“How’d you know?” Ryan asked. Then, before his chief could answer, “Lord, Park, it was almost worth it. But I was in no mood to trade shop talk with Ian Harris then. So I grabbed me an armful of girls and took off. The next thing I remember, Nancy--your girl Friday--was hauling me away from them. And the next thing I remember after that is waking up here with the same face before me. Park, is part of her job tormenting poor scientists out for a little ill-deserved fun?” Hamilton chuckled. Then he said, “Didn’t she tell you anything, Sven?” “She tried to,” was the reply, “but I shut her up. As it was my ears were ringing in three different keys. Why do you ask?” “Brace yourself, boy,” said Hamilton, deciding it was time to discuss some home truths with a youth who was showing every sign of rapid recovery. “We’re on our way to Antarctica. Did you know that?” “That I got,” said Ryan. “Are you planning to have me flayed alive or merely drawn and quartered?” “Hardly,” Hamilton assured him. “Though there are a couple of chaps up in the front cabin who might not be averse to such a plan. One of them is Charles Forsythe, the American Secretary for Science and Industry. The other is your old friend Ian Harris.” Ryan sat bolt upright on his cot, his clearing eyes wide with surprise. “Good God!” he exclaimed. “How come they’re in on this? Are they planning to participate in my courtmartial? I’m sorry, Park, if I’ve made things tough for you. But I don’t quite see what I did to--” “All you did,” Hamilton interrupted, “was to invent the first successful instantaneous matter-transmitter in history. In your preoccupation with discovering a way to send men to the stars it evidently didn’t occur to you that your little gadget, right here on Earth, can make every other means of transport from a mountain burro to the latest A-rocket obsolete overnight. And then you had to get drunk and spill it all over New York! Charlie Forsythe tried to put you under security lock and key for the United States.” Hamilton went on to explain exactly what had happened. How Nancy Alderman had plucked him to precarious safety, how Forsythe had attempted protective custody, how Harris had foiled Forsythe, and finally how Hamilton himself, after a prolonged and fruitless argument, had stepped in with a compromise suggestion. “You mean you want me to run off a test for these characters?” Ryan inquired with amazing perspicacity. “Exactly,” said Hamilton. “You can, can’t you?” “Sure,” was the prompt reply. “But it won’t prove anything. The ground-level projection range is only a couple of kilometers. Even with towers, it won’t transmit far enough to amount to anything. Who wants to haul heavy freight up to the top of a hundred-meter tower to move it a few more kilometers? Park, it just doesn’t make sense.” “How far did the first airplane fly?” Hamilton asked the inventor. “A hundred and thirty-seven feet, wasn’t it?”