[Illustration]
The United States Submarine _Ambitious Brill_ slid smoothly into her
berth in the Brooklyn Navy Yard after far too many weeks at sea, as
far as her crew were concerned. After all the necessary preliminaries
had been waded through, the majority of that happy crew went ashore to
enjoy a well-earned and long-anticipated leave in the depths of the
brick-and-glass canyons of Gomorrah-on-the-Hudson.
The trip had been uneventful, in so far as nothing really dangerous
or exciting had happened. Nothing, indeed, that could even be called
out-of-the-way--except that there was more brass aboard than usual,
and that the entire trip had been made underwater with the exception
of one surfacing for a careful position check, in order to make sure
that the ship's instruments gave the same position as the stars gave.
They had. All was well.
That is not to say that the crew of the _Ambitious Brill_ were
entirely satisfied in their own minds about certain questions that had
been puzzling them. They weren't. But they knew better than to ask
questions, even among themselves. And they said nothing whatever when
they got ashore. But even the novices among submarine crews know that
while the nuclear-powered subs like _George Washington_, _Patrick
Henry_, or _Benjamin Franklin_ are perfectly capable of
circumnavigating the globe without coming up for air, such
performances are decidedly rare in a presumably Diesel-electric vessel
such as the U.S.S. _Ambitious Brill_. And those few members of the
crew who had seen what went on in the battery room were the most
secretive and the most puzzled of all. They, and they alone, knew that
some of the cells of the big battery that drove the ship's electric
motors had been removed to make room for a big, steel-clad box hardly
bigger than a foot locker, and that the rest of the battery hadn't
been used at all.
With no one aboard but the duty watch, and no one in the battery room
at all, Captain Dean Lacey felt no compunction whatever in saying, as
he gazed at the steel-clad, sealed box: "What a battery!"
The vessel's captain, Lieutenant Commander Newton Wayne, looked up
from the box into the Pentagon representative's face. "Yes, sir, it
is." His voice sounded as though his brain were trying to catch up
with it and hadn't quite succeeded. "This certainly puts us well ahead
of the Russians."
Captain Lacey returned the look. "How right you are, commander. This
means we can convert every ship in the Navy in a tenth the time we had
figured."
Then they both looked at the third man, a civilian.
He nodded complacently. "And at a tenth the cost, gentlemen," he said
mildly. "North American Carbide & Metals can produce these units
cheaply, and at a rate that will enable us to convert every ship in
the Navy within the year."
Captain Lacey shot a glance at Lieutenant Commander Wayne. "All this
is strictly Top Secret you understand."
"Yes, sir; I understand," said Wayne.
"Very well." He looked back at the civilian. "Are we ready,
Mr. Thorn?"
"Anytime you are, captain," the civilian said.
"Fine. You have your instructions, commander. Carry on."
"Aye, aye, sir," said Lieutenant Commander Wayne.
* * * * *
* * * * *
A little less than an hour later, Captain Lacey and Mr. Thorn were in
the dining room of one of the most exclusive clubs in New York. Most
clubs in New York are labeled as "exclusive" because they exclude
certain people who do not measure up to their standards of wealth.
A man who makes less than, say, one hundred thousand dollars a year
would not even qualify for scrutiny by the Executive Committee. There
is one club in Manhattan which reaches what is probably close to the
limit on that kind of exclusiveness: Members must be white,
Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Americans who can trace their ancestry as
white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Americans back at least as far as the
American Revolution _without exception_, and who are worth at least
ten millions, and who can show that the fortune came into the family
at least four generations back. No others need apply. It is said that
this club is not a very congenial one because the two members hate
each other.
The club in which Lacey and Thorn ate their dinner is not of that
sort. It is composed of military and naval officers and certain
civilian career men in the United States Government. These men are
professionals. Not one of them would ever resign from government
service. They are dedicated, heart, body, and soul to the United
States of America. The life, public and private, of every man Jack of
them is an open book to every other member. Of the three living men
who have held--and the one who at present holds--the title of
President of the United States, only one was a member of the club
before he held that high office.
As an exclusive club, they rank well above England's House of Peers
and just a shade below the College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic
Church.
Captain Lacey was a member. Mr. Richard Thorn was not, but he was
among those few who qualify to be invited as guests. The carefully
guarded precincts of the club were among the very few in which these
two men could talk openly and at ease.
