That the gentleman in question was a nut was beyond question. He was an institutionalized psychotic. He was nutty enough to think he could make an atom bomb out of modeling clay!
A story in the Breeder World Universe
A breeder male joins a cruise ship for his regular cruise, but slightly out of his normal cycle. He encounters some difficulties which require him to make known some things he'd previously kept quiet as he starts to make some significant changes in his life while dealing with the difficulties he encounters. - To understand the background to this story, please read Breeder World first.
"Nothing could be done. The thing was universal and beyond our human knowledge or control. It was death for young and old, for weak and strong, for rich and poor, without hope or possibility of escape." Must Professor George Challenger and friends, barricaded in a room, see Earth die? As globe passes through a belt of poisonous ether, terror sweeps mankind; cities riot; communications cease
At five o'clock Ed Loyce washed up, tossed on his hat and coat, got his car out and headed across town toward his TV sales store. He was tired. His back and shoulders ached from digging dirt out of the basement and wheeling it into the back yard. But for a forty-year-old man he had done okay. Janet could get a new vase with the money he had saved; and he liked the idea of repairing the foundations himself.
You're all alone in a deserted city. You walk down an empty street, yearning for the sight of one living face--one moving figure. Then you see a man on a corner and you know your terror has only begun.
Consider the poor mailman of the future. To "sleet and snow and dead of night"--things that must not keep him from his appointed rounds--will be added, sub-zero void, meteors, and planets that won't stay put. Maybe he'll decide that for six cents an ounce it just ain't worth it.