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Vinita Silaparasetty

Deep Learning Projects Using

TensorFlow 2
Neural Network Development with Python and
Keras
1st ed.
Vinita Silaparasetty
Bangalore, India

Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the

author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the book’s
product page, located at www.​apress.​com/​978-1-4842-5801-9. For
more detailed information, please visit http://​www.​apress.​com/​
source-code.

ISBN 978-1-4842-5801-9 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-5802-6

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5802-6

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© Vinita Silaparasetty 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the

Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned,
specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

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Preface
TensorFlow 2.0 was officially released on September 30th, 2019.
However, the new version is very different than what most users are
familiar with. While programming with TensorFlow 2.0 is much
simpler, most users still prefer to use older versions. This book aims to
help long-time users of TensorFlow adjust to TensorFlow 2.0 and to
help absolute beginners learn TensorFlow 2.0.

Why use TensorFlow?

Here are some advantages to using TensorFlow for your deep learning
projects.
It is open source.
It is reliable (has minimal major bugs).
It is ideal for perceptual and language understanding tasks.
It is capable of running on CPUs and GPUs.
It is easier to debug.
It uses graphs for numeric computations.
It has better scalability, as libraries can be deployed on a gamut of
hardware machines, starting from cellular devices to computers with
complex setups.
It has convenient pipelining, as it is highly parallel and designed to
use various backend software (GPU, ASIC, etc.).
It uses the high-level Keras API.
It has better compatibility.
It uses TensorFlow Extended (TFX) for a full production ML pipeline.
It also supports an ecosystem of powerful add-on libraries and
models to experiment with, including Ragged Tensors, TensorFlow
Probability, Tensor2Tensor, and BERT.
Figure I-1 Comparison of TensorFlow 1.x and TensorFlow 2.0
About the Book Projects
The projects in this book mainly cover image and sound data. They are
designed to be as simple as possible to help you understand how each
neural network works. Consider them to be a skeletal structure for your
own projects. You are encouraged to build on the models in this book
and experiment with them using different datasets. The projects in this
book were designed keeping in mind the latest developments in deep
learning and will be the perfect addition for an impressive data science
portfolio.

System Specifications
The projects in this book require powerful computing resources or a
good cloud platform. You are strongly advised to use a system with the
following minimum requirements :
GPU: Model: 16-bit Memory: 8GB and CUDA Toolkit support
RAM: Memory: 10GB
CPU: PCIe lanes: 8 Core: 4 threads per GPU
SSD: Form Factor: 2.5-inch and SATA interface
PSU: 16.8 watts
Motherboard: PCIe lanes: 8
If you are unable to acquire a system with these requirements, try
using a cloud computing platform, such as one of the following:
BigML
Amazon Web Services
Microsoft Azure
Google Cloud
Alibaba Cloud
Kubernetes

