*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78057 ***




                               The Vidiot

                             by Ib Melchior




  _To the best of our knowledge the Metropolitan Opera stage has
  never before cast its mantle of magic over the science fiction
  landscape. But with the coming of Ib Melchior to our pages with his
  first fantasy story its legendary spell has been widened. For Mr.
  Melchior is the son of a singer so famous that to mention his name
  would be redundant. Quite as important, Ib Melchior is a motion
  picture producer as well as a writer, with several TV shows behind
  him, including the Perry Como Show on CBS. Much of his background
  and experience as a producer-director is mirrored forth in this most
  exciting yarn._

  =There are a good many startling surprises in TV camera work. But if
  the universe reels--will an eager lad get a second chance?=




“Don Hartley!” The little blonde secretary’s eyes opened wide with
curiosity as she repeated his name. _She knows, then_, thought Don.

“Just--just a minute,” she said. She picked up the phone and pressed
the inter-office button. “Mr. Don Hartley to see you, sir,” she
announced. Then after a pause, “Yes, sir.”

She replaced the receiver, and turned back to Don. “Won’t you please
have a seat, Mr. Hartley. He’ll see you in a moment.”

Don sat uncomfortably on the edge of one of the heavy,
leather-upholstered chairs. He looked around the beautifully
appointed ante-office. The little secretary was trying in vain to be
inconspicuous in her curiosity about him. He shifted self-consciously
on the chair.

Was he in the right place? Had he really made the right decision? It
was a damned difficult thing to figure out!

For the umpteenth time he let his mind wander back twenty-four hours--a
measly twenty-four hours--when....

       *       *       *       *       *

George Kenmore flipped the talk-back key: “Okay, everybody--wrap it up.
That’s it for now. Be back here ready to go from the top in exactly one
hour and a half.”

He turned to the technical director, a large, comfortable man who sat
worrying a dead cigar on his left.

“And, Steve,” he warned, “don’t kill the cameras. Just cap them up so
we don’t burn in. You and the boys be back here in one hour. I’ve got
a little problem I want to fool around with. That duplicator effect on
Ganymede.”

He leaned across the control desk toward the row of monitors in front
of him on the lower level of the video control room, addressing himself
to the top of a crew cut.

“And, Don,” he added, “be sure we have horizontal reverse scanning on
Camera One. And I want to use the whipe--and also I want you to switch
the matting amplifier into the circuit.”

The video technician looked up over his shoulder. “Okay, George. You
know me. A director’s wish is my command! But they sure handed you a
tough one this time.”

“What do you expect? After all we’re doing a space opera--on _live_ TV.
There are bound to be technical difficulties. As long as they don’t
ask me for a close-up with the feet in we’ll lick any problem they can
dream up. Right?”

“Right!” echoed Don brightly. “Anything the movie boys can do with
process shooting and laboratory tricks we can do right here in the
studio--and better. I’m with _you_!”

George picked up his earphones from the desk and spoke into the tiny
mike. “Bill! Bill Sanders! Are you still on cans?”

Out on the studio floor one of the men waved his arm. George saw him
through the double glass pane and continued: “Good! Tell the boys to
let in the big black in two--in front of the spaceship set. And get the
fog machine set. I’m going to use a half hour of fax rehearsal time
when we get back for some experimenting. Has the dry ice arrived yet?”

On the floor Bill waved “yes.”

“Okay.”

“Tell me, George,” the T.D. asked. “What exactly is the effect you want
in that Ganymede scene?”

George picked up a paper clip and absent-mindedly began twisting it
around his pencil in a tight spiral. It was a silly habit of his, but
an innocuous one.

“It’s like this,” he began to explain. “We’re on Ganymede--that’s one
of Jupiter’s moons. The ‘Planeteer’ has landed and is walking around on
the satellite in his space suit. We’ll play the whole thing in front of
the black drop and put in electronic stars.”

He leaned over the desk. “Can do, Don?”

“Can do!”

“Fine! Now--the floor will be covered with dry ice fog. It’s supposed
to be ammonia vapors or some such guck. So far so good.”

He rolled his little paper clip spiral off his pencil and started on
another one.

