'I have, though, one really comforting thing to tell you. The Mole was built for underground exploration, to find veins of mineral and for geological study generally. It isn't designed for the use to which Durran is putting it.
'And the entire resources of American Electric are now put into the building of a new Mole which will be designed for offensive warfare underground. As soon as our new ship is complete - and it should not be long, working as we are -we'll find the original Mole and destroy it.'
Gail Kennedy said something to him in a low tone.
Jack nodded wearily. 'Something to keep Durran from materializing his ship even in part? Why, yes! My head's tired, Gail. I should have thought of that.'
He turned to the others. 'I have one promising suggestion, due to Miss Kennedy. I've proved that two solid bodies can occupy the same space at the same time. But they can't, in the same state. If there is any matter more solid than air where the Mole materializes, the sudden appearance of extra material in the same space will cause an explosion. So you can stack bars of iron, and grilles, and string wires inside your vaults. Make it impossible for any part of the Mole big enough to hold a man and loot to materialize without including some such extra matter. If Durran tries, he'll blow up the Mole! It's worth trying, anyhow.'
He passed his hand wearily over his forehead when the indignation party went out of the laboratory. Gail smiled anxiously up at him.
'I was stupid,' said Jack tiredly. 'I guess you're right, Gail. The new ship is taking form very nicely. The others can carry on without me. And my head's so tired I'll do better work if I rest.'
Jack took a last look at the partly completed ship that was to take the place of the Mole, in the very spot where the Mole had been. There was a great deal yet to be done to this new ship, but to Jack it already looked promising. He saw past the incomplete framing, the only partly assembled machinery. He visualized the streamlined vessel of the new design, more heavily powered than the Mole.
Its sustaining screws worked on swivels and at full speed would not only sustain but help to propel it. And there was armament. A two-pounder gun with a spotter searchlight. When this ship was dematerialized, it would fire shells that would be utterly unsubstantial to anything but the Mole or radioactive minerals.
The spotter searchlight would emit extraordinarily polarized light, capable of penetrating stone and rock in the state of matter Jack had discovered. This ship should have no trouble overtaking and destroying the Mole.
'Funny,' said Jack suddenly. 'I never thought of it before. This ship's going to be fast. And we could build faster ones yet. Planes, in fact. Earth-planes! They'd carry passengers. No storms. No wind currents. Earth-plane ports in the centre of our biggest cities. Climb in an earth-plane and fly through the earth's core, beneath or through mountains and oceans. And they'd be fast!'
Gail smiled at him. 'Good! You think about that instead of Durran for a while. But I'm going to take you home and make you go to sleep.'
She did take him home. She made him promise to rest at once. But, tired as he was, this new vision of a medium in which the commerce of the world would be carried on in the future, kept him awake for a long time.
It seemed that Jack had just dropped off to sleep when the strident ringing of a telephone beside his bed got him heavily awake. He glanced at a clock. It was after midnight - one o'clock. He picked up the phone.
'Hello?'
'Mr. Hill!' panted a voice at the other end of the wire. 'This's the gate watchman at the lab. There's all hell loose inside! Explosions! I sent for the cops, but it sounds like Durran's back! Listen!'
Over the wire came dull concussions. Then, the extraordinarily distinct sound of running feet, a slamming door. A voice panted, and Jack caught the message before the watchman repeated it:
"The Mole's in there an' Durran is flinging bombs outta a tube in front. They turn to real as they come out. He's blown the new Mole to hell an' he's smashin' the lab!'
A terrific detonation seemed almost to smash the telephone instrument at the other end of the wire.
VI
It was stupidity, of course, that caused the destruction of the American Electric experimental laboratories. Durran made a thorough job of it. It seems that he stopped at a construction job in Schenectady and looted the powder house of explosives to have plenty for his purpose. And it is quite certain how he came to know of the need to blow up the laboratory.
Within an hour after Jack had reassured the committee of bankers and police officials, the newspapers had the whole story. To Jack the need of secrecy was so self evident that he had not thought of mentioning it. But to a banker the self evident necessity was to reassure the public so there would be no runs on banks.
To police officials the self evident necessity was to make a public statement meaning that they had a clue and an arrest would follow shortly. To the newspapers and the broadcasters there was no thought of anything but hot news, to be passed on at once.
In consequence, Jack's assurance and his description of a ship being built to hunt down and destroy the Mole was given to the whole world. And with the world it went to Durran, too.
He acted immediately. He destroyed the laboratory where the Nemesis of the Mole was preparing. And he did more. When Jack got to the scene of the disaster, fire roared among the ruins. The new ship was scrap iron. And plans, apparatus, formulas, everything the laboratories had contained, were gone.
Gail ran up to him as he surveyed the wreckage. 'I'm so sorry, Jack!'
'It is pretty,' returned Jack sardonically. "Those damned fools had to tip Durran to everything! And he'll be on the lookout now. My guess is that he'll try to bump me off, because with everything in the lab in flames, I'm the only one with all the stuff in my head to make another Mole possible. We've got to start building another one in secrecy. Better, half a dozen of them. He won't be able to destroy all of them before one's finished.'
Gail's father came up, scowling. 'This costs American Electric better than a million,' he said bitterly.
'I'll give it back to you,' said Jack harshly. 'Listen to me!'
Swiftly, tersely, he talked of a new transportation system which would be faster and safer than any the world had ever known before, and wholly independent of weather or storms. 'And if that doesn't make up for the damage,' he added savagely, 'here's another: We dig shafts for mines, now. We send men down underground. But Durran's found a way to materialise a part of the Mole while leaving the rest a phantom. If he can do that, so can we, and the other way about too. 'Why can't we lower a tank with a field of force in it? Dematerialize it and lower it through rock and stone to an ore bed as deep as we want to go - ten miles if necessary ? Then turn on the field force to dematerialize the ore that's inside that tank.
'The ore, being made phantom to the rest of the world, will be actual to the tank. And we can haul tank and ore up to the surface as easily as they'd drop to the centre of the earth. Once above ground we rematerialize both.'
Kennedy stared. Then his eyes flared triumphantly. 'That does it! You win, Jack! No matter how much damage Durran does, that one trick pays for it and more besides.'
Then Gail Kennedy screamed. A ghostly something - eerie and unbelievable in the red firelight - moved toward them. 'The Mole!'
In one instant Jack had Gail up in his arms. He sprinted toward the Mole. He had seen a curious ring of solidity, upheld in mid-air, silhouetted against the blazing laboratory. And that would be the tube he'd heard about, through which bombs were dropped to become 'real' as they emerged.
Jack plunged past that bomb tube and the ghostly Mole. Once past. Durran would have to turn the earth-ship to bring the tube to bear, and that would take time. In a straightaway pursuit it could run him down on foot. But now it -