Tips to Get the Most Out of This Book

To get the most value out of the projects in this book, follow these
guidelines:
Create separate environments. To prevent problems, it’s best to
create separate environments for each project. This way you will
have only the libraries necessary for that particular project and there
will not be any clashes.
Save your projects in separate folders. To keep your work
organized and handy for future reference, create separate folders for
each project. You can store the script, datasets, and results that you
have obtained in that folder. Each project in this book provides the
code to set your file path to work directly in the project folder that
you created.
Use data wisely. Ensure that you have enough data to divide into
training and test sets. I suggest that you use 80% of the data for
training and 20% for testing.
Be organized. By creating a folder for your project, you know that all
the data, output files, etc. are available in one place.
Make backups. Make copies of each notebook before experimenting.
This way you have one working copy as a template for future
projects. Then make copies of it and modify it as required.
Plan. Understand the problem statement and create a rough
flowchart of your approach to solving the problem.
Consider your presentation. As a data scientist, your inferences
will be discussed by members of a company who have technical
knowledge as well as those who do not. So be sure that you can
convey your findings in a manner that anyone can understand.
Network. Join online communities where you can ask questions and
help others with solutions to their questions. This is the best way to
learn. I recommend the following:
StackOverflow
Quora
Reddit
StackExchange
CodeProject
Google Groups
CodeRanch
Programmers Heaven
Practice: Need inspiration for more projects? Join online
communities that have hackathons, competitions, etc., to help you
practice and learn. I recommend the following:
Hackerearth
Kaggle
Challengerocket
Angel Hack
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my father, Mr. S. Mohan Kumar, for his guidance
and valuable input that made this book a great resource for beginners
and seasoned professionals alike.
I would like to thank my mother, Mrs. Agnes Shanthi Mohan, for her
constant support, encouragement, and love.
I would like to thank my younger sister, Ms. Nikita Silaparasetty, for
her valuable feedback and support.
Special thanks to Aaron Black, the senior editor, for accepting my
book proposal and giving me the opportunity to write this book.
Thanks to Jessica Vakili, the coordinating editor, for ensuring that
the process of writing this book was smooth and for clarifying even the
smallest doubts I had as a first-time author.
Thanks to James Markham, the editor, for his guidance on
formatting each chapter as well as his keen eye for detail, which make
this book easy to understand.
Thanks to Mezgani Ali, the technical reviewer, for ensuring that the
source code is well formatted.
Finally, I would like to thank the awesome team at Apress, for their
effort in making this book possible.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1:​Getting Started:​Installation and Troubleshooting
Installing Python 3
Method 1:​Direct Installation from the Official Python
Website
Troubleshooting Tips
Method 2:​Using Anaconda
Troubleshooting Tips
Installing Jupyter Notebook
Dependencies
Method 1:​Using the PIP Installation Package
Troubleshooting Tips
Method 2:​Using Anaconda
Troubleshooting Tips
Installing TensorFlow 2.​0
Dependencies
Method 1:​Using the PIP Installation Package
Troubleshooting Tips
Method 2:​Using Anaconda
Troubleshooting Tips
Installing Keras
Dependencies
Using the PIP Installation Package
Troubleshooting Tips
Installing Python Libraries
Installing NumPy
 Installing SciPy
Installing Matplotlib
Installing Pandas
Installing Scikit-Learn
Summary
Chapter 2:​Perceptrons
Biological Neurons
Artificial Neurons
Perceptrons
Perceptron Learning Rule
Types of Activation Functions
The Sigmoid Activation Function
The ReLU Function
The Softmax Function
Perceptrons in Action
Stage 1:​Forward Propagation of Inputs
Stage 2:​Calculation of the Net Input
Stage 3:​Activation Function
Stage 4:​Backward Propagation
Project Description
Important Terminology
Required Libraries
Procedure
Step 1.​Import Libraries
Step 2.​Declare Parameters
Step 3.​Declare the Weights and Bias
 Step 4.​Define the Perceptron Function
Step 5.​Define the Loss Function and Optimizer
Step 6.​Read in the Data
Step 7.​Visualization of Labels
Step 8.​Prepare Inputs
Step 9.​Initialize Variables
Step 10.​Train the Model
Step 11.​New Values for Weights and Bias
Step 12.​View the Final Loss
Step 13.​Predicting Using the Trained Model
Step 14.​Evaluate the Model
Summary
Chapter 3:​Neural Networks
What Is a Neural Network?​
Neural Network Components
Advantages of Neural Networks
Disadvantages of a Neural Networks
How a Neural Network Works
Forward Propagation
Backward Propagation
Types of Neural Networks
Feedforward Neural Network
Convolutional Neural Networks
Recurrent Neural Network (RNN)
Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBNN)
Project Description
 Flattening Data
About the Dataset
Required Libraries
Neural Network Architecture
Procedure
Summary
References
Chapter 4:​Sentiment Analysis
LSTM Review
How an LSTM Works
Layers in an LSTM
Project Description
About the Dataset
Understanding Sentiment Analysis
Required Libraries
LSTM Architecture
Procedure
Step 1.​Import Libraries
Step 2.​Load the Data
Step 3.​Prepare the Data
Step 4.​Clean the Data
Step 5.​Structure the Model
Step 6.​Compile the Model
Step 7.​Train the Model
Step 8.​Save the Model (Optional)
Step 9.​Import the Pretrained Model (Optional)
 Further Tests
Troubleshooting
Summary
References
Further Reading
Chapter 5:​Music Generation
GRU Overview
How a GRU Works
GRU Stages
GRU Layers
Comparing GRU and LSTM
Project Description
About the Dataset
Important Terminology and Concepts
Required Libraries
Installation Instructions
Using PIP
Using Windows
Using macOS
Using Linux
Installation Troubleshooting
GRU Architecture
Procedure
Step 1.​Import Libraries
Step 2.​Load the Data
Step 3.​Feature Extraction
 Step 4.​Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)
Step 5.​Data Preparation (Input)
Step 6.​Structure the Model
Step 7.​Train the Model
Step 8.​Prediction
Step 9.​Data Preparation (Offset)
Step 10.​Store the Output as a MIDI File
Further Tests
Troubleshooting
Summary
References
Resources
Further Reading
Chapter 6:​Image Colorization
Human Vision Review
Computer Vision Review
How a CNN Works
Input Layer
Convolution Layer:​The Kernel
Upsampling Layer
DepthwiseConv2D
Pooling Layer
Fully Connected Layer
Project Description
About the Dataset
Important Terminology
 Required Libraries
Installation Instructions
CNN+VGG-16 Architecture
Procedure
Step 1.​Import the Libraries
Step 2.​Convert the Images to Grayscale
Step 3.​Load the Data
Step 4.​Structure the Model
Step 5.​Set the Model Parameters
Step 6.​Data Preparation
Step 7.​Train the Model
Step 8.​Obtain Predictions
Step 9.​View the Results
Troubleshooting
Further Tests
Summary
References
Further Reading
Chapter 7:​Image Deblurring
What Is a GAN?​
Types of GANs
How a GAN Works
The Generative Model
Process Within the Generator
The Discriminator Model
Process Within the Discriminator
 Project Description
About the Dataset
Important Terminology and Concepts
GAN Architecture
Required Libraries
GAN Architecture
Generator
Discriminator
Procedure
Step 1.​Import the Libraries
Step 2.​Dataset Preparation
Step 3.​Exploratory Data Analysis
Step 4.​Structure the Model
Step 5.​Input Preparation
Step 6.​View the Images
Step 7.​Save Results
Troubleshooting
Further Tests
Summary
References
Further Reading
Chapter 8:​Image Manipulation
Project Description
Important Terminology and Concepts
Copy-Move Forgeries
About the Dataset
 Required Libraries
Troubleshooting
CNN Architecture
Procedure
Step 1.​Import the Libraries
Step 2.​Preparing the Dataset
Step 3.​Structure the Model
Step 4.​Train the Model
Step 5.​Test the Model
Step 6.​Check the Results
Further Tests
Summary
References
Further Reading
Chapter 9:​Neural Network Collection
Neural Network Zoo Primer
Neural Networks
Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs)
Multiplicative LSTM
ANNs with Attention
Transformers
Autoencoder
Variational Autoencoders
Denoising Autoencoders
Recurrent Autoencoders
Sparse Autoencoders
 Stacked Autoencoders
Convolutional Autoencoders
Stacked Denoising Autoencoders
Contractive Autoencoders
Markov Chains
Hopfield Networks
Bidirectional Associative Memory
Boltzmann Machines
Restricted Boltzmann Machines
Deep Belief Networks
Deconvolutional Networks
Deep Convolutional Inverse Graphics Networks
Liquid State Machines
Echo State Networks (ESNs)
Deep Residual Network (ResNet)
ResNeXt
Neural Turing Machines
Capsule Networks
LeNet-5
AlexNet
GoogLeNet
Xception
Optimizers
Stochastic Gradient Descent
RMSProp
AdaGrad
 AdaDelta
Adam
Adamax
Nesterov Accelerated Gradient (NAG)
Nadam
Loss Functions
Mean Squared Error (MSE)
Mean Absolute Error (MAE)
Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE)
Mean Squared Logarithmic Error (MSLE)
Squared Hinge
Hinge
Categorical Hinge
Log Cosh
Huber Loss
Categorical Cross-Entropy
Sparse Categorical Cross-Entropy
Binary Cross-Entropy
Kullback-Leibler Divergence
Poisson
References
Further Reading
Appendix:​Portfolio Tips
Data Analyst Portfolios
Sharing Your Portfolio
Types of Projects
Defining Problem Statements
Using Design Thinking
Solution Implementation
Maintenance
Tips for Documenting Projects
Appendix Checklist
References
Further Reading
Resources for Building Your Portfolio
Read.​me Template
Data Cleaning Checklist
Index
About the Author
Vinita Silaparasetty
is a data science trainer who is
passionate about AI, machine learning,
and deep learning. She is experienced in
programming with Python, R,
TensorFlow, and Keras.
She is currently pursuing her
master’s degree in Data Science at
NewCastle University, U.K.
She has written two award-winning
research papers on machine learning.
The first is titled “ Python vs. R” and is a
comparative study of Python and R. The
second is titled “Machine Learning for
Fraud Detection: Employing Artificial Intelligence in the Banking
Sector” and it proposes a new system for real-time fraud detection in
the banking sector. She is also a reviewer for the Oxford Publication
entitled The Computer Journal.
She is the co-organizer of the “Bangalore Artificial Intelligence
Meetup” group as well as the “AI for Women” meetup group, where she
conducts training sessions on Python, R, machine learning, and deep
learning.
You can find her on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/VinitaSilaparasetty/
About the Technical Reviewer
Mezgani Ali
is a Ph.D. student in artificial intelligence
(Mohamed V. University in Rabat) and a
researcher at Native LABS, Inc. He likes
technology, reading, and his little
daughter Ghita. His first program was a
Horoscope in Basic in 1993. He has done
a lot of work on the infrastructure side in
system engineering, software
engineering, managed networks, and
security.
Mezgani worked for NIC France,
Capgemini, and HP, and he was part of
the (SRE) Site Reliability Engineer team
responsible for keeping data center servers and customers’
applications up and running. He is fanatical about Kubernetes, REST
API, MySQL, and Scala, and he is the creator of the functional and
imperative programming language, PASP.
© Vinita Silaparasetty 2020
V. Silaparasetty, Deep Learning Projects Using TensorFlow 2
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5802-6_1

