Chapter X

"We are all here now, Nestor. And all very anxious to hear what you have to say. What is this invention that can have such effects?" demanded Fordham. The big, gray-haired ruddy-faced man looked nervous, and worried.

"Atomic energy," said Nestor shortly. The three men started, and gasped slightly.

"Are you sure?" asked Ringman in a slightly unsteady voice.

"Atkill was working on it for me, and in the meantime Warren did the job. Three of my men brought back tales of some of the things he could do." Briefly he told them of Atkill's report, and the men's stories.

There was a long silence as the men thought of the meaning of this.

"Then—then he can put us out of business," said Benholt heavily.

"Without even a battle. He can sell mega-watt hours for what you sell watt hours. He can make airships that don't use engines, just tiny spots of that fire. We're ruined if that invention is sold. That is, if it is sold by him," he added with a sly look.

"Yes, if he sold it to some company—"

"But on the other hand," Nestor interrupted, "If he should unfortunately die, why perhaps his heirs would not display his acumen. He has no brother, nor sister, no near relative. I have investigated, and the only relative I have located is a second cousin once-removed. He is a teller in a country bank, and his name is—James Oswell Jessop. Mr. Jessop has a wife and three children, he is about forty-five years of age, and I am sure, would consider fifty thousand an enormous fortune."

"If Pacific Coast Power Lines fail, I lose three hundred millions, and the other investors lose another billion and three quarters," said Ringman. His voice was shaky. The temptation was great—and he knew what Nestor meant.

"What could we do with the patent if we had it, that we could not do by buying it?" demanded Fordham.

"Cover it up," snapped Nestor.

"Why couldn't we do the same if we bought it?"

"Do you think for a second he'd let you? He'd sell you the power rights, yes, but he wouldn't sell you the other rights that it involves."

"Why not buy it and use it ourselves?" asked Benholt doubtfully.

"Because," said Nestor with a deadly quiet in his voice, "Because there won't be any power companies after that is on the market. Don't you fools see that they won't need an outside plant for generating power? Don't you see that trains, factories, small towns, apartments, and perhaps homes even, will simply use an individual plant. Why is a big plant used to-day? Because it's near a waterfall, near a coal mine or near a number of big towns, and because a big plant is more efficient than a small one. And because they require skilled supervision.

"Atkill says this can be developed so that it will need no supervision. And it certainly needs no wisdom to see that no fuel is needed save a tiny bit of matter, iron evidently. Who cares for efficiency? Why worry?

"Warren won't sell power—he'll sell power plants!

"Now, do you see why you can't let that invention become public."

"And where do you come in, Nestor?" asked Fordham softly.

"He'd ruin my aircraft business in an instant; he'd ruin every industry I have a touch in, except the iron and steel industry.

"And I couldn't buy him over before he completed his discovery."

Fordham smiled bleakly. "And what would you have done had you been able to get it?" he asked.

"Used it myself, naturally," replied Nestor. "And what would you have done in my position?" He looked shrewdly and frankly at the bigger, younger man.

"Well, what are we going to do?" asked Ringman, raising his head from his hands.

"Wait. I think that we will know as soon as Warren gets his patents filed. At present he has only a half-dozen sealed envelopes of Process Discovery. When he's completed his research and not before, he'll turn in his patents. In case we could discover anything, his filed patents would prevent our using it.

"On the other hand, if we wait, and he were—to die—why we could buy the completed patents from his heir, Jessop in this case."

"And what do you want of us?" demanded Fordham.

"Your help," replied Nestor. Then rapidly he outlined his plan to them.

"Lord, Putt, there're more things, more angles to this than a fly has eyes. We certainly can't test all these things here on earth. The explosive for instance—the disintegrating field. Half a dozen of these things can't possibly be tested here on earth, and the only answer is—go try it on an asteroid. We'll have to build a flying laboratory," said Warren.

"I agree—for more reasons than one. Now what sort of a thing had you in mind?"

"A dirigible-shaped ship, about two hundred feet long, and perhaps thirty-five feet diameter. We'd mount several big energy centers in the exact middle of the ship. We have found the gravity-field secret, and can use that. The walls of the ship could be made of beryllium, perhaps eight inches thick for emergencies—"

"Beryllium—eight inches for emergencies," exclaimed Putney. "Lord, beryllium is so—I forget. It's impossible to buy, but we can make all we need. All we need is a sufficient amount of some other element! But then, eight inches for emergencies! That's no more than a good wall in space," protested Putney.

