take a shot at it," he announced abruptly, snapping out of his reverie. "Where is his place?"
"It is on a high hill near the Catskills, not far from the town of Foxboro. But I had better give you a letter. They say he is a hard man to see."
Foxboro was the next stop, the bus conductor told him, many hours later. Bennion started. He had been daydreaming again. Half his thoughts were behind him with his loyal Katherine Pennell. Just before that last passionate embrace of farewell he had entrusted her with his secret notes and blueprints.
Now he was clean of anything that would be of value to a competitor except for the undersuit he carried tightly rolled into a small package. That was a union suit of Anrad, complete with head hood. He brought it along to ensure his own personal safety. In this new place he might bump into radiations too powerful for standard lead suits to shield.
The bus drew to a stop in the center of the town. It was a pleasant town and larger than he expected to find. But he did not linger around sightseeing. He made inquiries at once how to get out to the lab. The reactions to his questions were astonishing. Several men said they didn't know, and hurriedly walked away. Another man mumbled something angrily and turned his back. After a number of such rebuffs Bennion found a taxi driver.
"How do you know you can get in?" asked the driver suspiciously, giving Bennion a hard look. "I don't want to soak you five dollars and then have you squawk."
"I can get in," said Bennion, quietly.
"Humph," the driver sniffed. "A lot of 'em say that, but blamed few do."
"I've got a letter to Mr. Ward," explained Bennion, and sat back in the cushions.
The surly driver slipped in his gears and they were off. After a time they came to a narrow side lane down which the car turned. Then the road began to climb. In many places it was too narrow for two cars to pass, so when a descending car was seen just ahead, the driver pulled over to the side and waited for it. The other came on slowly, for there was scant clearance between the two. It was then that Bennion got a surprise. There was a man in that, car of familiar face and build. And the man was Farquhar!
Farquhar locked glances with him. Evidently he thought he had not been recognized, for he suddenly went into a paroxysm of faked coughing. He clapped a handkerchief over his bowed face and kept it there until after the cars had separated. Bennion leaned over and asked his driver what else was up this road besides the Ward plant.
"Not anything," growled the driver. "When Ward built his castle, he bought all the land for miles around, evicted the people and tore down the houses. That's why Foxboro folks don't like him. And I tell you, mister, if it was night now I wouldn't be taking you there at all. It ain't safe. You might get shot at." He shook his head dubiously. "Funny fellow that Ward, and a screwy outfit he must have. Most guys like you don't get let in, and those that do don't ever come out again. That heavy set man we just passed is the only one I know that comes down again after he goes up."
Bennion accepted that information in silence. He was trying to digest what he had just heard and explain it to himself. Ward's desire for extreme privacy was understandable enough. Hard radiation is destructive to life and difficult to shield completely. Unless he deliberately made the country a desert about him, he might be ruined by damage suits. The reason for strict rules as to entry into the plant was equally clear. Experimental work was not only dangerous, but confidential. But what of Farquhar? For Bennion was certain it was no other. Was he casing Ward's place as a preliminary to another squeeze play here, or was there an alliance between the two men? The answer to that Bennion could not know, but his curiosity was excited.
They began to pass signs that said "Slow — Danger," and "Stop When Bell Rings — Blasting Ahead." Bennion guessed that that was used when the super cyclotron was in operation, and that approaching cars were to halt where they were until it stopped. Then they turned the shoulder of the hill and he caught his first view of the laboratory. He gasped, for there was nothing like it in the world — not even Atomic's giant plant in Kansas.
The driver had referred to it as a castle. It did look like one, though a bare and featureless one. It resembled a huge near-cube of lead, perhaps three hundred feet square and half that tall. There were no openings in it, but up one face climbed open work iron stairs like a fire escape. These terminated about halfway up in a room that jutted out on brackets from the leaden building proper. Later Bennion was to learn a group of bungalows and other buildings consisting of living quarters, offices, auxiliary laboratories and such, stood farther down the hill, protected by another leaden wall.
"Phew!" whistled Bennion, trying to gauge the tens of thousands of tons of lead that had gone into the structure, and of its cost. How could a man like Ward get such backing? And what monstrous super-machine did such a colossal shell house?
"Shall I wait?" asked the driver, coming to a stop at a sign that forbade further passage by vehicles. It was still a good quarter of a mile up to the gate.
"No," said Bennion. "Don't wait. I'm staying."
CHAPTER III
The House of Dread
Then Steve Bennion received another jolt. The closer he drew to the flood-lighted, high-voltage-guarded, woven barbed wire fence, the more the place before him looked like a prison or a fortress. The four hard-faced guards inside grimly watched his approach with wary interest. Two of them carried tommy-guns at the ready. But when they called him to halt a few paces outside the gate, and demanded his name and business, he was amazed by the sensation his name caused. The guns were lowered, and one of the men jumped to unlock the gate. Another went off at a trot toward the nearest of the brick buildings of the office group.
"Excuse us, Mr. Bennion," apologized a guard, "we didn't know what you looked like, that's all. The boss told us to expect you."
"Yeah?" said Bennion, but he walked on in. He relinquished his bag to another guard, but chose to keep his packet in his hand. Then he let them take him to Ward's office.
"How are you, Bennion?" greeted Ward, rising and offering a hand. "Ever since I read in the papers of your hard luck out in Tennessee I have had a hunch you might show up. A good many of the men who've been frozen out by General Atomics come here. I don't talk to many of them, though. Elihu Ward wants only the best. Your reputation, naturally — "
"Thanks," grunted Bennion. His brain was racing. To begin with there had been no mention of the foreclosure in any newspaper he had seen. Nor did he care for the man before him. Ward was a stocky, bald individual of the high pressure salesman type, and Bennion was not fond of the glad-hand, back-slapping technique. And that business of Farquhar's recent visit —
"I presume you are looking for a new connection," Ward said, going straight ahead. "If that is so, you've come to the right place. I am proud of my plant — the finest in the world — and the gang of real experts associated with me. I say associated, for this is a truly cooperative venture — share and share alike. I am sure you will be happy here. I am so sure of that I have already prepared a contract. Here it is. Sit down and read it. Take your time, my dear boy."
Bennion took the long legal document and noted that the bulk of it was in incredibly fine type. It was a thing that would require an hour to read and probably deserved a month's scrutiny by a keen lawyer. The only salient features of it that stood out in readable type were: that he was offered a five-year contract with the Elihu Ward Associates
