With No Strings Attached
What do you do when you've invented unlimited clean energy but no one believes you? Smuggle it onto a Navy submarine and let the results speak for themselves. That's exactly what the mysterious Sorensen does in this clever 1960s science fiction tale. When the USS Ambitious Brill returns from a deployment that should have been impossible for a diesel-electric vessel - weeks underwater without refueling - the crew senses something extraordinary happened, though they can't quite name it. Richard Thorn, a scientist from North American Carbide & Metals, eventually uncovers the truth: Sorensen's Black Suitcase contains a hydrogen fusion device disguised as a battery, quietly powering the submarine across the Atlantic while everyone pretends it's just experimental equipment. The story pulses with the tension of that deception - will the Navy realize what they've been given? - while asking a deeper question: how does the world accept a technology that makes everything before it obsolete? Garrett writes with sharp wit and the kind of confident cleverness that made hard SF great, turning what could be a dry technical premise into a genuinely fun puzzle about belief, innovation, and the bureaucracy of scientific progress.