After the duck came the brandy, both men having declined dessert. And
over the brandy--that ultra-rare Five Star Hennessy which is
procurable only by certain people and is believed by many not to exist
at all--Captain Lacey finally asked the question that had been
bothering him for so long.
"Thorn," he said, "three months ago that battery didn't exist. I know
it and you know it. Who was the genius who invented it?"
Thorn smiled, and there was a subtle wryness in the smile. "Genius is
the word, I suppose. Now that the contracts with the Navy have been
signed, I can give you the straight story. But you're wrong in saying
that the thing didn't exist three months ago. It did. We just didn't
know about it, that's all."
Lacey raised his bushy, iron-gray eyebrows. "Oh? And how did it come
to the attention of North American Carbide & Metals?"
Thorn puffed out his cheeks and blew out his breath softly before he
began talking, as though he were composing his beginning sentences in
his mind. Then he said: "The first I heard about it was four months
ago. Considering what's happened since then, it seems a lot longer."
He inhaled deeply from his brandy snifter before continuing. "As head
of the development labs for NAC&M, I was asked to take part as a
witness to a demonstration that had been arranged through some of the
other officers of the company. It was to take place out on Salt Lake
Flats, where--"
* * * * *
* * * * *
It was to take place out on Salt Lake Flats, where there was no chance
of hanky-panky. Richard Thorn--who held a Ph.D. from one of the finest
technological colleges in the East, but who preferred to be addressed
as "Mister"--was in a bad mood. He had flown all the way out to Salt
Lake City after being given only a few hours notice, and then had been
bundled into a jeep furnished by the local sales office of NAC&M and
scooted off to the blinding gray-white glare of the Salt Flats. It was
hot and it was much too sunshiny for Thorn. But he had made the
arrangements for the test himself, so he couldn't argue or complain
too loudly. He could only complain mildly to himself that the business
office of the company, which had made the final arrangements, had, in
his opinion, been a little too much in a hurry to get the thing over
with. Thorn himself felt that the test could have at least waited
until the weather cooled off. The only consolation he had was that,
out here, the humidity was so low that he could stay fairly
comfortable in spite of the heat as long as there was plenty of
drinking water. He had made sure to bring plenty.
The cavalcade of vehicles arrived at the appointed spot--umpteen miles
from nowhere--and pulled up in a circle.
Thorn climbed out wearily and saw the man who called himself Sorensen
climb out of the second jeep.
From the first time he had seen him, Thorn had tagged Sorensen as an
Angry Old Man. Not that he was really getting old; he was still
somewhere on the brisk side of fifty. But he wore a perpetual scowl on
his face that looked as though it had been etched there by too many
years of frustration, and his voice always seemed to have an acid edge
to it, like that of an old man who has decided, after decades of
observation, that all men are fools. And yet Thorn thought he
occasionally caught a glimpse of mocking humor in the pale blue eyes.
He was lean and rather tall, with white hair that still showed traces
of blond, and he looked as Scandinavian as his name sounded. His
accent was pure Minnesota American.
As he climbed out of the jeep, Sorensen brought with him the Black
Suitcase.
Ever since he had first seen it, Thorn had thought of it as "the Black
Suitcase," and after he had seen some of the preliminary tests, he had
subconsciously put capitals to the words. But Richard Thorn was no
fool. Too many men had been suckered before, and he, Richard Thorn,
did not intend to be another sucker, no matter how impressed he might
be by the performance of an invention.
If this was a con game, it was going to have to be a good one to get
by Richard Thorn, Ph.D.
He walked across the few feet of hard, salt-white ground that
separated him from Sorensen standing beside the second jeep with the
Black Suitcase in his hand. It was obvious to anyone who watched the
way Sorensen handled the thing that it was heavy--seventy-five pounds
or better.
"Need any help?" Thorn asked, knowing what the answer would be.
"Nope," Sorensen said. "I can handle it."
The suitcase wasn't really black. It was a dark cordovan brown, made
even darker by long usage, which had added oily stains to the
well-used leather. But Thorn thought of it as the Black Suitcase
simply because it was the perfect example of the proverbial Little
Black Box--the box that Did Things. As a test question in an
examination, the Little Black Box performs a useful function. The
examiner draws a symbolic electronic circuit. Somewhere in the
circuit, instead of drawing the component that is supposed to be
there, he draws a Little Black Box. Then he defines the wave-form,
voltage, and amperage entering the circuit and defines whatever is
coming out. Question: What is in the Little Black Box?
