"What is this, sir?"
"A credit voucher. Use it to buy a teaching robot, one that can tie in to the Solar Educational System. Learn enough to get back into the academy on a scholarship."
Jeff put his hands behind his back. "Sir, I won't be able to pay you back."
"I think you will. I don't think Fargo would ever be able to, but somehow I suspect you have a firmer hold on common sense than he has. Anyway, it isn't that much money, because I'm not all that rich-or all that generous. You'll have to buy a used robot. Here, take it! That's an order."
"Yes, sir," said Jeff, saluting automatically. He hurried out, confused and worried. TGAF? Was Fargo right?
2. Choosing A Robot
Packing did not take much time. Cadets owned very little besides clothes and notes, although Jeff did have one valuable item, thanks to Fargo-a book. It was a genuine antique, a leather-bound volume with yellow-edged pages that had never been restored. It contained all of Shakespeare's plays in the original, in the very language from which Terran Basic was derived.
Jeff hoped nobody from Security Control would stop him, open the Shakespeare, and see Fargo's underlining in "Henry the Fifth." Or that, if they did, they wouldn't understand the old language.
"The game's afoot," Henry had cried out, but what game was Fargo after with his TGAF? Was it Ing?
Jeff told his closer friends among his classmates about the bankruptcy and the kitchen computer, but he went no farther than that. He put the book into his duffel bag with a fine air of indifference, even though he was alone in his quarters. One should always practice caution.
He took the shuttle to Mars.
Once on Mars, he made a quick meal of spicy eggplant slices on cheese, as only Martian cooks could make it; then he lined up at the Mars City matter transmitter. Through the dome he could see the distant vastness of Mons Olympus, the largest heap of matter on any world occupied by human beings. It made him feel very small.
And very poor.
Maybe I should give the credit voucher to Fargo, Jeff thought. He needs it more than I need a teaching robot. But I've always wanted a teaching robot, came the immediately rebellious afterthought.
"Wells next!"
For a second, Jeff almost decided to turn on his heel. Why should he take the transmit? It was so expensive.
Matter transmitters had been in use for years, but they still required enormous power and very complex equipment, and the cost of using them reflected that. Most people took the space ferry from Mars to Luna and then to Earth. Why shouldn't Jeff be one of them? Especially now with the family near bankruptcy?
Still, the ferry took over a week, and with the transmit he would be home today. And Fargo clearly wanted him there in a hurry.
All this went through Jeff's head in the time it took for the most momentary of hesitations. He went into the room. It was packed with people, luggage, and freight boxes. The people all looked rich or official, and Jeff slumped in his seat hoping no one would notice him.
As he waited for the power to go on, he wished again that he could invent a hyperdrive. Everyone knew there actually was a thing called hyperspace, because that's what hycoms used for the instantaneous voice and visual communication that was now so common. It was by hycom that Fargo's image had appeared in the admiral's office, for instance. That's what "hycom" meant, after alclass="underline" "hyperspatial communication."
Well then, if they could force radiation through hyperspace, why couldn't they force matter through it? Surely there should be some way of devising a motor that would let a spaceship go through hyperspace, bypassing the speed of light limit that existed in normal space. It probably meant that matter would have to be converted into radiation first, and then the radiation would have to be reconverted into matter. Or else…
Fifty years ago, an antigrav device had been invented, and before then everyone had said that was impossible. Now antigravs could be manufactured small enough to fit into a car.
Maybe the two impossibles had a connection. If you used antigravs in connection with matter transmitters (that operated only at sub-light speeds), you could
He blacked out. One always did that in transmit.
There was no sensation of time passage, but the room was different. It held the same contents, but it was a different room. He could see the clock in the cavernous chamber outside. Not quite ten minutes had passed, so the transmission had been carried through at-he calculated rapidly in his head, allowing for the present positions of Mars and Earth in their orbits-not quite half light-speed.
Jeff adjusted his watch, walked out of the transmitter room, and was on Earth. He wondered if his molecules had survived the transmission properly. Now wasn't this a case of conversion into radiation and back, after a fashion? Surely it could be improved to the point where-oh well!
The matter-transmission people always insisted that it was impossible for molecules to be messed up in transit, and no one had ever claimed damage. Still…
Nothing I can do about it anyway, Jeff decided.
But if you were going to take the risk, he thought, why not do the thing right? Hyperdrive would be much the better deal. It might still mean conversion to radiation and back, but at least you could go anywhere, and that would give you much more in return for the risk.
Right now, by transmit, you could only go to another transmit station. If you wanted to go somewhere that didn't have a transmit, you would have to go by ferry or freighter to the nearest transmit, and that could take anywhere from weeks to years. No wonder the Federation was stuck in the Solar System.
And that's why Ing's rebellion was so dangerous.
Jeff called the family apartment from Grand Central Station, Manhattan's public transmit terminal, to let the housekeeping computer have enough time to send cleaning robots out to make a last-minute cleanup of the dust.
The apartment, when he got there, looked as always. Old, of course, but that was as it should be. All the Wellses had been proud to own an apartment on Fifth Avenue in a building that had been kept going, apparently with glue and wishes, for centuries. It had disadvantages, but it was homier.
"Welcome, Master Jeff," said the housekeeper computer from the wall.
"Hi," Jeff grinned. It was nice to be scanned and recognized.
"There is a message for you from your brother Fargo, Master Jeff," said the computer, and a cellostrip pushed out of the message slot with a faint buzz.
It was the address of a used-robot shop, which meant that Fargo and Admiral Yobo had talked again after Jeff had left the office.
Why? Jeff wondered. For old time's sake? Did Gidlow know?
It was still afternoon in Manhattan. There was time to go to the shop.
Jeff felt faintly uneasy about buying the robot now that he was about to make a purchase. Should he argue with Fargo and try to make him take the admiral's money for himself?
But the admiral had to have talked with Fargo on the subject. There had to be something behind all this, but what?
Before leaving, Jeff dialed a hamburger from the kitchen computer, which was always in perfect order, thanks to Fargo. He said, "First things first," and hunger came first, even for him, let alone for a growing boy. (How much more will I grow? thought Jeff.) It was a good hamburger.
The self-important fat little man who ran the used-robot shop considered the sum Jeff announced he had at his disposal and didn't seem at all impressed. "If you use that for a down payment," he said, "you can have an almost-new model like this. A very good buy."
What he referred to as "this" was one of the new, vaguely humanoid cylindrical robots in use as teachers at all the expensive schools. They could tie in to main computer systems in any city and have access to any library or information outlet. They were smooth, calm, respectful, good teachers.