blown up the evidence. They knew itwas a rocket, but they had to prove it. They had recordings of the radarpicture, of course, and they used that to show the shape andacceleration of the missile. They proved that he'd bought an oldobsolete Odin rocket from one of the small colleges in the Midwest--onethat the Army had sold them as a demonstration model for their rocketengineering classes. They proved that he had a small liquid air plantout there at his place in New Mexico. In other words, they proved thathe had the equipment to rebuild the rocket and the fuel to run it.
"Then they got a battery of high-powered physicists up on the stands toprove that nothing else but a rocket could have driven the thing thatway.
"Porter's attorney hammered at them in cross-examination, trying to getone of them to admit that it was possible that Porter had discovered anew principle of physics that could fly a missile without rockets, butthe Attorney General's prosecutor had coached them pretty well. They allsaid that unless there was evidence to the contrary, they could notadmit that there was such a principle.
"When the prosecutor presented his case to the jury, he really hadhimself a ball. I'll give you a transcript of the trial later; you'llhave to read it for yourself to get the real flavor of it. The gist ofit was that things had come to a pretty pass if a man could claim ascientific principle known only to himself as a defense against a crime.
"He gave one analogy I liked. He said, suppose that a man is foundspeeding in a car. The cops find him all alone, behind the wheel, whenthey chase him down. Then, in court, he admits that he was alone, andthat the car was speeding, but he insists that the car was steeringitself, and that he wasn't in control of the vehicle at all. And whatwas steering the car? Why, a new scientific principle, of course."
Elshawe burst out laughing. "Wow! No wonder the jury didn't stay outlong! I'm going to have to dig the recordings of the newscasts out ofthe files; I missed a real comedy while I was in Africa."
Winstein nodded. "We got pretty good coverage on it, but our worthycompetitor, whose name I will not have mentioned within these sacredhalls, got Beebee Vayne to run a commentary on it, and we got beat outon the meters."
"Vayne?" Elshawe was still grinning. "That's a new twist--getting acomedian to do a news report."
"I'll have to admit that my worthy competitor, whose name et cetera,does get an idea once in a while. But I don't want him beating us outagain. We're in on the ground floor this time, and I want to hog thewhole thing if I can."
"Sounds like a great idea, if we can swing it," Elshawe agreed. "Do youhave a new gimmick? You're not going to get a comedian to do it, areyou?"
"Heaven forbid! Even if it had been my own idea three years ago, Iwouldn't repeat it, and I certainly won't have it said that I copy mycompetitors. No, what I want you to do is go out there and find outwhat's going on. Get a full background on it. We'll figure out thepresentation angle when we get some idea of what he's going to do thistime." Winstein eased himself off the corner of Elshawe's desk andstood up. "By the way--"
"Yeah?"
"Play it straight when you go out there. You're a reporter, looking fornews; you haven't made any previous judgments."
Elshawe's pipe had gone out. He fired it up again with his desk lighter."I don't want to be," he said between puffs, "too cagey. If he's got ...any brains ... he'll know it's ... a phony act ... if I overdo it." Hesnapped off the lighter and looked at his employer through a cloud ofblue-gray smoke. "I mean, after all, he's on the records as being acrackpot. I'd be a pretty stupid reporter if I believed everything hesaid. If I don't act a little skeptical, he'll think I'm either ablockhead or a phony or both."
"Maybe," Winstein said doubtfully. "Still, some of these crackpots flyoff the handle if you doubt their word in the least bit."
"I'll tell you what I'll do," Elshawe said. "He used to live here in NewYork, didn't he?"
"Still does," Winstein said. "He has a two-floor apartment on CentralPark West. He just uses that New Mexico ranch of his for relaxation."
"He's not hurting for money, is he?" Elshawe asked at random. "Anyway,what I'll do is look up some of the people he knows and get an idea ofwhat kind of a bird he is. Then, when I get out there, I'll know morewhat kind of line to feed him."
