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both on the theoretical nature of the radiated power system and the
deKalb receptors which were the keystone of the system, and also on the
various cases of erratic performance of which they had lately been
guilty. Waldo had not given serious attention to power radiation up to
this time, simply because he had not needed to. He found it interesting
but comparatively simple. Several improvements suggested themselves to
his mind. That standing wave, for example, which was the main factor in
the co-axial beam - the efficiency of reception could be increased
considerably by sending a message back over it which would
automatically correct the aiming of the beam. Power delivery to moving
vehicles could be made nearly as efficient as the power reception to
stationary receivers.
Not that such an idea was important at present. Later, when he had
solved the problem at hand, he intended to make NAPA pay through the
nose for the idea; or perhaps it would be more amusing to compete with
them. He wondered when their basic patents ran out - must look it up.
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Despite inefficiencies the deKalb receptors should work every time,
all the time, without failure. He went happily about finding out why
they did not.
He had suspected some obvious - obvious to him - defect in manufacture.
But the inoperative deKalbs which Stevens had delivered to him refused
to give up their secret. He X-rayed them, measured them with micrometer
and interferometer, subjected them to all the usual tests and some
that were quite unusual and peculiarly Waldo-ish. They would not perform.
He built a deKalb in his shop, using one of the inoperative ones as a
model and using the reworked metal of another of the same design, also
inoperative, as the raw material, he used his finest scanners to see
with and his smallest waldoes -tiny pixy hands, an inch across - for
manipulation in the final stages. He created a deKalb which was as
nearly identical with its model as technology and incredible skill
could produce.
It worked beautifully.
Its elder twin still refused to work. He was not discouraged by this.
On the contrary, he was elated. He had proved, proved with certainty,
that the failure of the deKalbs was not a failure of workmanship,
but a basic failure in theory. The problem was real.
Stevens had reported to him the scandalous performance of the deKalbs
in McLeod's skycar, but he had not yet given his attention to the matter.
Presently, in proper order, when he got around to it, he would look
into the matter. In the meantime he tabled the matter. The smooth apes
were an hysterical lot; there was probably nothing to the story.
Writhing like Medusa's locks, indeed!
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He gave fully half his time to Grimes's problem.
He was forced to admit that the biological sciences - if you could call
them science! - were more fascinating than he had thought. He had shunned
them, more or less; the failure of expensive 'experts' to do anything
for his condition when he was a child had made him contemptuous of such
studies. Old wives nostrums dressed up in fancy terminology! Grimes he
liked and even respected, but Grimes was a special case.
Grimes's data had convinced Waldo that the old man had a case. Why,
this was serious! The figures were incomplete, but nevertheless
convincing. The curve of the third decrement, extrapolated not too
unreasonably, indicated that in twenty years there would not be a man
left with strength enough to work in the heavy industries. Button
pushing would be all they would be good for.
It did not occur to him that all he was good for was button pushing;
he regarded weakness in the smooth apes as an old-style farmer
might regard weakness in a draft animal. The farmer did not expect
to pull the plough - that was the horse's job.
Grimes's medical colleagues must be utter fools.
Nevertheless, he sent for the best physiologists, neurologists, brain
surgeons, and anatomists he could locate, ordering them as one might
order goods from a catalogue. He must understand this matter.
He was considerably annoyed when he found that he could not make
arrangements, by any means, to perform vivisection on human beings.
He was convinced by this time that the damage done by ultra short-wave
radiation was damage to the neurological system, and that the whole
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matter should be treated from the standpoint of electromagnetic theory.
He wanted to perform certain delicate manipulations in which human
beings would be hooked up directly to apparatus of his own design to
find out in what manner nerve impulses differed from electrical current.
He felt that if he could disconnect portions of a man's nervous circuit,
replace it in part with electrical hookups, and examine the whole matter
in situ, he might make illuminating discoveries. True, the man might not
be much use to himself afterwards.
But the authorities were stuffy about it; he was forced to content
himself with cadavers and with animals.
Nevertheless, he made progress. Extreme short-wave radiation had a
definite effect on the nervous system - a double effect: it produced
'ghost' pulsations in the neurons, Insufficient to accomplish muscular
motor response, but, he suspected, strong enough to keep the body in a
continual state of inhibited nervous excitation; and, secondly, a living
specimen which had been subjected to this process for any length of time
showed a definite, small but measurable, lowering in the efficiency of
its neural impulses. If it had been an electrical circuit, he would have
described the second effect as a decrease in insulating efficiency.
The sum of these two effects on the subject individual was a condition of
mild tiredness, somewhat similar to the malaise of the early stages of
pulmonary tuberculosis. The victim did not feel sick; he simply lacked pep.
Strenuous bodily activity was not impossible; it was simply distasteful;
it required too much effort, too much willpower.
But an orthodox pathologist would have been forced to report that the
victim was in perfect health - a little run-down, perhaps, but nothing wrong
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with him. Too sedentary a life, probably. What he needed was fresh air,
sunshine, and healthy exercise.
Doc Grimes alone had guessed that the present, general, marked preference
for a sedentary life was the effect and not the cause of the prevailing lack
of vigour. The change had been slow, at least as slow as the increase in
radiation in the air. The individuals concerned had noticed it, if at all,
simply as an indication that they were growing a little bit older,'slowing
down, not so young as I used to be'. And they were content to slow down; it
was more comfortable than exertion.
Grimes had first begun to be concerned about it when he began to notice that
all of his younger patients were 'the bookish type'. It was all very well
for a kid to like to read books, he felt, but a normal boy ought to be out
doing a little hell raising too. What had become of the sand-lot football
games, the games of scrub, the clothes-tearing activity that had
characterized his own boyhood?
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