The Stardroppers by John Brunner Read Free Book Online Page B

as he left the car and followed Redvers toward the nearest of the low buildings.
    What, he wondered, was Rainshaw going to be like? And was it safe to ask how he felt about letting loose his discovery on the world? For good—for ill? What way was there of telling, when the same device could afflict the girl he’d seen drawing those nonsensical spirals on the pavement in Oxford Street, yet bring such a look of fulfillmentto Lilith’s face, like a thirsty desert traveler reaching an oasis?
    Of course, as he’d been informed, Rainshaw had never claimed his discovery was other than a chance one. He had been working on the relationship between gravity and magnetism, which accounted for his having brought together a powerful magnet, a chamber containing a hard vacuum into which he was introducing counted quantities of ionized and non-ionized particles, and delicate instruments for tracking those particles, whose signals required amplification before they could be recorded.
    He also had the research scientist’s prime gift: a talent for seeing things when they happened, rather than what he expected to happen. Finding signals being generated in a way he could not account for, he hadn’t done what the majority of people in his place might have done—shipped his equipment back to the manufacturers with a letter of complaint—but instead had followed them up, determined to isolate their cause. It was a matter of a few weeks to eliminate the nonessentials and package “the Rainshaw effect” in a box. It was a matter of months before Berghaus formulated a theory which fitted the facts, even if it didn’t properly explain them. But it seemed as though it was only a matter of hours thereafter that the Rainshaw effect was forgotten and the stardropper was part of man’s way of life.
    Dan’s first impression of the scientist was disappointing. He was a lean man, hollow-cheeked in a way which suggested he was not naturally thin but had worried himself into losing weight. He received them in an office from which a half-open door gave access to a laboratory, where a man and a girl could be seen working on a breadboard device and heard talking in low voices, and Rainshaw’s eyes kept straying that way as though to make it clear he was enduring, not enjoying, the intrusion of these visitors. Having conversed politely but icily for some minutes, he contrived to impress on Dan the unmistakable impression that he tolerated such events purely because he was now a state employee, but would far rather have been free to tell them to go to hell.
    Then, just as he was about ready to count the visit a waste of time, Dan happened to mention Berghaus.
    Rainshaw’s frozen manner changed on the instant. “You know Berghaus?’ he demanded. “Were you a student of his?”
    “I guess you might say so,” Dan exaggerated. “Certainly he taught me what little I know about stardroppers.”
    “He taught all of us, including me, what we know about stardroppers,” Rainshaw declared, and added in passing, “What a ridiculous name that is—don’t you agree?” But his annoyance at the nickname his discovery had been afflicted with didn’t wipe the new warmth form his voice. “Oh, yes—Berghaus is purely a genius! I know he maintains it was no more than a guess which led him to link his theory of precognition with my own peculiar discovery, but since then everything I’ve turned up, at least, can be tied neatly into his hypotheses. Oh dear! I do wish you’d mentioned this when you first came in. I must have been awfully churlish to you. But, you see, I thought I was dealing with another of this string of nosy officials who’ve been plaguing me for months and months.” He beamed. “What precisely is it you wanted to talk to me about?”
    Dan breathed a silent sigh of relief. He said, “To be candid, Doctor, I want a straight answer to a question I suspect doesn’t have one. I mainly want to know whether you yourself believe these claims