“All right. Fine. But you’re going to be surprised when you see what’s in here.”
“I probably will. I’ve been expecting a surprise,” Thorn said.
What he got was a real surprise.
There was a small pressure tank of hydrogen inside—one of the little ones that are sometimes used to fill toy balloons. There was a small batch of electronic circuitry that looked as though it might be the insides of an FM-AM radio.
All of the rest of the space was taken up by batteries.
And every single one of the cells was a familiar little cannister. They were small, rechargeable nickel-cadmium cells, and every one bore the trademark of North American Carbide & Metals!
One of the other men in the lab said: “What kind of a joke is this?”
“Do you mean, Mr. Sorensen,” Thorn asked with controlled precision, “that your million-dollar process is merely some kind of gimmickry with our own batteries?”
“No,” said Sorensen. “It’s—”
“Wait a minute,” said one of the others, “is it some kind of hydrogen fuel cell?”