e United States the
other. Now it looked like there would soon be three. Russia would head
one. A second would be a group detached from the United States. The
third would be the United States standing alone.

It was an absolutely perfect set-up for flaming total war to be begun
at any instant.

The news Soames picked up on a cheap radio on a Calumet Lake fishing
shack was enough to make any man heartsick.

When Fran waked in the morning, an unsmiling Soames greeted him.

"We're going to ride again, Fran. I'm going to make a long-distance
call."

* * * * *

They rode two hundred miles before noon, and Soames got silver from a
filling-station where he bought gas. At one of the out-of-door
phone-booths lately a part of the American scene, he put through a call
to New York. He got the tall physicist who'd come West to the hidden
missile base.

"This is Soames," he said very distinctly. "I've got a tip for you.
Pretend that you want to make something like the gadget that stops winds
and warms places. You know the thing."

The tall physicist's voice babbled.

"I know!" said Soames bitterly, "I'm supposed to be dead or a traitor or
something. But listen to me! You're a castaway and savages snipe at you.
You want to make something like the thing that stops wind, but you want
it to stop arrows instead. It's quite a job. Perhaps the only useful
thing you've got on this savage world is a way to make magnetic fields
with minus self-induction. That's got to stop the arrows. You can assume
the arrowheads are metal. Do you follow me?"

A pause. Then a tinny voice, singularly calm and astonished at the same
time:

"_Why--yes! A very interesting approach! In fact, we've got some very
surprising results lately. One of them will fit in beautifully! Yes!
Beautifully!_"

"If you make it designed for large enough areas," said Soames, "you'll
know where to use it, and how. And--" Soames' voice was sardonic indeed,
"If you do get it, this is one thing that shouldn't be kept secret! Get
it broadcast! Get it everywhere! Give it to the Russians and the Greeks
and the Chinese and the French and everybody else! Understand? The more
who know about it the better."

The tinny voice said:

"_We just developed a thing to refine metals_ in situ.... _An induction
furnace that sets up the heating field at almost any distance from the
elements that handle the power. It will fit in perfectly! Of course!
Cert