of his notebook crammed with figures and equations, snapped off the power of the
receiver and turned to his bench. Gone was the storming, impetuous rebel; his body
was ruled solely by the precise and insatiable brain of the research scientist.
“He’s a honey, that kid Perce! When I see him I’m going to kiss him on both
cheeks. He’s got enough dope on ’em to hang ’em higher’n Franklin’s kite, and we’ll nail
those jaspers to the cross or I’m a polyp! He’s crazier’n a loon in most of his hunches,
but he’s filled four of our biggest gaps. There is such a thing as a ray-screen, you kill-
joy, and there are also lifting or tractor rays—two things I’ve been trying to dope out and
that you’ve been giving me the Bronx cheer on. The Titanians have had a tractor ray for
ages—he sent me complete dope on it—and the Jovians ‘ve got ’em both. We’ll have
’em in three days, and it ought to be fairly simple to dope out the opposite of a tractor,
too—a pusher or pressor beam. Say, round up the gang, will you, while I’m licking some
of this stuff into shape for you to tear apart? Where’re Venus and Mars? Um . . . m . . .
m. Tell Alcantro and Fedanzo to come over here pronto—give ’em a special if
necessary. We’ll pick up Dol Kenor and Pyraz Amonar on the way—no, get them to
Tellus, too. Then we’ll get action quicker. Those four’re all I want—get anybody else you
want to come along.”
His hands playing over the keys of an enormous calculating machine, Brandon
was instantly immersed in a profound mathematico-physical problem; deaf and blind to
everything about him. Westfall, knowing well that far-reaching results would follow
Brandon’s characteristic attack, sat down at the controls of the communicator. He first
called Mars, the home planet of Alcantro and Fedanzo, the foremost force-field experts
of three planets; and was assured in no uncertain terms that those rulers of rays were
ready and anxious to follow wherever Brandon and Westfall might lead. Thence to
Venus, where Dol Kenor, the electrical wizard, and Pyraz Amonar, the master of
mechanism, also readily agreed to accompany the expedition. He then called the
General-in-Chief of the Inter-Planetary Police, requesting a detail of two hundred picked
men for the hazardous venture. These most important calls out of the way, he was busy
for over an hour giving long-distance instructions so that everything would be in
readiness for the servicing of the immense space-cruiser the following Tuesday night.
Having guarded against everything his cautious and far-seeing mind could
envisage, he went over to Brandon’s desk and sat down, smoking contemplatively until
the idea had been roughed out in mathematical terms.
“Here’s the rough draft of the ray screen, Quince. We generate a blanket
frequency, impressed upon the ultra carrier wave. That’s old stuff, of course. Here’s the
novelty, in equation 59. With two fields of force, set up from data 27 to 43, it will be
possible actually to project a pure force of such a nature that it will react to
deheterodyne the blanketing frequency at any predetermined distance. That, of course,
sets up a barrier against any frequency of the blanketed band. Incidentally, an extension
of the same idea will enable us to see anywhere we want to look—calculate a
retransmitting field.”
“One thing at a time, please. That screen may be possible, but those fields will
never generate it. Look at datum 31, in which your assumptions are unsound. In order
to make any solution at all possible you have assumed cosine squared theta negligible.
Mathematically, it is of course vanishingly small compared to the first power of the
cosine, but fields of that type must be exact, and your neglect of the square is
indefensible. Since you cannot integrate with the squared term in place, your whole
solution fails.”
“Not necessarily. We’ll go back to 29, and put in sine squared theta minus one
equal to z sub four. That gives us a coverse sine in 30, and then we integrate . . .”
Thus the argument raged, and all the assistants whose work was not too
pressing gathered around unobtrusively, for it was from just such fierce discussions as
this that the ultra-radio and other epoch-making discoveries had come into being. Yard
after yard of calculator paper was filled with equations and computations. Weirdly
shaped curves were drawn, with arguments at every point—arguments hot and violent
from Brandon, from Westfall cold and precise, backed by lightning calculations and with
facts and diagrams culled from the many abstruse works of reference which by this time
literally covered the bench and overflowed upon the floor.
