Roysland, still grinning, looked at the subelectronics man. "How about it, Kiffer?"
Kiffer shook his head. "I doubt it. There's a backwash, of course, as there is to any kind of no-space generator. But it's almost indetectable, even with subelectronic instruments. There's certainly not enough to hurt anyone. Besides, the emission would be from the exciter in the gun, and it would hit the men in one direction; that might slow their neural currents up a little for a fraction of a second, but it wouldn't do anything like what we have here, even if it were strong enough."
All the time he had been talking, Mardis had been nodding his head in agreement. When Kiffer finished, Mardis said: "And besides that, we've tested the things, remember? We fired those projectors under every condition we could think of, and we didn't get any feedback lobotomies."
Taddibol nodded. "That's right. We mounted four projectors on the X-69, and melted asteroids for six months before we released the weapon to the fleet."
"Anybody got any more questions?" Roysland asked.
There were none.
"All right, I have some I want you to think over. First: Is this really an enemy weapon? Second: If so, how is it generated and projected at aJ ships? Third: If it isn't an enemy weapon, what is it? Fourth: Regardless of what it is, where is it generated? Fifth: If we—"
He didn't finish. The solidiphone signal was blinking. He activated the instrument, and Eckisster coalesced into the room, his chubby face dewy with perspiration.
"Ah!" he said. "I'm glad to find you at home. I'm glad to see you're working on this thing at last. Why didn't you call in your staff two days ago? Maybe they can figure something out, even if you can't; this thing has suddenly become dangerous."