"Uhuh—that's why it's an emergency fixture. We won't use material walls, we'll keep a permanent wall of force. The X-573 field. Meteors—nothing will pass that."

"Right. Much better. And then how do we drive it?"

"Well, we could drive it ahead by simply moving the wall along. Since that is determined in space by the coordinates of our control, all we'd have to do is advance them. But why not use the gravity-field as well? For high accelerations it would be a lot better. We couldn't use it here on earth, or on any planet, but once free, we'd get a lot more acceleration, because we wouldn't feel it."[1]

"Good. Now those ideas—say I like this whole thing. We'll design that ship here and now, and Hultman can put the thing on paper for us."

They started then to plan the ship. "Prometheus" they called it, for it bore the torch of the everlasting fire that would light man's way henceforth.

The grey concrete walls of the laboratory seemed bursting with the great lustrous thing that lay on the floor of the long, bare room. It was a shining, iridescent dirigible of metal, with long streaks of windows set in its side; curious projectors and little ports, that seemed to open outward, studded the bow and stern.

But it was a beautiful thing, what one could see of it. The half-score of men who stood below and looked up at it now seemed mightily pleased with the great machine, over two hundred feet of shining, tapering metal. Across the bow, above the narrow streak of window, gleaming, golden letters a foot high stood out on the background of polished beryllium, "PROMETHEUS."

"She works, Ran, she's magnificent." Putney's voice was low, and tense with excitement. "Around the Moon! In an hour we did what it took Sanderson six months to do! And old McCarthy finished those castings, and assembled her in three months!"

"It ain't a 'she', it's a 'he'," grinned Warren. "Can't you read?"

"All right, heathen. The patents came through to-day," Putney added irrelevantly.

"There'll be more after we've finished experimenting. I think we'd better wait till we have everything, before we try to sell anything, don't you?"

"I agree, Ran. Well, we ought to find plenty.

"In the meantime—let's turn in. We can start to-morrow. The ship's stocked, ready, and waiting. One of you men want to volunteer for——"

A Raid Foiled

The men started, and looked quickly toward a switchboard, half dismantled at one side of the room. A loud, humming note came from it, and a light blinked rapidly, more and more rapidly—and then there was a sudden terrific explosion. A huge crack appeared across one side of the room, the wall reeled, staggered, and collapsed with a terrific crash. Simultaneously the lights went out, and only a ghostly light came from a small flame, a clear white flame burning steadily on the top of a small block of iron, the size of a match box.

"Air raid—they're trying to kill us!" gasped Warren.

"Damn—into the ship!" roared Putney. The men leaped in at his heels. Putney whirled, and raced down a long corridor toward the nose, up a flight of metal steps, two at a time, and flung himself into the control room. Flying fingers clicked over half a dozen tumblers, low thuds of closing plunger switches came from behind, and then a shimmering in the air about the ship, just as the second bomb flashed down. The great mass of concrete that was the west wall seemed tired. It began to lie down. Something seemed to stop it half a dozen feet from the wall of the ship, and it slid down on some invisible surface. A perfect rain of bombs pulverised it and every part of the building, before it completed its fall.

Something began to glow through the dust of the fallen building. It glowed white and clear, and seemed brightening rapidly. The dust had gone now, and a clear light shone over the scarred grounds, and the great ship shone like a heliograph. The light grew, and grew, the ground began to melt, the rocks commenced to glow bright as the awful flame increased in volume. A terrific roar of air grew louder and louder. Trees bent over, bent toward that spot where a draft of white-hot air was rushing up, the wind grew, and the trees toppled, rolled—and burst into terrific flaming gas.

"The little flare—the everlasting flame—it's broken free, and going faster!" somebody cried from the rear of the ship.

