Part 2

Tom set his breadboard on the foot of the bed and ran an extension cord to an electric outlet.

"What do you have there?" Crane asked.

"A way to give her strength," Tom answered.

The doctor leaned back on his heels. He looked at the instrument, which certainly did not impress him, and started to shake his head. Then he looked at Tom. The headshake turned into tightly clenched lips. "I am familiar with your reputation, Mr. Calhoun, but this--" The headshake came back.

"There was a first time for a hypodermic injection, a time when somebody first gave blood, a time when somebody took the first antibiotic," Tom said.

Dr. Crane hesitated. A struggle was going on within his mind. He moved to the bed and felt Ann's pulse. A thin trace of perspiration appeared on his forehead. "She's dying," he whispered. "Under any other circumstances, I would say no. But--Oh, hell, Mr. Calhoun, if you know a way to give her strength, go ahead."

Tom closed a switch. A soft hum came from the instrument. A cone that looked like a small transmitting antennae was mounted on the breadboard. Tom lined up the cone so that it pointed at Ann's body. He glanced at me. Sweat was visible on his face too. Without a word, I lit a cigarette and gave it to him. The sweat was very clear on his face now. Or was it tears?

"You knew all the time that Ann had no chance to get well?" I asked. "That's why you worked so hard, on this?"

"Yes," he answered. "It was a race against time. It still is." He turned his attention to his instruments.

I shut up. It got very still in that hospital room. In the corridor outside feet lisped on tip-toe as a nurse hurried on an errand of mercy. In the far distance a car hooted impatiently as somebody bucked for his place in the emergency receiving room. Dr. Crane stood without moving. His eyes went from Tom to the instrument, then on to Ann, then retraced their course. Tom closed another switch. A white radiation leaped from the cone. It touched Ann's body at the knees. Part of it seemed to dive through the bandages there and flow inward. The rest of it passed upward along the body, penetrating where it touched. It turned the bandages the color of old silver, well polished.

"What is that?" Dr. Crane asked. His voice was a taut whisper.

"The white light that you see is the visible component of invisible radiations," Tom answered. "It means my generator is not working properly. Otherwise, there would be nothing to see."

"Is this the bug you were worrying about?" I asked.

"Yes. I didn't have time to clean it up."

* * * * *

The doctor stepped forward and took Ann's wrist in his fingers. A startled expression appeared on his face. "Her pulse is getting stronger," he said.

"She is receiving energy, her whole body is being bathed in it," Tom said. "Seen from one viewpoint, energy is all that exists." His voice suddenly had the dry tones of a professor addressing a class in atomic physics. "Energy in motion at one rate of speed we call light. Energy whose motion has been slowed to a crawl, we call matter. The two are interchangeable. 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. His voice seemed to come from miles away.

"What is this something else?" the doctor asked.

"I call it _mind_," Tom answered. "It works with energy, directs it, and moulds it into a thousand different shapes and forms." His voice was soft with awe and reverence.

The doctor reached forward to check Ann's pulse. An exclamation of surprise came from his lips. He lifted her arm, then snapped on a light. His surprise grew greater. Snatching a pair of scissors, he cut swiftly through the bandages that swathed her arm.

"New flesh!" the doctor gasped. "Where there was only burned meat, now there is new flesh. And n--new skin!" A stutter appeared in the doctor's voice. A glaze came into his eyes. His chest heaved. "Medicine knows nothing like this." His voice was heavy with wonder.

"It knows something like this now," Tom said. "Remove the rest of the bandages."

The doctor's fingers shook as he applied the scissors. Her body was revealed. The burns had vanished. Instead there was the warm pink flesh of a child, built there by the energy flowing from the cone.

She stirred sleepily on the bed. "I have been having the most wonderful dream--that I have a new body."

Under heavy sedation, she knew nothing that had been going on. She thought she was having a dream. The three of us in that room knew how wonderful that dream really was.

Cool air breathed across my neck. I don't know how I knew what had happened but I knew. As I turned, my eyes confirmed my hunch. The door was open. Three men were coming through it. Long Jaw was in the lead.

