EMPIRE

Read EMPIRE for Free Online

Book: Read EMPIRE for Free Online
Authors: Clifford D. Simak
collapsed, you see. Maybe the wrench was too big for it to handle. And when the field collapsed the wrench gained a new time-dimension. I heard it. We have to find it.”
    The three of them pounded up the stairs to the room where Russ had heard the thump. There was nothing on the floor. They searched the room from end to end, then the other rooms. There was no wrench.
    At the end of an hour Greg went back to the main laboratory, brought back a portable fluoroscope.
    “Maybe this will do the trick,” he announced bleakly.
    * * * *
    It did. They found the wrench inside the space between the walls!
    Russ stared at the shadow in the fluoroscope plate. Undeniably it was the shadow of the wrench.
    “Fourth dimension,” he said. “Transported in time.”
    The muscles in Greg’s cheeks were tensed, that old flame of excitement burning in his eyes, but otherwise his face was the mask of old, the calm, almost terrible mask that had faced a thousand dangers.
    “Power and time,” he corrected.
    “If we can control it,” said Russ.
    “Don’t worry. We can control it. And when we can, it’s the biggest thing we’ve got.”
    Wilson licked his lips, dredged a cigarette out of a pocket.
    “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll hit for Frisco tonight. This tooth of mine is getting worse.”
    “Sure, can’t keep an aching tooth,” agreed Russ, thinking of the wrench while talking.
    “Can I take your ship?” asked Wilson.
    “Sure,” said Russ.
    Back in the laboratory they rebuilt the field, dropped little ball bearings in it. The ball bearings disappeared. They found them everywhere — in the walls, in tables, in the floor. Some, still existing in their new time-dimension, hung in mid-air, invisible, intangible, but there.
    Hours followed hours, with the sheet of data growing. Math machines whirred and chuckled and clicked. Wilson departed for San Francisco with his aching tooth. The other two worked on. By dawn they knew what they were doing. Out of the chaos of happenstance they were finding rules of order, certain formulas of behavior, equations of force.
    The next day they tried heavier, more complicated things and learned still more.
    A radiogram, phoned from the nearest spaceport, forty miles distant, informed them that Wilson would not be back for a few days. His tooth was worse than he had thought, required an operation and treatment of the jaw.
    “Hell,” said Russ, “just when he could be so much help.”
    With Wilson gone the two of them tackled the controlling device, labored and swore over it. But finally it was completed.
    Slumped in chairs, utterly exhausted, they looked proudly at it.
    “With that,” said Russ, “we can take an object and transport it any place we want. Not only that, we can pick up any object from an indefinite distance and bring it to us.”
    “What a thing for a lazy burglar,” Greg observed sourly.
    Worn out, they gulped sandwiches and scalding coffee, tumbled into bed.
    ----
    The outdoor camp meeting was in full swing. The evangelist was in his top form. The sinners’ bench was crowded. Then suddenly, as the evangelist paused for a moment’s silence before he drove home an important point, the music came. Music from the air. Music from somewhere in the sky. The soft, heavenly music of a hymn. As if an angels’ chorus were singing in the blue.
    The evangelist froze, one arm pointing upward, with index finger ready to sweep down and emphasize his point. The sinners kneeling at the bench were petrified. The congregation was astounded.
    The hymn rolled on, punctuated, backgrounded by deep celestial organ notes. The clear voice of the choir swept high to a bell-like note.
    “Behold!” shrieked the evangelist. “Behold, a miracle! Angels singing for us! Kneel! Kneel and pray!”
    Nobody stood.
    * * * *
    Andy McIntyre was drunk again. In the piteous glare of mid-morning, he staggered homeward from the poker party in the back of Steve Abram’s harness shop. The light

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