The Man Who Ploughed The Sea

The adventures of Harry Purvis have a kind of mad logic that makes them convincing by their very improb­ability. As his complicated but neatly dove-tailed stories emerge, one becomes lost in a sort of baffled wonder. Surely, you say to yourself, no-one would have the nerve to make that up*—such absurdities only occur in real life, not in fiction. And so criticism is disarmed, or at any rate discomfitted, until Drew shouts “Time, gentlemen, pleeze!” and throws us all out into the cold hard world.

Consider, for example, the unlikely chain of events! which involved Harry in the following adventure. If he’d wanted to invent the whole thing, surely he could have managed it a lot more simply. There was not the slightest need, from the artistic point of view, to have started at Boston to make an appointment off the coast of Flor­ida. . . .

Harry seems to have spent a good deal of time in the United States, and to have quite as many friends there as he has in England. Sometimes he brings them to the “White Hart,” and sometimes they leave again under their own power. Often, however, they succumb to the illusion that beer which is tepid is also innocuous. (I am being unjust to Drew: his beer is not tepid. And if you insist, he will give you, for no extra charge, a piece of ice every bit as large as a postage-stamp.)

This particular saga of Harry’s began, as I have indicated, at Boston, Mass. He was staying as a house-guest j of a successful New England lawyer when one morning his host said, in the casual way Americans have: “Let’s go down to my place in Florida. I want to get some sun.”

“Fine,” said Harry, who’d never been to Florida Thirty minutes later, to his considerable surprise, he found himself moving south in a red Jaguar saloon at a formidable speed.

The drive in itself was an epic worthy of a complete! story. From Boston to Miami is a little matter of 1,568 is—a figure which, according to Harry, is now en­graved on his heart. They covered the distance in 30 hours, frequently to the sound of ever-receding police sirens as frustrated squad-cars dwindled astern. From time to time considerations of tactics involved them in evasive manoeuvres and they had to shoot off into sec­ondary roads. The Jaguar’s radio tuned in to all the police frequencies, so they always had plenty of warning if an interception was being arranged. Once or twice they just managed to reach a state line in time, and Harry couldn’t help wondering what his host’s clients would have thought had they known the strength of the psychological urge which was obviously getting him away from them. He also wondered if he was going to see anything of Florida at all, or whether they would continue at this velocity down US 1 until they shot into the ocean at Key West.

They finally came to a halt sixty miles south of Miami, down on the Keys—that long, thin line of island hooked on to the lower end of Florida. The Jaguar angled sud­denly off the road and weaved a way through a rough track cut in the mangroves. The road ended in a wide clearing at the edge of the sea, complete with dock, 35 foot cabin cruiser, swimming pool, and modern ranch-type house. It was quite a nice little hide-away, and Harry estimated that it must have cost the best part of a hun­dred thousand dollars.

He didn’t see much of the place until the next day, as he collapsed straight into bed. After what seemed far too short a time, he was awakened by a sound like a boiler factory in action. He showered and dressed in slow mo­tion, and was reasonably back to normal by the time he had left his room. There seemed to be no one in the house, so he went outside to explore.

By this time he had learned not to be surprised at any­thing, so he barely raised his eyebrows when he found his host working down at the dock, straightening out the rudder on a tiny and obviously home-made submarine. The little craft was about twenty feet long, had a conning tower with large observation windows, and bore the name “Pompano” stenciled on her prow.

After some reflection, Harry decided that there was nothing really very unusual about all this. About five million visitors come to Florida every year, most of them determined to get on or into the sea. His host happened to be one of those fortunate enough to indulge in his hobby in a big way.

Harry looked at the “Pompano” for some time, and then a disturbing thought struck him. “George,” he said, “do you expect me to go down in that thing?”

“Why, sure,” answered George, giving a final bash at the rudder. “What are you worried about? I’ve taken her out lots of times—she’s safe as houses. We won’t be going deeper than twenty feet.”

“There are circumstances,” retorted Harry, “when I should find a mere six feet of water more than adequate. And didn’t I mention my claustrophobia? It always coma on badly at this time of year.”

“Nonsense!” said George. “You’ll forget all about that when we’re out on the reef.” He stood back and surveyed] his handiwork, then said with a sigh of satisfactions “Looks O.K. now. Let’s have some breakfast.”