1. Getting Started: Installation and

Troubleshooting
Vinita Silaparasetty1
(1) Bangalore, India

In order to make the best use of this book, you’ll need to satisfy the
following prerequisites:
Install Python 3, the latest version of Python
Install Jupyter Notebooks
Install TensorFlow 2.0
Install Keras
Install NumPy
Install SciPy
Install Matplotlib
Install Pandas
Install Scikit-Learn
This chapter will help you install all the necessary packages. It also
provides troubleshooting tips for some common errors that may occur
during installation.

Note It is good practice to create a separate virtual environment

for these projects. Before installing the packages mentioned here,
create a virtual environment and activate it.

Installing Python 3
Python is a general-purpose interpreted, imperative, object-oriented,
high-level programming language. It is one of the oldest programming
languages around. However, with the onset of machine learning, Python
has been given a new lease on life. It has become a popular tool for both
machine learning and deep learning. Currently, Python is available as
two distinct versions—Python 2 and Python 3.
All the projects in this book use Python 3, so it is best to ensure that
it is installed.

Method 1: Direct Installation from the Official

Python Website
This method works well with Windows, Linux, and macOS X systems. It
is the standard method of installation, whereby you download Python
directly from the official website and then install it on your system.
1. Go to https://www.python.org/ and select the Downloads
tab. A drop-down menu will appear (see Figure 1-1).

Figure 1-1 Official Python website

2. To the right of the drop-down menu, you will see the latest
versions of Python that are available for your specific system. The
first button provides the latest version of Python 3. Once you click
it, the download will begin.

3. Once the download is complete, double-click the package in the

Download bar. This will start the installation process.

4. In the dialog box that pops up, select Continue (see Figure 1-2).

Figure 1-2 Introduction window of the Python installation

5. In the new dialog box, you will be presented with important

information regarding the changes made to Python (see Figure 1-
3). Once again, select Continue.
 Figure 1-3 The Read Me window of the Python installation
6. Now you will be shown the license agreement for using Python.
Select Continue (see Figure 1-4).
 Figure 1-4 The License window of the Python installation
7. A mini dialog box will appear requesting you to agree to the terms
and conditions listed. Select Agree.

8. Select the file path for the new Python installation.

9. Select the type of installation. See Figure 1-5.

 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
"Oh—thanks. Now, about this Barrett?"
"We argued a lot. You see, I'm frankly a reactionary—"
"Were you associated with any political-action group?"
"Mr. Horrisford," said Elizabeth reproachfully, "you haven't touched
your cake."
"No, I wasn't that interested," said Arch. "Didn't even bother to vote
in '50."
"Here, Mr. Sagdahl, do have some more cake."
"Thanks!—You met some of Barrett's friends?"
"Yes, I was at some parties and—"
"Excuse me, I'll just warm your coffee."
"Did you at this time know anyone who had worked in the Manhattan
Project?"
"Of course. They were all over the place. But I never was told
anything restricted, never asked for—"
"Please, Mr. Horrisford! It's my favorite recipe."
"Ummm. Thank you, but—"
"You met your future wife when?"
"In—"
"Excuse me, there's the phone... Hello. Mrs. Arch speaking... Oh?...
Yes, I'll see... Pardon me. There's a man from the Associated Press in
town. He wants to see you, dear."
Sagdahl flinched. "Stall him off," he groaned. "Please."
"Can't do that forever," said Arch. "Not under the circumstances."
"I realize that, Dr. Arch." Sagdahl clenched his jaw. "But this is
unprecedented. As an American citizen, you'll want to—"
"Certainly we'll cooperate," said Elizabeth brightly. "But what shall I
tell the AP man? That we're not supposed to say anything to
anyone?"
"No! That won't do, not now. But—are all the technical details of this
public?"
"Why, yes," said Arch. "Anybody can make capacitite."
"If you issued a denial—"
"Too late, I'm afraid. Somebody's bound to try it anyway."
Sagdahl looked grim. "You can be held incommunicado," he said.
"This is a very serious matter."
"Yes," said Elizabeth. "The AP man will think so too, if he can't get a
story."
"Well—"
"Oh, dear! My Russell Wright coffee cup!"

Nothing happened overnight. That was the hardest thing to believe.

