With No Strings Attached Read online

trifling things and made a few smallchanges in the physical structure of the plates. I'm not saying that'swhat the battery is, mind you; I'm saying 'suppose'."

  "O.K., suppose," said Siegel. "Couldn't you patent it?"

  "What's to patent? The Pb-PbO_2-H_2SO_4 cell is about half as old asthe United States Patent Office itself. Can't patent that. Copperoxide, maybe, as a depolarizer? Old hat; can't patent that. Laminatedplates, maybe? Nope. Can't patent that, either."

  Siegel looked out at the hundred glowing light bulbs. "You mean youcan't patent it, even if it works a hundred times better than anordinary battery?"

  "Hell, man," Sorensen said, "you can't patent performance! You've gotto patent something solid and concrete! Oh, I'll grant that atop-notch patent attorney might be able to get me some kind of patenton it, but I wouldn't trust its standing up in court if I had to tryto quash an infringement.

  "Besides, even if I had an iron-bound patent, what good would it dome? Ever hear of a patent pool?"

  "No," said Siegel. "What's a patent pool?"

  "I'll give you an example. If all the manufacturers of a singleproduct get together and agree to form a patent pool, it means that ifone company buys a patent, all of them can use it. Say the automobilecompanies have one. That means that if you invent a radical new designfor an engine--one, maybe that would save them millions ofdollars--you'll be offered a few measly thousand for it. Why shouldthey offer more? _Where else are you going to sell it?_ If one companygets it, they all get it. There's no competition, and if you refuse tosell it at all, they just wait a few years until the patent runs outand use it for free. That may take a little time, but a big industryhas plenty of time. They have a longer life span than human beings."

  "North American Carbide & Metals," said Thorn quietly, "is not amember of any patent pool, Mr. Sorensen."

  "I know," Sorensen said agreeably. "Battery patents are trickier thanautomotive machinery patents. That's why I'm doing this my way. I'mnot selling the gadget as such. I'm selling results. For one milliondollars, tax paid, I will agree to show your company how to build adevice that will turn out electric power at such-and-such a rate andthat will have so-and-so characteristics, just like it says in thecontract you read. I guarantee that it can be made at the price Iquote. That's all."

  He looked back out at the bank of light bulbs. They were stillburning. They kept burning--

  "... They kept burning for ten solid hours," said Thorn. "Then he wentout and shut off his battery."

  Captain Lacey was scowling. "That's damned funny," he muttered.

  "What is?" asked Thorn, wondering why the naval officer hadinterrupted his story.

  "What you've been telling me," Lacey said. "I'll swear I've heard--"He stopped and snapped his fingers suddenly. "Sure! By golly!" Hestood up from the table. "Would you excuse me for a minute? I want tosee if a friend of mine is here. If he is, he has a story you ought tohear. Damned funny coincidence." And he was off in a hurry, leavingThorn staring somewhat blankly after him.

  Three minutes later, while Thorn was busily pouring himself a secondhelping of Five-Star Hennessy, Captain Lacey returned to the tablewith an army officer wearing the insignia of a bird colonel.

  "Colonel Dower," the captain said, "I'd like you to meet a friend ofmine--Mr. Richard Thorn, the top research man with North AmericanCarbide & Metals. Mr. Thorn, this is Colonel Edward Dower." The menshook hands. A third brandy snifter was brought and a gentleman'spotation was poured for the colonel.

  "Ed," said Captain Lacey as soon as his fellow officer had inhaled agoodly lungful of the heady fumes, "do you remember you were tellingme a couple of years ago about some test you were in on out in theMojave Desert?"

  Colonel Dower frowned. "Test? Something to do with cars?"

  "No, not that one. Something to do with a power supply."

  "Power supply. Oh!" His frown faded and became a smile. "You mean thecrackpot with his little suitcase."

  Thorn looked startled, and Captain Lacey said: "That's the one."

  "Sure I remember," said the colonel. "What about it?"

