"Do you mean, Mr. Sorensen," Thorn asked with controlled precision,
"that your million-dollar process is merely some kind of gimmickry
with our own batteries?"
"No," said Sorensen. "It's--"
"Wait a minute," said one of the others, "is it some kind of hydrogen
fuel cell?"
"In a way," Sorensen said. "Yes, in a way. It isn't as efficient as
I'd like, but it gets its power by converting hydrogen to helium.
I need those batteries to start the thing. After it gets going, these
leads here from the reactor cell keep the batteries charged. The--"
He was interrupted by five different voices all trying to speak at
once. He could hardly--
* * * * *
"... He could hardly get a word in edgewise at first," said Thorn. He
was enjoying the look of shocked amazement on Colonel Dower's face.
"When Sorensen finally did get it explained, we still didn't know
much. But we built another one, and it worked as well as the one he
had. And the contract didn't specifically call for a battery. He had
us good, he did."
"Now wait--" Colonel Dower said. "You mean to say it wasn't a battery
after all?"
"Of course not."
"Then why all the folderol?"
"Colonel," Thorn said, "Sorensen patented that device nine years ago.
It only has eight years to run. But he couldn't get anyone at all to
believe that it would do what he said it would do. After years of
beating his head against a stone wall, years of trying to convince
people who wouldn't even look twice at his gadget, he decided to get
smart.
"He began to realize that 'everybody knew' that hydrogen fusion wasn't
that simple. It was his _theory_ that no one would listen to. As soon
as he told anyone that he had a hydrogen fusion device that could be
started with a handful of batteries and could be packed into a
suitcase, he was instantly dismissed as a nut.
"I did a little investigating after he gave us the full information on
what he had done. (Incidentally, he signed over the patent to us,
which was more than the contract called for, in return for a job with
our outfit, so that he could help develop the fusion device.)
"As I said, he finally got smart. If the theory was what was making
people give him the cold shoulder, he'd tell them nothing.
"You know the results of that, Colonel Dower. At least he got somebody
to test the machine. He managed to get somebody to look at what it
would do.
"But that wasn't enough. He didn't have, apparently, any legitimate
excuse for keeping it under wraps that way, so everyone was
suspicious."
"But why tell _you_ it was a battery?" asked Captain Lacey.
"That was probably suggested by Colonel Dower's reaction to the tests
he saw," Thorn said. "Somebody--I think it was George Gamow, but I'm
not certain--once said that just having a theory isn't enough; the
theory has to make sense.
"Well, Sorensen's theory of hydrogen fusion producing electric current
didn't make sense. It was _true_, but it didn't make sense.
"So he came up with a theory that _did_ make sense. If everyone wanted
to think it was 'nothing but a battery', then, by Heaven, he'd sell it
as a battery. And _that_, gentlemen, was a theory we were perfectly
willing to believe. It wasn't true, but it did make sense.
"As far as I was concerned, it was perfectly natural for a man who had
invented a new type of battery to keep it under wraps that way.
"Naturally, after we had invested a million dollars in the thing, we
_had_ to investigate it. It worked, and we had to find out why and
how."
"Naturally," said Colonel Dower, looking somewhat uncomfortable. "I
presume this is all under wraps, eh? What about the Russians? Couldn't
they get hold of the patent papers?"
"They could have," Thorn admitted, "but they didn't. They dismissed
him as a crackpot, too, if they heard about him at all. Certainly they
never requested a copy of his patent. The patent number is now top
secret, of course, and if anyone does write in for a copy, the Patent
Office will reply that there are temporarily no copies available. And
the FBI will find out who is making the request."
"Well," said Colonel Dower, "at least I'm glad to hear that I was not
the only one who didn't believe him."