“I see,” Lentz observed politely. “What element are you examining now”
Harper told him. “But it’s not a case of examining one element-we’ve finished Isotope II of this element with negative results. Our schedule calls next for running the same test on Isotope V. Like this.” He hauled out a lead capsule, and showed the label to Lentz. He hurried away to the shield around the target of the betatron, left open by Erickson. Lentz saw that he had opened the capsule, and was performing some operation on it with ‘a long pair of tongs in a gingerly manner, having first lowered his helmet. Then he closed and clamped the target shield.
“Okay, Gus?” he called out. “Ready to roll?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Erickson assured him, coming around from behind the ponderous apparatus, and rejoining them. They crowded behind a thick metal and concrete shield that cut them off from direct sight of the set up.
“Will I need to put- on armor?” inquired Lentz.
“No,” Erickson reassured him, “we wear it because we are around the stuff day in and day out. You just stay behind the shield and you’ll be all right.”
Erickson glanced at Harper, who nodded, and fixed his, eyes on a panel of instruments mounted behind the shield. Lentz saw Erickson press a push button at the top of the board, then heard a series of relays click on the far side of~ the shield. There was a short moment of silence.
The floor slapped his feet like some incredible bastinado. The concussion that beat on his ears was so intense that it paralyzed the auditory nerve almost before it could be recorded as sound. The air-conducted concussion wave flailed every inch of his body with a single, stinging, numbing blow. As he picked himself up, he found he was trembling uncontrollably and realized, for the first time, that he was getting old.
Harper was seated on the floor and had commenced to bleed from the nose. Erickson had gotten up, his cheek was cut. He touched a hand to the wound, then stood there, regarding the blood on his fingers with a puzzled expression on his face.
“Are you hurt?” Lentz inquired inanely. “What happened?”
Harper cut in. “Gus, we’ve done it! We’ve done it! Isotope Five has turned the trick!”
Erickson looked still more bemused. “Five?” he said stupidly, “-but that wasn’t Five, that was Isotope IL I put it in myself.”
“You put it in? I put it in! It was Five, I tell you!”
They stood staring at each other, still confused by the explosion, and each a little annoyed at the boneheaded stupidity the other displayed in the face of the obvious. Lentz diffidently interceded.
“Wait a minute, boys,” he suggested, “maybe there’s a reason-Gus, you placed a quantity of the second isotope in the receiver?”
“Why, yes, certainly. I wasn’t satisfied with the last run, and I wanted to check it.”
Lentz nodded. “It’s my fault, gentlemen,” he admitted ruefully. “I came in, disturbed your routine, and both of you charged the receiver. I know Harper did, for I saw him do it with Isotope V. I’m sorry.”
Understanding broke over Harper’s face, and he slapped the older man on the shoulder. “Don’t be sorry,” he laughed; “you can come around to our lab and help us make mistakes anytime you feel in the mood- Can’t he, Gus? This is the answer, Doctor Lentz, this is it!”
“But,” the psychiatrist pointed out, “you don’t know which isotope blew up.”
“Nor care,” Harper supplemented. “Maybe it was both, taken together. But we will know-this business is cracked now; we’ll soon have it open.” He gazed happily around at the wreckage.
In spite of Superintendent King’s anxiety, Lentz refused to be hurried in passing judgment on the situation. Consequently, when be did present himself at King’s office, and announced that he was ready to report, King was pleasantly surprised as well as relieved. “Well, I’m delighted,” he said. “Sit down, doctor, sit down. Have a cigar. What do we do about it?”
But Lentz stuck to his perennial cigarette, and refused to be hurried. “I must have some information first: how important,” he demanded, “is the power from your plant?”