“But what protection would we have in trying to exploit your process?”
Nemford leaned over and disconnected the pump, and shut off a valve. The motor hummed down the scale to silence, the big doughnut vibrated into stillness, and the water stopped gushing from the outlet. It became much quieter out on the pier, and easier to talk.
“If you want a patent, you can apply for one yourselves. You know that nobody’s ahead of you, or the whole world would have heard of it. But a person who had a few millions to work with, like Mr Jobyn, could do a lot better, in my humble opinion. He could go to any community that desperately needs water, and build a plant at his own expense and sell water to them. He could do this all over the world. And I think he should be able to hire a few technicians who could be trusted with the secret part of the installation, which is really comparatively small. A Government, of course,” Nemford addressed himself impartially to Hamzah, “could count on men with the same security rating as they would trust with military secrets.”
Simon nodded.
“But before all that, what’s to stop some unscrupulous character swiping your machine somehow and opening it up to see what makes it go?”
Nemford smiled faintly.
“Naturally I’ve had to think of that. So I booby-trapped this model with a small charge of explosive inside. If anyone who didn’t know exactly how to go about it tried to open it up, the explosion would destroy the core of the machine and probably injure him quite seriously. A similar device could protect the vital part of a full-sized plant against unauthorized prying.”
Simon gazed broodingly at the remarkable engine with his hands thrust deep into his pockets. It was the kind of thing that any science-fiction writer might have fabricated, yet it was conservative in comparison with some of the marvels which humanity had become used to in the last decade. And he did not have to be convinced that there could be a fortune in it — for somebody.
He was aware that the other three were watching him expectantly, awaiting his verdict with almost embarrassing respect. Walt Jobyn was uninhibitedly fidgeting with the same eagerness that Colonel Hamzah betrayed only with the restless swiveling of his bright black eyes. Doc Nemford’s attention was the most placid of the three, as if he felt completely confident that any eventual decision must be favorable to him, and even a first negative reaction would only be a temporary if tiresome setback.
Simon straightened up a little and looked at him.
“I think you’ve got a potential gold mine here, Doc,” he said. “Or maybe I should call it something almost as good as an oil well—”
“Yiihoo!” uttered Mr Jobyn, or some similar sound. “That’s my pardner. I can’t wait till I hear yuh tell Felicity. But first we gotta get this deal sewed up...”
He groped at his pockets, shuffling his feet in a small dance of exasperation at the minor obstructions he encountered.
Colonel Hamzah’s dark bullfrog eyes had already veiled over with Pharaohic inscrutability, and he had turned away to occupy himself ostentatiously with removing the gauges that he had coupled into Nemford’s miraculous plumbing.
“I’ll write yuh a check,” Jobyn said, flourishing the book that he finally found. “Ten per cent on account, just to seal the bargain. You see your lawyer fust thing tomorrow an’ have him draw up somethin’ that says you sold me all rights in this here doohickey. An’ tell him to make it short an’ straight so even I can understand it. If I have to get another lawyer to translate it, I don’t want it.”
“I don’t need your deposit,” Nemford said awkwardly. “I’ll take your word that you mean business. And I can put down a sale of all rights myself in a few lines. I sympathize with your point of view about that — if it’s a straightforward deal, there’s no need for twenty pages of hedging. But...”
“But what, man?”
Nemford’s embarrassment had become so acute that he seemed to wish he had starved before he ever offered his discovery for sale.
“Well... when we wind this up, I’ll turn over this model to you, without the booby trap, and all my specifications and blueprints. Now, if you changed your mind an hour later, and decided to stop payment on your check for the full price, you’d still have everything of mine, and you could have had my drawings copied a hundred times, and all I could do would be to sue you... Of course I’m not suggesting that you would, but you could. After all, I don’t really know anything about you, except that you’re supposed to own a lot of oil wells. Do you understand?”
Walt Jobyn stared at him for a moment, with his weathered face taking on a slight tinge of beetroot, and then he let out an equine squeal of laughter and slapped the inventor resoundingly on the back.
“Well, fan mah britches,” he chortled. “You’re as right as yuh can be, Doc, an’ yuh had the guts to come straight out with it. I like that. Okay, then, you tell me how yuh think we should do it.”
“I’d be scared to death to have all that money in cash,” Nemford said. “But cashier’s checks are just about as final, aren’t they? I mean, you can’t stop them or take them back. You could give me five of them, say, for forty thousand each, so that I could put them in different banks as I’d probably want to. But as soon as you gave them to me, I’d hand everything over.”
“If that’ll make yuh happy, Doc, that’s the way it’ll be.” Jobyn frowned. “But it’ll be the day after tomorrow at the soonest before I can get those checks from my bank in Texas, unless I charter a private plane to fetch ’em.”
“That’s all right, Mr Jobyn,” Nemford said, with his normal composure coming back again. “Whenever they get here, you can give me a call and come over and we’ll make the exchange.”
“Provided somebody hasn’t stolen those blueprints meanwhile,” Simon put in. “Or are they booby-trapped, too?”
Nemford shook his head.
“I don’t think they need to be. They’re in a safe deposit box at my bank.”
“I won’t even ask yuh which bank, Doc,” Jobyn said jovially, “in case yuh think I might put Mr Templar here up to bustin’ into it.”
The joke did not seem to make any special impression on his audience.
“That’s fine, then,” Nemford said with an air of sober relief, and picked up his wrench to attack the bolts that secured his model. “Now if you won’t mind helping me get this back to the house...”
They assisted him to load his machine back on the wheelbarrow and cart it back to the shore, and there Jobyn held out his hand.
“We made a deal. Doc,” he said heartily. “I’ll be talkin’ to yuh soon with them checks in mah hand. An’ when yuh feel like takin’ a trip somewhere, you should come to Texas an’ see mah oil wells.”
He offered the same hand to Hamzah.
“Too bad yuh lost out, Colonel,” he said generously. “You should’ve made up your mind quicker — yuh could easily, not havin’ to listen to a back-seat-drivin’ wife, like me. Even if yuh got a dozen of ’em, you fellas got enough sense to keep ’em locked up in a harem. But better luck next time, anyhow.”
The Arabian delegate accepted the hand gingerly, and winced at the shake, but managed a toothily courteous grimace.
“Y’know, pardner,” Jobyn observed as they drove away, “Felicity’s goin’ to be spittin’ like a scalded bobcat when she hears this water-makin’ invention is as genuine as I been tellin’ her all along. She’ll like to tear your hair out for backin’ me up.”