Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

10 STOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION not known how to avoid. He had gone over it a thousand times in his mind, but now he hesitated, trying to find the right word to begin. “Berk and I—” he began. “No, leave Berk’s name out of it. I’m speaking for myself, and I take full responsibility. For reasons of my own, I have left basic research and have gone into business—the toy manufacturing business. I told you at the completion of Project Levita- tion that I could not afford to remain with ONR, neither there nor at the University. I have three children— and there may be more as time goes on—whose care and education I have to provide. I have a home to maintain for them and my wife and myself, which I have no desire to maintain on the fringe of desperation, wonder- ing whether the mortgage payment can be made next month or not. I desire to maintain my home and family in adequate comfort and security. “This I cannot do on any salary available to me at ONR or at any other Government agency or at the University. It was necessary to go into some suitable business to main- tain my finances at the proper level. Some of my colleagues would perhaps consider the toy business trivial and incongruous with my past profession, but it will provide for my family in a way that research has never done or could do. The toy business is an honorable one and I have no apologies for it.” “And I’m not asking for any!” said Keyes almost »savagely. “All this is beside the point. The wastage of your own brilliant talent, the virtual betrayal of your profession are all matters that concern me not at all—although they once would have concerned me greatly. “What matters now is that you have taken the results of the highly confidential research which you per- formed here at ONR, research which was vitally essential to the security of our nation, and you have broadcast it to the whole world, including the very enemies we are bound to destroy in self-defense. You give it to them in the form of this miserable toy which you have marketed in order to buy a more sumptuous house, a better car, and perhaps a mink coat to bolster the ego of your wife and yourself.” Dr. Keyes clapped his hands to the top of the desk and leaned forward sharply, his face plead- ing momentarily. “Why, Martin? Why did you do it?” Mart made no answer, and Keyes slumped back in his chair. ‘There are penalties, of course. They will be applied. But what rankles most is that you have given abroad even more than you gave here. You achieved the thing which we directly sought and did not find on Project Levitation, a low-capacity antigravity device. And you have given it, literally, to the enemy instead of preserving it for your own. Can you give me any explanation for such insanity?” Mart inhaled deeply. “Yes. I can give you a great many answers in due time. But only a few of them now. First, I was granted a patent on the antigravity device used in my toy. Have you read that patent?” Keyes held up the pile of papers at the side of the desk. “I have read nothing else but it and the news accounts in the last thirty-six hours!” “You have noted, then, the very precise specifications given in dis- closing the mechanism of the toy. You have noted that the patent states this is based on a newly dis- covered Law of Nature.” “Indeed I have!” said Keyes bit- terly. “And what Law of Nature may I assume it to be?” CEOnMIEOOKSsEO AN