Ashley was listening to all this restlessly. 'But what has this to do with the message?'
'Why, everything,' said Urth, with some surprise. 'Did you not call this message the key to the whole business? Isn't it the crucial clue?'
'Yes, of course.'
'Is there any doubt that we are dealing with something that is a clue or key to something else?'
'No, there isn't,' said Ashley.
'Well, then--The name of the German Jesuit I have been speaking of is Christoph Klau-pronounced "klow." Don't you see the pun? Klau-clue?'
Ashley's entire body seemed to grow flabby with disappointment. 'Farfetched,' he muttered.
Davenport said anxiously, 'Dr. Urth, there is no feature on the Moon named Klau as far as I know.'
'Of course not,' said Urth excitedly. That is the whole point. At this period of history, the last half of the sixteenth century, European scholars were Latinizing their names. Klau did so. In place of the German "u", he made use of the equivalent letter, the Latin "v". He then added an "ius" ending typical of Latin names and Christoph Klau became Christopher Clavius, and I suppose you are all aware of the giant crater we call Clavius.'
'But-' began Davenport.
'Don't "but" me,' said Urth. 'Just let me point out that the Latin word "clavis" means "key." Now do you see the double and bilingual pun? Klau-clue, Clavius-clavis- key. In his whole life, Jennings could never have made a double, bilingual pun, without the Device. Now he could, and I wonder if death might not have been almost triumphant under the circumstances. And he directed you to me because he knew I would remember his penchant for puns and because he knew I loved them too.' The two men of the Bureau were looking at him wide-eyed.
Urth said solemnly, 'I would suggest you search the shaded rim of Clavius, at that point where the Earth is nearest the zenith.'
Ashley rose. 'Where is your videophone?'
'In the next room."
Ashley dashed. Davenport lingered behind. 'Are you sure. Dr. Urth?'
'Quite sure. But even if I am wrong, I suspect it doesn't matter.'
'What doesn't matter?'
'Whether you find it or not. For if the Ultras find the Device, they will probably be unable to use it.'
'Why do you say that?'
"You asked me if Jennings had ever been a student of mine, but you never asked me about Strauss, who was also a geologist. He was a student of mine a year or so after Jennings. I remember him well.'
'Oh?'
'An unpleasant man. Very cold. It is the hallmark of the Ultras, I think. They are all very cold, very rigid, very sure of themselves. They can't empathize, or they wouldn't speak of killing off billions of human beings. What emotions they possess are icy ones, self-absorbed ones, feelings incapable of spanning the distance between two human beings.'
'I think I see.'
'I'm sure you do. The conversation reconstructed from Strauss's ravings showed us he could not manipulate the Device. He lacked the emotional intensity, or the type of necessary emotion. I imagine all Ultras would. Jennings, who was not an Ultra, could manipulate it. Anyone who could use the Device would, I suspect, be incapable of deliberate cold-blooded cruelty. He might strike out of panic fear as Jennings struck at Strauss, but never out of calculation, as Strauss tried to strike at Jennings. In short, to put it tritely, I think the Device can be actuated by love, but never by hate, and the Ultras are nothing if not haters.'
Davenport nodded. 'I hope you're right. But then-why were you so suspicious of the government's motives if you felt the wrong men could not manipulate the Device?'
Urth shrugged. 'I wanted to make sure you could bluff and rationalize on your feet and make yourself convincingly persuasive at a moment's notice. After all, you may have to face my niece.'
This story has even pleasanter memories for me than the one before. At the Twenty-fourth World Science Fiction Convention, held in Cleveland over the Labor Day weekend in 1966, I was one of those who received a Hugo (the 'Oscar' of science fiction fandom), under conditions of great satisfaction to myself, and with my wife and children in the audience to see. (I am grinning foolishly for sheer joy of recall as I type this.) The science fiction magazine IF also won a Hugo and its editor set about collecting promises from other Hugo winners to write stories for a special Hugo issue. I would have had to have a heart of obsidian not to promise-so I did. This is the result. It is the only story I know of to combine the mystery form with Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.
The Billiard Ball
James Priss-I suppose I ought to say Professor James Priss, though everyone is sure to know whom I mean even without the tide-always spoke slowly.
I know. I interviewed him often enough. He had the greatest mind since Einstein, but it didn't work quickly. He admitted his slowness often. Maybe it was because he had so great a mind that it didn't work quickly.
He would say something in slow abstraction, then he would think, and then he would say something more. Even over trivial matters, his giant mind would hover uncertainly, adding a touch here and then another there.
Would the Sun rise tomorrow, I can imagine him wondering. What do we mean by 'rise'? Can we be certain that tomorrow will come? Is the term 'Sun' completely unambiguous in this connection?
Add to this habit of speech a bland countenance, rather pale, with no expression except for a general look of uncertainty; gray hair, rather thin, neatly combed; business suits of an invariably conservative cut; and you have what Professor James Priss was-a retiring person, completely lacking in magnetism.
That's why nobody in the world, except myself, could possibly suspect him of being a murderer. And even I am not sure. After all, he was slow-thinking; he was always slow-thinking. Is it conceivable that at one crucial moment he managed to think quickly and act at once?
It doesn't matter. Even if he murdered, he got away with it. It is far too late now to try to reverse matters and I wouldn't succeed in doing so even if I decided to let this be published Edward Bloom was Priss's classmate in college, and an associate, through circumstance, for a generation afterward. They were equal in age and in their propensity for the bachelor life, but opposites in everything else that mattered.
Bloom was a living flash of light; colorful, tall, broad, loud, brash, and self-confident. He had a mind that resembled a meteor strike in the sudden and unexpected way it could seize the essential. He was no theoretician, as Priss was; Bloom had neither the patience for it, nor the capacity to concentrate intense thought upon a single abstract point. He admitted that; he boasted of it.
What he did have was an uncanny way of seeing the application of a theory; of seeing the manner in which it could be put to use. In the cold marble block of abstract structure, he could see, without apparent difficulty, the intricate design of a marvelous device. The block would fall apart at his touch and leave the device.
It is a well-known story, and not too badly exaggerated, that nothing Bloom ever built had failed to work, or to be patentable, or to be profitable. By the time he was forty-five, he was one of the richest men on Earth.
And if Bloom the Technician were adapted to one particular matter more than anything else, it was to the way of thought of Priss the Theoretician. Bloom's greatest gadgets were built upon Priss's greatest thoughts, and as Bloom grew wealthy and famous, Priss gained phenomenal respect among his colleagues.