Toy Shop Read online

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  TOY]

  The gadget was strictly, beyond any question, a toy. Not a real, workable device. Except for the way it could work under a man's mental skin....

  BY HARRY HARRISON

  SHOP]

  Because there were few adults in the crowd, and Colonel "Biff" Hawtonstood over six feet tall, he could see every detail of thedemonstration. The children--and most of the parents--gaped in wide-eyedwonder. Biff Hawton was too sophisticated to be awed. He stayed onbecause he wanted to find out what the trick was that made the gadgetwork.

  "It's all explained right here in your instruction book," thedemonstrator said, holding up a garishly printed booklet opened to afour-color diagram. "You all know how magnets pick up things and I betyou even know that the earth itself is one great big magnet--that's whycompasses always point north. Well ... the Atomic Wonder Space WaveTapper hangs onto those space waves. Invisibly all about us, and evengoing right through us, are the magnetic waves of the earth. The AtomicWonder rides these waves just the way a ship rides the waves in theocean. Now watch...."

  Every eye was on him as he put the gaudy model rocketship on top of thetable and stepped back. It was made of stamped metal and seemed asincapable of flying as a can of ham--which it very much resembled.Neither wings, propellors, nor jets broke through the painted surface.It rested on three rubber wheels and coming out through the bottom was adouble strand of thin insulated wire. This white wire ran across the topof the black table and terminated in a control box in the demonstrator'shand. An indicator light, a switch and a knob appeared to be the onlycontrols.

  "I turn on the Power Switch, sending a surge of current to the WaveReceptors," he said. The switch clicked and the light blinked on and offwith a steady pulse. Then the man began to slowly turn the knob. "Acareful touch on the Wave Generator is necessary as we are dealing withthe powers of the whole world here...."

  A concerted _ahhhh_ swept through the crowd as the Space Wave Tappershivered a bit, then rose slowly into the air. The demonstrator steppedback and the toy rose higher and higher, bobbing gently on the invisiblewaves of magnetic force that supported it. Ever so slowly the power wasreduced and it settled back to the table.

  "Only $17.95," the young man said, putting a large price sign on thetable. "For the complete set of the Atomic Wonder, the Space Tappercontrol box, battery and instruction book ..."

  At the appearance of the price card the crowd broke up noisily and thechildren rushed away towards the operating model trains. Thedemonstrator's words were lost in their noisy passage, and after amoment he sank into a gloomy silence. He put the control box down,yawned and sat on the edge of the table. Colonel Hawton was the only oneleft after the crowd had moved on.

  "Could you tell me how this thing works?" the colonel asked, comingforward. The demonstrator brightened up and picked up one of the toys.

  "Well, if you will look here, sir...." He opened the hinged top. "Youwill see the Space Wave coils at each end of the ship." With a pencil hepointed out the odd shaped plastic forms about an inch in diameter thathad been wound--apparently at random--with a few turns of copper wire.Except for these coils the interior of the model was empty. The coilswere wired together and other wires ran out through the hole in thebottom of the control box. Biff Hawton turned a very quizzical eye onthe gadget and upon the demonstrator who completely ignored this sign ofdisbelief.

  "Inside the control box is the battery," the young man said, snapping itopen and pointing to an ordinary flashlight battery. "The current goesthrough the Power Switch and Power Light to the Wave Generator ..."

  "What you mean to say," Biff broke in, "is that the juice from thisfifteen cent battery goes through this cheap rheostat to thosemeaningless coils in the model and absolutely nothing happens. Now tellme what really flies the thing. If I'm going to drop eighteen bucks forsix-bits worth of tin, I want to know what I'm getting."

  The demonstrator flushed. "I'm sorry, sir," he stammered. "I wasn'ttrying to hide anything. Like any magic trick this one can't be reallydemonstrated until it has been purchased." He leaned forward andwhispered confidentially. "I'll tell you what I'll do though. Thisthing is way overpriced and hasn't been moving at all. The manager saidI could let them go at three dollars if I could find any takers. If youwant to buy it for that price...."

  "Sold, my boy!" the colonel said, slamming three bills down on thetable. "I'll give that much for it no matter _how_ it works. The boys inthe shop will get a kick out of it," he tapped the winged rocket on hischest. "Now _really_--what holds it up?"

  The demonstrator looked around carefully, then pointed. "Strings!" hesaid. "Or rather a black thread. It runs from the top of the model,through a tiny loop in the ceiling, and back down to my hand--tied tothis ring on my finger. When I back up--the model rises. It's as simpleas that."

  "All good illusions are simple," the colonel grunted, tracing the blackthread with his eye. "As long as there is plenty of flimflam to distractthe viewer."

