He turned his thoughts to a method of generating his beam. He considered the use of the bursting atoms of niton as his oscillators.
"Since the cosmic rays of space are generated by the birth-throes of atoms," he reflected, "I can certainly pervert them to be the agents of atomic death."
But niton, the deadly mysterious emanation of dying radium, was beyond his means. He needed perhaps ten grams of radium for its production, a quantity whose cost exceeded his financial powers. First, therefore, he found it necessary to procure enough money to purchase it.
This problem presented at first no outstanding difficulties to such a being as Edmond. He saw many methods. However, certain requirements had to be met. He wanted a continuous source of income that would require none of his time to produce; a royalty on a patent would provide that. But whatever device he patented must be proof against imitation or theft, and be readily marketable. It should moreover be foolproof to the extent of revealing no secrets which he considered dangerous to a society that rested on the rocks of the cave. He wished to introduce no destructive force.
"I am perhaps the greatest of all misanthropes," he reflected; "nevertheless I have no desire to destroy the society that enables me to live in comparative comfort, that prepares my food, maintains my dwelling, and supplies me with warmth and light. Let the beasts outside once learn the secret of the atom and the next little war will tumble civilization into the abyss."
He turned his twin minds to his activated lead. He produced a little rod of this material, perhaps the general size of a safety match. Removing a vacuum tube from his radio, he broke the glass bulb from the base and affixed his lead rod thereto, slipping it care-fully through the tubular grid so that it replaced the delicate tungsten filament. With the more than human dexterity of his curious fingers, he replaced and evacuated the bulb, leaving the tips that carried the filament current disconnected.
"Here is a cold, unvarying and permanent source of electron flow," he reflected. "Presumable I can interest a manufacturer in a vacuum tube which is completely quiet, practically eternal, and that consumes no A-current. Then there is the considerable advantage of simplified circuits."
He did not trouble himself to try the device, but placed a diagram and description in the hands of a patent attorney, and sent his model to the office of Stoddard & Co., one of the larger independent makers of vacuum tubes, with a letter describing it. There-after he ceased to think of it, and turned his activities again to the problem of energy and matter. He pre-pared his apparatus, and waited for his fortunes to provide the funds he required.
CHAPTER II
COMMERCE
PERHAPS a fortnight after the forwarding of Edmond's tube, he received a reply from the concern.
"We have received and tested a vacuum tube submitted by you ... "
"The device fulfills your claims to some extent, and there is a possibility that we might be interested in its manufacture.... Should you care to discuss the matter, we will be pleased to receive you at this office at..."
Edmond smiled his ironic smile, and dropped the letter in his pocket.
"One of the axioms of a buyer is to appear only casually interested," he thought. "Let their dignities be satisfied; I'll go to them."
Some three hours after the time designated, Edmond presented himself at the outer office of Stoddard & Co., and passed a card to the startled office girl. There ensued a delay of several minutes. Edmond guessed that the powers behind the door summoned an additional member. Then he was ushered in.
Four men rose as he entered, staring at him. He felt the instant dislike that was his common reception; it flooded the office with a tenseness, a chilly, unpleasant strain. He stared back unsmiling, and after a moment, the oldest of the group flushed and coughed apologetically.
"Mr. Hall?" he said. "I am Mr. Stoddard and this is Mr. Thwaites, our secretary. These two gentlemen," indicating a square-jawed, blue-eyed individual of forty, and a somewhat younger one with spectacles, "are Bohn and Hoffman, our engineers."
Edmond bowed slightly; the men nodded. Not one of the group had extended a hand. He seated himself.
The president interrupted another strained silence with a cough.
"We had expected you earlier," he said.
"It was inconvenient," said Edmond, and waited.
"Well, well, perhaps we had better get down to business. This vacuum tube of yours is—somewhat revolutionary. It seems to function satisfactorily, but would mean the discarding and altering of consider-able machinery."
Edmond nodded.
"You must realize that this entails great expense, and there is some doubt in my mind as to the value of the device."
"Well?" said Edmond.
"What terms would you consider, if we should decide to acquire the rights to your tube?"
"I will require," said Edmond, "a five percent royalty on the selling price of the tube, and will permit you to manufacture the device under an exclusive contract with me. I will retain ownership of the patent, and the right to terminate the contract should your production fall below a minimum of two thou‑
sand per day. I will further require an initial payment of a nominal amount—ten thousand dollars will be satisfactory, and you may if you wish check this against future royalties. Finally, I will myself draw the contract."
"Those terms are impossible!" exclaimed the president.
"Very well," said Edmond, and waited.
"Are you a lawyer?" asked Mr. Thwaites.
"No," said Edmond, "nevertheless the contract will be binding." He stared silently at the group before him, his incredible hands clasped over the handle of his cane. There was an aura of tension about the group. Each member felt an inexplicable aversion to this curious presence, and Edmond knew it. He smiled his saturnine and supremely irritating smile.
The president looked at him with a weary somberness.
"Will you listen to our offer?"
"I consider my terms equitable," said Edmond. "May I point out what you doubtless realize—that you have no choice? The concern to which I grant this tube will immediately possess a monopoly, since all other types are instantly obsolete. You are compelled to accept my proposal."