It was in this work that the strikingly different temperaments and abilities of the
two scientists were revealed. Brandon never stood still, but walked around jerkily,
chewing savagely the stem of an ancient and reeking pipe, gesticulating vigorously, the
while his keen and agile mind was finding a way over, around, or through the apparently
insuperable obstacles which beset their path; by means of mathematical and physical
improvisations which no one not inspired by sheer genius could have evolved. Westfall,
seated quietly at the calculator, mercilessly shredded Brandon’s theories to ribbons,
pointing out their many flaws with his cold, incisive reasoning and with rapid calculations
of the many factors involved. Then Brandon would find a remedy for each weakness in
turn and, when Westfall could no longer find a single flaw in the structure, they would
toss the completed problem upon a table and attack the next one with unabated zeal.
Brandon, in his light remark that the two made one real scientist, had far understated
the case— those two brains, each so powerful and each so perfectly complementing the
other, comprised the master-scientist who was to revolutionize science completely in a
few short years.
To such good purpose did they labor that the calculations were practically
finished by the time they reached the Earth. There the ship was serviced with a celerity
that spoke volumes for the importance of her mission—even the Aldebaran, the
dazzingly gold-plated queen of the fleet, waited unattended and disregarded on plus
time while the entire force of the Inter-Planetary Corporation concentrated upon the
battle-scarred old hulk of the Sirius. Brandon was surprised when he saw the two
companies of police, but characteristically accepted without question the wisdom of any
decision of his friend, and cordially greeted Inspector-General Crowninshield, only a
year or so older than himself, but already in charge of a Division.
“Keen-looking bunch, Crown. Lot of different outfits— volunteers for special duty
from the whole Tellurian force ?”
“Yes. Everybody wanted to go, and there threatened to be trouble over the
selection, so we picked the highest ratings from the whole Service. If there ever was
such a thing as a picked force, we shall have it with us.”
“What d’you mean, ‘us’? You ain’t going, are you?”
“Try to keep me from it! The names of all five of us I-G’s were put in a hat, and I
was lucky.”
“Well, you may come in handy at that,” Brandon conceded. “And here’s the big
boss himself. Hi, Chief!”
“Ho, Brandon! Ho, Westfall!” Newton, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the
IPC, shook hands with the two scientists. “Your Martians and Venerians are in Lounge
Fifteen. I suppose that you have a lot of things to thrash out, so you may as well get at
it. Everything is being attended to—I’ll take charge now.”
“You going along, too?” asked Brandon.
“Going along too? I’m running this cruise!” Newton declared. “I may take advice
from you on some things and from Crowninshield on others, but I am in charge—so go
ahead with your own jobs!”
“All x—it’s a relief, at that,” and Brandon and Westfall went to join their fellow-
scientists in the designated room of the space-cruiser.
What a contrast was there as the representatives of three worlds met! All six men
were of the same original stock or of a similar evolution—science has not, even yet,
decided the question definitely. Their minds were very much alike, but their respective
environments had so variantly developed their bodily structures that to outward seeming
they had but little in common.
Through countless thousands of generations the Martians had become
acclimated to a planet having little air, less water, and characterized by abrupt
transitions from searing heat to bitter cold, from blinding light to almost impenetrable
darkness. Eight feet tall and correspondingly massive, they could barely stand against
the gravitational force of the Earth, almost three times as great as that of their native
planet, but the two Martian scientists struggled to their feet as the Terrestrials entered.
“As you were, fellows—lie down again and take it easy,” Brandon suggested in
the common Interplanetarian tongue. “We’ll be away from here pretty quick, then we’ll
ease off.”
“We greet our friends standing as long as we can stand,” and, towering a full two