Graham had been graduated from one of the large technical colleges during the early nineties. Morely noted that it was one of those schools which had been later closed as a result of one of the post-war investigations.
The subject had been employed by Consolidated Electronics as a junior engineer, and had designed several improvements for Consolidated's products. There was a record of promotions and a few awards. He had held a few patents, which had been taken over by the Central Coördination Products Division during the post-war reorganization. He had also belonged to the now proscribed Society of Electronic Engineers, had contributed articles to that organization's journal, and had taken an active part in some of its chapter meetings.
During the war, he had worked on radio-controlled servos, doing acceptable work. When the professional and trade societies and other organizations were outlawed, he had promptly resigned from his society, and made the required declarations. But he had been reported as privately remarking that it was "a sad thing to see the last vestiges of personal freedom removed."
Morely pursed his lips. Not an unusual history, he decided. Of course, the man was completely ineligible for full citizenship—bad risk. He was barely qualified for second-class citizenship, his obvious ability being the only qualifying factor. Unlike many, he had no record of any effort to shirk duty, or do economic damage during the critical period. The district leader tossed the dossier aside and picked up the report on Graham's present activities.
There were a series of complex schematics, and several machine drawings which he shuffled to the back of his report. Those could be interpreted later, if necessary. He was interested in the description of function.
The device Graham was working on was described as a communicator which operated by direct mind-to-mind transfer. Morely sat up straighter, reading the paragraph over again. Either this man was a true genius, who had discovered a new principle, or he was completely a crackpot.
"Telepathy!"
Morely snorted and went over to the descriptions of the device, reading carefully. Finally, he read the comments of a senior engineer, who cautiously admitted that the circuits involved, though highly unconventional, were not of a type to cause spurious radiation, or to interfere with normal communication in any way.
The engineer also noted that it was possible that the device might be capable of radiation effects outside of the electromagnetic spectrum, and that the power device was capable of integration into standard equipment—in fact, might be well worth adoption. He carefully declined, however, to give any definite opinion without an actual model to run tests on. And he added the comment that the first model was as yet incomplete.
Morely tossed the last sheet to his desk and leaned forward, tapping idly on the dull-finished plastic. Finally, he touched his call button and waited till the clerk came in.