back, Doc!'
'Wait,' said Grant. He whispered urgently to Blaustein. 'Can't you leave him here till we test this thing? I can't make out what most of this is. The writing is illegible. Ask him what makes him think this will work.'
'Ask him?' said Blaustein, gentry. 'Isn't he the one who always knows?'
'Ask me, anyway,' said Ralson, overhearing from where he lay on the couch. His eyes were suddenly wide and blazing.
They turned to him.
He said, 'They don't want a force field. They! The experimenters! As long as I had no true grasp, things remained as they were. But I hadn't followed up that thought-that thought which is there in the papers-I hadn't followed it up for thirty seconds before I felt ... I felt- Doctor-'
Blaustein said, 'What is it?'
Ralson was whispering again, 'I'm deeper in the penicillin. I could feel myself plunging in and in, the further I went with that. I've never been in ... so deep. That's how I knew I was right. Take me away.'
Blaustein straightened. 'I'll have to take him away, Grant. There's no alternative. If you can make out what he's written, that's it. If you can't
make it out, I can't help you. That man can do no more work in his field
without dying, do you understand?'
'But,' said Grant, 'he's dying of something imaginary.'
'All right. Say that he is. But he will be really dead just the same, no?'
Ralson was unconscious again and heard nothing of this. Grant looked at
him somberly, then said, 'Well, take him away, then.'
Ten of the top men at the Institute watched glumly as slide after slide filled the illuminated screen. Grant faced them, expression hard and frowning.
He said, 'I think the idea is simple enough. You're mathematicians and you're engineers. The scrawl may seem illegible, but it was done with meaning behind it. That meaning must somehow remain in the writing, distorted though it is. The first page is clear enough. It should be a good lead. Each one of you will look at every page over and over again. You're going to put down every possible version of each page as it seems it might be. You will work independently. I want no consultations.'
One of them said, 'How do you know it means anything, Grant?'
'Because those are Ralson's notes.'
'Ralson! I thought he was-'
'You thought he was sick,' said Grant. He had to shout over the rising hum of conversation. 'I know. He is. That's the writing of a man who was nearly dead. It's all we'll ever get from Ralson, any more. Somewhere in that scrawl is the answer to the force field problem. If we can't find it, we may have to spend ten years looking for it elsewhere.'
They bent to their work. The night passed. Two nights passed. Three nights-
Grant looked at the results. He shook his head. 'I'll take your word for it that it is all self-consistent. I can't say I understand it.'
Lowe, who, in the absence of Ralson, would readily have been rated the best nuclear engineer at the Institute, shrugged. 'It's not exactly clear to me. If it works, he hasn't explained why.'
'He had no time to explain. Can you build the generator as he describes it?'
'I could try.'
'Would you look at all the other versions of the pages?'
'The others are definitely not self-consistent.'
'Would you double-check?'
'Sure.'
'And could you start construction anyway?'
'I'll get the shop started. But I tell you frankly that I'm pessimistic.'
'I know. So am I.' • i >',i, ...
The thing grew. Hal Ross, Senior Mechanic, was put in charge of the actual construction, and he stopped sleeping. At any hour of the day or night, he could be found at it, scratching his bald head.
He asked questions only once, 'What is it, Dr. Lowe? Never saw anything like it? What's it supposed to do?'
Lowe said, 'You know where you are, Ross. You know we don't ask questions here. Don't ask again.'
Ross did not ask again. He was known to dislike the structure that was being built. He called it ugly and unnatural. But he stayed at it.
Blaustein called one day.
Grant said, 'How's Ralson?'
'Not good. He wants to attend the testing of the Field Projector he designed.'
Grant hesitated, 'I suppose we should. It's his after all.'
'I would have to come with him.'
Grant looked unhappier. 'It might be dangerous, you know. Even in a pilot test, we'd be playing with tremendous energies.'
Blaustein said, 'No more dangerous for us than for you.'
'Very well. The list of observers will have to be cleared through the Commission and the F.B.I., but I'll put you in.'
Blaustein looked about him. The field projector squatted in the very center of the huge testing laboratory, but all else had been cleared. There was no visible connection with the plutonium pile which served as energy-source, but from what the psychiatrist heard in scraps about him-he knew better than to ask Ralson-the connection was from beneath.
At first, the observers had circled the machine, talking in incomprehen-sibles, but they were drifting away now. The gallery was filling up. There were at least three men in generals' uniforms on the other side, and a real coterie of lower-scale military. Blaustein chose an unoccupied portion of the railing; for Ralson's sake, most of all.
He said, 'Do you still think you would like to stay?'
It was warm enough within the laboratory, but Ralson was in his coat, with his collar turned up. It made little difference, Blaustein felt. He doubted that any of Ralson's former acquaintances would now recognize him.
Ralson said, 'I'll stay.'
Blaustein was pleased. He wanted to see the test. He turned again at a new voice.
'Hello, Dr. Blaustein.'
For a minute, Blaustein did not place him, then he said, 'Ah, Inspector Darrity. What are you doing here?'
'Just what you would suppose.' He indicated the watchers. 'There isn't
any way you can weed them out so that you can be sure there won't be any mistakes. I once stood as near to Klaus Fuchs as I am standing to you.' He tossed his pocketknife into the air and retrieved it with a dexterous motion.
'Ah, yes. Where shall one find perfect security? What man can trust even his own unconscious? And you will now stand near to me, no?'
'Might as well.' Darrity smiled. 'You were very anxious to get in here, weren't you?'
'Not for myself, Inspector. And would you put away the knife, please.'
Darrity turned in surprise in the direction of Blaustein's gentle head-gesture. He put his knife away and looked at Blaustein's companion for the second time. He whistled softly.
He said, 'Hello, Dr. Ralson.'
Ralson croaked, 'Hello.'
Blaustein was not surprised at Darrity's reaction. Ralson had lost twenty pounds since returning to the sanatorium. His face was yellow and wrinkled; the face of a man who had suddenly become sixty.
Blaustein said, 'Will the test be starting soon?'
Darrity said, 'It looks as if they're starting now.'
He turned and leaned on the rail. Blaustein took Ralson's elbow and began leading him away, but Darrity said, softly, 'Stay here, Doc. I don't want you wandering about.'
Blaustein looked across the laboratory. Men were standing about with the uncomfortable air of having turned half to stone. He could recognize Grant, tall and gaunt, moving his hand slowly to light a cigarette, then changing his mind and putting lighter and cigarette in his pocket. The young men at the control panels waited tensely.
Then there was a low humming and the faint smell of ozone filled the air.
Ralson said harshly, 'Look!'
Blaustein and Darrity looked along the pointing finger. The projector seemed to flicker. It was as though there were heated air rising between it and them. An iron ball came swinging down pendulum fashion and passed through the flickering area.
'It slowed up, no?' said Blaustein, excitedly.
Ralson nodded. 'They're measuring the height of rise on the other side to calculate the loss of momentum. Fools! I said it would work.' He was speaking with obvious difficulty.
Blaustein said, 'Just watch, Dr. Ralson. I would not allow myself to grow needlessly excited.'
The pendulum was stopped in its swinging, drawn up. The flickering about the projector became a little more intense and the iron sphere arced down once again.
Over and over again, and each time the sphere's motion was slowed with more of a jerk. It made a clearly audible sound as it struck the flicker. And
eventually, it bounced. First, soggily, as though it hit putty, and then ring-ingly, as though it hit steel, so that the noise filled the place.