By all the rules, life should have been suddenly and dramatically
transformed; but instead, there were only minor changes, day by day,
small incidents. Meanwhile you ate, slept, worked, paid bills, made
love and conversation, as you had always done.
The FBI held its hand as yet, but some quiet men checked into the
town's one hotel, and there was usually one of them hanging around
Arch's house, watching. Elizabeth would occasionally invite him in for
a snack—she grew quite fond of them.
The newspapers ran feature articles, and for a while the house was
overrun with reporters—then that too faded away. Editorials
appeared, pointing out that capacitite had licked one of the Soviet
Union's major problems, fuel; and a syndicated columnist practically
called for Arch's immediate execution. He found some of his
neighbors treating him coldly. The situation distressed him, too. "I
never thought—" he began.
"Exactly," rumbled Culquhoun. "People like you are one reason
science is coming to be considered a Frankenstein. Dammit, man, the
researcher has to have a social conscience like the rest of us."
Arch smiled wearily. "But I do," he said. "I gave considerable thought
to the social effects. I just imagined that they'd be good. That's been
the case with every major innovation, in the long run."
"You've committed a crime," said Culquhoun. "Idealism. It doesn't fit
the world we inhabit."
Arch flushed angrily. "What was I supposed to do?" he snapped.
"Burn my results and forget them? If the human race is too stupid to
use the obvious advantages, that's its own fault."
"You're making a common error, dear," said Elizabeth. "You speak of
the human race. There isn't any. There are only individual people and
groups of people, with their own conflicting interests."
For a while, there was a big campaign to play down the effects of
capacitite. It wasn't important. It meant nothing, as our eminent
columnist has so lucidly shown. Then the attempt switched:
capacitite was dangerous. So-and-so had been electrocuted working
with it. There was cumulative poisoning... Such propaganda didn't
work, not when some millions of people were seeing for themselves.
Petroleum stock began sagging. It didn't nosedive—the SEC and a
valiantly buying clique saw to that—but it slipped down day by day.
Arch happened to drop in at Hinkel's garage. The old man looked up
from a car on which he was laboring and smiled. "Hello, there," he
said. "Haven't seen you in a long time."
"I—well—" Arch looked guiltily at the oil-stained floor. "I'm afraid—
your business—"
"Oh, don't worry about me. I've got more business than I can handle.
Everybody in town seems to want his car converted over to your type
of engine. That young Bob is turning out the stuff like a printing
press gone berserk."
Arch couldn't quite meet his eyes. "But—aren't your gasoline sales
dropping?"
"To be sure. But cars still need lubrication and—Look, you know the
old watermill down by Ronson's farm? I'm buying that, putting in a
generator and a high-voltage transformer and rectifier. I'll be selling
packaged power. A lot easier than running a gas pump, at my age."
"Won't the power company be competing?"
"Eventually. Right now, they're still waiting for orders from higher up,
I guess. Some people can charge their capacitors right at home, but
most would rather not buy the special equipment. They'll come to
me, and by the time the power outfit gets wise to itself, I'll 've come
in on the ground floor."
"Thanks," said Arch, a little shakily. "It makes me feel a lot better."
If only everybody had that Yankee adaptability, he thought as he
walked home. But he saw now, as he wished he had seen earlier, that
society had gone too far. With rare exceptions, progress was no
longer a matter of individual re-adjustments. It was a huge and
clumsy economic system which had to make the transformation... a
jerry-built system whose workings no one understood, even today.
He wanted to call up Gilmer and make what terms he could, but it
was too late. The snowball was rolling.
He sighed his way into an armchair and picked up the paper.
Item: the bill before Congress to make capacitite a government
monopoly like uranium, and to enforce all security restrictions on it,
had been sent back to committee and would probably not pass. A
few senators had had the nerve to point out that security was
pointless when everybody could already make the stuff.
Item: the government was setting up a special laboratory to study
the military applications. Arch could think of several for himself.
Besides simplifying logistics, it could go into cheap and horrible
weapons. A bomb loaded with several thousand coulombs, set to
discharge instantaneously on striking—
Item: a well-known labor leader had denounced the innovation as a
case of business blundering which was going to take bread from the
working man. A corporation spokesman declared that it was all a
leftist trick designed to cripple the private enterprise system.
Item: Pravda announced that Soviet scientists had discovered
capacitite ten years ago and that full-scale production had long been
under way for peaceful purposes only, such as making the Red Army
still more invincible.
Item: two more men in America electrocuted due to incautious
experiments. Nevertheless, capacitite was being manufactured in
thousands of homes and workshops. Bills in various state legislatures
to ban vehicles so powered were meeting indignant opposition
everywhere save in Texas.
Arch reflected wryly that he wasn't getting paid for any of this. All
he'd gotten out of it so far was trouble. Trouble with the authorities,
with crank letters, with his own conscience. There were, to be sure,
some royalties from Bob Culquhoun, who was becoming quite an
entrepreneur and hiring adults to take over when school opened in
fall.
Speaking of tigers by the tail—

Autumn, the New England fall of rain and chill whistling wind, smoky
days and flame-like leaves and the far wild honking of southbound
geese. The crash came in late September: a reeling market hit
bottom and stayed there. Gasoline sales were down twenty-five
percent already, and the industry was laying men off by the hundreds
of thousands. That cut out their purchasing power and hit the rest of
the economy.
"It's what you'd expect, laddie," said Culquhoun. They were over at
his house. Outside, a slow cold rain washed endlessly down the
windows. "Over production—over-capitalization—I could have
predicted all this."
"Damn it to hell, it doesn't make sense!" protested Arch. "A new
energy source should make everything cheaper for everybody—more
production available for less work." He felt a nervous tic beginning in
one cheek.
"Production for use instead of for profit—"
"Oh, dry up, will you? Any system is a profit system. It has to show a
profit in some terms or other, or it would just be wasted effort. And
the profit has to go to individuals, not to some mythical state. The
state doesn't eat—people do."
"Would you have the oil interests simply write off their investment?"
"No, of course not. Why couldn't they—Look. Gasoline can still run
generators. Oil can still lubricate. Byproducts can still be synthesized.
It's a matter of shifting the emphasis of production, that's all. All
that's needed is a little common sense."
"Which is a rather scarce commodity."
"There," said Arch gloomily, "we find ourselves in agreement."
"The trouble is," said Bob earnestly, "we're faced with a real situation,
not a paper problem. It calls for a real solution. For an idea."
"There aren't any ideas," said Elizabeth. "Not big sweeping ones to
solve everything overnight. Man doesn't work that way. What
happens is that somebody solves his own immediate, personal
problems, somebody else does the same, and eventually society as a
whole fumbles its way out of the dilemma."
Arch sighed. "This is getting over my head," he admitted. "Thanks for
small blessings: the thing has grown so big that I, personally, am
becoming forgotten."
He rose. "I'm kind of tired tonight," he went on. "Maybe we better be
running along. Thanks for the drinks and all."
He and his wife slipped into their raincoats and galoshes for the short
walk home. The street outside was dark, a rare lamp glowing off slick
wet concrete. Rain misted his face and glasses, he had trouble
seeing.
"Poor darling," Elizabeth took his arm. "Don't worry. We'll get through
all right."
"I hope so," he said fervently. No money had come in for some time
now. Bob's enterprise was levelling off as initial demand was filled,
and a lurching industry wasn't buying many electronic valves. The
bank account was getting low.
He saw the figure ahead as a vague shadow against the night. It
stood waiting till they came up, and then stepped in their path. The
voice was unfamiliar: "Arch?"
"Yes—"
He could see only that the face was heavy and unshaven, with
something wild about the mouth. Then his eyes dropped to the
revolver barrel protruding from the slicker. "What the devil—"
"Don't move, you." It was a harsh, broken tone. "Right now I'm
aiming at your wife. I'd as soon shoot her, too."
Fear leaped crazily in Arch's breast. He stood unable to stir, coldness
crawling in his guts. He tried to speak, and couldn't.
"Not a word, you—. Not another word. You've said too goddam much
already." The gun poked forward, savagely. "I'm going to kill you. You
did your best to kill me."
Elizabeth's face was white in the gloom. "What do you mean?" she
whispered. "We never saw you before."
"No. But you took away my job. I was in the breadlines back in the
thirties. I'm there again, and it's your fault, you—Got any prayers to
say?"
A gibbering ran through Arch's brain. He stood motionless, thinking
through a lunatic mind-tilt that there must be some way to jump that
gun, the heroes of stories always did it, that might—
Someone moved out of the night into the wan radiance. An arm went
about the man's throat, another seized his gun wrist and snapped it
down. The weapon went off, sounding like the crack of doom in the
stillness.
They struggled on the slippery sidewalk, panting, the rain running
over dimly glimpsed faces. Arch's paralysis broke, he moved in and
circled around, looking for a chance to help. There! Crouching, he got
hold of the assassin's ankle and clung.
There was a meaty smack above him, and the body sagged.
Elizabeth held her hand over her mouth, as if to force back a scream.
"Mr. Horrisford," she whispered.
"The same," said the FBI man. "That was a close one. You can be
thankful you're an object of suspicion, Arch. What was he after?"
Arch stared blankly at his rescuer. Slowly, meaning penetrated.
"Unemployed—" he mumbled. "Bitter about it—"
"Yeah. I thought so. You may be having more trouble of that sort.
This depression, people have someone concrete to blame." Horrisford
stuck the gun in his pocket and helped up his half-conscious victim.
"Let's get this one down to the lockup. Here, you support him while I
put on some handcuffs."
"But I wanted to help his kind," said Arch feebly.
"You didn't," said Horrisford. "I'd better arrange for a police guard."

