Asokore Power

THE cruel sun of southern India I beat down. on the walks and terraces of the royal palace, but inside the car it was cool. The tiny blower hummed, and whisked away Fernando Brown's half-formed smoke-rings. The Director of the Asokore Laboratories parked in front of the main entrance (knowing perfectly well that he shouldn't) and got out. The hot air billowed into the car.

"His Highness will see you presently/' said the orderly or doorman or whatever he was. Brown couldn't keep the elaborate mechanism of a royal household straight. He settled in a chair in the vestibule. Having been kept waiting before by His Highness General Sir Keshub Hydar Ramanija Santosh Edward Mir Daula Shah, Rajah of Asokore, he had foresightedly brought along a technical magazine to read. He finished an article and a half before the functionary reappeared and said His Highness would see him forthwith.

AS HE strode into the Presence and bowed stiffly, Brown reflected that here was one on whom his detached attitude, which his friends called fair-mindedness and his enemies called coldbloodedness, didn't work. He hated the Rajah with all his heart. He loathed the smooth pudgy face (his own was freckled and angular, with a tendency toward squirrel-teeth) the suavely insolent manner, the excruciating Briticisms. He even hated the perfectly fitting linen suit.

His Highness raised his eyebrows in his invariable what-species-does-^if-belong-to manner."Mr. —Ah—Ah—"

"Brown, Your Highness."

"Oh yes, Brown. What did you wish to see me about?"

"The recent disturbances, Your Highness," said Brown, keeping a tight grip on his temper.

"What about them?"

"There was another riot yesterday, in the Northern Department. One of the Palestinian guards received a broken collar-bone, and another has internal injuries. Day before yesterday one was shot dead from ambush."

"Really? Why do you come to see me about it?" The Rajah inspected his finger-nails.

"Just this:" said Brown earnestly; "you and I know that our cattle-killing program is the only known way of ending this hoof-and-mouth epidemic. Most of your people understood the program and are back of it. But you and I know that certain religious and political interests have seized on the program to advance their own ends, which are inimical both to your present form of government and to the continuance of the research program that we've mapped out for the Asokore Laboratories.

"I and my European and American co-workers were brought in here and set up in these laboratories to give the people of Asokore a higher standard of living, and that, to some extent, we've succeeded in doing. And now Avanend and his gang are howling "Send the foreign blasphemers back where they came from. ' You know that that's merely an excuse to—"

"I know?" interrupted His Highness."I say, Mr. —Ah-—Brown, have you added mind-reading to your scientific techniques? How do you know what I know?"

Brown ignored the provocation."You're a well-informed man, Your Highness. This movement is getting such prestige as it can from the exploitation of your name. They call themselves royalists', and brag of having your backing. Now, a statement from you, clearing up the question—"

"Indeed, Mr. Brown? I'm afraid you've been misinformed about my functions. I'm a constitutional monarch, you know. I never mix in politics." (Liar, thought Brown. )

"But, Your Highness, the welfare of three million Asokoris—"

"I can only repeat what I said. I don't. make public statements. The question will not be discussed further."

Brown knew it was hopeless, and turned to go. The Rajah suddenly spoke: "What's this I hear about some sort of death-ray or atom-gun your chaps are developing?"

Brown recalled that old Shastri, the Prime Minister, had asked him the same question a few days previously. He told the Rajah there was nothing to it."We could hardly keep it a secret if there were, Your Highness. Atomic disintegration and metamorphosis go back half a century, to the 1930's. But a controllable atom-gun would be something else. It would require lots of apparatus and power. And every experimenter who's tried to produce one has blown up his laboratory and sometimes himself."

"Oh, really? And the person who had such an instrument would have another kind of—-ah—power." (He pronounced it "pah". ) "If such a device should be developed, I should consider it my duty to—ah-—reward the inventor fittingly for his—ah—benefit to humanity, and all that rot. You see, Mr. Brown? It wouldn't do to let such pah fall into irresponsible hands."

I see all right, thought Brown, and you can bet I'll never let any atom-gun fall, into your hands. But aloud he said: "I understand perfectly, Your Highness," and made his formal exit.

