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Clifford nodded. Working together, they started up the sequence of specially written programs that they
had loaded into the system earlier that day. One by one the additional modified modulators were
switched in and brought up to operating power, compressing the return energy into an ever-decreasing
radius centered on the middle of the empty circle. The energy that would normally have been distributed
infinitesimally sparsely throughout the whole of space was now being focused within a volume no bigger
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than a beach ball.
The screens showed that the instruments were detecting radiation. Counters registered the ionization of
molecules of air. The infrared scanners indicated a rise in temperature. As Aub increased the beam
power a fraction, dust particles began scurrying across the floor of the lab toward the center of the circle,
drawn inward by the convection of the rising, heated air. A cool breeze made itself felt on their skin.
At higher power an incandescent glow appeared, elongated upward into a shimmering column of fiery
radiance by the rising currents. It burned dull red at the outside, changing through brighter shades of
orange to a core of brilliant yellow. Clifford and Aub watched spellbound. They were witnessing
something that no men in history had seen before; energy was materializing in space out of nothing, from a
source that lay thirty feet away and it was traversing the distance in between through a realm of
existence that lay beyond the dimensions of space and time.
After a few minutes Clifford, having satisfied himself that the recording instruments had captured
everything, nodded and raised a hand. "That'll do. Don't take it any higher."
"Okay to cut?"
"Yep. That just about does it."
Aub took the system through its shutdown sequence. The glow died from the center of the circle and
silence gradually descended as one by one the huge machines became quiet and the last row of lights
went out. Aub sat back and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
"Phew," he said. "Okay, I'll buy it the space integral is unity. And you tried to tell me you weren't a
salesman. Jeez." He shook his head.
"C'mon, it wasn't that risky and you know it," Clifford taunted. "If it wasn't unity, the detectors would
have spotted an excess long before we wound the power up. There was no hazard really."
"Okay, you've made your point. We've proved we can focus the return energy. Now what?"
At once Clifford's grin snapped off and his mood became serious. "Tomorrow we talk to Al and Peter
and put them in the picture," he said. "It doesn't matter now if there's hell to pay because this is rapidly
going to become a lot bigger than both of them. What Peter has to do is get in touch with Washington
and fix us an appointment for as soon as he can with Foreshaw and his merry men." He leaned across
and slapped Aub on the shoulder. "You keep telling me I have to be a salesman, my friend. Okay I, or,
rather, we, are going to make the most mind-blowing sale ever. No salesman ever walked into the
Pentagon with anything like what we've got. They want bombs? We are going to give them a bigger
damn bomb than they ever dreamed of!"
Chapter 19
Clifford stood at the head of the large oval conference table and gazed along the line of unsmiling
attentive faces. The Defense Secretary was seated at the far end with the rest service chiefs, technical
advisers, presidential aides, and defense planners seated around on either side. Aub was at the end
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near Clifford, flanked by Morelli and Peter Hughes.
"Long speeches are not my line," Clifford began. "The reason I'm standing here today is essentially to
protest to protest at a society that perpetuates a system of values that are becoming insane. Throughout
history man's greatest enemies from which practically all our other problems follow have been two:
ignorance and superstition. The most powerful weapon that man has developed to combat these enemies
is science the acquisition and harnessing of knowledge. And yet with every day that goes by, we see
more and more science being used not to solve the problems of mankind but to aggravate them. Science
is being subordinated to the service of our lowest instincts."
He paused and looked around the room, half-expecting to be interrupted. But although a few aghast
stares were in evidence, everybody seemed too taken aback to voice any comment, so he continued. "I
am a scientist. I live in a world that is being torn apart by hatred and mistrust that I've had no part in
making, and the reasons for them don't interest me. The situation is the making of people I don't know
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