"HAVE SUFFICIENT STOCK AND ADDITIONAL COLLATERAL TO APPLY THE FIRST PRESSURE. APPLY PHASE TWO OF PLAN.KINGMAN."
"HAVE SUFFICIENT STOCK AND ADDITIONAL COLLATERAL TO APPLY THE FIRST PRESSURE. APPLY PHASE TWO OF PLAN.
KINGMAN."
In the ten hours that followed, Venus Equilateral stock went down and down, passed through a deep valley, and started up again. Kingman's crowd was offering twice the market for the preferred stock, and there was little to have. It took a short-time dip at three hundred, and the few minutes of decline smoked a lot of stock out of the hands of people who looked upon this chance as the right time to make their money and get out.
Then the stock began to climb again, and those people who thought that the price had been at its peak and passed were angrily trying to buy in again. That accelerated the climb, but Kingman's crowd, operating on Venus and on Mars and on Terra, were buying only, and selling not one share of Venus Equilateral.
Terran Electric stock took a gradual slide, for Kingman's crowd needed additional money. But the slide was slow, and controlled, and manipulated only for the purpose of selling short. Terran Electric stock eventually remained in the hands of Kingman's crowd, though its value was lessened.
Venus Equilateral Preferred hit four hundred and sixty-eight, and hovered. It vacillated around that point for another hour, and the market closed at four hundred and sixty-nine and three-eighths.
Kingman looked at his watch and smiled. He reached forth and cut the dinning sound of the cacophony with a vicious twist of the gain knob. Silence reigned in the spaceship; grand, peaceful silence. Kingman, his nerves frayed by the mental activity and the brain-addling music-from-nowhere, took a hot shower and went to bed.
He locked the panel of the control room first, however. He wanted no engineer tinkering with his pet relay.
Cartwright came into Channing's living room with a long face. "It's bad," he said. "Bad."
"What's bad?"
"Oh, I, like the rest of the fools, got caught in his trap."
"Whose trap?"
"The wild man who is trying to rock Venus Equilateral on its axis."
"Well, how?"
"They started to buy like mad, and I held out. Then the thing dropped a few points, and I tried to make a bit of profit, so that we could go on bolstering the market. They grabbed off my stock, and then, just likethat!the market was on the way up again and I couldn't find more than a few odd shares to buy back."
"Don't worry," said Channing, "I don't think anyone is big enough to really damage us. Someone is playing fast and loose, making a killing. When this is over, we'll still be in business."
"I know, Don, but whose business will it be? Ours, or theirs?"
"Is it that bad?"
"I'm afraid so. One more flurry like today, and they'll be able to tow Venus Equilateral out and make Mars Equilateral out of it, and we won't be able to say a word."
"H-m-m-m. You aren't beaten?"
"Not until the last drop. I'm not bragging when I say that I'm as good an operator as the next. My trouble today was not being a mind reader. I'd been doing all right, so far. I've been letting them ride it up and down with little opposition, and taking off a few here and there as I rode along. Guessing their purpose, I could count on their next move. But this banging the market sky-high has me stumped, or had me stumped for just long enough for me to throw our shirt into the ring. They took that quick—our shirt, I mean."
"That's too bad. What are you leading up to?"
"There are a lot of unstable stocks that a guy could really play hob with; therefore their only reason to pick on us is to gain control!"
"Pirates?"
"Something like that."
"Well," said Channing in a resigned voice, "about all we can do is do our best and hope we are smart enough to outguess 'em. That's your job, Cartwright. A long time ago Venus Equilateral made their decision concerning the executive branch of this company, and they elected to run the joint with technical men. The business aspects and all are under the control of men who know what they are fighting. We hire business men, just like business men hire engineers, and for the opposite purpose. You're the best we could get, you know that. If those guys get Venus Equilateral, they'll get you, too. But if you do your best and fail, we can't shoot you in the back for it. We'll all go down together. So keep pitching, and remember that we're behind you all the way!"
"Can we float a bit of a loan?"
"Sure, if it's needed. I'd prefer Interplanetary Transport. Keg Johnson will do business with us. We've been in the way of helping them out a couple of million dollar losses; they might be anxious to reciprocate."
"O.K. I have your power of attorney, anyway. If I get in a real crack, I'll scream for I. T. to help. Right?"
"Right!"
Cartwright left, and as he closed the door, Channing's face took on a deep, long look. He was worried. He put his head between his hands and thought himself into a tight circle from which he could not escape. He did not hear Walt Franks enter behind Arden and Christine.
"Hey!" said Walt. "Why the gloom? I bear glad tidings!"
Channing looked up. "Spill," he said with a glum smile. "I could use some glad tidings right now."
"The lab just reported that that hunk of copper wire was impure. Got a couple of traces of other metals in it. They've been concocting other samples with more and less of the impurities, and Wes has been trying them as they were ready. We've got the detector working to the point where Freddie has taken theRelay Girlout for a run around the station at about five hundred miles and Wes is still getting responses!"
"Is he? How can he know?"
"Chuck rigged theRelay Girl'sdrivers with a voice modulator, and Freddie is jerking his head off because the acceleration is directly proportional to the amplitude of his voice, saying: 'One, two, three, four, test.' Don, have you ever figured out why an engineer can't count above four?"
"Walt, does it take a lot of soup to modulate a driver?" asked Arden.
"Peanuts," grinned Franks. "This stuff is not like the good old radio; the power for driving the spaceship is derived mostly, from the total disintegration of the cathode and the voltage applied to the various electrodes is merely for the purpose of setting up the proper field conditions. They draw quite a bit of current, but nothing like that which would be required to lift a spaceship at two G for a hundred hours flat."
He turned back to Channing. "What's the gloom?"
Don smiled in a thoughtful fashion. "It doesn't look so good right now. Some gang of stock market cutthroats have been playing football with Venus Equilateral, and Cartwright says he is sure they want control. It's bad; he's been clipped a couple of hard licks, but we're still pitching. The thing I'm wondering right now is this: Shall we toss this possibility of person-to-person and ship-to-ship communication just at the right turn of the market to bollix up their machinations, or shall we keep it to ourselves and start up another company with this as our basis?"
"Can we screw 'em up by announcing it?"
"Sure. If we drop this idea just at the time they're trying to run the stock down, it'll cross over and take a run up, which will set 'em on their ear."
"I don't know. Better keep it to ourselves for a bit. Something may turn up. But come on down to Wes' lab and give a look at our new set-up."
Channing stood up and stretched. "I'm on the way," he said.
Farrell was working furiously on the detector device, and as they entered, he indicated the meter that was jumping up and down. Out of a speaker there was coming the full, rich tones of Freddie Thomas' voice, announcing solemnly: "One, two, three, four, test."
