Trade secret

“But I do not wish to be a gadgeteer. Neither do thousands of others who are forced to do so because they can get a reward in no other way. Further than this, it is fundamentally impossible for us to make such a switch of profession and do it adequately. There are theoretical research minds, and there are engineer-type-thinkers. By their very nature, these are not interchangeable in the kinds of work that each is competent to perform. Each needs the other. If both are forced into one mold, then both suffer alike, as a result.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Mart saw it coming. It was almost as if Baird had drawn back his arm and were aiming a polished haft and gleaming point in his direction.

The television reporter leaned forward, his eyes shining with malice. He had timed it just right, Mart thought. For a moment he felt a little sorry for Baird. You always knew what a mind like Baird’s was going to do next. The rut it traveled in was old and very deep.

When he spoke now, Baird’s voice was low and modulated with his special kind of phony sincerity. “Suppose that the present hearings before the Congressional Committee were decided against you, Dr. Nagle. Suppose it is decided not to reward you with a monopoly on what has long been considered a Law of Nature so that you can profit therefrom. This is a time when your country needs these discoveries very badly, so the scientists tell us. Your country, which is perhaps the only one under the blue sky of Earth where you could have the freedom sufficient to make these discoveries. Will you give them to that country of yours freely, even if the decision is against you? Or will you bury them as you have threatened to do — until someone else who can equal your great genius comes along and rediscovers them? Which will you do, Dr. Nagle?”

Baird drew back, grinning triumphantly. Mart paused long enough to let him enjoy that triumph. Then he faced the cameras squarely again.

“I will give my work freely, of course,” he said. “What I have done has been merely to bring this tragic injustice to the attention of the nation, which is being harmed so irrevocably by it. I have done this because I believe in my fellow citizens. I believe they will no longer permit this injustice to continue — driving out of my profession those whose life work ought to be the uncovering of the great secrets of Nature.

“Rather, now that they know the truth, they will insist that justice be done. First, because it is their nature to be just. Second, to draw back to my profession the thousands of brilliant young minds that should not be forced into the making of gadgets for a living. I assure you, Mr. Baird, and you, my fellow citizens, that my discoveries will not remain very much longer as Trade Secrets.”

Afterwards, Mart contended that it was the television broadcast that swung the decision, but Berk was not sure. The following days saw a huge stack of testimony taken from scientists who told almost incredible stories of trying to get satisfaction from the existing Patent System.

Mart was called for final testimony and rebuttal, but he could only underline what had already been said. He was gratified, however, to observe that the attitude of the whole Committee was considerably different from that expressed by them on the first day of the hearings. He even felt that perhaps they understood — just a little — what he meant by declaring that Sir Isaac Newton should have been able to patent the Law of Gravity. And that he, Martin Nagle, should be allowed to patent the atom.

At the end of the final session, Senator Cogswell took his hand. “There’ll be some changes made,” he promised. “It may be rough going to get it done. We may have to call you back again — more than once. But in the end you people are going to get what you want. Generations of scientists to come are going to be grateful because you endured the personal sacrifice of staging this demonstration which brought to our attention the inadequacies of a system of which we were unjustly proud.”

It was not until they were back in New York clearing out their temporary offices for a move to a more reasonable environment that they saw Don Wolfe at any length. He came in the morning after their return and sat down without a word in a chair opposite the desk where Mart was examining a file of papers. Berk was packing a carton of reports on the other side of the room.

“I want in,” said Don Wolfe finally. “It was all over before the full crux of this thing hit me like a sandbag on the noggin. You shoved it through so fast that you almost put it over on me, too.”

“Come again?” said Mart.

“You put on a show and bribed them with antigravity and teleportation to change the whole Patent System, and not one of them guessed what you were really doing — what they were actually letting themselves in for.”

Mart glanced across the room toward Berk, his eyebrows slanted in a frown. “So? Now we have secret designs and untold motives?”