Lloyd Biggle Jr - All the Colours of Darkness

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ALL THE COLOURS OF DARKNESS

Lloyd Biggle Jr

First Published in Great Britain by Dobson Books Ltd in 1964

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A sagging floor board caught Ted Arnold's foot. He stumbled and released the door, which slammed

with a hollow, echoing clap. Fifty feet away, in the pale wash of light from a dangling bulb,

young Jack Marrow leaped to his feet and threw up his arms. When Arnold reached him he was huddled

behind the low plywood wall that protected the instrument board.

"Ready to crack," Arnold thought. "Too bad."

Marrow got to his feet and extended one trembling hand to steady himself.

"Everything set?" Arnold asked.

Marrow licked his lips, and glanced behind him nervously.

"Ten minutes," Arnold said.

He glanced at the setup, found a dial out of position, and moved over to correct it.

"Newark," he said.

Marrow swallowed, said, "Oh, I didn't-"

"It's all right now," Arnold said. "You won't be needed. If you'd rather wait in the

office, go ahead."

Marrow swallowed again. "I think-"

He broke off, and headed for the office. Arnold watched him go. The door slammed again,

and then there was silence, except for the footsteps that moved tirelessly back and forth behind

the rough partition that walled off the office. Pace, creak, pace, pace, creak. Pause. Pace, pace,

creak, creak, pace. Arnold listened and counted. There were seventeen creaky floor boards in that

office. He knew them all, knew precisely every shade of difference in timbre.

At the distant end of the old warehouse was another shallow oasis of light. In between was

drafty emptiness, surrounded by sagging floors and begrimed walls, bare ceiling rafters, and, at

one point, a jagged patch of starry sky where the roof gaped. Arnold started the long walk to the

other end.

Walt Perrin saw him coming, and waited for him with a grin on his face. Arnold grinned

back at him, happy in the thought that there was no chance of Perrin's cracking. He moved around

to check the instrument setup. No errors there, either.

Perrin was poking the toe of his shoe at a floor board. The board responded to pressure by

bending sharply into subterranean blackness. "All the time I've been walking around here," Perrin

said, "I never touched this particular board. Then a minute ago I stepped on it and nearly broke

my neck. This dump should be condemned."

"It has been," Arnold said.

"Yeah? It'd be quite a joke to have the sheriff show up with an eviction notice just as

we're getting started."

"No danger," Arnold said. "The landlord is fighting it. After tonight it won't matter one

way or the other. Either we'll be back in decent quarters, or we'll be out of business. Would you

mind handling the X-7-R? You'll have plenty of time to get back here."

"What's the matter with Marrow?"

"Nerves."

"Tough. Can't blame him. Combing glass out of your hair gets tiresome. Sure, I'll handle

it."

Arnold looked at his watch. "Four minutes," he said. "Better get up there."

He walked back with Perrin, left him at the X-7-R, and returned to the office.

The Universal Transmitting Company's engineering office looked like the corner of a

dilapidated warehouse that it was. The unpainted plywood of the partitions contrasted oddly with

the blackened opposite walls, and the plywood was al- ready dusty and smeared with handprints.

There was one dirty, unscreened window high up in the wall. From a ceiling rafter hung a single

unshaded light bulb. The furnishings were a battered table, a filing cabinet, and a few folding

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chairs. On the table were three telephones and a fluorescent desk lamp. The small electric fan on

the filing cabinet rattled noisily.

Marrow had placed a chair in the protective shadow of the filing cabinet. The other man in

the room continued to pace the floor.

Arnold went to the table, lowered himself cautiously onto a folding chair-at least two of

those in the room had been known to collapse upon slight provocation-and reached for a telephone.

The pacing stopped. "Ted?" Arnold turned.

"Anything yet?"

"A little over a minute," Arnold said, looking at his watch.

The pacing started again.

Arnold fumbled for a handkerchief, and as he mopped the perspiration from his bald head

the pacing stopped a second time. "A minute, you say?"

Arnold nodded, and picked up the telephone. He dialed a number and waited, scowling

impatiently at his watch. Finally someone answered. Arnold heard heavy breathing before he got the

irritated growl of response.

"You guys camping out somewhere?" he demanded. "I want someone on that phone. All the

time. Everything ready?"

"Sure. Meyers is ready to step through, if he hasn't already."

"Twenty seconds, yet," Arnold said. "Keep someone on the phone."

He hung up. "Newark is ready, anyway," he said, his eyes on his watch. "Meyers will be

stepping through-just-about-now."

The white telephone buzzed. Arnold snatched at it.

"Meyers is through," Perrin said.

