Forthwith, every physical scientist in the country began work on the project, the prize being—not the usual medal of commendation and Presidential handshake; Murdock knew people better than that—one million dollars, tax-free. Within six months, Leonard Surbo, a laboratory technician at DuPont, had discovered a method of uniting the helium and oxygen atoms in a continuous chain, by means of super-induced valence, in which the solitary two electrons of the helium atom were joined into the minus-two gaps in two adjoining oxygen atoms, the other gap in each oxygen ring being filled with one electron from adjoining helium atoms, and so on, literally ad infinitum. This new compound, Helox, was found to be veritably unbreakable, yet weighed one-sixth less than magnesium, its nearest strength-plus-lightness competitor. There was some haggling from DuPont as to whether Surbo, who had, after all, used their facilities in his search for the new compound, should receive the million dollars. This was ameliorated nicely by President Murdock, who promised them, in lieu of the lost million, the billion-dollar government contract to put Helox into full-scale production, which DuPont gladly accepted.
Here again Murdock's program ran into a snag. The delicate processing required to produce Helox put the final cost of the compound at a rate-per-ounce only less than that of pure platinum; the average citizen, indeed, the above-average citizen, would be hard-pressed to afford so much as a windowsill's worth, let alone a complete dwelling.
Murdock called his advisory staff together for an emergency session immediately. They remained in camera with the President for three days, meals being sent in from outside. At the end of this time, Murdock emerged from the conference room with a three-day stubble flanking his best successful smile, and—after being cleaned up for public exposition—appeared once more on television with his radical Common-Wall Program.
The gist of it was this: A man in a one-room house needed four walls. Two men, in two one-room houses, needed but seven, if the common wall were shared. Four needed but twelve, and so on. Each time, the amount needed per individual decreased, as more men were included in the building program. What Murdock planned, therefore, was the erection of—not a mere housing development—but an entire city of Helox. It would be a closed unit, one which would serve all man's needs, self-lighted, self-darkening, air-conditioned, and equipped with the newest air-water-mineral reclaiming devices which could be used in the manufacture of synthetic foodstuffs for the people of the city.
The enormous expense of such an undertaking was put to a Congressional vote, and roundly vetoed. Murdock, not to be swung from his determined path, had the motion put to a direct vote by the American people, via the vote-machines. This time, he received a ninety-five percent vote, all votes in favor of the new indestructible city. For the first time, members of Congress realize that their power in the land was standing on legs of gelatin, and an emergency session was called, to determine whether or not Murdock's actions called for impeachment.
Murdock attended the meeting, and waited until all the complaints and recriminations had been voiced. And then he put it to the Congress: What need had a Real Democracy of representation at all, when each citizen could vote directly on all governmental proposals? He terrified them at the thought of putting such a proposal to the people immediately, when their removal from office was so certain. Then, when every face in the assembly was pale with apprehension, the familiar fatherly smile overrode Murdock's features, and he offered them all, at the end of their term, a permanent retirement plan, at full salary, for each of them, and for their subsequent first-born lineal descendants. Congress, knowing when it was licked—and not much disliking the prospect of eternal security—voted in favor of his plan, with the one stipulation that such income should be forever tax-free, a codicil to which Murdock smilingly ascribed.
Production began soon afterwards, on Murdock's indestructible city. It was to hold a maximum of ten million people, one hundred tiers of humanity in all the comfort and safety the mind of man could devise. And again, a snag delayed the plan of Lester Murdock. It proved, however, to be a minor one: With each Level of the city to be constructed to a minimum height of fifty feet (any lower would impair the efficiency of the air-conditioning), the total height would be nearly one mile. At such ghastly distances above the earth, the workmen would need specially heated clothing, oxygen equipment, superior safety-belts for themselves and their gear, miles of roads and parking facilities to make their getting to and from the job possible in a minimum of wasted time—A hundred troublesome details, all of which would serve to impede progress tremendously.
Murdock, after much thought, was equal to the problem. The city, he stated, would be built in ten parts, no one part, therefore, being more than five hundred feet high. Then, when all sections were completed, they would be flown to a common site, stacked like flapjacks, and the necessary inter-sectional connections made for the water and electrical conduits, elevators, and the like. The light weight of each section made such a plan almost feasible, except that it would necessitate the loss of nearly one complete level to house the vast rockets which would do the moving. Murdock and his staff conferred, and then found that, with a slight change in the blueprints, the intended million-per-section of people could still be housed, central rocket-section or not, by the addition of a very few extra feet of radius to the ten-level sections. His plan was endorsed by the engineers when it was found that such an extension brought the overall dimension of the section into accordance with the necessary lift-surface areas for the proposed flying city.