seat and
slumped back between his father and Weiss. The little mathematician
looked at him in some alarm.

"Rick! You look done in. What on earth is wrong?"

He smiled feebly. "I'm a sissy, Professor. The only other times I've
flown into Washington I landed at light-plane airports outside the
city. This morning I got right into the middle of the big kids.
Honest, the traffic was worse than Times Square. I was so scared I'd
lose position and bang into someone that I almost swiveled my head
off."

Tom Dodd looked back and grinned sympathetically. "Don't feel badly.
Even the commercial pilots sit up straight and keep bright-eyed on the
Washington approach. Airwise, it's one of the most crowded cities in
the world."

As Tom steered the big sedan expertly through the traffic en route to
downtown Washington, Rick asked his father, "What were you and
Professor Weiss talking about? You lost me just about the time we got
air-borne."

The scientist shook his head. "This time, Rick, I can't help much. Ask
me again when you've completed your undergraduate work in college."

"I'm afraid your father is right," Weiss agreed. "When one gets deeply
into the physical sciences there are no longer simple mechanical
analogies; there are only equations that I'm afraid are beyond you for
now, Rick."

Rick sighed. "A lot of help I'm going to be on this project!"

"You're not supposed to help," his father corrected. "The project is
entirely for the purpose of developing principles for the system. The
final product will be the equations with which the technologists can
begin actual system design. In other words, we are working only on the
first theoretical step."

"But the newspaper article said the scientists were affected by a
gadget," Scotty objected.

"The article was wrong. Paper covered with mathematical computations
can scarcely affect anyone," Hartson Brant said decisively.

Rick stared through the window. The sedan was moving down Constitution
Avenue toward 14th Street. "But how did the newspaper find out
anything in the first place?"

Dodd swung the sedan around a truck, then shrugged expressively. "We'd
like to know. Columnists have their sources of information. Usually
the source isn't close to the inside dope, so most of the columns are
pretty inaccurate. A good thing, too, otherwise the enemy would be
getting our top-secret information in print all the time. Probably
this leak came from someone in the hospital wher