no real menace. But he would have to be taken care of when the plant was operating. Conant couldn't afford to have genius around him unless it was unquestionably on his side. The power transmitter and Conant's highly ambitious plans would be safe as long as Kidder was left to himself. Kidder knew that he could, for the time being, expect more sympathetic treatment from Conant than he could from a horde of government investigators.
Kidder only left his own enclosure once after the work began on the north end of the island, and it took all of his unskilled diplomacy to do it. Knowing the source of the plant's power, knowing what could happen if it were misused, he asked Conant's permission to inspect the great transmitter when it was nearly finished. Insuring his own life by refusing to report back to Conant until he was safe within his own laboratory again, he turned off his shield and walked up to the north end.
He saw an awe-inspiring sight. The four-foot model was duplicated nearly a hundred times as large. Inside a massive three-hundred-foot tower a space was packed nearly solid with the same bewildering maze of coils and bars that the Neoterics had built so delicately into their machine. At the top was a globe of polished golden alloy, the transmitting antenna. From it would stream thousands of tight beams of force, which could be tapped to any degree by corresponding thousands of receivers placed anywhere at any distance. Kidder learned that the receivers had already been built, but his informant, Johansen, knew little about that end of it and was saying less. Kidder checked over every detail of the structure, and when he was through he shook Johansen's hand admiringly.
'I didn't want this thing here,' he said shyly, 'and I don't. But I will say that it's a pleasure to see this kind of work.'
'It's a pleasure to meet the man that invented it.'
Kidder beamed. 'I didn't invent it,' he said. 'Maybe someday I'll show you who did. I—well, good-by.' He turned before he had a chance to say too much and marched off down the path.
'Shall I?' said a voice at Johansen's side. One of Conant's guards had his gun out.
Johansen knocked the man's arm down. 'No.' He scratched his head. 'So that's the mysterious menace from the other end of the island. Eh! Why, he's a hell of a nice little feller!'
Built on the ruins of Denver, which was destroyed in the great Battle of the Rockies during the Western War, stands the most beautiful city in the world—our nation's capital. New Washington. In a circular room deep in the heart of the White House, the president, three army men and a civilian sat. Under the president's desk a dictaphone unostentatiously recorded every word that was said. Two thousand and more miles away, Conant hung over a radio receiver, tuned to receive the signals of the tiny transmitter in the civilian's side pocket.
One of the officers spoke.
'Mr. President, the 'impossible claims' made for this gentleman's product are absolutely true. He has proved beyond doubt each item on his prospectus.'
The president glanced at the civilian, back at the officer. 'I won't wait for your report,' he said. 'Tell me— what happened?'
Another of the army men mopped his face with a khaki bandanna. 'I can't ask you to believe us, Mr. President, but it's true all the same.
Mr. Wright here has in his suitcase three or four dozen small... er... bombs—'
'They're not bombs,' said Wright casually.
'All right. They're not bombs. Mr. Wright smashed two of them on an anvil with a sledge hammer. There was no result. He put two more in an electric furnace. They burned away like so much tin and cardboard. We dropped one down the barrel of a field piece and fired it. Still nothing.' He paused and looked at the third officer, who picked up the account:
'We really got started then. We flew to the proving grounds, dropped one of the objects and flew to thirty thousand feet. From there, with a small hand detonator no bigger than your fist, Mr. Wright set the thing off. I've never seen anything like it.
Forty acres of land came straight up at us, breaking up as it came. The concussion was terrific—you must have felt it here, four hundred miles away.'
The president nodded. ' 'I did. Seismographs on the other side of the Earth picked it up.'
'The crater it left was a quarter of a mile deep at the center. Why, one plane load of those things could demolish any city! There isn't even any necessity for accuracy!'
'You haven't heard anything yet,' another officer broke in. 'Mr. Wright's automobile is powered by a small plant similar to the others. He demonstrated it to us.
We could find no fuel tank of any kind, or any other driving mechanism. But with a power plant no bigger than six cubic inches, that car, carrying enough weight to give it traction, outpulled an army tank!'
'And the other test!' said the third excitedly. 'He put one of the objects into a replica of a treasury vault. The walls were twelve feet thick, super-reinforced concrete. He controlled it from over a hundred yards away. He ... he burst that vault!
It wasn't an explosion—it was as if some incredibly powerful expansive force inside filled it and flattened the walls from inside. They cracked and split and powdered, and the steel girders and rods came twisting and shearing out like ... like— whew After that he insisted on seeing you. We knew it wasn't usual, but he said he has more to say and would say it only in your presence.'
The president said gravely, 'What is it, Mr. Wright?'
Wright rose, picked up his suitcase, opened it and took out a small cube, about eight inches on a side, made of some light-absorbent red material. Four men edged nervously away from it.
'These gentlemen,' he began, 'have seen only part of the things this device can do. I'm going to demonstrate to you the delicacy of control that is possible with it.'
He made an adjustment with a tiny knob on the side of the cube, set it on the edge of the president's desk.
'You have asked me more than once if this is my invention or if I am representing someone. The latter is true. It might also interest you to know that the man who controls this cube is right now several thousand miles from here. He and he alone, can prevent it from detonating now that I—' He pulled his detonator out of the suitcase and pressed a button—'have done this. It will explode the way the one we dropped from the plane did, completely destroying this city and everything in it, in just four hours. It will also explode—' He stepped back and threw a tiny switch on his detonator—'if any moving object comes within three feet of it or if anyone leaves this room but me—it can be compensated for that. If, after I leave, I am molested, it will detonate as soon as a hand is laid on me. No bullets can kill me fast enough to prevent me from setting it off.'
The three army men were silent. One of them swiped nervously at the beads of cold sweat on his forehead. The others did not move. The president said evenly:
'What's your proposition?'
'A very reasonable one. My employer does not work in the open, for obvious reasons. All he wants is your agreement to carry out his orders; to appoint the cabinet members he chooses, to throw your influence in any way he dictates. The public—
Congress—anyone else— need never know anything about it. I might add that if you agree to this proposal, this 'bomb,' as you call it, will not go off. But you can be sure that thousands of them are planted all over the country. You will never know when you are near one. If you disobey, it means instant annihilation for you and everyone else within three or four square miles.
'In three hours and fifty minutes—that will be at precisely seven o'clock—there is a commercial radio program on Station RPRS. You will cause the announcer, after his station identification, to say 'Agreed.' It will pass unnoticed by all but my employer.
There is no use in having me followed; my work is done. I shall never see nor contact my employer again. That is all. Good afternoon, gentlemen!'
Wright closed his suitcase with a businesslike snap, bowed, and left the room.
Four men sat staring at the little red cube.
'Do you think he can do all he says?' asked the president.
The three nodded mutely. The president reached for his phone.
There was an eavesdropper to all of the foregoing. Conant, squatting behind his great desk in the vault, where he had his sanctum sanctorum, knew nothing of it. But beside him was the compact bulk of Kidder's radiophone. His presence switched it on, and Kidder, on his island, blessed the day he had thought of the device. He had been meaning to call Conant all morning, but was very hesitant. His meeting with the young engineer Johansen
