Page 44 - Astounding Pulp V2

THE SMALLEST GOD 45
THE Sffiff llfST 600
A most unusual sub;ect for a science-fi~tion yarn: the
biography of.~ rubber doll! But when a scientist weig~ts
a ru~ber doll with the 900 of a ruined experiment-
..
By Lester del Rey
Illus t rated by R . Isip
D R. ARLINGTON BRUGH led his visitor over in the biochemistry department?"
around a jumble of machinery that made , ··Ja. Vunclerful vork he makes yet,
sense only to himself, and through a nicht wahr ?"
maze df tables and junk that occupied "U m-111-opinions differ. I 'll admit
most of his laboratory. he did a good job in growing that sy1-
:
" It's a little disoi:dered just now ," he thetic amceba, and the worm he made 111
apologized, glad that his assistant had his chemical bath wasn't so bad, though
.been ab!e to clear up the worst of the I never did know whether it was really
mess. '·Sort o{ gets that way after a alive or not. Maybe you read abou~ it ?
long experiment." . But he didn't stick to the simple th mgs
H err Dr. Ernst Meyer nodded heavy until he mastered his technique. H e had
·
t
agreement. "Ja, so. U nd mit all dis to go rambling o ff · tryrng o create a
matchinery, no vunder. It gives yet no synthetic man."
goot place v'ere I can mit comfort vork Meyer's rough face glean:ed. . "J a, so.
also in mine own laboradory: Und v'a~ D t . hubsch-nice. M1t ve111s und
) ..
. d
0
JS
haff ve here ?" muschles. Only it is not 1111t . er ile
"That's H ermes-my mascot." Brugh upfilled." . hand on the chest for emphasis, and the
picked up the little, hollow rubber figure B rugh sifted a few of the crystals 111
of the god Hermes; Mercury, the Ro- the chest out onto a watch glass ,~here
mans called him. " The day I bought they could _be inspected more carefully.
him for my daughter, the funds for my Then he put them into an opened draw~r
cyclotron were voted on favorably, so and closed it until the crystals were in
I've kept him in here. Just a little su- a much dimmer light. In the semiclark-
perstition ." ness, a faint gleam was visible, hover-
Meyer shook his head. "Nein. I ing over the watch glass.
mean here." He tapped a heavy lead " Radioactive," he explained. "There
chest bearing a large '•Keep O ut" label. is the reason Hodges' man isn't filled
"ls maybe v'at you make?"
with life. If there had been some of this
"That's right." The physical chem- in his chemical bath when he was g row-
ist pulled up the heavy cover and dis- ing ·Anthropos- that's what he calls the
played a few dirty crystals in a ~mall thing- it would be ,,valking around to-
compartment and a thick, tarry goo that day. But you can't expect a biochemist to
filled a half-liter beaker. "T hose are know that, of course. T hey don't keep
my latest success and my first failure. up with the latest developments the way
By the way, have you seen Dr. Hodges ~he physical ~hemists do. Most of them
aren't aware of the fact that the atom to stuff H ennes so he can't go bouncing
can be cracked up into a different kind
around."
of atom by using Bertha." Brugh propped the little white figure
" Bert'a? Maybe she is die daughter?" against a ring stand and d rew out the
Brugh grinned. " Bertha's the cyclo- beaker, gouging out a chunk of the vari-
tron over there. The boys started call- colored tar. H e plopped it into a con-
ing her Big Bertha, and then we just tainer and poured methyl alcohol over
named her Bertha for short." H e swung it, working 'vvith a glass rod until it was
around to indicate the great mass of reasonably plastic. "Darned stuff gets
metal that filled one· end of the room. soft, but it won't dissolve," he grumbled.
Meyer stood back looking on, shak-
"That's a lot of material to make so few
crystals of radioactive potassium chlo- ing his head gently. Americans were
r ide, t hough." naturally crazy, but he hadn't expected
such foolishness from so distinguished
"Ach, so. Den it is der radioagdi-
vated salt dot vould give life to der syn- a research-man as Dr. B rugh. In his
own-laboratory, he'd have spent the next
t' etic man, eh?"
two years, if necessary, in finding out
" Rio-ht. W e're beo-inning to believe
••
b
b
that life is a combination of electn c1ty what the tar was, instead of wasting it
and radioactivity, and the basis of . the to stuff a cheap rubber cast of a statue.
last seems to be t his active _potassium "D is H err Dr. Hodges, you don't like
we'..,·e produced by bombarding the o_r- him I t'ink. \Varum ?"
B'ruglf was spooning the . dough into
dinary form with neutrons. Put that 111 his statue, forcing it into the tiny mouth,
Anthropos and he'd be bouncing around and packing it in loosely. "Hodges
for his meals in a ... veek."
Meyer succeeded in guessing the ·wanted a new tank for his life-culture
experiments when I was trying to g·et
mea11ing of the last and cocked up a the cyclotron and the cloud c!1~~ber.. I
bushy eyebrow. "Den v'y not der salt to had to dig up the old ~1t1V1v1sect1011
der man give ?" howl among the students parents to
keep him from getti1~g it, and he t!10ught
" And have Hodges hog all the glq1:y
again ? Not a chance." H e banged 111s that was a dirty t n ck. Maybe 1t was.
Anyway, he's been trying e:ver since to,
six-inch figure of H ermes bounced ~rom get me kicked out, a!1d switch the ap-
its precarious perch and took off for propriations over to !us department . B_y
the watch glass. Bru~h grabbed . fr~1- the way, I'd hate to have word of this
tically and caught it just before 1t Jut. get aroun d " .
'·Some day I'll stuff this thi11g wit!1 "Aber-andivifisegtion !" Meyer was
something heavy enough to hold 1t faintly horrified at such an unscientific
down." thing.
Brugh nodded. "I know. But I
THE GERMAN looked at the statue wanted . that cyclotron, and I got it; I 'd
do worse. There, Hermes won't go fly-
with faint interest, then pointed to the
gummy mess in the beaker. "Und dis?'' ing around again. Anything else I can
show you, D r. Meyer ?"
"T hat's a failure. Some day I might "T'ank you, no. Der clock is l~te
analyze a little of it, but it's too hard now, and I must cadge t'ny train by der
to get the stuff out of that tar, and proba- hour. It has a bleasure been, Dr.
bly not worth a quarter of the energy.
~eems_ to be a little of everything in it, Brugh."
mclud111g potassium and it's fairly ra- "Not at all." Brugh set tile statue on
dioactive. but all it'~ good for is-wt>ll, a table and went out with the German,