“The ‘Planeteer’ is all alone, see? But suddenly another spacesuited
figure joins him. It turns out to be _he himself_--and duplicated! And
if that’s not enough, a third copy joins them--all three of them _he
himself_. He’s supposed to look at himself, talk to himself, and walk
in front of himself. We can’t use doubles because of those transparent
space helmets. And what’s more, the three triplicated ‘Planeteers’ are
supposed to make the exact same movements at the exact same time. The
whole thing’s supposed to be some sort of hallucination.”

He stood up. “And speaking about hallucinations--I’m so hungry _I’m_
going to get them if I don’t get something to eat. Coming, Steve?”

“Fine,” said the T.D.

The director leaned across the desk again. “And how about our _vidiot_?
You want to join us, Don?” he asked.

Don cringed mentally at the nickname. Even though he knew it was only a
good-natured rib at the video technicians he always winced at the term
“vidiot.”

But he managed to sound unconcerned when he answered: “Guess not,
George. I’m not hungry. Besides I’ve got a heavy date after the show.
I’ll just stick around here.”

“See you later, then,” the director said as he and his T.D. left the
control room. On the studio floor Bill, the floor manager, let a last
look of inspection sweep the stage. Then he too walked out.

Studio 52 was deserted--except for Don Hartley.

Fine! That would give him a chance. He was pretty sure he knew what
the director had in mind, and how he would solve his problem of
triplication. If he could have everything set up when George returned
the director was bound to send a note of commendation to Barnes, the
big brass in the front office. Don was ambitious. He had his eye on the
T.D. chair, even on that of the director himself. And who could know?
Everything was possible.

Now. He’d use three cameras. Take the first picture of the “Planeteer”
on Camera III--normal scanning. Then he’d split the screen vertically
on the whipe amplifier, putting the image from Camera III on the right
half of the screen. Then on Camera I he’d take another picture of the
“Planeteer” and reverse the scanning horizontally so that right became
left, and vice versa.

Then he’d put the image from Camera I on the left half of the screen,
and he’d have two identical “Planeteers” looking at each other. That
would work out all right. Now. On Camera II he’d take yet another
picture of the “Planeteer,” and using the matting amplifier with
primary picture on Camera II he could put the third “Planeteer” in
front of the two others. It would work. He’d have to try it out.

Don walked out on the stage. From the prop room he got a space suit in
a light blue color and propped it up on the Test Pattern stand in front
of the black backdrop. That would be the “Planeteer.” Next he lined up
his two pedestal cameras and swung in the huge boom camera so that all
three had a full figure shot of the space suit.

       *       *       *       *       *

He returned to the control room and completed his intricate hookup. It
worked. One space suit “Planeteer” had become three!

He reached up behind him to punch up his montage picture on the studio
monitor so he could watch it out on the floor while he moved around in
front of the cameras. As he swept his arm across the desk to the master
switchboard there was a tiny scratching sound. This became the sound of
an object rolling--and then falling off the desk.

There was a sharp crack and an acrid puff of smoke as one of George’s
little paper clip spirals fell down into the exposed mass of tubes and
wires of the matting amplifier.

For a split second Don’s world stood still. His first reaction was
a quick glance at the line monitor. The picture was still there,
but--something had happened to it. The matting amplifier worked by
“punching” a hole in the image taken by one camera the exact shape of
the image taken by a second camera and putting this second image into
the hole.

The hole was there all right. It was the exact shape of the propped-up
space suit. But it was a hole without an image. It was a hole of utter
jet black.

Don knew he ought to kill his B Plus before any more damage was done,
but there was something about the total blackness of that hole in the
picture on the monitor tube which fascinated him. It simply wasn’t
possible to get such a perfect black, even if you dug for it. He began
cautiously to turn the brightness control. Slowly the blackness became
lighter.

All of a sudden an image appeared in the hole! Don worked the contrast
control. The picture came swiftly into focus. It was _not_ the image of
the space suit as it should have been. Through the hole shaped like the
space suit Don was looking into the interior of a spaceship!

At once Don’s mind supplied an answer. Something had happened to his
hookup when that metal spiral had fallen into the matting amplifier and
fused certain connections! Now he was actually able to pick up images
from an extra-terrestrial spaceship! He must be excused, however. He
had worked a long time on that TV space opera. And it wasn’t long
before he realized that what he was actually seeing in the hole was
merely the spaceship set built for “The Planeteers.” He was about
to kill his power when it struck him like a 1000-volt camera shock.
How could he _see_ the spaceship set? It was _behind_ the big black
backdrop!