BROWN drove his car up to the ramp joining the Bangalore Highway and stopped; the light on his- instrument-board showed red. He thought as he waited, some day I'll wipe the oily smirk off your face, my foul friend. The light changed to green, and he ran the car out on the highway. As it picked up speed, the green light changed to white. Brown pushed the synchronizer lever, moved the steering-wheel up out of the way, took out his magazine, and resumed his reading. The car, no longer under his control, purred along merrily, keeping just 50 meters behind a truck. The afternoon sun blazed down on the olive-and-buff slopes of the Eastern Ghats which whirled past him.

He reached the Laboratories, on the outskirts of the City of Asokore, after five, and went to the canteen. There, as usual, Nick Tukharev, looking like a slightly Mongoloid Santa Claus, was waving a stein and orating on the sins of Capitalism. Dark, fox-faced Benoy Kumar, resplendent in purple shorts, was listening sympathetically to Quesada, the chemical engineer, tell the well-worn tale of the Spaniard—or rather, the president of the Manila Chamber of Commerce— who had blighted his life. Quesada was weeping into his beer.

Brown caught Kumar's eye, and the young physicist came over grinning toothily."Hallo, Fernando! I see by your face that it happened as I said it would. Don't worry, Shastri and his Cabinet will back you come Hell or—you Americans say high tide? Oh, high water. You see, it's not our jobs only they have to worry about, but theirs as well. Of course, after what we did with the hoof-and-mouth disease, Avanent hasn't such a hard job. You know that to the orthodox Hindu the killing of a cow is much worse than murder or incest."

"I know all about it," said Brown wearily."Our local "equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury called on me yesterday and lectured me on the evils of a materialistic outlook. I tried to defend science, but got nowhere. What have you been doing?"

"Oh, nothing much. Six sets of tennis this morning, and this afternoon I worked out some new approximate solutions to quintic equations, and then I went down to the hippo-farm and worked with Gus on our gadget."

"And now," said Brown with respect in his voice, "you'll have a hearty dinner of roast beef, thereby setting your pious Brahmin ancestors back a few reincarnations, and then you'll do physics all night. Wish I knew how you did it." He told Kumar in detail about his conversation with the Rajah."I wonder," he finished, "whether your and Gus's gadget mightn't be the source of these rumors about an atomic-power gun."

Kumar frowned thoughtfully."I don't see how—it's not anything like that. Unless—Gus has a girl-friend, you know."

"What! That old coot?"

"Sure; the prettiest little Asokori you ever saw. I say, Fernando, you must come down and see our gadget, even if you are busy."

"Well—I'll try to. But I've got work to do tonight."

BROWN was just finishing the last paper at midnight, when his telephone rang. He flicked the switch on his wrist. When the excited voice from the receiver on his shoulder calmed down enough to be intelligible, it identified itself as that of Brahispati, the chief engineer of the Asokore Municipal Lighting System."They tried to steal my new generators!" the voice shrilled.

"What?" said Brown."You mean those four new generators you ordered from Madras? Who tried to steal them? And how in hell can anybody steal a three-ton generator anyway? You. can't carry it under your coat."

"I tell you. They—I don't know who they were—had a truck, maybe two trucks. The generators came today, and were sitting on a flat-car in the railroad yard. And tonight these—" here the telephone crackled with Urdu obscenity "—sneaked into the yard, and slugged the watchman, and tried to hoist the generators off the car onto the trucks. They used the yard crane, but in the darkness they did something wrong, and they dropped the first one they hoisted. The casing is cracked!" Brahispati sounded as if he were about to weep, "And—you know the hardware shop across the street from the depot? The cashier was down there going over the books, and he heard the noise and gave the alarm. But the thieves had disappeared, with their trucks, by the time the police came. My beautiful new generator—"

Brown finally convinced the overwrought engineer that he, Brown, had no idea what this bizarre theft meant, and went to bed swearing. Things got loonier and loonier. He wondered if he'd been wise to give up his good job at Schenectady (he was a steam turbine engineer) to come and exec in this goofy little Hindu hill kingdom. It was probably his unfortunate habit of accepting responsibilities that nobody else wanted that had gotten him into this. Maybe it would have been better if the British had stayed in India, after all, though Brown had always sympathized with the Indians' feelings on the subject.

