In the gathering dusk Professor Eddinger locked carefully the door of his office. He crossed beyond his desk and fumbled with his one hand for his keys.
There was a cabinet to be opened, and he stared long in the dim light at the object he withdrew. He looked approvingly at the exquisite workmanship of an instrument where a generator of the cathode ray and an intricate maze of tubing surmounted electro-magnets and a round lead bulb. There were terminals for attaching heavy cables; it was a beautiful thing.... His useless arm moved to bring an imaginary hand before the window of quartz in the lead sphere.
"Power," he whispered and repeated Avery's words; "power, to build a city—or destroy a civilization ... and I hold it in one hand."
He replaced the apparatus in the safety of its case. "The saviors of mankind!" he said, and his tone was harsh and bitter.
But a smile, whimsical, kindly, crinkled his tired eyes as he turned to his desk and its usual litter of examination papers.
"It is something, Avery," he whispered to that distant man, "to belong in so distinguished a group."
A STAR THAT BREATHES
Beta Cephei, the mysterious Milky Way star which expands and contracts as though it were breathing, at last has a biography.
A summary of known facts concerning the star, interpreted in the light of recent observations at the Lick Observatory at the University of California was completed recently by H. S. Mendenhall, graduate student.