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I couldn't get excited. But Billy was all worked up about it. That's the way he is — enthusiastic about his work.
"People have their ups and downs," he said, a fanatic light creeping into his eyes, the way it does when he's on the trail of some idea to make — Globe- readers gasp.
"Not only people, but peoples — nations, cultures, civilizations. Go back through history and you can point out a parallelism in the cycles of sunspots and significant events. Take 1937, for example, the year they had the sit-down strikes. In July of that year the sunspot cycle hits its maximum with a Wolfer index of 137.
"Scientists are pretty sure periods of excitement are explained by acute changes in the nervous and psychic characters of humanity which take place at sunspot maxima, but they aren't sure of the reasons for those changes."
"Ultraviolet light," I yawned, remembering something I had read in a magazine about it.
Billy wiggled his ears and went on: "Most likely ultraviolet has a lot to do with it. The spots themselves aren't strong emission centers for ultraviolet. But it may be the very changes in the Sun's atmosphere which produce the spots also result in the production of more ultraviolet.
"Most of the ultraviolet reaching Earth's atmosphere is used up converting oxygen into ozone, but changes of as much as twenty percent in its intensity are possible at the surface.
"And ultraviolet produces definite reaction in human glands, largely in the endocrine glands."
"I don't believe a damn word of it," Herb declared flatly, but there was no stopping Billy.
He clinched his argument: "Let's say, then, that changes in sunshine, such as occur during sunspot periods, affect the physiological character and mental outlook of all the people on Earth. In other words, human behavior corresponds to sunspot cycles.
"Compare Dow Jones averages with sunspots and you will find they show a marked sympathy with the cycles — the market rising with sunspot activity. Sunspots were riding high in 1928 and 1929. In the autumn of 1929 there was an abrupt break in sunspot activity and the market crashed. It hit bedrock in 1932 and 1933, and so did the sunspots. Wall Street follows the sunspot cycle."
"Keep those old sunspots rolling," I jeered at him, "and we'll have everlasting prosperity. We'll simply wallow in wealth."
"Sure," said Herb, "and the damn fools will keep jumping off the buildings."
"But what would happen if we reversed things — made a law against sunspots?" I asked.
"Why, then," said Billy, solemn as an owl, "we'd have terrible depressions."
I got up and walked away from him. I had got to thinking about what I had seen on the sidewalk after the fellow jumped, and I needed that beer.
Jake, one of the copy boys, yelled at me just as I was going out the door.
"J.R. wants to see you, Mike."
So I turned around and walked toward the door behind which J.R. sat rubbing his hands and figuring out some new stunts to shock the public into buying the — Globe-.
"Mike," said J.R. when I stepped into his office, "I want to congratulate you on the splendid job you did this morning. Mighty fine story, my boy, mighty fine."
"Thanks, J.R.," I said, knowing the old rascal didn't mean a word of it.
Then J.R. got down to business.
"Mike," he said, "I suppose you've been reading this stuff about Dr. Ackerman's time machine."
"Yeah," I told him, "but if you think you're going to send me out to interview that old publicity grabber, you're all wrong. I saw a guy spatter himself all over Fifth Street this morning, and I been listening to Billy Larson telling about sunspots, and I can't stand much more. Not in one day, anyhow."
Then J.R. dropped the bombshell on me.
"The — Globe-," he a
That took me clear off my feet.
The — Globe-, in my time, had done a lot of wacky things, but this was the worst.
"What for?" I asked weakly, and J.R. looked shocked; but he recovered in a minute and leaned across the desk.
"Just consider, Mike. Think of the opportunities a time machine offers a newspaper. The other papers can tell them what has happened and what is happening, but, by Godfrey, they'll have to read the — Globe- to know what is going to happen."
"I have a slogan for you," I said. "Read the News Before It Happens."
He didn't know if I was joking or was serious and waited for a minute before going on.
"A war breaks out," he said. "The other papers can tell what is happening at the moment. We can do better than that. We can tell them what will happen. Who will win and lose. What battles will be fought. How long the war will last-"
"But, J.R.," I yelled at him, "you can't do that! Don't you see what a hell of a mess you'll make of things. If one side knew it was going to lose-"
"It doesn't apply merely to wars," said J.R. "There's sports. Football games. Everybody is nuts right now to know if Mi
He rubbed his hands and purred.
"I'll have old Johnson down at the — Standard- eating out of my hand," he gloated. "I'll make him wish he never saw a newspaper. I'll take the wind out of his sails. I'll send my reporters out a day ahead-"
"You'll have every bookie on your neck," I shouted. "Don't you know there's millions of dollars bet every Saturday on football games? Don't you see what you'd do?
You'd put every jackpot, every betting window out of business. Tracks would close down. Nobody would spend a dime to see a game they could read about ahead of time. You'd put organized baseball and college football, boxing, everything else out of business. What would be the use of staging a prize fight if the public knew in advance who was going to win?"
But J.R. just chortled gleefully and rubbed his hands.
"We'll publish stock-market quotations for the coming month on the first of every month," he pla
Seeing him sitting there gave me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. For I knew that in his hands rested a terrible power, a power that he was blind to or too stubborn to respect.
The power to rob every human being on Earth of every bit of happiness. For if a man could look ahead and see some of the things that no doubt were going to happen, how could he be happy?
Power to hurl the whole world into chaos. Power to make and break any man, or thing, or institution that stood before him.
I tried another angle.
"But how do you know the machine will work?"
"I have ample proof," said J.R. "The other papers ridiculed Dr. Ackerman, while we presented his a
I shrugged my shoulders.
"O.K.," I said. "Go ahead. I don't see why the hell you called me in."
"Because," beamed J.R., "you're going to make the first trip in the time machine!"
"What!" I yelled.
J.R. nodded. "You and a photographer. Herb Harding. I called you in first. You leave tomorrow morning. Five hundred years into the future for a starter. Get pictures. Come back and write your story. We'll spring it in the Sunday paper. Whole front-page layout. What does the city look like five hundred years from now? What changes have been made? Who's mayor? What are the women wearing in the fall of 2450?"
He gri
"And you might say, too, that the — Standard- no longer is published. Whether it's the truth or not, you know. Old Johnson will go hog wild when he reads that in your story."