te. Atomic bombs could be showered
almost instantly on an enemy.

_I know you won't abuse this power!_

Clark recalled Baldy's hopeful, trusting words and grinned. No, he
wouldn't abuse it. He realized the aliens had not understated its
deadliness. No matter how the military pressed him, he wouldn't permit
its use for mass bombings in the coming war. Not unless the enemy really
threatened to overrun the world...

He left the clearing and headed down the canyon.

* * * * *

When Clark reached the mouth of the canyon, he frowned. Out on a green
meadow a farmer drove a tractor, busily plowing deep furrows for a new
crop. A trim ranch house in the distance gleamed in the morning
sunlight. Funny. Earlier, when he had crossed the field, he hadn't
noticed a sign of civilization. But it had been nearly dark then.

He strolled casually down to a rude stone wall and watched the tractor
churn toward him. The farmer waved. He jolted to a halt, cut the engine
and wiped a red bandana over his wrinkled, sweating face. Clark glanced
down at his own shabby clothes and rubbed a rough, bristly chin. If he
looked like a bum, his brief demonstration would seem all the more
amazing.

"Pretty hot work, eh?" Clark greeted him.

"Yep," the old farmer nodded as he drank from a canteen. Clark grinned.
History would record this man as the first person to actually witness a
degravitator at work. Clark studied the unplowed side of the meadow,
then pointed at a large, half-buried boulder.

"You have a little work there, mister. I think a Clark Farm Helper will
do the trick."

The farmer gave him a puzzled look. Clark calmly beamed the rock. At
first it strained up and down, but finally wrenched free. He floated it
up in a slow arc, then deliberately dropped it with a heavy thud. Clark
chuckled as the farmer tried to hide his astonishment with a poker face.

"That for sale?" he asked shrewdly.

Clark laughed heartily. "Not this one. I'll make a fortune manufacturing
these little babies!"

"How do you figure that?"

Clark frowned at the farmer's indifference. "Can't you see its
possibilities? I just showed you!"

"That's no good for farm work," the farmer said, reaching under his
tractor seat. He raised what resembled a snub-nosed automatic. "This
here's a real beauty. Had this general purpose degrav for two years and
no trouble yet."

He squeezed the trigger and the boulder skimmed across the field.