With No Strings Attached | Page 8

voices all trying to speak at once. He could hardly--
* * * * *
"... He could hardly get a word in edgewise at first," said Thorn. He was enjoying the look of shocked amazement on Colonel Dower's face. "When Sorensen finally did get it explained, we still didn't know much. But we built another one, and it worked as well as the one he had. And the contract didn't specifically call for a battery. He had us good, he did."
"Now wait--" Colonel Dower said. "You mean to say it wasn't a battery after all?"
"Of course not."
"Then why all the folderol?"
"Colonel," Thorn said, "Sorensen patented that device nine years ago. It only has eight years to run. But he couldn't get anyone at all to believe that it would do what he said it would do. After years of beating his head against a stone wall, years of trying to convince people who wouldn't even look twice at his gadget, he decided to get smart.
"He began to realize that 'everybody knew' that hydrogen fusion wasn't that simple. It was his theory that no one would listen to. As soon as he told anyone that he had a hydrogen fusion device that could be started with a handful of batteries and could be packed into a suitcase, he was instantly dismissed as a nut.
"I did a little investigating after he gave us the full information on what he had done. (Incidentally, he signed over the patent to us, which was more than the contract called for, in return for a job with our outfit, so that he could help develop the fusion device.)
"As I said, he finally got smart. If the theory was what was making people give him the cold shoulder, he'd tell them nothing.
"You know the results of that, Colonel Dower. At least he got somebody to test the machine. He managed to get somebody to look at what it would do.
"But that wasn't enough. He didn't have, apparently, any legitimate excuse for keeping it under wraps that way, so everyone was suspicious."
"But why tell you it was a battery?" asked Captain Lacey.
"That was probably suggested by Colonel Dower's reaction to the tests he saw," Thorn said. "Somebody--I think it was George Gamow, but I'm not certain--once said that just having a theory isn't enough; the theory has to make sense.
"Well, Sorensen's theory of hydrogen fusion producing electric current didn't make sense. It was true, but it didn't make sense.
"So he came up with a theory that did make sense. If everyone wanted to think it was 'nothing but a battery', then, by Heaven, he'd sell it as a battery. And that, gentlemen, was a theory we were perfectly willing to believe. It wasn't true, but it did make sense.
"As far as I was concerned, it was perfectly natural for a man who had invented a new type of battery to keep it under wraps that way.
"Naturally, after we had invested a million dollars in the thing, we had_ to investigate it. It worked, and we had to find out why and how."
"Naturally," said Colonel Dower, looking somewhat uncomfortable. "I presume this is all under wraps, eh? What about the Russians? Couldn't they get hold of the patent papers?"
"They could have," Thorn admitted, "but they didn't. They dismissed him as a crackpot, too, if they heard about him at all. Certainly they never requested a copy of his patent. The patent number is now top secret, of course, and if anyone does write in for a copy, the Patent Office will reply that there are temporarily no copies available. And the FBI will find out who is making the request."
"Well," said Colonel Dower, "at least I'm glad to hear that I was not the only one who didn't believe him."
Captain Lacey chuckled. "And Mr. Thorn here believed a lie."
"Only because it made more sense than the truth," Thorn said. "And," he added, "you shouldn't laugh, captain. Remember, we suckered the Navy in almost the same way."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Errata
could talk openly and at ease. [final . missing] Question: What is in the Little Black Box? [: missing]

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