THE next morning he had hardly gotten through his mail when he had the job of placating one of the more temperamental members of his staff."I'm sorry, Martha," he said, "but all the labs on the east side were spoken for long ago. But look here: Tukharev and Lowrie haven't installed half their junk yet. If the view means so much to you, why don't you try your feminine wiles on them? Maybe one of them would be willing to switch. I admit the Scotchman's a hard case, but you shouldn't have much trouble with the sentimental Nikolai."

Miss Martha Livengood drew herself up, every inch a Bostonian."Why—at my age—you suggest—" She saw he was trying not to laugh, and went on: "That's a splendid idea, Fernando. Now if you'll just help me select the right lipstick and underthings—" Brown's ears became pink. She continued: "Seriously, I didn't know we were going to move into these new laboratories for a month, and I've been so busy with my fleas and lice —I've had six entirely new mutations—" Somebody's hoarse yell ended the discourse.

Brown's desk drawer flew open to the touch of a button, and his static pistol was in his hand. When he got to the source of the sound, Kumar and Quesada were looking at a six-foot cobra on the floor of the latter's lab. The snake's head was smashed to jelly, but its body still twitched. The little Filipino held the broken half of a mop-handle. -Now that the danger was over, a reaction had begun to seize Quesada; he looked as though he were going to faint.

"Better come down and have a drink, Juan/' Brown told him. Then Brown's eyes strayed to the ventilator inlet in the concrete wall."So that's where they come from! Stand clear, everybody!" The pistol purred for a tenth of a second as its ultra-violet beam sought the ventilator, and cracked piercingly as the blue streak of the charge followed the ionized path. The visible half of the second snake's body exploded into fragments.

"Damn!" said Brown, "The place must be impregnated with cobras. The ventilating system goes all over the building; we'll have to clear everybody out."

EXTERMINATION took the rest of the morning. When Brown settled into his chair after lunch, he found Maganlal Vora, the janitor, extending one of the laboratory's printed forms, "I theenk, Sair, we have extirpated the ophemophidia. Here is a leest; any others will have been slain by the gas."

Brown read the neat typing: " 1 spotted viper; 4 Russell's viper; 9 common cobra; 16 banded krait; 2 harmless." Vora coughed deprecatingly."I theenk those harmless ones are put in by mistake. Someone was inefficient."

"Think we ought to send in a complaint about inferior merchandise?"

"Ah, no, Sair, it is a small matter— only two out of thairty-two. Next time perhaps." Brown looked hard at his dignified janitor; he could never be sure whether Vora was being serious. Vora, loftily deferential as ever, withdrew, and Brown, hoping he'd seen the last of these distractions to the orderly running of a laboratory, settled down to work.

But events were really just getting into their stride. In a few minutes General Dubin burst in. The heavy-set commander-in-chief of the Palestinian mercenaries was in field uniform, and was looking even glummer than was his normal wont."The Rajah's gone," he snapped."He and his gang, including his royal guard, just weren't there this morning. When did you see him last?"

Brown told him."Why didn't you telephone, Stanley?"

The general made the short barking noise generally described as a mirthless laugh."Have you tried 'phoning in the last couple of hours?"

"No." Brown flicked the switch on his wrist and dialed Chief Engineer Brahispati's number. The receiver on his shoulder crackled.

"Interference," said Dubin."The whole system's out of commish. I got Shastri to order the militia mobilized. Something's going to pop, but I don't know when or where. All I can do is see that my tanks and 'planes are in order, and that the charging-stations for the static-gun condensers are working. Can't you scientific wizards help us out? All the police have been able to uncover is a rumor about some sort of atomic pow—"

"Stop it!" yelled Brown."Stop, Stanley! The next guy that asks me about an atom-gun is going to have to eat my slide-rule, glass and all." He told Dubin about the ubiquitous rumors on the subject that he had encountered."We'd like to help you out, Stan, but we're not doing anything in the way of atomic power. We haven't the equipment, and Kumar's the only one of us with enough knowledge of physics."

The glum general chewed the ends of his mustache."Maybe it would have been better if you'd put some time in on means of destroying your fellow-man, instead of being so noble and constructive. You humanitarians put through a program for uplifting the masses, and forget all about the toes you're going to step on in the process. And then when the owners of the toes—"

A Palestinian soldier, hung with gadgets, knocked and entered. Dubin frowned at the paper that was handed him."Hm," he said, "an army of undetermined strength has appeared in the Eastern Department with tanks, artillery, and aircraft. We'll have to move quickly. Good bye, Fernando. If you do invent an atom-gun, let me know. Maybe I should have stayed in Palestine and been a rabbi, like my father wanted me to." He shook hands and clicked off down the corridor.