I hit with all my strength. The protruding jaw was within range. My fist landed full on the button with a thud that I felt all the way through my body. Never in my life had I hit a man that I enjoyed hitting as much. Long Jaw went over backwards.

I found myself looking at guns in the hands of the two men who were following him. "Get your hands up!" the first one said. Since I had no choice, I obeyed. As my hands went up, the second man stepped forward and slugged me in the pit of the stomach. As I doubled up from the pain, he hit me in the jaw.

At that moment, I would cheerfully have destroyed both of them with my bare hands. All I could do was glare at them. As I fell back against the wall, I saw that Dr. Crane was looking at them. Judging from the expression on his face, I think he would gladly have used his best surgical knives to cut their hearts out, if he had had the chance. He started to move. A gun swung to cover him. "Just stand pat, doc," he was advised.

Tom, at the foot of Ann's bed, did not even look around. His attention was completely engrossed in his gadget.

"You can't get away with this," I said. "This man is working on a project that is vital to national defense. The FBI will hound you to Siberia." I was bluffing and I knew it. So did they.

* * * * *

Long Jaw got slowly to his feet. "Is that so?" he said. He moved toward Tom. "Come on. We want you--and your machine."

For the first time, Tom looked up. "I'll come with you in just a few minutes," he said, nodding toward Ann. "Her life is not quite out of danger yet."

"To hell with that," a new voice spoke from the doorway. "Get the machine--and the inventor."

I didn't have to turn to know that voice. Herker! He was standing in the doorway waving a bunch of papers.

"I always knew you had the makings of a crook," I said. "You at least, ought to have the sense to know that you can't get away with it."

"These men are in my employ." Herker waved his fingers toward the three. "I have a court order here empowering me to seize any and all company property in order to conserve the assets of the corporation." His face was very smug and self-assured. "It's all legal. There's nothing you can do about it."

I would have rocked back on my heels if the wall hadn't already been behind me. "What about Tom?" I finally managed to say. "Have you got a court order to seize him too, as a company asset?"

Herker fingered through his papers. "Yes," he said. "I have an order here empowering me to bring him before a lunacy commission."

For the first time, Tom looked up. "What you are really trying to say is that these men came to you and offered you more millions than you can count for my discovery and for the chance to force me to tell them how it works."

Herker acted as if somebody had slugged him in the throat. He gulped and tried to find words. "How--how did you know?"

"They approached me first," Tom answered. "I refused to talk to them."

"But why? There's millions in it!" In all his life, he had never been able to see anything more important than a dollar.

"Enough of this," Long Jaw said, taking command of the situation. "We want you and your invention."

He moved toward the bed, but Tom held up his hand. "There on the bed you see proof of what this invention can do in the way of saving life. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"Sure, sure," Long Jaw answered. "You'll be well taken care of. Just as soon as you demonstrate it to the big boys, your future will be safe."

"I'll demonstrate it now," Tom said.

He swung the cone so that the radiation from it would strike Long Jaw, then closed a switch.

A burst of blackness leaped from the cone. It struck Long Jaw. Instantly it seemed to flow over his body, engulfing him. I heard him scream, once, a sound that seemed to get farther and farther away.

Then the space he had occupied was empty.

Moving with the speed of light, the blackness leaped on to engulf the other two men. 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. Where did they go? What happened? Somebody tell me what happened!" His voice was rising.

"Perhaps your nerves are a little overstrained," Tom said, his voice very kind. "A mild sedative might help."

Without a word the doctor went from the room.

Tom switched off the light and moved to the edge of the bed. "Ann..." he whispered. "Ann..."

Even under sedation, she heard his voice. The smile that came over her face seemed to light the whole room.

I went outside and closed the door and stood guard over it. They had some things to talk about which didn't need my presence, or they would have some things to talk about as soon as Ann regained consciousness and found that her dream was true.

In time the world of tomorrow would have something to talk about too, a secret that some scientist of the long-gone time almost found, and hid in a painting in the hope that in some future day some unborn genius would discover his secret again, and perfect it, and give it to the world. Awe was in me, at the wonders of the world in which I lived, and gratitude, that such men as Tom Calhoun inhabited it.