Arch spent the following day in a nearly suicidal depression. Elizabeth

tried to pull him out of it, failed, and went downtown after a fifth of
whiskey. That helped. The hangover helped too. It's hard to
concentrate on remorse when ten thousand red-hot devils are
building an annex to Hell in your skull. Toward evening, he was
almost cheerful again. A certain case-hardening was setting in.
After dark, there was a knock on the door. When he opened it,
Horrisford and a stranger stood there.
"Oh—come in," he said "Excuse the mess. I—haven't been feeling so
well."
"Anyone here?" asked the agent.
"Just my wife."
"She'll be all right," said the stranger impatiently. He was a big, stiff,
gray-haired man. "Bring her in, please. This is important."
They were settled in the living room before Horrisford performed the
introductions. "Major General Brackney of Strategic Services." Arch's
hand was wet as he acknowledged the handclasp.
"This is most irregular," said the general. "However, we've put
through a special check on you. A fast but very thorough check. In
spite of your errors of judgment, the FBI is convinced of your
essential loyalty. Your discretion is another matter."
"I can keep my mouth shut, if that's what you mean," said Arch.
"Yes. You kept one secret for ten years," said Horrisford. "The
business of Mrs. Ramirez."
Arch started. "How the deuce—? That was a personal affair. I've
never told a soul, not even my wife!"
"We have our little ways." Horrisford grinned, humanly enough. "The
point is that you could have gained somewhat by blabbing, but didn't.
It speaks well for you."
General Brackney cleared his throat. "We want your help on a certain
top-secret project," he said. "You still know more about capacitite
than anybody else. But if one word of this leaks out prematurely, it
means war. Atomic war. It also means that all of us, and you
particularly, will be crucified."
"I—"
"You're an independent so-and-so, I realize. What we have in mind is
a scheme to prevent such a war. We want you in on it both for your
own value and because we can't protect you forever from Soviet
agents." Brackney's smile had no humor. "Didn't know that, did you?
It's one reason you're being co-opted, in spite of all you've done.
"I can't say more till you take the oath, and once you've done that
you're under all the usual restrictions. Care to help out?"
Arch hesitated. He had little faith in government ... any government.
Still—
Horrisford of the FBI had saved his life.
"I'm game," he said.
Elizabeth nodded. The oath was administered.
Brackney leaned back and lit a cigar. "All right," he said. "I'll come to
the point.
"Offhand, it looks as if you've done a grave disservice to your
country. It's been pointed out in the press that transporting fuel is the
major problem of logistics. In fact, for the Russians it's the problem,
since they can live off the countries they invade to a degree we can't
match. You've solved that for them, and once they convert their
vehicles we can expect them to start rolling. They and their allies—
especially the Chinese. This discovery is going to make them a first-
class power."
"I've heard that," said Arch thinly.
"However, we also know that the communist regimes are not popular.
Look at the millions of refugees, look at all the prisoners who refused
repatriation, look at the Ukrainian insurrection—I needn't elaborate.
The trouble has been that the people aren't armed. To say anything
at home means the concentration camp.
"Now, then. Basically, the idea is this. We've got plants set up to turn
out capacitite in trainload lots. We can, I think, make weapons
capable of stopping a tank for a couple of dollars apiece. Do you
agree?"
"Why—yes," said Arch. "I've been considering it lately. A rifle
discharging its current through magnetic coils to drive a steel-
jacketed bullet—the bullet could be loaded with electricity too. Or a
Buck Rogers energy gun: a hand weapon with a blower run off the
capacitor, sucking in air at the rear and spewing it out between two
electrodes like a gigantic arc-welding flame. Or—yes, there are all
kinds of possibilities."
Brackney nodded with an air of satisfaction. "Good. I see you do have
the kind of imagination we need.
"Now, we'll be giving nothing away, because they already know how
to make the stuff and can think up anything we can. But, we have a
long jump as far as production facilities are concerned.
"The idea is this. We want to make really enormous quantities of
such weapons. By various means—through underground channels, by
air if necessary—we want to distribute them to all the Iron Curtain
countries. The people will be armed, and hell is going to break loose!
"We want you in on it as design and production consultants. Leave
tomorrow, be gone for several months probably. It's going to have to
be highly organized, so it can be sprung as a surprise; otherwise the
Soviet bosses, who are no fools, will hit. But your part will be in
production. Are you game?"
"It's—astonishing," said Elizabeth. "Frankly, I didn't think the
government had that much imagination."
"We're probably exceeding our authority," admitted Brackney. "By
rights, of course, Congress should be consulted, but this is like the
Louisiana Purchase: there's no time to do so."
It was the historical note which decided Arch. Grade-school history,
yes—but it didn't fit in with his preconceptions of the red-necked
militarist. Suddenly, almost hysterically, he was laughing.
"What's so funny?" asked Horrisford sharply.
"The idea—what old Clausewitz would say—winning wars by arming
the enemy! Sure—sure, I'm in. Gladly!"
Six months on a secret reservation in Colorado which nobody but the
top brass left, six months of the hardest, most concentrated work a
man could endure, got Arch out of touch with the world. He saw an
occasional newspaper, was vaguely aware of trouble on the outside,
but there was too much immediately at hand for him to consider the
reality. Everything outside the barbed-wire borders of his universe
grew vague.
Designing and testing capacitite weapons was harder than he had
expected, and took longer: though experienced engineers assured
him the project was moving with unprecedented speed and ease.
Production details were out of his department, but the process of
tooling up and getting mass output going was not one for overnight
solution.
The magnetic rifle; the arc gun; the electric bomb and grenade; the
capacitite land mine, set to fry the crew of any tank which passed
over—he knew their hideous uses, but there was a cool ecstasy in
working with them which made him forget, most of the time. And
after all, the idea was to arm men who would be free.
In March, General Brackney entered the Quonset hut which Arch and
Elizabeth had been inhabiting and sat down with a weary smile. "I
guess you're all through now," he said.
"About time," grumbled the girl. "We've been sitting on our hands
here for a month, just puttering."
