n sat up.

"What's that?"

"Your machine--killed him. He was outside the building at the foot of a
tree. Your receptor killed him through a stone wall! It broke his bones
and killed him.... Bron--" Derec wrung his hands. "At some stage of
power-drain your receptor makes deathrays!"

Hoddan had had a good many shocks today. When Derec arrived, he'd been
incredulously comparing the treatment he'd received and the panic about
him, with the charges made against him in court. They didn't add up.
This new, previously undisclosed item left him speechless. He goggled at
Derec, who fairly wept.

"Don't you see?" asked Derec pleadingly. "That's why I had to tell the
police it was you. We can't have deathrays! The police can't let anybody
go free who knows how to make them! This is a wonderful world, but there
are lots of crackpots. They'll do anything! The police daren't let it
even be suspected that deathrays can be made! That's why you weren't
charged with murder. People all over the planet would start doing
research, hoping to satisfy all their grudges by committing suicide for
all their enemies with themselves! For the sake of civilization your
secret has to be suppressed--and you with it. It's terrible for you,
Bron, but there's nothing else to do!"

Hoddan said dazedly:

"But I only have to put up a bond to be released!"

"The ... the justice," said Derec tearfully, "didn't name it in court,
because it would have to be published. But he's set your bond at fifty
million credits! Nobody could raise that for you, Bron! And with the
reason for it what it is, you'll never be able to get it reduced."

"But anybody who looks at the plans of the receptor will know it can't
make deathrays!" protested Hoddan blankly.

"Nobody will look," said Derec tearfully. "Anybody who knows how to make
it will have to be locked up. They checked the patent examiners. They've
forgotten. Nobody dared examine the device you had working. They'd be
jailed if they understood it! Nobody will ever risk learning how to make
deathrays--not on a world as civilized as this, with so many people
anxious to kill everybody else. You have to be locked up forever, Bron.
You have to!"

Hoddan said inadequately:

"Oh."

"I beg your forgiveness for having you arrested," said Derec in abysmal
sorrow, "but I couldn't do anything but tell--"

Hoddan stared at his cell wall. Derec went away weeping. He was an
admirable, honorable, not-too-bright young man