Seconds later, the _Relay Girl_ hurtled through the sky three thousand miles to one side of the blast. The driven gases caught the _Girl_ and stove in the upper observation tower like an eggshell. The _Relay Girl_ strained at her girders, and sprung leaks all through the rigid ship, and after rescuing Don Channing and Walt Franks from the wreckage of the observation dome, the men spent their time welding cracks until the _Relay Girl_ landed. It was Walt who put his finger on the trouble. "That was period for Murdoch," he said. "But Don, the stooge still runs loose. We're going to be forced to take over Mark Kingman before we're a foot taller. He includes Terran Electric, you know. That's where Murdoch got his machine work done." "Without Murdoch, Kingman is fairly harmless," said Don, objecting. "We'll have no more trouble from him." "You're a sucker, Don. Kingman will still be after your scalp. You mark my words." "Well, what are you going to do about it?" "Nothing for the present. I've still got that date with Christine at Lincoln Head. Mind?" _Interlude:_ _Not all inventions and discoveries need be deadly. Yet if the matter is considered deeply enough, inventions and discoveries are, in a sense, deadly to something. The automobile sounded the knell of the blacksmith. Gutenberg stopped the widespread trade of the official scribes, who spent their working day writing books by hand._ _It is also quite safe to assume that inventors themselves seldom realize the effect their contributions will have upon the future. Did the Wright brothers ever stand upon that hill near Dayton, Ohio, where they flew box kites, and believe that within the span of a lifetime that hill would be surrounded on all sides by the solid acres of land that now bears their name: Wright Field? Did James Clerk Maxwell, in postulating his Electromagnetic Equations, ever conceive of the massive industry that was to grow around the art of radio transmission? Did Thomas Alva Edison contemplate Times Square when he was seeking a more efficient means of illumination?_ _Yes, inventions are all deadly in one sense or another. They are openly considered so when their effect kills human beings. Few inventions are conceived with the intent of producing murder, the atomic bomb notwithstanding._ _THAT little fiendish device was the accumulation of knowledges and sciences gathered by men who were seeking knowledge for the sake of knowledge and it was not until the need arose and the facts became clear that the idea of Atomic Power for Military Purposes became fact._ _Similarly, Walt Franks didn't really know what he was starting when he began to think about the next big project for Venus Equilateral._ _You see, by reasoning, Walt assumed that if men could send intelligence and energy by beam transmission, there was no reason why men couldn't send--THINGS._ SPECIAL DELIVERY