Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

16 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION discovery—or at least presented a valid reason for not doing so.” Mart shrugged as he accompanied his visitor to the door. “It’s your baby. Let’s see you carry it off.” Upon opening the office with Ken- neth Berkeley, Mart had intensified his contacts with fellow researchers and former students who now held responsible positions in nearly every major industry. His contacts led as well into every Government laboratory employing specialists even remotely connected with basic physical re- search. As he expected, there began to be responses from these various points of communication. Among the first of these was one from Jennings out on the West Coast. Jennings had been with them on Levitation. “The news of the Nagle and Berke- ley enterprises,” he wrote, “makes me yearn for the good old days of Project Levitation. I didn’t know anything could be as foundationless as that project was when it started, _ but I believe you’ve topped it in that respect. The boys out here keep telling me you’ve gone off your rocker for sure, and I keep telling them you haven’t. When you get around to it I would appreciate some evidence to back up my defense. “P.S. Yes, the Nagle Rockets are getting so thick in the air over our subdivisions out here that midair collisions are not infrequent, with resulting claims and counterclaims of damages from one small fry to another. Have you any legal recom- mendations? “P.P.S. One corner of our physics lab was blown out the other day. Nobody got hurt, but some people are awfully mad. Seems to be some strong factions developing. There are those who would like to throw you in the clink, those who suggest you retire to the nearest booby hatch, and those who swear by all the windings of our local cyclotron that they’re going to figure out just what you’ve built into these gadgets. Also had a note from Keyes advising me to stay firmly shut up regarding Project L. I trust I may be among the first to receive enlightenment.” Mart chuckled as he showed the letter to Berk. “I can imagine what it must have cost Jennings to write that note,” he said. “He'll go into a deep spin if he doesn’t get the answer pretty soon. I imagine that out of all those we have stirred up he is the most likely to find the gimmick.” “How about that young fellow from Apex?” said Berk. “You said he was a pretty sharp type.” *““He’s an engineer. Whether that gives him more or less to overcome than a theoretical physicist I don’t know. I suspect, however, that we'll be hearing again, one way or another, from Don Wolfe.” Through his technological grape- vine Mart learned that by the end of the sixth week of rocket sales a speci- men had been dissected in nearly every university lab and in every corpora- tion with more than five hundred dol- lars a year to spend on basic research. He learned also that Sam had received an order directly from the United States Bureau of Standards for one dozen Nagle Rockets. He was even more pleased when the grapevine came up with the dope that they were actually for trans-shipment to an AEC lab, and that the Bureau had bought its own rockets at the local five and ten. Letters and telephone calls reported an increasing frenzy building up in all these laboratories as the scientists tinkered with the little gadget, trying to find out its basis of operation and scale it up to useful load size. He didn’t get too much from the AEC labs, but he was pretty sure the per- sonnel there were participating in the Cconmicloooks.c© nn