‘That’s where the Transporter’s focused?’
‘Right there, on the system’s sun.’ Matty frowned. ‘Or at least that’s where it’s meant to be targeted.’
Another Gift turned up in Kansas, another in Texas.One was seen from a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, falling into the water.They still hadn’t worked out how to open them.They tried bombarding them with light, radio, x and gamma rays and they tried ultrasonic equipment on it too.They did all the same things to the Kansas object and the Texas object, but none of them gave up any of their secrets.
Eventually they put the original bundle into a vacuum chamber.That didn’t work either until they heated one side and froze the other.The thing peeled like a wrapper off candy, and for an instant the people outside the chamber were left gazing at something that looked like a cross between a suit of armour and a missile, before it blew up and caught fire.
They were left with a very odd pile of junk, but the next time
Cesare was on the phone.
‘Okay, I’m a busy man; there are a lot of people waiting to see me.What is it?’
The phone made noises.Cesare watched the Manhattan skyline, then he said, ‘Oh yeah?’
The phone made more noises.Cesare nodded.He inspected his fingernails and sighed.
While he was doing that, a general swinging on the end of a length of rope tied around his waist passed in front of Cesare’s office window waving plans for a new high-altitude bomber.Cesare looked into the phone.
‘What?’
The rope came back empty, and a sheaf of papers floated for a moment in front of the glass before the breeze caught them and took them away, drifting slowly down to the streets, eighty floors below.
‘And it’s just floating there?No engines?No noise?Nothing?’
The rope was hanging just outside the window, the remains of a poorly tied knot at the end.
‘Anti-gravity?Sure.’
Cesare put the phone down without another word. I am surrounded by idiots , he thought.
Gifts started popping into existence all over the place.Some were found in Europe, one in Australia, two in Africa, three in South America.
I.M.C.C had thirteen, eleven of them found in the USA and one each from South America and Africa.They found out how to open them without damaging the contents, and what they found were some very odd things indeed.
One kept trying to walk away on its five legs.It looked a little like a spider.Another just floated in mid-air without any apparent means of support.It vaguely resembled a typewriter with headlamps.Another was the size of a sub-compact automobile and tried to talk to everybody with blond hair in a language which appeared to consist mostly of grunts and wind-breaking noises.Yet another seemed to be a different size and shape every time you looked at it.All were very difficult to take apart, and the analysis of any bits that they did eventually succeed in removing didn’t make sense.
Professor Feldman sat beside the Police Chief who was waiting to see Cesare to ask whether he knew anything about the Air Force general who had, it seemed, jumped to his death from the roof of the building a few days ago.The professor had been talking about this with the policeman, and was shocked to discover that it was the same general he had been waiting with up to a week ago.The other general, who was still there waiting, said he couldn’t help in the investigation.
‘Checkmate,’ Professor Feldman said, after eight moves.
‘Are you sure?’ said the foreign minister, leaning closer to inspect the board.Feldman was about to reply when the young secretary came over and tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Professor Feldman?’
‘Yes?’
‘Would you like to go in?Mr Borges will see you now.’
The young secretary went back to his seat.The professor looked around at the others, aghast.They were glaring at him with that special contempt reserved by the envious for the undeserving.The remaining general sneered openly at him and glanced meaningfully down at the patchwork of ribbons that covered one side of his chest.The professor gathered up his papers in total silence and gave his lunchbox and magazines to the policeman.He pulled his tie straight and walked as steadily as he could to the door, still wondering why he had been summoned before people who had been waiting much longer than he had.
Cesare Borges straightened his tie, put the edition of National Geographic away, and emptied the small box containing the names of the rest of the people sitting in the outer-outer office into the waste-bin.Professor Feldman’s slip of paper was marking Cesare’s place in the magazine.
‘Well?’ he said when Professor Feldman walked into the room.Cesare motioned him to sit in a seat in front of the massive desk.Feldman sat down and cleared his throat.He took some papers and spread them deferentially on Cesare’s desk.
‘Well, sir, these are some of the projects we’ve been working on in this, the first phase of what I like to call -‘
‘What’s this?’ snorted Cesare, holding up a piece of paper with a drawing on it.
‘That?That’s ah that’s a new design of mud-press for constructing bricks in a low-technology situation.’
Cesare looked at him.He picked up another bit of paper.
‘And this?’
‘That’s a section through a new, low-cost, long-life toilet we’ve designed for when water is at a premium.’
‘You’ve spent two million of the firm’s money designing a john ?’ Cesare said huskily.
‘Well, sir, it’s very important.It’s just one component in a whole system of low-cost, high-use interdependent facilities which have been designed to be of facility in the Third World.Of course, the development costs will probably be recouped in production, though it was agreed that it would be very good for the overall image of the company and the associated universities if there was no actual profit component included in the eventual selling price.’
‘It was?’ said Cesare.
The professor coughed nervously. ‘So I believe, sir.That was at the last shareholders’ meeting.The grant for the project as a whole dates from then, although the preliminary viability study was first -‘
‘Just a minute,’ Cesare said, holding up one hand and putting the other to the buzzing intercom. ‘Yes?’
‘Call on line two, sir.’
Cesare picked up the phone.Feldman sat back and wondered what was going to happen.Cesare said, ‘Are you sure? And this could definitely be used?This had better be right.OK.Hold everything; I’m coming out there.’ He put down the phone and hit a button on the intercom set. ‘Get the helicopter and have the jet ready.’
‘Ah Mr Borges -‘ Professor Feldman began as Cesare opened a drawer in his desk and took out a travelling bag.Cesare held up one hand.
‘Not now, doc; I got to move.Just wait in the outer-outer office until I send for you.I won’t be long.So long.’
With that he was gone, into his private elevator and on up to the roof to his private helicopter which would fly him to an I.M.C.C. airstrip where his private jet would be waiting.The young secretary came into the office and ushered Professor Feldman and his papers back out into the outer-outer office, where nobody talked to him and the foreign minister and the Police Chief were playing chequers on his chess board.
‘Black Holes!’ Matriapoll said loudly.
‘What’s wrong, Matty?’ said Oney.The three of them were watching a complicated array of lights and screens in the control cabin.The system and surrounding space was shown diagrammatically, and a little red light had just appeared next to the third planet, counting out from the star.
‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong,’ said Matriapoll, clicking his brows with annoyance. ‘That Transporter is out-of-order.’
‘It’s not working, Matty?’
‘It’s working, but it isn’t working properly,’ said Matriapoll. ‘It’s supposed to be depositing the stuff here,’ he pointed to an orange area above the star’s surface, ‘but it isn’t doing that.It’s putting it down here.’ He pointed to another area of the screen; the third planet.
‘That’s bad?’
Matriapoll turned to look at the two Mates.They sat on the back of his seat and looked back at him, tilting their heads to one side.Twoey licked his face.
‘Don’t you two phnysthens ever listen to the briefings?’
‘Yes, of course we do.’
‘Then you ought to know that world’s inhabited.’
‘Oh it’s that one. We thought it was the one with the pretty rings.’
‘Good grief,’ breathed Matriapoll, and took the scout-ship towards the offending planet.
The fighter rose above the airfield without a sound.The generals looked pleased.Cesare pretended not to be impressed.The plane was moving horizontally now, high enough for the people in the revue stand to be able to see the flat disk attached to its underside.It was that disk which was providing all the power.The craft swept away over the Nevada desert.
Somebody handed Cesare a pair of binoculars and told him where to watch.All he could see was a white blockhouse in the bright sun, shimmering, miles away.