ONE OF THREE
A novel by
WESLEY LONG
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Startling Stories, March 1948.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER I
Contact!
The bit of whitish substance fluoresced, which of course was quitenatural. It also vibrated very faintly, which was unnatural. Atleast, this property had not been known previously—which is reallysaying little since the material had been compounded from artificialradioisotopes from the big piles. All too little was known about suchitems and the fact that this one was vibrating ever so faintly wheneverthe electron beam struck it was interesting both from a scientific anda lay curiosity standpoint.
Ed Bronson blinked a bit and decided that he had made some mistake. Ithad ceased to vibrate.
Ed cracked the experimental tube and removed the irregular lump. It hadbeen hoped to produce a more brilliant and higher-contrast phosphor fortelevision screens. But if it was going to vibrate—
Ed inserted the lump of phosphor back in the tube, pumped it andrestarted the whole gear.
It vibrated again, ever so faintly, against the bottom of the glass.Bronson listened carefully, his engineer's mind trying to identify thesound. It was not the sixteen kilocycle sweep circuit—not the onethat scanned the face of the television tube, because this was not acomplete set-up and there was no scanning energy necessary. It wasvaguely familiar.
It came and it went, that faint vibration. Sometimes it rattledviolently, other times it purred gently. Always very faintly ofcourse—for the term 'violently' means only by comparison.
Ed adjusted the field strength of the focusing magnet about the neckof the tube and the vibration strengthened to a noticeable degree.He juggled the controls but found he had hit the maximum or optimumresponse.
There was something about it.... It was like human whisperings toofaint to be understood but not too faint to be unheard. Like thebloop-bleep of a leaky faucet that seems to be saying things about youjust too quietly to be really understood. Like the imagined whisperingsheard by the paranoiac....
Ed laughed. Hearing things!
Like hades he was hearing things. It was really there. The lump ofphosphor moved a perceptible amount as a peak of rattle passed. Andyet....
Ed Bronson uncoiled his wiry six feet from the chair and crackedthe seal on the tube again. He lifted the top and squinted at thecrystalline whiteness that had been rattling so maddeningly.
He went to a cupboard at the end of his laboratory and rummaged amongsmall boxes that stood on one shelf—no two boxes seeming to be of thesame size. The upshot of this rummaging was that Bronson had to spendsome time repiling the boxes after he had found the contact microphonehe was seeking. Eventually, however, Ed Bronson was repumping the tube.
Inside was the crystal phosphor and fastened to it was a sensitivecontact microphone.
Once more Bronson keyed the switches, adjusted focus, and intensity.Then, from the speaker of the amplifier connected to the contactmicrophone, there came a cacophony of noise, howling whistles,deep-throated hums, and a horde of middle-register tones. Not music,and far from it. Just random—somethings.
Yet in the background, barely audible as such but most definitelyidentifiable, was the voice of a woman.
Any speaker would have ceased had she known h