During the next thirty minutes, Harry learned a good] deal about the “Pompano.” George had designed and! built her himself, and her powerful little Diesel could drive her at five knots when she was fully submerged Both crew and engine breathed through a snorkle tube] so there was no need to bother about electric motors and] an independent air supply. The length of the snorkle! limited dives to twenty-five feet, but in these shallow* waters this was no great handicap.

“I’ve put a lot of novel ideas into her,” said George enthusiastically. “Those windows, for instance—look at, their size. They’ll give you a perfect view, yet they’re] quite safe. I use the old Aqualung principle to keep the air-pressure hi the ‘Pompano’ exactly the same as the water-pressure outside, so there’s no strain on the hull| or the ports.”

“And what happens,” asked Harry, “if you get stuck on the bottom?”

“I open the door and get out, of course. There are a couple of spare Aqualungs in the cabin, as well as a life-raft with a waterproof radio, so that we can always yell for help if we get in trouble. Don’t worry—I’ve thought of everything.”

“Famous last words,” muttered Harry. But he decided that after the ride down from Boston he undoubtedly had a charmed life: the sea was probably a safer place than US 1 with George at the wheel.

He made himself thoroughly familiar with the escape arrangements before they set out, and was fairly happy when he saw how well designed and constructed the little craft appeared to be. The fact that a lawyer had pro­duced such a neat piece of marine engineering in his spare time was not in the least unusual. Harry had long ago dis­covered that a considerable number of Americans put quite as much effort into their hobbies as into their pro­fessions.

They chugged out of the little harbour, keeping to the marked channel until they were well clear of the coast. The sea was calm and as the shore receded the water became steadily more and more transparent. They were leaving behind the fog of pulverized coral which clouded the coastal waters, where the waves were incessantly tear­ing at the land. After thirty minutes they had come to the reef, visible below them as a kind of patchwork quilt above which multicolored fish pirouetted to and fro. George closed the hatches, opened the valve of the buoy­ancy tanks, and said gaily, “Here we go!”

The wrinkled silk veil lifted, crept past the window, distorting all vision for a moment—and then they were through, no longer aliens looking into the world of waters, but denizens of that world themselves. They were floating above a valley carpeted with white sand, and surrounded by low hills of coral. The valley itself was barren but the hills around it were alive with things that grew, things that crawled and things that swam. Fish as dazzling as neon signs wandered lazily among the animals that looked like trees. It seemed not only a breathtakingly lovely but also a peaceful world. There was no haste, no sign of the struggle for existence. Harry knew very well that this was an illusion, but during all the time they were submerged he never saw one fish attack another. He mentioned this to George, who commented: “Yes, that’s a funny thing about fish. They seem to have definite feeding times. You can see barracuda swimming around and if the dinner gong hasn’t gone the other fish won’t take any notice of them.”

A ray, looking like some fantastic black butterfly, flapped its way across the sand, balancing itself with its long, whiplike tail. The sensitive feelers of a crayfish waved cautiously from a crack in the coral; the exploring gestures reminded Harry of a soldier testing for snipers with his hat on a stick. There was so much life, of so many kinds, crammed in this single spot that it would take years of study to recognize it all.

The “Pompano” cruised very slowly along the valley, while George gave a running commentary.

“I used to do this sort of thing with the Aqualung,” he said, “but then I decided how nice it would be to sit in comfort and have an engine to push me around. Then I could stay out all day, take a meal along, use my cam­eras and not give a damn if a shark was sneaking up on me. There goes a tang—did you ever see such a brilliant blue in your life? Besides, I could show my friends around down here while still being able to talk to them. That’s one big handicap with ordinary diving gear—you’re deaf and dumb and have to talk hi signs. Look at those angel-fish—one day I’m going to fix up a net to catch some of them. See the way they vanish when they’re edge-on! An­other reason why I built the ‘Pompano’ was so that I could look for wrecks. There are hundreds in this area—, it’s an absolute graveyard. The ‘Santa Margarita’ is only about fifty miles from here, in Biscayne Bay. She went down in 1595 with seven million dollars of bullion aboard. And there’s a little matter of sixty-five million off Long Cay, where fourteen galleons sank hi 1715. The trouble is, of course, that most of these wrecks have been smashed :

up and overgrown with coral, so it wouldn’t do you a lot of good even if you did locate them. But it’s fun to try.”

By this time Harry had begun to appreciate his friend’s psychology. He could think of few better ways of escap­ing from a New England law practice. George was a re­pressed romantic—and not such a repressed one, either, now that he came to think of it.

