"I see," said Kingman. His present volubility would not have talked a jury into freeing the armless wonder from a pickpocketing charge. "Is your invention patentable?" "I think so. While certain phases of it are like the driver tube, which, of course, is public domain, the applications are quite patentable. I must admit that certain parts are of the power transmission tube, but not enough for you to claim a hold, I know. At any rate, I shall be busy for the next hour, transmitting the details to Washington, so that the Interplanetary Patent Office may rule on it. Our Terran legal department has a direct line there, you know, and they have been directed to maintain that contact at all cost." "May I use your lines?" "Certainly. They are public carriers. You will not be restricted any more than any other man. I am certain that our right to transmit company business without waiting for the usual turn will not be contested." "That sounds like a veiled threat." "That, sounds like slander!" "Oh no. Believe me. But wait, Dr. Channing. Is there no way in which we may meet on a common ground?" "I think so. We want free hand in this tube proposition." "For which rights you will turn over a nominal interest in solar power?" "Forty percent." "But we--" "I know, you want control." "We'd like it." "Sorry. Those are our terms. Take 'em or leave 'em." "Supposing that we offer you full and unrestricted rights to any or all developments you or we make on the Martian transmission tubes?" "That might be better to our liking." "We might buck you," said Kingman, but there was doubt in his voice. "Yes? You know, Kingman, I'm not too sure that Venus Equilateral wants to play around with power except as a maintenance angle. What if we toss the solar beam to the public domain? That is within our right, too." Kingman's green color returned, this time accompanied with beads of sweat. He turned to Farrell. "Is there nothing we can do? Is this patentable?" "No--Yes," grinned Farrell. Kingman excused himself. He went to the office provided for him and began to send messages to the Terran Electric offices at Chicago. The forty minute wait between message and answer was torture to him, but it was explained to him that light and radio crossed space at one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second and that even an Act of Congress could do nothing to hurry it. Meanwhile, Channing's description tied up the Terran Beam for almost an hour at the standard rate of twelve hundred words per minute. Their answers came within a few minutes of one another. Channing tossed the 'gram before Kingman. "Idea definitely patentable," said the wire.