The SF Hall of Fame Volume Two B (65 page)

"Secret treaties, for example, and vicious, lying
propaganda have too long controlled human passions and made men hate; honored
thieves have too long rotted secretly in undeserved high places. The machine
can make treachery and untruth impossible. It
must,
if atomic war is not
to sear the face and fate of the world.

"Our pictures were all made with that end in view. We
needed, first, the wealth and prominence to present to an international
audience what we knew to be the truth. We have done as much as we can. From now
on, this Court takes over the burden we have carried. We are guilty of no
treachery, guilty of no deceit, guilty of nothing but deep and true humanity.
Mr. Laviada wishes me to tell the Court and the world that he has been unable
till now to give his discovery to the world, free to use as it wills."

The Court stared at me. Every foreign representative was on
the edge of his seat waiting for the Justices to order us shot without further
ado, the sparkling uniforms were seething, and the pressmen were racing their
pencils against time. The tension dried my throat. The speech that Samuels and
I had rehearsed the previous night was strong medicine. Now what?

Samuels filled the breach smoothly. "If the Court
pleases; Mr. Lefko has made some startling statements. Startling, but certainly
sincere, and certainly either provable or disprovable. And proof it shall
be!"

He strode to the door of the conference room that had been
allotted us. As the hundreds of eyes followed him it was easy for me to slip
down from the witness stand, and wait, ready. From the conference room Samuels
rolled the machine, and Mike rose. The whispers that curdled the air seemed
disappointed, unimpressed. Right in front of the Bench he trundled it.

He moved unobtrusively to one side as the television men
trained their long-snouted cameras. "Mr. Laviada and Mr. Lefko will show
you ... I trust there will be no objection from the prosecution?" He was
daring them.

One of the prosecution was already on his feet. He opened
his mouth hesitantly, but thought better, and sat down. Heads went together in
conference as he did. Samuels was watching the Court with one eye, and the
courtroom with the other.

"If the Court pleases, we will need a cleared space. If
the bailiff will . . . thank you, sir." The long tables were moved back,
with a raw scraping. He stood there, with every eye in the courtroom glued on
him. For two long breaths he stood there, then he spun and went to his table.
"Mr. Lefko," and he bowed formally. He sat.

The eyes swung to me, to Mike, as he moved to his machine
and stood there silently. I cleared my throat and spoke to the Bench as though
I did not see the directional microphones trained at my lips.

"Justice Bronson."

He looked steadily at me and then glanced at Mike.
"Yes, Mr. Lefko?"

"Your freedom from bias is well known." The corners
of his mouth went down as he frowned. "Will you be willing to be used as
proof that there can be no trickery?" He thought that over, then nodded
slowly. The prosecution objected, and was waved down.

"Will you tell me exactly where you were at any given
time? Any place where you are absolutely certain and can verify that there were
no concealed cameras or observers?"

He thought. Seconds. Minutes. The tension twanged, and I
swallowed dust. He spoke quietly. "1918. November 11th."

Mike whispered to me. I said, "Any particular
time?"

Justice Bronson looked at Mike. "Exactly eleven.
Armistice time." He paused, then went on. "Niagara Falls. Niagara
Falls New York."

I heard the dials tick in the stillness, and Mike whispered
again. I said, "The lights should be off." The bailiff rose.
"Will you please watch the left wall, or in that direction? I think that
if Justice Kassel will turn a little ... we are ready."

Bronson looked at me, and at the left wall.
"Ready."

The lights flicked out overhead and I heard the television
crews mutter. I touched Mike on the shoulder. "Show them, Mike!"

We're all showmen at heart, and Mike is no exception.
Suddenly out of nowhere and into the depths poured a frozen torrent. Niagara
Falls. I've mentioned, I think, that I've never got over my fear of heights.
Few people ever do. I heard long, shuddery gasps as we started straight down.
Down, until we stopped at the brink of the silent cataract, weird on its frozen
majesty. Mike had stopped time at exactly eleven, I knew. He shifted to the
American bank. Slowly he moved along. There were a few tourists standing in
almost comic attitudes. There was snow on the ground, flakes in the air. Time
stood still, and hearts slowed in sympathy.

