“Actors don’t really count for much, do they?”
“I don’t know,” said Uranov slowly. “Sometimes I think they’re a bunch of built-up parasites, and yet— It’s like wondering if an individual counts for much when the World State is so perfect. You get into trouble— But come on. You’ve seen enough to make talk with S.B. Now let’s call on Doc Wojcek.”
They had apparently interrupted a scene when they entered the laboratory. There was dead silence. The bald but sturdy-looking scientist fiddled uncomfortably with the articles on his desk, and seemed loath to raise his eyes to the newcomers. At last the sharp-faced man with the brilliant ascot—unusually brilliant even for Sollywood— said, “Hi, Hesky.”
“Hi, Stag.” There was no friendliness in Uranov’s voice.
“S.B. wants to see you.”
“I know. Be there in a minute. Just showing Garrett here around the works.”
The sharp-faced man rose. His hand rested for a moment palm up on the table. “Well, Doc? All clear?”
“All clear,” said Dr. Wojcek hesitantly.
“Then I’ll be going. See you around, Hesky.”
Something stayed in the room after his departure, an almost physical aura of oppression. “Who was that?” Garrett asked.
“Stag Hartle,” Uranov explained. “One of our choicer jackals. Got his name because he started out in Sollywood bootlegging stag epics—you can see the possibilities in them? One of his actresses died of what he put her through—”
“And he never made a one-way trip?”
“Something happened. Strings— Nothing ever proved. Stag knows how to make himself useful. But he’s theoretically leading a reformed life now.”
Garrett could still see that hand palm up in the light of the laboratory. To the trained eye, the traces of paraderm on the fingers were clearly visible. Those who lead reformed lives do not usually need to conceal their fingerprints.
“I wonder—” said Dr. Wojcek.
“Sorry. I got sidetracked. Dr. Wojcek, this is Gan Garrett. New technical advisor on history. I’m showing him around the plant—thought he’d like to see your setup.”
Wojcek nodded. He shrugged his shoulders as though to cast off the burden of Atlas. “Of course,” he began, “we don’t do any interesting theoretical work here— all purely practical study of needed technical developments. But still we have some odd angles. For instance—” As he spoke, his depression lifted. His absorption in his work outweighed his cares, and he was a brilliant and charming guide through the wonders of the laboratory.
At last, “Do you do much work with lovestonite?” Garrett asked casually.
“Not to speak of,” said Dr. Wojcek.
Uranov made a curious gesture with two fingers.
Dr. Wojcek lifted one sparse eyebrow. “But a little,” he added. “In fact, I’ve been carrying on some rather interesting experiments lately. Do you know much about the properties of lovestonite?”
“Very little. I gathered that it had practically none worth speaking about.”
“From a commercial point of view, young man, that’s true enough. But it does have one interesting characteristic.” He led them over to a corner of the laboratory where a dark sheet of vitreous plastic, like the material of the swizard, stood in a frame. Wojcek stationed himself beside it like a lecturer in a class. “Now what, gentlemen, is the speed of light?”
“Three hundred thousand kilometers per second,” Garrett answered automatically.
“True, but not wholly true. Three hundred thousand kilometers per second—in what?”
“In what? Why, in air, I suppose.”
“To be precise, in a vacuum. For all practical purposes, it is the same in the ordinary atmosphere. And the speed of light is such a convenient constant in theory that we tend to think of it as a constant in fact. But in water, for instance, the speed of light is only two hundred thousand k.p.s., and in carbon disulphide, a mere hundred and twenty thousand.”
“And in lovestonite?” Garrett asked.
“In lovestonite, normal untampered-with lovestonite, the speed of light is only seventy-five thousand kilometers per second. Now the differences in these speeds are not noticeable to the naked eye.” He passed his arm behind the sheet of lovestonite. The plastic was dark but transparent, like smoked glass. “You perceive, of course, no difference between the parts of my arm behind and outside of this sheet, though actually you see one about one one-billionth of a second later than the other. The difference is large in theory, but negligible in fact.
“However, we have discovered one practical use for this difference. A lens made partly of normal glass and partly of lovestonite produces a very curious photographic effect. The result does not seem out of focus, but somehow just the least bit—how shall I put it—perturbing, wrong. We spent months on the exact structure of such a lens, and I think the results have been most satisfactory. You recall the supernatural scenes in ‘The Thing from the Past’? Well, their incomparable eeriness which the critics praised so, was due to the use of part-lovestonite lenses.” He paused.
“And that’s all you know about lovestonite?”
Dr. Wojcek hesitated, and again Uranov gestured. “Well, I . . . I did make an interesting discovery quite by accident. My assistant was carrying on some other work near the lovestonite while I was engaged in some measurements, and we found that an electromagnetic field exerts a startling effect. It varies, of course, with the density of the field and the direction of the lines of force, and we have by no means exhausted our experiments as yet—” He stopped, with a sudden shock of realization.
“Go on.”
“Yes— Yes—We have been able to increase the speed of light through lovestonite almost to the normal three hundred thousand, and to reduce it to as low as five thousand. The possibilities are—” He broke off again.
Garrett put his reaction together with the scene they had just interrupted. “So Stag Hartle has given you orders to lay off the lovestonite experiments?”
Dr. Wojcek did not reply with a direct yes or no. “What can I do?” he asked, expecting no answer. “Hartle has influence. My business here is to do what I am told, not to pursue promising lines of experimental theory.”
Garrett frowned, thinking over this newest fact
