A secret Navy demonstration aboard the submarine Ambitious Brill turns into a revelation that could reshape military power: a suitcase-sized source of electricity strong enough to keep a fleet moving. Captain Dean Lacey and Commander Newton Wayne are stunned by the device, and even more by civilian expert Richard Thorn's claim that North American Carbide & Metals can produce it quickly and cheaply. Over dinner at an exclusive government club, Thorn begins unraveling the origin of the astonishing invention. His story leads back to the blazing Salt Lake Flats, where he was summoned to witness a guarded test by the sharp-tongued inventor Sorensen. Thorn, skeptical from the start, watches the mysterious black suitcase under tightly controlled conditions, certain it may be a hoax. Yet the device delivers extraordinary direct-current power, and Sorensen refuses to patent it, arguing that battery patents are fragile and that the real business is licensing the right to build it. As the mystery deepens, Colonel Dower recalls a similar desert test and a "crackpot" inventor who demanded an impossible deal. Only later does Thorn learn the truth: the "battery" is actually a disguised hydrogen-fusion reactor. Sorensen's deception was not fraud but strategy, a way to make an unbelievable breakthrough acceptable to a world that trusts a plausible lie more readily than an impossible truth. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.

À propos de l'auteur

Garrett, Randall

Randall Garrett was an American writer whose career flourished in the lively mid-century world of science fiction and fantasy, where his sharp wit, inventive imagination, and fondness for clever ideas made him a distinctive voice. Born in 1927 and working during a period when genre fiction was expanding rapidly, he built a reputation through magazine stories, novels, and collaborations that blended mystery, adventure, satire, and speculative invention. He was especially gifted at creating brisk, entertaining narratives that also played with logic, social custom, and the expectations of readers, which helped his work stand out in an era crowded with talent. Across his fiction, Garrett returned often to themes of intelligence, adaptation, human ingenuity, and the comic absurdities of power and bureaucracy, giving his stories a lightness that still carries real insight. His work remains relevant today because it captures both the optimism and the anxieties of technological change, while reminding readers that humor can be a powerful way to explore serious questions about society and the future. Garrett’s legacy lies in his ability to make speculative fiction feel playful without losing its edge, and readers who enjoy smart, fast-moving stories with a mischievous sense of fun will find much to admire in his work.