Wes said, "I'm getting better, Chuck has been bettering his modulator now, and the detector is three notches closer to whatever this level of energy uses for resonance. Evacuation and the subsequent incandescence was the answer. Another thing I've found is this—" Farrell held up a flat disk about six inches in diameter with one sawcut from edge to center. "As you see, the color of this disk changes from this end of the cut, varying all the way around the disk to the other side of the cut. The darned disk is a varying alloy—I've discovered how to tune the driver-radiation through a limited range. We hit resonance of theRelay Girl'sdriver system just off the end of this disk. But watch while I turn the one in the set."
Farrell took a large knob and turned it, Freddie's voice faded, and became toneless. Farrell returned the knob to its original position and the reception cleared again. "Inside of that tube there," said Farrell, "I have a selsyn turning the disk, and a small induction loop that heats the whole disk to incandescence. A brush makes contact with the edge of the disk and the axle makes the center connection. Apparently this stuff passes on a direct line right through the metal, for it works."
"Have you tried any kind of tube amplification?" asked Don.
"Not yet. Shall we?"
"Why not? I can still think that the relay tube will amplify if we hook up the input and output loads correctly."
"I've got a tube already hooked up," said Walt. "It's mounted in a panel with the proper voltage supplies and so on. If your resistance calculation is correct, we should get about three thousand times amplification out of it."
He left, and returned in a few minutes with the tube. They busied themselves with the connections, and then Don applied the power.
Nothing happened.
"Run a line from the output back through a voltage-dividing circuit to the in-phase anode," suggested Walt.
"How much?"
"Put a potentiometer in it so we can vary the amount of voltage. After all, Barney Carroll said that the application of voltage in phase with the transmitted power is necessary to the operation of the relay tube. In transmission of D. C., it is necessary to jack up the in-phase anode with a bit of D. C. That's in-phase with a vengeance!"
"What you're thinking is that whatever this sub-level energy is, some of it should be applied to the in-phase anode?"
"Nothing but."
The cabinet provided a standard potentiometer, and as Don advanced the amount of fed-back voltage, Freddie's voice came booming in louder and louder. It overloaded the audio amplifier, and they turned the gain down as Channing increased the in-phase voltage more and more. It passed through a peak, and then Don left the potentiometer set for maximum.
"Wes," he said, "call Freddie and tell him to take off for Terra, at about four G. Have the gang upstairs hang a ship beam on him so we can follow him with suggestions. Too bad we can't get there immediately."
"What I'm worrying about is the available gain," said Wes. "That thing may have given us a gain of a couple of thousand, but that isn't going to be enough. Not for planet-to-planet service."
"Later on we may be able to hang a couple of those things in cascade," suggested Walt.
"Or if not, I know a trick that will work—one that will enable us to get a gain of several million."
"Yeah? Mirrors, or adding machines? You can't make an audio amplifier of a three million gain."
"I know it—at least not a practical one. But, we can probably use our audio modulator to modulate a radio frequency, and then modulate the driver with the RF. Then we hang a receiver onto the detector gadget here, and collect RF, modulated, just like a standard radio transmission, and amplify it at RF, convert it to IF, and detect it to AF. Catch?"
"Sure. And that gives me another thought. It might just be possible, if your idea is possible, that we can insert several frequencies of RF into the tube and hang a number of receivers on the detector, here."
Arden laughed. "From crystal detection to multiplex transmission in ten easy lessons!"
"Call Chuck and have him begin to concoct an RF stage for tube-modulation," said Don. "It'll have to be fairly low—not higher than a couple of megacycles so that he can handle it with the stuff he has available, but as long as we can hear his dulcet voice chirping that 'one, two, three, four, test,' of his, we can also have ship-to-station two-way. We squirt out on the ship beam, and he talks back on the driver transmitter."
"That'll be a help," observed Wes. "I'd been thinking by habit that we had no way to get word back from theRelay Girl."
"So had I," confessed Walt. "But we'll get over that."
"Meanwhile, I'm going to get this alloy-selectivity investigated right down to the last nub," said Don. "Chuck's gang can take it from all angles and record their findings. We'll ultimately be able to devise a system of mathematics for it from their analysis. You won't mind being bothered every fifteen minutes for the first week, will you, Wes? They'll be running to you in your sleep with questions until they catch up with your present level of ability in this job. Eventually they'll pass you up, and then you'll have to study their results in order to keep up."
"Suits me. That sounds like my job, anyway."
"It is. O.K., Arden, I'm coming now."
"It's about time," smiled Arden. "I wouldn't haul you away from your first love excepting that I know you haven't eaten in eight or nine hours. I've got roast knolla."
"S'long, fellows," grinned Channing. "I'm one of the few guys in the inner system who can forget that the knolla is the North Venus brother to a pussy cat."
"I could feed you pussy cat and you'd eat it if I called it knolla," said Arden. "But you wouldn't eat knolla if I called it pussy cat."
"You can't tell the difference," said Walt.
"Tell me," asked Wes, "what does pussy cat taste like?"
"I mean by visual inspection. Unfortunately, there can be no comparison drawn. The Venusians will eat pussy cat, but they look upon the knolla as a household pet, not fit for Venusian consumption. So unless we revive one of the ancient Martians, who may have the intestinal fortitude—better known as guts—to eat both and describe the difference, we may never know," offered Walt.
"Stop it," said Arden, "or you'll have my dinner spoiled for me."
"All the more for me," said Don. "Now, when I was in college, we cooked the dean's cat and offered it to some pledges under the name of knolla. They said—"
"We'll have macaroni for dinner," said Arden firmly. "I'll never be able to look a fried knolla in the pan again without wondering whether it caterwauled on some back fence in Chicago, or a Palanortis Whitewood on Venus."
She left, and Channing went with her, arguing with her to the effect that she should develop a disregard for things like their discussion. As a matter of interest, Channing had his roast knolla that evening, so he must have convinced Arden.
Walt said: "And then there were three. Christine, has our little pre-dinner talk disturbed your appetite?"
"Not in the least," said the girl stoutly. "I wouldn't care whether it was knolla or pussy cat. I've been on Mars so long that either one of the little felines is alien to me. What have you to offer?"
"We'll hit Joe's for dinner, which is the best bar in sixty million miles today. Later we may take in the latest celluloid epic, then there will be a bit of mixed wrestling in the ballroom."
"Mixed wres—Oh, you mean dancing. Sounds interesting. Now?"
"Now, Wes, what are you heading for?"
"Oh, I've got on a cockeyed schedule," said Wes. "I've been catching my sleep at more and more out-of-phase hours until this is not too long after breakfast for me. You birds all speak of 'Tomorrow,' 'Today,' and 'Yesterday' out here, but this business of having no sun to come up in the morning, and the electric lights running all the time has me all bollixed up."
"That daily nomenclature is purely from habit," said Walt. "As you know, we run three equal shifts of eight hours each, and therefore what may be 'Morning' to Bill is 'Noon' to James and 'Night' to Harry. It is meaningless, but habitual to speak of 'Morning' when you mean 'Just after I get up'! Follow me?"
