"Good--I think it's agreed that the step between thirteen and fourteen is the key to the whole matter. Now, the change from thirteen to fourteen looks perfectly valid--and would be, in some fields. But suppose we expand it to show every possible phase of the matter, every link in the chain of reasoning."

He turned a page and showed them the same two equations broken down into nine intermediate equations. He placed a finger under an a.s.sociated group of mathematical symbols. "Do you see that? Do you see what that implies?"

He peered anxiously at their faces.

King studied it, his lips moving. "Yes ... I believe I do see. Odd ... I never looked at it just that way before--yet I've studied those equations until I've dreamed about them." He turned to Lentz. "Do you agree, doctor?"

Lentz nodded slowly. "I believe so.... Yes, I think I may say so."

Harrington should have been pleased; he wasn't. "I had hoped you could tell me I was wrong," he said, almost petulantly, "but I'm afraid there is no further doubt about it. Dr. Destry included an a.s.sumption valid in molar physics, but for which we have absolutely no a.s.surance in atomic physics. I suppose you realize what this means to you, Dr. King?" ing's voice was a dry whisper. "Yes," he said, "yes--It means that if that bomb out there ever blows up, we must a.s.sume that it will go up all at once, rather than the way Destry predicted--and G.o.d help the human race!"

Captain Harrington cleared his throat to break the silence that followed.

"Superintendent," he said, "I would not have ventured to call had it been simply a matter of disagreement as to interpretation of theoretical predictions--"

"You have something more to go on?"

"Yes and no. Probably you gentlemen think of the Naval Observatory as being exclusively preoccupied with ephemerides and tide tables. In a way you would be right--but we still have some time to devote to research as long as it doesn't cut into the appropriation. My special interest has always been lunar theory.

"I don't mean lunar ballistics," he continued. 'I mean the much more interesting problem of its origin and history, the problem the younger Darwin struggled with, as well as my ill.u.s.trious predecessor, Captain T. J.

J. See. I think that it is obvious that any theory of lunar origin and history must take into account the surface features of the Moon--especially the mountains, the craters, that mark its face so prominently."

He paused momentarily, and Superintendent King put in: "Just a minute, captain--I may be stupid, or perhaps I missed something, hut is there a connection between what we were discussing before and lunar theory?"

"Bear with me for a few moments, Dr. King," Harrington apologized.

"There is a connection--at least, I'm afraid there is a connection--but I would rather present my points in their proper order before making my conclusions." They granted him an alert silence; he went on: "Although we are in the habit of referring to the 'craters' of the Moon we know they are not volcanic craters. Superficially, they follow none of the rules of terrestrial volcanoes in appearance or distribution, but when Rutter came out in 1952 with his monograph on the dynamics of vulcanology, he proved rather conclusively that the lunar craters could not be caused by anything that we know as volcanic action "That left the bombardment theory as the simplest hypothesis. It looks good, on the face of it, and a few minutes spent throwing pebbles into a patch of mud will convince anyone that the lunar craters could have been formed by falling meteors.

"But there are difficulties. If the Moon was struck so repeatedly, why not the Earth? It hardly seems necessary to mention that the Earth's atmosphere would be no protection against ma.s.ses big enough to form craters like Endymion or Plato. And if they fell after the Moon was a dead world while the Earth was still young enough to change its face and erase the marks of bombardment, why did the meteors avoid so nearly completely the great dry basins we call lunar seas?

"I want to cut this short; you'll find the data and the mathematical investigations from the data here in my notes. There is one other major objection to the meteor-bombardment theory: the great rays that spread from Tycho across almost the entire surface of the Moon. It makes the moon look like a crystal ball that had been struck with a hammer, and impact from outside seems evident, but there are difficulties. The striking ma.s.s, our hypothetical meteor, must be small enough to have formed the crater of Tycho, but it must have the ma.s.s and speed to crack an entire planet.

"Work it out for yourself--you must either postulate a chunk out of the core of a dwarf star, or speeds such as we have never observed within the system. It's conceivable but a farfetched explanation."

He turned to King. "Doctor, does anything occur to you that might account for a phenomenon like Tycho" The superintendent grasped the arms of his chair, then glanced at his palms. He fumbled for a handkerchief, and wiped them. "Go ahead," he said, almost inaudibly.

"Very well then." Harrington drew out of his brief case a large photograph of the Moon--a beautiful full-Moon portrait made at Lick.

"I want you to imagine the Moon as she might have been sometime in the past. The dark areas we call the 'seas' are actual oceans. It has an atmosphere, perhaps a heavier gas than oxygen and nitrogen, but an active gas, capable of supporting some conceivable form of life.

