"Maybe this isn't something!"
"It has energy, energy has mass, mass cannot travel faster than the limiting speed of light."
"O.K. It can't do it. But unless my measurements are all haywire, the beam gets to Sol and back at C². I can prove it."
"Yeah? How? You couldn't possibly measure an interval so small as two times sixty-seven million miles—the radius of Venus' orbit—traversed at the speed of light, squared."
"No. I admit that. But, Don, I got power out of Sirius!"
"You WHAT?" yelled Channing.
"Got power out of Sirius. And unless I've forgotten how to use a micro-clock, it figured out from here to Sirius and back with the bacon in just about ninety-three percent of the speed of light squared. Seven percent is well within the experimental error, I think, since we think of Sirius as being eight and one-half light years away. That's probably not too accurate as a matter of fact, but it's the figure I used. But here we are. Power from Sirius at C². Thirty-five billion miles per second! This stuff doesn't care how many laws it breaks!"
"Hm-m-m. C², hey? Oh, lovely. Look, Walt, let's run up and take a whirl at Wes Farrell's detector. I'm beginning to envision person-to-person, ship-to-ship service, and possibly the first Interplanet Network. Imagine hearing a play-by-play account of the Solar Series!"
"Wool gathering," snorted Walt. "We've gotta catch our detector first!"
"Wes has something. First glimmer we've had. I think this is the time to rush into it with all eight feet and start pushing!"