Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TRADE SECRET maddening frustration reported from the Bureau of Standards and else- where. With apprehension too, he waited for reports of injuries resulting from imprudent attacks on the problem. With evident good fortune, however, the grapevine had carried the news of the West Coast minor disasters and precautions were being taken. An occasional flash burn and destruction of carelessly placed equipment were all that came to his attention. By Christmas the sale of the Nagle Rocket and the scientific frustration created by it had reached a peak. Joe Baird continued to throw occasional dark hints of vast, sinister doings on the part of the toy’s creator. Sam Marvenstein had doubled the size of his plant not once but twice. Up to two days before Christmas he was shipping rockets in carload lots. And then it was over. With the end of the Christmas season, the frantic production wheezed to a halt. Through the offices of St. Nick and Sam Mar- venstein, virtually every potential customer for a Nagle Rocket had his wants satisfied. The day after New Year’s, Mart called Sam down to the offices of Research Consultants. As the manu- facturer sat down by the desk, Mart handed him a cagelike dingus about six inches in diameter. “The. successor to the Nagle Rocket,”’ Mart said. Sam looked puzzled. He turned the contraption over in his hands a couple of times and shifted so the light from the window fell through the spaces between the wires to better advan- tage. “I suppose it’s really quite clever,” sighed Sam. “But exactly what does it do?” “We're tentatively calling it the Teleport,” said Mart. “I imagine you can think up a name with more sales 17 appeal. You may remember reading about teleportation in a science- fiction magazine you mentioned when we first met.” Sam’s face brightened. “Sure... I remember now! That’s the story where the fellow sends his girl across the country by radio and she comes out the other end twins so that every- body is happy and don’t need to fight over her any more.” “Roughly,” said Mart. ‘Just roughly. So here’s what the gadget does. You see that this aluminum disk bisects the spherical cage and that a wire goes through the hole in the center of the disk. On one side there ‘is a bead on the wire, Now I push the button at one pole of the sphere, where the cage wires come together with the single wire through the middle. Now the bead is on the other side of the disk.” He handed the gadget back to Sam. “Try it yourself. Press the little but- ton at the pole of the sphere.” Sam took it again, a look of dis- appointment verging on repugnance showing on his face. “I don’t get it,” he said. “There’s nothing to that. Pushing a bead along the wire that goes through the hole in a piece of metal—” “Look closely, Sam, and push the button.” Sam did so, settling the device in a shaft of sunlight again and squinting through the wires of the cage. He pressed with his thumb. Instantly, the bead on the interior wire vanished . from one side of the disk and appeared on the other. “I still don’t see,” said Sam in dis- appointment. Then he stopped. “‘Hey, wait a minute! How did that bead get through there? There’s no hole for it to go through. The wire fills up the hole!” Mart nodded benignly. “Right. Do you think that might be a sort of Conmielooolkks.e© im