"The stuff had to be shipped out," said the general mildly. "We didn't
dare risk having the secret revealed. But we're rolling overseas, it's
too late to stop anything." He shrugged. "Naturally, the government
isn't admitting its part in this. Officially, the weapons were
manufactured by independent operators in Europe and Asia, and
you'll have to keep quiet about the truth for a long time—not that the
comrades won't be pretty sure, but it just can't be openly admitted.
However, there are no security restrictions on the gadgets
themselves, as of today."
"That surprises me," said Arch.
"It's simple enough. Everything is so obvious, really—any handyman
can make the same things for himself. A lot have been doing it, too.
No secrets exist to be given away, that's all." Brackney hesitated.
"We'll fly you back home anytime you wish. But if you want to stay
on a more permanent basis, we'll be glad to have you."
"No, thanks!" Elizabeth's eyes went distastefully around the sleazy
interior of the shack.
"This has all been temporary," said the general. "We were in such a
hell of a hurry. Better housing will be built now."
"Nevertheless, no," said Arch.
Brackney frowned. "I can't stop you, of course. But I don't think you
realize how tough it's getting outside, and how much worse it's going
to get. A revolution is starting, in more senses than one, and you'll be
safer here."
"I heard something about that," agreed Arch. "Discontented elements
making their own weapons, similar to ours—what of it?"
"Plenty," said the officer with a note of grimness. "It's an ugly
situation. A lot of people are out of work, and even those who still
have jobs don't feel secure in them. There are a dozen crank
solutions floating around, everything from new political theories to
new religious sects, and each one is finding wider acceptance than
I'd have believed possible."
"It doesn't surprise me," said Arch. "There's a queer strain of the
True Believer in American culture. You know how many utopian
colonies we've had throughout our history? And the single tax party,
and prohibition, and communism in the thirties. People in this country
want something concrete to believe in, and all but a few of the
churches have long ago degenerated into social clubs."
"Whatever the cause," said Brackney, "there are all these new
groups, clashing with the old authorities and with each other. And the
underworld is gleefully pitching in, and getting a lot of recruits from
the ranks of hungry, frightened, embittered people.
"The regular armed forces have to be mobilized to stop anything the
Soviets may try. The police and the National Guard have their hands
full in the big cities. The result is, that authority is breaking down
everywhere else. There's real trouble ahead, I tell you."
"All right," said Arch. "That's as may be. But our town is a collection
of pretty solid folk—and we want to go home."
"On your heads be it. There'll be a plane at six tomorrow."
—The fact did not strike home till they were stopping over at Idlewild
and saw uniformed men and machine-gun emplacements. In the
coffee shop, Arch asked the counterman just how bad things really
were.
"Rough," he answered. "See this?" He flipped back his jacket,
showing a homemade capacitite pistol in a holster.
"Oh, look now—"
"Mister, I live in Brooklyn. I don't get home till after dark, and the
police cordons don't go closer than six blocks to my place. I've had to
shoot twice already in the past couple months."
"Bandits?"
"In gangs, mister. If I could work somewhere closer to home, I'd be
off like a shot."
Arch set down his cup. Suddenly he didn't want any more coffee. My
God, he thought, am I responsible for that?
A smaller plane carried them to Boston, where they caught a bus for
Westfield. The driver had an automatic rifle by his seat. Arch huddled
into himself, waiting for he knew not what; but the trip was
uneventful.
The town didn't seem to have changed much. Most of the cars were
converted, but it didn't show externally. The drug store still flashed
neon at a drowsy sidewalk, the Carnegie library waited rather
wistfully for someone to come in, the dress shop had the same old
dummies in the window. Elizabeth pointed at them. "Look," she said.
"See those clothes?"
"They're dresses," said Arch moodily. "What about them?"
"No style change in six months, that's all," said Elizabeth. "It gives
me the creeps."
They walked along streets banked with dirty, half-melted snow, under
a leaden sky and a small whimpering wind. Their house had not
changed when they entered, someone had been in to dust and it
looked like the home they remembered. Arch sank tiredly into his old
armchair and accepted a drink. He studied the newspaper he'd
bought at the depot. Screaming headlines announced revolt in Russia
—mass uprisings in the Siberian prison camps—announcements from
the Copenhagen office of the Ukrainian nationalist movement—It all
seemed very far away. The fact that there were no new dress styles
was somehow closer and more eerie.
A thunderous knock at the door informed him that Culquhoun had
noticed their lights. "Mon, it's guid to see ye again!" The great paw
engulfed his hand. "Where've ye been a' the while?"
"Can't tell you that," said Arch.
"Aweel, you'll permit me to make my own guesses, then." Culquhoun
cocked an eye at the paper. "Who do they think they're fooling,
anyhow? We can look for the Russian bombers any day now."
Arch considered his reply. That aspect had been thoroughly discussed
at the project, but he wasn't sure how much he could tell. "Quite
possibly," he said at last. "But with their internal troubles, they won't
be able to make many raids, or any big ones—and the little they will
be able to throw at us should be stopped while they're still over
northern Canada."
"Let's hope so," nodded Culquhoun. "But the people in the large cities
won't want to take the chance. There's going to be an exodus of
considerable dimensions in the next few days, with all that that
implies." He paused, frowning. "I've spent the last couple of months
organizing a kind of local militia. Bob has been making capacitite
guns, and there are about a hundred of us trying to train ourselves.
Want in on it?"
"They'd probably shoot me first," whispered Arch.
The red head shook, bear-like. "No. There's less feeling against you
locally than you seem to think. After all, few if any of the people in
this area have been hurt—they're farmers, small shopkeepers trading
in the essentials, students, college employees. Many of them have
actually benefited. You have your enemies here, but you have more
friends."
"I think," said Arch thinly, "that I'm becoming one of my own
enemies."
"Ah, foosh, mon! If you hadn't brought the stuff out, somebody else
would have. It's not your fault that we don't have the kind of
economy to absorb it smoothly."
"All right," said Arch without tone. "I'll join your minute men. There
doesn't seem to be anything else to do."