"Yup. This, then, is morning to me. Run along and have fun."
"We'll try," said Walt.
"We will," said Christine.
Farrell grinned as they left. He looked at Walt and said: "You will!"
Walt wondered whether he should have questioned Wes about that remark, but he did not. Several hours later, he wondered how Wes could have been so right.
Venus Equilateral, Preferred, started in its long climb as soon as the markets opened on the following day. Cartwright, following his orders and his experience, held onto whatever stock he had, and bought whatever stock was tossed his way. Several times he was on the verge of asking Interplanetary Transport for monetary assistance, but the real need never materialized.
Kingman alternately cursed the whining music and cheered the pyramiding stock. About the only thing that kept Kingman from going completely mad was the fact that the alien music was not continuous, but it came and went in stretches of anything from five to fifty minutes, with varied periods for silence in between selections.
Up and up it went, and Kingman was seeing the final, victorious coup in the offing. A week more, and Venus Equilateral would belong to Terran Electric. The beam from Terra was silent, save for a few items of interest not connected with the market. Kingman's men were given the latest news, baseball scores, and so forth, among which items was another message to Channing from the solar beam project engineer, Addison. They had about given up. Nothing they could do would prevent the formation of ozone by the ton as they drew power by the kilowatt from Sol.
On Venus Equilateral, Channing said: "Ask Freddie what his radio frequency is."
Ten minutes later, at the speed of light, the ship beam reached theRelay Girland the message clicked out. Freddie read it and spoke into the microphone. TheRelay Girlbucked unmercifully, as the voice amplitude made the acceleration change. Then at the speed of light, squared, the answer came back in less than a twinkle.
"Seventeen hundred kilocycles."
Channing began to turn the tuner of the radio receiver. The band was dead, and he laughed. "This is going to be tricky, what with the necessity of aligning both the driver-alloy disk and the radio receiver. Takes time."
He changed the alloy disk in minute increments, and waved the tuner across that portion of the band that would most likely cover the experimental error of Freddie Thomas' frequency measurement. A burst of sound caught his ear, was lost for a moment, and then swelled into perfect tune as Don worked over the double tuning system.
"Whoa, Tillie," said Walt. "That sounds like—"
"Like hell."
"Right. Just what I was going to say. Is it music?"
"Could be. I've got a slightly tin ear, you know."
"Mine is fair," said Walt, "but it might as well be solid brass as far as this mess is concerned. It's music of some kind, you can tell it by the rhythm. But the scale isn't like anything I've ever heard before."
"Might be a phonograph record played backward," suggested Wes.
"I doubt it," said Channing seriously. "The swell of that orchestra indicates a number of instruments—of some cockeyed kind or other—the point I'm making is that anything of a classical or semi-classical nature played backwards on a phonograph actually sounds passable. I can't say the same for jamstead music, but it holds for most of the classics, believe it or not. This sounds strictly from hunger."
"Or hatred. Maybe the musicians do not like one another."
"Then they should lambaste one another with their instruments, not paste the sub-ether with them."
Channing lit a cigarette. "Mark the dial," he said. "Both of 'em. I've got to get in touch with the Thomas Boys."
Walt marked the dials and tuned for theRelay Girl. He found it coming in not far from the other setting. Chuck was speaking, and they tuned in near the middle of his speech.
"—this thing so that it will not buck like a scenic railway finding the fourth derivative of space with respect to time. For my non-technical listeners, that is none other than the better known term: Jerkiness. We applied the modulation to the first driver anode—the little circular one right above the cathode. I don't know whether this is getting out as it should, so I'm going to talk along for the next fifteen minutes straight until I hear from you. Then we're switching over and repeating. Can you hear me?"
Channing cut the gain down to a whisper and put a message on the beam, confirming his reception. Ten minutes later, Chuck changed his set speech, and said: "Good! Too bad we haven't got one of those receivers here, or we could make this a two-way with some action. Now listen, Don. My idiot brother says that he can make the beam transmit without the drive. Unfortunately, I am not a drive expert like he is and so I can not remonstrate with the half-wit. So, and right now, we're cutting the supply voltage to the final focussing anode. Whoops! I just floated off the floor and the mike cable is all tangled up in my feet. This free stuff is not as simple as the old fiction writers claimed it was. Things are floating all over the place like mad. The accelerometer says exactly zero, and so you tell me if we are getting out. We're going back on one G so that we can sit down again. That's better! Though the idiot—it's a shame to be forced to admit that one of your family is half-witted—didn't wait until we were in position to fall. I almost landed on my head—which is where he was dropped as an infant. How was it? Did you hear my manly voice whilst we were going free? Say 'No' so that my idiot brother will not have anything to say about his brilliant mind. I'm out of breath and we're going back home on that home recording of Freddie saying, and I will let him quote, via acetate."
The sound of a phonograph pick-up being dropped on a record preceded Freddie's voice saying: "One, two, three, four, test, one—"
Channing cut the gain again. "That red-hot. I thought he was talking all this time."
"Not the Thomas Boys. That comes under the classification of 'Work' which they shun unless they cannot get any kind of machine to do it for them," laughed Walt.
Walt turned the dials back to the unearthly symphony. "At C², that might come from Sirius," he said, listening carefully. "Sounds like Chinese."
"Oh, now look," objected Don. "What on earth would a Chinese Symphony be doing with a driver modulator system?"
"Broadcasting—"
"Nope. The idea of detecting driver radiation is as old as the hills. If any culture had uncovered driver-beam transmission we'd all have been aware of it. So far as I know, we and the Terran Electric crowd are the only ones who have had any kind of an opportunity of working with this sub-etheric energy. Wes, have you another miniature of the relay tube handy?"
"Sure. Why?"
"I'm going to see if this stuff can be made directional. You're bringing whatever it is into the place on a collector plate and slamming it into an input-terminal power transmission tube. It goes across the table to the relay tube, and is amplified, and then is tossed across more table to the load-terminal tube, where the output is impressed across your alloy-disk. Right?"
"Right."
"I want another relay tube. I'm going to use it for a directional input-beam, aligning it in the same way that Jim Baler and Barney Carroll did their first find. The one that sucked power out of the electric light, turned off the city hall, and so on. Follow?"
"Perfectly. Yes, I've got a couple of them. But they're not connected like Walt's set-up was."
"Well, that three-tube system was built on sheer guesswork some time ago. We can tap in the relay tube and haul out a set of cables that will energize the first relay tube. Hang her on gimbals, and we'll go hunting."
"Shall I have Freddie return?"
"Yes. We'll have Warren's gang build us up about six of these things just as we have here."
"That won't take long," said Walt. "They're working on the tuning disks now, and we should have 'em by the time that Freddie gets back here."
