nufacturing
process could begin.

There was work to be done--a world of work!--and so few months in
which to do it. The attack from the distant gun had long since ceased
and the instruments of the astronomers showed the enemy planet
shrinking far off in space. But it would return; there was only a year
for preparation.

* * * * *

Captain Blake was assigned to the direction of design. An entire
office building in Washington was vacated for his use, and in a few
hours he rallied a staff of assistants who demanded the entire use of
a telephone system that spread countrywide. And the call went out that
would bring the best brains of the land to the task before them.

The windows of the building shone brightly throughout the nights when
the call was answered, and engineers and draftsmen worked at fever
heat on thrusts and stresses and involved mathematical calculations.
And, while owners of great manufacturing plants waited with
unaccustomed patience for a moment's talk with Blake, the white sheets
on the drafting boards showed growing pictures of braces and struts
and curved plates, of castings for gun mounts, and ammunition hoists.
And the manufacturers were told in no uncertain terms exactly what
part of this experimental ship they would produce, and when it must be
delivered.

"If only we dared go into production," said Blake; "but it is out of
the question. This first ship must demonstrate its efficiency; we must
get the 'bugs' out of our design; correct our errors and be ready with
a production schedule that will work with precision."

Only one phase of this proposed production troubled him; the
manufacture must be handled all over the world. He talked with men
from England and France, from Germany and Italy and a host of other
lands, and he raged inwardly while he tried to drive home to them the
necessity for handling the work in just one way--his way--if results
were to be achieved.

The men of business he could convince, but his chief disquiet came
from those whose thoughts were of what they termed "statesmanship,"
and who seemed more apprehensive of the power that this new weapon
would give the United States of America than they were of the threat
from distant worlds.

From his friends in high quarters came hints of the same friction, but
he knew that the one demand Winslow had laid down was being observed:
the secret of the mysterious fuel would remain with us. Winslow ha