"Good!" said Jocelyn heartily, though a bit puzzled and annoyed. "What you ought to do is to find some nice girl who can cook and sew and marry her."
"Impossible," said Clair.
"Why?"
"My wife wouldn't let me. Ionic Intersection. We were married three days ago."
"What!" shrieked Jocelyn, and Gaynor cried, "You can't have been. We've been in space!"
"Sure. That's what made it so easy. You know the old law—the captain of a ship at sea can perform marriages."
"But— "
"But nothing. I'm the captain, and I performed the marriage—to me."
Gaynor reeled and clutched at a railing. "But—but since when are you captain—who appointed you?"
"Ha!" crowed Clair. "Shows how little you know about sea law. It's just like the case of a derelict—when the regular offficers and crew of a ship are unable to bring her to port—and you were definitely unable so to do anyone who can takes command. That's the law, and I'm sticking to it. And you'd better not question it—because if you do, I'll dissolve your marriage."
"Our marriage! What marriage?" cried Jocelyn, incredulity and delight mingling in her voice.
"The one I performed over you two not five minutes ago. Probably you thought I was whistling through my teeth," Clair very patiently explained. "Now are there any objections?"
No, there were no objections....
THE EXTRAPOLATED DIMWIT
I.
"I always smoke Valerons," declared Gaynor. "I have found that for the lift you need when you need it, they have no equal. Unreservedly I recommend them to all dimensional flyers and time-travelers." He gagged slightly and wiped his mouth. "Was that right?" he asked the ad man.
"Okay," said Alec Andrews of Dignam and Bailey, promoters. He disconnected the recording apparatus. "Mr. Gaynor," he declared fervently, "you will hear that every hour, on the hour, over the three major networks. And now ... ah ..." He took a checkbook from his pocket.
"Fifteen gees," said Gaynor happily, flipping a bit of paper between his fingers. "This, my pretty, will net you a fishskin evening gown."
"Yeah," said Jocelyn. "If I can keep you from buying a few more tons of junk for your ruddy lab." Gaynor looked uneasy. "Hola, Clair," he greeted the wilted creature who entered, tripping over a wire. "Hola yourself," muttered Clair disentangling.
"I got it. All of it."
Jocelyn, tall, slim, cameolike, and worried, asked him: "Measles?"
"Nope. Differentiator Compass in six phases—just finished it. Creditors on my heels—needed two ounces of radium. Save me, Pavlik! Save your bosom friend!" He turned as a thundering noise indicated either his creditors or a volcano in eruption. "Here they are!" he groaned, diving under a table. Gaynor and his wife hastily arranged themselves before it as the door burst in.
It was a running argument between a plump little brunette and a crowd of men with grim, purposeful faces. "Gentlemen," she was saying with what dignity she could, "I've already told you that my husband has left suddenly for Canada to see his father. How can you ruthlessly desecrate this home with your yammerings for money— "
"Look, lady," said a hawk-eyed man. "We sold your husband that equipment in good faith. If he don't propose to settle for it now, we're just naturally going to slap a lawsuit on his hide."
"Hold it," interjected Gaynor. "Io, what's the damage?"
The plump woman sighed. "Thirty-five thousand. I told him he didn't need all that radium, Paul. What do we do now?"
Martyr-like, Gaynor unfolded the adman's check and endorsed it to cash. Jocelyn, beside him, took a deep breath and snarled wordlessly. "Here's something on account," he said, tendering it to the hawk-eyed creditor. "Come around for the rest in a week. Okay with you?"
"Okay, mister," said the hawk, handing over a receipt. "If your friend was more like you, us entrepreneurs'd have a lot easier time of it." He bowed out with his allies. Io closed the door and locked it.
"Now, Arthur," she began dangerously, "come out with your hands up!" She stared coldly as her husband, the distrait Clair, emerged from under the table. "Dearest," he began meekly.
"Don't you `dearest' me," she spat. "If she weren't in another dimension and turned into a little leather slug, I'd go home to mother. Now explain youself!"
"Ah—yes," said Clair. "About that money. I'm sorry you had to turn over that check, Paul. But this thing I've finished—absolutely the biggest advance in spaceflight and transplanar navigation since the proto. The perfect check and counter-check on position. It's like the intention of the compass and sextant was to seamanship and earthly navigation."
"Well, what is it?" exploded Jocelyn.
"The Six-Phase Differentiator Compass, Jos. You see it here." He took from his breast pocket a little black thing like a camera or exposure meter. "Allow me to explain:
"This dingus, if I may call it such, is a permanent focus upon whatever it is permanently focused on. It acts like a Geiger counter in that when you approach the thing it was focused on, it ticks or buzzes. And the nearer you get, the louder it buzzes—or ticks. That is the tracer unit. And the other half of the gadget, the really complicated half that took all that radium, is a sort of calculating device. Like a permanent statistical table, but with a difference.
"Inside this case there is a condition of unique stress obtaining under terrific conditions of heat, radiation, bombardment, pressure, torsion, implosion, expansion, everything. And there is in there one little chunk of metal—a cc of lead it happens to be—that is taking all the punishment.
"Geared on to this cc of lead are a number of fairly delicate meters and reaction fingers—one for each dimension in which we navigate, making seven in all. From these meters you get a coordinate reading which will establish your position anywhere in the universe and likewise, if you set the dials for desired coordinates, it works in reverse and you have the processive matricies required. How do you like that?"
"Do you really want to know?" demanded Gaynor.
Clair nodded, eagerly.
"I think it's the craziest mess of balderdash that's ever been dreamed up. I don't see how it can work or why you've been wasting your time and my money on it. Straight?"
Clair wilted. "Okay, Paul," he said. "You'll see." He drifted from the room, moping.
"Now where do you suppose he's going?" asked his wife.
"To get plastered, dear," replied Jocelyn.
"This," said Gaynor, "is a helluva way to make a living." He gestured with distaste at the stage waiting for him, and winced as the thunderous applause beat at his ears.
"Bend over," said Jocelyn.
"What for?" he demanded, bending, then yelped as his wife gave him a hearty kick in the pants. "Now why— " he began injuredly .
"Old stage tradition. Good luck. Now go out and give your little lecture. And make it good, because if you don't, there won't be any more little lectures and the creditors will descend on poor Ionic Intersection like a pack of wolves for what that louse of a husband she has owes them."
"I wish you wouldn't talk that way about Clair," complained Gaynor. "What if he has deserted the girl? Maybe she snores." He strode out onto the platform briskly and held up his hands to quiet the applause. "Thank you," he said into the mike. There was no amplification. He gestured wildly to the soundman who was offstage at his panels. "Hook me up, you nincompoop!"
The last word bellowed out over the loudspeakers. Gaynor winced. "Excuse me, friends," he said, "that was wholly unpremeditated. Anyway, you're here to see the lantern-slides and hear my commentary. Well—let's have Number One, Mr. Projectionist."