GENERAL DUBIN had laid his plans well, for within two hours the long line of trucks, tanks, and armored motorcycles was roaring out of town eastward. As the last of the column got into motion, an airplane snored over from the east and loosed a bomb, which blew a suburban bungalow skywards, then whipped into a turn as two Palestinian machines swooped at it. An antiaircraft battery crashed, and a puffy black cloud appeared in front of the insurgent machine. As it popped out on the far side its engine died. (The black cloud was emery powder. ) But with a grunt the 'plane belched a streamer of flame and smoke aft, and raced off out of sight on its rocket-jets.

Brown collected his staff and announced that they were going to work out a program of military research. The staff seemed more concerned by the fact that most of their laboratory assistants were being called up for the militia, and Brown had to remind them that their jobs and perhaps their lives depended on the defeat of the Rajah's attempted coup.

After it was over, Benoy Kumar came up and urged Brown to come down to the hippopotamus-farm."I think maybe Gus and I have something for you," he said mysteriously.

"You mean for military purposes? Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I did, but you were busy. And we didn't know what it would do until a couple of days ago, and we only figured out how to make it work last night, "

So Brown went. As they let themselves into the farm, Scheherazade, the queen of the herd, recognized Brown as a friend and started toward him, opening her gargantuan mouth expectantly. Brown hoisted himself on the steel bars of the fence and yelled "Gus! O-o-oh Gus!"

From behind the trees came a voice: "Hey, is that you, Fernando? All right, Scheherazade, you come here!" The hippopotamus waddled off.

"Gus!" shouted Brown, "How many times have I told you to keep your pets away from the gate? First thing you know one of 'em will step on a visitor's foot, and we'll have a damage suit. Or a visitor will get scared and run out leaving the gate open, and the hippos'll clean out every melon patch in ten miles. Or Scheherazade will get me against the fence and lean, and I don't think that would do me any good!"

Gus Gillenhaal, the pink top of his skull showing through his sparse yellow-white hair, apologized' profusely, promising that an extra fence would be built, and so forth. Brown, who had heard all this before, walked on up the path; the Swede, arms still gyrating, followed."And you know, Fernando, my Scheherazade wouldn't a fly hurt, and we got an order from Bengal for six hippos for canal-clearance, and with a couple more like that we show a profit for the year, and that Tamil boy of mine is run off again, and..."

INSIDE the rambling concrete structure that served Gillenhaal as dispensary for his charges, shop, laboratory, and living-quarters, Kumar picked off the work-bench, littered with tools and a vast tangle of wire, something that looked like a flashlight with a pistol grip. "This is the gadget," he said; "If you'll sit down, Fernando, I'll explain.

"Gus and I thought we were inventing something new in photosynthesizers, to see if maybe we couldn't make a synthetic virus or something. But we found that, if you can form carbon-linkages with ultraviolet radiation, you can also break them down. The carbon-hydrogen bond isn't a very strong one, you know. You look at the heat of formation of the commoner hydrocarbons; they're all relatively near zero. Methane is about plus 20 kilogram-calories per gram-molecule; ethylene is about minus 6, compared to plus 94 for carbon dioxide and plus 69 for water.

"It's mostly a matter of finding just the right wave-length. It has to be a certain function of the orbits of the outer electrons of carbon and hydrogen. But once you have that, you don't need much power. You turn your beam on, and if it hits an organic substance all the carbon-hydrogen bonds on the surface break, and you get a lot of free monatomic hydrogen floating around. That's about the most inflammable substance there is, so you don't have to worry any more about where the rest of your energy is coming from. The combustion of the hydrogen supplies that—poof!"

"I see," said Brown."That's how these stories of an atomic gun have gotten around, though your device works by purely molecular reactions."

It was getting dark inside, and Gillenhaal flicked the light switch. Nothing happened. Muttering something about fuses, the Swede disappeared, leaving Kumar and Brown to discuss the possibilities of the projector. In a few moments he was back."It's funny," he said, "but our power seems to be shut off. All the fuses are okay, and to make sure I tried out some of the extras."

