! But for the most part the world is wagging along,
and people are going through the familiar motions."

"Well," said Blake, "I used to wonder at times how a man might feel if
he were facing execution. Now we all know. Just going dumbly along,
feeling as little as we can, thinking of anything, everything--except
the one thing. They've turned to using dope, a lot of them, I hear.
Maybe it helps; nobody cares much. Only a year and a half."

* * * * *

He raised his face from which all expression was consciously erased.
"Any possible hope?" he asked. "Or do we take it when it comes and fight
with what we've got as long as we can? There was some talk in the papers
of an invention--Bureau of Standards cooperating with the big General
Committee to investigate. Anything come of it?"

"A thousand of them," said the colonel, "all futile. No, we can't expect
much from those things. Though there's a whisper that came to me from
Washington. General Clinton--you may remember him; he was here when the
thing first broke--says that some scientist, a real one, not another of
these half-baked geniuses, has worked out a transformation of some kind.
It was too deep for me, but it is based upon changing hydrogen into
helium, I think. Liberates some perfectly tremendous amount of power.
The general had it all down pat--"

He stopped speaking at the change in Captain Blake's face. The careful
repression of all emotions was gone; the face was suddenly alive--

"I know," he said sharply; "I remember something of the theory. There is
a difference in the atoms or their protons--the liberation of an
electron from each atom--matter actually transformed into energy;
theoretical, what I have read. But--but--Oh my God, Boynton, do you mean
that they've got it?--that it will drive us through space?"

* * * * *

The colonel drove one fist into the palm of his other hand. "Fool!
Idiot!" he exclaimed, and it was evident that the epithets were intended
for himself.

"I had forgotten that you had been trained along that line. The general
wants a man to work with them, somewhat as a liason officer to link the
army requirements closely with their developments; we are hoping to work
out a space ship, of course. You are just the man; I will radio him this
minute. Be ready to leave--" The slamming of the door marked a hurried
exit toward the radio room.

And abruptly, stifflingly, Captain B