The four stared silently back at him. Bohn opened his square jaw and inserted a pipe. He lit it, and puffed a moment.
"May I ask some questions?" he snapped.
"Yes."
"What's the source of your electron flow?"
"It is a disintegration product. The energy used was atomic."
"What's the material you use in your filament?"
"Radio-active lead."
"There's no lead that active."
"No," said Edmond, "I created it."
"How?"
"That," said Edmond, "I will not answer."
"Why not?" Bohn's voice crackled with enmity.
"Because the explanation is beyond your understanding."
The engineer gave a contemptuous snort at the insult, and fell silent, eyeing Edmond coldly. Edmond turned to Hoffman, who seemed on the point of speech, by the blinking of his eyes behind their lenses.
"May I ask what is the life of your filament?" he queried mildly.
"It has a half-period of about eight thousand years."
"What?”
“I say that it will dissipate half its activity in eight thousand years."
"D'you mean the thing's eternal?"
Edmond gave again his irritating smile with its intolerable undertone of superiority and contempt.
"You asked me the life of the filament. The useful life of the tube is very much shorter. Inasmuch as the emission is constant whether or not the device is in use, certain radiations other than the electronic, produce effects. There is a tendency for the plate and grid to become active under the influence of alpha and gamma rays; this sets up a secondary opposing electron stream from them which will gradually weaken the conductive effect of the primary flow from the filament. The loss of efficiency will become noticeab
le in about seven years."
"But man, even that's too long!" exclaimed the president. "It practically destroys the replacement market!"
"That need not worry a concern the size of yours. It will take many decades to saturate the market."
Mr. Thwaites spoke for the second time. "We are simply inviting legal trouble. The Corporation will never permit an independent to ruin its market with-out a fight."
“I will trust you to carry through the courts," said Edmond. "You will win, for the principle and the process of manufacture are both basic and new." He paused a moment, surveying the group. "Should it appear necessary, you may call upon me." His intonation implied contempt; the intolerable scathing smile returned to his lips. It amused him that none of the four had questioned his ability to oppose the rich and powerful Corporation, owner of most of the basic electrical patents. He noted Bohn's irritation and a certain tenseness in his jaw as he hit his pipe. "Your confidence is a high compliment, Gentlemen. Is there nothing further?"
Yes!' snapped Bohn. "I think this thing is a hoax!" He rose excitedly from his chair. "This man has bought or stolen some radium from a hospital or laboratory, and he's alloyed it with lead to make his filament! He's selling you about fifteen hundred dollars worth of radium for the cash payment of ten thousand dollars. Pay him and he'll never show up again!"
The four were on their feet facing Edmond, who still sat smiling.
"Bohn's right!" said Hoffman. "Radio-active lead—there isn't any such thing! It's a fraud!"
Thwaites opened his mouth, and then remained silent. The four angry men stood staring vindictively at the curious being who faced them still with his smile of cold contempt. There was a moment of pause bitter with hatred.
"I congratulate you, Mr. Bohn," said Edmond, his voice and expression unaltered. "Your deductions are admirable, but have the one flaw of being incorrect." He drew from his pocket a little -disc as large as a silver dollar, wrapped in a dull-glinting lead-foil; he tossed this before the group, where it dropped on the table with a leaden thump.
"There is a two-ounce disc of A-lead. If it contains radium, its value will be considerably greater than your ten thousand dollar payment. I leave it as a token of good faith, gentlemen; it cost me perhaps three dollars."
He glanced at Bohn, who was unwrapping the foil about the piece with fury in his blue eyes.
"You may perform any tests you wish on this material, Mr. Bohn, but handle it gingerly. It bums—like radium!"
Edmond rose.
"I do not require your check at once, but will expect it within a week, at which time I will submit my contract for your signatures. During the interim, Mr. Bohn and Mr. Hoffman may call at my home," he indicated his card, which still lay on the table, "for instructions in the method and some of the principles underlying the preparation of activated lead. They will perceive that the cost of manufacture is surprisingly low."
"Why only some of the principles?" asked Bohn, glowering.
"Those that you can comprehend," said Edmond, turning to the door. "Good afternoon, gentlemen."
He departed, hearing with amusement the crescendo of excited and angry voices issuing from the closing door. The voice of the president—"What was that man? Did you see his hands?”
CHAPTER III
MARKET
EDMOND stepped out of the building into the late afternoon sun that flashed at him from the windshields of ten thousand west-bound vehicles. He shaded his eyes for a moment, then crossed Adams Street and continued south, merging for the moment into the stream of living beings that eddied around and between the canyon-forming buildings.
"This river flows its own way, bound by laws as definite and predictable as those that govern flowing water," he reflected. "Mankind in the mass is a simple and controllable thing, like a peaceful river; it is only in the individual that there is a little fire of independence."
He entered the lobby of a great white skyscraper. Disregarding the clicking of the elevator starters, he mounted the stairs to the second floor, turning into the customer's room of his brokers. The market was long since closed; he was alone in a room of vacant chairs save for several clerks casting up the final quotations, and an old man sweeping scraps and cigarette butts into a central pile. The translux was dark, but a ticker still clicked out its story of "bid-and-asked"; no one watched it as its yellow ribbon flowed endlessly into a waste-basket.