Before he could be answered, there was a rapid series of concussions, faint with distance. The sound swelled as they listened.

Gillenhaal said: "I think that means the Rajah has pulled one of his little yokes. What do we do, Fernando?"

Brown stepped to the door for a look citywards. Something woke to life and raced clown the path. Brown yelled "Stop!" and felt for a non-existent static pistol. Never having formed the habit of gun-toting, he had left his weapon at the laboratory. But Benoy Kumar pushed him roughly aside from behind and fired twice. The gate clanged, and the hippopotami burbled with fright. Kumar fired again; the discharge grounded on a gate-bar with a shower of sparks.

"Damn!" said the physicist."I need practice. But all I could see in this twilight was a shirt and a pair of shorts going—how do you say—Hell-bent for election. Probably --royalist spy. Where's your car, Fernando? Mine's at the gar-age."

"Lent mine to Tukharev," replied Brown."What do you need to make that gadget work?"

"A few volts a. c. or d. c, to turn the generator and heat up the tube—oh, Lord!"

"Huh?"

"The power's off, probably all over the city, and we haven't a dry-cell in the place. We've been using current from the labs for experimenting, and that little motor-generator set."

"Well, come on, then," said Brown; "There are plenty of cells in the labs."

BROWN found the gate locked. Turning to Gillenhaal, he snapped: "Gus, did you leave the key in the lock again?"

"Yudas, Fernando, I'm sorry, but you see—"

"Never mind. Where's the spare?"

"J lost it last month—-I been meaning to have another made—"

Brown cocked a fist and almost let fly at the hippopotamus-breeder. But he controlled himself."Have you forty feet of rope that we could throw over the fence?"

"I don't think so," said Gillenhaal."But wait—I got an idea." He bellowed "Scheherazade!" There was a snuffling in the dusk, and his special pet waddled up."See?" Gillenhaal indicated the gate."Push!"

The hippo put her vast nose to the bars and pushed. The tortured steel groaned but held. A second attempt also failed.

"Looks like it don't—wait! I got another idea." Gillenhaal ran back to the building, and reappeared with a hypodermic syringe the size of a small fire-extinguisher.

"Just happened to have some adrenalin," he explained."The normal human dose for stimulus is around fifteen minims; Scheherazade weighs 3, 240 pounds; that divided by 180 means 600 minims. Somebody please hold a match. Good." Scheherazade winced as the needle sank into her neck, but Gillenhaal soothed her."Now we got to wait a few minutes for the effect."

Brown listened impatiently to the symphony of explosions and static discharges. The night-glow of Asokore City was missing but the flicker of guns showed over the trees. At last Gillenhaal said : "Scheherazade! Here, push!"

Scheherazade lunged friskily at the bars. The steel bent; Gillenhaal shouted encouragement; and the hinges gave way. The hippo pitched forward and lay panting."Poor girl!" said her master, "I bet your nose got permanent grooves in it. Tomorrow I fix it. Where now, yentlemen?"

Three blocks from the laboratory they stopped as a beam from a searchlight on a truck illuminated the buildings. Men were jumping out of trucks and spreading out, directed by officers with flashlights. Somebody banged on the laboratory doors and shouted in Urdu.

"Turbans!" said Brown."That means Avanend's private army; they're the only ones who wear 'em."

As the royalist forces spread through the surrounding blocks, the three men beat a hasty retreat, cutting across vacant lots."Our friends are back there in the city," said Brown; "I'd like to get 'em out, but how we could do it with one static pistol—" He cursed softly.

THEY were well out on the highway to Madras. A car stopped near them with a squeal of tires. Its headlights were out; the driver was evidently using night-goggles. A spotlight beam stabbed out, and a voice said in Urdu: "Stand, you three! We want a look at you." Then it changed to English."Why Meestair Brown! A pleasant surprise. General Avanend said to look for—"

Crack! Kumar whisked the static gun from behind his back and fired. The light vanished, and while glass tinkled on the road, the three men bolted into the woods. Behind them the blue crackling fingers of static discharges explored the bush. One struck a tree near them and showered them with fragments. Brown got a beetle down the neck of his sport shirt, but it had been safely electrocuted. He was more concerned with the possibility of stepping on a krait than of being hit; he knew that it would take some seconds for the royalists' eyes to become adapted to the ghostly images in the infra-red goggles.

