A Touch of E Flat
By JOE GIBSON
Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction May 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Warning: never let anyone point any weapon
at you; even something as harmless-looking
as a water pistol—it may be a Cooling gun!
Most people can find something wrong with the world, and some make apractice of it, but few people ever get the chance to do somethingabout it—and those few usually go down in history with a resoundingcrash.
Well, it's been rather noisy around here.
From the very beginning, it had been my intention to write thisaccount. But I certainly hadn't intended to write it while residingunder police surveillance in the Recuperating Ward of St. Luke'sMemorial Hospital. Nor did I expect the interest and encouragement ofthe police officer who put me here. Nonetheless, Sgt. Nicolas Falascaof the Ohio State Police has been most helpful both in the many longdiscussions we have had and in procuring the notes and data from mylaboratory for the preparation of this manuscript.
But I'm afraid there shall be a considerable lot of me in thismanuscript—which, I hastily assert, is not its purpose at all. Myapologies for that. Fact is, there's a considerable lot of me, asanyone can see. The term I rather prefer using is roly-poly.
For the record, however, I am duly Certified-at-Birth as one AlbertJamieson Cooling, to which has been added, by my own modest efforts,a few odd alphabetic symbols such as M.S. and Ph.D. I am currentlyholding down a professorship at a small, privately endowed Techcollege, have some mentionable background in both nuclear physics andbiochemistry, possess a choice collection of rather good jazz records,have a particular fondness for barbecued spareribs—and, of late, havebecome an inventor.
If I've left something out, such as horn-rimmed glasses, then, by thepoint of my little black beard, it must be the wardrobe of 36 sportjackets. Wives? Well, I've been tempted, but a professor's salary can'tsupport alimony.
My discovery of the Cooling Effect itself came quite by accident.But twice now, that accident has almost killed me. It may be arguedthat this is no more than I should have expected, however, since theinvention which "followed naturally" can only be called one thing.
I have invented a new weapon.
That's right—a Cooling gun.
But let it be said that because I was once a war scientist, myinventiveness must therefore tend toward weapons and I should bestrongly tempted to reach for the nearest one available. The term warscientist has been used so much, and has grown so commonplace, that ithas become universally accepted as the label for anyone who spent aslittle as six weeks in the old AEC. I was in it for six years, and Ivoluntarily walked out.
The official policies and inter-agency politics of that era seem oflittle consequence now, when we have three permanent space satellitescircling the Earth and one of them is Russian. We're no longer in aweapons race; both sides have reached the Ultimate Weapon in thatcontest. Nobody's hiding or betraying classified secrets any more.There's all that silicon-rich basalt waiting to be cheaply processedout on the Moon, if we can only get there....
Back in '69, the official news releases were still boasting how muchbigger was each new toy we rolled out of the workshop, how muchm