Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930Pelcher, Anthony
Science
Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930
Pelcher, Anthony
Science fiction -- Periodicals; Science fiction, American -- Periodicals
Yes, Allen had talked to her often when he was at home, resting from his
labors with Professor Burr. He had spoken of the new electricity
discovered by the famous man, and also told his mother that Burr had
found a method of separating atoms and then transforming them into a
form of radio-electricity so that they could be sent in radio waves, to
designated points. And she now remembered--the swift trial and
conviction of Allen on the charge of murder had occupied her so deeply
that she had forgotten all else for the time being--that her son had
informed her quite seriously that Professor Ramsey Burr would soon be
able to transport human beings by radio.
"Neither of us will be injured in any way by the change," said Burr
calmly. "It is possible for me now to break up human flesh, send the
atoms by radio-electricity, and reassemble them in their proper form by
these special transformers and atom filters."
Mrs. Baker took all the apparatus presented her by the professor. She
ventured the thought that it might be better to perform the experiment
at once, instead of waiting until the last minute, but this Professor
Burr waved aside as impossible. He needed the extra time, he said, and
there was no hurry.
She glanced about the room, and her eye took in the giant switches of
copper with their black handles; there were others of a gray-green metal
she did not recognize. Many dials and meters, strange to her, confronted
the little woman. These things, she felt with a rush of gratitude toward
the inanimate objects, would help to save her son, so they interested
her and she began to feel kindly toward the great machines.
* * * * *
Would Professor Burr be able to save Allen as he claimed? Yes, she
thought, he could. She would make Allen consent to the trial of it, even
though her son had cursed the scientist and cried he would never speak
to Ramsey Burr again.
She was escorted from the home of the professor by Jared, and going out
into the bright, sunlit street, blinked as her eyes adjusted themselves
to the daylight after the queer light of the laboratory. In a bundle she
had a strange suit and the cups; her purse held the tiny coil, wrapped
in cotton.
How could she get the authorities to consent to her son having the suit?
The cups and the coil she might slip to him herself. She decided that a
mother would be allowed to give her son new underwear. Yes, she would
say it was that.
She started at once for the prison. Professor Burr's laboratory was but
twenty miles from the cell where her son was incarcerated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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