V
The apparatus of the magnetic shield had been completed two days later,and set up in Buck's own laboratory. On the bench was the powerful, butsmall, little projector of the straight magnetic field, simply aspecially designed accumulator, a super-condenser, and the peculiarapparatus Devin had designed to distort the electric field throughninety degrees to a magnetic field. Behind this was a curious,paraboloid projector made up of hundreds of tiny, carefully orientatedcoils. This was Buck's own contribution. They were ready for the tests.
"I would invite McLaurin in to see this," said Kendall looking at them,and then across the room bitterly toward the alleged atomic powerapparatus on the opposite bench. "I think it will work. But after_that_--" He stared, glaring, at the heavy tungsten dome with its heavytungsten contacts, across which the flame of released atomic energy wassupposed to have leapt. "That was probably the flattest flop anyexperiment ever flopped."
"Well--it didn't blow up. That's one comfort," suggested Devin.
"I wish it had. Then at least it would have shown some response. Theonly response shown, actually, was shown on the power meter. It damnnear wore out the bearings turning so fast."
"Personally, I prefer the lack of action." Devin laughed. "Have you gotthat circuit hooked up?"
"Right," sighed Kendall, turning back to the work in hand. "Is Douglassin on this?"
"Yes--in the next room. He'll let us know when he's ready. He's settingup those instruments."
Douglass, a young junior physicist, late of the IP Physics Department,stuck his head in the door and announced his instruments were all setup.
"Keep an eye on them. They'll move somehow, at any rate. This thingcouldn't go as flat as that atom-buster of mine."
Carefully Kendall made a few last-minute adjustments on the limitingrelays, and took up his position at the power board. Devin took hisplace near the apparatus, with another series of instruments, similar tothose Douglass was now watching in the next room, some thirty feet away,through the two-inch metal wall. "Ready," called Kendall.
The switch shot home. Instantly Kendall, Devin, and all the men in thebuilding jumped some six feet from their former positions. A monstrousroar of sound crashed out in that laboratory that thundered from onewall to the other, and bellowed in a Titan's fury. It thundered andgrowled, it bellowed and howled, the walls shook with the march andcounter-march of crashing waves of sound.
And a ten-foot wavering flame of blue-white, bellying electric fireshuddered up to the ceiling from the contact points of the allegedatomic generator. The heat, pouring out from the flashing, roaring arcsent prickles of aching burns over Kendall's skin. For ten seconds hestood in utter, paralyzed surprise as his flop of flops bellowed itsanger at his disdain. Then he leapt to the power board and shut off theroaring thing, by cutting the switch that had started it.
"Spirits of Space! Did _that_ come to life!"
"_Atomic Energy!_" Devin cried.
"Atomic energy, hell. That's my thirty thousand dollars' worth of powerbreaking loose again," chortled Kendall. "We missed the atomic energy,but, sweet boy, what an accumulator we stubbed our toes on! I wonderedwhere in blazes all that power went to. That's the answer. I'll bet Ican tell you right now what happened. We built that mercury up to a newlevel, and that transitional stage was the red, crystalline metal. Whenit reached the higher stage, it was temporarily stable--but thatprojector over there that we designed for the purpose of holding openelectric and magnetic fields just opened the door and let all that powerright out again."
"But why isn't it atomic energy? How do you know that no more than yourpower that you put in is coming out?" demanded Devin.
"The arc, man, the arc. That was a high-current, and low-voltage arc.Couldn't you tell by the sound that no great voltage--as atomic voltagesgo--was smashing across there? If we were getting atomic voltage--andpower--there'd have been a different tone to it, high and shriller.
"Now, did you take any readings?"
"What do you think, man? I'm human. Do you think I got any readings withthat thing bellowing and shrieking in my ears, and burning my skin withultra-violet? It itches now."
Kendall laughed. "You know what to do for an itch. Now, I'm going tomake a bet. We had those points separated for a half-million voltsdischarge, but there was a dust-cover thrown over them just now. That,you notice, is missing. I'll bet that served as a starter lead for themain arc. Now I'm going to start that projector thing again, and movethe points there through about six inches, and that thing probably won'tstart itself."
* * * * *
Most of the laboratory staff had collected at the doorway, looking in atthe white-hot tungsten discharge points, and the now silent "atomicengine." Kendall turned to them and said: "The flop picked itself up.You go on back, we seem to be all in one piece yet. Douglass, you didn'tget any readings, did you?"
Sheepishly, Douglass grinned at him. "Eh--er--no--but I tore my pants.The magnetic field grabbed me and I jumped. They had some steel buttons,and a lot of steel keys--they're kinda' hard to keep on now."
The laboratory staff broke into a roar of laughter, as Douglass, holdingup his trousers with both hands was beheld.
"I guess the field worked," he said.
"I guess maybe it did," adjudged Kendall solemnly. "We have some ropehere if you need it--"
Douglass returned to his post.
Swiftly, Kendall altered the atomic distortion storage apparatus, andreturned to the power-board. "Ready?"
