F. Wallace - 10 Lost Pulp Sci-Fi Masterpieces

I interrupted; “Jim, you haven’t really tested what the thing will do and it is late, so before you go into many more schemes, let’s sleep on it. We can get right after it in the morning. You can, that is, because all I can do is watch.”

The next morning bright and early I was awakened by Johnny, who was dancing around the room, shouting something on the order of “Hey! Somebody’s gottoget’erdown! Somebody’s gottoget’erdown!”

Making myself heard over the din, I hollered, “Who’s got to get who down? For Pete’s sake, stop yelling so loud!”

Having been out-shouted, Johnny calmed down enough to catch his breath and gasp, “Say, Dad, Duchess is in Jim’s room and she’s on the ceiling, and yougottoget’erdown!”

Well, it dawned on me then what he was talking about. Duchess is our nine-months-old Great Dane pup. Weighs about a hundred pounds. So, pulling on bathrobe and slippers, I went down stairs, and hurried into Jim’s room. Sure enough, plastered on the ceiling and looking mighty scared and sick and sheepish was Duchess. When I came in she wagged a feeble tail at me and squirmed a bit. Mary, Johnny and Jim were all standing looking at her.

“Dad, I don’t know how it happened,” Jim said. “Guess I forgot to pull the plug last night. First I knew was when I heard a thump and a yelp… woke up and she was practically right over my bed.”

Duchess was apparently unhurt, so I walked over and reached up to coax her down. Just then Jim shouted, “Dad! Don’t do…!” And my head hit the ceiling! Like a fool I had walked right over the plastic plate!

As soon as I could get my eyes to focus properly, I shut them again quickly. I was lying, (lying!) next to Duchess, on the ceiling, and she was thrashing me in the face with her tail. As soon as I pushed her around so my face was out of range I could see the dumbfounded looks on the rest of the family.

“Ralph,” said Mary, in a tone of exasperation, “You and that dog come right down from there this minute!”

“Honey, I’d just be delighted to come down there, and if you and the boys will shove that bed under us, we’ll try. Soon as Jim turns this damn thing off.”

By this time, Johnny was lying on the floor about to bust a gusset laughing at his father and long-legged Duchess sprawled on the ceiling, and even Jim, who is always rather straight-faced, was beginning to grin a little around the edges. Mary still seemed convinced that Duchess and I had done it on purpose.

Jim finally gathered his wits enough to start pushing the bed under us. Between the three of them they managed to bypass the wires to the plastic plate and set the bed over it. I noticed that it bucked a little as the edge went over the plate, but I didn’t get time to see much because no sooner had the bed been pushed over it than the whole thing with the exception of the frame, rose straight up and smothered the dog and me very effectively! After the first moment of panic, consisting of flailing arms, legs, muffled barks and curses, I was able to shove the bedding aside so we could breathe again. I had just started to yell at Jim to turn the thing off and stand aside, when that’s just what he did. I clutched at Duchess, hoping to break both our falls I guess, but nothing happened!

I looked at Jim, and he was looking at the plug in his hand. There was a dazed look on his face, and I’m sure there was one on mine too. Duchess just licked my face and wagged her tail. For a space of about two breaths no one spoke, then all started at once….

“Jim, you pull out that plug right now and get your father down from there!” That was Mary.

“Don’t just stand there like a dope… turn that damn thing off!” That was me.

“Jimmy, where’s your camera? I want to get a picture of this!” That was Johnny.

Duchess just whined, and wagged her tail apologetically.

“Jim,” I said, very softly, “Will you please stop messing around and get us down from here?”

“I unplugged it, Dad… I don’t know why you’re still up there.” He shook his head.

Johnny, bless his little heart, had what seemed to be a good idea; “Why not get hold of the wires and pull the plate out from under them?”

So Jim eased up to within about a foot of the plate, grabbed the wires and started pulling. I had no sensation at all. We just stuck there. Even with the plate out in the hall!

Jim stood for a moment in thought, then looked up at us and said, “Well, maybe it’ll wear off in a little while, as you gradually discharge whatever kind of charge you got from the plate.”

“What do you mean by ‘charge’?” I asked.

“Well, not knowing what kind of field I generated with that plate, I couldn’t tell you offhand, but it is probably something like this; you see, apparently what I did was not cut gravity off exactly, but changed the normal electrical charge in whatever object came into the field. Seems to me if I had cut gravity with the plate, you would have fallen when I turned it off. As it is, you’re still there,” he added rather unnecessarily.

And Jim, as his teen-age friends used to say, wasn’t just whistling Dixie. We were definitely, unquestionably still there.

About this time I became aware of a pain in the small of my back. For a man who is pushing 60, I’m in pretty good shape except for my sacroiliac. Just my luck, I thought. Here I am, plastered to the ceiling, and that thing has to start acting up. In moving a bit though, I heard a scraping sound and found I had more than one pain in my back. Feeling carefully under me, I found that it wasn’t the sacroiliac at all, but a cigarette lighter, two gloves, a pack of cigarettes, and two golf balls. I tried to toss the balls down to the floor and all they did was go almost down then curve right back up and bounce on the ceiling, where they settled. I tried the same thing with the gloves and back they came too. So I lit one of the cigarettes, even without my morning coffee.

Mary had been silent for awhile, but apparently she had the same thought. “Ralph, aren’t you coming down for breakfast?” she asked, pleadingly.

“I don’t know, honey. But I do know I’m sure getting hungry, even in this position.” And turning so I could see her better, if you can turn while lying on the ceiling looking down, I said, “Do you suppose you could whip up something to eat? And maybe put it on a pole so you could hand it up?” She allowed as how she could, but Jim, who had been in one of his brown studies again spoke up; “I don’t believe we’ll need a pole, Dad. Now that the plastic plate’s been turned off and moved, everything’s all right.”

“Everything’s all right!” I growled. “If everything’s so all right, why don’t we come down? How long’s it going to take, anyway?”

“Well, it’s hard to say,” Jim shrugged. “In fact, I’ve been thinking maybe I ought to call Professor Jordan up at school and ask him what to do.”

“Is he an expert?”

“Well, I’d call him that. The trouble is, I don’t know what I did, so I certainly don’t know how to un-do it. Maybe he’ll have an idea.”

“Does he know about anti-gravity?”

“I don’t imagine so, but he’s the head of electronics and I know he’s been working on the unified field theory just as a hobby. He’s the fellow who got me to wondering about energized metal particles in colloidal suspension. Think I’d better call him?”

“Son,” I said, trying to retie my bathrobe belt, “You not only call him, but if it’s possible, get him to come here…. I’ve got to get down. Hell, I haven’t even shaved yet this morning, and I’ve got to be at work in about two hours.”

“You may not get down from there that soon, but I’ll go call him right now.”