The wave of automobiles began coming around noon of the next day.
Westfield lay off the main highway, so it didn't get the full impact of
the jam which tied up traffic from Philadelphia to Boston; but there
were some thousands of cars which passed through.
Arch stood in the ranks of men who lined Main Street. The gun felt
awkward in his hands. Breath smoked from his nostrils, and the air
was raw and damp. On one side of him was Mr. Hinkel, bundled up so
that only the glasses and a long red nose seemed visible; on the
other was a burly farmer whom he didn't know.
Outside the city limits a sign had been planted, directing traffic to
keep moving and to stay on the highway. There were barriers on all
the side streets. Arch heard an occasional argument when someone
tried to stop, to be urged on by a guard and by the angry horns
behind him.
"But what'll they do?" he asked blindly. "Where will they stay? My
God, there are women and children in those cars!"
"Women and children here in town too," said Hinkel. "We've got to
look after our own. It won't kill these characters to go a few days
without eating. Every house here is filled already—there've been
refugees trickling in for weeks."
"We could bunk down a family in our place," ventured Arch.
"Save that space," answered Hinkel. "It'll be needed later."
Briefly, a certain pride rose through the darkness of guilt which lay in
Arch. These were the old Americans, the same folk who had stood at
Concord and gone west into Indian country. They were a survivor
type.
But most of their countrymen weren't, he realized sickly. Urban
civilization had become too big, too specialized. There were people in
the millions who had never pitched a tent, butchered a pig, fixed a
machine. What was going to become of them?
Toward evening, he was relieved and slogged home, too numb with
cold and weariness to think much. He gulped down the dinner his
wife had ready and tumbled into bed.
It seemed as if he had not slept at all when the phone was ringing.
He groped toward it, cursing as he tried to unglue his eyes.
Culquhoun's voice rattled at him:
"You and Betty come up to the college, Somerset Hall, right away.
There's hell to pay."
"How—?"
"Our lookout on the water tower has seen fires starting to the south.
Something's approaching, and it doesn't look friendly."
Sleep drained from Arch and he stood in a grayness where Satan
jeered at him: "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice!" Slowly, he
nodded. "We'll be right along."
The campus was jammed with townspeople. In the vague pre-dawn
light, Arch saw them as a moving river of white, frightened faces.
Farmer, merchant, laborer, student, teacher, housewife, they had all
receded into a muttering anonymity through which he pushed toward
the steps of the hall. The irregular militia was forming ranks there,
with Culquhoun's shaggy form dominating the scene.
"There you are," he snapped. "Betty, can you help take charge of the
women and children and old people? Get them inside—this one
building ought to hold them all, with some crowding. Kind of circulate
around, keep them calm. We'll pass out coffee and doughnuts as
soon as the Salvation Army bunch can set up a canteen."
"What's the plan?" asked a guardsman. To Arch, his voice had a dim
dreamlike quality, none of this was real, it couldn't be.
"I don't know what those arsonists intend or where they're bound,"
said Culquhoun, "but we'd better be ready to meet them. The traffic
through town stopped completely a few hours ago—I think there's a
gang of highwaymen operating."
"Colin, it can't be! Plain people like us—"
"Hungry, frightened, angry, desperate, confused people. A mob has
nothing to do with the individuals in it, my friend. And one small push
is enough to knock down a row of dominoes. Once lawlessness really
gets started, a lot of others are driven into it in self-defense."
They waited. The sun came up, throwing a pale bleak light over the
late snow and the naked trees. The canteen handed out a sort of
breakfast. Little was said.
At nine-thirty, a boy on a clumsy plowhorse came galloping up toward
them. "About a hundred, marching down the highway," he panted.
"They threw a couple shots at me."
"Stay here," said Culquhoun. "I'm going down to see if we can't
parley. I'll want about ten men with me. Volunteers?"
Arch found himself among the first. It didn't matter much what
happened to him, now when the work of his hands was setting
aflame homes all across the land. They trudged down the hillside and
out toward the viaduct leading south. Culquhoun broke into a
deserted house and stationed them in its entrance hall.
Peering out, Arch saw the ragged column moving in. They were all
men, unshaven and dirty. A few trucks accompanied them, loaded
with a strange mass of plunder, but most were on foot and all were
armed.
Culquhoun bound a towel to his rifle barrel and waved it through the
front door. After what seemed like a long time, a voice outside said:
"Okay, if yuh wanna talk, go ahead."
"Cover me," murmured Culquhoun, stepping onto the porch. Looking
around his shoulder, Arch made out three of the invaders, with their
troop standing in tired, slumped attitudes some yards behind. They
didn't look fiendish, merely worn and hungry.
"Okay, pal," said the leader. "This is O'Farrell's bunch, and we're after
food and shelter. What can yuh do for us?"
"Food and shelter?" Culquhoun glanced at the trucks. "You seem
to've been helping yourselves pretty generously already."
O'Farrell's face darkened. "What'd yuh have us do? Starve?"
"You're from the Boston area, I suppose. You could have stayed
there."
"And been blown off the map!"
"It hasn't happened yet," said Culquhoun mildly. "It's not likely to
happen, either. They have organized relief back there, you didn't
have to starve. But no, you panicked and then you turned mean."
"It's easy enough for yuh to say so. Yuh're safe. We're here after our
proper share, that's all."
"Your proper share is waiting in Boston," said Culquhoun with a
sudden chill. "Now, if you want to proceed through our town, we'll let
you; but we don't want you to stay. Not after what you've been doing
lately."
O'Farrell snarled and brought up his gun. Arch fired from behind
Culquhoun. The leader spun on his heel, crumpled, and sagged with
a shriek. Arch felt sick.
His nausea didn't last. It couldn't, with the sudden storm of lead
which sleeted against the house. Culquhoun sprang back, closing the
door. "Out the rear!" he snapped. "We'll have to fight!"
They retreated up the hill, crouching, zigzagging, shooting at the
disorderly mass which milled in slow pursuit. Culquhoun grinned
savagely. "Keep drawing 'em on, boys," he said as he knelt in the
slush and snapped a shot. "If they spread through town, we'll have
hell's own time routing 'em all out—but this way—"
Arch didn't know if he was hitting anything. He didn't hear the bullets
which must be whining around him—another cliché that just wasn't
true, he thought somewhere in the back of his head. A fight wasn't
something you could oversee and understand. It was cold feet,
clinging mud, whirling roaring confusion, it was a nightmare that you
couldn't wake up from.
Then the rest of the Westfield troop were there, circling around to
flank the enemy and pumping death. It was a rout—in minutes, the
gang had stampeded.
Arch leaned on his rifle and felt vomit rising in his throat. Culquhoun
clapped his shoulder. "Ye did richt well, laddie," he rumbled. "No bad
at all."
"What's happening?" groaned Arch. "What's become of the world?"
Culquhoun took out his pipe and began tamping it. "Why, a simple
shift of the military balance of power," he answered. "Once again we
have cheap, easily operated weapons which everyone can own and
which are the equal of anything it's practical for a government to use.
Last time it was the flintlock musket, right? And we got the American
and French Revolutions. This time it's capacitite.
"So the Soviet dictatorship is doomed. But we've got a rough time
ahead of us, because there are enough unstable elements in our own
society to make trouble. Our traditional organizations just aren't
prepared to handle them when they're suddenly armed.
"We'll learn how fast enough, I imagine. There's going to be order
again, if only because the majority of people are decent, hard-
working fellows who won't put up with much more of this sort of
thing. But there has to be a transition period, and what counts is
surviving that."
"If I hadn't—Colin, it's enough to make a man believe in demoniac
possession."
"Nonsense!" snorted the other. "I told you before, if you hadn't
invented this stuff, somebody else would have. It wasn't you that
made it by the ton, all over the country. It wasn't you that thought up
this notion of finishing the Iron Curtain governments—a brilliant
scheme, I might add, well worth whatever price we have to pay at
home.
"But it is you, my boy, who's going to have to get us tooled up to last
the transition. Can you do it?"

