It didn’t. The newsmen, after making routine reports on the toy show, came back for a second look at the phenomenal Nagle Rocket. Science editors checked the basic patents on the toy, and for one day it made the front pages across the country. That same afternoon, Martin Nagle got the call he had been expecting from Washington. Kenneth Berkeley relayed it from their offices in Basic Research Consultants.
“As predicted,” said Berk, “Keyes wants to have some words with you. You probably ought to go down tonight and see him first thing in the morning.”
“Was he sore?”
“He would have been happier if I’d admitted robbing Fort Knox instead of telling him that the stories about the Nagle Rocket are true. He’s going to shut us down and throw us behind bars for the rest of our lives — unless you can convince him we are innocent of national treachery.”
“Maybe you ought to go instead. Or at least go with me. You knew him first. You persuaded him to open Project Levitation.”
“No. He wants to see you. You’re the physicist and he understands your language far better than mine, even though he did co-operate on Levitation. It’s up to you, Mart.”
“All right. I’ll get started. We knew this was coming. The sooner it’s over, the better.”
“What about the booth? Shall I come down tomorrow?”
“No. Sam is here. It’s practically his baby, anyway, since he’s closed his own display and is working with me on conversion of his place to produce our rockets. I’ll come over to the office on the way.”
It was a gray Washington morning when Mart got off the train and took a taxi for the Office of National Research. As he reached the building, marked by self-conscious newness, he had a moment of doubt about the wisdom of the thing he was doing. He had to have the trust and support of Keyes and other men like him, and now he was close to the thin edge of renunciation of all such trust.
He went directly to Keyes’ office and the secretary kept him only a moment before ushering him in. Keyes had obviously been waiting. The director’s face was dull and colorless as he indicated a chair with abruptness bordering on the uncivil.
“I think I know all there is to know of this so-called toy of yours,” he said, “but I’d rather hear it from your own lips. If there’s any possible fragment of excuse to relieve the brand of treachery upon what you have done, I want to be the first to know it.”
Mart felt a momentary overpowering fatigue. This was the moment he had dreaded — and the one he had 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 Levitation 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, wondering 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 maintain 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 performed 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 holster the ego of your wife and yourself.” Dr. Keyes clapped his hands to the top of the desk and leaned forward sharply, his face pleading 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 disclosing the mechanism of the toy. You have noted that the patent states this is based on a newly discovered Law of Nature.”
“Indeed I have!” said Keyes bitterly. “And what Law of Nature may I assume it to be?”
“Not the one we found during Project Levitation!” said Mart in sudden intensity. “Not that one — do you understand what that means, Dr. Keyes? I have not betrayed the confidences and work of Project Levitation.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Project Levitation produced antigravity. You utilize the principle of antigravity in these toys of yours. Therefore you utilize the results of Project Levitation, which you were sworn to protect in all secrecy.”
“No.” Mart shook his head firmly. “There is more than just one principle. To make a crude analogy: One might produce a motor car powered by steam or electricity or gasoline engines. The car would perform the same operations, within limits, regardless of the type of power. Beyond those limits, of course, the similarity would vanish.
“So it is with Project Levitation and my little toy. You wanted us to find a means of building a Buck Rogers flying belt. We didn’t do it, but we did find a means of powering thousand-ton airships and spaceships.
“No possible utilization of the particular principle involved in the work of Project Levitation would produce a flying belt. On the other hand, my little toy, as described in the patent, will never be extrapolated to produce spaceships. Its maximum capacity is a little over two pounds, and cannot be scaled up. It is true that new, and at present unknown, designs based on this new Law of Nature can produce spaceships or flying belts — but they are not inherent in the Nagle Rocket toy. I have not violated the secrecy which I swore in connection with my work at ONR. I have not betrayed you. Believe me, I have not!”
“How can you defend such a position?” Keyes demanded. “All the world knows that antigravity is now available, in principle at least.”
“You will note that I was careful not to state that principle in my patent disclosure. I could not patent the principle itself, of course, and it was not required to be disclosed, so it remains unknown.”