head. "I wouldn't have a man like you in my
organization. If you were a traitor to one man, you would be to
another."

"But ... but ..." Wilson started to object and then sat down, his face
twisted in something that came very close to fear.

Chambers ripped the check out of the book, waved it slowly in the air to
dry it. Then he arose and held it out to Wilson, who reached out a
trembling hand and took it.

"And now," said Chambers, "good day, Mr. Wilson."

For a moment Wilson stood uncertain, as if he intended to speak, but
finally he turned, without a word, and walked through the door.

* * * * *

In the laboratory Russ and Greg looked at one another.

"Twenty thousand," said Greg. "Why, that was worth millions."

"It was worth everything Chambers had," said Russ, "because it's the
thing that's going to wreck him."

Their attention snapped back to the screen.

Chambers was hunched over his desk, addressing the other two.

"Now, gentlemen," he asked, "what are we to do?"

Craven shrugged his shoulders. There was a puzzled frown in the eyes
back of the thick-lensed glasses. "We haven't much to go on. Wilson
doesn't know a thing about it. He hasn't the brain to grasp even the
most fundamental ideas back of the whole thing."

Chambers nodded. "The man knew the mechanical setup perfectly, but that
was all."

"I've constructed the apparatus," said Craven. "It's astoundingly
simple. Almost too simple to do the things Wilson said it would do. He
drew plans for it, so clear that it was easy to duplicate the apparatus.
He himself checked the machine and says it is the same as Page and
Manning have. But there are thousands of possible combinations for
hookups and control board settings. Too many to try to go through and
hit upon the right answer. Because, you see, one slight adjustment in
any one of a hundred adjustments might do the trick ... but which of
those adjustments do you have to make? We have to have the formulas, the
equations, before we can even move."

"He seemed to remember a few things," said Grant hopefully. "Certain
rules and formulas."

Craven flipped both his hands angrily. "Worse than nothing," he
exploded. "What Page and Manning have done is so far in advance of
anything that anyone else has even thought about that we are completely
at sea. They're working with space fields, apparently, and we haven't
even scratched the surface in that branch of investigati