Claire Escott had ignored her father's warning against involvement with her fiancé Mark Rowland. However, she little realised the extent of the scientist's corroding ambition when he invents a method of matter transmission. And it was not long after their marriage that Rowland's ruthless pursuit of a scientific empire encompassed a horrifying murder. But that was only the start of things. Mark's scientific genius and obsessive ambition to go one step further eventually led to the conquest of space, culminating in the mass destruction of an interstellar war!
Release date:
March 31, 2015
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
84
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To his fellow workers, and the world in general, Mark Rowland was a radio-television technician. Employed by the World Broadcasting Company—the W.B.C.—of London, he filled an important, even if not greatly publicised, position as resident maintenance engineer, and he knew his job. In fact he was a specialist at it. There had been times when the cleverest radio engineers in the world had consulted him, and he had never failed to solve a problem.
There was nothing miraculous about his ability. He was no super-genius of radio-telegraphy, but he had certainly spent, all his time since being about ten years of age improving his mind upon this specialized line—radio, and its many ramifications. Now, at thirty, he was prepared to put a lifetime’s study to the test.
For there was a side to Mark Rowland known only to two people—Claire Escott, his fiancée, and Ted Shepley, his best friend. Claire, Mark’s main interest had the intelligence to appreciate that Mark knew what he was talking about and always did her best to encourage him—though perhaps, since he was a young man with devouring ambition it would have been better if she’d refrained. In these days of comparative youth she did not appreciate the lengths to which Mark might go with sufficient incentive.
It was on a June evening in 1965 when Mark revealed the “other side” to his apparently humdrum life. He had met Claire by pre-arrangement in Regent’s Park—it being his night off from the W.B.C.—and at first they merely exchanged the pleasantries of any engaged couple as they strolled along in the evening warmth; then presently Claire began to sense that her husband-to-be was labouring under an extreme tension. She looked at him curiously.
“Anything the matter, Mark?” She hugged more tightly the arm with which he held her. “You’re like a bomb about to explode.”
“Just how I feel,” he smiled; and did not explain immediately.
Claire did not press the matter, knowing he would talk when he was ready. They continued walking—she smallish and blonde in her matter-of-fact summer two-piece; and he tall, gaunt, and somewhat untidy. There was a generous ugliness about him which most people liked. His mouth was large, his nose hooked, and his eyes a penetrating grey. Redemption lay in the sweep of his forehead and his direct speech. He always knew what he meant, and said so.
“There’s a form,” he said abruptly, nodding. “Time we rested.”
Claire nodded rather meekly and they made their way to it and settled down. For a moment or two Mark was silent, his long legs thrust out in front of him, arms folded, his eyes watching gambolling children under the trees in the distance.
“It won’t be long now, Claire, before we can marry,” he said at length, glancing at her.
“That’s hardly news, Mark. Certainly it doesn’t explain why you’re marching around like Napoleon before launching a victorious offensive.”
He ignored the levity in her tone—or else did not notice it. He had no humour in his make-up.
“What makes our marriage a certainty is a discovery I have made which will net a fortune,” he explained. “Up to now I have been making the excuse of lack of finance the reason for our remaining engaged.”
Claire’s hazel eyes studied him frankly. He was not looking at her now. She only saw his lean, powerful profile, a white collar which was soiled, a necktie on the slant, and a tweed jacket ready for dry cleaning.
“Sooner we get married, the better,” she said.
“You’ve been wondering for a long time why I’ve pleaded shortage of funds I suppose. You haven’t said so openly, but you must have thought it.”
“Well, I—I know you must get well paid,” Claire admitted.
“I do—reasonably well, but every cent has been ploughed back into private experiments, and now they’re going to pay a big dividend. The man with the original ideas makes the fortunes, Claire, and I have the most original idea of the present decade.”
“Oh …” Claire waited whilst he brooded. “And—and what is it? Or can’t you tell me?”
At this he turned to look at her. “Outside of a very trusted friend, you are the first person to know of this discovery. You would have been really the first, only it demanded a scientist in partnership with me. To sum up briefly, I’ve carried radio-television to its ultimate possibility—or nearly ultimate, depending on later investigations—and have transmitted a block of cooking salt from here to Brighton.”
