“Well, yes and no. Are you familiar with general field theory?”
“Criminy, no!”
“Well! — that makes it rather hard to talk, Major Ardmore. Dr.
Ledbetter was investigating the theoretically possible additional spectra — ”
“Additional spectra?”
“Yes. You see, most of the progress in physics in the last century and a half has been in dealing with the electromagnetic spectrum, light, radio, X-ray — ”
“Yes, yes, I know that, but how about these additional spectra?”
“That’s what I am trying to tell you,” answered Calhoun with a slight note of annoyance. “General field theory predicts the possibility of at least three more entire spectra. You see, there are three types of energy fields known to exist in space: electric, magnetic, and gravitic or gravitational. Light, X-rays, all such radiations, are part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Theory indicates the possibility of analogous spectra between magnetic and gravitic, between electric and gravitic, and finally, a three-phase type between electric-magnetio-gravitic fields. Each type would constitute a complete new spectrum, a total of three new fields of learning.
“If there are such, they would presumably have properties quite as remarkable as the electromagnetic spectrum and quite different. But we have no instruments with which to detect such spectra, nor do we even know that such spectra exist.”
“You know,” commented Ardmore, frowning a little, “I’m just a layman in these matters and don’t wish to set my opinion up against yours, but this seems like a search for the little man who wasn’t there. I had supposed that this laboratory was engaged in the single purpose of finding a military weapon to combat the vortex beams and A-bomb rockets of the PanAsians. I am a bit surprised to find the man whom you seem to regard as having been your ace researcher engaged in an attempt to discover things that he was not sure existed and whose properties were totally unknown. It doesn’t seem reasonable. ”
Calhoun did not answer; he simply looked supercilious and smiled irritatingly. Ardmore felt put in the wrong and was conscious of a warm flush spreading up toward his face. “Yes, yes,” he said hastily, “I know I’m wrong — whatever it was that Ledbetter found, it killed a couple of hundred men. Therefore it is a potential military weapon — but wasn’t he just mugging around in the dark?”
“Not entirely,” Calhoun replied, with a words-of-one-syllable air. “The very theoretical considerations that predict additional spectra allow of some reasonable probability as to the general nature of their properties. I know that
Ledbetter had originally been engaged in a search for a means of setting up tractor and pressor beams — that would be in the magneto-gravitic spectrum — but the last couple of weeks he appeared to be in a condition of intense excitement and radically changed the direction of his experimentation. He was close-mouthed; I got no more than a few hints from the transformations and developments which he had me perform for him. However” — Calhoun drew a bulky loose-leaf notebook from an inner pocket “he kept complete notes of his experiments. We should be able to follow his work and perhaps infer his hypotheses.”
Young Wilkie, who was seated beside Calhoun, bent toward him. “Where did you find these, doctor?” he asked excitedly.
“On a bench in his laboratory. If you had looked you would have seen them.”
Wilkie ignored the thrust; he was already eating up the symbols set down in the opened book. “But that is a radiation formula — ”
“Of course it is — d’you think I’m a fool?”
“But it’s all wrong!”
“It may be from your standpoint; you may be sure that it was not to Dr.
Ledbetter.”
They branched off into argument that was totally meaningless to Ardmore; after some minutes he took advantage of a pause to say, “Gentlemen!
Gentlemen! just a moment. I can see that I am simply keeping you from your work; I’ve learned all that I can just now. As I understand it, your immediate task is to catch up with Dr. Ledbetter and to discover what it is that his apparatus does — without killing yourselves in the process. Is that right?”