Redmond believed in a swift attack.
Once the original greeting was over, he plunged in: "We spent some time trying to locate you as soon as it became evident that the energetic streak that went through the solar system produced the sort of radiation that we had been theorizing over," said Redmond. "Lacking Maculay, I was asked to open your secret file and see what could be made of it."
"You discovered the trouble, then?"
"Yes."
Cliff relaxed. He had been under a strain visible only to Hanson; the doctor nodded. When a man is in a mental tizzy because he's hit upon an insoluble dilemma, it makes no difference who solves it. The weight of strain went out of Maculay; the mental run-around that had kept him fighting to the exclusion of everything else was gone. The couple of months of rest had done wonders; now the final true release from strain added to it. Give Maculay another few months of absolute freedom from strain, and Cliff would be ready to take on the world with a hand tied behind him.
But Hanson knew there was trouble ahead, for, unless he were very incorrect, Redmond was bulling it through and—
"You've discovered the error?"
Redmond laughed. "Your equations showed that negative space cancelled real space."
"Yes. And I could figure no other way."
"This is true in limited cases," said Redmond. "The consensus of opinion is that the streak of energy was nothing more than the mutual destruction of a cylinder of space being cancelled by the passage of a spacecraft enveloped in a spherical field of negative space. Upon working with that theory in mind and applying other bits of true evidence gained from the readings and measurements of the streak, we have solved your dilemma."