Part 11 (1/2)

Apparently she had been short of cash after Miles's death and had sold off the smaller block. But I did not care what had happened to any of the stock once it pa.s.sed out of Belle's control. I had forgotten to ask Reuther to trace Miles's stock... that might give a lead to Ricky even though she no longer held it. But it was late Friday already; I'd ask him Monday. Right now I wanted to open the large envelope still waiting for me, for I had spotted the return address.

I had written to the patent office early in March about the original patents on both Eager Beaver and Drafting Dan. My conviction that the original Eager Beaver was just another name for Flexible Frank had been somewhat shaken by my first upsetting experience with Drafting Dan; I had considered the possibility that the same unknown genius who had conceived Dan so nearly as I had imagined him might also have developed a parallel equivalent of Flexible Frank. The theory was bulwarked by the fact that both patents had been taken out the same year and both patents were held (or had been held until they expired) by the same company, Aladdin.

But I had to know. And if this inventor was still alive I wanted to meet him. He could teach me a thing or four.

I had written first to the patent office, only to get a form letter back that all records of expired patents were now kept in the National Archives in Carlsbad Caverns. So I wrote the Archives and got another form letter with a schedule of fees. So I wrote a third time, sending a postal order (no personal checks, please) for prints of the whole works on both patents-descriptions, claims, drawings, histories.

This fat envelope looked like my answer.

The one on top was 4,307,909, the basic for Eager Beaver. I turned to the drawings, ignoring for the moment both description and claims. Claims aren't important anyway except in court; the basic notion in writing up claims on an application for patent is to claim the whole wide world in the broadest possible terms, then let the patent examiners chew you down-this is why patent attorneys are born. The descriptions, on the other hand, have to be factual, but I can read drawings faster than I can read descriptions.

I had to admit that it did not look too much like Flexible Frank. It was better than Flexible Frank; it could do more and some of the linkages were simpler. The basic notion was the same-but that had to be true, as a machine controlled by Thorsen tubes and ancestral to Eager Beaver had to be based on the same principles I had used in Flexible Frank.

I could almost see myself developing just such a device sort of a second-stage model of Frank, I had once had something of the sort in mind-Frank without Frank's household limitations.

I finally got around to looking up the inventor's name on the claims and description sheets.

I recognized it all right. It was D. B. Davis.

I looked at it while whistling ”Time on My Hands” slowly and off key. So Belle had lied again. I wondered if there was any truth at all in that spate of drivel she had fed me. Of course Belle was a pathological liar, but I had read somewhere that pathological liars usually have a pattern, starting from the truth and embellis.h.i.+ng it, rather than indulging in complete fancy. Quite evidently my model of Frank had never been ”stolen” but had been turned over to some other engineer to smooth up, then the application had been made in my name.

But the Mannix deal had never gone through; that one fact was certain, since I knew it from company records. But Belle had said that their failure to produce Flexible Frank as contracted had soured the Mannix deal.

Had Miles grabbed Frank for himself, letting Belle think that it had been stolen? Or restolen, rather.

In that case... I dropped guessing at it, as hopeless, more hopeless than the search for Ricky. I might have to take a job with Aladdin before I would be able to ferret out where they had gotten the basic patent and who had benefited by the deal. It probably was not worth it, since the patent was expired, Miles was dead, and Belle, if she had gained a dime out of it, had long since thrown it away. I had satisfied myself on the one point important to me, the thing I had set out to prove; i.e., that I myself was the original inventor. My professional pride was salved and who cares about money when three meals a day are taken care of? Not me.

So I turned to 4,307,910, the first Drafting Dan.

The drawings were a delight. I couldn't have planned it better myself; this boy really had it. I admired the economy of the linkages and the clever way the circuits had been used to reduce the moving parts to a minimum. Moving parts are like the vermiform appendix; a source of trouble to be done away with whenever possible.

He had even used an electric typewriter for his keyboard cha.s.sis, giving credit on the drawing to an IBM patent series. That was smart, that was engineering: never reinvent something that you can buy down the street.

I had to know who this brainy boy was, so I turned to the papers.

It was D. B. Davis.

