It was during a vacation in the Adirondacks that Dr. King discovered the propulsive qualities of the crystals.
This discovery, of course, is what led to the perfection of the "King Propulsor Unit," the heart of our starship drive systems. Dr. King was investigating the piezo-electric properties of the crystals in a makeshift device of his own design when he was disturbed by a sudden draft in the room. He looked up to discover that one wall of his workshop and the top one thousand feet of a mile-thick mountain (the same mountain that his cabin was located upon) were no longer in the immediate vicinity.
As it turned out, his crude device did not impart to the mountain all of the thrust inherent in the crystal. The mountain top reached only to the orbit of Jupiter, where it settled down to become its newest satellite. Coincidental with Dr. King's experiment, intensive astronomical work was going on with Jupiter as its prime object. The capturing of the satellite was observed and recorded independently by at least six observatories, including the one on Tycho.
Subsequent investigation of the time involved to project this mass disclosed that Dr. King had invented a faster than light drive. (It should be pointed out that, while the discovery of the faster than light drive made the name of Dr. King world renowned, it did not in any way endear him to the relatives of those thousand-odd persons who lived in the hamlet located on the mountain top that ended up a satellite of Jupiter. They also were quite glum.)
Further work, all of a mathematical nature, disclosed to Dr. King the proper method of enclosing these crystals in a unit to drive space ships to the stars. Coincidental with his work on the propulsor units he made a startling discovery which led to his special project.
Dr. King invented perpetual motion.
A series of complicated equations indicated to Dr. King that if he enclosed six of the crystals in the business end of a pendulum, and started the pendulum oscillating, it would tick-tock for all eternity.
This discovery began a five-year program that ended with a full scale press conference. The purpose was to unveil the building designed to protect this pendulum for all eternity, and of course to unveil the discovery of perpetual motion at the same time.
This building was designed to be Dr. King's monument to his own genius. It was a large rambling structure in which the pendulum was displayed by viewing it through a large hole in a brick wall. All of Dr. King's considerable savings had gone into designing a computer, the heart of his protective system. The computer was programmed to protect the ticking of the pendulum under every conceivable circumstance. So thorough was this programming that special devices were installed to keep the building and its precious cargo moving in earth's projected orbit if, through some gigantic mishap, the earth was reduced to cosmic dust. The switch that would impart the initial pulse to the pendulum would also start the computer operating, rendering the entire structure totally inviolable.