The Gently Orbiting Blonde
by JOHN VICTOR PETERSON
Illustrated by ENGLE
Anti-gravity may be hard
to handle—but a woman
scorned is still harder!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity, April 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Maybe Helene's right in saying that I shouldn't tell exactly how ourliving room became the training station for Space Satellite One. If Idon't, though, I'm afraid she'll let it slip out as a deep dark secretto one of her tri-dielectronic bridge friends and it'll be all over theProject as quickly as a pile past critical mass. It certainly wouldn'thelp my reputation at the labs, especially if in the retelling thefacts should become distorted about Gladys, the gently orbiting blonde.
Some of it was accidental, certainly, but didn't Wilhelm Roentgen getbrushed by the breeze of chance?
I must have been on the right track, anyhow!
I'll leave it to you....
It's true, I do get absorbed in things. So it happened on the night Iwas married. But I did, after all, carry Helene across the threshold.Can I help it that, as I was fetching her a toast, I just happened toglance up at the sun-chandelier in our cathedral-ceilinged living roomand got reminded of the Project and decided I just had to go down intomy lab in the basement and change one little bit of circuitry? Whenyou're working on something as elusive as anti-gravity, you've got toseize upon every minute of inspiration.
I told her I'd be right back and dashed downstairs. I guess I shouldhave kissed her first. I forgot. I'm sorry now. In a way. If I had,maybe—But, let's face it, I forgot.
You could ask old Ruocco, my psych prof. He always says I'vesupernormal powers of concentration.
There I was in the basement. One thing led to another. I rearranged thecircuitry on the psionic machine and found then that changes in thegyrorotors were indicated.
Something intruded vaguely on my mind but I ignored it, enmeshed as Iwas in magnetostriction lines. This just might work!
It didn't. My concentration was disrupted. I glanced at my watch. Oi!I thought, Helene!
And my subconscious told me with sickening certainty that the neardisturbance I had had, had been the slamming of a door—of the frontdoor by someone on the way out.
I went upstairs. Helene was gone, complete with pocketbook. Her valiseshad been in the car and I saw from the living room window that she'dtaken that.
She'd gone home to Mom, I guessed. She'd have no trouble getting offthe reservation; she had a nonsensitive job on the Project. Not likeme; I couldn't get pried out of White Sands by less than Presidentialorder.
It'd be hours before I could try visioing her. Mom's way up inConnecticut, quite a hop even by jetliner.
I sat on the chitchat bench, felt sorry for myself for a second andthen got concentrating on the starchart on the ceiling above thesun-chandelier and decided that if man was to start exploring upwardI'd better continue my exploring downstairs.
But I couldn't concentrate. I fiddled around rewiring the psionicmachine just to have something to do.
The front door banged again with the loveliest, most satisfyingsolid bang—and I dropped my soldering iron on a printed circuit andsomething went whoosh which wasn't just me going up the stairs.Simultaneously a feminine scream came to meet me.
I went up the stairs but whe