"Do it, and do it now," Jordan almost shouted. "He'll tear the pile apart and let the hafnium go off. It'll blow half the state off the planet."
The sheriff was unperturbed. "Mr. Star boy," he said sarcastically, "any grammar school kid knows that if someone came within a hundred yards of one of those power-house piles, he'd burn like a match stick. And besides why would he want to blow himself to pieces?"
"He's made out of permallium." Jordan was shouting now.
The sheriff suddenly grew pale. "Get off my screen. I'm calling Sacramento."
Jordan set the ship for maximum speed, well beyond the safety limit. He kept peering ahead into the dusk, momentarily fearful that the whole countryside would light up in one brilliant flash. In a few minutes he was sweating and trembling with the tension.
Over Walnut Grove, he recognized the series of dams, reservoirs and water-lifts where the Sacramento was raised up out of its bed and turned south. For greater speed, he came close to Earth, flying at emergency height, reserved ordinarily for police, firemen, doctors and ambulances. He set his course by sight following the silver road of the river, losing it for ten or fifteen miles at a time where it passed through subterranean tunnels, picking it up again at the surface, always shooting south as fast as the atmosphere permitted.
At seven thirty, when the sun had finally set, he sighted the lights of Red Mountain, and he cut his speed and swung in to land. There was no trouble picking out the power plant; it was a big dome-shaped building surrounded by a high wall. It was so brilliantly lit up, that it stood out like a beacon, and there were several hundred men milling about before it.
He settled down on the lawn inside the walls, and the sheriff came bustling up, a little more red in the face than usual.
"I've been trying to figure for the last hour what the devil I would do to stop him if he decided to come here," Berkhammer said.