  "Oh, nothing," Lacey said with elaborate unconcern, "I just thoughtMr. Thorn, here, might like to hear the story--that is, if it isn'tclassified."

  Colonel Dower chuckled. "Nothing classified about it. Just anothercrackpot inventor. Had a little suitcase that he claimed was amarvelous new power source. Wanted a million dollars cash for it, taxfree, no strings attached, but he wouldn't show us what was in it. Notreally very interesting."

  "Go ahead, colonel," said Thorn. "I'm interested. Really I am."

  "Well, as I said, there's nothing much to it," the colonel said. "Heshowed us a lot of impressive-looking stuff in his laboratory, but itdidn't mean a thing. He had this suitcase, as I told you. There were acouple of thick copper electrodes coming out of the side of it, and heclaimed that they could be tapped for tremendous amounts of power.Well, we listened, and we watched his demonstrations in the lab. Heran some heavy-duty motors off it and a few other things like that.I don't remember what all."

  "And he wanted to sell it to you sight-unseen?" Thorn asked.

  "That's right," said the colonel. "Well, actually, he wasn't trying tosell it to the Army. As you know, we don't buy ideas; all we buy ishardware, the equipment itself, or the components. But the company hewas trying to sell his gadget to wanted me to take a look at it as anobserver. I've had experience with that sort of thing, and they wantedmy opinion."

  "I see," Thorn said. "What happened?"

  "Well," said the colonel, "we wanted him to give us a demonstrationout in the Mojave Desert--"

  * * * * *

  "... Out in the Mojave Desert?" the inventor asked. "Whatever for,Colonel Dower?"

  "We just want to make sure you haven't got any hidden power sourceshooked up to that suitcase of yours. We know a place out in the Mojavewhere there aren't any power lines for miles. We'll pick the place."

  The inventor frowned at him out of pale blue eyes. "Look." He gesturedat the suitcase sitting on the laboratory table. "You can see there'snothing faked about that."

  Colonel Dower shook his head. "You won't tell us what's in thatsuitcase. All we know is that it's supposed to produce power. Fromwhat? How? You won't tell us. Did you ever hear of the Keely Motor?"

  "No. What was the Keely Motor?"

  "Something along the lines of what you have here," the colonel saiddryly, "except that Keely at least had an explanation for where he wasgetting his power. Back around 1874, a man named John Keely claimed hehad invented a wonderful new power source. He called it a breakthroughin the field of perpetual motion. An undiscovered source of power, hesaid, controlled by harmony. He had a machine in his lab which wouldbegin to turn a flywheel when he blew a chord on a harmonica. He couldstop it by blowing a sour note. He claimed that this power was allaround, but that it was easiest to get it out of water. He claimedthat a pint of his charged water would run a train from Philadelphiato New York and back and only cost a tenth as much as coal."

  The inventor folded his arms across his chest and looked grimly atColonel Dower. "I see. Go on."

  "Well, he got some wealthy men interested. A lot of them investedmoney--big money--in the Keely Motor Company. Every so often, he'dbring them down to his lab and show them what progress he was makingand then tell them how much more money he needed. He always got themto shell out, and he was living pretty high on the hog. He kept at itfor years. Finally, in the late nineties, _The Scientific American_exposed the whole hoax. Keely died, and his lab was given a thoroughgoing over. It turned out that all his marvelous machines were run bycompressed air cleverly channeled through the floor and the legs oftables."

  "I see," repeated the inventor, narrowing his eyes. "And I suppose myinvention is run by compressed air?"

  "I didn't say your invention was a phony," Colonel Dower saidplacatingly. "I merely mentioned the Keely Motor to show you why wewant to test it out somewhere away from your laboratory. Are youwilling to go?"


  "Any time you are, colonel."

  A week or so later, they went out into the Mojave and set up the test.The suitcase--

  * * * * *

  "... The suitcase," said the colonel, "was connected up to a hundredhundred-watt light bulbs. He let the thing run for ten hours before