He studied the image on the monitor intently. That was it, all right.
No mistake about it. He was looking right through the heavy, black
duvetyne backdrop with Camera II. Or--He suddenly had a thought.

Don ran out into the studio. Bill usually kept a piece of chalk for
floor markings near his cans. There! He went over Camera I. Carefully
he drew on the floor a straight line at a 90-degree angle to the lens
from the camera over to the black drop. Then he went to Camera II and
did the same. The lines did not converge in front of the drop.

He ran behind the black, lifted up the bottom to orientate himself and
continued the lines on the other side. They crossed each other right
smack in the middle of the spaceship set.

There could only be one answer. But Don had to be sure.

He went back to Camera II and carefully swung it a little to the right.
Now the two imaginary lines would cross about 100 feet further out.

He ran back to the control room. And there--in the spacesuit-shaped
hole in the monitor image he watched the traffic on the street outside
the studio roar silently by! He was seeing through the backdrop,
through the scenery stored at the rear of the studio, through the wall
itself, and into the street. Wherever the lines from the two cameras
would cross--_he saw!_ He estimated the focal depth of the picture to
be about ten feet on either side of the actual crossing point of the
vitally important imaginary lines.

He sat back. He was trembling a little. His hands felt clammy. But he
soon got hold of himself. He looked at the control room clock. One
thirty-three. The guys would be back in about twenty minutes. He had to
hurry. He killed the power, switched on his work lamp, and peered into
the innards of the fused, mutilated matting amplifier. From the storing
case he hauled out the complete circuit blueprint, and set to work.

The next fifteen minutes were spent in sketching in new connections and
bridges and crossing out old ones on the drawings. Then Don carefully
fished out the paper clip spiral and deliberately dropped the heavy
work light into the amplifier. There was the sharp noise of splintering
tubes. Stuffing the corrected circuit blueprints in his pocket Don
hurriedly left the studio minutes before the crew returned to continue
their rehearsal for “The Planeteers.”

Don walked quickly through the mid-day crowd towards the park. Barnes
would have his hide--first for wrecking the matting amplifier and
secondly for walking out on the rehearsal. But he desperately needed
time to think. So what if he was fired! It was a _big_ thing he’d come
across.

He had immediately recognized the tremendous possibilities of his
accidental discovery. It had been simple for him to analyze the circuit
changes produced by the paper clip spiral and to realize that it would
literally be child’s play to construct a single camera which could be
focused on any given area and pick up an image regardless of whatever
obstacles might lay between, unknown to anyone in the area! With this
camera he could reach in anywhere with an invisible, all-seeing eye.
And he was the only one who had this secret. Reflexively he touched the
pocket which held his notes.

He definitely did not want to give this discovery to the network.
He still remembered and resented that objectionable clause in his
employment contract: _I will assign to you irrevocably any and all
rights I may have or get to all “inventions” made by me alone or with
others, whether during or outside of my regular working hours._

Like hell he would! This was one thing that number one boy wasn’t
giving away. There was a mint to be made--and Donny boy was going to
make it!

It was a warm, sunny day. Don hunted up a quiet corner in the park and
relaxed on the grass. He had some tall thinking to do.

Let’s face it. He had a pure uranium mine on his hands. Just imagine
what could be done with it! Entertainment could be plucked right out of
the theaters, sports arenas, ball parks, anywhere. News events could be
covered immediately and wherever they might occur by a spin of a dial.
Even “Person to Person” wouldn’t need all that cumbersome equipment!
The military could watch war games, attacks, any development, in
safety. Why, almost anyone could explore, maybe even discover rich
mineral deposits with his new, penetrating TV camera! You could observe
the bottom of an ocean and the heart of a mountain. Yes, sir! He would
revolutionize TV pick-up and transmission. Maybe even the secrets of
space itself--

He felt dizzy. There was no end to the possibilities. And he was
sitting on top of the gizmo that would do it! The Hartley Penetelecam!
Or simpler still: _The Hartleycam!_

He’d let someone like General Electric handle it. Possibly RCA. And
the right would be his. He’d be a Croesus. Rich as Rothchild. Another
Rockefeller! He’d buy up part of this park and put up Hartley Center.
And he’d have his office on the entire penthouse floor. The inventor
and controller of the Hartleycam! It would be a closely-guarded secret.
Like the government’s Norden Bomb Sight. Or the H-bomb. The Norden Bomb
Sight--the H-bomb--the Hartleycam--the Hartleycam--

“Mr. Hartley! The president will see you now.”