They cruised along happily for a couple of hours, keep­ing in water that was never more than forty feet deep. Once they grounded on a dazzling stretch of broken coral, and took time off for liverwurst sandwiches and glasses of beer. “I drank some ginger beer down here once,” said George. “When I came up the gas inside me expanded and it was a very odd sort of feeling. Must try it with champagne some day.”

Harry was just wondering what to do with the empties when the “Pompano” seemed to go into eclipse as a dark shadow drifted overhead. Looking up through the ob­servation window, he saw that a ship was moving slowly past twenty feet above their heads. There was no danger of a collision, as they had pulled down their snort for just this reason and were subsisting for the moment on their capital as far as air was concerned. Harry had never seen a ship from underneath and began to add another novel experience to the many he had acquired today.

He was quite proud of the fact that, despite his ig­norance of matters nautical, he was just as quick as George at spotting what was wrong with the vessel sailing overhead. Instead of the normal shaft and screw, this ship had a long tunnel running the length of its keel. As it passed above them, the “Pompano” was rocked by the sudden rush of water.

“I’ll be damned!” said George, grabbing the controls. “That looks like some kind of jet propulsion system. It’s about time somebody tried one out. Let’s have a look.”

He pushed up the periscope, and discovered that the ship slowly cruising past them was the “Valency,” of New Orleans. “That’s a funny name,” he said. “What does it mean?”

“I would say,” answered Harry, “that it means the owner is a chemist—except for the fact that no chemist would ever make enough money to buy a ship like that.”

“I’m going to follow her,” decided George. “She’s only making five knots, and I’d like to see how that dingus works.”

He elevated the snort, got the diesel running, and started in pursuit. After a brief chase, the “Pompano” drew within fifty feet of the “Valency,” and Harry felt rather like a submarine commander about to launch a tor­pedo. They couldn’t miss from this distance.

In fact, they nearly made a direct hit. For the “Val­ency” suddenly slowed to a halt, and before George real­ized what had happened, he was alongside her. “No sig­nals!” he complained, without much logic. A minute later, it was clear that the manoeuvre was no accident. A lasso dropped neatly over the “Pompano’s” snorkle and they were efficiently gaffed. There was nothing to do but emerge, rather sheepishly, and make the best of it.

Fortunately, their captors were reasonable men and could recognize the truth when they heard it. Fifteen min­utes after coming aboard the “Valency,” George and Harry were sitting on the bridge while a uniformed stew­ard brought them highballs and they listened attentively to the theories of Dr. Gilbert Romano.

They were still both a little overawed at being hi Dr. Romano’s presence: it was rather like meeting a live Rockefeller or a reigning du Pont. The Doctor was a phenomenon virtually unknown hi Europe and unusual even hi the United States—the big scientist who had be­come a bigger business man. He was now hi his late sev­enties and had just been retired—after a considerable tussle—from the chairmanship of the vast chemical en­gineering firm he had founded.

It is rather amusing, Harry told us, to notice the subtle social distinctions which differences in wealth can produce even in the most democratic country. By Harry’s stand­ards, George was a very rich man: his income was around a hundred thousand dollars a year. But Dr. Romano was hi another price range altogether, and had to be treated accordingly with a kind of friendly respect which had nothing to do with obsequiousness. On his side, the Doc­tor was perfectly free and easy; there was nothing about him that gave any impression of wealth, if one ignored such trivia as hundred-and-fifty-foot ocean-going yachts.

The fact that George was on first-name terms with most of the Doctor’s business acquaintances helped to break the ice and to establish the purity of their motives. Harry spent a boring half hour while business deals rang­ing over half the United States were discussed hi terms of what Bill So-and-so did in Pittsburgh, who Joe Somebody Else ran into at the Bankers’ Club hi Houston, how Clyde Thingummy happened to be playing golf at Augusta while Ike was there. It was a glimpse of a mysterious world where immense power was wielded by men who all seemed to have gone to the same colleges, or who at any rate belonged to the same clubs. Harry soon became aware of the fact that George was not merely paying court to Dr. Romano because that was the polite thing to do. George was too shrewd a lawyer to miss this chance of building up some good-will, and appeared to have for­gotten all about the original purpose of their expedition.

Harry had to wait for a suitable gap in the conversa­tion before he could raise the subject which really inter­ested him. When it dawned on Dr. Romano that he was talking to another scientist, he promptly abandoned fi­nance and George was the one who was left out in the cold.

