_Interlude:_
_Baffled and beaten, Mark Kingman returned to Terran Electric empty
handed. He hated science and the men who revelled in it, though he was
not above using science--and the men who revelled in it--to further his
own unscientific existence. The poetic justice that piled blow upon
blow on his unprotected head was lost on Mark Kingman and he swore
eternal vengeance._
_With a say in the operations at Terran Electric, Kingman directed
that the engineers and scientists work furiously to discover something
about this strange radiation that made the energy beam possible, that
drove spacecraft across the void, and which now was drawing power out
of the sun to feed the requirements of men who owed allegiance to Venus
Equilateral._
_Kingman was losing his sense of values. He accused Venus Equilateral
of trickery. Quietly, of course, for people had faith in the operations
of the relay station personnel and would stand for no criticism.
Because people found Venus Equilateral and all that went with it both
good and upstanding in the face of what Mark Kingman believed, it
infuriated him to the point of illegality._
_And the evil fate that makes evil men appear to flourish smiled upon
Mark Kingman, while all that Channing had to fight back with was his
faith in the unchanging physical laws of science._
_But Kingman thought he was smart enough to beat Venus Equilateral at
their own business!_