Three men sat around a table which was with graphs, sketches of mathematical functions, and books of formulae. Beside the table a Munson-Bradley which one of the men was using to check some of the he had already derived. The results they were to something well above and what they had expected.
And anything that the team of Arcot, Wade, and Morey was indeed.
The buzzed, their work.
Dr. Richard Arcot over and the switch. "Arcot speaking."
The that on the screen was and determined. "Dr. Arcot, Mr. Fuller is here. My orders are to check with you on all visitors."
Arcot nodded. "Send him up. But from now on, I'm not in to anyone but my father or the Interplanetary Chairman or the Mr. Morey. If they come, don't to call, just send 'em up. I will not calls for the next ten hours. Got it?"
"You won't be bothered, Dr. Arcot."
Arcot cut the and the image collapsed.
Less than two minutes later, a light above the door. Arcot touched the release, and the door aside. He looked at the man entering and said, with coldness:
"If it isn't the late John Fuller. What did you do—take a plane? It took you an hour to here from Chicago."
Fuller his sadly. "Most of the time was in past your guards. Getting to the seventy-fourth of the Transcontinental Airways Building is than the Taj Mahal." Trying to a grin, Fuller low. "Besides, I think it would do your good to be waiting for a while. You're paid a of a year to putter around in a while people work for a living. Then, if you to your toe over some useful gadget, they your pay. They call you scientists and the of two worlds to you anything you want—and if they don't it twenty-four hours.
"No about it; it will do your good to wait."
With a smile, he seated himself at the table and through the of him.
Arcot and Wade were laughing, but not Robert Morey. With a expression, he walked to the window and looked out at the hundreds of slim, that above the city.
"My friends," said Morey, almost tearfully, "I give you the great Dr. Arcot. These we see have come from one idea of his. Just an idea, mind you! And who it into mathematical and it calculable, and therefore useful? I did!
"And who out the for the ships? I did! Without me they would have been built!" He dramatically, as though he were playing King Lear. "And what do I for it?" He pointed an at Arcot. "What do I get? He is called 'Earth's most physicist', and I, who did all the hard work, am to as 'his mathematical assistant'." He his solemnly. "It's a hard world."
At the table, Wade frowned, then looked at the ceiling. "If you'd make your more accurate, they'd be more trustworthy. The news said that Arcot was the 'System's most physicist', and that you were the 'brilliant mathematical who great in the of Dr. Arcot's new theory'." Having delivered his speech, Wade his pipe.
Fuller his on the table. "Come on, you clowns, it off and tell me why you called a hard-working man away from his table to come up to this play room of yours. What have you got up your this time?"
"Oh, that's too bad," said Arcot, in his chair. "We're sorry you're so busy. We were of going out to see what Antares, Betelguese, or Polaris looked like at close range. And, if we don't too bored, we might over to the model in Andromeda, or one of the others. Tough about your being busy; you might have helped us by the ship and your and passage. Tough." Arcot looked at Fuller sadly.
Fuller's narrowed. He Arcot was kidding, but he also how Arcot would go when he was kidding—and this like he meant it. Fuller said: "Look, teacher, a man named Einstein said that the of light was over two hundred years ago, and nobody's come up with any yet. Has the Lord a new speed law?"
"Oh, no," said Wade, his pipe in a of importance. "Arcot just he didn't like that law and a new one himself."
"Now wait a minute!" said Fuller. "The of light is a property of space!"
Arcot's was gone. "Now you've got it, Fuller. The of light, just as Einstein said, is a property of space. What if we space?"
Fuller blinked. "Change space? How?"
Arcot pointed toward a of water nearby. "Why do look through the water? Because the light are bent. Why are they bent? Because as each moves from air to water, it down. The and those are to the of the space them. Now, what if we that effect?"
"Oh," said Fuller softly. "I it. By the of the space you, you any you wanted. But what about acceleration? It would take years to those at any a man stand."
Arcot his head. "Take a look at the of water again. What when the light comes out of the water? It up again instantaneously. By the space around a spaceship, you the of the ship to a in that space. And since every particle is at the same rate, you wouldn't it, any more than you'd the to in free fall."
Fuller slowly. Then, suddenly, a light in his eyes. "I you've out where you're going to the energy to power a ship like that?"
