Slowly, he understood the message of his senses. His precious atomic motor had been put together again, but this time in a manner so strange as to be senseless, for even his trained eye could see no reasonable relationship among the various parts.
He wondered stupidly if it were a nightmare or a practical joke, and then everything became clear to him at one bound, for there at the other end of the room was the unmistakable sight of a brush of silver hair protruding from above a bench, swaying gently from side to side as the hidden owner of the brush moved.
“Max!” shouted the distraught inventor, in tones of fury. Evidently the foolish boy had allowed his interest to inveigle him into idle and dangerous experiments.
At the sound, Max lifted a pale face which upon the sight of his guardian turned a dull red. He approached Scanlon with reluctant steps.
“What have you done?” cried Scanlon, staring about him angrily. “Do you know what you’ve been playing with? There’s enough juice running through this thing to electrocute you twice over.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Scanlon. I had a rather silly idea about all this when I looked over the equations, but I was afraid to say anything because you know so much more than I do. After you went away, I couldn’t resist the temptation to try it out, though I didn’t intend to go this far. I thought I’d have it apart again before you came back.”
There was a silence that lasted a long time. When Scanlon spoke again, his voice was curiously mild, “Well, what have you done?”
“You won’t be angry?”
“It’s a little too late for that. You couldn’t have made it much worse, anyway.”
“Well, I noticed here in your equations,” he extracted one sheet and then another and pointed, “that whenever the expression representing the space-distortion fields occurs, it is always referred to as a function of x* plus y’ plus z”. Since the fields, as far as I could see, were always referred to as constants, that would give you the equation of a sphere.”
Scanlon nodded, “I noticed that, but it has nothing to do with the problem.”
“Well, I thought it might indicate the necessary arrangement of the individual fields, so I disconnected the distorters and hooked them up again in a sphere.”
The inventor’s mouth fell open. The mysterious rearrangement of his device seemed clear now-and what was more, eminently sensible.
“Does it work?” he asked.
“I’m not quite sure. The parts haven’t been made to fit this arrangement so that it’s only a rough set-up at best. Then there’s the constant error-”
“But does it work ? Close the switch, damn it!” Scanlon was all fire and impatience once more.
“All right, stand back. I cut the power to one-tenth normal so we won’t get more output than we can handle.”
He closed the switch slowly, and at the moment of contact, a glowing ball of blue-white flame leaped into being from the recesses of the central quartz chamber. Scanlon screened his eyes automatically, and sought the output gauge. The needle was climbing steadily and did not stop until it was pressing the upper limit. The flame burned continuously, releasing no heat seemingly, though beside its light, more intensely brilliant than a magnesium flare, the electric lights faded into dingy yellowness.
Max opened the switch once more and the ball-of flame reddened and died, leaving the room comparatively dark and red. The output gauge sank to zero once more and Scanlon felt his knees give beneath him as he sprawled onto a chair.
He fastened his gaze on the flustered Tweenie and in that look there was respect and awe, and something more, too, for there was fear . Never before had he really realized that the Tweenie was not of Earth or Mars but a member of a race apart. He noticed the difference now, not in the comparatively minor physical changes, but in the profound and searching mental gulf that he only now comprehended.
“Atomic power!” he croaked hoarsely. “And solved by a boy, not yet twenty years old.”
Max’s confusion was painful, “You did all the real work, Mr. Scanlon, years and years of it. I just happened to notice a little detail that you might have caught yourself the next day.” His voice died before the fixed and steady stare of the inventor.
“Atomic power-the greatest achievement of man so far, and we actually have it, we two.”
Both-guardian and ward-seemed awed at the grandeur and power of the thing they had created.
And in that moment-the age of Electricity died.
Jefferson Scanlon sucked at his pipe contentedly. Outside, the snow was falling and the chill of winter was in the air, but inside, in the comfortable warmth, Scanlon sat and smoked and smiled to himself. Across the way, Beulah, likewise quietly happy, hummed softly in time to clicking knitting needles, stopping only occasionally as her fingers flew through an unusually intricate portion of the pattern. In the corner next the window sat Max, occupied in his usual pastime of reading, and Scanlon reflected with faint surprise that of late Max had confined his reading to light novels.
Much had happened since that well-remembered day over a year ago. For one thing, Scanlon was now a world-famous and world-adored scientist, and it would have been strange had he not been sufficiently human to be proud of it. Secondly, and scarcely less important, atomic power was remaking the world.
Scanlon thanked all the powers that were, over and over again, for the fact that war was a thing of two centuries past, for otherwise atomic power would have been the final ruination of civilization. As it was, the coalition of World Powers that now controlled the great force of Atomic Power proved it a real blessing and were introducing it into Man’s life in the slow, gradual stages necessary to prevent economic upheaval
Already, interplanetary travel had been revolutionized. From hazardous gambles, trips to Mars and Venus had become holiday jaunts to be negotiated in a third of the previous time, and trips to the outer planets were at last feasible.
Scanlon settled back further in his chair, and pondered once more upon the only fly in his wonderful pot of ointment Max had refused all credit; stormily and violently refused to have his name as much as mentioned. The injustice of it galled Scanlon, but aside from a vague mention of “capable assistants” he had said nothing; and the thought of it still made him feel an ace of a cad.
A sharp explosive noise brought him out of his reverie and he turned startled eyes towards Max, who had suddenly closed his book with a peevish slap.
“Hello,” exclaimed Scanlon, “and what’s wrong now?”
Max tossed the book aside and stood up, his underlip thrust out in a pout, “I’m lonely, that’s all.”
Scanlon’s face fell, and he felt at an uncomfortable loss for words. “I guess I know that. Max,” he said softly, at length. “I’m sorry for you, but the conditions-are so-”
Max relented, and brightening up, placed an affectionate arm about his foster-father’s shoulder, “I didn’t mean it that way, you know. It’s just-well, I can’t say it but it’s that-you get to wishing you had someone your own age to talk to- someone of your own kind.”
Beulah looked up and bestowed a penetrating glance upon the young Tweenie but said nothing.
Scanlon considered, “You’re right, son, in a way. A friend and companion is the best thing a fellow can have, and I’m afraid Beulah and I don’t qualify in that respect. One of your own kind, as you say, would be the ideal solution, but that’s a tough proposition.” He rubbed his nose with one finger and gazed at the ceiling thoughtfully.
Max opened his mouth as if he were going to say something more, but changed his mind and turned pink for no evident reason. Then he muttered, barely loud enough for Scanlon to hear, “I’m being silly!” With an abrupt turn he marched out of the room, banging the door loudly as he left.
The older man gazed after him with undisguised surprise, “Well! What a funny way to act. What’s got into him lately, anyway?”