The fat man looked even more jovial than ever. "All is going according to schedule, my children," he said as he lowered his bulging body again into the chair.
"Boy, I sure hope this works," said Bob North suddenly, as though he had thought about it for the first time.
"It'll work," said Giles Jackson sharply. "Mr. Van Ostrand figured it out, and he's got more brains than you and me put together."
"Your loyalty is touching, Giles," said Van Ostrand gravely, "and well within the bounds of truth." He dropped the remains of his cigar into a dispenser and watched it vanish. "I have worked on this ever since I found those papers ten years ago. And I have waited patiently for Dr. Marcus Varden to return. Nikki, my dear, when we first came in here after Mr. North had so kindly shut off the house's ingenious defenses, you thought I was going to force you to hand over to me the rest of the stock shares in Marcus Varden Enterprises, did you not? And for that reason, you were not in the least afraid that we would kill you. Why not?"
"You know perfectly well," said Nikki, "If I die or even become unconscious, my brain pattern won't register on the recorder at the Exchange Commission, and the transfer wouldn't be valid."
"Exactly. Your brain pattern is constantly being received by one of your father's greatest inventions—the sigma brainwave pickup. Your father began working on another modification of that device seventeen years ago—a sigma brainwave sender. A device that could impress one person's sigma signal upon the brain of another. A hypnotic, telepathic control, capable of controlling the mind of anyone, over almost any distance. Can you imagine what a device like that would be worth? What it would mean in terms of power?" He looked at the girl. "Ah, I see you understand."
"Not completely," said Nikki, "Where is this device?"
"Ah," said the fat man. "That is a lovely story in itself. But, physically, the device—and the data on it—are in your father's spaceship."
"Then it was destroyed seventeen years ago," said the girl.