After quite a long time I phoned Albrecht. They rounded him up and I told him who I was, since my office phone had no visual.

”I recognized your voice,” he answered. ”Hi, there, son. How are you getting along with your new job?”

”Well enough. They haven't offered me a partners.h.i.+p yet.”

”Give them time. Happy otherwise? Find yourself fitting back in?”

”Oh, sure! If I had known what a great place here and now is I'd have taken the Sleep earlier. You couldn't hire me to go back to 1970.”

”Oh, come now! I remember that year pretty well. I was a kid then on a farm in Nebraska. I used to hunt and fish. I had fun. More than I have now.”

”Well, to each his own. I like it now. But look, Doc, I didn't call up just to talk philosophy; I've got a little problem.”

”Well, let's have it. It ought to be a relief; most people have big problems.”

”Doc? Is it at all possible for the Long Sleep to cause amnesia?”

He hesitated before replying. ”It is conceivably possible. I can't say that I've ever seen a case, as such. I mean unconnected with other causes.”

”What are the things that cause amnesia?”

”Any number of things. The commonest, perhaps, is the patient's own subconscious wish. He forgets a sequence of events, or rearranges them, because the facts are unbearable to him. That's a functional amnesia in the raw. Then there is the old-fas.h.i.+oned knock on the head-amnesia from trauma. Or it might be amnesia through suggestion... under drugs or hypnosis. What's the matter, bub? Can't you find your checkbook?”

”It's not that. So far as I know, I'm getting along just fine now. But I can't get some things straight that happened before I took the Sleep... and it's got me worried.”

”Mmm... any possibility of any of the causes I mentioned?”

”Yes,” I said slowly. ”Uh, all of them, except maybe the b.u.mp on the head... and even that might have happened while I was drunk.”

”I neglected to mention,” he said dryly, ”the commonest temporary amnesia-pulling a blank while under the affluence of alcohol. See here, son, why don't you come see me and we'll talk it over in detail? If I can't tag what is biting you-I'm not a psychiatrist, you know-I can turn you over to a hypno-a.n.a.lyst who will peel back your memory like an onion and tell you why you were late to school on the fourth of February your second-grade year. But he's pretty expensive, so why not give me a whirl first?”

I said, ”Cripes, Doc, I've bothered you too much already and you are pretty stuffy about taking money.”

”Son, I'm always interested in my people; they're all the family I have.”

So I put him off by saying that I would call him the first of the week if I wasn't straightened out. I wanted to think about it anyhow.

Most of the lights went out except in my office; a Hired Girl, scrubwoman type, looked in, twigged that the room was still occupied, and rolled silently away. I still sat there.

Presently Chuck Freudenberg stuck his head in and said, ”I thought you left long ago. Wake up and finish your sleep at home.”

I looked up. ”Chuck, I've got a wonderful idea. Let's buy a barrel of beer and two straws.”

He considered it carefully. ”Well, it's Friday... and I always like to have a head on Monday; it lets me know what day it is.”

”Carried and so ordered. Wait a second while I stuff some things in this brief case.”

We had some beers, then we had some food, then we had more beers at a place where the music was good, then we moved on to another place where there was no music and the booths had hush linings and they didn't disturb you as long as you ordered something about once an hour. We talked. I showed him the patent records.

Chuck looked over the Eager Beaver prototype. ”That's a real nice job, Dan. I'm proud of you, boy. I'd like your autograph.”

”But look at this one.” I gave him the drafting-machine patent papers.

”Some ways this one is even nicer. Dan, do you realize that you have probably had more influence on the present state of the art than, well, than Edison had in his period? You know that, boy?”

”Cut it out, Chuck; this is serious.” I gestured abruptly at the pile of photostats. ”Okay, so I'm responsible for one of them. But I can't be responsible for the other one. I didn't do it... unless I'm completely mixed up about my own life before I took the Sleep. Unless I've got amnesia.”

”You've been saying that for the past twenty minutes. But you don't seem to have any open circuits. You're no cra2ier than is normal in an engineer.”

I banged the table, making the stems dance. ”I've got to know!”

”Steady there. So what are you going to do?”