The crackling bolts and sounds of pursuit died away. After a while they came to a dirt road.

Gillenhaal said: "This goes on for about five kilometers, and yoins the Madras Highway. If we went along it until we found Dubin's army, maybe we could do something."

"Good idea," said Brown."We'd best step on it. Those birds back there will report to headquarters and send a posse out after us. Hope your bolt burned out their car's wiring, Ben."

"A posse?" said Kumar vaguely.

"Search party with hostile intentions. It'll take a couple of days for us to walk to Dubin, but maybe we can get a lift."

"If you don't mind," said Kumar, "I'd rather not get any lifts before daylight. I want to know who's offering the ride."

FOUR hours later they were still plod-ding through the dust, and the other two commented sarcastically on Gillenhaal's idea of five kilometers. A spot of light sent them into the bush; it was made by an Asokori sweeping the ground in front of him with a flashlight for snakes as he walked. When they came out of the shrubbery he almost took to his heels, but Kumar assured him that no violence impended."We only wanted a light," said the physicist."We came away without our cigarette-lighters."

The Asokori, still suspicious, produced his lighter, and Kumar, offered him a cigarette and asked him how far it was to the Madras highway.

"Just a few hundred meters—I just came that way. Watch yourself when you get on the road; I was stopped twice by cars full of royalists. My name's Bhasa, Mohandas Bhasa. My cousin and I run a fruit-stand on the highway. I've just been down to my cousin's house listening to the war-news on the radio, but we couldn't hear much because each side was blanketing the other's waves. Those dogs of royal—" He broke off, suddenly fearful again."Which—which side are you on?"

"Same as yours, brother," Brown told him."We're here because those dogs chased us."

"That's fine! I was scared for a minute. But if I didn't have a family I'd enlist in the Parliamentary militia tomorrow. My nephew's going. Yes Sir, the only way we common people can keep their liberties is to fight for them! What's your name, please? You're a foreigner, aren't you? I thought so..."

Brown, when he had a chance, introduced himself and his companions.

"Not the Brown? The Laboratory Director? Sir, this is a great pleasure, and an honor, if I may say so..."

Kumar waited until their new friend stopped for breath, and asked if he could buy the flashlight.

"Well—you'd be welcome to it; I wouldn't think of taking money—but the snakes, you know—my poor aunt's sister-in-law stepped on a krait one night, and she was dead before they got the serum to her—I'll tell you what; walk back to my house with me, and I'll make you a present of the light!"

Brown hated to spend the time, but he didn't want to antagonize the man, who would be only too anxious to tell people about having met them anyway. So they retraced their steps, the garrulous Bhasa pouring out his interminable stream of Urdu. He was so glad to meet the great Director Brown and his co-workers, because he had an idea he'd long wanted to submit them. It was a scheme for exterminating venomous snakes; briefly, it comprised injecting mice with some sort of poison, and releasing them for the snakes to prey upon. It would of course have to be harmless to the mice. No, he didn't know of such a poison, but the great scientists at the laboratories would, no doubt.

Kumar said, gravely, "A very interesting idea, Mr. Bhasa. I'll look into it. It has just one weakness in its present form; it wouldn't spare the harmless snakes, which are economically valuable. However, if we can find a poison that will distinguish between snakes and mice, we ought to be able to fix the other difficulty." (Brown hoped Bhasa wouldn't know he was being kidded. Benoy Kumar took an impish delight in skating on thin ice. )

When they reached Bhasa's bungalow, the Asokori gave them the light with a ten-minute speech of presentation. They broke away finally after swearing him to secrecy."Whew!" said Brown."And I always thought Nick Tukharev was a talker! We'd best find a hideaway to tinker with your gadget."

THEY settled in a clump of trees in the angle between the dirt road and the Madras Highway. After a few minutes of tinkering, Kumar said sadly, "We need two lights, Fernando. When we take the cell out of this one for the projector, we can't use it to see what we're doing."

Brown yawned."It'll be light in a couple of hours. You go ahead and work" on it; I'm going to sleep."