If Mark’s manner had not been so serious, his grey eyes so piercing whilst he spoke, Claire would have laughed outright. The science went right over her head and all she saw was the cooking salt. Even as it was a smile quirked her pretty mouth.
“It isn’t funny,” Mark stated flatly.
“I’m sure it isn’t meant to be, Mark, but— What does it achieve? Is it revolutionary?”
“It is revolutionary insofar that the block of salt was never visible as a block of salt during its journey. It was electronic waves, and nothing else.”
“Now you’re being scientific. I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about.”
Mark hunched closer. “It’s radio-television in a new form. Or, if it is simpler for you to grasp, it is like radio transmission, only instead of transmitting sounds—or vision, in the case of television—I transmit inorganic compounds.”
Dimly Claire began to see the point. She caught her breath slightly.
“But, Mark, how on earth can you?”
“Well the actual scientific details would turn you dizzy, so I’d better water them down for you. In radio, the original sounds are broken down into electronic waves, distributed electromagnetically, and re-built up in the receiver into the original sounds.”
“All right then. In television we get much the same thing—the breaking down of the original into electronic patterns, the distribution to a distance, and the reassembly into the original scene or picture. Now, for long enough, I’ve believed that if we can transmit sound and vision over a distance we ought also to be able to transmit solids. And that is what I have done, the experimental solid being a block of cooking salt. I chose that because at any vibration affecting it the salt would break up. But it didn’t. It arrived under the receiver in Brighton still in its maker’s wrapping. A perfect example of solid transmission over fifty miles!”
“To call it marvellous is an understatement,” Claire said, “but I still don’t see how you do it.”
“I simply use radio methods, with variations. I break down the object electrically into its atomic make-up or pattern. In this form it is held in what is called an ‘electronic parcel’ by means of magnetic forces; then it is ‘transmitted’ by the ordinary radio electronic process and picked up by the receiver at a given distance. Distance is governed by the power of dissemination used. At the receiving end the ‘parcel’ is undone and reformed into its original atomic make-up. The material pattern reforms identically, of course, and there you are. It is all scientific, accurate, and the outcome of years of trial and error in experiment.”
Even now Claire could not altogether understand. Most certainly she did not realize that Mark Rowland had accomplished something ranking in importance, and possible future development, with the experiments of Marconi, Tesla, and other pioneers of radio. Nor did she see that in sending a block of salt unharmed to Brighton Mark had repeated, on a grander scale, the success of Marconi when he had sent a wireless signal across the Channel.
“Hasn’t it registered?” Mark asked bluntly, after a while.
“Not altogether.” Claire gave a smile and laid a hand on his arm. “I’m not much gifted scientifically, Mark. I suppose you’ll sell the invention and that will be the dividend you were speaking of?”
“Sell it? Sell it!” Mark nearly hooted, “Great heavens, no! I’m going to form a company and call it the Rowland Electronic Transmission Company. I’ll be the managing director, and you and Ted Shepley will be my co-directors. I’m putting all the money I can spare into it and so’s Ted. If you wish to put cash in, okay. If not, all right. I thought you’d want to be cut in on it, though. This business is going to pay enormous dividends. I shan’t be satisfied until I’ve run the air, land, and sea freight routes out of business. When I’ve got that far I’ll really be something!”
Claire frowned. “What has freight got to do with it?”
“Do you not understand, my dear, that anything—no matter what!—can be transmitted by my process for any desired distance? What is more, the transmission takes place at the speed of light. One hundred and eighty-six thousand miles in a second. Instantaneous delivery to any point on the Earth! Think of that for business firms. Instant delivery! No more hold-ups. Weight and size doesn’t signify. Given enough power and big enough transmitters and receivers I could transplant the Empire State Building to the North Pole in an instant … That of course is wild exaggeration, but you see what I mean?”
“I believe I do,” Claire whispered, gazing before her.
“Once get that established,” Mark went on tensely, “and I take the next step. The t. . .
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