"Fade her in," said Walt. He kept one eye on the line voltmeter and
opened the anode-coupler slightly. The meter dipped as Warren shunted
the station load over to the tube circuit. Walt brought the line
voltage up to above normal, and it immediately dropped as Warren took
more load from the solar intake. This jockeying went on for several
minutes until Warren called: "You've got it all. Now what?"
"Start running the bus down here to take the communications load," said
Don. "We're running off of an eight hundred thousand mile cathode now,
and his power output is terrific. Or better, run us a high-tension line
down here and we'll save silver. We can ram ten thousand volts up there
for transformation. Get me?"
"What frequency?"
"Yeah," drawled Channing, "have Chuck Thomas run us a control line from
the primary frequency standard. We'll control our frequency with that.
O.K.?"
"Right-o."
Channing looked at the set-up once more. It was singularly
unprepossessing, this conglomeration of iron and steel and plastic.
There was absolutely nothing to indicate that two and one-third million
watts of power coursed from Sol, through its maze of anodes, and into
the electric lines of Venus Equilateral. The cathodes and dynode glowed
with their usual dull red glow, but there was no coruscating aura of
power around the elements of the system. The gimbals that held the big
tube slid easily, permitting the tube to rotate freely as the selsyn
motor kept the tube pointing at Sol. The supply cables remained cool
and operative, and to all appearances the set-up was inert.
"O.K., fellows," said Channing, "this is it--"
He was interrupted by the frantic waving of Kingman, from the other
side of the air lock.
"I feel slightly conscious-stricken," he said with a smile that showed
that he didn't mean it at all. "But let us go and prepare the goat for
shearing."
Kingman's trouble was terrific, according to him. "Mr. Channing," he
complained, "you are not following our wishes. And you, Mr. Farrell,
have been decidedly amiss in your hobnobbing with the engineers here.
You were sent out as my consultant, not to assist them in their
endeavors."
"What's your grief?" asked Channing.
"I find that your laboratory has been changing the circuits without
having previously informed me of the proposed change," complained
Kingman. "I feel that I am within my rights in removing the tubes
brought here. Your investigations have not been sanctioned--" He looked
out through the air lock. "What are you doing out there?"
"We have just succeeded in taking power from the sun," said Don. He
tried to keep his voice even, but the exultation was too high in him,
and his voice sounded like sheer joy.
"You have been--" Kingman did a double-take. "You _what_?" he yelled.
"Have succeeded in tapping Sol for power."
"Why, that's wonderful!"
"Thank you," said Don. "You will no doubt be glad to hear that Wes
Farrell was instrumental in this program."
"Then a certain part of the idea is rightfully the property of Terran
Electric," said Kingman.
"I'm afraid not," said Don. "Dr. Farrell's assistance was not
requested. Though his contribution was of great value, it was given
freely. He was not solicited. Therefore, since Terran Electric was not
consulted formally, Dr. Farrell's contribution to our solar power beam
can not be considered as offering a hold on our discovery."
"This is true, Dr. Farrell?"
"I'm afraid so. You see, I saw what was going on and became interested,
academically. I naturally offered a few minor suggestions in somewhat
the same manner as a motorist will stop and offer another motorist
assistance in changing a tire. The problem was interesting to me and as
a problem, it did not seem to me--"
"Your actions in discussing this with members of the Venus Equilateral
technical staff without authorization will cost us plenty," snapped
Kingman. "However, we shall deal with you later."
"You know," said Farrell with a cheerfully malicious grin, "if you had
been less stuffy about our tubes, they might be less stuffy about my
contribution."
"Ah, these non-legal agreements are never satisfactory. But that is to
be discussed later. What do you intend to do with your invention, Dr.
Channing?"
Channing smiled in a superior manner. "As you see, the device is small.
Yet it handles a couple of million watts. An even smaller unit might be
made that would suffice to supply a home, or even a community. As for
the other end, I see no reason why the size might not be increased to a
point where it may obsolete all existing power-generating stations."
Kingman's complexion turned slightly green. He swallowed hard. "You, of
course, would not attempt to put this on the market yourself."
"No?" asked Channing. "I think you'll find that Venus Equilateral is
as large, if not larger, than Terran Electric, and we have an enviable
reputation for delivering the goods. We could sell refrigerators to the
Titan colony, if we had the V-E label on them and claimed they were
indispensable. Our escutcheon is not without its adherents."