"Putt—quick—we haven't tried it before, but we'll have to. X-785! Settings, take them: X-54-235, Y-87-452, X-32-81 and T-68 plus 436." Warren's voice rang out sharply, as he read from the notebook he had snapped out as he saw the flare growing. It was growing beyond bounds now——

Setting the Control Dials

Putney's flying fingers set the dials, then turned the little tumbler switch that threw the collossal power of the main burner into the field, a glowing ball of light ten feet in diameter, feeding on an eleven ton ingot of iron.

There was a sigh, a soft, gentle sigh from all about them, and something wrenched at them, tore them apart, and hurled the separate individual atoms each in a different direction with an awful speed. The awful blaze of light was gone. The lights of the ship were gone—they were gone themselves, in an utter blankness.

Six giant airplanes had come rumbling across the sky, their eighteen powerful gasoline turbines whispering softly to themselves, the fuel pumps chuckling gently, maliciously. Two pilots, one navigator, one bomber rode each plane, and with them went a huge cargo of high explosives, dressed in neat steel jackets. In all, there were thirty tons of highly explosive nitrogen compounds aboard the six planes.

They slipped through the air with scarcely a sound, specially silenced propellors, specially designed wings that merely rustled through the air even at two hundred and fifty miles an hour, and already nearly noiseless turbines. There was no sound, and practically no light. Only a faint glow from each plane, that was projected slightly upward. They could be seen only from above, and the leading plane was lowest. They were far from the lighted air routes here, and far from towns or houses, other than the dimly seen laboratory seven thousand feet below.

"Ready, Bert. Drop your first three," said the navigator of the leading plane. Three darkly shining ovals slid down through the starlight. They disappeared, then suddenly there was a tremendous flash of flame, and a roaring explosion a few seconds later. It was immediately followed by the detonation of the three bombs of the next ship, then the next, and the next. The buildings had opened out, and a great patch of light showed on the rocky hills. The second explosion darkened this suddenly, but in that instant, a gleam of metal had stood out in the lighted building, a great sheet of polished metal.

Bombings from the Air

It was gone when the lights blinked out. Six heavy detonations, eighteen separate bombs, followed. Then silence as the planes turned for a second try.

Something began to glow down there. A fire had started perhaps? It grew swiftly brighter, a white, unwinking light that could not be a fire, it was too steady, too white and changeless, save for a rapid increase in brightness. The heaped ruins of the laboratory were already beginning to glow slightly, then brighter and brighter. They slumped, and a globe of white fire lit the landscape, and threw a brilliant stabbing light to the heavens that made the planes stand out brilliantly.

"Damn—searchlights—turn and drop everything you've got," ordered the leading pilot. Five other pilots heard his orders over their radio. The planes swooped, and turned. Twenty-four tons of explosives rained down toward the white light. They went off in the air as they approached, the terrific heat set the bombs glowing when they were fifty feet away, and exploded them instantly.

Suddenly the white died down, it flared brilliantly, blindingly violet-blue—the pilots screamed in agony, the entire planes turned red, and shooting flames sprang from the gas-tanks. The turbines shrieked suddenly as though in agony, and burst with popping explosions.

Six flaming, white-hot planes dropped earth-ward. They dropped toward a pit of white-hot rock half a mile across that heaved and boiled, and spewed forth great volumes of gas.

There was nothing else there. The ball of violet flame was gone, the laboratory was gone—and the six bombing planes were vanishing in blobs of white-hot gas.

The Putney and Warren Research Laboratories had vanished.

Next dawn a crowd of men were watching the still-glowing rock, and flights of airplanes wheeled slowly overhead. Newsplanes were taking pictures, telenews planes were projecting the view on ten thousand screens in New York and New Jersey. Beyond local interest, an explanation of the slight earth-tremor that had shaken the district, it had no meaning.

And a certain up-state bank cashier, one James Oswell Jessop, was visited by a lawyer from the firm of Powers and Mulroony, who informed him he was sole heir of Randolph Warren, who had unfortunately died in an accident in his laboratory the preceding evening. Mr. Warren was a scientist. Had he heard of him? Mr. Jessop had not. Had Dr. Warren left anything? Yes, a little something. A few patents. Would he like to sell them? Gladly—how much could he get?

A Sale of Patents at a Trivial Price

Three weeks later he received the enormous sum of thirty thousand dollars for the patents that could have remade the world, blasted a thousand industries, and brought every nation of the earth trembling to submission before their owner!