"You've Done It! You've Got the Answer!"

GETTING from Point A to Point B quickly and with the least effort and injury 

has always been a problem for humanity; regardless of how people manage to accomplish it, however, the process still takes time to cover the space 

in between—until now, that is, when an astounding discovery offers mankind . . .

"Passage to Anywhere."

(Click on image to enlarge.)

By Sam Merwin, Jr. (1910-96; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and the SFE HERE).

First appearance: Fantastic Universe, February 1956.

Novelette (17 pages on Project Gutenberg; 22 pages on SFFaudio).

Online at Project Gutenberg (HERE) and SFFaudio (HERE).

   "Has it occurred to you what it could mean if word gets out . . ."

SATISFYING everybody when there's a dispute calls for consummate skill and some serious smarts; fortunately for the SPR and the entire world system, there just happens to be a man who has that skill and those smarts . . .

Principal characters:

~ Park Hamilton, Miss Alderman, Shirley, Sven Ryan, Ian Harris, Charles Forsythe, and Jack Witherspoon.

References:

- "would have caused Atlas to throw down his burden" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the Gilbertian paradoxes" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "a sort of ASCAP arrangement" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "in Antarctica" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the UN assembly" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "walked under a ladder" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the refrain of There'll Always Be an England" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the toreador capework and the moment of truth" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the industrial-era pirate of the late nineteenth century" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "But what good is a transporter that cannot send organic life?" (HERE and HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the absent-minded professor" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the first airplane" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "where every millisecond counts" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "kept a weather eye cocked" (HERE; Wiktionary).

- "the Great Depression of fifty years ago" (HERE; Wikipedia). (That would put our story in the 1979-1989 timeframe.)

- "under security wraps"; "clamp down"; "suppressing knowledge" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the Heavyside [sic] Layer" (HERE; Wikipedia).

Resources:

- "world-wide financial and economic catastrophe"; "primarily dedicated to the development of disruptive discoveries without regard to their probable effect upon the structure of our society as a whole": An early-fifties British movie takes those ideas and runs with them (WARNING! SPOILERS! HERE; Wikipedia).

- A story that involves teleportation and criminal behavior is Larry Niven's "The Alibi Machine" (HERE).

- Sam Merwin, Jr. happily cavorted through pulp fiction, both detective and SFF, for years. While today's story is science fiction, he also dealt handily with crime as well: "Disturb the Dead" (HERE); "The Triangular Blade" (HERE); "The Liquid Bullet" (HERE; first story); and "Death from a Family Tree" (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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