Robert Moore Williams

“ All day long and as far into the night as he wanted her, Ann was always in the lab with him, slipping away to steal a few hours of badly needed sleep so that she could return to work bright-eyed and eager the next morning. She was head over heels in love with Tom, and had been since the first day she came to work. So far as I had been able to see, he had never even discovered that she was a woman. A competent research worker, a thorough technician with a keen brain, yes; but a woman, no. He had not noticed that.
"Tom, I didn't want to interrupt, but I just met Herker outside—"
He looked up. ”

“ His feet kicked gravel as he stalked across the drive to his own car. The door slammed. The rear wheels spun as he jammed the accelerator to the floorboard. I headed into the lab.
Tom and Ann were there. Their heads close together, they were so deeply engrossed in the papers spread all over the big lab table that they did not hear me enter. How many times had I come in and found them like this, deep in some problem? The sight always made me feel good. Here were two people who were doing their dead-level best to solve some of the problems that confront the human race. ”

“ Watch it, Luke!" Ned's voice grew tight with alarm.
I turned. Long Jaw wasn't coming toward me. He was heading out the front door and he was in a hurry. I could have shot him, and perhaps I should have smoked him, but I hate to shoot a running man. I followed him outside just in time to see him jump into a car and roar away.
Perhaps I should have gone back into the saloon and kicked the truth out of the third man, but all I could think of at that moment was that Tom had to know about this. ”

“ Even the human body, with all of its marvelous glands, its nervous system, and its wonderful brain, falls into the last category. If we could see our bodies as they actually exist, we would be aware of an infinite number of dancing points of light, the infinitesimally minute particles of energy that compose it." He paused. The doctor stood absolutely motionless. "So there is energy—and something else." Tom continued. ”

“ Yelling at Ned to take care of the third man, I jumped into my own car and burned rubber getting out to the edge of town where the lab was located. A car was parked in the driveway and a man was coming out the door. Picking up Long Jaw's gun from the seat beside me, I braked to a stop.
"Who are you and what the hell—" I got this far before I recognized him. Samuel Herker, president of the company that had been organized to develop Tom's inventions commercially. He had gotten rich off of Tom's discoveries, but his main ambition in life was to get richer. "Sorry, Mr. Herker," I called out. ”

“ He had me on his payroll for two reasons, the first being that I was the best friend he ever had, with the possible exception of Ann Briscoe, his laboratory assistant, the second reason being that he knew he could trust me right down to his last chip. Sometimes it gets important to have one guy you can really trust. My job was to shoo away all curiosity seekers, who would invade his lab by the scores just to get a glimpse of the great scientist, thus making certain that Tom got all the privacy he wanted, which was about all there was of this article. ”

“ They went as Long Jaw had gone, into the blackness, swallowed up in an instant.
Herker dropped the papers. The black light hit him. He screamed and was gone into the darkness, gone instantly, gone forever.
The wall behind started to vanish as Tom cut the switch.
"The energy that heals can also destroy," Tom said. He turned the cone back to Ann and changed the switch again. Again the white light flowed out. I stepped forward and picked up the papers. The doctor, who had stood rooted to the floor, roused himself with a jerk. "I swear I saw four men come in here. ”

“ There was a flurry of nurses in Tom's room when I arrived. In addition, there were two big orderlies of the type and size who are used when patients become obstinate. As soon as I entered the room, the orderlies measured me for size. I repaid the compliment and thought what a good time we were going to have. Tom, wearing a hospital nightgown and a dressing robe, his face almost covered with bandages, was on his feet. Dr. Crane, looking very serious, was present.
"Here's the man to drive me home," Tom said. "Bring me my bill." ”

“ The doctor in the emergency receiving room of the hospital didn't waste any time on diagnosis. He took one look at the man I was carrying and a second look at the woman leaning on my arm, and went to work. He had Tom and Ann in separate rooms, with plasma and oxygen flowing into them, within minutes, and before I knew what was happening a nurse had thrown me out. I paced up and down the corridor for the two hours before I was able to get hold of Dr. Crane again.
"The woman has third degree burns," he told me when I cornered him. "The man has only first degree. ”

“ His voice grated like a dull file being drawn across tough metal. "Either this criminal expenditure of company funds comes to a stop or I'm going into court and ask for the appointment of a referee to conserve the assets of the company, then I'm going to ask for a lunacy hearing to determine if Calhoun is mentally fit to order equipment on company credit without my prior authorization!" ”

“ From the drug store, I called the hospital. "Miss Briscoe is very low," Dr. Crane told me. "How is my other patient?"
"Alive," I answered. Returning to the lab with the benezedrine tablets, I didn't tell him about Ann. I spent the morning throwing out Herker and more inspectors from the insurance companies. I didn't want any of Long Jaw's pals to slip in under the pretense that they were insurance adjustors.
In the late afternoon Tom yelled, "I've got it, Luke. Here! Get these items for me." Hastily scribbling what he wanted, he handed the slip of paper to me. "Burn up the road, Luke. Move!" ”

“ Long Jaw didn't look like a commie, though in my experiences these birds never look like what they are but always like something else. The thing that makes them commies is inside, where it can't be seen, never outside. ”

“ Since the lab was outside the city limits, we had a bona-fide sheriff. He was willing and honest and he promised to do everything he could to locate the thieves but both of us knew that this was locking the stable after the horse had been stolen. When I finished with the insurance people and reached my room, the phone was ringing. "To hell with it." I thought. Fatigue was on me in layers. The phone kept right on ringing. Prepared to blister the guy on the other end, I jerked it off the cradle. Tom's voice came over the wire. ”

“ I demanded.
"Ann worked hard helping me solve the secret of the painting," he answered. "She deserves to see its first performance. Get yourself into over-drive, Luke."
At the hospital, a nurse took us directly to Ann's room. Lying on the bed, swathed in bandages, she was a mummy that did not move. Deep in sedation now, she did not know we were present. On the far side of her bed, whole blood was being dripped into her arm. Dr. Crane looked up from checking her pulse as we entered. "Everything we could do to give her strength has failed," he said.
"What about infection?" Tom asked. ”