* * * * *
He was ushered into the office of Hal Weston after an hour of painful
waiting. The chief engineer of Solar Electric recognized him with a
slight frown.
"You're the fellow who took off on Miss Ward, aren't you?"
"No," smiled Barden. "She happens to be the one that took off on me.
I'm still right and I intend to prove it!"
"Not here, I hope. Your card stated differently."
"I'm entering nowhere on false pretenses, Mr. Weston. My card states my
offer completely."
"You have a means of developing an almost perfect vacuum and
simultaneously removing adsorbed gas from any object in the inclosure?"
"Right!"
"Interesting if true. Let's see it."
"I have not the equipment with me. However, I have here a ten-inch
glass sphere made from a laboratory flask. In it are several coins,
bits of graphite, spongy palladium, and some anhydrous copper sulphate.
This tube was evacuated by my equipment and there was no other
treatment for removal of extraneous material."
"May we check that?"
"That is why I brought it along--for your own satisfaction."
Weston spoke into the communicator on his desk and in a minute, the
door opened to admit an elderly man in a white coat. Weston gave him
the flask and said: "Dr. Grosse, this flask is supposed to be totally
evacuated and all adsorbed gases removed as well as water vapor. I want
a precision quantitative analysis of everything inside of this flask.
And," he grinned, "get the results to me by day before yesterday."
"Now," said Weston to Barden, "granting that this is the real goods,
how large can it be made?"
"It takes about four kilowatts per liter," said Barden. "Since the
process takes only about ten seconds, the demand is quite high over a
short period. But bearing in mind the four KW per liter, you may make
the thing evacuate any volume up to the practical limit."
"Nothing for a home appliance," laughed Weston. "But if it will drive
the spitting devil out of an electron microscope in ten seconds, it's
worth it. What are you asking for rights and royalties if it performs
as you state?"
"Mr. Weston, I'm interested in one thing only and that is to prove the
value of my theory--the one that Edith Ward scorned."
"We're not interested in your theory save as a theory," said Weston.
"I don't want a position. I want enough immediate money to set up my
own laboratory."
"You'll make a lot more if you take a small option now and accept a
royalty, you know."
"I'll sell it outright for five million."
"I'm afraid that we can't settle that amount in one afternoon."
"That's all right," said Barden. "Get me twenty-five thousand as an
option. Then take ten days to build one or to investigate all you want
to. If it does not perform, I'll return your money. If it does perform,
five million goes."
"Contingent upon Dr. Grosse's findings," said Weston. "And providing
that you give me your original equipment in order to save some time in
making the initial investigations. I'll have the option agreement and a
certified check in this office tomorrow morning."
Barden smiled. "I _know_ what the evacuator will do. I'll be back
tomorrow with the original machine!"
Barden's original was an un-neat bit of coils and conducting rods and
it looked out of place in Weston's office. But the chief engineer
did not mind. He was gloating over the analysis, and checking the
report made by one of the mathematical physicists on the theory of the
operation of the evacuator. Both were more than satisfactory.
"You're in, Barden," chuckled Weston as he countersigned the option
agreement. "Now what do we do?"
"Me?" said Barden. "I'm going to rent me a large empty plant somewhere
and start ordering equipment. I may even be back with a couple of other
little gadgets later."
"If they're as good as this looks right now, they'll be welcome."
"I'll remember that," said Barden.
* * * * *
Barden's tracks were swift from there on. His first stop was to deposit
the check in the bank to the amazement of his teller who felt forced
to check the validity of the voucher despite the fact that it was
certified. To have Thomas Barden, whose average salary had run about a
hundred-fifty per week suddenly drop twenty-five thousand in the bank
was--to the banker's point of view--slightly irregular.
Barden was not able to get out of the bank without having Mr. Coogan,
the president of the bank, catch him and ply him with seventeen
suggestions as to how the money could be invested. Tom almost had to
get insulting before he could leave.
The next month was a harrowing, mad maze of events. He rented an
unused factory, complete with machine tools. He hired seven men to
help him, and then ran into difficulties because he had to make the
equipment to make the machines. He found that starting from complete
behind-scratch was a back-breaking job. Daily, the railroad spur
dropped a freight car to be unloaded with stuff from one of the leading
manufacturers of scientific equipment. The electric company took a
sizable bite when they came along the poles with some wrist-thick
cables and terminated it at his plant. He ended up by hiring three
more men and putting them to making samples of some of the other
by-products, knowing that his money would not last forever. The board
of review had mentioned three million, but Barden was beginning to
understand that despite all new types of equipment, they were still
considering the basic physical laboratory as useful. They were right.
It was a lot different starting from an empty factory and taking off
from a well-maintained laboratory.
The days sped by and became weeks. The weeks passed and became months.
And as the months worked themselves slowly past, chaos disappeared and
order came from madness.
The by-products of the alien science came swiftly, and they sold well.
Money flowed in fast enough to attract attention, and it was gratifying
to Tom Barden to read an account of his "meteoric rise" that started
from the day he "disagreed violently with the famed Dr. Ward."
If he had wanted money or fame, here it was. But Barden knew the story
behind the story, and he also knew that whoever the alien might be,
from whatever system, and adhering to whatever culture, the alien would
find no fault in his operations. He had taken the long, hard road
compared to the road taken by an accredited scientist producing such a
theory. He cursed the delay and knew that it might have cut his time
down to a dangerous minimum.
But Tom Barden had become the genius of the age. His factory had grown
to a good staff, all but a few of whom worked on the basic science he
needed to develop. It was developing slowly, but certainly, and each
experiment showed him that the alien mind had been absolutely correct.
Daily he taught school for a hour. He knew every step, but he wanted
his men to know the art when they were finished; the final experiment
made. They would emerge from this trial-without-error period as
technicians qualified to work on any phase of the new science. It gave
him no small pleasure to know that his outfit would eventually be far
ahead of the famous Solar Space Laboratory in techniques pertaining to
the art of space travel. He hoped to make Dr. Edith Ward sit quietly
down and eat her own words--backwards!
His plans were not published, and the outpourings of by-products seemed
high enough to any observer to be the sensible output of the many men
working there. None but those who worked there knew that Tom Barden
knew every detail of every gadget that hit the various markets, and
that the work of making the initial models was not the result of many
man-hours of experiment, but a few man-hours of building to plans that
had been proven and in use.
He was not bothered until the day it was announced that Thomas Barden
Laboratories were buying a spacecraft from the government.
The spacecraft was being delivered through the vast back doors of the
factory at the same time that Dr. Edith Ward was entering the office
doors in front.
* * * * *