"CERTAINLY,” said Manning. “That is what I came for. I want to ask your help."
"Listen,” declared Wrail, “you can't be on Earth, Manning. I say something to you and you answer right back. That isn't possible. You can't hear anything I say until 45 minutes after I say it, and then I'd have to wait another 45 minutes to hear your answer."
"That's right,” agreed the image, “if you insist upon talking about the velocity of light. We have something better than that."
"We?"
"Russell Page and myself. We have a two-way television apparatus that works almost instantaneously. To all purposes, so far as the distance between Earth and Callisto is concerned, it is instantaneous."
Wrail's jaw fell. “Well, I be damned. What have you two fellows been up to now?"
"A lot,” said Manning laconically. “For one thing we are out to bust Interplanetary Power. Bust them wide open. Hear that, Wrail?"
Wrail stared in stupefaction. “Sure, I hear. But I can't believe it."
"All right then,” said Manning grimly, “we'll give you proof. What could you do, Ben, if we told you what was happening on the stock market in New York… without you having to wait the 45 minutes it takes the quotations to get here?"
Wrail sprang to his feet. “What could I do? Why, I could run the pants off every trader in the exchange! I could make a billion a minute!” He stopped and looked at the image. “But this isn't like you. This isn't the way you'd do things."