The brick stayed right where it was, its surface parallel to the horizon, poised, immediately after the blast, over a crater two hundred and ninety-four feet deep.

After the failure of the H-bomb the generals’ pique and frustration began to turn to anger and, in some cases, fear. One pacifistic lieutenant general did in fact suggest that the brick be left alone and the monorail rerouted; but it was to the credit of the Army that his superiors rallied together and denounced his defeatism for what it was. But the generals did agree at this conference to call in a theoretical physicist, provided one could be found, in a desperate hope that some light might be thrown on the nature of their adversary.

A call was sent out to headquarters at Big-H (once Harvard University) and a two-day scramble ensued while a theory man—or “egghead” as such men were cleverly called—was sought. One was eventually found, working in a weather observatory in the Kentucky Reservation, and he was brought—a gray-haired old fellow who freely admitted that he read books and refused to drink synthetic whiskey—to the site of the brick, which he surveyed with some attention.

“Well?” said one of the generals.

“Very interesting,” said the theoretical physicist, whose name was Albert, and he produced from a trunk he had brought with him a collection of peculiar-looking instruments, which he began to set up on the ground. After peering down various tripod-mounted tubes, first at the brick and then at the sun, he then said, “Amazing!”

“Yes,” said one of the generals. “We know that.” There was a ring of generals in brilliant tunics and of security men in black flannel suits around the physicist.

“Amazing,” he said again. “This seems to be the exact set point of Propkofski’s principle!” He gazed at the brick reverently.

“Whose principle?” said one of the security men, raising his eyebrows and fetching a little black book from his breast pocket.

“Propkofski.” The physicist’s eyes were aglow. The security men were raising eyebrows at one another. “The principle of terrestrial orbital space-time suspension, formulated in 1987, I believe. This is the place, gentlemen, the exact point, where Propkofski maintained that the mass-influx lines of the Earth’s field intersected. This is the very hub, provided that Propkofski was right,” and he pointed to the brick. “Yet I believe that Propkofski said something about a mountain hindering his observations.”

“Yes?” said the general. “We removed the mountain.”

“My!” said the old physicist, looking up from the brick for the first time, “How did you do that? With faith?”

“With a converter,” the general said. “But what about that brick? How do we move it?”

“The brick? Oh.” The scientist went to the floating piece of golden metal, still unmarred by the H-bomb, and examined it carefully. When he had finished checking it with a good many instruments, mechanical and electronic, he said, “I wish Newton could see this.”