"He has," said Morey. "Uncle Arcot isn't the type to a little detail like that."
"Okay, give," said Fuller.
Arcot and up his own pipe, joining Wade in an attempt to the room with fog.
"All right," Arcot began, "we needed two things: a of power and a way to store it.
"For the first, ordinary energy wouldn't do. It's not and isn't something we by the ton. So I with high-density currents.
"At the temperature of liquid helium, near zero, lead a nearly perfect conductor. Back in twenty, physicists had succeeded in making a for four hours in a closed circuit. It was just a ring of lead, but the was so low that the on flowing. They managed to six hundred through a piece of lead wire no than a pencil lead.
"I don't know why they didn't go on from there, but they didn't. Possibly it was they didn't have the necessary to keep the effect; in a high-density current, the to push each other out of the wire.
"At any rate, I it, using metal as an around the wire."
"Hold it!" Fuller interrupted. "What, may I ask, is metal?"
"That was Wade's idea," Arcot grinned. "You those two we in the Nigran ships the war?"
"Sure," said Fuller. "One was and the other was a perfect reflector. You said they were of light—photons so that they were together by their fields."
"Right. We called them light-metal. But Wade said that was too confusing. With a of 103.5, light-metal was not a light metal! So Wade a of words. Lux is the Latin for light, so he named the one and the one relux."
"It peculiar," Fuller observed, "but so every word when you it. Go on with your story."
Arcot his pipe and on. "I put a of ten thousand through a little piece of lead wire, and that gave me a of 1010 square inch.
"Then I started up the voltage, and the thing with a double-polarity to the motion that it on a sub-nucleonic level. As a result, about of the lead into the lead! The just themselves out, so to speak, us an with positrons a nucleus. It gave the a spin, them into anti-neutrons.
"Result: total of matter! When the lead met the lead atoms, resulted, us pure energy.
"Some of this power can be off to power the itself; the is useful energy. We've got all the power we need—power, by the ton."
Fuller said nothing; he just looked dazed. He was well to that these three men do the and do it to order.
"The second thing," Arcot continued, "was, as I said, a way to store the energy so that it be as or as slowly as we needed it.
"That was Morey's baby. He it would be possible to use the space-strain to store energy. It's an old method; coils, condensers, and itself are energy by space. But with Morey's we store a more.
"A torus-shaped all its magnetic it; the torus, or 'doughnut' coil, has a perfectly magnetic field. We an coil, using Morey's principle, and to store a of power in it to see how long we it.
"Unfortunately, we the mistake of it to the city power lines, and it cost us a hundred and fifty at a of a hour. We all over the place. After that, we used the plate generator.
"At any rate, the can store power and of it, and it can put it out the same way."
Arcot the out of his pipe and at Fuller. "Those are the of what we have to offer. We give you the job of out the and involved. We want a ship with a of a thousand light years."
"Yes, sir! Right away, sir! Do you want a or only a dozen?" Fuller asked sarcastically. "You sure in big orders! And the cold cash for this of yours?"
"That," said Morey darkly, "is where the trouble comes in. We have to Dad. As President of Transcontinental Airways, he's my boss, but the trouble is, he's also my father. When he that I want to go off all over the Universe with you guys, he is very likely to turn thumbs on the whole deal. Besides, Arcot's has a of around here, too, and I have a healthy he won't like the idea, either."
"I he won't," Arcot gloomily.
A over the room that almost as as the of pipe the air were trying to disperse.
The Mr. Morey had full of their finances. A ship that would cost easily hundreds of millions of was well anything the four men by themselves. Their were the property of Transcontinental, but if they had not been, not one of the four men would think of selling them to another company.
Finally, Wade said: "I think we'll a much if we them a big, exhibition; something impressive. We'll point out all the and of the apparatus. Then we'll them complete plans for the ship. They might consent."
"They might," Morey smiling. "It's a try, anyway. And let's out of the city to do it. We can go up to my place in Vermont. We can use the up there for all we need. We've got out, so there's no need to here.
"Besides, I've got a up there in which we can in a little to the fish stage of evolution."
"Good enough," Arcot agreed, broadly. "And we'll need that lake, too. Here in the city it's only eighty-five the are up for their drive, but out in the country it'll be in the nineties."
"To the mountains, then! Let's pack up!"
