ustice.

* * * * *

Hoddan drew a deep breath. He didn't understand why a man's death,
charged to him, was not mentioned. He didn't like the scared way
everybody looked at him. But--

"About the burglary business," he said confidently. "What did I do in
the power station before I smashed the receptor?"

The justice looked at Nedda's father's attorney.

"Why," said that gentleman amiably, "speaking for the Power Board as
complainant, before you smashed the standard receptor you connected a
device of your own design across the power-leads. It was a receptor unit
of an apparently original pattern. It appears to have been a very
interesting device."

"I'd offered it to the Power Board," said Hoddan, with satisfaction,
"and I was thrown out. You had me thrown out! What did it do?"

"It substituted for the receptor you smashed," said the attorney. "It
continued to supply some two hundred million kilowatts for the
Mid-Continent industrial area. In fact, your crime was only discovered
because the original receptor--naturally--had to be set to draw peak
power at all times, with the unused power wasted by burning carbon. Your
device adjusted to the load and did not burn carbon. So when the
attendants went to replace the supposedly burned carbon and found it
unused, they discovered what you had done."

"It saved carbon, then," said Hoddan triumphantly. "That means it saved
money. I saved the Power Board plenty while that was connected. They
wouldn't believe I could. Now they know. I did!"

The justice said:

"Irrelevant. You have heard the charges. In legal terms, you are charged
with burglary, trespass, breaking and entering, unlawful entry,
malicious mischief, breach of the peace, sabotage, and endangering the
employment of citizens. Discuss the charges, please!"

"I'm telling you!" protested Hoddan. "I offered the thing to the Power
Board. They said they were satisfied with what they had and wouldn't
listen. So I proved what they wouldn't listen to! That receptor saved
them ten thousand credits worth of carbon a week! It'll save half a
million credits a year in every power station that uses it! If I know
the Power Board, they're going right on using it while they arrest me
for putting it to work!"

The courtroom, in its entirety, visibly shivered.

"Aren't they?" demanded Hoddan belligerently.

"They are not," said the justice, tight-lipped. "It has been smashed in
its turn. It h