"My worthy and no doubt learned opponent, I'd advise you to keep your magnificent oratory buttoned tight in those flapping front teeth of yours. If we all get into that gadget--how would you like to fight ten or twelve of us?" _Interlude:_ _Don Channing turned from the court and made his way through the room to the hallway. In his hand he bore one of the judge's watch-replicas. In his mind he had the world by the tail._ _He was going to leave the court, make his way to Venus Equilateral and launch a new era._ _He didn't know that he had launched one already._ PANDORA'S MILLIONS _"A lot has been written about mankind starving amid plenty. But never before was a civilization confronted with the prospect of luxury amid bankruptcy--"_ Keg Johnson was the executive type. He was the chief executive of Interplanet Transport, a position of no mean height. Keg had become the chief executive by sheer guts, excellent judgment, and the ability to gamble and win. Like any high executive in a culture based on a technical background, Keg was well aware of science. He was no master of the scientific method nor of laboratory technique. He was able to understand most of the long-haired concepts if they were presented in words of less than nine syllables, and he was more than anxious to make use of any scientific discovery that came from the laboratory. He knew that the laboratory paid off in the long run. Keg Johnson was strictly a good business man. He played a good game and usually won because he could size up any situation at a glance and prepare his next move while his opponent was finishing his preparatory speech. So when Keg Johnson met Don Channing in the hallway of the courtroom in Buffalo, he was dangling an exact replica of the judge's watch--a timepiece no longer a rare collector's item. He waved the watch before Channing's face. "Brother," he said with a worried smile, "what have you done!" "We won," said Channing cheerfully. "You've lost!" said Keg. "Lost?" Keg's eyes followed the Terran Electric's lawyer, Mark Kingman, as he left the courtroom. "He's been trying to put you out of business for a couple of years, Don, without any success. But you just put your own self out of comish. Venus Equilateral is done for, Channing." "Meaning?" asked Don, lowering his eyebrows. "Seems to me that you're the one that should worry. As I said, we'll give you your opportunity to buy in." "Interplanet Transport is finished," agreed Johnson. He did not seem overly worried about the prospect of tossing a triplanetary corporation into the furnace. "So is Venus Equilateral." "Do go on," snapped Don. "It seems to me that we've just begun. We can take over the job of shipping on the beams. The matter-transmitter will take anything but life, so far. Pick it up here, shove it down the communications beams and get it over there. Just like that."