I followed him to the door, turning over in my mind visions of an old age spent in directing traffic. I got edged out in the genteel rush for the door and was last in to the adjoining room. There was a large table, well supplied with sheets of drawing-paper; on the other side a boy of about ten—it had not occurred to me before that he would be so young—was slumped forward, asleep.
Professor Norwood went forward and stood beside him. “Wake up,” he said. “Wake up, Rudolf.” The boy woke up, raising his head and looking with be-wilderment at the press of people on the other side of the table. But they were not interested in him. They crushed for-ward to the table and the white sheets of paper. The boy got up and walked away from the table unregarded. He came past me, and I felt in my pocket and found some sweets for him. Then I went forward to join the others.
There was a drawing there, all right. A good clear drawing. They were all looking at it, and not one of them had the faintest idea what it was.
Professor Norwood bent over the drawing for perhaps half a minute. He straightened up again.
“It will have to be worked on,” he said. “Of course, as I said, we could not expect to grasp the principle on sight. We’ll get our best people on it.”
The politician who had interrupted him in the other room said: “I wonder… It seems to me that this whole business may have been a waste of money. I’m not a scientist, but that drawing doesn’t look to me like the best weapon of 2064.” The professor began to protest. I said: “To me it does.”
They turned round to look at me. Even the sceptical politician smiled.
The professor said: “Surely, General, you don’t mean to tell us that you know what it is?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s the greatest weapon of the world of a hundred years from now.”
I began to draw on my gloves, because there was no point in remaining.