One Step From Earth

This is a good solid theme that has not really received too much attention. And what attention it has received has been, for the most part, only about how you build the thing and make it work and what happens when it breaks down. Sort of like early science fiction where the story ended when the rocket took off. Basically, matter transmitters deal with solid objects in much the same way television deals with light waves. An image is received by a TV camera where it is broken down into a signal which is then transmitted to a receiver that converts the signal back into a visible image. MT — derived from matter transmitter in the same way TV comes from television — has usually been visualized as a breaking up of the original substance by scanning the molecules and atoms one at a time, then blasting out this scanning signal to be rebuilt at the receiving end. Sometimes the signal is stored rather than being broadcast which leads to much fun and games when the same person is rebuilt over and over again from his recordings.

Most MT stories have been of this fun-and-games variety, all involved with building the machine and seeing what it does to the first victims who are fed therein. All of which can be very interesting, but is by no means a complete picture of the possibilities of MT. Let us think ahead a bit. If we can imagine an operating MT we can certainly consider the possibility of the widespread use of MTs. If the machine works it can be made to work cheaper and better and soon we might be using MTs the same way we use telephones now. Possible? Of course.

But what is the effect on man and his institutions when this happens?

That is the basic question. From it come the secondary questions. Every facet of life poses a new problem: food and clothes, marriage and business, work and war. Certainly war; the military latches onto every invention no matter how innocuous and uses it to keep the war machines clanking. Positively medicine; look how ships have spread disease and how airplanes could do it even better — then consider the MT plague carriers. Language, social customs, everything will be affected by this new form of transportation.

In these stories I have attempted to speculate about the answers to some of these questions. I have started at the beginning, when MT is first used, and have gone on to the end, as I think all good stories should. I do not pretend that any of the things I predict will happen, though they certainly might if we ever have operating MT. This is one of the possible histories of the future that could come about under certain circumstances.

But that is one of the pleasures of science fiction. It gives people a chance to fly in rocket ships before they are invented, use strange devices still undiscovered, meet fascinating people yet unborn.

A matter transmitter is very easy to use. Just dial your number, there, as simple as a telephone, and wait until the ready light comes on. Then step forward, you won't feel a thing, just walk through the MT screen as though it were a door….

HARRY HARRISON

INTRODUCTION

This is the history of the invention that is called the Matter Transmitter. MT for short. It begins at the beginning, where all stories should begin, and continues far into the future, for a million times a million years.

Along the way we dip into the river of time and come up with fragments of this history. These particles, brief encounters, will have to stand for the whole, for the river travels for too long a distance and is too deep for us to ever explore it all. Never mind, there are these most interesting things to see along the way.

Throughout history — and prehistory — mankind's lot has always been affected by man's inventions. With the development of the wheel all the varied forms of transportation began. Just think what the canal did to the English countryside and way of life. Or what the railroad, then the airplane, did to the entire world. Everything has changed; nothing is the same.

Now think of the changes that will be wrought by another form of transportation. The Matter Transmitter. All you have to do is step through the screen and you are on the other side of the world.

Or on the Moon.

Or another planet.

Or the far side of the galaxy. Here — step through.

In the Beginning

There was a light knock on the compartment door that Adam Ward heard, ignored. He had turned the lights off and now sat by the window of the train, looking out at the snow-covered, star-lit slopes of the Rockies as they moved silently past. A tunnel wall suddenly blotted out the view and he pursed his lips in annoyance, the rattling-roar of the wheels loud in his ears. The sound ended as suddenly as it had begun, the mountains reappeared. The knocking was louder now on the metal door

"Go away," he called out, the irritations of the last weeks harsh in his voice. All of the hurried arrangements, interviews, security clearances, annoyances. "Go away, I don't want any."