"I see," said Kingman. His present volubility would not have jogged a
jury into freeing the armless wonder from a pick-pocketing charge. "Is
your invention patentable?"
"I think so. While certain phases of it are like the driver tube,
which, of course, is public domain, the applications are quite
patentable. I must admit that certain parts are of the power
transmission tube, but not enough for you to claim a hold. At any
rate, I shall be busy for the next hour, transmitting the details to
Washington, so that the Interplanetary Patent Office may rule on it.
Our Terran legal department has a direct line there, you know, and they
have been directed to maintain that contact at all costs."
"May I use your lines?"
"Certainly. They are public carriers. You will not be restricted any
more than any other man. I am certain that our right to transmit
company business without waiting for the usual turn will not be
contested."
"That sounds like a veiled threat."
"That sounds like slander!"
"Oh, no. Believe me. But wait, Dr. Channing. Is there no way in which
we can meet on a common ground?"
"I think so. We want a free hand in this tube proposition."
"For which rights you will turn over a nominal interest in solar power?"
"Forty percent," said Channing.
"But we--"
"I know, you want control."
"We'd like it."
"Sorry. Those are our terms. Take 'em or leave 'em."
"Supposing that we offer you full and unrestricted rights to any or all
developments you or we make on the Martian transmission tubes?"
"That might be better to our liking."
"We might buck you," said Kingman, but there was doubt in his voice.
"Yes? You know, Kingman, I'm not too sure that Venus Equilateral wants
to play around with power except as a maintenance angle. What if we
toss the solar beam to the public domain? That is within our right,
too."
Kingman's green color returned, this time accompanied with beads of
sweat. He turned to Farrell. "Is there nothing we can do? Is this
patentable?"
"No--Yes," grinned Farrell.
Kingman excused himself. He went to the office provided for him and
began to send messages to the Terran Electric Company offices at
Chicago. The forty-minute wait between message and answer was torture
to him, but it was explained to him that light and radio crossed space
at one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second and that even
an Act of Congress could do nothing to help him hurry it. Meanwhile,
Channing's description tied up the Terran Beam for almost an hour at
the standard rate of twelve hundred words per minute. Their answers
came within a few minutes of one another.
Channing tossed the 'gram before Kingman. "Idea definitely patentable,"
said the wire.
Kingman stood up. Apparently the lawyer believed that his pronouncement
would carry more weight by looming over the smiling, easy-going
faces of his parties-of-the-second-part. "I am prepared to negotiate
with your legal department; offering them, and you, the full rights
to the transmission tube. This will include full access to any and
all discoveries, improvements, and/or changes made at any time from
its discovery to the termination of this contract, which shall be
terminated only by absolute mutual agreement between Terran Electric
and Venus Equilateral.
"In return for this, Venus Equilateral will permit Terran Electric to
exploit the solar beam tube fully and freely, and exclusively--"
"Make that slightly different," said Channing. "Terran Electric's
rights shall prevail exclusively--_except_ within the realm of
space, upon man-made celestial objects, and upon the satellites and
minor natural celestial bodies where sub-relay stations of the
Interplanetary Communications Company are established."
Kingman thought that one over. "In other words, if the transport
companies desire to use the solar beam, you will hold domain from the
time they leave an atmosphere until they again touch--"
"Let's not complicate things," smiled Don cheerfully. "I like
uncomplicated things."
Kingman smiled wryly. "I'm sure," he agreed with fine sarcasm. "But
I see your point. You intend to power the communications system with
the solar beam. That is natural. Also, you feel that a certain amount
of revenue should be coming your way. Yes, I believe that our legal
departments can agree."
"So let's not make the transport companies change masters in
mid-space," smiled Don.
"You are taking a lot on your shoulders," said Kingman. "We wouldn't
permit our technicians to dictate the terms of an agreement."
"You are not going to like Venus Equilateral at all," laughed Don. "We
wouldn't permit our legal department to dabble in things of which they
know nothing. Years ago, when the first concentric beam was invented,
which we now use to punch a hole in the Heaviside Layer, communications
was built about a group of engineers. We held the three inner
planets together by the seat of our pants, so to speak, and nurtured
communications from a slipshod, hope-to-God-it-gets-through proposition
to a sure thing. Funny thing, but when people were taking their
messages catch as catch can, there was no reason for legal lights. Now
that we can and do insure messages against their loss, we find that we
are often tied up with legal red tape.
