GAME HUNT

ALTHOUGH BY general consent Harry Purvis stands unrivalled among the "White Hart" clientele

as a purveyor of remarkable stories (some of which, we suspect, may be slightly exaggerated) it

must not be thought that his position has never been challenged. There have even been occasions

when he has gone into temporary eclipse. Since it is always entertaining to watch the discomfiture

of an expert, I must confess that I take a certain glee in recalling how Professor Hinckelberg

disposed of Harry on his own home ground.

Many visiting Americans pass through the "White Hart" in the course of the year. Like the

residents, they are usually scientists or literary men, and some distinguished names have been

recorded hi the visitors' book that Drew keeps behind the bar. Sometimes the newcomers arrive

under their own power, diffidently introducing themselves as soon as they have the opportunity.

(There was the time when a shy Nobel Prize winner sat unrecognized in a corner for an hour

before he plucked up enough courage to say who he was.) Others arrive with letters of intro-

duction, and not a few are escorted hi by regular customers and then thrown to the wolves.

Professor Hinckelberg glided up one night in a vast fish-tailed Cadillac he'd borrowed from the

fleet hi Grosvenor Square. Heaven only knows how he had managed to insinuate it through the

side streets that lead to the "White Hart", but amazingly enough all the fenders seemed intact. He

was a large lean man, with that Henry-Ford-Wilbur-Wright kind of face that usually goes with the

slow, taciturn speech of the sun-tanned pioneer. It didn't in Professor Hinckelberg's case. He

could talk like an L.P. record on a 78 turntable. In about ten seconds we'd discovered that he was

a zoologist on leave of absence from a North Virginia college, that he was attached to the Office

of Naval Research on some project to do with plankton, that he was tickled pink with London and

even liked English beer, that he'd heard about us through a letter in Science but couldn't believe

we were true, that Stevenson was O.K. but if the Democrats wanted to get back they'd better

import Winston, that he'd like to know what the heck was wrong with all our telephone call boxes

and could he retrieve the small fortune in coppers of which they had mulcted him, that there

seemed to be a lot of empty glasses around and how about filling them up, boys?

On the whole the Professor's shock-tactics were well received, but when he made a momentary

pause for breath I thought to myself "Harry'd better look out. This guy can talk rings round him."

I glanced at Purvis, who was only a few feet away from me, and saw that his lips were pursed into

a slight frown. I sat back luxuriously and awaited results.

As it was a fairly busy evening, it was quite sometime before Professor Hinckelberg had been

introduced to everybody. Harry, usually so forward at meeting celebrities, seemed to be keeping

out of the way. But eventually he was cornered by Arthur Vincent, who acts as informal club

secretary and makes sure that everyone signs the visitors' book.

"I'm sure you and Harry will have a lot to talk about" said Arthur, in a burst of innocent

enthusiasm. "You're both scientists, aren't you? And Harry's had some most extraordinary things

happen to him. Tell the Professor about the time you found that U 235 in your letterbox. . . ."

"I don't think," said Harry, a trifle too hastily, "that Professor—ah—Hinckelberg wants to listen

to my little adventure. I'm sure he must have a lot to tell us."

I've puzzled my head about that reply a good deal since then. It wasn't in character. Usually, with

an opening like this, Purvis was up and away. Perhaps he was seizing up the enemy, waiting for

the Professor to make the first mistake, and then swooping in to the kill. If that was the

explanation, he'd misjudged his man. He never had a chance, for Professor Hinckelberg made a

jet-assisted take-off and was immediately in full flight.

"Odd you should mention that," he said. "I've just been dealing with a most remarkable case. It's

one of these things that can't be written up as a proper scientific paper, and this seems a good tune

to get it off my chest. I can't often do that, because of this darned security—but so far no-one's

gotten round to classifying Dr. Grinnell's experiments, so I'll talk about them while I can."

Grinnell, it seemed was one of the many scientists trying to interpret the behaviour of the nervous

system in terms of electrical circuits. He had started, as Grey Walter, Shannon and others had

done, by making models that could reproduce the simpler actions of living creatures. His greatest

success in this direction had been a mechanical cat that could chase mice and could land on its

feet when dropped from a height. Very quickly, however, he had branched off in another

direction owing to his discovery of what he called "neural induction". This was, to simplify it

greatly, nothing less than a method of actually controlling the behaviour of animals.

It had been known for many years that all the processes that take place in the mind are

accompanied by the production of minute electric currents, and for a long time it has been

possible to record these complex fluctuations —though their exact interpretation is still unknown.

Grinnell had not attempted the intricate task of analysis; what he had done was a good deal

simpler, though its achievement was still complicated enough. He had attached his recording

device to various animals, and thus been able to build up a small library, if one could call it that,

of electrical impulses associated with their behaviour. One pattern of voltage might correspond to

a movement to the right, another with traveling in a circle, another with complete stillness, and so

on. That was an interesting enough achievement, but Grinnell had not stopped there. By "playing

back" the impulses he had recorded, he could compel his subjects to repeat their previous

actions— whether they wanted to or not. That such a thing might be possible in theory almost any

neurologist would admit, but few would have believed that it could be done in practice owing to the

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Arthur C. Clarke - Tales from The White Hart

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