... A rajah as big as an elephant was chasing Brown who was riding a hippopotamus. Now and then the beast rolled an eye back and said in a strong Swedish accent "I vant to lie down yust a minute." Brown was trying to adjust a heat-ray device to blast the rajah who was gaining on him, but to work it he had to wind a long wire into a coil. And every time he got the thing almost wound it would pop out of his fingers. Finally it got altogether out of control and coiled around him and his mount. The hippo tripped and fell, pitching Brown off. He bounced up—up— "If I can only stay up," he said aloud."But no, I'm falling—" The rajah's face rushed up at him, to dissolve into that of his star physicist, grinning foxily.

"Wake up, Fernando!" he said."It's almost daylight; We're going to try the gadget."

Gillenhaal aimed the device at a small bush and clicked the switch. Brown noticed the faint sparkle of burning dust-particles along the path of the beam; the bush went' floomp and exploded into flame.

"If we had some breakfast," said Brown, "we could cook it. We'd better put that fire out."

It was done, and they cautiously walked up to the highway. Up the road a hundred meters was a parked car, and near it were four royalists eating.

They crept half the distance through the edge of the woods, and Gillenhaal aimed at the back of a fat royalist who was just raising a coffee-cup. The man shrieked once from the cloud of flame and smoke that enveloped him. The others stared; then another one of them went up. The remaining two leaped for the car; one of them made it. As the machine started with a roar, Gillenhaal aimed at it. There was another burst of flame as paint and tires oxidized. The car wove out of sight over the next rise.

They ran after it, Brown not enjoying the sight of the three black things beside the road. When they reached the crest they saw the car standing in the road with one door open, its paint still smouldering. There was no driver.

"There he goes!" said Kumar. A receding spot far down the highway dwindled to nothing."Another royalist on a motorcycle came along and picked him up. They'll have a—a reception committee waiting for us."

"And," said Brown, "we'd better find a suitable place to receive their greeting."

THEY settled themselves in the edge of a wood. Below the birds' morning concert and the chatter of monkeys they could hear the faint rumble of battle from the city. Evidently the garrison was holding out.

Brown adjusted a listening-device looted from one of the dead royalists."Quiet, everybody," he said."Damn those birds; they sound like the Ride of the Valkyries. I can hear a line of trucks, I think, coming this way."

"They're stopping," he said."They ought to be just out of sight. I can hear their shoes hitting the asphalt."

They waited. A dozen men, widely spaced, appeared over the rise. The rising sun reddened their brown faces.

Brown whispered: "Hand me those binoculars, Ben. Yes, they're just scouting. Let 'em have it, Gus. Get those across the road, too."

Gillenhaal aimed—and a man became a torch. There were shouts; the monkeys' chatter ceased abruptly. Another man was incinerated, then a third. The rest returned the way they had come, with haste.

"This isn't as kvick as I'd like," complained Gillenhaal."You got to hold it on them a second or so."

Over the rise came three tanks, and behind them a line of men three meters apart. Brown said: "All right, Gus/1 The nearest tank glowed with sparks; then a thin sheet of flame floomped over it. It changed course, firing wildly, and stopped. Its hatch flew open, and the crew boiled out and ran. The other tanks roared at them. One threw a suddenly sputtering track and stopped, and its crew went away. The third whirled about, zig-zagged off, and turned over, its tracks still moving. Brown muttered: "Must have been using a tung-oil paint on those things, and synthetic-rubber tracks. Most of the rubberoids won't burn, but they've got plenty of hydrogen in them."

Officers ran up and down the line of men, threatening and exhorting. Flup! flup! man after man became a yellow flare. Then there was only a line of mushrooms of black smoke, swelling lazily over the bodies of those who had not been able to get away,

IT WAS quiet again; a bird resumed his song. Small grass-fires smouldered; they crackled cheerfully as a breeze sprang up and the grass-stems nodded.

Two jarring explosions came over the rise, followed instantly by a wheet-bam! wheet-bam! as the shells crashed into the trees. Brown said, "Field-howitzers, I think; about four centimeters." The guns cracked again, and they could hear an airplane motor overhead.

Brown through the glasses saw movements in the grass that betokened the crawling of men. A black speck caught his eye; he made out an infra-red detector on a little tripod. He could just see the motion of the hand of the man lying behind it, as he turned the crank that traversed the instrument. Brown thought, with ail those fires he'll get a positive reading every few degrees.

The shells shrieked and exploded. One deafeningly heaved up a truckload of dirt near them; clods spattered through the leaves above.

