Unruffled, Brightcloud said, «The same principle, yes. But entirely different wavelengths and entirely different somatic effects.»
«Somatic…?»
«Microwave radiation can be harmful,» the inventor explained. «The radiation from my device is beneficial. It can even be curative.» He hesitated a moment, then, in a lowered voice, added, «Our first sale has been to the government. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be installed in our Moscow embassy.»
Ransom felt his eyebrows climb. «Really?»
«To counteract the Russian machine’s effects.»
«Is that so?»
«It’s unofficial, but that’s what I’ve been led to believe.»
«But, if your device is curative—»
«Therapeutic,» Brightcloud corrected. «Therapeutic is the proper term.»
«All right, therapeutic. If it’s good for your health, why aren’t you dealing with a medical organization? Or one of the ethical pharmaceutical houses?»
A trace of disappointment crossed Brightcloud’s features. «Two reasons. First, as soon as we get into a medical or pharmaceutical situation, the Federal government gets involved in a major way. Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, HEW, the Surgeon General. It would be a long, costly mess.»
«I see.»
«Secondly, this device is not inexpensive. The drug companies are geared to mass marketing. Even the medical technology outfits want to be able to sell their products to all the hospitals and clinics. This device is too costly for that kind of marketing. It can only be sold to the highest levels of corporate management. Nobody else could afford it.»
«Really?»
«And no one else needs it so badly,» Brightcloud quickly added. «Secretaries and street cleaners can take aspirin for their headaches and pains. It’s good enough for them. But top-level executives, such as yourself, have different problems, different kinds of tensions, constant pressure and strain. That’s where this device works best.»
Ransom almost believed him.
«And frankly,» the inventor went on, «it will be much easier for me to market my device as a sort of executive’s relaxation gadget, rather than go through the entire government red-tape mill that they use on medical devices.»
«But how do I know it’s not harmful?» Ransom asked.
Brightcloud shrugged. «I’ve used it on myself thousands of times. We’ve run more than five hundred controlled laboratory tests with it and several hundred more field tests. No harmful effects whatsoever.»
«Still…»
«You’ve been bathing in its radiation for the past two and a half minutes,» the inventor said. «So have I.»
Ransom grabbed at the desk’s edge. «What!»
«Do you feel anything? Any pain or dizziness?»
«Why… er… no.»
«Just how do you feel?» Brightcloud asked.
Ransom thought about it. «Er… fine, as a matter of fact. A little warm, perhaps.»
«That’s from the stimulation effect on your blood circulation. Here.» Brightcloud took a small oblong black box from his shirt jacket pocket. It looked rather like a hand calculator. «Let me adjust the frequency just a bit.»
He turned a tiny knob on the box. Ransom relaxed back in his swivel chair. He was about to say that he didn’t feel any change when, suddenly, he did. A decided change. A growing, warming, magnificent change.
He felt his jaw drop open as he stared at Brightcloud, who merely stretched his legs comfortably, clasped his hands behind his head, and grinned boyishly at him.
As president of Larrimore, Swain & Tucker, Robert Larrimore was accustomed to saying no. It had been the hallmark of his long career, a thoroughly negative attitude that had given him the reputation for being the toughest, shrewdest businessman in Lower Manhattan. When others rhapsodized over new products, Larrimore frowned. When junior executives cooed over ideas from their creative staffs and chorused, «Love it! I love it!» Larrimore shook his head and walked in the other direction. When politicians towed in their newest toothpaste-clean candidate, Larrimore would enumerate all the weaknesses of the candidate that his cigar-chomping backers were trying to overlook or forget.
In short, because he pointed out the obvious and refused to be stampeded by the crowd, he had survived and prospered where others had enthused and withered away. After nearly eight decades of avoiding gapingly unmistakable pitfalls, Larrimore was regarded by several generations of young executives with a respect that bordered on awe. This did not make him a happy man, however.
He was the first one to arrive in the conference room for the meeting with this new inventor that young Ransom had discovered. Larrimore walked stiffly to his accustomed chair, halfway down the polished mahogany table, his eyes fixed on the Byzantine complexity of electronic units stacked neatly against the back end of the conference room from wall to wall and floor to ceiling.
A uniformed security guard stood before the inert hardware. Larrimore snorted to himself and sat, slowly and painfully, in his padded chair. Arthritis, he groused inwardly. They can cure pneumonia and give me a new heart, but the stupid sonsofbitches still can’t do anything more for arthritis than give me some goddamned aspirins.
William Ransom pushed the corridor door open and held it for a stocky, dark-complected young man who wore a denim leisure suit embroidered with flowers and sun symbols. My God, Larrimore thought, that young twit Ransom has brought a goddamned Indian in here. An Apache, I bet.
Ransom made a prim contrast to the solemn-faced redskin, being slim, tall, Aryan-blond and good-looking in an empty way. He always reminded Larrimore of a chorus boy from a musical about the Roaring Twenties.
«Oh, Mr. Larrimore, you’re already here,» Ransom said as he let the door softly shut itself.
«You get an A for visual acuity,» Larrimore said.
Ransom grinned weakly. «Er… allow me to introduce Mr. Ja—»
«James Brightcloud. Who else would he be, Billy?» Larrimore chuckled inwardly. What’s the good of being a tyrant unless you can exert a little tyranny now and then?
In a much-subdued voice, Ransom said to the inventor, «This is Mr. Larrimore, our president.»
«How do you do?» Brightcloud said evenly.
«I do damned well,» Larrimore answered. He did not extend his hand to the inventor. A boy. He’s a mere boy. He can’t have anything worthwhile to show us.
«The others will be here in a minute,» Ransom chattered. «Would you like to have Mr. Brightcloud give you a briefing about his invention before they…»
«No,» Larrimore snapped. «He can tell me the same time he tells the others.»
Ransom looked back to the inventor, uncertainty twitching in his left eye. «Er… do you need to, um, warm up the equipment or anything like that?»
Brightcloud shook his head. «You probably want to let the security guard go.»
«Oh! Oh, yes, surely.»
Larrimore sank back in his chair and watched the two young men take their places down at the end of the table. Ransom whispered a few words to the guard, who then quietly left the conference room. The door didn’t get a chance to close behind him before the other board members started coming in.
Horace Mann was the first. The financial vice president always arrived on the stroke for every meeting, even though he could barely walk anymore. White-haired and bent with age, Mann had refused retirement every year for the past ten years. And since he knew financial details that were best kept locked within his head, he stayed in power. We’ll have to carry him out someday, Larrimore thought.