THE MACHINE THAT FLOATS
By Joe Gibson
Illustrated by H. W. McCauley
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Other Worlds March1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.]
What if you invented a space ship? Would you give it to the world? Andwhat if you decide NOT to! Are you a criminal to be hunted down?
Bill Morrow fished his cigarettes out, shook one loose, and poked itbetween his lips. He lighted it with hands that shook badly, he leanedback on the workbench and blew smoke in a long, heavy sigh.
His gaze remained fixed on the compact little chunk of glitteringgrids, coils, and metal loops that floated in the center of the room.Floated, by Isaac Newton—floated!
It worked. It worked beautifully! He'd merely inserted the fourdry-cell flashlight batteries into their clamps and thumbed the switchon the little face-panel. The tiny pilot-light winked on, the needlejiggled on the single instrument dial—
And it worked. It had risen gently from the workbench, floating intothe air....
Then, seemingly, it had fostered a dislike for the workbench. It slidoff and bounced toward the floor—bounced, up and down in the air,gently—and floated on across the cellar toward the oil furnace in thecorner.
But as it approached the oil furnace, it had decided it didn't likethat either—so it deflected its course and floated toward the concretecellar wall.
But it didn't like the wall. So it reversed its course and retreated tothe center of the room. There it hovered, four feet above the cementfloor, four feet below the rafters of the cellar roof.
It hovered in mid-air.
Morrow stared at it, critically. He could capture it—get it betweenhimself and the wall, and reach out and grab it before it could slipaway—and touching it wouldn't harm him. The magneto-gravitic coilsdidn't need high voltage.
It was working on its lowest "volume" setting. The only word applicablewas "volume" because he used an ordinary volume-control grid and knobto adjust its power—and, again, "power" was the only applicable word.He might have to invent a few new words for it.
But on its lowest volume setting, it was supporting its ownweight—suspending itself in the Earth's gravitic field.
And since gravitic forces were also magnetic forces, he would weigh afraction of a pound lighter when he grabbed hold of the mechanism—justhe, himself, since he wore rubber-soled shoes. If he turned up itsvolume, it would exert greater influence on the molecular structureof itself and of his body—and perhaps of a few grains of dust onthe cement floor beneath his feet—by simple mass-attraction andconductivity.
Of course, "mass-attraction" and "conductivity" were also obsoleteterms—except that they described two different results of thesame natural phenomenon. The floating mechanism affected the basicphenomenon itself—
And
was the closest Einstein could come to explaining that!
Still, a word could be invented for it, Morrow supposed. Not that heunderstood what the new word was supposed to define—but then, hadEdison known what electricity was? No! He had mere