"All right, Perrin. Anything-"

The explosion rocked the building. Debris crashed against the plywood partition. Dust

rolled over the top and settled slowly. The fan toppled from the filing cabinet, narrowly missing

Marrow, thudded onto the floor, and continued to rattle. Marrow sat with his face buried in his

hands and ignored it. Arnold caught his desk lamp just as it was going over. He took a deep

breath, got too much dust, and sneezed violently.

"Anyone hurt?" he asked the telephone. There was no answer. He shouted, "Hey, there,

anyone hurt?"

"Everything under control, Skipper," Perrin said. "Just scratch one X-7-R."

Another telephone rang. "Carry on," Arnold said, reaching for it. "Hello. Arnold."

"Baltimore station. Our X-7-R just blew."

"Anyone hurt?"

"Couple of minor cuts."

"All right. Try to keep on schedule."

Arnold hung up and leaned back carefully, still dubious about the folding chair. The floor-

pacer had slumped onto a chair in the far corner. He sat looking at the floor.

"We'll know pretty soon, now," Arnold said.

The face jerked upwards and stared at him, haggard, almost spectral-looking. Arnold felt a

flash of sympathy for Thomas J. Watkins III. As chief engineer of the Universal Transmitting

Company, Arnold had nothing more at stake than his pride and his job. His pride had been deflated

so often it was immune to punctures, and his job could be replaced in no more time than it would

take him to make a phone call.

But Watkins had invested every penny of his own money in Universal Trans, not to mention

sizable amounts that were not his own money. He was on the verge of ruin, and he knew it. He

looked decades older than his sixty-four years. A younger man would have been able to bounce back,

Arnold thought, but let an elderly financier lose his money and he was out of work permanently.

"We're finished, aren't we?" Watkins asked.

"Just getting started," Arnold told him. "That was an X-7-R that blew. The old model. The

one in Baltimore blew, and Philadelphia-this should be Philadelphia."

He answered the telephone, listened briefly, and got the Philadelphia engineer's watch

synchronized with his.

"That makes it unanimous," he said as he hung up. "Those were our controls. Three X-7-Rs.

Now we try the X-8-Rs."

"Then-there's still a chance?"

Arnold said gravely, "I'd say we have a fifty-fifty chance."

Watkins smiled. "I've gambled on worse odds than that, and won," he said wistfully. "But

right now-this thing-"

Arnold silenced him with a wave of his hand. He was on the white telephone, and getting no

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answer. He reached the door in one leap, and flung it open.

Perrin called to him, "Sorry. Meyers and I are patching each other up."

"I thought you said-"

"Just a few cuts. Meyers got a nasty one on the cheek, but he'll be all right. Maybe he

could use some stitches later. We'll keep on schedule."

Arnold walked down to look at Meyers. The scrappy little engineer was grinning as Perrin

applied adhesive tape.

"If it's as bad as that," Arnold said, "we'll use someone else."

"Nuts," Meyers said. "I've been dodging flying glass for weeks. You think I'm going to

quit now? One trip without being blown out of the place when I get there-that's all I ask."

"I hope you'll get what you ask," Arnold said. He looked at his watch. "I have two forty-

seven-right-now."

"Check," Perrin said. "Three minutes. We'll be ready."

Arnold returned to the office. Marrow seemed to have got a grip on himself. He had moved

his chair over by the table, and Arnold considered finding something for him to do and decided

there wasn't anything that needed doing. Watkins had resumed his floor pacing. Arnold sat down,

got the Newark station on one telephone and Perrin on another, and waited, wondering if he had

been ridiculously optimistic in rating their chances at fifty-fifty.

"Meyers is ready," Perrin announced.

"All right, Newark," Arnold said. "Get ready."

Newark informed him that it had been ready for five minutes, and where the hell was

Meyers?

'Look at your watch," Arnold snapped. "Now, Perrin."

"He's through," Perrin said.

"He's through," Newark echoed.

Arnold clapped the Newark phone to his ear, and waited. He laid down the white telephone,

and it was seconds before he realized that Perrin was noisily demanding what had happened.

"Nothing happened," Arnold told him.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing," Newark said. "Shall we send him back?"

"Right. Reverse it, Perrin. He's coming back."

Silence followed. Then, from Perrin: "He's back. Everything is all right."

"Right. Keep it moving. Reverse it, Newark."

"We have," Newark said. "He's through again.

"Keep it moving."

Arnold hung up both telephones. Philadelphia called, and then Baltimore. Arnold listened,

and told them to keep it moving. He leaned back to look at Watkins. Suddenly he felt very tired.

It had taken three years, and he had won-perhaps- and it all seemed anticlimactic.

"I guess that does it," he said. "The X-8-R. We're in."