A big man. Round owlish eyes behind thin steel-framed spectacles. Did
he wear a toupee?

“Sir, when I signed contracts with your corporation to develop and
exploit the Hartleycam--”

“Say no more, my boy! I’m with _you!_ But it is beyond my control. It
has been ever since. Certain government factors have taken over, you
know. There is nothing either of us can do. It was too big--too big!”

Of course the president didn’t wear a toupee. He was bald.

It showed when he bowed. But not to Don. He was not there. He bowed to
the _Hartleycam_--the _Hartleycam_--

       *       *       *       *       *

“Mr. Hartley! The president will see you now.”

A pompous man. A man accustomed to giving orders and having them
obeyed. But not recently?

“Sir! As publisher and president of the leading metropolitan
newspaper--”

“Sshhh, young man! I know who you are. Don’t let too many others find
out! Why did you let your spy camera get into the wrong hands? Don’t
you know it is the unscrupulous, the ruthless who grab power whenever
they can? What happens when that power is unconquerable???”

“But I--”

“You gave them the power to penetrate into all places. No more privacy!
No more privacy--no more successful opposition to ruthless power.”

“Your paper--can’t you--”

“The freedom of the press? It is dead. Like all other
freedoms--completely dead. You must conform, or else--”

They burst in unannounced. They were grim, and tall, and strong. They
had black uniforms with a large silver H on the chest. H?

“I’ve been expecting you,” said the pompous publisher resignedly. “I am
ready!”

“And him?” growled one of Them tossing His head at Don.

“He is only Hartley!”

They shrugged--and left....

The city was not the city. The people were not the people. There were
no smiles, no joy. There were only flesh-and-blood robots with furtive
eyes and haunted looks.

And It was everywhere. Watching! He could feel it. Not the deepest
dungeon nor the farthest corner was safe. It was all over him. Like a
sticky, hot, unbearable beam, stabbing at his closed eyes, burning his
weary brain.

Don sat up with a start. The glaring sun stood overhead. What a fool
he’d been to doze off in the sun like that. He’d probably gotten
himself a nice burn. No wonder he’d had a nightmare.

He gathered himself up and began walking through the park. He felt
sweaty and tired--and disturbed. And he still had to make up his mind.
Where to go?

The Network?

Industrial Exploitation?

The Government?

And that had been twenty-four hours earlier.

A buzzer sounded on the little secretary’s desk. She was kind of cute
at that--for all of her curiosity.

“You may go in now, Mr. Hartley, she announced pleasantly.”

He walked towards the door. There was a black sign with white letters:
V. P. GENL. ENGINEERING W. BARNES.

He entered.

“Hello, Don,” said Barnes seriously, “sit down.”

Don leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette.

“Now--what’s it all about?”

He had to say it fast, or he might not say it at all.

“I guess I lost my head.” He nearly tripped over the words. “I was
hooking up the matting amplifier for Mr. Kenmore on the ‘Planeteer’
show--and I dropped the worklight into it. I thought the whole thing
had blown up. I got scared, and--and I just ran out of there. I don’t
know what came over me. I have no excuse.”

He stopped. It was done. There could be no turning back.

Barnes looked at him for a moment. Then his stern face softened.

“Look, Don,” he said kindly. “We all have accidents. But we can’t
afford to panic after every one. Still, it took courage to come here
and face up to your mistake like this. I’m going to give you another
chance.”

He got up and put his hand on Don’s shoulder. “Just don’t lose your
head again,” he smiled. “And, Don, we’ll take you off ‘The Planeteers’
for a while. I guess they can get along with another vidiot!”

He slapped Don on the back good-naturedly. In the boy’s inside coat
pocket a bunch of papers crackled softly. A bunch of papers which held
the answer to an electronic device the boy had decided was too big. The
world was not ready for the _Hartleycam_. Not yet.

Not quite yet.




Transcriber’s Note:


 This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, March 1956 (Vol. 5,
No. 2.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.

 Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78057 ***