"Because," Wagoner went on quietly, "the Bridge has now given us confirmation of a theory of stupendous importance so important, in my opinion, that the imminent fall of the West seems like a puny event in comparison. A confirmation, incidentally, which contains in it the seeds of ultimate destruction for the Soviets, whatever they may win for themselves in the next hundred years or so."

"I suppose," Helmuth said, puzzled, "that you mean antigravity?"

For the first time, it was Wagoner's turn to be taken aback. "Man," he said at last, "do you know everything I want to tell you? I hope not, or my conclusions will be mighty unwelcome to both of us. Do you also know what an anti-agathic is?"

"No," Helmuth said. "I don't even recognize the root of the word."

"Well, that's a relief. But surely Charity didn't tell you we had antigravity. I strictly enjoined him not to mention it."

"No. The subject's been on my mind," Helmuth said. "But I certainly don't see why it should be so worldshaking, any more than I see how the Bridge helped to bring it about. I thought it would be developed independently, for the further exploitation of the Bridge. In other words, to put men down there, and short-circuit this remote control operation we have on Jupiter V. And I thought it would step up Bridge operation, not discontinue it."

"Not at all. Nobody in his right mind would want to put men on Jupiter, and besides, gravity isn't the main problem down there. Even eight gravities is perfectly tolerable for short periods of time and anyhow a man in a pressure .suit couldn't get five hundred miles down through that atmosphere before he'd be as buoyed up and weightless as a fish and even more thoroughly at the mercy of the currents."

"And you can't screen out the pressure?"

"We can," Wagoner said, "but only at ruinous cost. Besides, there'd be no point in trying. The Bridge is finished. It's given us information in thousands of different categories, much of it very valuable indeed. But the one job that only the Bridge could do was that of confirming, or throwing out, the Blackett-Dirac equations."

"Which are?"

"They show a relationship between magnetism and the spinning of a massive body that much is the Dirac part of it. The Blackett Equation seemed to show that the same formula also applied to gravity; it says G equals (2CP/BU2), where C is the velocity of light, P is magnetic moment, and U is angular momentum. B is an uncertainty correction, a constant which amounts to 0.25,.