“You mean this? A totally new principle, is it? But then it must be.”
No clue there. Gallegher tried a feeble smile. Hopper just looked at him.
“All right,” he said. “What’s the practical application?”
Gallegher groped wildly. “I’d better show you,” he said at last, crossing the lab and flipping the switch. Instantly the machine started to sing “St. James Infirmary.” The tentacles lengthened and began to eat dirt. The hole in the cylinder opened. The grooved wheel began to revolve.
Hopper waited.
After a time he said, “Well?”
“You — don’t like it?”
“How should I know? I don’t even know what it does. Isn’t there any screen?”
“Sure,” Gallegher said, completely at a loss. “It’s inside that cylinder.”
“In—what?” Hopper’s shaggy brows drew down over his jet back eyes. “Inside that cylinder?”
“Uh-huh.”
“For—” Hopper seemed to be choking. “What good is it there? Without X-ray eyes, anyhow?”
“Should it have X-ray eyes?” Gallegher muttered, dizzy with bafflement. “You wanted a screen with X-ray eyes?”.
“You’re still drunk!” Hopper snarled. “Or else you’re crazy!”
“Wait a minute. Maybe I’ve made a mistake—”
“A mistake?”
“Tell me one thing. Just what did you ask me to do?”
Hopper took three deep breaths. In a cold, precise voice he said, “I asked you if you could devise a method of projecting three-dimensional images that could be viewed from any angle, front, back or side, without distortion. You said yes. I paid you a thousand credits on account. I’ve taken options on a couple of factories so I could begin manufacturing without delay. I’ve had scouts out looking for likely theaters. I’m planning a campaign for selling the attachments to home televisors. And now, Mr. Gallegher, I’m going out and see the attorney and tell him to put the screws on.”
He went out, snorting. The robot gently closed the door, came back, and, without being asked, hurried after beer. Gallegher waved it away.
“I’ll use the organ,” he moaned, mixing himself a stiff one. “Turn that blasted machine off, Narcissus. I haven’t the strength.”
“Well, you’ve found out one thing,” the robot said encouragingly. “You didn’t build the device for Hopper.”
“True. True. I made it for…ah…either J. W. or Fatty. How can I find out who they are?”
“You need a rest,” the robot said “Why not simply relax and listen to my lovely melodious voice? I’ll read to you.”
“It’s not melodious,” Gallegher said automatically and absently. “It squeaks like a rusty hinge.”
“To your ears. My senses are different. To me, your voice is the croaking of an asthmatic frog. You can’t see me as I do, any more than you can hear me as I hear myself. Which is just as well. You’d swoon with ecstasy.”
“Narcissus,” Gallagher said patiently, “I’m trying to think. Will you kindly shut your metallic trap?”
“My name isn’t Narcissus,” said the robot. “It’s Joe.”
“Then I’m changing it. Let’s see. I was checking up on DU. What was the number?”
“Red five fourteen hundred M.”
“Oh, yeah.” Gallegher used the televisor. A secretary was willing but unable to give much useful information.
Devices Unlimited was the name of a holding company, of a sort. It had connection all over the world. When a client wanted a job done, DU, through its agents, got in touch with the right person and finagled the deal. The trick was that DU supplied the money, financing operations and working on a percentage basis. It sounded fantastically intricate, and Gallegher was left in the dark.
“Any record of my name in your files? Oh — Well, can you tell me who J. W. is?”
“J. W.? I’m sorry, sir. I’ll need the full name—”
“I don’t have it. And this is important.” Gallegher argued. At last he got his way. The only DU man whose initials were J. W. was someone named Jackson Wardell, who was on Callisto at the moment.
“How long has he been there?”
“He was born there,” said the secretary unhelpfully. “He’s never been to Earth in his life. I’m sure Mr. Wardell can’t be your man.”
Gallegher agreed. There was no use asking for Fatty, he decided, and broke the beam with a faint sigh. Well, what now?
The visor shrilled. On the screen appeared the face of a plump-cheeked, bald, pudgy man who was frowning worriedly. He broke into a relieved chuckle at sight of the scientist.
“Oh, there you are, Mr. Gallegher,” he said. “I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour. Something’s wrong with the beam. My goodness, I thought I’d certainly hear from you before this!”
Gallegher’s heart stumbled. Fatty—of course!
Thank God, the luck was beginning to turn! Fatty — eight hundred credits. On account. On account of what? The machine? Was it the solution to Fatty’s problem, or to J. W.’s? Gallegher prayed with brief fervency that Fatty had requested a device that ate dirt and sang “St. James Infirmary.”
The image blurred and flickered, with a faint crackling. Fatty said hurriedly, “Something’s wrong with the line. But — did you do it, Mr. Gallegher? Did you find a method?
“Sure,” Gallegher said. If he could lead the man on, gain some hint of what he had ordered—
“Oh, wonderful! DU’s been calling me for days. I’ve been putting them off, but they won’t wait forever. Cuff’s bearing down hard, and I can’t get around that old statute—”
The screen went dead.
Gallegher almost bit off his tongue in impotent fury. Hastily he closed the circuit and began striding around the lab, his nerves tense with expectation. In a second the visor would ring. Fatty would call back. Naturally. And this time the first question Gallegher would ask would be, “Who are you?”
Time passed.
Gallegher groaned and checked back, asking the operator to trace the call.
“I’m sorry sir. It was made from a dial visor. We cannot trace calls made from a dial visor.
Ten minutes later Gallegher stopped cursing, seized his hat from its perch atop an iron dog that had once decorated a lawn, and whirled to the door. “I’m going out,” he snapped to Narcissus. “Keep an eye on that machine.”
“All right. One eye.” The robot agreed. “I’ll need the other to watch my beautiful insides. Why don’t you find out who Cuff is?”
“What?”
“Cuff. Fatty mentioned somebody by that name. He said he was bearing down hard—”
“Check! He did, at that. And — what was it? — he said he couldn’t get around an old statue—”
“Statute. It means a law.”
“I know what statute means,” Gallegher growled. “I’m not exactly a driveling idiot. Not yet, anyhow. Cuff, eh? I’ll try the visor again.”
There were six Cuffs listed. Gallegher eliminated half of them by gender. He crossed off Cuff-Linx Mfg. Co., which left two — Max and Fred. He televised Frederick getting a pop-eyed, scrawny youth who was obviously not yet old enough to vote. Gallegher gave the lad a murderous glare of frustration and flipped the switch, leaving Frederick to spend the next half-hour wondering who had called him, grimaced like a demon, and blanked out without a word.
But Max Cuff remained, and that, certainly, was the man. Gallegher felt sure of it when Max Cuff’s butler transferred the call to a downtown office, where a receptionist said that Mr. Cuff was spending the afternoon at the Uplift Social Club.
“That so? Say, who is Cuff anyhow?”