"For this is an inhabited planet, inhabited by intelligent beings, beings capable of discovering atomic power and exploiting it!"

He pointed out on the photograph, near the southern limb, the lime-white circle of Tycho, with its shining, incredible, thousand-mile-long rays spreading, thrusting, jutting out from it.

"Here ... here at Tycho was located their main power plant." He moved his finger to a point near the equator and somewhat east of meridian--the point where three great dark areas merged, Mare Nubium, Mare Imbrium, Ocea.n.u.s Procellarum--and picked out two bright splotches surrounded, also, by rays, but shorter, less distinct, and wavy. "And here at Copernicus and at Kepler, on islands at the middle of a great ocean, were secondary power stations."

He paused, and interpolated soberly: "Perhaps they knew the danger they ran, but wanted power so badly that they were willing to gamble the life of their race. Perhaps they were ignorant of the ruinous possibilities of their little machines, or perhaps their mathematicians a.s.sured them that it could not happen.

"But we will never know--no one can ever know. For it blew up and killed them--and it killed their planet.

"It whisked off the gra.s.sy envelope and blew it into outer s.p.a.ce. It blasted great chunks off the planet's crust. Perhaps some of that escaped completely, too, but all that did not reach the speed of escape fell back down in time and splashed great ring-shaped craters in the land.

"The oceans cushioned the shock; only the more ma.s.sive fragments formed craters through the water. Perhaps some life still remained in those ocean depths. If so, it ?vas doomed to die--for the water, unprotected by atmospheric pressure, could not remain liquid and must inevitably escape in time to outer s.p.a.ce. Its lifeblood drained away. The planet was dead--dead by suicide!"

He met the grave eyes of his two silent listeners ,with an expression almost of appeal. "Gentlemen ... this is only a theory, I realize ...

only a theory, a dream, a nightmare ... but it has kept me awake so many nights that I had to come tell you about it, and see if you saw it the same way I do. As for the mechanics of it, it's all in there in my notes. You can check it--and I pray that you find some error! But it is the only lunar theory I have examined which included all of the known data and accounted for all of them."

He appeared to have finished. Lentz spoke up. "Suppose, captain, suppose we check your mathematics and find no flaw--what then?"

Harrington flung out his hands. "That's what I came here to find out!"

Although Lentz had asked the question, Harrington directed the appeal to King. The superintendent looked up; his eyes met the astronomer's, wavered and dropped again. "There's nothing to be done," he said dully, "nothing at all."

Harrington stared at him in open amazement. "But good G.o.d, man!" he burst out. "Don't you see it? That bomb has got to be disa.s.sembled-at once!"

"Take it easy, captain." Lentz's calm voice was a spray of cold water.

'And don't be too harsh on poor King--this worries him even more than it does you. What he means is this: we're not faced with a problem in physics, but with a political and economic situation. Let's put it this way: King can no more dump the bomb than a peasant with a vineyard on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius can abandon his holdings and pauperize his family simply because there will be an eruption some day.

"King doesn't own that bomb out there; he's only the custodian. If he dumps it against the wishes of the legal owners, they'll simply oust him and put in someone more amenable. No, we have to convince the owners."

"The president could do it," suggested Harrington. "I could get to the president--"

"No doubt you could, through the navy department. And you might even convince him. But could he help much?"

"Why, of course he could. He's the president!"

"Wait a minute. You're director of the Naval Observatory, suppose you took a sledge hammer and tried to smash the big telescope--how far would you get?"

"Not very far," Harrington conceded. "We guard the big fellow pretty well."

"Nor can the president act in an arbitrary manner," Lentz persisted.

He's not an unlimited monarch. If he shuts down this plant without due process of law, the Federal courts will tie him in knots. I admit that Congress isn't helpless, but--would you like to try to give a congressional committee a course in the mechanics of infinitesimals?"

Harrington readily stipulated the point. "But there is another way," he pointed out. 'Congress is responsive to public opinion. What we need to do is to convince the public that the bomb is a menace to everybody That could be done without ever trying to explain things in terms of higher mathematics."

"Certainly it could," Lentz agreed. "You could go on the air with it and scare everybody half to death. You could create the d.a.m.nedest panic this slightly slug-nutty country has ever seen. No, thank you.

I, for one, would rather have us all take the chance of being quietly killed than bring on a ma.s.s psychosis that would destroy the culture we are building up. I think one taste of the Crazy Years is enough."

"Well, then, what do you suggest?"

Lentz considered shortly, then answered: "All I see is a forlorn hope.

We've got to work on the board of directors and try to beat some sense into their heads."

King, who had been following the discussion with attention in spite of his tired despondency, interjected a remark: "How would you go about that?"