Fundamental changes are seldom made consciously. Doubtless the

man in the fifth-century Roman street grumbled about all these
barbarian immigrants, but he did not visualize the end of an empire.
The Lancashire industrialist who fired his craftsmen and installed
mechanical looms was simply making a profitable investment. And
Westfield, Massachusetts, was only adopting temporary survival
measures.
They didn't even look overwhelmingly urgent. Government had not
broken down: if anything, it was working abnormally hard. News
came through—ferocious air battles over the Canadian tundras; the
Soviet armies rolling westward into Europe and southward into Asia,
then pushed back with surprising ease and surrendering en masse as
their own states collapsed behind them—it was turning out to be a
war as remote and half-forgotten as Korea, and a much easier one,
which lasted a few months and then faded into a multi-cornered
struggle between communists, neo-czarists, and a dozen other
elements. By Christmas time, a shaky democratic confederation in
Moscow was negotiating with Ukrainia, the Siberian Convict Republic,
and the Tartar Alliance. China was in chaos and eastern Europe was
free.
And while the great powers were realizing that they were no longer
great, now that a vast capital investment in armament had stopped
paying off; and while they sought to forestall world upheaval by
setting up a genuine international army with strength to enforce the
peace—life went on. People still had to eat.
Arch stood by Hinkel's watermill in the early spring. The ground
glistened and steamed with wetness underfoot, sunlit clouds raced
through a pale windy sky, and a mist of green was on the trees. Near
him the swollen millstream roared and brawled, the wheel flashed
with its own swiftness, and a stack of capacitors lay awaiting their
charges.
"All right," he said. "We've got your generator going. But it isn't
enough, you know. It can't supply the whole country; and power
lines to the outside are down."
"So what do we do?" asked Hinkel. He felt too proud of his new
enterprise to care much about larger issues at the moment.
"We find other sources to supplement," said Arch. "Sunlight, now.
Approximately one horse-power per square yard, if you could only
get at it." He raised a face grown thin with overwork and with the
guilt that always haunted him these days, up to the sky. The sun felt
warm and live on his skin. "Trouble is, the potential's so low. You've
got to find a way to get a high voltage out of it before you can
charge a capacitor decently. Now let me think—"
He spent most of his waking hours thinking. It helped hold off the
memory of men lying dead on a muddy hillside.
When power was short, you couldn't go back to oxcarts and kerosene
lamps. There weren't enough of either. The local machine shop made
and sold quantities of home charging units, small primitive generators
which could be turned by any mechanical source, and treadmills were
built to drive them. But this was only an unsatisfactory expedient.
Accompanied by several armed guards, Arch made a trip to Boston.
The city looked much quieter than he remembered, some of the
streets deserted even at midday, but a subdued business went on.
Food was still coming in to the towns, and manufactured goods
flowing out; there was still trade, mail, transportation. They were
merely irregular and slightly dangerous.
Stopping at M.I.T. Arch gave certain of his problems to the big
computer, and then proceeded to an industrial supply house. The
amount of selenium he ordered brought a gasp and a hurried
conference.
"It will take some time to get all this together," said a vice-president.
"Especially with conditions as they are."
"I know," said Arch. "We're prepared to make up truck convoys and
furnish guards; what we want you for is negotiation."
The vice-president blinked. "But ... good heavens, man! Is your
whole community in on this?"
"Just about. We have to be. There's little help coming in from
outside, so our area is thrown back on itself."
"Ah—the cost of this operation—"
"Oh, we can meet that. Special assessment, voted at the last town
meeting. They don't care very much, because money has little value
when you can't buy more than the rationed necessities. And they're
getting tired of going on short rations of power."
"I shouldn't say this, because your proposal is a fine deal for us, but
have you stopped to think? Both the REA and the private power
concerns will be restoring service eventually, just as soon as civil
order has been recreated."
Arch nodded. "I know. But there are two answers to that. In the first
place, we don't know when that'll be, and if we don't have adequate
energy sources by winter we'll be up the creek. Also, we're building a
sun-power plant which will cost almost nothing to operate. In the
long run, and not so terribly long at that, it'll pay off."
Bob Culquhoun, who went on the selenium convoy, reported an
adventurous journey through hundreds of miles where gangs of
extremists still ruled. "But they seem to be settling down," he added.
"Nobody likes to be a bandit, and anyhow the state militias are
gradually subduing 'em. Most of the rural communities, though, are
striking out on their own like us. There's going to be a big demand
for selenium." Wistfulness flickered in his eyes. "Wonder if I can raise
enough money to buy some stock?"
"It'll take time," said Elizabeth. "I know the sun-power generator is
simple, but you still can't design and build one overnight."
As a matter of fact, fall had come again before Westfield's plant was
in full operation. It didn't look impressive: great flat screens on top of
hastily constructed buildings, and inside these the apparatus to raise
voltage and charge capacitors. But in conjunction with the watermill,
it furnished more than enough electricity to run the county's
machines.
Arch was kept busy all that summer, directing, advising, helping. It
seemed that everybody had some scheme of his own for using
capacitite. Energy cost nothing, and machinery could be built from
junkyard scrap if nothing else. Westfield was suddenly acquiring her
own looms, mills, even a small foundry. Bob led a gang of young
hellions who made an airplane and kept it aloft for days at a time. His
father promptly confiscated it for the use of the civic guard, and after
that there were no more surprise brushes with roving outlaws.
An eyewitness report was brought in from the air—a clash between
state troops and one of the robber bands which still existed to the
north. The gangmen had their own trucks and jeeps, their own guns,
all operating off accumulators which could be charged at any of a
thousand watermills. A rifleman could stop a tank, and aircraft were
of limited value against guerrillas who crouched in brush and weeds.
The battle was a draw, with both sides finally retreating.
Arch shuddered, alone with Elizabeth, and crept into her arms. "Did I
do that?" he asked through his tears. "Did I do it?"
"No, darling," she said. One hand ruffled his disordered hair. "Can't
you forget that side of it? Think of what you have done, with your
own hands—built this town up again, given its people more than they
ever had before."
He set his teeth. "I'll try," he said.
Somewhat later, the government offered amnesty to those outlaws
who would lay down their arms and come home. It had the desired
effect; they had had enough of warring and insecurity. But Culquhoun
scowled. "'Tis a vurra bad precedent," he said. "Only a weak
government makes such a move."
Oddly, Arch felt a lightening within himself. "Maybe a weak
government is what we need," he answered.
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