“Then, again, I expect enormous quantities of radioactive gas will be evolved; and probably one will breathe some of it into one’s lungs. The result of that will be rather worse than the external injuries, of course. I doubt if a man will last half an hour under that treatment; but that half-hour will be the limit in pain.”
“Can’t you use a mask or some lead protection?” I asked. “Or could you not fix up the whole thing in a bomb-proof case which would keep the rays from things outside?”
“Well, that’s the first thing one thinks of, naturally; but to tell the truth it’s impracticable for various reasons. Some of them are implicit in the nature of the processes I’m using; but even apart from that, look at the state of affairs when the thing does go off with a bang. It will be one of the biggest explosions, considering the amounts I have to use; and if I’m going to be flung about like a child’s toy, I prefer to fly light and not have a sheet of lead mail to go along with me and crush me when I strike anything. As to a mask, nothing would stick on. You would simply be asking to have your face driven in, if you wore anything of the kind.
“No, I’ve been lucky so far. I’ve only lost three fingers in a minor burst-up. And I’m going to stake on my luck rather than risk certain damage. But if I can only pull it off, Flint.... Nordenholt thinks a lot of it; and I don’t want to disappoint him if I can help it. If I do go to glory, I’ll at least leave something behind me which will make it more than worth while.”
Nordenholt, I learned later, did “think a lot of it.” I spoke to him on the subject one day; and I was astonished to find how much stress he laid on the Henley-Davenport work.
“You don’t realise it, Jack; but it’s just on the cards that our whole future turns on Henley-Davenport. I see things coming. They’re banking up on the horizon already; and if the storm bursts, nothing but Henley-Davenport can save us. And the worst of it is that he doesn’t seem to be getting ahead much at present. It’s no fault of his. No one could work harder; and the other two—Struthers and Anderson—are just as keen. But it doesn’t come out, somehow. And the tantalising thing is that he has proved it can be done; only at present it isn’t economical. He gets energy liberated, all right; but where we need a ton of gunpowder, he can only give us a percussion cap, so to speak. If only he can hit on it in time....”
For my own part, that period was depressing. All the joy had gone out of my work. Only after I had lost her did I realise how great a part Elsa had played in my planning of the future. Her disappearance cast a shade over all my schemes; and soon I gave up entirely the side of the reconstruction in which we had collaborated. I could not bear to think over again the lines along which we had worked so intimately in common. I simply put them out of my mind and concentrated my attention exclusively upon the material aspects of the problem.
I have said this quite freely; though possibly the reader may look upon me as a weak man for allowing such factors to enter into so vast a matter. Had I been superhuman, no doubt, I could have shut my mind to the past; and gone forward without flinching. But I never imagined that I was a super-man; and at this time especially I felt anything but superhuman. I was wounded to the quick; and all I desired was to avoid the whole subject of Elsa in my thoughts. And when I come to think of it, it seems quite probable that I did my best work in this way. If I had continued to dream of Fata Morgana and all its wonders, I should simply have drugged myself with a mental opiate and my work would have suffered on other sides.
Elsa’s whole attitude to Nordenholt and myself had been a puzzle. I could not understand why she should have been so bitter against us; for try as I could, I failed to see anything discreditable in our doings. The logic of events had thrust us into the position we occupied, it seemed to me; and I could not appreciate her view of the situation.