Free Murray Leinster by The Best of Murray Leinster (1976) Page B

stubbornly refused to permit the reinoculation of either his family or his cows. The dumpy little man in the badly fitting uniform said earnestly:
    ‘It is a matter of living together - what learned men call symbiosis. We defended our country with the other inoculations. Now we must defend all mankind with these! We do not want our people to be feared or hated. We want visitors from other nations to come and live among us in peace and safety, to have no fears about doing business with us. If other nations are afraid of us, we will suffer for it!’
    The peasant made fitful objections. Victory over the invaders, and the terms imposed upon them, had made him proud. But Surgeon General Mors’ patient arguments were gradually wearing him down.
    ‘Ah, but they made wax on us. That was different! We do not want any more wars. When you and your family and your cows have been inoculated, we will be that much further along toward the understanding that nations which are at peace can live together,’ said Surgeon General Mors earnesdy. Nations which are at war only die together.’
    Time travel. A theme that fascinated Leinster, who made it the subject of a number of short stories. A collection of his stories on this theme appeared about sixteen years ago, and it was obvious that Leinster was aware of the paradoxes involved. Some of his 5 solutions’ were ingenious in the extreme. In the present story it is the results, rather than the mechanics, of the operation, that are considered.
    The racket came on the air about eight o’clock, and at eight-five the business office of American Broadcasting went up in the air like a gyrocket, making similar shrill screaming noises. The row came from somewhere in Brooklyn, and there wasn’t a vision set in thirty miles - fifteen million customers - that could get anything but crazy streaks on its plate, or anything but a steady rasping noise on audio. It was just before the Melba Hour when Little Angy went on the air, and Little Angy was something the customers couldn’t do without. So when this noise started on the vision channels at this special time, the business office began to shriek and wring its hands, and every locator-car on the prowl went streaking.
    The racket wasn’t too hard to locate. Of course, like all short stuff, we had to chase it around corners. Mort and me, we went around one block three times before Mort realized that the whole block was one big warehouse and it had aluminum-foil insulation which was batting the stuff back and forth with a couple of fire-walls and vertical metal signs elsewhere. When we made a bigger circuit around it, we got back on the line and only had to track off three places where it was coming from two directions at once, and one where there were three steady beams of it from as many casual reflectors. But it didn’t help any that
    the business office was having hysterics on the car set, telling us that Little Angy would be going on in twenty minutes, in fifteen minutes, that there were already two thousand complaints, the mayor had called up to find out what was the matter and the Pinky-Pank company had already filed a penalty-daim on the ground of loss of coverage, and if something wasn’t done quick— And so on.
    We found it, though. The stuff was coming out of a block of dingy-looking buildings, some of them occupied tenements and some boarded up. It was a pretty bum neighborhood. What always makes it worse is that when you get close enough to short stuff with power behind it, it’s bouncing off every pot and kettle and gives you secondary dispersion-beams. So Mort and me, we piled out of our car and were just starting to work when the other cars came, and we divided up the street. We got started banging on doors with the old line of excuse-me-lady-but - there’s - some - electrical - device - making - television -wavelength - interference - in - this - neighborhood - do - you -know - anybody - who - does - electrical - experimenting -