Except in the simplest of cases, there is never an absolute answer.
The question is counted as correct if the student puts into the Little
Black Box a component or subcircuit which will produce the effect
desired. The value of the answer depends on the simplicity and
relative controllability of the component drawn in the place of the
Little Black Box.
Sorensen's Black Suitcase was still a problem to Thorn. He couldn't
quite figure out what was in it.
"Hotter'n Billy Blue Blazes!" Sorensen said as he put the Black
Suitcase down on the gleaming white ground. He grinned a little, which
dispelled for a moment his Angry Old Man expression, and said: "You
ready to go, Mr. Thorn?"
"I'm ready any time you are," Thorn said grumpily.
Sorensen looked at the NAC&M scientist sideways. "You don't sound any
happier'n I am, Mr. Thorn."
Thorn looked at him and thought he could see that flash of odd humor
in his light blue eyes. Thorn exhaled a heavy breath. "I'm no happier
than you are to be out in this heat. Let's get on with it."
Sorensen's chuckle sounded so out of place that Thorn was almost
startled. "You know the difference between you and me, Mr. Thorn?"
Sorensen asked. He didn't wait for an answer. "You think this test is
probably a waste of time. Me, on the other hand, I _know_ it is."
"Let's get on with it," Thorn repeated.
* * * * *
It took two hours to set up the equipment, in spite of the fact that a
lot of the circuits had been prefabricated before the caravan had come
out from Salt Lake City. But Richard Thorn wanted to make certain that
all his data was both correct and recorded. Sorensen had nothing to do
but watch. He had no hand in setting up the equipment. He had brought
the Black Suitcase, and that was all he was going to be allowed to do.
From the top of the Black Suitcase projected two one-inch copper
electrodes, fourteen inches apart. The North American Carbide & Metals
technicians set up the circuits that were connected to the electrodes
without any help from Sorensen.
But just before they started to work, Sorensen said: "There's just one
thing I think you ought to warn those men about, Mr. Thorn."
"What's that?" Thorn asked.
"If any of 'em tries to open that suitcase, they're likely to get
blown sky high. And I don't want 'em getting funny with me, either."
He had his hand in his trouser pocket, and Thorn was suddenly quite
certain that the man was holding a revolver. He could see the outlines
against the cloth.
Thorn sighed. "Don't worry, Mr. Sorensen. We don't have any ulterior
designs on your invention." He did not add that the investigators of
NAC&M had already assumed that anyone who was asking one million
dollars for an invention which was, in effect, a pig in a poke, would
be expected to take drastic methods to protect his gadget. But there
would be no point in telling Sorensen that his protective efforts had
already been anticipated and that the technicians had already been
warned against touching the Black Suitcase any more than necessary to
connect the leads. Giving Sorensen that information might make him
even more touchy.
Thorn only hoped that the bomb, or whatever it was that Sorensen had
put in the suitcase, was well built, properly fused, and provided with
adequate safeties.
When everything was set up, Sorensen walked over to his device and
turned it on by shoving the blade of a heavy-duty switch into place.
"O.K.," he said.
One of the technicians began flipping other switches, and a bank of
ordinary incandescent light bulbs came on, four at a time. Finally
there were one hundred of them burning, each one a hundred-watt bulb
that glowed brightly but did not appear to be contributing much to the
general brightness of the Utah sun. The technicians checked their
recording voltmeters and ammeters and reported that, sure enough, some
ten kilowatts of power at a little less than one hundred fifteen volts
D.C. was coming from the Black Suitcase.
Sorensen and Thorn sat in the tent which had been erected to ward off
the sun's rays. They watched the lights shine.
* * * * *
* * * * *
One of the technicians came in, wiping his forehead with a big blue
bandana. "Well, there she goes. Mr. Sorensen, if that thing is
dangerous, hadn't we better back off a little way from it?"
"It isn't dangerous," Sorensen said. "Nothing's going to happen."
The technician looked unhappy. "Then I don't see why we couldn't've
tested the thing back in the shop. Would've been a lot easier there.
To say nothing of more comfortable."
Thorn lit a cigarette in silence.