"But this wild and wooly music. It's alien."
Wes turned from the teletype and dug in the cabinet for the extra relay tube. He up-ended the chassis containing Walt's set-up and began to attach leads to the voltage supply, cabling them neatly and in accordance with the restrictions on lead-capacities that some of the anodes needed.
"It's alien," said Wes in agreement. "I'm going to shut it off now whilst I tinker with the tube."
"Wait a minute," said Don. "Here comes Jim. Maybe he'd like to hear it."
"Hear what?" asked Jim Baler entering the door.
"We've a Sirian Symphony," explained Don, giving Jim the background all the way to the present time. Jim listened, and then said:
"As an engineer, I've never heard anything like that in my life before. But, as a student of ancient languages and arts and sciences, I have. That's Chinese."
"Oh, no!"
"Oh, yes, but definitely."
"Ye gods!"
"I agree."
"But how—where?"
"And/or when?"
Channing sat down hard. He stared at the wall for minutes. "Chinese. Oh, great, slippery, green, howling catfish!" He picked up the phone and called the decoupler room where the messages were sorted as to destination upon their entry into the station.
"Ben? Look, have we a ship beam on anything of Chinese registry?"
Ben said wait a minute while he checked. He returned and said: "Four.The Lady of Cathay,The Mandarin's Daughter,The Dragoness, andThe Mongol Maid. Why?"
"Put a message on each of 'em, asking whether they have any Chinese music on board."
"And then what? They can't answer."
"Make this an experimental request. If any of them are using any recordings of Chinese music, tell them to have their electronics chief replace the phonograph pick-up with a microphone—disturbing absolutely nothing—and to reply as if we could hear them: Get me?"
"Can you? Hear 'em I mean."
"We hear something, and Jim says it's Chinese."
"It's worth a try, then. See you later."
"Will they?" asked Jim, interested in the workings of this idea.
"Sure. Ever since we steered theEmpress of Kolainout of the grease with the first station-to-ship beam, all three of the interplanetary companies have been more than willing to co-operate with any of our requests as long as we precede the message with the explanation that it's experimental. They'll do anything we ask 'em to, short of scuttling the ship."
"Nice hookup. Hope it works."
"So do I," said Wes. "This, I mean. I've got our directional gadget hooked up."
"Turn it on."
The wailing of the music came in strong and clear. Wes turned the input tube on its support, and the music passed through a loud peak and died off on the far side to almost zero. Wes adjusted the mobile tube for maximum response and tightened a small set-screw. "It's a shame we haven't got a nice set of protractors and gimbals," said Wes. "I had to tear into the desk lamp to get that flexible pipe."
"Small loss. She's directional, all right. We'll get the gimbals later. Right now I don't want this turned off because we may hear something interesting—whoops, it went off by itself!"
"Could we dare to hope?" asked Walt.
"Let's wait. They'll have to hitch the microphone on."
"Give 'em a half hour at least."
Twenty minutes later, a strange voice came through the speaker. "Dr. Channing, of Venus Equilateral? We have been contacted by your organization with respect to the possibility of your being able to hear the intership communicator system. This seems impossible, but we are not ones to question. The fact that you are in possession of the facts concerning our love of the music of our ancestors is proof enough that you must have heard something. I presume that further information is desired, and I shall wait for your return. This is Ling Kai Chaing, Captain of theLady of Cathay."
"We got it!" chortled Don. He did a war dance in the lab, and the rest followed suit. Bits of wire and oddments of one sort or another filled the air as the big, grown-up men did a spring dance and strewed the floor with daintily thrown junk. At the height of the racket, Arden and Christine entered—no, they were literally hauled in, completely surrounded, and almost smothered.
Arden fought herself free and said: "What's going on?"
"We've just contacted a ship in space!"
"So what? Haven't we been doing that for months?"
"They've just contacted us, too!"
"Huh?" asked Arden, her eyes widening.
"None other. Wait, I'll get an answer." Don contacted Ben, in the decoupler room and said: "Ben, hang this line on theLady of Cathaybeam, will you?"
"Is that her?"
"None other."
"Go ahead. She's coupled."
Don pecked out a message, "Please describe the inter-communication system used by your ship in detail. We have heard you, and you are, therefore, the first ship to contact Venus Equilateral from space flight. Congratulations."
Eight minutes later, the voice of Captain Chaing returned.
"Dr. Channing, I am handing the microphone over to Ling Wey, our electronics engineer, who knows the system in and out. He'll work with you on this problem."
Ling Wey said: "Hello. This is great. But I'm not certain how it's done. The output of the phono system is very small, and certainly not capable of putting out the power necessary to reach Venus Equilateral from here. However, we are using a wired-radio system at seventeen hundred and ninety kilocycles in lieu of the usual cable system. The crew all like music, and, therefore, we play the recordings of our ancestral musicians almost incessantly."
He paused for breath, and Channing said: "Walt, tap out a message concerning the lead-length of the cables that supply the driver anodes. Have him check them for radio frequency pick-up."
"I get it." The 'type began to click.
The communication was carried on for hour after hour. Don's guess was right; the lead that connected the first driver anode was tuned in wave length to almost perfect resonance with the frequency of the wired-radio communicator system. Channing thanked them profusely, and they rang off. Soon afterward the wailing, moaning music returned to the air.
"Wonder if we could get that without the radio?" said Don.
"Don't know. We can pack the juice on in the amplifier and see, now that we have it tuned on the button," said Walt.
"It won't," said Wes. "I've been all across the dial of the alloy disk. Nothing at all."
"O.K. Well, so what if it doesn't? We've still got us a ship-to-ship communications system. Hey! What was that?"
Thatwas a pale, flat-sounding human voice saying: "Kingman! V.E. Pfd. has been at six hundred and nine for two days, now. What's our next move?"
"Kingman!" exploded Channing. "Why, the ... the—"
"Careful," warned Arden. "There's a lady present."
"Huh?"
"Her," said Arden pointing at Christine.
"Wait," said Walt. "Maybe he'll answer."
Don fiddled with the dials for a full fifteen minutes, keeping them very close to the spot marked, hoping that Kingman's answer might not be too far out of tune. He gave up as the answer was not to be found, and returned to the original setting. Ten minutes later the voice said: "Kingman, where in the devil is my answer? I want to know what our next move is. There isn't a bit of V. E. stock available. Why don't you answer?"
Then, dimly in the background, a voice spoke to the operator of the instrument. "Kingman's probably asleep. That terrible moaning-stuff he's been complaining about makes him turn the thing off as soon as the day's market is off. He—and the rest of that crew—can't stand it. You'll have to wait until tomorrow's market opens before he'll be listening."
"O.K.," said the operator, and then went silent.
