"We scientists," Chetzisky had said, "give man the means to aid the suffering, to conserve the strength of the toiler, to bring more comfort and leisure to all. But does man appreciate our work? No! He uses our every work to steal from his brother, to cheat, enslave, even to kill him." His eyes became glinting points as he spoke. His guttural tones grew indistinct as emotion choked him. He was a scientist of a rare order. Yet he was a humanist, too; the suffering he knew as a young Pole, son of tragically poor parents, made him that way. Chetzisky was savagely impatient of the stupidity of man, who built himself a hell instead of a paradise. Science, he felt, could find a way to put mankind on its best behaviour. "I see your point, Doctor," I had said. "But science has given the world a dose of the atom bomb and it hasn't started behaving." "Yes, I know. But there must be a way. An enforced goodness is better than none at all." He had fallen into a brooding silence, and I had left him to go to my berth. Next morning I had found Chetzisky still in the lounge car, wrapped in thought. * * * * * "Well, Arnold, what do you think?" asked Armstrong, breaking in on my recollections. "Frankly, Jim, I believe he could do it; he's that kind of man." "That makes two of us," said Armstrong, his fingers thrumming on the side of his chair. And after a while, "Only two of us." "You mean to say the government isn't going to make even a routine check?" "That's right, Arnold. The Korean affair has sidetracked everything else. Of course, they may be right; it may only be a hoax. But I have a hunch it isn't. That's why I came to you." "I have never known you to have a wrong hunch yet, Jim. I'll go along with you." "Thanks, Arnold." Armstrong lit up a cigarette and after the first long puff went on, "Have you any idea how Chetzisky could do it? You're a scientist; you should know." "Well, Jim, it's a fantastic possibility and it calls for some fantastic conjectures. Perhaps he's found a way to produce a chain reaction right down into the earth's core; perhaps he can produce a radioactive cloud of colossal proportions. Then again he may have a way of activating uranium, thorium, and radium deposits all over the world by ultra-high frequency radiations." "You don't think," said Armstrong, "that there might be atomic bombs cached in strategic places throughout the world, ready to be set off on a certain day by time mechanisms or confederates?" "Hardly. That would call for such widespread activity and the work of so many hands it couldn't escape detection. Besides, to achieve the annihilation Chetzisky promises would take thousands of bombs. Such production is beyond us as a nation, never mind an individual." Armstrong got up and walked restlessly about the room. "Arnold, I was only worried when I came here; now I'm terrified." "What do you plan doing, Jim?"