"That sounds good. But whatever you do, play it on the soft side. Myconfidential informant tells me that the only reason we're getting thisinside info is because Malcom Porter is sore about the way ourcompetition treated him four years ago."
"Just who is this confidential informant, anyway, Ole?" Elshawe askedcuriously.
Winstein grinned widely. "It's supposed to be very confidential. I don'twant it to get any further than you."
"Sure not. Since when am I a blabbermouth? Who is it?"
"Malcom Porter."
* * * * *
Two days later, Terrence Elshawe was sitting in the front seat of a bigstation wagon, watching the scenery go by and listening to the drivertalk as the machine tooled its way out of Silver City, New Mexico, andheaded up into the Mogollon Mountains.
"Was a time, not too long back," the driver was saying, "when a mancouldn't get up into this part of the country 'thout a pack mule. Stillplaces y'can't, but the boss had t' have a road built up to the ranchso's he could bring in all that heavy equipment. Reckon one of thesedays the Mogollons 'll be so civilized and full a people that a fellamight as well live in New York."
Elshawe, who hadn't seen another human being for fifteen minutes, feltthat the predicted overcrowding was still some time off.
"'Course," the driver went on, "I reckon folks have t' live some place,but I never could see why human bein's are so all-fired determined tobunch theirselves up so thick together that they can't hardly move--likea bunch of sheep in a snowstorm. It don't make sense to me. Does it toyou, Mr. Skinner?"
That last was addressed to the other passenger, an elderly man who wassitting in the seat behind Elshawe.
"I guess it's pretty much a matter of taste, Bill," Mr. Skinner said ina soft voice.
"I reckon," Bill said, in a tone that implied that anyone whose tasteswere so bad that he wanted to live in the city was an object of pity whoprobably needed psychiatric treatment. He was silent for a moment, inobvious commiseration with his less fortunate fellows.
Elshawe took the opportunity to try to get a word in. The chunkyWesterner had picked him up at the airport, along with Mr. SamuelSkinner, who had come in on the same plane with Elshawe, and, afterintroducing himself as Bill Rodriguez, he had kept up a steady stream ofchatter ever since. Elshawe didn't feel he should take a chance onpassing up the sudden silence.
"By the way; has Mr. Porter applied to the Government for permission totest his ... uh ... his ship, yet?"
Bill Rodriguez didn't take his eyes off the winding road. "Well, now, Idon't rightly know, Mr. Elshawe. Y'see, I just work on the ranch upthere. I don't have a doggone thing to do with the lab'r'tory atall--'cept to keep the fence in good shape so's the stock don't get intothe lab'r'tory area. If Mr. Porter wants me to know somethin', he tellsme, an' if he don't, why, I don't reckon it's any a my business."
"I see," said Elshawe. _And that shuts_ me _up_, he thought to himself.He took out his pipe and began to fill it in silence.
"How's everything out in Los Angeles, Mr. Skinner?" Rodriguez asked thepassenger in back. "Haven't seen you in quite a spell."
Elshawe listened to the conversation between the two with half an earand smoked his pipe wordlessly.
He had spent the previous day getting all the information he could onMalcom Porter, and the information hadn't been dull by any means.
Porter had been born in New York in 1949, which made him just barelythirty-three. His father, Vanneman Porter, had been an oddball in hisown way, too. The Porters of New York didn't quite date back to the timeof Peter Stuyvesant, but they had been around long enough to acquire thefeeling that the twenty-four dollars that had been paid for ManhattanIsland had come out of the family exchequer. Just as the Vanderbiltslooked upon t
he Rockefellers as newcomers, so the Porters looked on theVanderbilts.
For generations, it had been tacitly conceded that a young Portergentleman had only three courses of action open to him when it came timefor him to choose his vocation in life. He could join the firm ofPorter & Sons on Wall Street, or he could join some other respectablebusiness or banking enterprise, or he could take up the Law.(Corporation law, of