"Kingman!" said Don Channing. "So he's the bright guy behind this. I get it now. Somehow he discovered a detector, and he's been playing the market by getting the quotations by sub-etheric transmission at C² and beating the Northern Landing market. And did you get the latest bit of luck? Kingman still is unaware of the fact that we are onto him—and have perfected this C² transmission. Here's where he gets caught in his own trap!"
"How?"
"We're not in too bad shape for making good, honest two-ways out of this sub-ether stuff. Kingman is still behind because he hasn't got a return line back to Terra—he must be using our beams, which gives us a return edge."
"Why not get him tossed into the clink?" asked Walt.
"That's practical. Besides, we're sitting in a great big pile of gravy right now. We can prove Kingman has been violating the law to embezzle, mulct, steal, commit grand larceny, and so on. We're going to take a swing at Mr. Kingman and Terran Electric that they won't forget. We can't lose, because I'm not a good sportsman when I find that I've been tricked. We're going after Kingman in our own fashion—and if we lose, we're going to go tinhorn and cry for the gendarmes. I'm not proud."
"What do you plan?"
"We'll put a horde of folks on the decoupler files with the code of Terran Electric filed with the government offices. We can get the code, and I'm of the opinion that Kingman wouldn't take time to figure out a new code, so he'll be using the old one. As soon as we find a message in that code that is either addressed Terran Electric or pertains to V. E. Preferred stock, we'll start to intercept all such messages and use them for our own good."
"That's illegal."
"Yup. But who's gonna holler? Kingman can't."
"But suppose we lose—?"
"Kingman will not know we've been tricking him. Besides, we can't lose with two ways to get ahead of his one. Come on, fellows, we've got to help get the extra receivers together."
"How are we going to cut through the Channing Layer?"
"Easy. That's where we'll use the relay stations at Luna, Deimos, and the six portables that circle Venus."
"I get it. O.K., Don, let's get to work."
"Right. And we'd better leave a guy here to collect any more interesting messages from Kingman's crowd. We can tune it right on to Kingman's alloy, and that'll make that music take a back seat. We need narrower selectivity."
"Chuck's gang will find that if it is to be found," smiled Walt. "We're really on the track this time."
A dead-black spaceship drifted across the face of Luna slowly, and its course, though apparently aimless, was the course of a ship or a man hunting something. It darted swiftly, poised, and then zigzagged forward, each straight-side of the jagged course shorter than the one before. It passed over a small crater and stopped short.
Below, there was a spaceship parked beside a driver tube anchored in the pumice.
The black ship hovered above the parked ship, and then dropped sharply, ramming the observation dome on top with its harder, smaller bottom. The two ships tilted and fell, crushing the ground near the poised driver tube. Space-suited men assaulted the damaged ship, broke into the bent and battered plates and emerged with three men who were still struggling to get their suits adjusted properly.
Channing's men took over the poised driver tube, and in their own ship, Walt spoke over a sub-ether radio of a different type.
"Don, we got him."
Don answered from Venus Equilateral, and his voice had no more delay than if he had been within a hundred yards of the crater on Luna.
"Good. Stay where you are; you can contact the Lunar Relay Station from there. Wes is all ready on Station 3 above Northern Landing with his set, and Jim Baler is at the Deimos station."
"Hi, Walt," came Wes' voice.
"Hi," said Jim Baler.
"Hello, fellows," said Walt. "Well, what cooks?"
"Kingman," said Channing, with a tone of finality. "You've got your orders, Walt. When Kingman expects the market to go down, tell him it's still going up. We'll figure this out as we go along, but he won't like it at all."
There was silence for a few minutes, and then Don said: "Walt, Kingman's sent a message through to Northern Landing Station now. He says: 'Dump a block to shake the suckers loose. This is pyramided so high that they should all climb on the sell-wagon; running the market down of their own weight. When it hits a new low, we'll buy, and this time end up by having control.' When he starts to run the market down, you buy at Terra."
Minutes later, the message hit the Terra market, and Kingman's agent started to unload. The stock started off at six hundred and nine, and it soon dropped to five-forty. It hovered there, and then took another gradual slide to four-seventy. Then a message came through the regular beam station which Walt intercepted, decoded with Terran Electric's own code book, and read as follows:
"V. E. Preferred coming in fast. Shall we wait?"
Walt chuckled and spoke into the driver modulator. "Kingman," he said, "some wiseacre is still buying. V. E. Preferred is running at seven-ninety! What now?"
In the Venus Equilateral radio, he said: "Don, I just fixed him."
From Venus, Wes said: "You sure did. He's giving orders to drop more stock. This is too dirty to be funny, but Kingman asked for it. I know him. He's got this set up so that no one can do a thing on this market program without orders from him. Too bad we can't withhold the Northern Landing quotations from him."
The Lunar beam brought forth another message intended for Kingman's interceptor at Luna. "V. E. Preferred is dropping like a plummet. When can we buy?"
Walt smiled and said into Kingman's set-up: "Kingman! V. E. Preferred is now at eight hundred and seventy!"
Not many minutes later, Wes said: "That was foul, Walt. He's just given orders to run the market down at any cost."
"O.K.," said Walt. "But he's going to go nuts when the Northern Landing Exchange starts down without ever getting to that mythical nine hundred."
"Let him wonder. Meanwhile, fellows, let's run ourselves a slide on Terran Electric. Sell the works!"
Terran Electric started down just as V. E. Preferred took its third drop. It passed three hundred, and started down the two hundred numbers. Walt shook his head and said to Kingman: "Kingman, we're getting results now. She's dropped back again—to six hundred and three." Then he said: "Kingman, someone is playing hob with T. E. Preferred. She's up to two hundred and fifty-one."
To Don, Walt said: "Good thing that Kingman has that Chinese Symphony for a bit of mood music, or he'd recognize my voice."
"Which way will he jump?" laughed Don. "That was a slick bit of Kingman-baiting, Walt, in spite of your voice."
"Kingman's taking it hard," said Wes. "He says to drop some of his own stock so that they can use the money to manipulate the V. E. stuff."
"O.K.," said Jim Baler. "This looks like a good time to think about buying some of Kingman's stuff. Right?"
"Wait until sales hit bottom," said Don. "Walt, tip us off."
"O.K. What now?"
"Wait a bit and see."
Terran Electric went down some more, and then Jim said: "Now?"
"Now," answered Don. "You, too, Wes."
"Me too?" asked Walt.
"You continue to sell!"
"Oh-oh," said Wes. "Kingman is wild. He wants to know what's the matter with the market."
"Tell him that your end is all right, and that V. E. Preferred is still going down, but steady."
"O.K.," said Walt.
The hours went by, and Kingman became more and more frantic. V. E. Preferred would be reported at five hundred, but the Northern Landing Exchange said two-ten. Meanwhile, Terran Electric—
"Oh, lovely!" said Don. "Beautiful. We've got us a reciprocating market now, better than Kingman's. When she's up at Terra, they're down at Canalopsis and Northern Landing—and vice versa. Keep it pumping, boys, and we'll get enough money to buy Kingman out."