Bronson snapped, "Stop!"

A couple, young. Long skirts, high-buttoned army collar,
dragging army overcoat, facing, arms about each other. Mike's sleeve rustled in
the darkness and they moved. She was sobbing and the soldier was smiling. She
turned away her head, and he turned it back. Another couple seized them gaily,
and they twirled breathlessly.

Bronson's voice was harsh. "That's enough!" The
view blurred for seconds.

Washington. The White House. The President. Someone coughed
like a small explosion. The President was watching a television screen. He jerked
erect suddenly, startled. Mike spoke for the first time in court.

"That is the President of the United States. He is
watching the trial that is being broadcast and televised from this courtroom. He
is listening to what I am saying right now, and he is watching, in his
television screen, as I use my machine to show him what he was doing one second
ago."

The President heard those fateful words. Stiffly he threw an
unconscious glance around his room at nothing and looked back at his screen in
time to see himself do what he just had done, one second ago. Slowly, as if
against his will, his hand started toward the switch of his set.

"Mr. President, don't turn off that set." Mike's
voice was curt, almost rude. "You must hear this, you of all people in the
world. You must understand!

"This is not what we wanted to do, but we have no
recourse left but to appeal to you, and to the people of this twisted
world." The President might have been cast in iron. "You must see,
you must understand that you have in your hands the power to make it impossible
for greed-born war to be bred in secrecy and rob man of his youth or his old
age or whatever he prizes." His voice softened, pleaded. "That is all
we have to say. That is all we want. This is all anyone could want, ever."
The President, unmoving, faded into blackness. "The lights, please,"
and almost immediately the Court adjourned. That was over a month ago.

Mike's machine has been taken from us, and we are under
military guard. Probably it's just as well we're guarded. We understand there
have been lynching parties, broken up only as far as a block or two away. Last
week we watched a white-haired fanatic scream about us, on the street below. We
couldn't catch what he was shrieking, but we did catch a few air-borne epithets.

"Devils! Anti-Christs! Violation of the Bible!
Violations of this and that!" Some, right here in the city, I suppose,
would be glad to build a bonfire to cook us right back to the flames from which
we've sprung. I wonder what the various religious groups are going to do now
that the truth can be seen. Who can read lips in Aramaic, or Latin, or Coptic?
And is a mechanical miracle a miracle?

This changes everything. We've been moved. Where, I don't
know, except that the weather is warm, and we're on some military reservation,
by the lack of civilians. Now we know what we're up against. What started out
to be just a time-killing occupation, Joe, has turned out to be a necessary
preface to what I'm going to ask you to do. Finish this, and then move fast! We
won't be able to get this to you for a while yet, so I'll go on for a bit the
way I started, to kill time.

Like our clippings:

tabloid:

. . . Such a weapon cannot, must not be loosed in
unscrupulous hands. The last professional production of the infamous pair proves

what distortions can be wrested from isolated and
misunderstood events. In the hands of perpetrators of hereticalisms, no
property,

no business deal, no personal life could be sacrosanct, no
foreign policy could be . . .

times:

. . . colonies stand with us firmly . . . liquidation of the
Empire . . .

white man's burden . . .

le matin:

. . . rightful place. . . restore proud France. . .

pravda:

. . . democratic imperialist plot . . . our glorious
scientist ready to

announce . . .

nichi-nichi:

. . . incontrovertibly prove divine descent. . .

la prensa:

. . .oil concessions . . . dollar diplomacy . . .

DETROIT  JOURNAL:

. . . under our noses in a sinister fortress on East Warren
. . . under

close Federal supervision . . . perfection by our production-trained

technicians a mighty aid to law-enforcement agencies . . .
tirades

against politicians and business common sense carried too
far . . .

tomorrow revelations by . . .

l'osservatore romano:

Council of Cardinals . . . announcement expected hourly. . .