The thing that puzzled Harry was why a distinguished chemist should be interested in marine propulsion. Being a man of direct action, he challenged the Doctor on this point. For a moment the scientist appeared a little em­barrassed and Harry was about to apologize for his inquisitiveness—a feat that would have required real effort on his part. But before he could do this, Dr. Romano had excused himself and disappeared into the bridge.

He came back five minutes later with a rather satisfied expression, and continued as if nothing had happened.

“A very natural question, Mr. Purvis,” he chuckled. “I’d have asked it myself. But do you really expect me to tell you?”

“Er—it was just a vague sort of hope,” confessed Harry.

“Then I’m going to surprise you—surprise you twice, in fact. I’m going to answer you, and I’m going to show you that I’m not passionately interested in marine pro­pulsion. Those bulges on the bottom of my ship which you were inspecting with such great interest do contain the screws, but they also contain a good deal else as well.

“Let me give you,” continued Dr. Romano, now ob­viously warming up to his subject, “a few elementary sta­tistics about the ocean. We can see a lot of it from here— quite a few square miles. Did you know that every cubic mile of sea-water contains a hundred and fifty million tons of minerals.”

“Frankly, no,” said George. “It’s an impressive thought.”

“It’s impressed me for a long time,” said the Doctor. “Here we go grubbing about in the earth for our metals and chemicals, while every element that exists can be found in sea water. The ocean, in fact, is a kind of uni­versal mine which can never be exhausted. We may plunder the land, but we’ll never empty the sea.

“Men have already started to mine the sea, you know. Dow Chemicals have been taking out bromine for years: every cubic mile contains about three hundred thousand tons. More recently, we’ve started to do something about the five million tons of magnesium per cubic mile. B that sort of thing is merely a beginning.

“The great practical problem is that most of the elements present in sea-water are in such low concentrations. The first seven elements make up about 99 percent of t total, and it’s the remaining one percent that contains the useful metals except magnesium.

“All my life I’ve wondered how we could do something about this, and the answer came during the war. I don’ know if you’re familiar with the techniques used in atomic energy field to remove minute quantities of isotopes from solutions: some of those methods are still pre much under wraps.”

“Are you talking about ion-exchange resins?” hazard Harry.

“Well—something similar. My firm developed several of these techniques on A.E.C. contracts, and I realized at once that they would have wider applications. I put some of my bright young men to work and they have made what we call a “molecular sieve”. That’s a mighty descriptive expression: in its way, the thing is a sieve, and we can set it to select anything we like. It depends on very advanced wave-mechanical theories for its opera­tion, but what it actually does is absurdly simple. We can choose any component of sea-water we like, and get the sieve to take it out. With several units, working in series, we can take out one element after another. The efficiency’s quite high, and the power consumption negligible.”

“I know!” yelped George. “You’re extracting gold from sea-water!”

“Huh!” snorted Dr. Romano in tolerant disgust. “I’ve got better things to do with my time. Too much damn gold around, anyhow. I’m after the commercially useful metals—the ones our civilisation is going to be desperately short of in another couple of generations. And as a matter of fact, even with my sieve it wouldn’t be worth going after gold. There are only about fifty pounds of the stuff

every cubic mile,”

“What about uranium?” asked Harry. “Or is that scarier still?”

“I rather wish you hadn’t asked that question,” replied Dr. Romano with a cheerfulness that belied the remark. But since you can look it up in any library, there’s no in telling you that uranium’s two hundred times more common than gold. About seven tons in every cubic mile

a figure which is, shall we say, distinctly interesting. So why bother about gold?”

“Why indeed?” echoed George.

“To continue,” said Dr. Romano, duly continuing, ‘even with the molecular sieve, we’ve still got the problem ~ processing enormous volumes of sea-water. There are

number of ways one could tackle this: you could build giant pumping stations, for example. But I’ve always been keen on killing two birds with one stone, and the other day I did a little calculation that gave the most surprising result. I found that every time the ‘Queen Mary’ crosses the Atlantic, her screws chew up about a tenth of a cubic mile of water. Fifteen million tons of minerals, in other words. Or to take the case you indiscreetly mentioned-— almost a ton of uranium on every Atlantic crossing. Quite a thought, isn’t it?

