rols.

"I turn on the Power Switch, sending a surge of current to the Wave
Receptors," he said. The switch clicked and the light blinked on and off
with a steady pulse. Then the man began to slowly turn the knob. "A
careful touch on the Wave Generator is necessary as we are dealing with
the powers of the whole world here...."

A concerted _ahhhh_ swept through the crowd as the Space Wave Tapper
shivered a bit, then rose slowly into the air. The demonstrator stepped
back and the toy rose higher and higher, bobbing gently on the invisible
waves of magnetic force that supported it. Ever so slowly the power was
reduced and it settled back to the table.

"Only $17.95," the young man said, putting a large price sign on the
table. "For the complete set of the Atomic Wonder, the Space Tapper
control box, battery and instruction book ..."

At the appearance of the price card the crowd broke up noisily and the
children rushed away towards the operating model trains. The
demonstrator's words were lost in their noisy passage, and after a
moment he sank into a gloomy silence. He put the control box down,
yawned and sat on the edge of the table. Colonel Hawton was the only one
left after the crowd had moved on.

"Could you tell me how this thing works?" the colonel asked, coming
forward. The demonstrator brightened up and picked up one of the toys.

"Well, if you will look here, sir...." He opened the hinged top. "You
will see the Space Wave coils at each end of the ship." With a pencil he
pointed out the odd shaped plastic forms about an inch in diameter that
had been wound--apparently at random--with a few turns of copper wire.
Except for these coils the interior of the model was empty. The coils
were wired together and other wires ran out through the hole in the
bottom of the control box. Biff Hawton turned a very quizzical eye on
the gadget and upon the demonstrator who completely ignored this sign of
disbelief.

"Inside the control box is the battery," the young man said, snapping it
open and pointing to an ordinary flashlight battery. "The current goes
through the Power Switch and Power Light to the Wave Generator ..."

"What you mean to say," Biff broke in, "is that the juice from this
fifteen cent battery goes through this cheap rheostat to those
meaningless coils in the model and absolutely nothing happens. Now tell
me what really flies the thing. If I'm going to drop eighteen bucks for
six-bits worth of tin, I want