"It works?" Watkins demanded.

Arnold nodded.

"Then we can go ahead. Then-" Watkins leaped to his feet. "Then we can start operating,"

he said excitedly. "We'll get some money coming in, and we'll be all right."

"At the last minute of the last hour," Arnold murmured. "How'd you like to take a quick

trip to Newark?"

"Now?" Watkins said, eyes sparkling. "Do you mean it?"

Arnold led him down to the far end of the warehouse, where a grinning Perrin was presiding

at the instrument board. Meyers, in the middle of perhaps his tenth round trip between Newark and

Manhattan, darted forward to grab Arnold's hand.

"We did it, Skipper!" he shouted.

Arnold pointed at a metal frame. "Just walk through there," he told Watkins.

Without the slightest hesitation Watkins stepped forward and disappeared. Meyers leaped

after him.

Perrin scowled. "Meyers will be breaking his neck, the way he jumps through. Know what

that idiot wants to do? Perform a high dive over a concrete floor, pass through a transmitter, and

come out over a swimming pool in Miami."

"Sounds like a good stunt," Arnold said. "We may need ideas like that, for publicity."

Perrin glanced at his board, and threw a switch. Nothing happened for so long that Arnold

became uneasy, and then Meyers reappeared.

"The Old Man wouldn't believe he was in Newark," Meyers said. "He had to go look out a

window."

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Arnold sniffed his breath. "You're tight!"

"Well-the Newark boys have a little celebration going. They give me a couple of shots

every time I touch down there. How long do we keep this up?"

Watkins bounced out in front of them. His face was flushed, his white hair ruffled. He was

waving a bottle of champagne.

"Isn't it against the law to bring that stuff across a state line?" Perrin asked impishly.

Watkins roared. "I didn't see any state line. I'm going to get the directors down here.

Every one of them. We'll throw a real party."

"You may not find them in a party mood," Arnold said. "It's three in the morning."

"They'll be in the mood for this one. I want you to join me. All of your boys, too. They

can transmit over here." He waved a hand at the distant end of the warehouse. "Plenty of room here

for a big party."

"Sorry," Arnold said. "You'll have to count us out. And I'd rather you didn't hold your

party here."

Watkins looked at him, wide-eyed. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. We still have work to do. I have to keep this test going, and I have to

think about rebuilding a couple of hundred transmitters. Meyers? Where's-oh. Make this the last

run. Newark can tune on Miami, and we'll take San Francisco.

"Right!" Meyers said, and took a running leap into the transmitter.

Leaning back comfortably in the booth, one foot up on the seat, Jan Darzek watched Ted Arnold

devour a hamburger. He thought, as he had many times before, that Arnold looked more nearly like a

janitor than a brilliant engineer. He was short, fat, and bald. He appeared older than his forty-

five years. He also looked slightly stupid.

All of which proved nothing except that looks could be extremely misleading, and no one

knew that better than private detective Jan Darzek.

"I had an odd dream last night," Darzek said. "I was on the Moon, looking down at Earth."

"You couldn't," Arnold said.

"Couldn't what?"

"Look down at Earth. If you were on the Moon. The Earth would be like a large moon in the

sky. You'd have to look up at it."

"Oh. I hadn't thought about that. It proves my subconscious isn't scientifically inclined,

I suppose. I looked down."

"And?"

"And what?"

"What did you do?" Arnold asked. "Just look?"

"That's all."

Arnold sighed around a bite of hamburger. "Seems like a long way to go, just to enjoy the

view." He sighed again, and carefully patted his perspiration-streaked bald head with a

handkerchief. "Air conditioning feels good."

"It's an infernally hot night," Darzek said. "Will you finish that sandwich so you can

tell me why you're making a cloak-and-dagger thriller out of this? It hurts my feelings to have my

friends going out of their way to add to my daily quota of mystery." His tone was angry, but

merriment sparkled in his blue eyes, and the stern line of his lips did not quite suppress the

smile that flickered there.

"What mystery?" Arnold asked.

"Why did Walker insist on our meeting in this-" he glanced quickly over his shoulder for a

lurking waitress "-dump? Why did you come slinking in out of the night like a fugitive from

justice?"

Arnold looked sadly at the bulging white of his shirt front, and adjusted the revolting

blotch of purple that was his neck-tie. "Men with my build never slink," he said.

"You slunk. I've tailed too many men myself not to know all the classic symptoms a man

displays when he thinks he's being followed. It's a wonder you haven't got a stiff neck, the way

you walked up looking over your shoulder. You slunk into the doorway, and spent a full minute

watching the passers-by on both sides of the street. Then you had to drag me away from a fairly

comfortable chair to a plywood plank so we could have more privacy. And that in spite of the fact

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that we have this whole crummy joint to ourselves. Even the waitress doesn't hang around. She's

carrying on a love affair with the cook."

