wipe out this asteroid and the filthy stuff they manufacture here. I don't think I'll be around by that time; exposure to the sun might get me sooner than we think.'
'I know,' said Train shortly, 'and I promise.' He gripped the other's hand and shoulder for the moment, then turned to the unconscious guard, and began a machine-gun fire of questions that were to stock his brain with every secret datum held inviolate by the militia of the man-made planetoid.
Ann Riley was frying breakfast bacon and eggs; she did not hear the door of her flat open softly and close. Behind her a voice suddenly spoke. 'Cut me in on some of that.'
She turned and gasped: 'Barney, you sonova gun!' she yelled and flew into his arms.
'It was really nothing,' he explained over the coffee. 'They just hadn't figured on the hypnosis angle and I took care not to drop any bricks on the voyage. The inefficiency of that system is appalling. If I were managing it, I could step up production of their rotten stuff three hundred percent and see that no prisoner even thought of escaping.'
'Yeah,' she said skeptically, 'I know. But what are you going to do now that you're back?'
'I'm safe for a month. That's how long it takes for a ship to get there and back, and they haven't any other means of communication. The nearness to the sun makes radio or beam messages impossible. So, first, I'm going swimming.'
'No, you aren't,' she said coldly, a gleam in her eye. 'I've been redrafting Independent Fourteen, and all the details are there down on paper again—except for the ones you have in your head. We're going to build that machine and build it fast and powerful. Then we'll throw it in the teeth of T. J. Hartly and World Research, Incorporated. And we're going to fling it so hard there won't be a sound tooth left in their mouths.'
'Yes, my pet. I must confess I had some such thought in my head when I decided to come back to Earth.'
'We can rig up enough of a lab,' she went on, 'right here in my flat.
There's no more experimentation to do; we just need the bare essentials with a slight margin for error.
'Splendid,' he nodded, reaching for another slice of toast. 'We'll need about a hundred yards of silver wire, some standard castings, and a few tubes. You'd better go out and get them now—shop around; we can't afford to get the most expensive. Where have you got the plans?'
They rose from the table and Ann drew a huge scroll of paper from the closet. 'Here they are. Full scale, this time.'
Train scanned them. 'Hey! This distributor wasn't on the designs I gave you.'
'Oh, I just filled it in,' she demurred.
The scientist scowled. 'Hereafter,' he proclaimed, 'all filling in will be done by Doctor Train. Now gwan out and buy the stuff while I work out the missing circuits.' He seated himself at a desk, brooding over the plans.
He looked up when a firm tap came on his shoulder.
'Well?' he asked without turning his head.
'Excuse me, young man, but a point of morality has just come up.
Where do you expect to live while you're building Independent Fourteen?'
'Right here,' he answered calmly. 'First, I can't afford to live anywhere else—even though I drew a guard's salary, and that isn't too small. But there's the danger to consider. You wouldn't want your collaborator to be snatched up and deported again, would you?'
'Fundamentally,' she began in a determined voice, 'I'm a conventional person. And I do not like neighbors talking about me as though I were a thing loathsome and accursed in the eyes of gods and men.'
'What have neighbors to do with it?'
'Don't you think they would consider it a bit peculiar were a man suddenly to come to my flat and begin to live with me as though it were the most natural thing in the world?'
'Isn't it?' he replied. 'In the eyes of Science nothing is unclean or to be shunned.'
'Dr. Train!' she flared, 'you are going to marry me whether you like it or not. At once!'
He stared at her. 'I never really thought of it like that,' he began …but Ann was already speaking into the mouthpiece of the phone.
'Central Services, please.'
She returned to him. 'There—that was easy, wasn't it? He'll be here in a moment; he lives a few houses down.'
There was a knock on the door. 'Central Service is Super Service,'
quoted Ann. 'That's him now.'
She rose to admit a sickly individual who greeted her in a brisk, flabby voice. 'Miss Riley?'
'Yes. And that object is Doctor Train, my spouse-to-be.'
'Thank you,' said the agent, opening a book. 'Please sign in duplicate.'
Ann scribbled her name and passed the book to Train, who also signed.
'Two dollars for ceremony and registration,' said the anemic Cupid.
Train handed over the money and limply accepted the certificate in return.
'Thank you,' said the agent. 'I now pronounce you man and wife.' He walked out through the door, closing it gently behind him.
'Well,' said Ann, after a long pause.
'Well, what?'
'Aren't you going to kiss the bride?'
'Oh.' He did so until she pounded his back for air. 'I must be a romanticist,' he complained, 'but I always wanted an old-fashioned wedding before a city clerk.'
'Times have changed,' she philosophized. 'The tempo of life is accelerated; things move at a fast and furious pace in these mad days.
The old conventions remain, but one complies with them as swiftly and effortlessly as possible. It helps to retain the illusion of gentility.'
'Then,' he said, 'since the illusion is saved, let's get to work. One hundred yards of silver wire—no, make it seventy; we can always buy more.'
4
What's that thing?' asked Ann, peering curiously at an odd-looking setupTrain was working on. 'A little something. I plan to scare hell out of Hartly with it. A frequency inductor—I can get the wavelength of his inter- office system and bellow in his ear.'
'Very cute,' she said thoughtfully. 'What's the second tube for?'
'Steps up the tertiary vibrations. I could have used a seven-phase transformer with better effect, but a tube's cheaper and we happened to have one left over.'
He twisted a final screw contact into place. 'Finished,' he announced,
'shall we call up T. J?'
The curiosity was gone. There was only sudden anguish in her eyes as she clung to him. 'Barney!' She buried her face against his shoulder.
'What shall we do if anything goes wrong?'
For a brief second her fears leaped through him as he comforted her in the only way he knew. Then cold reason reached in. His voice was steady as he answered: 'Nothing will. Independent Fourteen's checked and triple- checked. We've tested it and it clicks every time. What are you worried about?'
'Hartly's a smart man. He has to be to stay on top of World Research. He must have things up his sleeve that no one has ever dreamed about.
Wasn't he a scientist himself before he rose from the ranks to the executive department? It's men like that you have to watch out for.
Never trust a reformed technician.'
Train smiled happily. 'There's nothing to be afraid of. It's the nature of Independent Fourteen that has him licked before he can start. With this priceless gimmick we have a machine that will give us unlimited personal power
