DOUBLE or NOTHING

By JACK SHARKEY

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Stories of Imagination May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

I don't know why I listen to Artie Lindstrom. Maybe it's because at times (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 into his plans, every time he's discovered the "invention that will change the world". He discovers it quite a bit; something new every time. And, Artie having a natural mechanical aptitude that would probably rate as point-nine-nine-ad-infinitum on a scale where one-point-oh was perfection, all his inventions work. Except—

Well, take the last thing we worked on. (He usually includes me in his plans 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 radio tube into its socket without shattering the glass, twist a screwdriver without gouging pieces out of his thumb, nor even solder an electrical connection without needing skin-grafts for the hole he usually burns in his hand.)

So we're a team, Artie and me. He does the planning, I do the constructing. Like, as I mentioned, the last thing we worked on. He invented it; I built it. A cap-remover (like for jars and ketchup bottles). But not just a clamp-plus-handle, like most of the same gadgets. Nope, this was electronic, worked on a tight-beam radio-wave, plus something to do with the expansion coefficients of the metals making 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 caps unscrewed 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 physically present to make use of the contents of the jars? I mentioned this to Artie when I was building the thing, but he said, "Wait and see. It'll be a novelty, like hula hoops a couple of decades back. Novelties always catch on."

Well, he was wrong. When we finally found a manufacturer softheaded enough to mass-produce a few thousand of the gadgets, total sales for the entire country amounted to seventeen. Of course, the price was kind of prohibitive: Thirteen-fifty per Teletwist. Why would a housewife lay that kind of money on the line when she'd already, for a two-buck license, gotten a husband who could be relied upon (well, most of the time) to do the same thing for her?

Not, of course, that we didn't finally make money on the thing. It was just about that time, you'll remember, that the Imperial Martian Fleet decided that the third planet from Sol was getting a bit too powerful, and they started orbiting our planet with ultimatums. And while they were waiting for our answer, our government quietly purchased Artie's patent, made a few little adjustments on his cap-twister, and the next thing the Martians knew, all their airlocks were busily unscrewing themselves with nothing outside them except hungry vacuum. It was also the last thing the Martians knew.

So Artie's ideas seem to have their uses, all right. Only, for some reason, Artie never thinks of the proper application for his latest newfound principle. That neat little disintegrator pistol carried by the footsoldiers in the Three Day War (with Venus; remember Venus?) was a variation on a cute little battery-powered device of Artie's, of which the original function had been to rid one's house of roaches.

At any rate—at a damned good rate, in fact—the government always ended up paying Artie (and me, as his partner-confederate-cohort) an anything-but-modest fee for his patents. We weren't in the millionaire class, yet, but neither were we very far out of it. And we were much better off than any millionaires, since Artie had persuaded the government to let us, in lieu of payment for another patent of his (for his Nixsal; the thing that was supposed to convert sea-water into something drinkable, and did: Gin.), be tax-free for the rest of our lives.

(It was quite a concession for the government to make. But then, the government-produced "George Washington Gin" is quite a concession in itself.)

So I guess you could say I keep listening to Artie Lindstrom because of the financial rewards. I must admit they're nice. And it's kind of adventurous, when I'm working on Artie's latest brainstorm, to let myself wonder what—since I generally scrap Artie's prognosis for the gadget's future—the damned thing will actually be used for.

Or, at least, it was kind of adventurous, until Artie started in on his scheme of three weeks ago: a workable anti-gravity machine. And now, I'm feeling my first tremors of regret that I ever hooked up with the guy. Because—Well, it happened like this:

"It looks great," I said, lifting my face from the blueprint, and nodding across the workbench at Artie. "But what the hell does it do?"

Artie shoved a shock of dust-colored hair back off his broad, dull pink forehead, and jabbed excitedly with a grimy forefinger at the diagram. "Can't you tell, Burt? What does this look like!"

My eyes returned to the conglomeration of sketchy cones beneath his flailing finger, and I said, as truthfully as possible, "A pine forest on a lumpy hill."

"Those," he said, his tone hurt as it always was when I inadvertently belittled his draftmanship, "are flywheels."

"Cone-shaped flywheels?" I said. "Why, for pete's sake?"

"Only," he said, with specious casualness, "in order to develop a centrifugal thrust that runs in a straight line!"

"A centr—" I said, then sat back from the drawings, blinking. "That's impossible, Artie."

"And why should it be?" he persisted. "Picture an umbrella, with the fabric removed. Now twirl the handle on its axis. What do the ribs do?"

"I suppose they splay out into a circle?"

"Right," he exulted. "And if they impeded from splaying out? If, instead of separate ribs, we have a hollow, bottomless cone of metal? Where does the force go?"

I thought it over, then said, with deliberation, "In all directions, Artie. One part shoving up-to-the-right, one part up-to-the-left, like that."

"Sure," he said, his face failing to fight a mischievous grin. "And since none of them move, where does the resultant force go?"

I shrugged, "Straight up, I guess—" Then my ears tuned in belatedly on what I'd said, and a moment later I squeaked, "Artie! Straight up!"

He nodded eagerly. "Or, of course, straight east, straight west, or whichever way the ferrule of this here theoretical umbrella was pointed at the time the twirling began. The point is, we can generate pure force in any direction. What do you think? Can you build it?"

"It'd be child's play. In fact, Artie, it's too damned simple to be believed! What's the hitch? Why hasn't anyone tried it before now?"

"Who knows?" he said, his blue eyes dancing. "Maybe no one ever thought of it before. You could sit down and twist a paper clip out of a hunk of soft wire, couldn't you? Easy as pie. But someone had to invent the thing, first. All the great inventions have been simple. Look at the wheel."

"Okay, okay," I said, since I'd been sold on his gadget the moment I pictured that umbrella moving ferruleward like a whirling arrow. "Still, it looks like you're getting something for nothing. A kind of