_CHAPTER THREE_
Russ hunched over the keyboard set in the control room of the _Comet_and stared down at the keys. The equation was set and ready. All he hadto do was tap that key and they would know, beyond all argument, whetheror not they had dipped into the awful heart of material energy; whether,finally, they held in their grasp the key to the release of energy thatwould give the System power to spare.
His glance lifted from the keyboard, looked out the observation port.Through the inkiness of space ran a faint blue thread, a tiny line thatstretched from the ship and away until it was lost in the darkness ofthe void.
One hundred thousand miles away, that thread touched the surface of asteel ball bearing ... a speck in the immensity of space.
He thought about that little beam of blue. It took power to do that,power to hold a beam tight and strong and steady through the stress ofone hundred thousand miles. But it had to be that far away ... and theyhad that power. From the bowels of the ship came the deep purr of it,the angry, silky song of mighty engines throttled down.
He heard Harry Wilson shuffling impatiently behind him, smelled theacrid smoke that floated from the tip of Wilson's cigarette.
"Might as well punch that key, Russ," said Manning's cool voice. "Wehave to find out sooner or later."
Russ's finger hovered over the key, steadied and held. When he punchedthat key, if everything worked right, the energy in the tiny ballbearing would be released instantaneously. The energy of a piece ofsteel, weighing less than an ounce. Over that tight beam of blue wouldflash the impulse of destruction....
His fingers plunged down.
Space flamed in front of them. For just an instant the void seemedfilled with an angry, bursting fire that lapped with hungry tongues ofcold, blue light toward the distant planets. A flare so intense that itwas visible on the Jovian worlds, three hundred million miles away. Itlighted the night-side of Earth, blotting out the stars and Moon,sending astronomers scurrying for their telescopes, rating foot-highstreamers in the night editions.
Slowly Russ turned around and faced his friend.
"We have it, Greg," he said. "We really have it. We've tested thecontrol formulas all along the line. We know what we can do."
"We don't know it all yet," declared Greg. "We know we can make it work,but I have a feeling we haven't more than skimmed the surfacepossibilities."
* * * * *
Russ sank into a chair and stared about the room. They knew they couldgenerate alternating current of any frequency they chose by use of aspecial collector apparatus. They could release radiant energy in almostany quantity they desired, in any wave-length, from the longest radio tothe incredibly hard cosmics. The electrical power they could measureaccurately and easily by simple voltmeters and ammeters. But radiantenergy was another thing. When it passed all hitherto known bonds, itwould simply fuse any instrument they might use to measure it.
But they knew the power they generated. In one split second they hadburst the energy bonds of a tiny bit of steel and that energy had glaredbriefly more hotly than the Sun.
"Greg," he said, "it isn't often you can say that any event was thebeginning of a new era. You can with this--the era of unlimited power.It kind of scares me."
Up until a hundred years ago coal and oil and oxygen had been the mainpower sources, but with the dwindling of the supply of coal and oil, manhad sought another way. He had turned back to the old dream of snatchingpower direct from the Sun. In the year 2048 Patterson had perfected thephoto-cell. Then the Alexanderson accumulators made it possible to pumpthe life-blood of power to the far reaches of the System, and on Mercuryand Venus, and to a lesser extent on Earth, great accumulator powerplants had sprung up, with Interplanetary, under the driving genius ofSpencer Chambers, gaining control of the market.
The photo-cell and the accumulator had spurred interplanetary trade andsettlement. Until it had been possible to store Sun-power for thedriving of spaceships and for shipment to the outer planets, ships hadbeen driven by rocket fuel, and the struggling colonies on the outerworlds had fought a bitter battle without the aid of ready power.
Coal and oil there were in plenty on the outer worlds, but one otheressential was lacking ... oxygen. Coal on Mars, for instance, had toburned under synthetic air pressures, like the old carburetor. Theresult was inefficiency. A lot of coal burned, not enough powerdelivered.
Even the photo-cells were inefficient when attempts were made to operatethem beyond the Earth; that was the maximum distance for maximum Solarefficiency.
Russ dug into the pocket of his faded, scuffed leather jacket and hauledforth pipe and pouch. Thoughtfully he tamped the tobacco into the bowl.
