"How much farther before we get to--Hell, where are we going anyhow?" Zen blurted out. "To the center here," Nedra answered. "Um," Zen said. He wanted to say something else but he decided he'd better be careful. West led them into an old tunnel which bored straight into the side of the mountain. VIII "Is the center in here?" Zen asked. "Of course," Nedra answered. "But why haven't Cal and his buddies found it?" "They don't even know we exist," Nedra explained. "And if they did, for some reason they wouldn't like to come into the tunnels." "In effect, the tunnel is wired," West said. "Do you mean they would get a jolt of high voltage electricity if they ventured in here?" "Nothing as crude as that," the craggy man replied. "However, at two places, high frequency generators are built into the walls and hidden in such a manner that a person entering the tunnel is saturated with their radiations, which trigger the adrenals in his body. The result of this is that he suddenly feels very much afraid." "Eh?" Zen said, startled. "A fear generator?" "In effect, it is that." "But that would be a very powerful weapon." "Yes, it would," the craggy man said, his voice dry. "If you could generate such radiations in sufficient intensity and cover a large enough area with them, you could panic a division, perhaps even an army." Excitement was in Zen's voice. He knew that the scientists were desperately searching for a new weapon that might possibly end the war. Perhaps here was such a weapon. "It might work that way," West admitted. "Does the government know about this?" "I believe not." "Who invented it?" "I believe Jal Jonner is generally credited with being the inventor," West said. "Oh," Zen answered, and was silent. Jonner's name had become a legend of the days when there were giants in the Earth, mighty men whose thinking had gone beyond the concept of nations to envision one race, beyond the creeds of churches to see one faith, and beyond the dogma of economics to state that as long as one hungry man existed on the face of the earth, no man with a full dinner in front of him was free to eat his meal in peace and safety. Jonner's thinking had also gone beyond one planet to see one solar system--and beyond that, one universe. "Here is the first generator," West said. He flicked the beam of his flashlight against the walls. "Of course, there isn't anything to see. But you may feel something." As the intelligence agent moved forward, a sudden surge of fear came boiling up from his middle. It was a wild emotion and it carried with it a blasting sense of great peril, of death. Instantly, thoughts flashed through his mind of the first time he had ever been under shell fire, the scream of artillery shells, the blasts of the explosions, the shaking of the earth. As the surge of fear shot upward from his middle, he felt his body jerk and start to tremble. "Run!" a voice screamed inside him. "Get away from here! Run for your life!"