Chapter IV

"Somebody told me," said Dr. James Atkill, "that you were clever, Nestor. That somebody was all wet, as the saying went. You ought to judge men better. You might have known that Warren never would fall for that play of yours, not while he had a friend like Putney to go to.

"Then, not content with that, you let him walk the apparatus right out from under your nose. My Lord, I didn't think they made 'em so dumb. Now, he's got all the data and all the notes and all his own memories. Were there any pictures of the apparatus?"

"Yes," snapped Nestor angrily, "and I have all of them." This tall, lean physicist with his disconcertingly keen grey eyes and the easy air of mockery, a subtle feeling that he was laughing at you even though his face was serious, rattled the shrewd old man.

"Well, that'll do some good. Did you get any of the apparatus-mechanics who set up his stuff? Those mechs, will know something about it." He ruffled his wavy blond hair thoughtfully.

"No, I haven't gotten them, but——"

"But your laboratory staff needs an increase," interrupted Atkill. "Get 'em."

"All right, I'll send for them now." The financier pushed a button, and told Miss Oliver of the increase in the laboratory staff. Half an hour later she told him the men had agreed.

"Now," went on Atkill, "just what happened?"

"Well—nobody really knows, you see——"

"I see—I see that everyone but Warren was out of the way, and so he is the one man on earth who saw it done. My dear employer, could you think of any way to mess things up any more? I'm the best physicist in the world, but when you start me off with a handicap like that, I haven't a very good chance. The one living man who saw it, the man who made the apparatus, and the man who has the instruments that record the experiment—all the one man, and one of the brightest little boys loose. Now what miracle is it you want?"

"Could I help it? It wouldn't have done me—that is us—any good if he had stayed with the University would it?"

"No, but if you'd had the brains God gave little red ants, you could have gotten something for yourself by offering him a real reward. But when you turned him loose on the world——"

"But let's stop this and see what we know. He had some of the high-tension generators such as they were using at M.I.T. back in '30, larger of course, and better, but the same idea. This——" he stared at the photograph Nestor had tossed him, "is evidently a quartz tube, with the electrodes in it. How'd he turn the voltage into them—it takes a tricky switch to handle 25,000,000 volts?"

"I don't know, that's something you'll have to figure out. He was going to patent that," said Nestor.

"That's all right then, he'll have given the data to the University. He invented and perfected it while he was with them, and he'll be fool enough to turn it over even though you did discharge him.

"Then the Sanderson tube apparently—ah here it is. Between the big magnets. Anything special about them—no I guess not. Just unusually powerful.

"Lord—Nestor, get on that phone quick, and corner every existing Sanderson tube. If he needs them, he'll be held up forever, if we have all the tubes going!"

"That's an idea—that's helpful!" Nestor turned to the telephone, and in five minutes had the laboratory cornering the only other perfect vacuum on Earth. There was a ship preparing to leave for the Moon with a large expedition, but it would be a year or more before they'd be back, and by that time the battle would have been won—or lost. Their tubes wouldn't help Warren any.

"Why did he need one?" asked Nestor.

"Matter you imbecile—destruction of matter. He can't start that in the midst of matter and not have it blow up everything within miles of the place. He has to have a perfect absence of matter."

"Somebody told me that he had an iron wire in there," objected Nestor.

"Certainly, I know it. There were twelve tubes, one had a platinum wire, one had iron, one had gold, and so on. And they all had platinum electrodes. But the question is did he use that iron wire? Or was it just there? I think he used it because of the magnets—and there isn't another tube with iron in existence—damn!" The physicist looked at the picture thoughtfully and ruffled his hair. "Well, he can't get it either. But he may not need it now."

"I—eh—wonder if we couldn't—eh—buy the data and instruments from—somebody?" suggested Nestor nervously.

"Yes, I thought of stealing them too," returned Atkill frankly. "It would be much easier to say what you mean." He smiled pleasantly at the sharp-faced old man. "But I don't think it will be easy. Putney's no fool, and neither is my revered colleague, Warren. I'll bet they have so many ultra-violet beam thief-detectors around there that you can't wiggle an eye-brow without starting a siren. We'll find out. His men all live there, so we can't get at them to give us a few hints."

"I believe a man named Wilson comes to town occasionally for supplies. He has one of our transport planes."

"We might try him. I don't know him, what's he like?"

"He's about fifty, slightly grey, rather stoop-shouldered, and always looks disappointed," replied Nestor thoughtfully.

"Thumb-nail directory. Excellent, he won't be disappointed longer. I'll see him. In the meantime——"

He was out of the office before Nestor could say anything further. Nestor wanted him to sign a contract. He hadn't had a chance to talk to him, about that. But neither was Atkill satisfied, and he was back as suddenly as he had left.

"By the way, I want one hundred thousand win-or-lose, and ten million dollars down if I succeed before Warren," he announced.

"What! Ten Millions! Get out! You won't have a sniff!" Nestor cried. He meant to roar it, but his voice was too high-pitched to roar effectively.

"And whom will you get instead?" asked Atkill, smiling pleasantly, "and likewise what will I do with the information I already have?"

"Nothing!" snapped Nestor.

"Plenty," replied Atkill gently. "I'll sign a contract with you at that figure."

Half an hour later he did, and went off to talk with the apparatus mechanics from the University who had arrived in the meantime. He started them at once building a static generator of the necessary power. Then he took the nearest moving platform, and headed East across the city. Twenty minutes later he was inquiring among the speakeasies selling the illegal 10% drinks. He had several that were considerably over that figure, met several old acquaintances, and finally found the man he wanted.

Joe Keller was not a prepossessing figure. He was small, about five-feet-three in height, and weighed less than 130 pounds. His eyes were very black, and never rested long, on the same point, his black hair was constantly falling over his eyes in unruly tangled strands. A stubble of two-day beard covered his cheeks and his thin, weak jaw. His clothes had fitted perfectly, but they were mussed and wrinkled now.

"'Lo, Atty. Whatcha wan'?" Keller's lips were permanently glued together, and seemed never to move, only the cigarette, at one corner of his thin, straight mouth, bobbed slightly, and the trails of smoke waved about in the heavy air of the cheap rented room.

"Little job, Joe. What brings you to this hovel?"

"Sompin' new in the worl'," announced the little man looking with disgust at his surroundings. "I used rubber gloves on a vault, and they hadda thing what ate holes in the rubber. Lef' muh fingers all over the place, an' didn't know it till I took the gloves off. Too damn late then. They're lookin'. I can't do nothin' now."

"No, but your enforced seclusion doesn't prevent your comrades from doing something does it? Why not let them go out, say to the Putney laboratories, and I think they'll find some things there I want. I might pay as much as fifteen grand for them."

Keller sat up with a start. "What things?"

Minutely Atkill described the instruments, and the notes that he wanted. He said they would probably be in some sort of safe, but that might be overcome. A little XY-321 would help too, he intimated, and could be obtained from him. The XY would put anyone in the laboratory building to sleep for three hours, unless he had a special mask, or unless the windows were open. XY required a high concentration but was fairly effective then. Inside a house it was perfect.

"Gotcha. Come 'round tomorra," said Joe Keller.

Atkill pursued his way to the West, and then back to the Nestor offices.