ebating scientific theories. Both had loved
the same girl, both had lost her, and together they had been bitter over
it ... drowning their bitterness in a three-day drunk that made campus
history.

After graduation Gregory Manning had gone on to world fame, had roamed
over the face of every planet except Jupiter and Saturn, had visited
every inhabited moon, had climbed Lunar mountains, penetrated Venusian
swamps, crossed Martian deserts, driven by a need to see and experience
that would not let him rest. Russell Page had sunk into obscurity, had
buried himself in scientific research, coming more and more to aim his
effort at the discovery of a new source of power ... power that would be
cheap, that would destroy the threat of Interplanetary dictatorship.

Page turned away from the rectifier room.

"Maybe I'll have something to show Greg soon," he told himself. "Maybe,
after all these years...."

* * * * *

Forty minutes after Page put through the call to Chicago, Gregory
Manning arrived. The scientist, watching for him from the tiny lawn that
surrounded the combined home and laboratory, saw his plane bullet into
sight, scream down toward the little field and make a perfect landing.

Hurrying toward the plane as Gregory stepped out of it, Russell noted
that his friend looked the same as ever, though it had been a year or
more since he had seen him. The thing that was discomfiting about Greg
was his apparently enduring youthfulness.

He was clad in jodhpurs and boots and an old tweed coat, with a
brilliant blue stock at his throat. He waved a hand in greeting and
hurried forward. Russ heard the grating of his boots across the gravel
of the walk.

Greg's face was bleak; it always was. A clean, smooth face, hard, with
something stern about the eyes.

His grip almost crushed Russ's hand, but his tone was crisp. "You
sounded excited, Russ."

"I have a right to be," said the scientist. "I think I have found
something at last."

"Atomic power?" asked Manning. There was no flutter of excitement in his
voice, just a little hardening of the lines about his eyes, a little
tensing of the muscles in his cheeks.

Russ shook his head. "Not atomic energy. If it's anything, it's material
energy, the secret of the energy of matter."

They halted before two lawn chairs.

"Let's sit down here," invited Russ. "I can tell it to you out here,
show it to you afterward. It isn't often I can be out