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Read Ebook: Abraham Lincoln: An Horatian Ode by Stoddard Richard Henry
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Ebook has 86 lines and 4681 words, and 2 pages
"I'm the original; you came out of that camera."
"Someone is going to have a time proving it," replied the image Foster.
"Yeah," drawled the real Foster, "that's what I'm counting on!"
From within his coat, Foster took a revolver. Holding it on his image, Foster replaced the tube and watched the scene resume, with a third Foster going through its paces. He snapped off the camera and the set disappeared, leaving the bare stage. He wiped his fingerprints from the place and then nudged the image Foster with the revolver.
"Out," he snapped, pointing with the gun barrel.
They went--in a death march.
A half hour later, the real Foster handed his image a drink. "Drink deeply," he said sarcastically. "You needn't be afraid to die--you never lived, you know."
The image Foster shook his head. "I've been alive as you have!"
The real Foster lifted his revolver and snarled: "We can put a stop to that!" He fired thrice and each shot slammed into Foster's stomach driving the man back against the wall. He crumpled, finally.
Then Harry Foster took a look around the living room of his apartment, shrugged, and left, tossing the pistol into a corner.
Lieutenant Miller looked down at the corpse. "Someone sure hated him," he said.
"Me, too."
"What about his wife?"
"She's in the next room. Which reminds me--"
Lieutenant Miller went to the door and looked in quietly. "Look, fellows, just establish her. Don't bother grilling her."
Sergeant Mullaney looked up in surprise. Miller nodded. "This is one case I'm not going to kill myself solving," he said. "I just want to be certain that the murderer of Harry Foster isn't as obvious as a stone pillar on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. Is Mrs. Foster clear?"
Mullaney nodded. "Spending the whole evening with a friend."
"Friend corroborate it?"
Mrs. Foster smiled wanly. "She will if asked," she said.
Miller nodded. "My only regret, Mrs. Foster, is that his insurance will just about cover his embezzlements. The rest--"
"I wouldn't touch it--or him--with a ten-foot pole," she blazed.
Jacobson met Miller at the door. "He got around," he said. "Blackmail, embezzlement, and outright larceny. There's been talk of drug-peddling and white slave traffic. Why or how the bird managed to be such a thorough stinker and still maintain his position here I'll never tell you."
Miller looked at the coroner, who was just polishing up his job. Miller said, "Whoever did it did Foster a favor. Between you and me, we'd have had him between nutcrackers in another week."
Jacobson nodded. "Couldn't have been suicide?"
Miller shook his head. "After filling himself that full of lead, he was too dead to toss that gun. Furthermore, he was shot from greater than arm's distance. No," said Miller, "someone 'done him in' and should possibly be commended. Plain case of: 'Too bad, thank God!'"
Martha Evers watched her image on the stage in the studio theater. Beside her was Martin Hammer who was watching the performance with interest. Martha was watching with wonder; Hammer had seen this thing at work before and was more concerned with the technical portions of the opus than the wonder of watching a life-sized, living, breathing, talking image perform.
On the other side of Martha Evers was Tim Woodart, who was just watching. He was more or less out of a job since professional photographers had taken over the job of making the performance.
"But how is it done?" she asked him.
"Same like any other of its kind," smiled Tim.
"But there isn't any other."
"Television is, sort of," he said. "Anyway, there is a three-way scan taking in the volume to be reproduced. Each atom in the original has its own characteristic charge and mass: this charge and mass is registered. When the reproducer replaces the real people with the image, the same scan forms real atoms where the real atom was in the original. The follow-up scan wipes the atom clear to make room for the next frame."
"How about this building atoms?" puzzled the girl. "Doesn't that make for radioactivity?"
"Uh-huh," he said, "but the radioactivity is really energy that we use to operate the machine."
The scene on the stage switched to a close-up of Martha and the picture's villain, one Jack Vanders whose leer was known across the continent.
The woman on the other side of Tim Woodart stood up and called "Cut it!" in a low contralto.
The stage cleared in a twinkle and the lights went up.
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