It made no difference. He could still experiment as he pleased. He had his many friends and constantly made more. If enough money rolled in to make him moderately wealthy, let the lawyer worry about it. After he came up with the Ben Reeves capacitor in 1961, his wealth was more than moderate. That thumb-sized gadget delivered the power of a hundred storage batteries and was the answer to a thousand engineering problems.
All down the bad years, Benjamin had read the papers and wondered and suffered through the tensions of the nerve war like the rest of us. Perhaps it was a little worse for him, because he knew the classified secrets, knew to the decimal point the percentage of missiles that would get through our defenses. Steadily the urge grew stronger to get out of this world gone suicidally awry.
He had the money and he had the time. An efficient business manager took care of the new plant that produced the Ben Reeves capacitor.
He built his first machine in 1962, a month before Andover Hare took his own near relatives back into time with him. But that wasn't enough for Benjamin. He was a scientist where Andover was a student and Edgar Evans an amateur experimenter. Benjamin couldn't forget the millions who yearned with him.
For Benjamin, the mere machine wasn't an answer. He went back through the years himself, several times, but always he returned and worked harder. And there came the day, a year ago, when his work shifted suddenly to maps and population indices.
If you live within 40 miles of the most populous cities, you should know that somewhere in that city is a very plain suitcase which is at once an answer to your prayers and to those strange nostalgic desires you've felt. It may be in a rented room or a storage warehouse, or in the attic of one of the many friends Benjamin Reeves has made.
Wherever it is, you're under its influence, thanks to Benjamin's work. And every other day now, in a closed-off room at the Ben Reeves plant, technicians finish assembling another group of strange circuits which goes into another plain suitcase to be sent to yet another city, chosen on the basis of population vs. importance as a target.
The technicians are learning speed. Be thankful for that, if you love your fellow-man as Benjamin does. At first they turned out only one machine a week; soon it will be one a day, then two, four.
