
Don Channing can’t hide his enthusiasm for the alien device he’s just acquired—a massive power‑transmission tube recovered from the Martian desert. He spends the opening moments marveling at its sleek, otherworldly design, explaining to his colleague Arden how the tube could reshape the way electricity is delivered across continents, even cutting through solid iron with little loss. The conversation reveals a world where long‑distance power lines are a relic, and this single piece of extraterrestrial tech promises a revolution in energy infrastructure.
Yet the excitement is tempered by legal and corporate tension. Terran Electric, the company that holds the tube’s rights, is wary of letting anyone else tinker with the technology, fearing loss of control and profit. As Channing waits for the company’s engineers to arrive, the story sets up a clash between scientific curiosity and corporate ownership, hinting at the challenges that will accompany any attempt to harness this mysterious Martian breakthrough.
Language
en
Duration
~1 hours (63K characters)
Series
Venus Equilateral
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
United States: Street & Smith Publications, Incorporated,1944.
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2022-05-06
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1911–1981
A Golden Age science fiction writer with an engineer’s eye for detail, he built stories around communications systems, problem-solving, and life in space. He is especially remembered for the Venus Equilateral tales, which helped give mid-century magazine SF some of its brisk, technical charm.
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