Page:Astounding Science Fiction (1950-01).djvu/50

 consistent? Suppose he took another manufacturing city. Well, for convenience and possibilities—take Warfield. Companies starting with W. Companies that were served by Higgenson Rapid Transit. Would they be that consistent? If he could get on a trail, would it lead the same way?

He had to consider that it might lead some place else. That there might be something else as big as Industrial Finance involved. That both trails might join and lead some place else.

It took a year for him to pick up the W assembly, trace it, very slowly, very carefully, knowing he was on unsurer ground this time, to Industrial Finance, and have the trail stop there, cold.

Still, he had another assembly now. This time it wasn't a weapon. Not exactly. It was a small hand projector that could be pointed at an electric apparatus, and the projector would damp it, stop it cold.

It would stop anything depending on electricity for magnetism, direct power or ignition.

He drove his car "into the country, parked it on the side of the road. Then he walked down the road for half a mile. When the way was clear of traffic he turned on the projector for a brief fraction of a second.

When Tredel got back to the car he found the engine dead. He had to he towed back to the city. The car's battery would never again deliver power. The spark plug and ignition points were ruined, the generator useless, all wiring that had carried electricity at the time the projector was turned on was brittle.

He had to assume the same would happen to an airplane, a tank, a battleship—within, of course, the limits of the scope of the projector. He rather imagined that its scope was not too limited.

So the path led to, if not through, Industrial Finance.

He'd hoped there could be a way around. Fie could foresee difficulties attempting to investigate a company whose business depended upon accurate investigations of its own.

Obvious ideas occurred to him first, to be rejected as swiftly as they came. They could only serve to take time and trouble and money, and to direct suspicion to himself. There was no certainty of any returns.

He saw, after a while, that the workings of Industrial Finance could be very secondary, not in the main line at all. Obviously the corporation itself, as a corporation, was not the ultimate consumer.

He should be able to find where the products went, after they left Industrial Finance. Merely more tracing.

Tredel established as fact that items in which he had an interest, or might have an interest, were invoiced to Industrial Finance, and delivered to various warehouses by Higgenson Rapid Transit.

The warehouses were obviously 50