The crawling men began to rise far enough to clear the muzzles of their static guns, and long blue flashes sought the edge of the wood. The grass intercepted most of the discharges as effectively as would a concrete wall, but some came close enough to make the men jump as the electric surge jerked their muscles.

"Can only see them when they rise up to skoot," said Gillenhaal."Silly thing about those static guns: no good for skooting through grass."

"Can you give a slow traverse?" asked Brown."We'll have to burn them out."

"Try to." The Swede pivoted like a man panoraming with a hand movie-camera. With a low roar a broad band of flame marched down the field. As the first thick cloud of smoke billowed up, the three caught glimpses under it of a few men running back over the rise. The guns did not fire again.

Brown looked at his watch."Six-thirty-five," he announced, "and the airplanes seem to have gone away. Ben, suppose you take the glasses up a tree for a look."

Presently Kumar called, "Can't see anybody. The two howitzers are standing in the field, with a lot of stuff lying around as if it had been dropped in a hurry."

"Guess they've pulled foot," said Brown."Wonder if there's any food in the junk they dropped?"

Thirty minutes later they sat around a little blaze, started with the indispensable projector, and toasted royalist rolls on sticks. Smoke from the grass fire drifted into the wood and made their eyes water.

"I'm sorry for those fellows,". said Brown; "They were brave men, but they just couldn't face an unknown weapon. But one shell, or a whiff of gas, would have finished us. And a good coat of inorganic enamel would protect a tank from your weapon. Of course we needn't tell anybody that, yet." His telephone tinkled.

"Hello," said the voice, "Brown? This is Dubin."

"Hey, Stanley! How come service has been restored?"

"The royalists besieging Asokore City quit, and the people got the auxiliary station going. Where are you, and what in hell's this heat-ray or atom-gun that you said you didn't have?"

"We're near the village of Little Kurnool," Brown told him, "and we just invented the device. I'll tell you about—"

"Wait a minute," said the general. After a pause, he barked, "The royalists up here are surrendering too! I'll call you back."

THEY finished breakfast before the "phone rang again. Dubin sounded more excited than Brown had ever heard him. He even sounded cheerful."When you burnt up the party that was sent out to get you, Avanend was watching the whole performance in his televisor, or what he could see of it, as the telecaster was mounted on a truck over the hill. Then when the detachment came back, scared to death, they spread a rumor among his troops that you had atomic power after all. And the troops decided that fighting was no fun under those circumstances, and either started home or surrendered. Some of the officers tried to make them go on fighting, but they were —ah— liquidated. Then when the insurgents up here got word of what had happened, they did the same thing. They even turned the Rajah over to us.

"You see, Fernando, as nearly as I can make out, atomic power was in back of the whole thing. The Rajah's been scheming for years to get back some of the power his ancestors held; he'd even have called the British back if he could.

"The Rajah was afraid that if the parliamentary government got hold of such a weapon, he wouldn't have a chance. You told him that you weren't working on it, and you also mentioned the great power that would be required. Then Brahispati, the engineer of the lighting system, bought those four new generators for his power-plant. The Rajah heard of their arrival, and inferred that you'd lied to him, and that the generators were really for your atomic power. He's such a liar himself that he never credits anybody else with telling the truth.

"He figured he'd have to act quickly, and he had his puppet Avanend send a gang of his cutthroats to steal the generators. That didn't work, so there seemed to be nothing for him to do but a putsch. He started the main uprising here, and had Avanend hide his private army in the game-reserve, to attack the city when our forces had been drawn away. Then he'd have control of the generators, which are what he was most afraid of."

Brown chuckled."Stanley! I can't explain the apparatus over the 'phone, but I'll tell you that it does use an electric generator—a little one-mouse-power affair the size of a golf-ball!"

"Mp! You damn scientists. Anyway, Fernando, I'll fly down to Asokore City to straighten things there this morning, and meanwhile I'll have a truck sent out from the city to pick you up. So long."

As the three men walked toward the highway, the smoke made them cough. Brown said, "Jeepers, I almost forgot." He dialled."Hello, Little Kurnool City Hall? Director Brown calling the mayor. Hello, Mr. Gopal? Yes, I'm alive... The shooting you heard was some royalists. They're gone now. Say, I'm afraid we started a rather bad grass fire in the course of the fighting. Better send some of your boys over to put it out. Okay, don't mention it. ”