JACKSON  STAR-CLARION:

. . . proper handling will prove the fallacy of race
equality. . .

Almost unanimously the press screamed; Pegler frothed,
Win-chell leered. We got the surface side of the situation from the press. But
a military guard is composed of individuals, hotel rooms must be swept by
maids, waiters must serve food, and a chain is as strong— We got what we think
the truth from those who work for a living.

There are meetings on street corners and homes, two great
veterans' groups have arbitrarily fired their officials, seven governors have
resigned, three senators and over a dozen representatives have retired with
"ill health," and the general temper is ugly. International travelers
report the same of Europe, Asia is bubbling, and transport planes with motors
running stud the airports of South America. A general whisper is that a
Constitutional Amendment is being rammed through to forbid the use of any
similar instrument by any individual, with the manufacture and leasing by the Federal
government to law-enforcement agencies or financially-responsible corporations
suggested; it is whispered that motor caravans are forming throughout the
country for a Washington march to demand a decision by the Court on the truth
of our charges; it is generally suspected that all news disseminating services
are under direct Federal—Army control; wires are supposed to be sizzling with
petitions and demands to Congress, which are seldom delivered.

One day the chambermaid said: "And the whole hotel
might as well close up shop. The whole floor is blocked off, there're MP's at
every door, and they're clearing out all the other guests as fast as they can
be moved. The whole place wouldn't be big enough to hold the letters and wires
addressed to you, or the ones that are trying to get in to see you. Fat chance
they have," she added grimly. "The joint is lousy with brass."

Mike glanced at me and I cleared my throat. "What's
your idea of the whole thing?"

Expertly she spanked and reversed a pillow. "I saw your
last picture before they shut it down. I saw all your pictures. When I wasn't
working I listened to your trial. I heard you tell them off. I never got
married because my boy friend never came back from Burma. Ask
him
what
he thinks," and she jerked her head at the young private that was supposed
to keep her from talking. "Ask him if he wants some bunch of stinkers to
start him shooting at some other poor chump. See what he says, and then ask me
if I want an atom bomb dropped down my neck just because some chiselers want
more than they got." She left suddenly, and the soldier left with her.
Mike and I had a beer and went to bed. Next week the papers had headlines a
mile high.

U.   S.   KEEPS MIRACLE 
RAY CONSTITUTION  AMENDMENT

AWAITS  STATES  OKAY

LAVIADA-LEFKO  FREED

We were freed all right, Bronson and the President being
responsible for that. But the President and Bronson don't know, I'm sure, that
we were rearrested immediately. We were told that we'll be held in
"protective custody" until enough states have ratified the proposed
constitutional amendment. The Man Without a Country was in what you might call
"protective custody," too. We'll likely be released the same way he
was.

We're allowed no newspapers, no radio, allowed no
communication coming or going, and we're given no reason, as if that was
necessary. They'll never, never let us go, and they'd be fools if they did.
They think that if we can't communicate, or if we can't build another machine,
our fangs are drawn, and when the excitement dies, we fall into oblivion, six
feet of it. Well, we can't build another machine. But, communicate?

Look at it this way. A soldier is a soldier because he wants
to serve his country. A soldier doesn't want to die unless his country is at
war. Even then death is only a last resort. And war isn't necessary any more,
not with our machine. In the dark? Try to plan or plot in absolute darkness,
which is what would be needed. Try to plot or carry on a war without putting
things in writing. O.K. Now—

The Army has Mike's machine. The Army has Mike. They call it
military expediency, I suppose. Bosh! Anyone beyond the grade of moron can see
that to keep that machine, to hide it, is to invite the world to attack, and
attack in self-defense. If every nation, or if every man, had a machine, each
would be equally open, or equally protected. But if only one nation, or only
one man can see, the rest will not long be blind. Maybe we did this all wrong.
God knows that we thought about it often. God knows we did our best to make an
effort at keeping man out of his own trap.