The vacillating market went on, and Don's gang continued to rock the Terran Electric stock. Then as the market was about to close for the day, Don said: "Sell 'em short!"
Terran Electric stock appeared on the market in great quantities. Its value dropped down and down and down, and Kingman, appraised of the fall by Walt, who magnified it by not less than two to one, apparently got frantic again, for he said:
"We're running short. Drop your Terran stock to bolster the V. E. job!"
"Oh, lovely!" said Don.
"You said that."
"I repeat it. Look, fellows, gather all the T. E. Preferred and V. E. Preferred you can. Walt, tell them that Terran Electric is dropping fast, so he'll scuttle more of his stuff, and we'll pick it up slowly enough so that we won't raise the market. How're we fixed for V. E. Preferred?"
"Not too bad. Can we hit him once more?"
"Go ahead," said Don.
"Kingman," said Walt. "Kingman! Hell's loose! The Interplanetary Bureau of Criminal Investigations has just decided to look into the matter of this stock juggling. They want to know who's trying to grab control of a public carrier!"
Minutes later, Wes said: "Oh, Brother Myrtle! That did it. He just gave orders to drop the whole thing short!"
"Wait until V. E. Preferred hits a new low and then we'll buy," said Don.
The flurry dropped V. E. Preferred to forty-seven, and then the agents of Venus Equilateral stepped forth and offered to buy, at the market, all offered stock.
They did.
Then, as no more stock was offered, Venus Equilateral Preferred rose sharply to ninety-four and stabilized at that figure. Terran Electric stock went through a valley, made by Kingman's sales, and then headed up, made by purchases on Terra, on Mars, and on Venus.
Don said: "Look, fellows, this has gone far enough. We have control again, and a goodly hunk of Terran Electric as well. Enough, I think, to force them to behave like a good little company and stay out of other people's hair. Let's all get together and celebrate."
"Right," echoed the men.
A month later, Joe's was the scene of a big banquet. Barney Carroll got up and said:
"Ladies and gentlemen, we all know why we're here and what we're celebrating. So I won't have to recount the whole affair. We all think Don Channing is a great guy, and Walt Franks isn't far behind, if any. I'm pretty likeable myself, and my lifelong sparring partner, Jim Baler, is no smelt either. And so on, ad nauseum.
"But, ladies and gentlemen, Don Channing has a deep, dark, dire, desperate phase of his life, one that he will be remembered and cursed for; one that will weigh about his neck like a milestone—or is it millstone?—for all of his life.
"Benefactor though he is, this much you shall know; I still say there is no place in the inner system for a man who has made this possible. Listen!"
Barney raised his hand, and an attendant turned on a standard, living room model radio receiver. It burst into sound immediately.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the Interplanetary Network now brings to you the Whitewood Nutsies Program. Karven and Norwhal, the Venusian Songbirds; Thalla; and Lillas, in person, coming to you from the jungles of Palanortis, on Venus, by courtesy of the Interplanet Foods Co. of Battle Creek, Michigan!
"Ladies and gentlemen, Whitewood Nutsies are GOOD for you—"
Walt Franks said to Christine: "Let's get out of here."
Christine inspected Walt carefully. Then nodded. "Yup," she grinned. "Even you sound better than the Interplanetary Network!"
For once, Walt did not argue, having gained his point.
When the final problem of communicating with a ship in space was solved, the laboratories on Venus Equilateral returned to their original trends. These lines of research and study were wide and varied. Men dabbled brilliantly with insane, complex gadgets that measured the work-functions of metals in electron emission and they made conclusive measurements on the electrical conductivity under extremes of heat and cold. From the uranium pile that powered Venus Equilateral there came metals that had been under neutron bombardment long enough to have their crystal structure altered in unfathomable ways. These were investigated by men who toyed with them to ascertain whether or not they possessed any new properties that might make them useful. Many were the fields studied, too, because it is often that a chemist may be baffled by a problem that could be solved by a thorough education in electronics, for instance.
And from the diversified studies and researches there often came strange by-products. The quick leap of the physicist from a hare-brained theory to a foregone conclusion has been the subject of laughter, but it is no less related than the chain of events that led from an exposed photographic plate to Hiroshima.
Or the chain of events that led Wes Farrell from his observation of a technician cleaning up a current-sputtered knife switch to a minor space war....
Mark Kingman was surprised by the tapping on his window pane. He thought that the window was unreachable from the outside—and then he realized that it was probably someone throwing bits of dirt or small stones. But who would do that when the doorway was free for any bell-ringer?
He shrugged, and went to the window to look out—and became crosseyed as his eyes tried to cope with a single circle not more than ten inches distant. He could see the circle—and the lands on the inside spiralling into the depths of the barrel—and a cold shiver ran up his spine from there to here. Behind the heavy automatic, a dark complected man with a hawklike face grinned mirthlessly.
Kingman stepped back and the stranger swung in and sat upon the windowsill.
"Well?" asked the lawyer.
"Is it well?" asked the stranger. "You know me?"
"No. Never saw you before in my life. Is this a burglary?"
"Nope. If it were, I'd have drilled you first so you couldn't describe me."
Kingman shuddered. The stranger looked as though he meant it.
"In case you require an introduction," said the hard-faced man. "I'm Allison Murdoch."
"Hellion?"
"None other."
"You were in jail—"
"I know, I've been there before."
"But how did you escape?"
"I'm a doctor of some repute," said Hellion. "Or was, until my darker reputation exceeded my reputation for neural surgery. It was simple. I slit my arm and deposited therein the contents of a cigarette. It swelled up like gangrene and they removed me to the hospital. I removed a few guards and lit out in the ambulance. And I am here."
"Why?" Kingman then became thoughtful. "You're not telling me this for mutual friendship, Murdoch. What's on your mind?"
"You were in the clink, too. How did you get out?"
"The court proceedings were under question for procedure. It was further ruled that—"
"I see. You bought your way out."
"I did not—"
"Kingman, you're a lawyer. A smart one, too."
"Thank you—"
"But you're capable of buying your freedom, which you did. Fundamentally, it makes no difference whether you bribe a guard to look the other way or bribe a jury to vote the other way. It's bribery in either case."
Kingman smiled in a superior way. "With the very important difference that the latter means results in absolute freedom. Bribing a guard is freedom only so long as the law may be avoided."
"So you did bribe the jury?"
"I did nothing of the sort. It was a ruling over a technicality that did me the favor."
"You created the technicality."
