GREAT LOST DISCOVERIES II – Invulnerability
The second great lost discovery was the secret of invulnerability. It was discovered in 1952 by a United States Navy radar officer, Lieutenant Paul Hickendorf. The device was electronic and consisted of a small box that could be carried handily in a pocket; when a switch on the box was turned on the person carrying the device was surrounded by a force field whose strength, as far as it could be measured by Hickendorf’s excellent mathematics, was as near as matters to infinite.
The field was also completely impervious to any degree of heat and any quantity of radiation.
Lieutenant Hickendorf decided that a man—or a woman or a child or a dog—enclosed in that force field could withstand the explosion of a hydrogen bomb at closest range and not be injured in the slightest degree.
No hydrogen bomb had been exploded to that time, but at the moment he completed his device, the lieutenant happened to be on a ship, cruiser class, that was steaming across the Pacific Ocean en route to an atoll called Eniwetok, and the fact had leaked out that they were to be there to assist in the first explosion of a hydrogen bomb.
Lieutenant Hickendorf decided to get lost—to hide out on the target island and be there when the bomb went off, and also to be there unharmed after it went off, thereby demonstrating beyond all doubt that his discovery was workable, a defense against the most powerful weapon of all time.
It proved difficult but he hid out successfully and was there, only yards away from the H-bomb—after having crept closer and closer during the countdown—when it exploded.
His calculations had been completely correct and he was not injured in the slightest way, not scratched, not bruised, not burned. But Lieutenant Hickendorf had overlooked the possibility of one thing happening, and that one thing happened. He was blown off the surface of the earth with much more than escape velocity. Straight out, not even into orbit. Forty-nine days later he fell into the sun, still completely uninjured but unfortunately long since dead since the force field had carried with it enough air to last him only a few hours, and so his discovery was lost to mankind, at least for the duration of the twentieth century.
GREAT LOST DISCOVERIES 3 – Immortality
The third great discovery, made and lost in the twentieth century was the secret of immortality. It was the discovery of an obscure Moscow chemist named Ivan Ivanovitch Smetakovsky, in 1978. Smetakovsky left no record of how he made his discovery or of how he knew before trying it that it would work, for the simple reason that it scared him stiff, for two reasons.
He was afraid to give it to the world, and he knew that once he had given it even to his own government the secret would eventually leak through the Curtain and cause chaos. The U.S.S.R. could handle anything, but in the more barbaric and less disciplined countries the inevitable result of an immortality drug would be a population explosion that would most assuredly lead to an attack on the enlightened Communist countries.
And he was afraid to take it himself because he wasn’t sure he wanted to become immortal. With things as they were even in the U.S.S.R.—not to consider what they must be outside it—was it really worth while to live forever or even indefinitely?
He compromised by neither giving it to anyone else nor taking it himself, for the time being, until he could make up his mind about it.
Meanwhile he carried with him the only dose of the drug he had made up. It was only a minute quantity that fitted into a tiny capsule that was insoluble and could he carried in his mouth. He attached it to the side of one of his dentures, so that it rested safely between denture and check and he would be in no danger of swallowing it inadvertently.
But if he should so decide at any time he could reach into his mouth, crush the capsule with a thumbnail, and become immortal.
He so decided one day when, after coming down with lobar pneumonia and being taken to a Moscow hospital, he learned from overhearing a conversation between a doctor and nurse who erroneously thought he was asleep, that he was expected to die within a few hours.
Fear of death proved greater than fear of immortality, whatever immortality might bring, so, as soon as the doctor and the nurse had left the room, he crushed the capsule and swallowed its contents.
He hoped that, since death might be so imminent, the drug would work in time to save his life. It did work in time, although by the time it had taken effect he had slipped into semicoma and delirium.
Three years later, in 1981, he was still in semicoma and delirium, and the Russian doctors had finally diagnosed his case and ceased to be puzzled by it.
Obviously Smetakovsky had taken some sort of immortality drug—one which they found it impossible to isolate or analyze—and it was keeping him from dying and would no doubt do so indefinitely if not forever.
But unfortunately it had also made immortal the pneumococci in his body, the bacteria (diplococci pneumoniae) that had caused his pneumonia in the first place and would now continue to maintain it forever. So the doctors, being realists and seeing no reason to burden themselves by giving him custodial care in perpetuity, simply buried him.
DEAD LETTER
Laverty stepped through the open French windows and crossed the carpet silently until he stood behind the gray-haired man working at the desk. «Hello, Congressman,» he said.
Congressman Quinn turned his head and then rose shakily as he saw the revolver Laverty was pointing at him. «Laverty,» he said. «Don’t be a fool.»
Laverty grinned. «I told you I’d do this someday. I’ve waited four years. It’s safe now.»
«You won’t get away with it, Laverty. I left a letter, a letter to be delivered in case I’m ever killed.»
Laverty laughed. «You’re lying, Quinn. You couldn’t have written such a letter without incriminating yourself by telling my motive. Why, you wouldn’t want me tried and convicted—because the truth would come out, and it would blacken your name forever.»
Laverty pulled the trigger six times.
He went back to his car, drove over a bridge to rid himself of the murder weapon, then home to his apartment and to bed.
He slept peacefully until his doorbell rang. He slipped on a bathrobe, went to the door and opened it.
His heart stood still, and stayed that way.
The man who had rung Laverty’s doorbell had been surprised and shocked, but he had done the right thing. He had stepped over Laverty’s body into the apartment and had used the phone there to call police emergency. And he had waited.
Now, Laverty having been pronounced dead by the emergency squad, the man was being questioned by a lieutenant of police.
«Your name?» the lieutenant asked.
«Babcock. Henry Babcock. I had a letter to deliver to Mr. Laverty. This letter.»
The lieutenant took it, hesitated a moment, and then opened and unfolded it. «Why, it’s just a blank sheet of paper.»
«I don’t know about that, Lieutenant. My boss, Congressman Quinn, gave me that letter a long time ago. My orders were to deliver it to Laverty right away if anything unusual ever happened to Congressman Quinn. So when I heard on the radio—»
«Yes, I know. He was found murdered late this evening. What kind of work did you do for him?»
«Well, it was secret, but I don’t suppose the secret matters now. I used to take his place for unimportant speeches and meetings he wanted to avoid. You see, Lieutenant, I’m his double.»