"I quite agree," she smiled. "One man can neither make nor destroy a society. So why not give that conscience of yours a rest?"
"There's been suffering," he said, enough alcohol in him to break down his reserve. "People have died."
"A lot of them needed killing," she said earnestly. "Look what we've got. An end to dictatorship. Removal of the atomic-war threat. Cheap energy for a million new projects. A four-hour work day in prospect. Government, which was getting too big and officious in all countries, cut down to size again. The plain man standing on his own feet and working for himself. Natural resources conserved. If you must take either credit or blame, Si, then balance your books!"
"I know," he said. "I know all that, up in my conscious mind. But down underneath—I'll always see those houses burning, and those men shooting at each other."
"You—" She hesitated. "I know what you need. Your trouble, my boy, is that underneath that Yankee conservatism, you're a hopeless romantic. Your mind dwells on the sudden and dramatic. Now the positive benefits of capacitite aren't anywhere near as quick and spectacular as the temporary evils were. What you have to do, to satisfy those Puritan chromosomes, is to produce something really big and fancy, something of immediate, large value."
He chuckled, lifted out of his dark mood in spite of himself. "I imagine you're right, Dr. Freud," he said. "But what?"
"I don't know." She frowned with worry for him. "But think, man. We have leisure now—in another year or so, well, we won't be the millionaires we once dreamed of, but like everybody else we'll have real security and real time to ourselves. You could use that time to work on something."
"Hm—" Automatically, his brain turned to practicalities. "Let's see, now. Capacitite offers a way of concentrating energy enormously ... a very small packet will hold a hell of a lot—My God!" His yell shook the windows as he leaped to his feet.
"What the devil—something wrong?" Elizabeth got up too.
"No!" He was running toward the phone. "Got to get hold of Colin—M.I.T.—don't you see, darling?" His hands trembled as he dialed, but there was laughter in his voice. "Don't you see it? Spaceships!"