by E. E. Smith
CHAPTER I
DuQuesne Goes Traveling
In the innermost private office of Steel, Brookings and DuQuesne staredat each other across the massive desk. DuQuesne's voice was cold, hisblack brows were drawn together.
"Get this, Brookings, and get it straight. I'm shoving off at twelveo'clock tonight. My advice to you is to lay off Richard Seaton,absolutely. Don't do a thing. _Nothing, hold everything._ Keep onholding it until I get back, no matter how long that may be," DuQuesneshot out in an icy tone.
"I am very much surprised at your change of front, Doctor. You are thelast man I would have expected to be scared off after one engagement."
"Don't be any more of a fool than you have to, Brookings. There's a lotof difference between scared and knowing when you are simply wastingeffort. As you remember, I tried to abduct Mrs. Seaton by picking heroff with an attractor from a space-ship. I would have bet that nothingcould have stopped me. Well, when they located me--probably with anautomatic Osnomian ray-detector--and heated me red-hot while I was stillbetter than two hundred miles up, I knew then and there that they had usstopped; that there was nothing we could do except go back to my plan,abandon the abduction idea, and eventually kill them all. Since my planwould take time, you objected to it, and sent an airplane to drop afive-hundred-pound bomb on them. Airplane, bomb, and all simplyvanished. It didn't explode, you remember, just flashed into light anddisappeared, with scarcely any noise. Then you pulled several more ofyour fool ideas, such as long-range bombardment, and so on. None ofthem worked. Still you've got the nerve to think that you can get themwith ordinary gunmen! I've drawn you diagrams and shown youfigures--I've told you in great detail and in one-syllable words exactlywhat we're up against. Now I tell you again that they've _gotsomething_. If you had the brains of a pinhead, you would know thatanything I can't do with a space-ship can't be done by a mob of ordinarygangsters. I'm telling you, Brookings, that you can't do it. My way isabsolutely the only way that will work."
"But five years, Doctor!"
"I may be back in six months. But on a trip of this kind anything canhappen, so I am planning on being gone five years. Even that may not beenough--I am carrying supplies for ten years, and that box of mine inthe vault is not to be opened until ten years from today."
"But surely we shall be able to remove the obstructions ourselves in afew weeks. We always have."
"Oh, quit kidding yourself, Brookings! This is no time for idiocy! Youstand just as much chance of killing Seaton----"
"Please, Doctor, please don't talk like that!"
"Still squeamish, eh? Your pussyfooting always did give me an acutepain. I'm for direct action, word and deed, first, last, and all thetime. I repeat, you have exactly as much chance of killing RichardSeaton as a blind kitten has."
"How do you arrive at that conclusion, Doctor? You seem very fond ofbelittling our abilities. Personally, I think that we shall be able toattain our objectives within a few weeks--certainly long before you canpossibly return from such an extended trip as you have in mind. Andsince you are so fond of frankness, I will say that I think that Seatonhas you buffaloed, as you call it. Nine-tenths of these wonderfulOsnomian things, I am assured by competent authorities, arescientifically impossible, and I think that the other one-tenth existsonly in your own imagination. Seaton was lucky in that the airplane bombwas defective and exploded prematurely; and your space-ship got hotbecause of your injudicious speed through the atmosphere. We shall haveeverything settled by the time you get back."
"If you have, I'll make you a present of the controlling interest inSteel and buy myself a chair in some home for feeble-minded old women.Your ignorance and unwillingness to believe any new idea do not changethe facts in any particular. Even before they went to Osnome, Seaton washard to get, as you found out. On that trip he learned so much new stuffthat it is now impossible to kill him by any ordinary means. You shouldrealize that fact when he kills every gangster you send against him. Atall events be very, _very_ careful not to kill his wife in any of yourattacks, even by accident, until after you have killed him."
"Such an event would be regrettable, certainly, in that it would removeall possibility of the abduction."
"It would remove more than that. Remember the explosion in ourlaboratory, that blew an entire mountain into impalpable dust? Draw inyour mind a nice, vivid picture of one ten times the size in each of ourplants and in this building. I know that you are fool enough to go aheadwith your own ideas, in spite of everything I've said; and, since I donot yet actually control Steel, I can't forbid you to, officially. Butyou should know that I know what I'm talking about, and I say again thatyou're going to make an utter fool of yourself; just because you won'tbelieve anything possible, that hasn't been done every day for a hundredyears. I wish that I could make you understand that Seaton and Cranehave got something that we haven't--but for the good of our plants, andincidentally for your own, please remember one thing, anyway; for if youforget it, we won't have a plant left and you personally will be blowninto a fine red mist. Whatever you start, kill Seaton first, and beabsolutely certain that he is definitely, completely, finally andtotally dead before you touch one of Dorothy Seaton's red hairs. As longas you only attack him personally he won't do anything but kill everyman you send against him. If you kill her while he's still alive,though--Blooie!" and the saturnine scientist waved both hands in anexpressive pantomime of wholesale destruction.
"Probably you are right in that," Brookings paled slightly. "Yes, Seatonwould do just that. We shall be very careful, until after we succeed inremoving him."
"Don't worry--you won't succeed. I shall attend to that detail myself,as soon as I get back. Seaton and Crane and their families, thedirectors and employees of their plants, the banks that by anypossibility may harbor their notes or solutions--in short, every personand everything standing between me and a monopoly of 'X'--all shalldisappear."
"That is a terrible program, Doctor. Wouldn't the late Perkins' plan ofan abduction, such as I have in mind, be better, safer and quicker?"
"Yes--except for the fact that it will not work. I've talked until I'mblue in the face--I've proved to you over and over that you can't abducther now without first killing him, and that you can't even touch him. Myplan is the only one that will work. Seaton isn't the only one wholearned anything--I learned a lot myself. I learned one thing inparticular. Only four other inhabitants of either Earth or Osnome everhad even an inkling of it, and they died, with their brainsdisintegrated beyond reading. That thing is my ace in the hole. I'mgoing after it. When I get it, and not until then, will I be ready totake the offensive."
"You intend starting open war upon your return?"
"The war started when I tried to pick off the women with my attractor.That is why I am leaving at midnight. He always goes to bed ateleven-thirty, and I will be out of range of his object-compass beforehe wakes up. Seaton and I understand each other perfectly. We both knowthat the next time we meet one of us is going to be resolved into hiscomponent atoms, perhaps into electrons. He doesn't know that he's goingto be the one, but I do. My final word to you is to lay off--if youdon't, you and your 'competent authorities' are going to learn a lot."
"You do not care to inform me more fully as to your destination or yourplans?"
"I do not. Goodbye."