Russell Page had known him since college days. They had worked out their experiments together in the school laboratories, had spent long hours arguing and wondering… debating scientific theories. Both had loved the same girl, both had lost her, and together they had been bitter over it… drowning their bitterness in a three-day drunk that made campus history.
After graduation Gregory Manning had gone on to world fame, had roamed over the face of every planet except Jupiter and Saturn, had visited every inhabited moon, had climbed Lunar mountains, penetrated Venusian swamps, crossed Martian deserts, driven by a need to see and experience that would not let him rest. Russell Page had sunk into obscurity, had buried himself in scientific research, coming more and more to aim his effort at the discovery of a new source of power… power that would be cheap, that would destroy the threat of Interplanetary dictatorship.
Page turned away from the rectifier room.
"Maybe I'll have something to show Greg soon,” he told himself. “Maybe, after all these years…."
* * *
Forty minutes after Page put through the call to Chicago, Gregory Manning arrived. The scientist, watching for him from the tiny lawn that surrounded the combined home and laboratory, saw his plane bullet into sight, scream down toward the little field and make a perfect landing.
Hurrying toward the plane as Gregory stepped out of it Russell noted that his friend looked the same as ever, though it had been a year or more since he had seen him. The thing that was discomfiting about Greg was his apparently enduring youthfulness.
He was clad in jodhpurs and boots and an old tweed coat, with a brilliant blue stock at his throat. He waved a hand in greeting and hurried forward. Russ heard the grating of his boots across the gravel of the walk.
Greg's face was bleak; it always was. A clean, smooth face, hard, with something stern about the eyes.
His grip almost crushed Russ's hand, but his tone was crisp. “You sounded excited, Russ."