otective devices to come is our only hope. I'm working on three
trails: atomic energy, some type of magnetic shield that will stop any
moving material particle, and their faster-than-light thing. Also, that
fortress--I mean, of course, bank--is going to have a lot of lead-lined
rooms."

"I wish I could use the remaining money the Board gave me to lead-line a
lot of those IP ships," said McLaurin wistfully. "Can't you make a
gamma-ray bomb of some sort?"

"Not without their atomic energy release. With it, of course, it's easy
to flood a region with rays. It'll be a million times worse than radium
'C,' which is bad enough."

"Well, I'll send through this petition for armaments. They'll pass it
all right, I think. They may get some kicks from old Jacob Ezra Stubbs.
Jacob Ezra doesn't believe in anything war-like. I wish they'd find some
way to keep him off of the Arms Petition Board. He might just as well
stay home and let 'em vote his ticket uniformly 'nay.'" Buck Kendall
left with a laugh.

* * * * *

Buck Kendall had his troubles though. When he had reached Earth again,
he found that his properties totaled one hundred and three million
dollars, roughly. One doesn't sell properties of that magnitude, one
borrows against them. But to all intents and purposes, Buck Kendall
owned two half-completed ship's hulls in the Baldwin Spaceship Yards, a
great deal of massive metal work on its way to Luna, and contracts for
some very extensive work on a "bank." Beyond that, about eleven million
was left.

A large portion of the money had been invested in a laboratory, the like
of which the world had never seen. It was devoted exclusively to
physics, and principally the physics of destruction. Dr. Paul Devin was
the Director, Cole was in charge of the technical work, and Buck Kendall
was free to do all the work he thought needed doing.

Returned to his laboratory, he looked sourly at the bench on which seven
mechanicians were working. The ninth successive experiment on the
release of atomic energy had failed. The tenth was in process of
construction. A heavy pure tungsten dome, three feet in diameter, three
inches thick, was being lowered over a clear insulum dome, a foot
smaller. Inside, the real apparatus was arranged around the little pool
of mercury. From it, two massive tungsten-copper alloy conductors led
through the insulum housing, and outside. These, so Kendall had hoped,
would surge wi