“How do you do, Captain-it’s a pleasure to have you here.”
“It’s an honor to be here sir.”
“Sit down?”
“Thanks.” He accepted a chair, and laid a briefcase at a corner of King’s desk. “Superintendent, you are entitle to an explanation as to why I have broken in on you Ilk this-”
“Glad to have you.” In fact, the routine of formal politeness was an anodyne to King’s frayed nerves.
“That’s kind of you, but that secretary chap, the one that brought me in here, would it be too much to as for you to tell him to forget my name? I know it seem strange-”
“Not at all.” King was mystified, but willing to grab any reasonable request of a distinguished colleague in science. He summoned Steinke to the interoffice visiphone and gave him his orders.
Lentz stood up, and indicated that he was about to leave. He caught Harrington’s eye. “I think you want private palaver, Captain.”
King looked from Harrington to Lentz, and back at Harrington. The astronomer showed momentary indecision, then protested, “I have no objection at all myself it’s up to Doctor King. As a matter of fact,” he added,” might be a very good thing if you did sit in on it.”
“I don’t know what it is, Captain,” observed Kin~ “that you want to see me about, but Doctor Lentz is a ready here in a confidential capacity.”
“Good! Then that’s settled .. I’ll get right down I business. Doctor King, you know Destry’s mechanics infinitesimals?”
“Naturally.” Lentz cocked a brow at King, who chose to ignore it.
“Yes, of course. Do you remember – theorem six, an the transformation between equations thirteen and fourteen?”
“I think so, but I’d want to see them.” King got up and went over to a bookcase. Harrington stayed him with a hand.
“Don’t bother. I have them here.” He hauled out a key, unlocked his briefcase, and drew out a large, much thumbed, loose-leaf notebook. “Here. You, too, Doctor Lentz. Are you familiar with this development?”
Lentz nodded. “I’ve had occasion to look into them.”
“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 associated 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. Doctor Destry included an assumption valid in molar physics, but for which we have absolutely no assurance in atomic physics. I suppose you realize what this means to you, Doctor King?”
King’s voice was a dry whisper. “Yes,” he said, “yes it means that if the Big Bomb out there ever blows up, we must assume that it will all go up all at once, rather than the way Destry predicted … and God 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 ephemeredes 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.