r this fellow to sign. Get a clause in there to
the effect that this fellow, Bolen, assumes all responsibility for any
effects not designated in the defining part of the contract. Fix it up
so that he's entirely liable, then get it signed, and let's see what
happens."

Quay smiled fully and stood up. "Right, sir." He had done a good job, he
knew. This was the sort of thing that would keep him solidly entrenched
in Cutter's favor. "Right, George," he said, remembering that he didn't
need to call Cutter sir anymore, but he knew he wouldn't hear any more
from Cutter, because Cutter was already looking over a blueprint, eyes
thin and careful, mind completely adjusted to a new problem.

* * * * *

Edward Bolen called the saucer-sized disk, the Confidet. He was a thin,
short, smiling man with fine brown hair which looked as though it had
just been ruffled by a high wind, and he moved, Cutter noticed, with
quick, but certain motions. The installing was done two nights after
Cutter's lawyer, Horner, had written up the contract and gotten it
signed by Bolen. Only Quay, Bolen, and Cutter were present.

Bolen fitted the disks into the base of the plastic chair cushions, and
he explained, as he inserted one, then another:

"The energy is inside each one, you see. The life of it is indefinite,
and the amount of energy used is proportionate to the demand created."

"What the hell do you mean by energy?" Cutter demanded, watching the
small man work.

Bolen laughed contentedly, and Quay flushed with embarrassment over
anyone laughing at a question out of Cutter's lips. But Cutter did not
react, only looked at Bolen, as though he could see somehow, beneath
that smallness and quietness, a certain strength. Quay had seen that
look on Cutter's face before, and it meant simply that Cutter would
wait, analyzing expertly in the meantime, until he found his advantage.
Quay wondered, if this gadget worked, how long Bolen would own the
rights to it.

Cutter drove the Cadillac into Hallery Boulevard, as though the
automobile were an English Austin, and just beyond the boundaries of the
city, cut off into the hills, sliding into the night and the relative
darkness of the exclusive, sparsely populated Green Oaks section.

Ten minutes later, his house, a massive stone structure which looked as
though it had been shifted intact from the center of some medieval moat,
loomed up, gray and stony, and Capra, his