, and a ton of fuel a day to maintain it. Just for this
building alone. It would be impossible to shield a whole planet, an
entire moon."

* * * * *

"Any progress on your collector field?" asked Chambers.

"Some," Craven admitted. "I'll know in a day or two."

"That would give us something with which to fight Manning and Page,
wouldn't it?"

"Yes," agreed Craven. "It would be something to fight them with. If I
can develop that collector field, we would be able to utilize every
radiation in space, from the heat wave down through the cosmics. Within
the Solar System, our power would be absolutely limitless. Your
accumulators depend for their power storage upon just one radiation ...
heat. But with this idea I have you'd use all types of radiations."

"You say you could even put the cosmics to work?" asked Chambers.

Craven nodded. "If I can do anything at all with the field, I can."

"How?" demanded Stutsman.

"By breaking them up, you fool. Smash the short, high-powered waves into
a lot of longer, lower-powered waves." Craven swung back to face
Chambers. "But don't count on it," he warned. "I haven't done it yet."

"You have to do it," Chambers insisted.

Craven rose from his chair, his blue eyes blazing angrily behind the
heavy lenses. "How often must I tell you that you cannot hurry
scientific investigation? You have to try and try ... follow one tiny
clue to another tiny clue. You have to be patient. You have to hope. But
you cannot force the work."

He strode from the room, slammed the door behind him.

Chambers turned slowly in his chair to face Stutsman. His gray eyes
bored into the wolfish face.

"And now," he suggested, "suppose you tell me just why you did it."

Stutsman's lips curled. "I suppose you would rather I had allowed those
troublemakers to go ahead, consolidate their plans. There was only one
thing to do--root them out, liquidate them. I did it."

"You chose a poor time," said Chambers softly. "You would have to do
something like this, just at the time when Manning is lurking around the
Solar System somewhere, carrying enough power to wipe us off the face of
the Earth if he wanted to."

"That's why I did it," protested Stutsman. "I knew Manning was around. I
was afraid he'd start something, so I beat him to it. I thought it would
throw a scare into the people, make them afraid to follow Manning when
he acted."

* * * *