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life at the expense of his own, so that's not new. "How would you describe the real Gerald Mattin?," you ask. How would I describe the real Gerald Mattin? I'm not sure the words are in the language. And if they are, you would not want to offer that particular 'personal touch' to your young readers.
    What can I say? I think the best thing is to tell you here—and for the first time—the full story of my association with Mattin; then you can use any of it as you think fit. Don't be surprised if it doesn't match the standard accounts too well. And don't get worried about the biography I'm sending for your book—I need the money, and what you will receive tells the well-known official version of Mattin the Great and Noble Scientist.
    When it all began twenty-five years ago I still had my offices on K Street. My business partner had recently vacated his office as a result of an unsuccessful trading venture in pharmaceuticals. He was on the Venus terra-forming project, three years hard labor without the option, and I was trying to make sense of his business records and client lists when Mattin breezed in.
    No appointment, of course. He would never have dreamed of calling in advance. He barged in without knocking, said "Henry Carver?," and helped himself to a chair when I nodded. I looked at him without much enthusiasm—as a potential client he was not promising material. About twenty-four years old, thin as a stick, with dry black hair and a face that was still fighting the last battles with acne. He was smoking a black cigar that looked as thin and wicked as he did.
    "I'm Gerald Mattin. I'm here to give you a chance to make fifty million credits, Carver," he said.
    Well, you can't always go by appearances, and politeness is free. "Mr. Mattin, you certainly know how to catch a man's attention," I began smoothly. "But you have the advantage of me. You know my profession and I don't know yours. What is your line of business?"
    "I've got a system for instantaneous point-to-point transfer of objects. Energy-free, in the right circumstances. Distance not a factor."
    If I'd known a bit more science that's when I'd have thrown him out of the office. I groped around in my memory for childhood reading.
    "You mean—teleportation?"
    "Naw. None of that 'think yourself some other place' rubbish. This is solid math, solid physics, and state-of-the-art engineering. Ever hear of Ernst Mach, or Minkowski, or Weyl or E.A. Milne?"
    Milne rang another bell in my childhood memory bank. I thought of Eeyore and decided Mattin must be off his head. I shook mine and he seemed pleased.
    "Good. I want a working partner who knows not too much science and no general relativity. If you'd given the wrong answer I'd have been out of that door. The people who gave me your name were sure you'd have a fifth grade education in physics." He grinned nastily. "You also have a reputation for being a tricky lawyer, a man with good contacts for investments and a strong taste for credits. Unless you want to deny that lot, let's talk business."
    He was brash, arrogant and rude. But he had mentioned fifty million credits and that didn't happen every day. I suppressed my irritation.
    "Mr. Mattin, I am sure that you did not come to see me merely to offer gratuitous insults. You have a method for moving objects—a matter-transmitter, you might say. Now, if you want me to act as your legal representative in pursuing patents and corporate financing from transportation groups there will be several formalities. First, my fee for such work is a ten percent carried interest, plus expenses for patent search, filing fees and travel."
    "Carver, you're a raving madman." He stood up abruptly and walked over to stub his cigar in my window pot of prize fibrous-rooting begonias. I mentally added a percent to my fee. "In the first place, you'll get two percent and no expenses, take it or leave it. This thing will be worth two or three billion credits five years from now, conservatively.