"Is she?" Arnold said, looking at the kitchen door with interest. "Meeting here wasn't

Walker's idea. It was mine. I've noticed that the place is usually deserted this time of night."

Darzek leaned forward, and spoke softly. "When does Universal Trans open for business?"

Arnold winced and half turned to look behind him. He whispered hoarsely, "How did you know

that?"

"Elementary," Darzek said, still keeping his voice low. "At the time this stock club of

ours liquidated its holdings and invested its all in Universal Trans stock-at your recommendation,

you might remember-I scraped together my life savings and bought a hundred shares for myself. Also

at your recoinmendation. I may have mentioned it before."

"You mentioned it at the time," Arnold said, "and you've mentioned it at least three times

a week since the stock started to go down."

Darzek chuckled. "Have I? I'd forgotten. Anyway, a month ago the market value of Universal

Trans stock was maybe a cent a share with no buyers, and a mysterious individual telephoned and

offered five hundred for my hundred shares. Said he represented a nationwide syndicate of realtors

who were trying to get control of Universal Trans to make something out of the various terminal

sites the company has bought or leased around the country. I strung him along, and he's telephoned

three times since then. The last offer was two thousand-just what the stock cost me. Add the fact

that Walker has called this meeting. He's probably had an offer for the club's stock. Add the fact

that I happened to be walking along Eighth Avenue today, and I saw men at work in the Universal

Trans terminal. They weren't tearing the place down, so I kept on adding and came up with an

answer. Universal Trans is opening for business."

Arnold nodded slowly. "When did this character first offer to buy your stock?"

"A month ago."

Arnold nodded again. "Universal Trans is opening next Monday. But a month ago no one knew

that. I didn't know it myself, and if I didn't know it no one did. A month ago I wouldn't have

given you five hundred cents for your hundred shares."

"Someone knew," Darzek said. "Otherwise, why the pitch?"

"Beats me. We finally got the bottleneck opened up just

five days ago, and right up to that moment it looked as if Universal Trans was finished."

Darzek lit a cigarette, and blew a thoughtful smoke ring.

"Queer," he said.

"Universal Trans has had queerer things than that happen. What with the stockholders'

suits-I think the last count was thirty-one-and the patent disputes, and the congressional

investigations, and the Interstate Commerce Commission inquiries, and the Armed Forces threatening

to take over the whole works, it's a wonder we still have a company. Then there are the

governmental restrictions-all kinds of governments and all kinds of restrictions. And sabotage.

Nothing I've been able to prove, but I'm satisfied that it's sabotage. But the worst problems of

all were the technical failures. Just when we thought things were ready to roll, bugs would

develop. I hate to think how many times that happened. And all along the way I've had the

impression that some outsiders know as much about what's going on as I do. Maybe more. I've been

followed on and off for the past two years, and it's beginning to make me nervous."

"Wonder what's keeping Walker?" Darzek said.

"He's on an assignment. He'll be along."

Darzek leaned back, stretched his long legs out under the table, and studied the

flickering neon sign in the restaurant window. He was mentally trying to make something out of the

words, DENOITIDNOC RIA, when the door jerked open and Ron Walker hurried in. He came back to their

booth without breaking his stride, tossed his hat onto a nearby table, and slid in beside Darzek.

"What's new?" Darzek asked.

Walker shrugged. "Nothing, much. 'Tis rumored the mayor will clamp on water restrictions

if it doesn't rain. The weather bureau says this summer of 1986 will be the hottest in forty-eight

years. Or maybe it was eighty-four years. Three congressional committees are due in town next week-

one of them, incidentally, to investigate Universal Trans again. In Detroit, or maybe it was

Chicago, some judge has ruled that a husband's failure to equip his home with an air conditioner

does not constitute proper grounds for divorce. Looks like it's going to be a dull summer."

"Obviously that was the wrong question to ask a reporter," Arnold said. "He smells smoky."

"Warehouse fire," Walker said. "Empty warehouse. Dull. Even the firemen were bored.

Where's the waitress? I'm hungry."

Arnold picked up his empty coffee cup and hurled it at the kitchen door. It shattered

noisily, and the waitress made a panicky entrance a moment later.

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"Put it on the bill," Arnold said.

They waited silently while she brought more coffee and fixed a plate of cold sandwiches

for Walker.

"You were right about the cook," Arnold said to Darzek, when she had hurried back to the

kitchen. "She was mussed."

Walker waved a sandwich. "Darzek is always right. Time probably hangs heavy on the girl's

hands. Look-we haven't had an official meeting since-when was it? Couple of years, anyway.

