Pump Station. Lamont’s abrasive personality didn’t collect sympathy, but some existed nevertheless.
Garrison himself was embarrassed. He was a quiet-spoken, amiable young man who clearly wanted no trouble and who now stood in the doorway of Lamont’s lab with an expression that had more than a small component of apprehension in it.
He said, “Hey, Pete, can I have a few words with you?”
“As many as you like,” said Lamont, frowning and avoiding a direct eye-to-eye glance.
Garrison came in and sat down. “Pete,” he said, “I can’t turn down the appointment but I want you to know I didn’t push for it. It came as a surprise.”
“Who’s asking you to turn it down? I don’t give a damn.”
“Pete. It’s Hallam. If I turned it down, it would go to someone else, not you. What have you done to the old man?”
Lamont rounded on the other. “What do you think of Hallam? What kind of man is he, in your opinion?”
Garrison was caught by surprise. He pursed his lips and rubbed his nose. “Well—” he said, and let the sound fade off.
“Let me tell you. The man’s a phony! He’s a fraud! He’s got this reputation and this position of his and he’s sitting on it in a panic. He knows that I see through him and that’s what he has against me.”
Garrison gave out a small, uneasy laugh, “You haven’t gone up to him and said—”
“No, I haven’t said anything directly to him,” said Lamont, morosely. “Some day I will. But he can tell. He knows I’m one person he isn’t fooling even if I don’t say anything.”
“But, Pete, where’s the point in letting him know it? I don’t say I think he’s the world’s greatest, either, but where’s the sense in broadcasting it? Butter him up a little. He’s got your career in his hands.”
“Has he? I’ve got his reputation in mine. I’m going to show him up. I’m going to strip him.”
“How?”
“My business!” muttered Lamont, who at the moment had not the slightest idea as to how.
“But that’s ridiculous,” said Garrison. “You can’t win. He’ll just destroy you. Even if he isn’t an Einstein or an Oppenheimer really, he’s more than either to the world in general. He is the Father of the Electron Pump to Earth’s two-billion population and nothing you can possibly do will affect them as long as the Electron Pump is the key to human paradise. While that’s true, Hallam can’t be touched and you’re crazy if you think he can. What the hell, Pete, tell him he’s great and eat crow. Don’t be another Denison!”
“I tell you what, Henry,” said Lamont, in sudden fury. “Why not mind your own business?”
Garrison rose suddenly and left without a word. Lamont had made another enemy; or, at least, lost another friend. The price, however, was right, he finally decided, for one remark of Garrison had set the ball rolling in another direction.
Garrison had said, in essence, “… as long as the Electron Pump is the key to human paradise … Hallam can’t be touched.”
With that clanging in his mind, Lamont for the first time turned his attention away from Hallam and placed it on the Electron Pump.
Was the Electron Pump the key to human paradise? Or was there, by Heaven, a catch?
Everything in history had had a catch. What was the catch to the Electron Pump?
Lamont knew enough of the history of para-theory to know that the matter of “a catch” had not gone unexplored. When it was first announced that the basic over-all change in the Electron Pump was the Pumping of electrons from the Universe to the para-Universe, there had not been wanting those who said immediately, “But what will happen when all the electrons have been Pumped?”
This was easily answered. At the largest reasonable rate of Pumping, the electron supply would last for at least a trillion trillion trillion years—and the entire Universe, together, presumably, with the para-Universe, wouldn’t last a tiny fraction of that time.
The next objection was more sophisticated. There was no possibility of Pumping all the electrons across. As the electrons were Pumped, the para-Universe would gain a net negative charge, and the Universe a net positive charge. With each year, as this difference in charge grew, it would become more difficult to Pump further electrons against the force of the opposed charge-difference. It was, of course, neutral atoms that were actually Pumped but the distortion of the orbital electrons in the process created an effective charge