I watched. There were two bulky instruments, one of them a transmitter, the other a receiver. The current flow was seemingly directional. It was sent out from the transmitter and caught by the receiver. There was a meter on the transmitter to show how much current was being transmitted and another on the receiver to show how much was getting through. There was a red line on the dial of the meter at the transmitter. The purpose of the set-up was obviously to demonstrate that current could be transmitted by radio. Marvak made a complete examination of the apparatus. He knew what he was doing, all right. You could tell from the way he went over the instruments that he knew his stuff. "I'm not interested in transmitting just a little power," Marvak said. "If this thing is to be useful, it must be able to send lots of kilowatts through the ether." "I think," Fradin answered wearily, "it will handle all the power you choose to put into it." That was the thing Marvak had to know, that the power transmitted would be adequate to keep a plane in the air. If only a little power was transmitted, the invention, from a practical viewpoint, was useless. No dictator would give a cent for it. Marvak handled the transmitter, Fradin tried to operate the receiver and to stanch the flow of blood from his shoulder at the same time. Marvak turned a switch, and the power transmitter began to throb under the load. Marvak consulted the meter on the transmitter, then ran across the room to the receiver and examined the meter there. "You've really got it!" he exulted. "There's enough power flowing through the receiver to keep a plane in the air." I was sick, sicker than I had ever been. Fradin's invention worked. And when it worked, it spelled our doom. We would be killed, because it worked. How many millions of others would also die, I could not begin to guess. "One plane is not enough," Marvak said. "It has to be strong enough to supply current to a fleet of planes." He started triumphantly back to the transmitter. "I--" Fradin faltered. He started to say something but changed his mind abruptly. Marvak kicked over the handle of the rheostat that fed current into the transmitter. The transformer groaned. I could see the hand of the meter on the transmitter. It was moving forward as more and more current flowed into that mysterious medium that transmits radio waves. The needle on the dial touched the red mark. Then--it happened. If I live to be a thousand years old I'll never be able to describe adequately what I saw happen, what I heard happen, what I felt happen. It had never happened before. Something that I can only describe as a lightning flash ran through the room. It was a sharp, tearing crash, similar to the sound you hear when a bolt of lightning hits near you. There was a flash of brilliant light. Thunder seemed to smash my ear drums.