DOUBLE or NOTHING
By JACK SHARKEY
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Stories ofImagination May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidencethat the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The mind quails before certain contemplations?
The existence of infinity, for instance.
Or finity, for that matter.
Or 50,000 batches of cornflakes dumped from the sky.
I don't know why I listen to Artie Lindstrom. Maybe it's because attimes (though certainly not—I hope—on as permanent a basis as Artie)I'm as screwy as he is. At least, I keep letting myself get sucked intohis plans, every time he's discovered the "invention that will changethe world". He discovers it quite a bit; something new every time.And, Artie having a natural mechanical aptitude that would probablyrate as point-nine-nine-ad-infinitum on a scale where one-point-oh wasperfection, all his inventions work. Except—
Well, take the last thing we worked on. (He usually includes me in hisplans because, while he's the better cooker-upper of these gadgets,I've got the knack for building them. Artie can't seem to slip a radiotube into its socket without shattering the glass, twist a screwdriverwithout gouging pieces out of his thumb, nor even solder an electricalconnection without needing skin-grafts for the hole he usually burns inhis hand.)
So we're a team, Artie and me. He does the planning, I do theconstructing. Like, as I mentioned, the last thing we worked on. Heinvented it; I built it. A cap-remover (like for jars and ketchupbottles). But not just a clamp-plus-handle, like most of the samegadgets. Nope, this was electronic, worked on a tight-beam radio-wave,plus something to do with the expansion coefficients of the metalsmaking up the caps, so that, from anyplace in line-of-sight of her home,the housewife could shove a stud, and come home to find all the capsunscrewed on her kitchen shelves, and the contents ready for getting at.It did, I'll admit, have a nice name: The Teletwist.
Except, where's the point in unscrewing caps unless you're physicallypresent to make use of the contents of the jars? I mentioned this toArtie when I was building the thing, but he said, "Wait and see. It'llbe a novelty, like hula hoops a couple of decades back. Novelties alwayscatch on."
Well, he was wrong. When we finally found a manufacturer softheadedenough to mass-produce a few thousand of the gadgets, total sales forthe entire country amounted to seventeen. Of course, the price was kindof prohibitive: Thirteen-fifty per Teletwist. Why would a housewifelay that kind of money on the line when she'd already, for a two-bucklicense, gotten a husband who could be relied upon (well, most of thetime) to do the same thing for her?
Not, of course, that we didn't finally make money on the thing. It wasjust about that time, you'll remember, that the Imperial Martian Fleetdecided that the third planet from Sol was getting a bit too powerful,and they started orbiting our planet with ultimatums. And while theywere waiting for our answer, our government quietly purchased Artie'spatent, made a few little adjustments on his cap-twister, and the nextthing the Martians knew, all their airlocks were busily unscrewingthemselves with nothing outside them except hungry vacuum. It was alsothe last thing the Martians knew.
So Artie's ideas seem to have their uses, all right. Only, for somereason, Artie never thinks of the proper