"No notes or data have ever been written down. The knowledge exists only in my own brain. You are the first person other than myself ever to see the inside of this room. This apparatus will be unrecognizable before it is boxed, and I shall do the packing myself. Why? Are you by any chance apprehensive that I may slip up?"
"Well, we can't be too sure." The fat man's blue eyes were now neither genial nor good-natured; they were piercing and cold. "In this game anybody who permits any leaks dies. And anyone who knows too much dies. We don't want you to die, at least until after we get started on Deka—"
"Nor then," the scientist interrupted cynically, "if you know when you're well off. I'm the only man in the universe who can run the apparatus. It would take a mighty good man three years to learn it after I get it going. Remember that, my friend."
"So what?" Graves' stare was coldly level.
"Just so you won't develop any funny ideas. I know as well as you do, however, about leaks and leakers. I don't leak. How long will it take you to get ready—three months?"
"Um—just about. And you?"
"Any time."
"Make it three months, then."
"Three months it is—on Deka." The interview was ended.