Unger came at last. Dejected and pale with fear.
"Well," stormed Hohmann, "what is it?"
"I'm not certain other than its effect," said Unger shakily. "All paper is artificially radioactive, and it heats up when the radioelements approach the critical mass—"
"Get Hammond!" screamed the dictator.
The United Nations representative was brought. He came with a smile.
"What is this?" stormed Hohmann.
"Your own decision," replied the representative. "You should not have started the pile."
"Go on," gritted Hohmann.
Greg Hammond smiled. "Plutonium has a characteristics radiation that we do not quite understand," he explained. "However, this radiation will cause fission in certain types of medium-long lived radioelements. The range of the plutonium radiation is unknown, but it is great enough to bathe the entire country. You will find that most government offices are bulging with reams and reams of correspondence, many of which are over the critical mass. Nothing happens until someone turns on a plutonium-producing uranium pile, lets it run for a few hours, and the accumulation of plutonium starts. Right now, Hohmann, you have about four hours before most of your government offices go sky-high—from their own red tape." Greg Hammond smiled. "The United Nations only advises," he said. "And many millions of letters of advice arrived, all written on radioelemental paper. Had you taken that advice, the paper would have been innocuous inside of about thirty or forty years. You did not. Now you have lost completely, Hohmann, for the radiation from that paper when bombarded with the plutonium radiation, produces a whole string of secondary radioelements in your offices, in your desks, in your bodies, and in your air. The ash from burning is still hot, Hohmann, and the trucks that will carry the deadly paper will be as deadly. Your very country will be subject to slow fission if you start another uranium pile for several hundred years. I'd advise you to stop the one that is now running, Hohmann."
"I'll let the world go up with me," screamed the dictator.