“So it seemed to me that all we need do to create a very useful mobile extraction plant was to put the screws of any vessel inside a tube which would compel the slip-stream to pass through one of my sieves. Of course, there’s a certain loss of propulsive power, but our experimental unit works very well. We can’t go quite as fast as we did, but the further we cruise the more money we make from our mining operations. Don’t you think the shipping com­panies will find that very attractive? But of course that’s merely incidental. I look forward to the building of floating extraction plants that will cruise round and round in the ocean until they’ve filled their hoppers with anything you care to name. When that day comes, we’ll be able to stop tearing up the land and all our material shortages will be over. Everything goes back to the sea in the long run anyway, and once we’ve unlocked that treasure-chest, we’ll be all set for eternity.”

For a moment there was silence on deck, save for the faint clink of ice in the tumblers, while Dr. Romano’s guests contemplated this dazzling prospect. Then Harry was struck by a sudden thought.

“This is quite one of the most important inventions I’ve ever heard of,” he said. “That’s why I find it rather that you should have confided in us so fully. After all, we’re perfect strangers, and for all you know might be spying on you.”

The old scientist chortled gaily.

“Don’t worry about that, my boy,” he reassured Harry. “I’ve already been on to Washington and had my friends check up on you.”

Harry blinked for a minute, then realized how it had been done. He remembered Dr. Romano’s brief dis­appearance, and could picture what had happened. There would have been a radio call to Washington, some senator would have got on to the Embassy, the Ministry of Supply representative would have done his bit—and in five min­utes the Doctor would have got the answer he wanted. Yes, Americans were very efficient—those who could afford to be.

It was about this time that Harry became aware of the fact that they were no longer alone. A much larger and more impressive yacht than the “Valency” was heading to­wards them, and in a few minutes he was able to read the name “Sea Spray”. Such a name, he thought, was more appropriate to billowing sails than throbbing diesels, but there was no doubt that the “Spray” was a very pretty creature indeed. He could understand the looks of un­disguised covetousness that both George and Dr. Romano now plainly bore.

The sea was so calm that the two yachts were able to come alongside each other, and as soon as they had made contact a sunburned, energetic man in the late forties vaulted over on to the deck of the “Valency”. He strode up to Dr. Romano, shook his hand vigorously, said, “Well, you old rascal, what are you up to?” and then looked enquiringly at the rest of the company. The Doctor car­ried out the introductions: it seemed that they had been boarded by Professor Scott McKenzie, who’d been sailing his yacht down from Key Largo.

“Oh no!” cried Harry to himself. “This is too much! One millionaire scientist per day is all I can stand.”

But there was no getting away from it. True, McKenzie very seldom seen in the academic cloisters, but he was a genuine Professor none the less, holding the chair of geophysics at some Texas college. Ninety percent of his time, however, he spent working for the big oil com­panies and running a consulting firm of his own. It rather looked as if he had made his torsion balances and seismographs pay quite well for themselves. In fact, though he was a much younger man than Dr. Romano, he had even more money owing to being in a more rapidly expanding industry. Harry gathered that the peculiar tax laws of the Sovereign State of Texas also had something

do with it. ...

It seemed an unlikely coincidence that these two scien­tific tycoons should have met by chance, and Harry waited to see what skullduggery was afoot. For a while the con­versation was confined to generalities, but it was obvious that Professor McKenzie was extremely inquisitive about the Doctor’s other two guests. Not long after they had been introduced, he made some excuse to hop back to his own ship and Harry moaned inwardly. If the Em­bassy got two separate enquiries about him in the space of half an hour, they’d wonder what he’d been up to. It might even make the F.B.I, suspicious, and then how would he get those promised twenty-four pairs of nylons out of the country?

Harry found it quite fascinating to study the relation between the two scientists. They were like a couple of fighting cocks circling for position. Romano treated the younger man with a downright rudeness which, Harry suspected, concealed a grudging admiration. It was clear that Dr. Romano was an almost fanatical conservationist, and regarded the activities of McKenzie and his employers with the greatest disapproval. “You’re a gang of robbers,” he said once. “You’re seeing how quickly you can loot this planet of its resources, and you don’t give a damn about the next generation.”

“And what,” answered McKenzie, not very originally, “has the next generation ever done for us?”

The sparring continued for the best part of an hour, and much of what went on was completely over Harry’s head. He wondered why he and George were being allowed to sit in on all this, and after a while he began to appreci­ate Dr. Romano’s technique. He was an opportunist of genius: he was glad to keep them round, now that they had turned up, just to worry Professor McKenzie and to make him wonder what other deals were afoot.

