aid sourly.

"Sit down, Doctor," invited Chambers.

* * * * *

Craven sat down. He peered at Chambers through thick-lensed glasses.

"I haven't much time," he declared acidly.

"Cigar?" Chambers offered.

"Never smoke."

"A drink, then?"

"You know I don't drink," snapped Craven.

"Doctor," said Chambers, "you're the least sociable man I've ever known.
What do you do to enjoy yourself?"

"I work," said Craven. "I find it interesting."

"You must. You even begrudge the time it takes to talk with me."

"I won't deny it. What do you want this time?"

Chambers swung about to face him squarely across the desk. There was a
cold look in the financier's gray eyes and his lips were grim.

"Craven," he said, "I don't trust you. I've never trusted you. Probably
that's no news to you."

"You don't trust anyone," countered Craven. "You're watching everybody
all the time."

"You sold me a gadget I didn't need five years ago," said Chambers. "You
outfoxed me and I don't hold it against you. In fact, it almost made me
admire you. Because of that I put you under a contract, one that you and
all the lawyers in hell can't break, because someday you'll find
something valuable, and when you do, I want it. A million a year is a
high price to pay to protect myself against you, but I think it's worth
it. If I didn't think so, I'd have turned you over to Stutsman long ago.
Stutsman knows how to handle men like you."

"You mean," said Craven, "that you've found I'm working on something I
haven't reported to you."

"That's exactly it."

"You'll get a report when I have something to report. Not before."

"That's all right," said Chambers. "I just wanted you to know."

Craven got to his feet slowly. "These talks with you are so refreshing,"
he remarked.

"We'll have to have them oftener," said Chambers.

Craven banged the door as he went out.

Chambers stared after him. A queer man, the most astute scientific mind
anywhere, but not a man to be trusted.

* * * * *

The president of Interplanetary Power rose from his chair and walked to
the window. Below spread the roaring inferno of New York, greatest city
in the Solar System, a strange place of queer beauty and weighty
materialism, dreamlike in its super-skyscraper construction, but
utilitarian in its purpose, for it was a port of many planets.

The afternoon sunlight slanted through the window, softeni