y caught a glimpse of mocking humor in the pale blue eyes.
He was lean and rather tall, with white hair that still showed traces
of blond, and he looked as Scandinavian as his name sounded. His
accent was pure Minnesota American.

As he climbed out of the jeep, Sorensen brought with him the Black
Suitcase.

Ever since he had first seen it, Thorn had thought of it as "the Black
Suitcase," and after he had seen some of the preliminary tests, he had
subconsciously put capitals to the words. But Richard Thorn was no
fool. Too many men had been suckered before, and he, Richard Thorn,
did not intend to be another sucker, no matter how impressed he might
be by the performance of an invention.

If this was a con game, it was going to have to be a good one to get
by Richard Thorn, Ph.D.

He walked across the few feet of hard, salt-white ground that
separated him from Sorensen standing beside the second jeep with the
Black Suitcase in his hand. It was obvious to anyone who watched the
way Sorensen handled the thing that it was heavy--seventy-five pounds
or better.

"Need any help?" Thorn asked, knowing what the answer would be.

"Nope," Sorensen said. "I can handle it."

The suitcase wasn't really black. It was a dark cordovan brown, made
even darker by long usage, which had added oily stains to the
well-used leather. But Thorn thought of it as the Black Suitcase
simply because it was the perfect example of the proverbial Little
Black Box--the box that Did Things. As a test question in an
examination, the Little Black Box performs a useful function. The
examiner draws a symbolic electronic circuit. Somewhere in the
circuit, instead of drawing the component that is supposed to be
there, he draws a Little Black Box. Then he defines the wave-form,
voltage, and amperage entering the circuit and defines whatever is
coming out. Question: What is in the Little Black Box?

Except in the simplest of cases, there is never an absolute answer.
The question is counted as correct if the student puts into the Little
Black Box a component or subcircuit which will produce the effect
desired. The value of the answer depends on the simplicity and
relative controllability of the component drawn in the place of the
Little Black Box.

Sorensen's Black Suitcase was still a problem to Thorn. He couldn't
quite figure out what was in it.

"Hotter'n Billy Blue Blazes!" Sorensen said as he put the Black
Suitcase down on the gleaming white grou