He let the molecular sieve leak out bit by bit, as if it wasn’t really important and he was only mentioning it in passing. Professor McKenzie, however, latched on to it at once, and the more evasive Romano became, the more insistent was his adversary. It was obvious that he w; being deliberately coy, and that though Professor McKenzie knew this perfectly well, he couldn’t help playing the older scientist’s game.

Dr. Romano had been discussing the device in a pe­culiarly oblique fashion, as if it were a future project rather than an existing fact. He outlined its staggering possibilities, and explained how it would make all exist­ing forms of mining obsolete, besides removing forever the danger of world metal shortages.

“If it’s so good,” exclaimed McKenzie presently, “Why haven’t you made the thing?”

“What do you think I’m doing out here in the Gulf Stream?” retorted the Doctor. “Take a look at this.”

He opened a locker beneath the sonar set, and pulled out a small metal bar which he tossed to McKenzie. It looked like lead, and was obviously extremely heavy. The Professor hefted it in his hand and said at once: “Urani­um. Do you mean to say. . . .”

“Yes—every gram. And there’s plenty more where that came from.” He turned to Harry’s friend and said: “George—what about taking the Professor down in your submarine to have a look at the works? He won’t see much, but it’ll show him we’re in business.”

McKenzie was still so thoughtful that he took a little like a private submarine in his stride. He returned the surface fifteen minutes later, having seen just enough to whet his appetite.

“The first thing I want to know,” he said to Romano, “is why you’re showing this to me\ It’s about the biggest thing that ever happened—why isn’t your own firm han­dling it?”

Romano gave a little snort of disgust.

“You know I’ve had a row with the Board,” he said. “Anyway, that lot of old dead-beats couldn’t handle any-as big as this. I hate to admit it, but you Texas pi-are the boys for the job.”

“This is a private venture of yours?”

“Yes: the company knows nothing about it, and I’ve sunk half a million of my own money into it. It’s been a kind of hobby of mine. I felt someone had to undo the age that was going on, the rape of the continents by people like—”

“All right—we’ve heard that before. Yet you propose giving it to us?”

“Who said anything about giving?”

There was a pregnant silence. Then McKenzie said cau­tiously; “Of course, there’s no need to tell you that we”‘ be interested—very interested. If you’ll let us have the figures on efficiency, extraction rates, and all the other relevant statistics—no need to tell us the actual technical details if you don’t want to—then we’ll be able to talk business. I can’t really speak for my associates but I’m sure that they can raise enough cover to make any deal—*

“Scott,” said Romano—and his voice now held a note of tiredness that for the first time reflected his age—”I’m not interested in doing a deal with your partners. I haven’t time to haggle with the boys in the front room and their lawyers and their lawyers’ lawyers. Fifty years I’ve “ doing that sort of thing, and believe me, I’m tired, is my development. It was done with my money, and the equipment is in my ship. I want to do a personal de direct with you. You can handle it from then on.”

McKenzie blinked.

“I couldn’t swing anything as big as this,” he protested “Sure, I appreciate the offer, but if this does what you say, it’s worth billions. And I’m just a poor but honest mil­lionaire.”

“Money I’m no longer interested in. What would I with it at my time of life? No, Scott, there’s just one thing I want now—and I want it right away, this minute. Give me the ‘Sea Spray’, and you can have my process.

“You’re crazy! Why, even with inflation, you co build the ‘Spray’ for inside a million. And your process must be worth—”

“I’m not arguing, Scott. What you say is true, but I’d an old man in a hurry, and it would take me a year to get a ship like yours built. I’ve wanted her ever since you showed her to me back at Miami. My proposal ‘•&. that you take over the ‘Valency’, with all her lab equip-; ment and records. It will only take an hour to swap out personal effects—we’ve a lawyer here who can make it all legal. And then I’m heading out into the Caribbean, down through the islands, and across the Pacific.”

“You’ve got it all worked out?” said McKenzie in awed wonder.

“Yes. You can take it or leave it.”

“I never heard such a crazy deal in my life,” said McKenzie, somewhat petulantly. “Of course I’ll take it. I know a stubborn old mule when I see one.”

