"That bank of junk might be the means to his own frustration," grinned Tom. "Every time I look at it, I get a feeling of what can be done about it that is practical, and that may force him into existence and keep him there." "Well, good luck. And remember, I am just a sort of referee. One of you will become the stronger. One will succeed. I can hope for coalescence, but I doubt that it will take place. Lacking that, all I can hope for is that eventually you will become reintegrated and that the lesser personality will be frozen out." Tom Lionel returned home, thinking furiously. "May the best man win, huh?" * * * * * It was seven solid weeks by the calendar. Seven solid weeks of hard, backbreaking work during which everything went fine and dandy for Tom Lionel, Consulting Engineer. The balance of his debt was paid off when Americal Electric purchased the rights and royalties of the cyclotronic spectrograph. The equipment in Tom's laboratory had been kept in good shape, polished and even used occasionally. It was all connected for operation, and though the laboratory had changed from a spacious building into a place where aisles and areas abounded between banks of equipment, it did make an impressive sight. Even the transit came into use. And then at the end of the seventh week, Tom Lionel looked at his notebook and started to consider in all of its aspects the rather improbable phenomenon recorded there. He not only let it prey on his mind; he stopped hourly and invited his mind to consider the evidence. At first his mind rejected it on the basis that science was not equipped to consider it, and then as the evidence seemed definite and leading, his mind accepted the fact that this problem did exist and that it was a real and utterly baffling problem. Then his mind rejected it on the basis of impracticality. It would be nice--but. No known physical effect could possibly explain it in a satisfactory manner. Tom went to sleep. * * * * * And Thomas Lionel, Ph.D. M.M., awoke. His first consideration was the chessboard. It baffled him. He didn't really think that the engineer would capture his queen. It was too easy. Obviously, there was more to the set-up than appeared. For offering the trap of the double-check and subsequent loss of his queen, Thomas had opened the row blocked by the knight. That left him in the desirable position of capturing the engineer's rook, after which if the engineer was not more than careful in his counterattack, he would find himself staring a checkmate in the face. Either the engineer was blind to the trap, or he had a more complicated trap to spring once the physicist started to move in. He had time. He wanted to consider the whole thing. He was going to be darned sure that he was right before he moved.