he said.
Chambers reached out and pulled a checkbook toward him, lifted a pen from its holder. “I’m paying you the twenty thousand for the warning. I’m not paying you a dime more, because you gave me no other information.”
Wilson leaped to his feet, started to protest.
“Sit down,” said Chambers coldly.
“But the job! You said you’d give me a job!”
Chambers shook his head. “I wouldn’t have a man like you in my organization. If you were a traitor to one man, you would be to another.”
“But ... but ...” Wilson started to object and then sat down, his face twisted in something that came very close to fear.
Chambers ripped the check out of the book, waved it slowly in the air to dry it. Then he arose and held it out to Wilson, who reached out a trembling hand and took it.
“And now,” said Chambers, “good day, Mr. Wilson.”
For a moment Wilson stood uncertain, as if he intended to speak, but finally he turned, without a word, and walked through the door.
*
In the laboratory Russ and Greg looked at one another.
“Twenty thousand,” said Greg. “Why, that was worth millions.”
“It was worth everything Chambers had,” said Russ, “because it’s the thing that’s going to wreck him.”
Their attention snapped back to the screen.
Chambers was hunched over his desk, addressing the other two.
“Now, gentlemen,” he asked, “what are we to do?”
Craven shrugged his shoulders. There was a puzzled frown in the eyes back of the thick-lensed glasses. “We haven’t much to go on. Wilson doesn’t know a thing about it. He hasn’t the brain to grasp even the most fundamental ideas back of the whole thing.”
Chambers nodded. “The man knew the mechanical setup perfectly, but that was all.”
“I’ve constructed the apparatus,” said Craven. “It’s astoundingly simple. Almost too simple to do the things Wilson said it would do. He drew plans for it, so clear that it was easy to duplicate the apparatus. He himself checked the machine and says it is the same as Page and Manning have. But there are thousands of possible combinations for hookups and control board settings. Too many to try to go through and hit upon the right answer. Because, you see, one slight adjustment in any one of a hundred adjustments might do the trick ... but which of those adjustments do you have to make? We have to have the formulas, the equations, before we can even move.”
“He seemed to remember a few things,” said Grant hopefully. “Certain rules and formulas.”
Craven flipped both his hands angrily. “Worse than nothing,” he exploded. “What Page and Manning have done is so far in advance of anything that anyone else has even thought about that we are completely at sea. They’re working with space fields, apparently, and we haven’t even scratched the surface in that branch of investigation. We simply haven’t got a thing to go on.”
*
“No chance at all?” asked Chambers.
Craven shook his head slowly.
“At least you could try,” snapped Grant.
“Now, wait,” Chambers snapped back. “You seem to forget Dr. Craven is one of the best scientists in the world today. I’m relying on him.”
Craven smiled. “I can’t do anything with what Page and Manning have, but I might try something of my own.”
“By all means do so,” urged Chambers. He turned to Grant. “I observed you have carried out the plans we laid. Martian Irrigation hit a new low today.”
Grant grinned. “It was easy. Just a hint here and there to the right people.”
Chambers looked down at his hands, slowly closing into fists. “We have to stop them some way, any way at all. Keep up the rumors. We’ll make it impossible for Greg Manning to finance this new invention. We’ll take away every last dollar he has.”
He glared at the publicity man. “You understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Grant, “I understand perfectly.”
“All right,” said Chambers. “And your job, Craven, is to either develop what Page has found or find something we can use in competition.”
Craven growled angrily. “What happens if your damn rumors can’t ruin Manning? What if I can’t find anything?”
“In that case,” said Chambers, “there are other ways.”
“Other ways?”
Chambers suddenly smiled at them. “I have a notion to call Stutsman back to Earth.”
Craven drummed his fingers idly on the arm of his chair. “Yes, I guess you do have other ways,” he said.
*
Greg’s hand snapped the switch and the screen suddenly was blank as the televisor set returned instantly to the laboratory.
“That explains a lot of things,” he said. “Among them what has happened to my stocks.”
Russ sat in his chair, numbed. “That little weak-kneed, ratting traitor, Wilson. He’d sell his mother for a new ten-dollar bill.”
“We know,” said Greg, “and Chambers doesn’t know we know. We’ll follow every move he makes. We’ll know every one of his plans.”
Pacing up and down the room, he was already planning their campaign.
“There are still a few things to do,” he added. “A few possibilities we may have overlooked.”
“But will we have time?” asked Russ.
“I think so. Chambers is going to go slow. The gamble is too big to risk any slip. He doesn’t want to get in bad with the law. There won’t be any strong-arm stuff ... not until he recalls Stutsman from Callisto.”
He paused in mid-stride, stood planted solidly on the floor.
“When Stutsman gets into the game,” he said, “all hell will break loose.”
He took a deep breath.
“But we’ll be ready for it then!”
Chapter Six
“If we can get television reception with this apparatus of ours,” asked Greg, “what is to prevent us from televising? Why can’t we send as well as receive?”
Russ drew doodles on a
