Murray Leinster
THE MIDDLE OF THE WEEK AFTER NEXT
In this tale we meet our first Mad Scientist. Just as in reality the thoroughly cracked pots used to be found inventing perpetual-motion machines, so in science fiction we find the lunatic fringe more often than not trying to perfect time-travel mechanisms.
Of course, Mr. Binder is not really mad; he is just a bit unlikely. And the results of his experiments are unlikelier yet, but you come to look for that sort of thing with pleased anticipation when you read time-travel stories.
Don’t write in asking Mr. Leinster where the people in his story were when they weren’t here. He could tell you, but you wouldn’t understand, any more than Mr. McFadden did, or I did.
IT CAN be reported that Mr. Thaddeus Binder is again puttering happily around the workshop he calls his laboratory, engaged again upon something that he—alone—calls philosophic-scientific research. He is a very nice, little, pink-cheeked person, Mr. Binder—but maybe somebody ought to stop him.
Mr. Steems could be asked for an opinion. If the matter of Mr. Binder’s last triumph is mentioned in Mr. Steems’s hearing, he will begin to speak, rapidly and with emotion. His speech will grow impassioned; his tone will grow shrill and hoarse at the same time; and presently he will foam at the mouth. This occurs though he is not aware that he ever met Mr. Binder in person, and though the word “com-penetrability” has never fallen upon his ears. It occurs because Mr. Steems is sensitive. He still resents it that the newspapers described him as the Taxi Monster—a mass murderer exceeding even M. Landru in the number of his victims. There is also the matter of Miss Susie Blepp, to whom Mr. Steems was affianced at the time, and there is the matter of Patrolman Cassidy, whose love life was rearranged. Mr. Steems’s reaction is violent. But the background of the episode was completely innocent. It was even chastely intellectual.
The background was Mr. Thaddeus Binder. He is a plump little man of sixty-four, retired on pension from the Maintenance Department of the local electric light and power company. He makes a hobby of a line of research that seems to have been neglected. Since his retirement, Mr. Binder has read widely and deeply, quaffing the wisdom of men like Kant, Leibnitz, Maritain, Einstein, and Judge Rutherford. He absorbs philosophical notions from those great minds and then tries to apply them practically at his workbench. He does not realize his success. Definitely!
Mr. Steems drove a taxicab in which Mr. Binder rode just after one such experiment. The whole affair sprang from that fact. Mr. Binder had come upon the philosophical concept of compenetrability. It is the abstract thought that—all experience to the contrary notwithstanding— two things might manage to be in the same place at the same time. Mr. Binder decided that it might be true. He experimented. In Maintenance, before his retirement, he had answered many calls in the emergency truck, and he knew some things that electricity on the loose can do. He knows some other things that he doesn’t believe yet. In any case, he used this background of factual data in grappling with a philosophical concept. He made a device. He tried it. He was delighted with the results. He then set out to show it to his friend Mr. McFadden.
It was about five o’clock in the afternoon of May 3, 1951. Mr. Binder reached the corner of Bliss and Kelvin Streets, near his home. He had a paper-wrapped parcel under his arm. He saw Mr. Steems’s cab parked by the curb. He approached and gave the address of his friend Mr. McFadden, on Monroe Avenue. Mr. Steems looked at him sourly. Mr. Binder got into the cab and repeated the address. Mr. Steems snapped, “I got it the first time!” He pulled out into the traffic, scowling. Everything was normal.
Mr. Binder settled back blissfully. The inside of the cab was dingy and worn, but he did not notice. The seat cushion was so badly frayed that there was one place where a spring might stab through at any instant. But Mr. Binder beamed to himself. He had won an argument with his friend Mr. McFadden. He had proof of his correctness. It was the paper parcel on his lap.
The cab passed Vernon Street. It went by Dupuy Street. Mr. Binder chuckled to himself. In his reading, the idea of compenetrability had turned up with a logical argument for its possibility that Mr. Binder considered hot stuff. He had repeated that argument to Mr. McFadden, who tended to skepticism. Mr. McFadden had said it was nonsense. Mr. Binder insisted that it was a triumph of inductive reasoning. Mr. McFadden snorted. Mr. Binder said, “All right, I’ll prove it!” Now he was on the way to do so.
His reading of abstruse philosophy had brought him happiness. He gloated as he rode behind Mr. Steems. He even untied his parcel to admire the evidence all over again. It was a large, thin, irregularly shaped piece of soft leather, supposedly a deerskin. It had been a throw on the parlor settee, and had had a picture of Hiawatha and Minnehaha on it. The picture was long gone, now, and the whole thing was about right to wash a car with; but Mr. Binder regarded it very happily. It was his proof that compenetrability was possible.
Another cab eeled in before Mr. Steems, forcing him to stop or collide. Mr. Steems jammed on his brakes, howling with wrath. The brakes screamed, the wheels locked, and Mr. Binder slid forward off his seat. Mr. Steems hurled invective at the other driver. In turn, he received invective. They achieved heights of eloquence which soothed their separate ires. Mr. Steems turned proudly to Mr. Binder.
“That told him off, huh?”
Mr. Binder did not answer. He was not there. The back of the cab was empty. It was as if Mr. Binder had evaporated.
Mr. Steems fumed. He turned off abruptly into a side street, stopped his cab, and investigated. Mr. Binder was utterly gone. A large patch of deerskin lay on the floor. On the deerskin there was an unusual collection of small objects. Mr. Steems found:
1 gold watch, monogrammed THB, still running
$.87 in silver, nickel, and copper coins
1 pocketknife
12 eyelets of metal, suitable for shoes
1 pair spectacles in metal case
1 nickel-plated ring, which would fit on a tobacco pipe
147 small bits of metal, looking like zipper teeth
1 key ring, with keys
1 metal shoelace tip
1 belt buckle, minus belt
Mr. Steems swore violently. “Smart guy, huh!” he said wrathfully. “Gettin’ a free ride! He outsmarted himself, he did! Let ‘im try to get this watch back! I never seen him!”
He pocketed the watch and money. The other objects he cast contemptuously away. He was about to heave out the deerhide when he remembered that Miss Susie Blepp had made disparaging remarks about the condition of his cab. So had her mother, while grafting deadhead cab rides as Mr. Steems’s prospective mother-in-law. Mr. Steems said, “The hell with her!” But then, grudgingly, he spread the deerhide over the back-seat cushion. It helped. It hid the spring that was about to stab through.
Mr. Steems was dourly pleased. He went and hocked Mr. Binder’s watch and felt a great deal better. He resumed his lawful trade of plying the city streets as a common carrier. Presently he made a soft moaning sound.
Susie’s mother stood on the curb, waving imperiously. His taxi flag was up. Trust her to spot that first! He couldn’t claim he was busy. Bitterly, he pulled in and opened the back door for her. She got in, puffing a little. She was large and formidable, and Mr. Steems marveled gloomily that a cute trick like Susie could have such a battle-ax for a mother.
“Susie told me to tell you,” puffed Mrs. Blepp, “that she can’t keep tonight’s date.”
“Oh, no?” said Mr. Steems sourly.
“No,” said Susie’s mother severely. She waited challengingly for Steems to drive her home (any hesitation on his part would mean a row with Susie). She slipped off her shoes. She settled back.