“We can stop a bomb,” Hamilton told her quietly. “We’ve got to stop any effort to put clamps on SPR through UN channels. I’m not even sure how Ian would stand on such a move if your boyfriend’s invention looks too good. But that’s my job. You concentrate on keeping Ryan in hand. You didn’t do too well at the lunch table.” “He’s not my boyfriend!” was Miss Alderman’s hot retort--a trifle too heated, Hamilton thought. He replied with his most irritating chuckle. IV As the tests were set up, Hamilton, Sven Ryan and Ian Harris remained at the near transmitter-post, while Forsythe and Miss Alderman journeyed by jet-sled across a kilometer of concrete to the far terminus, with Jack Witherspoon doing the honors as operator at the terminus post. The transmitter, looking somewhat like an old-fashioned circular heater, or primitive radar receptor, was enclosed in a heated dome-hut. With the complex machinery that surrounded it, it rose more than two meters high. Ian Harris, regarding it with a dubious gleam in his eye, remarked, “It looks rather like an upended warming pan, doesn’t it?” Hamilton ignored the remark. “As I get it, Sven, the principle involved is that of atomic transmutation--right?” he asked, prowling about the machine as the inventor set about preparing it for the test with quiet efficiency. “That’s the basic idea,” Ryan replied. “Actually, it breaks down the cargo into its atomic components, and transmits it over the beam to the terminus, where it is reassembled. The whole process of breakdown, like the reassembly, must take place in one-thousandth of a second--or we’d come up with apple tapioca or something. You should see some of the messes we’ve had. And--” he added with a glance at Hamilton, “I don’t mean the mice.” “Int’resting,” said Ian Harris, stroking his mustache. “Any chance of an explosion if the timing’s off?” Ryan shook his copper head. “Not a chance,” he replied firmly. “There’s nothing to trigger a critical mass--and besides, there’s no critical mass to trigger. If there were--” He paused significantly. “If there were we’d have been blown to bits, along with a large chunk of Antarctica, months ago. Some of our timing was so far off it was pitiful.” Hamilton said, “What about while your beam is operating. Any time limit on that?” “None that we know of,” was the reply. “Once she’s in beam transmission, she’s static. It’s the breakdown and reassembly stages where every millisecond counts.” He flipped a switch, and a large visiscreen showed Jack Witherspoon preparing a duplicate of the transmitter, with Miss Alderman and hulking Charley Forsythe hovering in the background. “Ready, Jack?” the inventor asked. “In a minute,” was the reply. “What are you sending us?” Sven looked at Ian Harris. “Willing to risk your watch?” he asked. “Park will replace it if anything goes wrong.” “You can send a watch without hurting it?” the UN liaison man asked.