  "If you don't have a black table, a black cloth will do," the young mansaid. "And the arch of a doorway is a good site, just see that the roomin back is dark."

  "Wrap it up, my boy, I wasn't born yesterday. I'm an old hand at thiskind of thing."

  * * * * *

  Biff Hawton sprang it at the next Thursday-night poker party. The gangwere all missile men and they cheered and jeered as he hammed up theintroduction.

  "Let me copy the diagram, Biff, I could use some of those magnetic wavesin the new bird!"

  "Those flashlight batteries are cheaper than lox, this is the thing ofthe future!"

  Only Teddy Kaner caught wise as the flight began. He was an amateurmagician and spotted the gimmick at once. He kept silent withprofessional courtesy, and smiled ironically as the rest of the bunchgrew silent one by one. The colonel was a good showman and he had setthe scene well. He almost had them believing in the Space Wave Tapperbefore he was through. When the model had landed and he had switched itoff he couldn't stop them from crowding around the table.

  "A thread!" one of the engineers shouted, almost with relief, and theyall laughed along with him.

  "Too bad," the head project physicist said, "I was hoping that a littleSpace Wave Tapping could help us out. Let me try a flight with it."

  "Teddy Kaner first," Biff announced. "He spotted it while you were allwatching the flashing lights, only he didn't say anything."

  Kaner slipped the ring with the black thread over his finger and startedto step back.

  "You have to turn the switch on first," Biff said.

  "I know," Kaner smiled. "But that's part of illusion--the spiel and themisdirection. I'm going to try this cold first, so I can get it movingup and down smoothly, then go through it with the whole works."

  ILLUSTRATED BY BREY]

  He moved his hand back smoothly, in a professional manner that drew noattention to it. The model lifted from the table--then crashed backdown.

  "The thread broke," Kaner said.

  "You jerked it, instead of pulling smoothly," Biff said and knotted thebroken thread. "Here let me show you how to do it."

  The thread broke again when Biff tried it, which got a good laugh thatmade his collar a little warm. Someone mentioned the poker game.

  This was the only time that poker was mentioned or even remembered thatnight. Because very soon after this they found that the thread wouldlift the model only when the switch was on and two and a half voltsflowing through the joke coils. With the current turned off the modelwas too heavy to lift. The thread broke every time.

  * * * * *
br />   "I still think it's a screwy idea," the young man said. "One weekgetting fallen arches, demonstrating those toy ships for every bratwithin a thousand miles. Then selling the things for three bucks whenthey must have cost at least a hundred dollars apiece to make."

  "But you _did_ sell the ten of them to people who would be interested?"the older man asked.

  "I think so, I caught a few Air Force officers and a colonel in missilesone day. Then there was one official I remembered from the Bureau ofStandards. Luckily he didn't recognize me. Then those two professors youspotted from the university."

  "Then the problem is out of our hands and into theirs. All we have to donow is sit back and wait for results."

  "_What_ results?! These people weren't interested when we were hammeringon their doors with the proof. We've patented the coils and can prove toanyone that there is a reduction in weight around them when they areoperating...."

  "But a small reduction. And we don't know what is causing it. No one canbe interested in a thing like that--a fractional weight decrease in aclumsy model, certainly not enough to lift the weight of the generator.No one wrapped up in massive fuel consumption, tons of lift and such isgoing to have time to worry about a crackpot who thinks he has found aminor slip in Newton's laws."

  "You think they will now?" the young man asked, cracking his knucklesimpatiently.

  "I _know_ they will. The tensile strength of that thread is correctlyadjusted to the weight of the model. The thread will break if you try tolift the model with it. Yet you can lift the model--after a smallincrement of its weight has been removed by the coils. This is going tobug these men. Nobody is going to ask them to solve the problem orconcern themselves with it. But it will nag at them because they knowthis effect can't possibly exist. They'll see at once that themagnetic-wave theory is nonsense. Or perhaps true? We don't know. Butthey will all be thinking about it and worrying about it. Someone isgoing to experiment in his basement--just as a hobby of course--to findthe cause of the error. And he or someone else is going to find out whatmakes those coils work, or maybe a way to improve them!"

  "And we have the patents...."

  "Correct. They will be doing the research that will take them out of themassive-lift-propulsion business and into the field of pure spaceflight."

  "And in doing so they will be making us rich--whenever the time comes tomanufacture," the young man said cynically.

  "We'll all be rich, son," the older man said, patting him on theshoulder. "Believe me, you're not going to recognize this old world tenyears from now."

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _Analog_ April 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.