Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Space Science Fiction May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
all that goes up
BY KIRBY BROOKS
ILLUSTRATED BY SMITH
At fifty, a man should be too old to go around flying offthe handle, or wandering around on the ceiling. But whatcould a man do when he had a son who insisted on being agenius?
For a man my age, the middle 50's, life has a number of compensations.There're children—we have two; there's a good wife, and I'm certainlyblessed in that respect with Mary; and there's the joy of coming home,slipping on my slippers, having a good dinner, then relaxing withcoffee and a pipe. There's no compensation for being plastered to theceiling. But, more of that later.
The after dinner coffee with a dash of rum in it, tasted very good,and so did the pipe. The meal was satisfying too. Thank goodness forthat meal, because it was the last decent one I've had for quite sometime. Oh, I've eaten all right, but you'd have to stretch yourimagination to call any of it a meal. Can you picture eating food thatkeeps trying to move away from your face? That is, if you can keep theplate from moving away too?
As I say, Mary and I had just finished dinner, when Jim, our22-year-old gangly son, who's home on summer vacation from MIT, calledme.
"Can you come here a minute, Dad?"
"Sure," I said, heading down the hall to his combination laboratory,dark room, aviary, and just plain bedroom. Fortunately it was a bigroom so there was space for a bed in addition to all the stuff a boycan collect who becomes enamored of science while in High School, andwho consummates the wedding with studying electronics in college.
I pushed his door open a little wider and looked in before entering; atrick the family had acquired when Jim was in the Zoological-Biological,or frog-collecting age. "What do you want, son?"
"Just want to show you something," he said, pointing to the floor. Hewas bent over looking intently at what seemed to be a sheet of thatfluorescent plastic that's used for signs. It was lying on the floor,was about two feet square, and was glowing a dim pink. Whether fromlight within itself, or from the desk lamp, I couldn't tell.
"What is it?"
"I don't really know, Dad, but watch what happens." So saying, hepicked up a glove from the desk, tossed it onto the plastic plate. Ishould say he tossed it at the plate, because it didn't land, butrose fast, straight up! I watched it hit the ceiling with a splat!Where it stuck. It was then I noticed several other things allplastered to the panelling too; the mate to the glove, a package ofcigarettes, a cigarette lighter and a golf ball or two.
Well, I had learned years ago in the Prestidigitation Age, or, "Youtoo can amaze your friends with feats of Magic" that quite often Jimwould go to great lengths to mystify anybody handy. I wasn't tooimpressed.
"Next thing will be to make a rope stand up, or saw a woman in half, Isuppose?"
"No, Dad, this is no trick. Fact is, I think I've stumbled ontosomething that could be important ... anti-gravity. Or, something tha