THE COSMIC DEFLECTOR
By STANTON A. COBLENTZ
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories January1943. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.]
His face red with haste, and his blue eyes glittering, Dan Holcomb burstinto the laboratory.
"Just look at this, Lucile!" he cried, flinging his hat halfway acrossthe room, and almost dancing in his joy. "Lord! Look at this, will you!"
Lucile Travers glanced up from her Bunsen burner, and stared in surpriseat Dan's six-foot bulk. She was used to her lover's flaming enthusiasms;but never had she seen him so beside himself. How boyish he seemed, withhis lean, keen, studious face, and eyes that were all a blaze ofyouthful delight!
"There! Take a peep at that, old girl!" he rushed on, as he snapped outhis wallet and displayed a handsomely embossed letter.
Her eyes popped half out of her head as she glanced at the sheet."Twenty-five—twenty-five thousand dollars, Dan!" she gasped. "Why,it—it can't be real!"
"But it is real! Boy! this isn't any pipe dream, believe me! A neattwenty-five thousand—that's what I'm offered for my Deflector!"
While she stared at him dazedly, he did an impromptu hop, skip and jump.She did not need to be told about the Cosmic Deflector—had she not beenat Dan's side during these many months when he had worked at it? Had shenot shared his enthusiasm at the Gravitational Ray Theory?—the ideathat gravity was due to an invisible ray shot out by the electrons andhence was akin to electricity in its origin? Had she not believed, withhim, that this ray formed a current, which, like electricity, could bebent, or twisted from its course? Had she not glowed at the discovery ofthe telurium compound—telurox, they called it—which, on burning, wouldsend out beams that diverted the rays of gravity? And had they not,poring together over his plans, decided that it would be possible toalter the movements of the very planets?
All this was in the girl's mind as her eyes raced along the lines ofthat incredible letter. It was from Hogarth, Wiley and Malvine, a wellknown firm of construction engineers. And there was no doubt that itactually did offer $25,000!—$25,000 for all rights in the Deflector,along with Dan's services for a year!
"Who'd have thought it?" enthused the inventor. "Why, Bert Wilcox—youknow, my old college chum—introduced me to Wiley only last Tuesday, andtold about the Deflector. When Wiley asked me to lay the plans beforehim, I didn't imagine—"
He rambled on for a minute, then broke short. "But good heavens, Lucy,let's forget all that! It's not the Deflector I want to think about!It's you! You, Lucy! Don't you see? Our waiting—it's over now!"
She did indeed see. For three years they had been engaged, almost sincethe day when they had met as laboratory assistants here at ColumbiaChemicals. But Dan, saddled with the care of his aged parents, had seenno way out of a financial morass that might mean further years ofwaiting.
Down from her vivid brown eyes and over her lovely face the tears werestreaming as his strong arms gathered about her and she pressed close tohim in confidence and love.
Yet why was it that, even in this moment of their triumph, a gnawingsuspicion crept over her, chilling her joy with a dull clutchinguneasiness?
There was a look of steel-and-granite on Dan's ordinarily cheerful faceas he came