"Look," said Kingman sharply. "You didn't come here to steal by your own admission and your excellent logic. You never saw me before, and I do not know of you save what I've heard. Revenge for something real or fancied is obviously no reason for this visit. I was charged with several kinds of larceny, which charges fell through and I was acquitted of them—which means that I did not commit them. I, therefore, am no criminal. On the other hand, you have a record. You were in jail, convicted, and you escaped by some means that may have included first-degree murder. You came here for some reason, Murdoch. But let me tell you this: I am in no way required to explain the workings of my mind. If you expect me to reveal some legal machination by which I gained my freedom, you are mistaken. As far as the solar system is concerned, everything was legal and above board."
"I get it," smiled Murdoch. "You're untouchable."
"Precisely. And rightfully so."
"You're the man I want, then."
"It isn't mutual. I have no desire to be identified with a criminal of your caliber."
"What's wrong with it?" asked Murdoch.
"It is fundamentally futile. You are not a brilliant criminal. You've been caught."
"I didn't have the proper assistance. I shall not be caught again. Look," he said suddenly, "how is your relationship with Venus Equilateral?"
Kingman gritted his teeth and made an animal noise.
"I thought so. I have a score of my own to settle. But I need your help. Do I get it?"
"I don't see how one of your caliber is capable—"
"Are you or aren't you? Your answer may decide the duration of your life."
"You needn't threaten. I'm willing to go to any lengths to get even with Channing and his crowd. But it must be good."
"I was beaten by a technical error," explained Murdoch. "The coating on my ship did it."
"How?"
"They fired at me with a super-electron gun. A betatron. It hit me and disrupted the ship's apparatus. The thing couldn't have happened if the standard space-finish hadn't been applied to theHippocrates."
"I'm not a technical man," said Kingman. "Explain, please."
"The average ship is coated with a complex metallic oxide which among other things inhibits secondary emission. Had we been running a ship without this coating, the secondary emission would have left theHippocratesin fair condition electrically, but Venus Equilateral would have received several times the electronic charge. But the coating accepted the terrific charge and prevented the normal urge of electrons to leave by secondary emission—"
"What is secondary emission?"
"When an electron hits at any velocity, it drives from one to as high as fifty electrons from the substance it hits. The quantity depends upon the velocity of the original electron, the charges on cathode and anode, the material from which the target is made, and so on. We soaked 'em in like a sponge and took it bad. But the next time, we'll coat the ship with the opposite stuff. We'll take a bit of Venus Equilateral for ourselves."
"I like the idea. But how?"
"We'll try no frontal attack. Storming a citadel like Venus Equilateral is no child's play, Kingman. As you know, they're prepared for anything either legal or technical. I have a great respect for the combined abilities of Channing and Franks. I made my first mistake by giving them three days to make up their minds. In that time, they devised, tested, and approved an electron weapon of some power. Their use of it was as dangerous to them as it was to me—or would have been if I'd been prepared with a metallic-oxide coating of the proper type."
"Just what are you proposing?" asked Kingman. "I do not understand what you are getting at."
"You are still one of the officials of Terran Electric?"
"Naturally."
"You will be surprised to know that I handle considerable stock in that company."
"How, may I ask?"
"The last time you bucked them, you did it on the market. You lost," grinned Murdoch. "Proving that you haven't a hundred percent record, either. Well, while Terran Electric was dragging its par value down around the twos and threes, I took a few shares."
"How do you stand?"
"I rather imagine that I hold fifteen or twenty percent."
"That took money."
"I have money," said Murdoch modestly. "Plenty of it. I should have grabbed more stock, but I figured that between us we have enough to do as we please. What's your holdings?"
"I once held forty-one percent. They bilked me out of some of that. I have less than thirty percent."
"So we'll run the market crazy again, and between us we'll take off control. Then, Kingman, we'll use Terran Electric to ruin Venus Equilateral."
"Terran Electric isn't too good a company now," admitted Kingman. "The public stays away in huge droves since we bucked Venus Equilateral. That bunch of electronic screwballs has the public acclaim. They're now in solid since they opened person-to-person service on the driver frequencies. You can talk to some one in the Palanortis Country of Venus with the same quality and speakability that you get in making a call from here to the house across the street."
"Terran Electric is about finished," said Murdoch flatly. "They shot their wad and lost. You'll be bankrupt in a year and you know it."
"That includes you, doesn't it?"
"Terran Electric is not the mainstay of my holdings," smiled Murdoch. "Under assumed names, I have picked up quite a few bits. Look, Kingman, I'm advocating piracy!"
"Piracy?" asked Kingman, aghast.
"Illegal piracy. But I'm intelligent. I realize that a pirate hasn't a chance against civilization unless he is as smart as they are. We need a research and construction organization, and that's where Terran Electric comes in. Its an old company, well established. It's now on the rocks. We can build it up again. We'll use it for a base, and set the research boys to figuring out the answers we need. Eventually we'll control Venus Equilateral, and half of the enterprises throughout the system."
"And your main plan?"
"You run Terran Electric, and I'll run the space piracy. Between us we'll have the system over a barrel. Space craft are still run without weapons because no weapons are suited for space fighting. But the new field opened up by the driver radiation energy may exhibit something new in weapons. That's what I want Terran Electric to work on."
"We'll have to plan a bit more," said Kingman thoughtfully. "I'll cover you up, and eventually we'll buy you out. Meanwhile we'll go to work on the market and get control of Terran Electric. And plan, too. It'll have to be foolproof."
"It will be," said Murdoch. "We'll plan it that way."
"We'll drink on it," said Kingman.
"You'lldrink on it," said Murdoch. "I never touch the stuff. I still pride myself on my skill with a scalpel, and I do not care to lose it. Frankly, I hope to keep it long enough to uncover the metatarsal bones of one Donald A. Channing, Director of Communications."
Kingman shuddered. At times, murder had passed through his mind when thinking of Channing. But this cruel idea of vivisecting an enemy indicated a sadism that was far beyond Kingman's idea of revenge. Of course, Kingman never considered that ruining a man financially, reducing him to absolute dependency upon friends or government, when the man had spent his life in freedom and plenty—the latter gained by his ability under freedom—was cruel and inhuman.
And yet it would take a completely dispassionate observer to tell which was worse; to ruin a man's body or to ruin a man's life.
The man in question was oblivious to these plans on his future. He was standing before a complicated maze of laboratory glassware and a haywire tangle of electronic origin. He looked it over in puzzlement, and his lack of enthusiasm bothered the other man. Wesley Farrell thought that his boss would have been volubly glad to see the fruits of his labor.
"No doubt it's wonderful," smiled Channing. "But what is it, Wes?"
"Why, I've been working on an alloy that will not sustain an arc."
"Go on. I'm interested even though I do not climb the chandelier and scream, beating my manly chest."
"Oil switches are cumbersome. Any other means of breaking contact is equally cumbersome if it is to handle much power. My alloy is non-arcing. It will not sustain an arc, even though the highest current and voltage are broken."
"Now I am really interested," admitted Channing. "Oil switches in a spaceship are a definite drawback."
"I know. So—here we are."