"Three months," he said. "Three months of damn hard work."
"Yeah," agreed Wilson, "we sure have worked."
Wilson's face was haggard, his eyes red. He blew smoke through hisnostrils.
"When we get back, how about us taking a little vacation?" he asked.
Russ laughed. "You can if you want to. Greg and I are keeping on."
"We can't waste time," Manning said. "Spencer Chambers may get wind ofthis. He'd move all hell to stop us."
Wilson spat out his cigarette. "Why don't you patent what you have? Thatwould protect you."
* * * * *
Russ grinned, but it was a sour one.
"No use," said Greg. "Chambers would tie us up in a mile of legal redtape. It would be just like walking up and handing it to him."
"You guys go ahead and work," Wilson stated. "I'm taking a vacation.Three months is too damn long to stay out in a spaceship."
"It doesn't seem long to me," said Greg, his tone cold and sharp.
No, thought Russ, it hadn't seemed long. Perhaps the hours had beenrough, the work hard, but he hadn't noticed. Sleep and food had come insnatches. For three months they had worked in space, not daring to carryout their experiments on Earth ... frankly afraid of the thing they had.
He glanced at Manning.
The three months had left no mark upon him, no hint of fatigue orstrain. Russ understood now how Manning had done the things he did. Theman was all steel and flame. Nothing could touch him.
"We still have a lot to do," said Manning.
Russ leaned back and puffed at his pipe.
Yes, there was a lot to do. Transmission problems, for instance. Toconduct away such terrific power as they knew they were capable ofdeveloping would require copper or silver bars as thick as a man'sthigh, and even so at voltages capable of jumping a two-foot spark gap.
Obviously, a small machine such as they now had would be impractical. Nomatter how perfectly it might be insulated, the atmosphere itself wouldnot be an insulator, with power such as this. And if one tried todeliver the energy as a mechanical rotation of a shaft, what shaft couldtransmit it safely and under control?
"Oh, hell," Russ burst out, "let's get back to Earth."
* * * * *
Harry Wilson watched the couple alight from the aero-taxi, walk up thebroad steps and pass through the magic portals of the Martian Club. Hecould imagine what the club was like, the deference of the management,the exotic atmosphere of the dining room, the excellence of the long,cold drinks served at the bar. Mysterious drinks concocted ofingredients harvested in the jungles of Venus, spiced with produce fromthe irrigated gardens of Mars.
He puffed on the dangling cigarette and shuffled on along the airyhighwalk. Below and above him, all around him flowed the beauty and theglamor, the bravery and the splendor of New York. The city's song was inhis ears, the surging noises that were its voice.
Two thousand feet above his head reared giant pinnacles of shiningmetal, glinting in the noonday sun, architecture that bore the alienstamp of other worlds.
Wilson turned around, stared at the Martian Club. A man needed money topass through those doors, to taste the drinks that slid across its bar,to sit and watch its floor shows, to hear the m
usic of its orchestras.
For a moment he stood, hesitating, as if he were trying to make up hismind. He flipped away the cigarette, turned on his heel, walked brisklyto the automatic elevator which would take him to the lower levels.
There, on the third level, he entered a Mecho restaurant, sat down at atable and ordered from the robot waiter, pushing ivory-tipped buttons onthe menu before him.
He ate leisurely, smoked ferociously, thinking. Looking at his watch, hesaw that it was nearly two o'clock. He walked to the cashier machine,inserted the metallic check with the correct change and received fromthe clicking, chuckling register the disk that would let him out thedoor.
"Thank you, come again," the cashier-robot fluted.
"Don't mention it," growled Wilson.
Outside the restaurant he walked briskly. Ten blocks away he came to abuilding roofing four square blocks. Over the massive doorway, set intothe beryllium steel, was a map of the Solar System, a map that served asa cosmic clock, tracing the movement of the planets as they swung intheir long arcs around the Sun. The Solar System was straddled byglowing, golden letters. They read: INTERPLANETARY BUILDING.
It was from here that Spencer Chambers ruled his empire built on power.
Wilson went inside.