"Otherwise, we wouldn't have a lawyer on the premises. They serve their
purpose, no doubt, but in this gang, the engineers tell the attorneys
how to run things. We shall continue to do so. Therefore you are
speaking with the proper parties, and once the contract is prepared by
you, we shall have an attorney run through the whereases, wherefores,
and parties of the first, second, and third parts to see that there is
no sleight of hand in the microscopic type."
"You're taking a chance," warned Kingman. "All men are not as
fundamentally honest as Terran Electric."
"Kingman," smiled Channing, "I hate to remind you of this, but who got
what just now? We wanted the transmission tube."
"I see your point. But we have a means of getting power out of the sun."
"We have a hunk of that, too. It would probably have been a mere matter
of time before some bright bird at Terran found the thing as it was."
"I shall see that the contract gives you domain over man-made objects
in space--including those that occasionally touch upon the natural
celestial objects. Also the necessary equipment operating under the
charter of Venus Equilateral, wherever or whenever it may be, including
any future installations."
"Fine."
"You may have trouble understanding our feelings. We are essentially a
space-born company, and as such we can have no one at the helm who is
not equipped to handle the technical details of operations in space."
Channing smiled reminiscently. "We had a so-called efficiency expert
running Venus Equilateral a couple of years ago, and the fool nearly
wrecked us because he didn't know that the airplant was not a mass of
highly complicated, chemical reaction machinery instead of what it
really is. Kingman, do you know what an airplant is?"
"Frankly, no, I should imagine it is some sort of air-purifying device."
"You'll sit down hard when I tell you that the airplant is just what it
is. Martian saw grass! Brother Burbank tossed it out because he thought
it was just weeds, cluttering up the place. He was allergic to good
engineering, anyway."
"That may be good enough in space," said Kingman, "but on Terra, we
feel that our engineers are not equipped to dabble in the legal tangles
that follow when they force us to establish precedent by inventing
something that has never been covered by a previous decision."
"O.K.," said Don. "Every man to his own scope. Write up your contract,
Kingman, and we'll all climb on the band wagon with our illiterary X's."
* * * * *
In Evanston, north of Chicago, the leaves changed from their riotous
green to a somber brown, and fell to lay a blanket over the earth. Snow
covered the dead leaves, and Christmas, with its holly, went into the
past, followed closely by New Year's Eve with its hangover.
And on a roof by the shore of Lake Michigan, a group of men stood in
overcoats beside a huge machine that towered above the great letters of
the Terran Electric Company sign that could be seen all the way from
Gary, Indiana.
It was a beautiful thing, this tube; a far cry from the haywire thing
that had brought solar power to Venus Equilateral. It was mounted
on gimbals, and the metal was bright-plated and perfectly machined.
Purring motors caused the tube to rotate to follow the sun.
"Is she aligned?" asked the project engineer.
"Right on the button."
"Good. We can't miss with this one. There may have been something sour
with the rest, but this one ran Venus Equilateral--the whole relay
station--for ten days without interruption."
He faced the anxious men in overcoats. "Here we go," he said, and his
hand closed upon the switch that transferred the big tube from test
power to operating power.
The engineer closed the switch, and stepped over to the great, vaned,
air-cooled ammeter shunt. On a panel just beyond the shunt the meter
hung--
At Zero!
"Um," said the project engineer. "Something wrong, no doubt."
They checked every connection, every possible item in the circuit.
"Nothing wrong!"
"Oh, now look," said the project engineer. "This isn't hell, where the
equipment is always perfect except that it doesn't work."
"This is hell," announced his assistant. "The thing is perfect--except
that it doesn't work."
"It worked on Venus Equilateral."
"We've changed nothing, and we handled that gadget like it was made of
cello-gel. We're running the same kind of voltage, checked on standard
voltmeters. We're within one-tenth of one percent of the original
operating conditions. But--no power."
"Call Channing."
The beams between Terra and Venus Equilateral carried furious messages
for several hours. Channing's answer said: "I'm curious. Am bringing
the experimental ship to Terra to investigate."
The project engineer asked: "Isn't that the job they hooked up to use
the solar power for their drive?"