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DOUBLE or NOTHING
By JACK SHARKEY
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Stories of Imagination May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_The mind quails before certain contemplations?_
_The existence of infinity, for instance._
_Or finity, for that matter._
_Or 50,000 batches of cornflakes dumped from the sky._
I don't know why I listen to Artie Lindstrom. Maybe it's because attimes (though certainly not--I hope--on as permanent a basis as Artie)I'm as screwy as he is. At least, I keep letting myself get sucked intohis plans, every time he's discovered the "invention that will changethe world". He discovers it quite a bit; something new every time.And, Artie having a natural mechanical aptitude that would probablyrate as point-nine-nine-ad-infinitum on a scale where one-point-oh wasperfection, all his inventions work. Except--
Well, take the last thing we worked on. (He usually includes me in hisplans because, while he's the better cooker-upper of these gadgets,I've got the knack for building them. Artie can't seem to slip a radiotube into its socket without shattering the glass, twist a screwdriverwithout gouging pieces out of his thumb, nor even solder an electricalconnection without needing skin-grafts for the hole he usually burns inhis hand.)
So we're a team, Artie and me. He does the planning, I do theconstructing. Like, as I mentioned, the last thing we worked on. Heinvented it; I built it. A cap-remover (like for jars and ketchupbottles). But not just a clamp-plus-handle, like most of the samegadgets. Nope, this was electronic, worked on a tight-beam radio-wave,plus something to do with the expansion coefficients of the metalsmaking up the caps, so that, from anyplace in line-of-sight of her home,the housewife could shove a stud, and come home to find all the capsunscrewed on her kitchen shelves, and the contents ready for getting at.It did, I'll admit, have a nice name: The Teletwist.
Except, where's the point in unscrewing caps unless you're physicallypresent to make use of the contents of the jars? I mentioned this toArtie when I was building the thing, but he said, "Wait and see. It'llbe a novelty, like hula hoops a couple of decades back. Novelties alwayscatch on."
* * * * *
Well, he was wrong. When we finally found a manufacturer softheadedenough to mass-produce a few thousand of the gadgets, total sales forthe entire country amounted to seventeen. Of course, the price was kindof prohibitive: Thirteen-fifty per Teletwist. Why would a housewifelay that kind of money on the line when she'd already, for a two-bucklicense, gotten a husband who could be relied upon (well, most of thetime) to do the same thing for her?
Not, of course, that we didn't finally make money on the thing. It wasjust about that time, you'll remember, that the Imperial Martian Fleetdecided that the third planet from Sol was getting a bit too powerful,and they started orbiting our planet with ultimatums. And while theywere waiting for our answer, our government quietly purchased Artie'spatent, made a few little adjustments on his cap-twister, and the _next_thing the Martians knew, all their airlocks were busily unscrewingthemselves with nothing outside them except hungry vacuum. It was alsothe _last_ thing the Martians knew.
So Artie's ideas seem to have their uses, all right. Only, for somereason, Artie never thinks of the proper application for his latestnewfound principle. That neat little disintegrator pistol carried by thefootsoldiers in the Three Day War (with Venus; remember Venus?) was avariation on a cute little battery-powered device of Artie's, of whichthe original function had been to rid one's house of roaches.
At any rate--at a damned _good_ rate, in fact--the government alwaysended up paying Artie (and me, as his partner-confederate-cohort) ananything-but-modest fee for his patents. We weren't in the millionaireclass, yet, but neither were we very far out of it. And we were muchbetter off than any millionaires, since Artie had persuaded thegovernment to let us, in lieu of payment for another patent of his(for his Nixsal; the thing that was supposed to convert sea-water intosomething drinkable, and did: Gin.), be tax-free for the rest of ourlives.
(It was quite a concession for the government to make. But then, thegovernment-produced "George Washington Gin" is quite a concession initself.)
So I guess you could say I keep listening to Artie Lindstrom becauseof the financial rewards. I must admit they're nice. And it's kind ofadventurous, when I'm working on Artie's latest brainstorm, to letmyself wonder what--since I generally scrap Artie's prognosis for thegadget's future--the damned thing will _actually_ be used for.
Or, at least, it _was_ kind of adventurous, until Artie started in onhis scheme of three weeks ago: a workable anti-gravity machine. And now,I'm feeling my first tremors of regret that I ever hooked up with theguy. Because--Well, it happened like this:
* * * * *
"It looks great," I said, lifting my face from the blueprint, andnodding across the workbench at Artie. "But what the hell does it do?"
Artie shoved a shock of dust-colored hair back off his broad, dull pinkforehead, and jabbed excitedly with a grimy forefinger at the diagram."Can't you _tell_, Burt? What does _this_ look like!"
My eyes returned to the conglomeration of sketchy cones beneath hisflailing finger, and I said, as truthfully as possible, "A pine foreston a lumpy hill."
"Those," he said, his tone hurt as it always was when I inadvertentlybelittled his draftmanship, "are flywheels."
"Cone-shaped flywheels?" I said. "Why, for pete's sake?"
"Only," he said, with specious casualness, "in order to develop acentrifugal thrust that runs in a _straight line_!"
"A centr--" I said, then sat back from the drawings, blinking. "That'simpossible, Artie."
"And why should it be?" he persisted. "Picture an umbrella, with thefabric removed. Now twirl the handle on its axis. What do the ribs do?"
"I suppose they splay out into a circle?"
"Right," he exulted. "And if they _impeded_ from splaying out? If,instead of separate ribs, we have a hollow, bottomless cone of metal?Where does the force go?"
I thought it over, then said, with deliberation, "In _all_ directions,Artie. One part shoving up-to-the-right, one part up-to-the-left, likethat."
"Sure," he said, his face failing to fight a mischievous grin. "Andsince none of them move, where does the _resultant_ force go?"
I shrugged, "Straight up, I guess--" Then my ears tuned in belatedly onwhat I'd said, and a moment later I squeaked, "Artie! Straight _up_!"
* * * * *
He nodded eagerly. "Or, of course, straight east, straight west, orwhichever way the ferrule of this here theoretical umbrella was pointedat the time the twirling began. The point is, we can generate pure forcein _any_ direction. What do you think? Can you build it?"
"It'd be child's play. In fact, Artie, it's _too_ damned simple to bebelieved! What's the hitch? Why hasn't anyone tried it before _now_?"
"Who knows?" he said, his blue eyes dancing. "Maybe no one ever thoughtof it before. You could sit down and twist a paper clip out of a hunkof soft wire, couldn't you? Easy as pie. But someone had to invent thething, first. All the great inventions have been simple. Look at thewheel."
"Okay, okay," I said, since I'd been sold on his gadget the momentI pictured that umbrella moving ferruleward like a whirling arrow."Still, it looks like you're getting something for nothing. A kind ofby-your-own-bootstraps maneuver...."
"An inventor," said Artie, quoting his favorite self-coined aphori
sm,"must never think like a scientist!"
"But"--I said, more to stem the tide I expected than to really make acoherent objection.
"An inventor," he went dreamily onward, "is essentially a dreamer; ascientist is an observer. An inventor tries to make a result he wantshappen; a scientist tries to tell the inventor that the result cannot beachieved."
"Please. Artie. Don't tell me about the bee again."
But Artie told me about the bumblebee, and how there were still somescientists who insisted, according to the principles of aerodynamics,that it was not constructed properly to enable it to fly. And abouthow men of this