Ruefuly, Chris laughed. "To simple men--fishermen, farmers, tax collectors--the power of any genuine conviction seemed miraculous because of its accomplishments. I healed the neurotics of my day. By suggestion, I added to the innocent gaiety of many a gathering. But even that poor, positive procedure is inverted now; many churches find their miracles in the hysterics of their own sick--bleeding, stigmata, fits!" He sighed. "Surely you, doctor, a miracle-maker in reality--are not naïve enough to ask that the very heart of truth be magically violated so you may _accept_ truth? The evidence is--_within you_. I never said more. Find it there, man!" "I thought so," the doctor replied in a cold voice. Chris spoke persuasively. "_You_ could work a miracle of transformation within _yourself_. But--even if I should suspend the very forces upon which that possibility depends--you would exert the last resource of your ingenuity to find out by what mechanical trick I achieved your illusion, as you'd call it! Prove, doctor, that you would not!" "Let's see the experiment." Sopho's eyes were hard. The stranger thought a moment and presently chuckled to himself. "The unsolved riddle of the _cause_--the _source_--the nature--of the energy in your atoms, doctor! Would you like to understand that next step in your science?" "Impossible!" Chris looked ardently at the old man. A moment later, the scientist's eyes shut. An expression of immense concentration came upon his features. Perspiration welled and trickled on his countenance--as on the colonel's. Suddenly his eyes opened again. He grabbed the colonel's arm. "Great God, man! I've cracked the toughest problem in physics! The thing just came to me this moment! Why! With this equation--we'll be able to make bombs that will assure American domination for a century! I'll win my second Nobel Prize! Every nuclear physicist's head will swim with envy! The financial possibilities--billions!--trillions! I'll just get it on paper--!" He broke off. "Wasn't there--somebody else--standing here?" he said perplexedly. "Never mind! Lend me a pencil, Learned!" "Somebody else?" The colonel shook his head. "Nobody but the three of us. And the gunners. Jesus, I wish this mission was ended! I've been having a terrible struggle in my conscience about it!" Learned said, "Have you? Me--too. I kind of hate humanity today. I kept wishing--something would break down, and stop the whole thing. I get a choked-up feeling when I think of those people." The scientist was crouching, now--gazing at the streaming gray desolation beyond the windows. "Funny," he said to the gunner at his side. "A minute ago--I was sure I'd got a new insight into a very complex problem. Now--I can't even remember my approach." The gunner, who held palaver of the brass and all VIPs to be but one more nuisance of war, said, "Yeah?" The B-29 flew on toward its as yet unspecified destination. The City of Horror and Shame.