mcallen looked at him. "are you thinking of financing the experiments, mr. chard?"

"in return," barney said, "for a consideration."

"what's that?" mcallen's expression grew wary.

"when you retired," barney told him, "i dropped a nice piece of money as a consequence. it was the first beating i'd taken, and it hurt. i'd like to pick that money up again. all right. we're agreed it can't be done on the mcallen tube. the tube wouldn't help make the world a safer place for barney chard. but the tube isn't any more remarkable than the mind that created it. now i know a company which could be top of the heap in electronics precision work—one-shot specialties is what they go in for—if it had your mind as technical advisor. i can buy a controlling interest in that company tomorrow, doctor. and you can have the million and a half paid off in not much more time than you expect to take to get your monster back under control and shut down. three years of your technical assistance, and we're clear."

mcallen's face reddened slowly. "i've considered hiring out, of course," he said. "many times. i need the money very badly. but aren't you overlooking something?"

"what?"

"i went to considerable pains," said mcallen, "to establish myself as a lunatic. it was distasteful, but it seemed necessary to discourage anyone from making too close an investigation of some of my more recent lines of research. if it became known now that i was again in charge of a responsible project—"

barney shook his head. "no problem, doctor. we'd be drawing on outside talent for help in specific matters—very easy to cover up any leads to you personally. i've handled that general sort of thing before."

mcallen frowned thoughtfully. "i see. but i'd have—there wouldn't be so much work that—"

"no," barney said. "i guarantee that you'll have all the time you want for your own problem." he smiled. "considering what you told me, i'd like to hear that one's been solved myself!"

mcallen grinned briefly. "i can imagine. very well. ah ... when can you let me have the money, mr. chard?"