"I don't know," Lentz admitted. "It will take some thinking. But it seems the most fruitful line of approach. If it doesn't work, we can always fall back on Harrington's notion of publicity--I don't insist that the world commit suicide to satisfy my criteria of evaluation."

Harrington glanced at his wrist watch--a bulky affair--and whistled.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "I forgot the time! I'm supposed officially to be at the Flagstaff Observatory."

King had automatically noted the time shown by the captain's watch as it was displayed. "But it can't be that late," he had objected.

Harrington looked puzzled, then laughed.

"It isn't--not by two hours. We are in zone plus-seven; this shows zone plus-five--it's radio-synchronized with the master clock at Washington."

"Did you say radio-synchronized?"

"Yes. Clever, isn't it?" He held it out for inspection. "I call it a telechronometer; it's the only one of its sort to date. My nephew designed it for me. He's a bright one, that boy. He'll go far. That is"--his face clouded, as if the little interlude had only served to emphasize the tragedy that hung over them--"if any of us live that long!"

A signal light glowed at King's desk, and Steinke's face showed on the communicator screen. King answered him, then said, "Your car is ready, Dr. Lentz."

"Let Captain Harrington have it."

"Then you're not going back to Chicago?"

"No. The situation has changed. If you want me, I'm stringing along."

The following Friday, Steinke ushered Lentz into King's office. King looked almost happy as he shook hands. "When did you ground, doctor?

I didn't expect you back for another hour or so."

"Just now. I hired a cab instead of waiting for the shuttle."

"Any luck?"

"None. The same answer they gave you: 'The company is a.s.sured by independent experts that Destry's mechanics is valid, and sees no reason to encourage an hysterical att.i.tude among its employees."

" King tapped on his desk top, his eyes unfocused. Then, hitching himself around to face Lentz directly, he said, "Do you suppose the chairman is right?"

"How?"

"Could the three of us--you, me and Harrington--have gone off the deep end--slipped mentally?"

"No."

"You're sure?"

"Certain. I looked up some independent experts of my own, not retained by the company, and had them check Harrington's work. It checks."

Lentz purposely neglected to mention that he had done so partly because he was none too sure of King's present mental stability.

King sat up briskly, reached out and stabbed a push b.u.t.ton. "I am going to make one more try," he explained, "to see if I can't throw a scare into Dixon's thick head. Steinke," he said to the communicator, "get me Mr. Dixon on the screen."

"Yes, sir."

In about two minutes the visiphone screen came to life and showed the features of Chairman Dixon. He was transmitting, not from his office, but from the board room of the company in Jersey City. "Yes?" he said. "What is it, superintendent?" His manner was somehow both querulous and affable.

"Mr. Dixon," King began, "I've called to try to impress on you the seriousness of the company's action. I stake my scientific reputation that Harrington has proved completely that--"

"Oh, that? Mr. King, I thought you understood that that was a closed matter."

"But, Mr. Dixon--"

"Superintendent, please! If there were any possible legitimate cause to fear, do you think I would hesitate? I have children, you know, and grandchildren."

"That is just why--"

"We try to conduct the affairs of the company with reasonable wisdom and in the public interest. But we have other responsibilities, too. There are hundreds of thousands of little stockholders who expect us to show a reasonable return on their investment. You must not expect us to jettison a billion-dollar corporation just because you've taken up astrology! Moon theory!" He sniffed.

"Very well, Mr. Chaimman." King's tone was stiff.

"Don't take it that way, Mr. King. I'm glad you called--the board has just adjourned a special meeting. They have decided to accept you for retirement--with full pay, of course."

"I did not apply for retirement!"

"I know, Mr. King, but the board feels that--"

"I understand.

Good-by!"

"Mr. King--"

"Good-by!" He switched him off, and turned to Lentz. " '--with full pay,"' he quoted, "which I can enjoy in any way that I like for the rest of my life--just as happy as a man in the death house!"

"Exactly," Lentz agreed. "Well, we've tried our way. I suppose we should call up Harrington now and let him try the political and publicity method."

"I suppose so," King seconded absent-mindedly. "Will you be leaving for Chicago now?"

"No," said Lentz. "No.... I think I will catch the shuttle for Los Angeles and take the evening rocket for the antipodes."

King looked surprised, but said nothing. Lentz answered the unspoken comment. "Perhaps some of us on the other side of the Earth will survive.

I've done all that I can here. I would rather be a live sheep-herder in Australia than a dead psychiatrist in Chicago."

King nodded vigorously. "That shows horse sense. For two cents, I'd dump the bomb now and go with you."

"Not horse sense, my friend--a horse will run back into a burning barn, which is exactly not what I plan to do. Why don't you do it and come along?

If you did, it would help Harrington to scare 'em to death."