at," he said.

"No, indeed. Certainly not." Allison gestured in playful salute. "Let me
congratulate you upon a fine flight of imagination, Professor Simec."

"Thank you--but it isn't imagination, Doctor Allison." The man's voice
had again become flat and unemotional, with the effect of withdrawal of
personality. "I have reason to think I have perfected some such
device.... At least I believe I now possess the means of destroying
human life on a wholesale scale. There is yet more to do before we may
successfully assail inorganic matter. The waves penetrate but do not as
yet destroy, so that while we should easily bring dissolution to human
beings we cannot yet disintegrate the walls behind which they lurk.
That, however, is a detail--"

"Just like that, eh?" No one smiled at Jerry Dane's comment. Bates
leaned forward.

"Where do Colcord and I come in?"

Simec, who had resumed his seat, turned to him.

"Of course--I beg your pardon. I should have explained at the outset
that the discovery has never had adequate practical test. One of my
assistants lost his life a month or so ago, to be sure; an extremely
promising man. The incident was of value in demonstrating practically a
theoretical deadliness; unfortunately, it proved also that the power
energized ether waves in all directions, whereas obviously it should be
within the power of the operator to send it only in a given direction."

"Otherwise," remarked Latham, "it would be as fatal to the side using it
as to the army against whom it was directed."

"Precisely." Simec lifted his wine-glass and sipped slowly. "For a
time," he went on, "this drawback seemed insuperable, just as it has
been in wireless telegraphy. Within the past week, however, I am
convinced that a solution of that difficulty has been reached. In theory
and in tests on a minor scale it certainly has. My assistants, however,
refuse to serve in the demonstrations at full power--which, of course,
are vitally necessary--even though I engage to share a part, but not, of
course, the major part, of the risk. I have been equally unfortunate in
enlisting others, to whom, naturally, I was in duty bound to designate
possible--in fact, extremely probable--dangers."

"In more precise words," snapped Bates, "if your invention is what you
think it is your assistants are bound to die."

Simec hesitated a moment, his gleaming brow wrinkled thoughtfully.

"Well, not precisely," he said at length. "That is, no