Universal Trans stock has been so low we've been practically bankrupt for that long. How would you

like to recoup and make a fair profit?"

"How much profit?" Darzek asked.

"I can get thirteen thousand for our six hundred shares. That's a thousand more than we

paid. I don't know what this idiot expects to do with the stock, but I thought you two should know

about the offer."

"Syndicate of realtors?" Darzek asked.

"Why, yes. He said-" Walker turned slowly, and stared at Darzek. "How did you know?"

"I own a hundred shares of Universal Trans myself. They approached me a month ago."

"Evidently they have money to throw away."

"They're not throwing it away," Arnold said. "The stock will be worth double what we paid

for it ten minutes after Universal Trans opens for business on Monday.

Walker leaped to his feet, upsetting his coffee cup. "Is that official?" he demanded.

"Official and confidential," Arnold told him. "Sit down and start mopping."

Walker went to work on the spilled coffee with a handful of paper napkins. "Fine bunch of

friends I have," he grumbled. "Last month Darzek sat on a jewel robbery for a week, and not a

whisper did I get."

"I gave you a three-hour start when I cracked the case," Darzek said. "And I'll give you

odds your editor wouldn't use this story. How many grand openings does this make for Universal

Trans? Six?"

"Seven," Arnold said. "We probably won't even get snide editorial remarks on this one. The

official news release goes out at noon tomorrow, and we expect a lot of papers to ignore it."

"Or bury it," Walker said. "Page thirty-two, foot of the obituary column. 'The Universal

Transmitting Company announced today that it would open for business on Monday.' Period. Taking

any full-page ads this time?"

"No. We figure people would ignore them, so we're going to save the money. That's what the

Boss said, but personally I think he doesn't have the money to save. Anyway, we'll get all the

publicity we need once we start moving passengers, and it'll be free."

Walker nodded. "I'll get myself assigned to cover the opening. I doubt that anyone else

will want it. Everyone in favor of hanging onto the stock? Right. Meeting is adjourned. And Ted,

you darned well better be right."

"I'll be right-barring accidents. And Monday you'll be darned glad we dumped that airlines

stock."

"I want some more coffee," Walker said.

Arnold summoned the waitress with a shout, and they sat silently while she refilled their

cups.

"There's just one thing that bothers me," Darzek said, when she had returned to the

kitchen. "Why was someone trying to buy my stock long before anyone at Universal Trans knew about

this opening?"

"Speculators," Walker said. "Or maybe they have a syndicate of realtors. I've heard of

stranger things."

Arnold shook his head. "More likely someone wants to get control of the company and kill

it. Put it permanently out of business. The airlines interests, or the railroad and trucking

interests, or-sure. Real estate. Why not? Can you guess what Universal Trans is going to do to

real estate values? When we get operating properly a man will be able to live in California and

commute to Wall Street by transmitter easier than he can commute now from Central Park West. The

cost will be comparable with what the average commuter pays today for a train ticket. You should

hear the Boss on that subject. He claims that Universal Trans is going to revolutionize our way of

life more than the automobile did, and-"

He broke off and stared at Walker. "Did you say warehouse fire?"

"Over on the west side," Walker said.

Arnold got to his feet slowly. He walked slowly to the pay telephone, and when he had made

his call he sat down on the nearest chair and gazed thoughtfully at a blank wall.

"I don't like this," he announced finally. "That was my warehouse. We were using it for

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some tests."

"Will this affect your grand opening?" Darzek asked.

Arnold shook his head. "We didn't have much there, and we moved it out this afternoon."

"Then there's nothing to worry about. Write it off. It was insured, wasn't it?"

"I suppose so. We were just renting it."

"Forget it."

"I don't like it. We've had so many things happen-"

"Probably a coincidence," Darzek said.

"You're wrong there," Walker said. "The fire marshal has it down as arson."

Only one New York paper gave the Universal Transmitting Company's opening front-page coverage.

Other papers across the country treated the announcement as a filler, usually under the terse

heading, AGAIN? There was little editorial comment. Even the newspaper editors were tired of

pointing out, with suitably cutting sarcasm, that Universal Trans was merely making propaganda to

gain itself a temporary respite from the troubles that plagued it.

The average citizen was thoroughly fed up with Universal Trans. He was not just

unenthusiastic, he was uncurious to the point of indifference. As a result, the hour of the

opening found the Universal Trans terminals everywhere deserted except for employees.