The next hour was one of frantic activity. Sweating crew-members rushed back and forth with suitcases and bundles, while Dr. Romano sat happily in the midst of the turmoil he had created, a blissful smile upon his wrinkled old face. George and Professor McKenzie went into a legal huddle, and emerged with a document which Romano signed with hardly a glance.,

Unexpected things began to emerge from the “Sea Spray”, such as a beautiful mutation mink and a beautiful non-mutation blonde.

“Hello, Sylvia,” said Dr. Romano politely. “I’m afraid find the quarters here a little more cramped. The Professor never mentioned you were aboard. Never mind

we won’t mention it either. Not actually in the contract, a gentleman’s agreement, shall we say? It would be such a pity to upset Mrs. McKenzie.”

“I don’t know what you mean!” pouted Sylvia, “Someone has to do all the Professor’s typing.”

“And you do it damn badly, my dear,” said McKenzie, assisting her over the rail with true Southern gallantry, couldn’t help admiring his composure in such an embarrassing situation—he was by no means sure that he would have managed as well. But he wished he had the opportunity to find out.

At last the chaos subsided, the stream of boxes and bundles subsided to a trickle. Dr. Romano shook hands with everybody, thanked George and Harry for their as­sistance, strode to the bridge of the “Sea Spray”, and ten minutes later, was half-way to the horizon. f Harry was wondering if it wasn’t about time for them to take their departure as well—they had never got round to explaining to Professor McKenzie what they were doing here in the first place—when the radio-telephone started calling. Dr. Romano was on the line.

“Forgotten his tooth-brush, I suppose,” said George.

It was not quite as trivial as that. Fortunately, the loud­speaker was switched on. Eavesdropping was practically forced upon them and required none of the effort that makes it so embarrassing to a gentleman.

“Look here, Scott,” said Dr. Romano, “I think I owe you some sort of explanation.”

“If you’ve gypped me, I’ll have you for every cent—”

“Oh, it’s not like that. But I did rather pressurize you,! though everything I said was perfectly true. Don’t get too; annoyed with me—you’ve got a bargain. It’ll be a long time, though, before it makes you any money, and you’ll j have to sink a few millions of your own into it first. You ‘ see, the efficiency has to be increased by about three or­ders of magnitude before it will be a commercial proposition: that bar of uranium cost me a couple of thou sand dollars. Now don’t blow your top—it can be done I’m certain of that. Dr. Kendall is the man to get: he all the basic work—hire him away from my people he ever much it costs you. You’re a stubborn cuss and know you’ll finish the job now it’s on your hands. That’s why I wanted you to have it. Poetic justice, too—you’ll be able to repay some of the damage you’ve done to land. Too bad it’ll make you a billionaire, but that can’t be helped.

“Wait a minute—don’t cut hi on me. I’d have finished the job myself if I had the time, but it’ll take at least thr more years. And the doctors say I’ve only got six months I wasn’t kidding when I said I was in a hurry. I’m gla I clinched the deal without having to tell you that, but believe me I’d have used it as a weapon if I had to. Just one thing more—when you do get the process working name it after me, will you? That’s all—it’s no use calling me back. I won’t answer—and I know you can’t cab me.”

Professor McKenzie didn’t turn a hair.

“I thought it was something like that,” he said to one in particular. Then he sat down, produced an elaborate pocket slide-rule, and became oblivious to the work He scarcely looked up when George and Harry, feeling very much outclassed, made their polite departure and silently snorkeled away.

“Like so many things that happen these days,” con­cluded Harry Purvis* “I still don’t know the final outcome of this meeting. I rather imagine that Professor McKenzie has run into some snags, or we’d have heard rumors about the process by now. But I’ve not the slightest doubt that sooner or later it’ll be perfected, so get ready to sell your mining shares. . . .

“As for Dr. Romano, he wasn’t kidding, though his doctors were a little out in their estimates. He lasted a full year, and I guess the ‘Sea Spray’ helped a lot. They buried him in mid-Pacific, and it’s just occurred to me that the old boy would have appreciated that. I told you what fanatical conservationist he was, and it’s a piquant thought even now some of his atoms may be going through his own molecular sieve. . . .

“I notice some incredulous looks, but it’s a fact. If you ok a tumbler of water, poured it into the ocean, mixed ell, then filled the glass from the sea, there’d still be some scores of molecules of water from the original sample in the tumbler. So—” he gave a gruesome little buckle—”it’s only a matter of tune before not only Dr. Romano, but all of us, make some contribution to the eve. And with that thought, gentlemen, I bid you all a pleasant good-night.”