"Check."
Kendall shoved home the switch. The storage device was silent. Only aslight feeling of strain made itself felt, and the sudden noisy hum of asmall transformer nearby. "She works, Buck!" Devin called. "The readingscheck almost exactly."
"All good then. Now I want to get to that atomic thing. We can let thatslide for a little bit--I'll answer it."
The telephone had rung noisily. "Kendall Labs--Kendall speaking."
"This is Superintendent Foster, of the New York Power, Mr. Kendall. Wehave some trouble just now that we think your operations may beresponsible for. The sub-station at North Beaumont blew all the fuses,and threw the breakers at the main station. The men out there said thetransformers began howling--"
"Right you are--I'm afraid I did do that. I had no idea that it wouldreach so far. How far is that from my place here?"
"It's about a thousand yards, according to the survey maps."
"Thanks--and I'll be careful about it. Any damage, I am responsible for?All okay?"
"Yes, sir, Mr. Kendall."
Kendall hung up. "We stirred up a lot more dustthan we expected, Devin. Now let's start seeing if we can keep track ofit. Douglass, how did your readings show?"
"I took them at the ten stations, and here they are. The stations aretwo feet apart."
"H-m-m--.5--.55--.6--.7--20--198--5950--6010--6012--5920. Very, verynice--only the darned thing's got an arm as long as the law. Yourreadings were about .2, Devin?"
"That's right."
"Then these little readings are just leakage. What's our normalintensity here?"
"About .19. Just a very small fraction less than the readings."
"Perfect--we have what amounts to a hollow shell of magnetic force--wecan move inside, and you can move outside--far enough. But you can't geta conductor or a magnetic field through it." He put the readings on thebench, and looked at the apparatus across the room. "Now I want to startright on that other. Douglass, you move that magnetostat apparatus outof the way, and leave just the 'can-opener' of ours--the projector. I'mpretty sure that's what does the deed. Devin, see if you can hunt upsome electrostatic voltmeters with a range in the neighborhood of--Ithink it'll be about eighty thousand."
* * * * *
Rapidly, Douglass was dismounting the apparatus, as Devin started forthe stock room. Kendall started making some new connections,reconnecting the apparatus they had intended using on the "atomicengine," largely high-capacity resista
nces. He seemed to perform thiswork mechanically, his mind definitely on something else. Suddenly hestopped, and looked carefully into the receiver of the machine. Themetal in it was silvery, liquid, and here and there a floating crystalof the dull red metal. Slowly a smile spread across his face. He turnedto Douglass.
"Douglass--ah, you're through. Get on the trail of MacBride, and get himand his crew to work making half a dozen smaller things like this. Tell'em they can leave off the tungsten shield. I want different metals inthe receiver of each. Use--hmmm--sodium--copper--magnesium--aluminium,iron and chromium. Got it?"
"Yes, sir." He left, just as Devin returned with a large electrostaticvoltmeter.
"I'd like," said he, "to know how you know the voltage will range aroundeighty thousand."
"K-ring excitation potential for mercury. I'm willing to bet that thingsimply shoved the whole electron system of the mercury out a notch--thatit simply _hasn't_ any K-ring of electrons now. I'm trying some othermetals. Douglass is going to have MacBride make up half a dozen moremachines. Machines--they need a name. This--ah--this is an 'atostor.'MacBride's going to make up half a dozen of 'em, and try half a dozenmetals. I'm almost certain that's not mercury in there now, at all. It'sprobably element 99 or something like it."
"It looks like mercury--"
"Certainly. So would 99. Following the periodic table, 99 would probablyhave an even lower melting point than mercury, be silvery, dense andheavy--and perhaps slightly radioactive. The series under the B familyof Group II is Magnesium, Zinc, Cadmium, Mercury--and 99. The meltingpoint is going down all the way, and they're all silvery metals. I'mgoing to try copper, and I fully expect it to turn silvery--in fact, tobecome silver."
"Then let's see." Swiftly they hooked up the apparatus, realigned theprojector, and again Kendall took his place at the power-board. As heclosed the switch, on no-load, the electrostatic voltmeter flopped overinstantly, and steadied at just over 80,000 volts.
"I hate to say 'I told you so,'" said Kendall. "But let's hook in aload. Try it on about 100 amps first."
Devin began cutting in load. The resistors began heating up swiftly asmore and more current flowed through them. By not so much as by avibration of the voltmeter needle, did the apparatus betray any strainas the load mounted swiftly. 100--200--500--1000 amperes. Still, thatneedle held steady. Finally, with a drain of ten thousand amperes, allthe equipment available could handle, the needle was steady as a rock,though the tremendous load of 800,000,000 watts was cut in and out.That, to atoms, atoms by the nonillions, was no appreciable load at all.There was _no_ internal resistance whatever. The perfect accumulatorhad certainly been discovered.
"I'll have to call McLaurin--" Kendall hurried away with a broad, broadsmile.