Edmond walked over to the far end of the room, where a smaller board carried the Curb quotations. A casual glance was sufficient; Stoddard & Co. had closed just below twenty, for a fractional loss from the preceding day. He stood for a few moments recapitulating his readily available resources—he found no need ever for written accounts—and walked over to the desk, to a clerk who had handled his occasional previous transactions. He nodded as the man greeted him by name.
"You may buy me five thousand Stoddard at twenty," he said.
"Five thousand, Mr. Hall? Do you think it advisable to speculate for that amount? Stoddard's only an in-dependent, you know."
I am not speculating," said Edmond.
"But the company has never paid a dividend." "I require the stock for a particular reason."
The clerk scribbled on a blank order: "5000 Sdd. @ 20 O.B., N. Y. Curb," and passed it to him. He signed in his accustomed precise script.
"You realize, of course, that we cannot margin thi: stock, being on the Curb, and poor bank collateral."
"Of course," said Edmond. "I will provide sufficient security." So he departed.
CHAPTER IV
PUZZLEMENT
BOHN and Hoffman presented themselves at Edmond's home promptly in accordance with their appointment. Magda admitted them, and directed them to the upper rear room that served as his laboratory. They found him seated facing the door, idle, and toying with little Homo who chattered furiously at them. Edmond returned their cold greetings without rising, indicating two wooden chairs beside the long table.
Hoffman sat down quietly and faced Edmond, but his companion's eyes ranged sharply about the room. Bohn noted the blackened windows, and a peculiar shade in the illumination of the room struck him. He glanced at the lights—two bulbs of high capacity of the type called daylight, under whose blue-white glare the group assumed a corpse-like grayness. Their host was hideous, Bohn thought; curious thing, he continued mentally, since his features were not irregular. The repulsion was something behind appearances, some fundamental difference in nature. He continued his inspection, considering now the equipment of the laboratory. A small motor-generator in the far corner, probably as a direct-current source, beside it a transformer, and next to that the condenser and hollow cylinder of a rather large high-frequency coil. A fiat bowl of mercury rested on a little turn-table at his elbow; he gave it a twist, and it spun silently, the liquid metal rising about the sides of the bowl in a perfect parabolic mirror. Struck by a sudden thought, he glanced at the ceiling; there was a shutter there that might open on a skylight. For the rest, jars of liquid, some apparently containing algae, a sickly plant or two on a shelf below the black window, and two white rabbits dolefully munching greens in a cage on the windowless wall. Simple enough equipment!
Edmond meanwhile had dismissed the monkey, who backed away from the group, regarded the strangers with bright intelligent eyes and scampered out into the hallway.
"You are not impressed, Mr. Bohn."
"Hardly," Bohn bitterly resented the implied sneer. "The tools are less important than the hand that wields them."
"Let's get down to business," said Bohn.
"Very well," said their host. "Will you be so kind as to Iift that reflector to the table?"
He indicated one of several wooden bowls perhaps eighteen inches across whose inner surfaces seemed blackened as if charred or rubbed with graphite. Bohn stooped to lift it; it was surprisingly heavy, necessitating the use of both his hands. He placed it on the table before Edmond.
"Thank you. Now if you will watch me...."
&
nbsp; He opened a drawer in the table, removing from it a spool of heavy wire and a whitened cardboard square perhaps four inches to a side.
"This is lead wire. This cardboard is coated with calcium fluoride."
He passed the articles to Bohn, who received them with patient skepticism.
"I want you to see that the wire is inactive. I will extinguish the lights"—the room was suddenly and mysteriously dark—"and you will note that the board does not fluoresce."
Bohn rubbed the wire across the square, but there was no result whatsoever. The lights were suddenly glowing again; the wire and square were unchanged save for a scratch or two on the latter's white surface.
"Your demonstration is convincing," said Bohn sardonically. "We feel assured that the wire is innocent and harmless."
"Pass it here, then, and I will give it its fangs."
Edmond unwound some six inches from the spool, leaving it still attached, extended out like a little wand. He drew three cords from points on the edge of his reflector; at the apex of the tetrahedron thus formed he gathered the ends. To mark this elusive point in space he moved a ring stand beside the bowl setting a clamp to designate the intersection of his bits of string which he allowed to drop.
"A simple method of locating the focus," he explained. "As the black surface of my reflector does not reflect light, I have to use other means. The focal length, as you see, is about thirty centimeters. The reflector itself is not parabolic, but spherical. I do not desire too sharp a focus, as I wish to irradiate the entire volume of the lead wire—not merely a single point."
The two visitors watched without comment. Their host passed the six-inch rod of lead back and forth through the point indicated by the clamp, back and forth perhaps a dozen times. Then he tossed the spool to Bohn.
"Hold it by the spool, Mr. Bohn. It will bite now." Bohn examined the little rod, which seemed utterly unchanged.
The Lost Master - The Collected Works Page 114