The swank, half-finished New York Terminal on Eighth Avenue south of Pennsylvania Station

was no exception. Ron Walker entered at eight-one that Monday morning, and looked about with the

sinking feeling that he'd been had. Getting the assignment had been a problem, not beeause anyone

else wanted it, but because his boss wanted no time wasted on Universal Trans, then or ever. The

only thing that kept Walker from turning around and walking out was the knowledge that he had

wasted twenty minutes of his editor's time in arguing about the newsworthiness of Universal Trans,

and he damned well had to produce some kind of story.

Walker stopped at the information desk and was directed to the mezzanine, where he found a

row of ticket windows backed up by ticket agents. He asked for a ticket to Philadelphia. He was

sold a ticket to Philadelphia, presented with an artistically printed pamphlet on the joys of

transmitting, issued a free fifty-thousand-dollar insurance policy, and directed to a passenger

gate.

There he surrendered his ticket, walked through a turnstile and down a short passageway

that angled off from it, and seconds later found himself incoherently shouting out his story from

a phone booth in Philadelphia. Almost before his startled editor had hung up Walker was back in

New York with a follow-up story, and minutes after a messenger reached him with a generous sum for

traveling expenses he was on the phone from London. After that performance not even the most

hardened skeptic could deny that Universal Trans was in fact open for business.

But the heat-fogged lethargy of the man in the street was not easily penetrated on that

sultry July day. By ten o'clock there was only a scattering of pedestrians standing with noses

pressed against the towering plate-glass windows of the Manhattan Terminal. A nattily dressed

young man waved at them from a platform, stepped through a transmitter, and emerged on another

platform eighty feet away, still waving. He moved six feet sideways, stepped through a second

transmitting setup, and returned to his starting place.

The average New Yorker watched for three minutes, failed to figure out the gag, and went

his way grumbling. Then at ten o'clock a Universal Trans employee with a genius for promotion

plucked a shapely brunette from her seat behind a ticket window, sent out for a bathing suit, and

set the young man to chasing her from platform to platform. Within minutes the most colossal

traffic jam in the entire history of Manhattan was under way.

It required only one final touch of genius to plunge Eighth Avenue into complete chaos. At

eleven-thirty the terminal manager supervised the draping of an enormous sign across the front

windows. COME IN AND TRY IT YOURSELF-FREE OF CHARGE!

Forthwith the crowd surged into the terminal. The early arrivals may have been more

interested in chasing the brunette than in transmitting, but transmit they did, and the brunette

was quickly retired as an impediment to traffic. Police fought to keep order in the lobby, and

bawled lustily for reinforcements. Cars were abandoned in the street when their drivers, tired of

waiting for traffic to clear, fought their way into the terminal to see what all the fuss was

about. Lines spread around the huge room in fantastic coils as one New Yorker after another

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cautiously mounted to the platform, stepped through to the opposite platform, returned, and was

forcibly moved towards an exit.

No reliable count was made of the number of people who transmitted that day. Universal

Trans claimed a hundred thousand, which was absurd, but one reporter watched for an hour with a

stop watch, and stated that a minimum of twenty and a maximum of forty people passed through the

lobby transmitters every minute. In midafternoon a change of procedure limited the travelers to a

one-way trip across the lobby, thus doubling the number that could be accommodated.

Lines still jammed the lobby at midnight, and business was brisk at the ticket windows.

Travelers coming down from Pennsylvania Station to watch the show found their way into the ticket

lines, and as a result arrived at their destination hours or days before they were expected. The

airlines were receiving an avalanche of cancellations. Wall Street was digging itself out from a

panic of late selling that plunged transportation stocks to unheard-of lows. Universal Trans stock

had probably soared to a spectacular level, but no one knew for sure because there were no sales.

The harassed Universal Trans stockholders were gloatingly hanging onto it.

To any point in the world where Universal Trans chose to set up a terminal, the traveling

time by transmitter was zero; or, to be precise, it was the time a passenger required to stroll

through an entrance gate, down a short passageway, and out of an exit gate. Boards of directors of

many corporations were in session that Monday night, bleakly contemplating that fact and weighing

its significance. The more farsighted of them found its meaning ominous, and set about balancing

inventories, closing factories, ordering retoolings, and bellowing frantically at research

divisions for new products.

The age of the automobile, the air age, were finished. Demolished. Brushed aside to

crumble into ignoble oblivion.

And for the first time in three years the directors of the Universal Transmitting Company

went to bed early and slept well.

Jan Darzek's only full-time employee was a former model named Jean Morris. She was a splendid

ornament to his office, which she ran with ruthless competence, and on certain outside assignments

her efficiency was deadly. Few people, male or female, could contemplate her superb figure and

exquisite features and guess that behind her long lashes both of her large brown eyes were

private.

