"In any case, Son, there are lots of people lots madder than I am. There's a woman living next door, a spinster, answers to the name of Pimpernel. This morning she came running over crying that her vacuum-cleaner was chasing her all over the house. And by God, Semper, it was a fact. Never saw anything like it. One of those new-fangled automatic contraptions which are supposed to do the job all alone by themselves, and it banged around and chased about as if it had a hornet's nest under its bonnet. Scared the poor woman to death." "What did you do?" "What could I do? I'm not a mechanic; there was no cord attached or anything to plug out. So I got my automatic and shot the damn thing." "Shot it?" "Sure; bullet must have penetrated something; anyway it stopped dead on the spot. And now she threatens to sue me for damages; there's gratitude for you. What brought you here?" Lee felt elated; obviously his father was in high spirits from this morning's successful hunt; for once he was in a receptive _mood_. Rapidly, with all the precision he could muster, Lee explained, as an adjutant would explain a new development in a strategic situation to his commanding general. After a while the old man started pacing the floor in rising excitement. A spark of the old fierceness had come into his blunted pale-blue eyes as he swung around. "Before this morning's incident I would have considered all this as a raving maniac's gibberish. Now as I put two and two together I can see a distinct possibility that you've got something. Tell you what I'll do--what I consider my duty to do--I'll call out the National Guard. We'll encircle The Brain and present an ultimatum to the thing. If necessary we'll take the place by storm." The younger Lee answered with a vigorous shaking of his head. "You cannot do that, Father. In the first place the National Guard doesn't stand a chance against the defences of The Brain. In the second place your action would mean civil war. No, we must go after this in a different manner. The Secretary of War is an old friend of yours. All right: take the next plane to Washington. Don't tell him anything he couldn't believe. Tell him--what is strictly the truth--that some power hostile to the United States threatens to interfere with the remote control of automatic war equipment. Tell him to redouble guard over the remote-control rocket launchers, to have their automatic computators disconnected temporarily and for the commanders to accept only orders direct from Washington. The greatest danger is not the domestic disorders; that situation we'll have in hand if my scheme works. But let one rocket accidentally be launched into some big foreign capital and it will set the whole world on fire in an Atomic war. That is what The Brain wants, that is what must be prevented at all costs. Will you do that, Father?"