"What's the rest of this stuff?" asked Channing, laying a hand on the glassware.
"Be careful!" said Farrell in concern. "That's hot stuff."
"Oh?"
"In order to get some real voltages and currents to break without running the main station bus through here, I cooked this stuff up. The plate-grilleworks in the large tubes exhibit a capacity between them of one microfarad. Empty, that is, or I should say precisely point nine eight microfarads in vacuuo. The fluid is of my own devising, concocted for the occasion, and has a dielectric constant of thirteen times ten to the sixth power. It—"
"Great Howling Rockets!" exploded Channing. "That makes the overall capacity equal to thirteenfarads!"
"Just about. Well, I have the condenser charged to three kilovolts, and then I discharge it through this switch made of the non-arcing alloy. Watch! No, Don, from back there, please, behind this safety glass."
Channing made some discomforting calculations about thirteen farads at three thousand volts and decided that there was definitely something unlucky about the number thirteen.
"The switch, now," continued Farrell, as though thirteen farads was just a mere drop in the bucket, "is opened four milliseconds after it is closed. The time-constant of the discharging resistance is such that the voltage is zero point eight three of its peak three thousand volts, giving a good check of the alloy."
"I should think so," groused Channing. "Eighty-three percent of three thousand volts is just shy of twenty-five hundred volts. The current of discharge passing through a circuit that will drop the charge in a thirteen farad condenser eighty-three percent in four milliseconds will be something fierce, believe me."
"That is why I use the heavy busbars from the condenser bank through the switch."
"I get it. Go ahead, Wes. I want to see this non-arcing switch of yours perform."
Farrell checked the meters, and then said: "Now!" and punched the switch at his side. Across the room a solenoid drove the special alloy bar between two clamps of similar metal. Almost immediately, four-thousandths of a second later, to be exact, the solenoid reacted automatically and the no-arc alloy was withdrawn. A minute spark flashed briefly between the contacts.
"And that is that," said Channing, dazed by the magnitude of it all, and the utter simplicity of the effects. "But look, Wes, may I ask you a favor? Please discharge that infernal machine and drain that electrolyte out. Then make the thing up in a tool-steel case and seal it. Also hang on busbars right at the plates themselves, and slap a peak-voltage fuse across the terminals. One that will open at anything above three thousand volts. Follow me?"
"I think so. But that is not the main point of interest—"
"I know," grinned Channing mopping his forehead. "The non-arc is. But that fragile glassware makes me as jittery as a Mexican jumping bean."
"But why?"
"Wes, if that glassware fractures somewhere, and that electrolyte drools out, you'll have a condenser of one microfarad—charged to thirteen million times three thousand volts. Or, in nice, hollow, round numbers, forty billion volts! Of course, it won't get that far. It'll arc across the contacts before it gets that high, but it might raise particular hell on the way out. Take it easy, Wes. We're seventy million-odd miles from the nearest large body of dirt, all collected in a little steel bottle about three miles long and a mile in diameter. I'd hate to stop all interplanetary communications while we scraped ourselves off of the various walls and treated ourselves for electric shock. It would—the discharge itself, I mean—raise hell with the equipment anyway. So play it easy, Wes. We do not permit certain experiments out here because of the slow neutrons that sort of wander through here at fair density. Likewise, we cannot permit dangerous experiments. And anything that includes a dangerous experiment must be out, too."
"Oh," said Wes. His voice and attitude were altogether crestfallen.
"Don't take it so hard, fella," grinned Channing. "Any time we have to indulge in dangerous experiments, we always do it with an assistant—and in one of the blister-laboratories. But take that fragile glassware out of the picture, and I'll buy it," he finished.
Walt Franks entered and asked what was going on.
"Wes was just demonstrating the latest equipment in concentrated deviltry," smiled Channing.
"That's my department," said Walt.
"Oh, it's not as bad as your stuff," said Channing. "What he's got here is an alloy that will break several million watts without an arc. Great stuff, Walt."
"Sounds swell," said Walt. "Better scribble it up and we'll get a patent. It sounds useful."
"I think it may bring us a bit of change," said Channing. "It's great stuff, Wes."
"Thanks. It annoyed me to see those terrific oil-breakers we have here. All I wanted to do was to replace 'em with something smaller and more efficient."
"You did, Wes. And that isn't all. How did you dream up that high-dielectric?"
"Applied several of the physical phenomena."
"That's a good bet, too. We can use several fluids of various dielectric constants. Can you make solids as well?"
"Not as easily. But I can try—?"
"Go ahead and note anything you find above the present, listed compounds and their values."
"I'll list everything, as I always do."
"Good. And the first thing to do is to can that stuff in a steel case."
"It'll have to be plastalloy."
"That's as strong as steel and non-conducting. Go ahead."
Channing led Franks from the laboratory, and once outside Channing gave way to a session of the shakes. "Walt," he said plaintively, "take me by the hand and lead me to Joe's. I need some vitamins."
"Bad?"
"Did you see that glassblower's nightmare?"
"You mean that collection of cut glass?" grinned Walt. "Uh-huh. It looked as though it were about to collapse of its own dead weight!"
"That held an electrolyte of dielectric constant thirteen times ten to the sixth. He had it charged to a mere three thousand volts. Ye gods, Walt. Thirteen farads at three KV.Whew!and when he discharged it, the confounded leads that went through the glass sidewalls to the condenser plates positively glowed in the cherry red. I swear it!"
"He's like that," said Walt. "You shouldn't worry about him. He'll have built that condenser out of good stuff—the leads will be alloys like those we use in the bigger tubes. They wouldn't fracture the glass seals no matter what the temperature difference between them and the glass was. Having that alloy around the place—up in the tube maintenance department they have a half ton of quarter-inch rod—he'd use it naturally."
"Could be, Walt. Maybe I'm a worry wart."
"You're not used to working with his kind."
"I quote: 'Requiring a high voltage source of considerable current capacity, I hit upon the scheme of making a super-high capacity condenser and discharging it through my no-arc alloy. To do this it was necessary that I invent a dielectric material of K equals thirteen times ten to the sixth.' Unquote."
"Wes is a pure scientist," reminded Walt. "If he were investigating the electrical properties of zinc, and required solar power magnitudes to complete his investigation, he'd invent it and then include it as an incidental to the investigation on zinc. He's never really understood our recent divergence in purpose over the power tube. That we should make it soak up power from Sol was purely incidental and useful only as a lever or means to make Terran Electric give us our way. He'd have forgotten it, I'll bet, since it was not the ultimate goal of the investigation."
"He knows his stuff, though."
"Granted. Wes is brilliant. He is a physicist, though, and neither engineer nor inventor. I doubt that he is really interested in the physical aspects of anything that is not directly concerned with his eating and sleeping."
"What are we going to do about him?"
"Absolutely nothing. You aren't like him—"