She entered Darzek's employment because she fell in love with him. She quickly learned

that Jan Darzek was no mortal man, but an institution of weirdly developed talents, all directed

at securing elusive bits of information and assembling them into comprehensive reports to clients.

By that time she had transferred her love to the detective business and begun the intense

cultivation of her own talents. They made a spectacularly successful team.

On the day of the Universal Trans opening, Darzek returned from lunch and found her

puzzling over a telephone call. "From Berlin," she said. "Supposedly from Ron Walker."

"You don't say."

"It was a collect call."

"It would be," Darzek said with a grin. "If he calls back, don't accept it."

"I thought it was a gag. Or was that Ron's twin brother that was here when I came in

this morning?"

"Ron hasn't got a twin brother, and it was a gag. This morning he was in New York. Now

he's in Berlin. In the meantime he's been in London, Paris, and Rome. He's traveling on a

newspaper assignment. I met one of his buddies at lunch, and heard all about it."

"Oh," she said. "That transmitting business."

"Right. Ron is doing a world tour by transmitter, sending back local color stuff on how

the foreign populations are taking it. Naturally he'd like to give me a long personal report, with

me paying the phone bill. If he calls again, tell the operator I just left for Siberia by

transmitter."

Twenty minutes later Darzek had a visitor, a businessman who had failed to control his

exuberance on a trip to Paris the previous spring. There were complications.

"Paris?" Darzek said with a smile. "Last week I'd have told you I couldn't spare the time.

This week-I'll take care of it tomorrow.

The businessman delivered himself of a deep sigh of relief. "Good. I'll leave the whole

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thing in your hands. When you get back-will you be back by Friday?"

"I'll go over tomorrow afternoon," Darzek said. "I'll see the young lady, and come right

back. It shouldn't take more than a couple of hours."

The businessman's brows arched in surprise, then relaxed. "Ah. Universal Trans. I'd

forgotten."

"You'll never forget it again," Darzek said.

By Tuesday morning the police had decided to capitulate. Three blocks of Eighth Avenue

were blocked off. The perspiring populace jammed the street from sidewalk to sidewalk. Universal

Trans developed a sudden and thoroughly justified apprehension that the crowd might interfere with

business, and opened a side entrance for paying passengers. When Jan Darzek arrived on the scene

Tuesday afternoon it took him forty-five minutes to push his way from the Pennsylvania Station to

the Universal Trans terminal, and he was restrained from giving up only by the fact that the

swelling crowd behind him looked more formidable than the crowd in front.

Finally he reached the terminal, slipped into the side entrance with a feeling of intense

relief, and was whisked by escalator to the mezzanine. He paused there for a few minutes to look

down on the mob in the lobby below.

Confusion raged about one of the demonstration transmitters. An elderly lady had thrust

her umbrella through ahead of her, and then balked at following it. She hauled frantically on the

umbrella, two feet of which protruded at the far platform. The umbrella did not yield. The

combined eloquence of six guards finally persuaded the lady to push her umbrella the rest of the

way through and follow it.

Darzek watched her waddle away, a frown clouding his good-looking face. The temperature

was ninety-five, there was no rain in sight, and-why an umbrella? Protection against the sun?

"Down, boy," he told himself. "Who do you think you are? A detective?"

A moment later a high school girl changed her mind after curiously thrusting one arm into

the transmitter. She hung helplessly, her forearm extending from the distant receiver. Her screams

rang out shrilly above the din that filled the terminal. A guard finally shoved her through, and

she scampered down the steps and darted furtively away. In the fracas the guard also stuck one arm

through, and had to move on to the far platform. The crowd hooted.

"Strictly a one-way operation," Darzek thought. "But one way at a time should be adequate

for most travelers."

The crowd seemed more amused than alarmed at the two mishaps. The lines kept moving, but

Darzek noted that people approached the transmitter warily, tensed themselves as if for a plunge

into a cold shower, and lurched through with eyes closed and hands held defensively in front of

them.

Darzek tucked his briefcase under his arm and moved over to one of the lines at the ticket

windows. Directly ahead of him a shapely blonde turned, surveyed Darzek's sturdy six-foot frame

and curly blond hair with analytical detachment, turned away. Darzek decided to ignore her.

In the next line a jovial, plump businessman was talking excitedly with a gaunt, unhappy-

looking companion. "Tried it downstairs. Nothing to it. You don't feel a thing. Like the ads said,

it's just like stepping from one room to another. Darnedest thing I ever saw. One step and there

you are, clear across the room."

The other chomped nervously on a cigar. "Across the room isn't the same thing as here to

Chicago."

