He rather wished he had heeded their protests. The moment a man became involved in something so classified it required triple passes from the Army, Navy, and FBI he could say good-bye to freedom. He wondered how Keyes had become involved in such a circuitous business. Keyes had done monumental work on electromagnetic radiation.
And he wondered, too, what Kenneth Berkeley was doing here. It was way out of his field. Berk was a top psychologist in the mechanics of learning, and experimental training procedures.
It looked to Mart as if both of them were wasting their time in security clearance wrangles.
He was not particularly intrigued by the possible magnitude of the problem under consideration. A man sitting by a mountain stream under an open summer sky had the most ponderous problems of nature before him if he chose to consider them. None couched in hush-hush terms behind closed lab doors could have any greater import.
At last the door opened. Mart arose. Dr Keyes led the procession out of the room. All of the men were a little more strained in their expressions than when they went in, but Keyes took Mart's arm.
'It's all right. You have full clearance now. Your papers will be issued and ready when you come out. But let's get to the conference at once. We've kept the others waiting.'
As Mart stepped inside the conference room he caught his breath involuntarily. Besides the brilliant array of his colleagues in fields closely allied to his own, there was a display of gold-splashed uniforms of all military services. He had quick recognition of several lieutenant generals, vice admirals, and at least one member of the JCS.
Berk ushered him to a seat in the front row. He felt doubly guilty that these men had been kept waiting, although it was no direct fault of his.
At the front of the room a projection screen was unrolled on the wall. A sixteen mm. projector was set up near the rear. On a table on the far side a tarpaulin covered some kind of irregular object.
Keyes stepped to the front of the room and cleared his throat briefly.
'We will dispense with the formality of introducing each of you gentlemen. Many of you are acquainted, professionally or personally, and I trust that all will be before this project is many hours old.
'The top classification nature of the material we are about to discuss has been emphasized to you by the triple filter of security officers who have passed upon your admission to this room. That which is discussed here you will properly regard as worthy of protection with your own life, if such an extreme consideration should be forced upon you at some future time.'
The military members of the audience remained immobile, but Martin Nagle observed an uneasy shifting among his fellow scientists. All of them were to some degree uncomfortable in the presence of the military assumption that you could lock up the secrets of nature when they lay all about like shells upon the seashore.
But Keyes wasn't a military man. Mart felt his muscles become a little more rigid as the significance of this penetrated.
'Ten days ago,' said Keyes very slowly, 'we were approached by a young man, an inventor of sorts, who claimed to have produced a remarkable and revolutionary invention.
'His name was Leon Dunning. He had an unusual regard for his own abilities, and expected, apparently, that everyone else would have the same regard on sight. This trait led him to a rather unpleasant presentation of himself. He would talk with no one but the Director of the Office, and made such a nuisance that it became a question of seeing him or calling the police.
'His case was drawn to my attention, and I finally chose to see him. He had some rather startling claims. He claimed to have solved the problem of producing an anti-gravity machine.'
Martin Nagle felt a sudden sinking sensation within him — and an impulse to laugh. For this he had cancelled the kids' summer vacation! Maybe it wasn't too late to get back-
He glanced at his colleagues. Dykstra was bending over and rubbing his forehead to hide the smile that appeared on his lips. Lee and Norcross gave each other smiles of pitying indulgence. Berkeley, Mart noted, was almost the only scientist who did not move or smile. But, of course, Berk was a psychologist,
'I see that some of you gentlemen are amused,' continued Keyes. 'So was I. I wondered what was the best means of getting rid of this obnoxious crackpot who had forced his way into my office. Again, it was a question of listening until the ridiculousness of his claims became self-evident, or having him thrown out. I listened.
'I tried to draw him out regarding the theories upon which his device operated, but he refused to discuss this in detail. He insisted such discussion could be held only after a demonstration of his device.
