Nevertheless, he made progress. Extreme short-wave radiation had a definite effect on the nervous system – a double effect: it produced ‘ghost’ pulsations in the neurons, Insufficient to accomplish muscular motor response, but, he suspected, strong enough to keep the body in a continual state of inhibited nervous excitation; and, secondly, a living specimen which had been subjected to this process for any length of time showed a definite, small but measurable, lowering in the efficiency of its neural impulses. If it had been an electrical circuit, he would have described the second effect as a decrease in insulating efficiency
The sum of these two effects on the subject individual was a condition of mild tiredness, somewhat similar to the malaise of the early stages of pulmonary tuberculosis. The victim did not feel sick; he simply lacked pep. Strenuous bodily activity was not impossible; it was simply distasteful; it required too much effort, too much willpower
But an orthodox pathologist would have been forced to report that the victim was in perfect health – a little run-down, perhaps, but nothing wrong with him. Too sedentary a life, probably. What he needed was fresh air, sunshine, and healthy exercise
Doc Grimes alone had guessed that the present, general, marked preference for a sedentary life was the effect and not the cause of the prevailing lack of vigour. The change had been slow, at least as slow as the increase in radiation in the air. The individuals concerned had noticed it, if at all, simply as an indication that they were growing a little bit older,‘slowing down, not so young as I used to be’. And they were content to slow down; it was more comfortable than exertion
Grimes had first begun to be concerned about it when he began to notice that all of his younger patients were ‘the bookish type’. It was all very well for a kid to like to read books, he felt, but a normal boy ought to be out doing a little hell raising too. What had become of the sand-lot football games, the games of scrub, the clothes-tearing activity that had characterized his own boyhood? Damn it, a kid ought not to spend all his time poring over a stamp collection
Waldo was beginning to find the answer
The nerve network of the body was not dissimilar to antennae. Like antennae, it could and did pick up electromagnetic waves. But the pickup was evidenced not as induced electrical current, but as nerve pulsation – impulses which were maddeningly similar to, but distinctly different from, electrical current. Electromotive force could be used in place of nerve impulses to activate muscle tissue, but emf was not nerve impulse. For one thing they travelled at vastly different rates of speed. Electrical current travcls at a speed approaching that of light; neural impulse is measured in feet per second
Waldo felt that somewhere in this matter of speed lay the key to the problem
He was not permitted to ignore the matter of McLeod’s fantastic skycar as long as he had intended to. Dr Rambeau called him up. Waldo accepted the call, since it was routed from the laboratories of NAPA. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ he demanded of the image
Rambeau looked around cautiously. ‘Sssh! Not so loud,’ he whispered. ‘They might be listening.
‘Who might be? And who are you?
‘“They” are the ones who are doing it. Lock your doors at night. I’m Dr Rambeau.
‘Dr Rambeau? Oh yes. Well, Doctor, what is the meaning of this intrusion?
The doctor leaned forward until he appeared about to fall out of the stereo picture. ‘I’ve learned how to do it,’ he said tensely
‘How to do what?
‘Make the deKalbs work. The dear, dear deKalbs.’ He suddenly thrust his hands at Waldo, while clutching frantically with his fingers. ‘They go like this: Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle!
Waldo felt a normal impulse to cut the man off, but it was overruled by a fascination as to what he would say next. Rambeau continued, ‘Do you know why? Do you? Riddle me that.
‘Why?
Rambeau placed a finger beside his nose and smiled roguishly. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know? Wouldn’t you give a pretty to know? But I’ll tell you!