"Just the same. You can go clear to Singapore-if they have a terminal there-and it won't

take any longer than it does to go across the lobby. No more airplane flights for me. They're

safe, of course, but now and then a plane does crack up, and this is absolutely safe. That's why

they give you the insurance. They're not going to give you fifty thousand dollars' worth of free

insurance if they aren't certain that nothing can happen."

"Humph!" the cigar chewer said. "They don't do that because it's safe. They do it because

this is a new thing, and some people will naturally be afraid of it, and they want everyone to

think it's safe. Just tell me what would happen if that thing blew a fuse with half of you here

and half of you in Chicago."

"Say-I never thought of that! Let's ask when we get to the window."

Everyone seemed in need of reassurance, and the line moved slowly. The two businessmen

reached their window, talked at some length with a patiently grinning ticket agent, and finally

bought their tickets. Ahead of Darzek the blond woman was just reaching the window.

She swung a monstrosity of a handbag from her shoulder, opened it, and paused to study

herself in a mirror while the ticket agent tapped a pencil irritably. Finally she snapped the bag

shut, and regarded the ticket agent with the same analytical detachment she had turned upon

Darzek. "I want to go to Honolulu," she said.

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"Certainly. Do you have some identification?"

"Identification." It was difficult to tell whether she had asked a question or answered

one.

"I need some kind of identification in order to make out your insurance certificate. With

your ticket you receive fifty thousand dollars' worth of insurance, effective from the time you

enter the transmitting gate here in New York until you leave the receiving gate at Honolulu. Do

you have some identification? Driver's license, Internal Revenue ID-"

"Do the passengers wear life jackets?" the woman asked.

The ticket agent caught his breath. "No. No life jackets."

"But are you sure it's safe? There's a lot of water between here and Honolulu, and I'd

hate to fall in. I can't even swim.

The ticket agent drew on a thin reserve of patience. "It's perfectly safe. Nothing can

happen to you. Did you try the transmitter in the lobby?"

"Oh, gracious, no! I couldn't get through that crowd."

"You can watch from here. It's like walking from one room to another. You walk through a

door here, and out of a door at Honolulu, or wherever you're going. That's all there is to it."

"It's Honolulu," she said. "I told you I want to go to Honolulu. Don't send me to China or

somewhere."

"You'd like to buy a ticket to Honolulu?"

"That's what I keep telling you!"

"Your identification, please."

"You're sure it's safe?"

"Miss, if you have any doubt at all, why don't you go watch the lobby transmitters for a

while?"

With evident reluctance she surrendered a driver's license. "I do hope I don't fall in the

ocean. Salt water does terrible things to my hair."

"This is your present address?"

"That's right. I just don't like the idea of going over all that water without an

airplane, or boat, or something under me."

The ticket agent wrote busily. Darzek turned his attention to the other windows. All of

the agents looked harassed, and a couple of them were starting to snarl.

The blonde was rummaging in her handbag for her money. Since the operation took place

directly under Darzek's nose, he thoughtfully studied the handbag. It was a boxlike contraption of

glistening black leather, artfully embossed with a complex network of designs that seemed

reminiscent of ancient Mayan art. He couldn't remember ever having seen anything quite like it. He

wondered if it were Mexican.

She pushed her money through the window, and received in return her change, a ticket, an

insurance certificate, and the Universal Trans pamphlet.

"This book," the ticket agent said, "contains all you'll need to know about transmitting.

Report at Gate Ten, please."

The woman carelessly stuffed everything into her handbag. "You're sure-I mean, all that

water-"

"Lady," the ticket agent burst out, "you won't even have a chance to wash your feet."

The woman wheeled haughtily, to the accompaniment of guffaws from the line behind Darzek.

Darzek stepped forward.

"Yes?" the ticket agent said wearily.

Darzek slid his driver's license through the window. "This is my present address. Paris,

please."

The ticket agent wrote, accepted his money, made change. "Here you are. This book-"

"I know," Darzek said. "I'll read it after I get there."

The ticket agent solemnly raised his grille and leaned out to grab Darzek's hand. "Report

at Gate Nine, please," he said.

There were facilities for perhaps fifty transmitting gates on the mezzanine, with only a

dozen in operation. Work was already going forward on the next section. Darzek saw Ted Arnold

bustling about, waving his arms in eleven directions and sending men hurrying this way and that.

Darzek moved among the waiting passengers with a feeling of exhilaration that only a long-

frustrated Universal Trans stockholder could have understood. He found Gate Nine, and got in line.

Pretty young hostesses in smart costumes hurried about, answering questions, administering

bright doses of courage at the slightest sign of faintheartedness. Darzek saw the blonde from the

ticket line trying the patience of one of the hostesses. But the hostess was quickly crowded aside

by male passengers, who met the crisis eagerly and enthusiastically, congregating around the

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