from its mounting, he turned to theopen double bulkhead that served as an air lock in emergencies andthat separated his shop from the physics lab beyond, where Dr. Y. ChiTung, popularly known as Ishie, was busy over a haywire rig, ChiefEngineer Mike Blackhawk and Tombu beside him.
Reverently, Dr. Chi took the part from Paul's hands. "A thousandancestral blessings," he said. "Confusion say the last piece is themost honored for its ability to complete the gadget, and this is it.
"Of course," he added, "Confusion didn't say whether it would work ornot."
"What does the gadget do?" asked Paul.
"Um-m-m. As the European counterpart of Confusion, Dr. Heisenbergmight have explained it, this is a device to confuse confusion byaligning certainties and creating uncertainties in the protons of thisinnocent block of plastic." The round, saffron-hued Chinese facelooked at Paul solemnly.
"As the good Dr. Heisenberg stated, there is a principle of confusionor uncertainty as to the exact whereabouts of things on the atomiclevel, which cannot be rendered more exact due to disturbance causedby the investigation of its whereabouts. My humble attempt is tosecure a sufficiently statistical sample of aligned protons to obtaindata on the distortion of the electron orbits caused by an externalelectrostatic field, thus rendering my own uncertainties moresusceptible of analysis in a statistical manner."
Suddenly he grinned. "It's a take-off," he said, "from the originalexperiments in magnetic resonance back in '46.
"The fields generated in these coils are strong enough to process allthe protons so that their axis of spin is brought into alignment. Atthis point, the plastic could be thought of as representing a fewbillion tiny gyroscopes all lined up together.
"Matter of fact," he said in an aside, "if you want a betterexplanation of that effect, you might look up the maintenance manualon the proton gyroscopes that Sad Cow uses. Or the manuals for theM.R. analyzer in the chem lab. Or the magnetometer we use to keep acheck on Earth's magnetic field.
"So far, about the same thing.
"What I'm trying to do is place radio frequency fields andelectrostatic fields in conjunction with the D.C. magnetic field, soas to check out the effect of stretching the electron orbits of thehydrogen atoms in predictable patterns.
"I picked this place for it, because it was as far away from Earth'sfield as I could get. And Mike, when I get ready to test this thing,I'm going to pray to my ancestors and also ask you to turn off as manymagnetic gadgets as you safely can."
Mike was squatting on his heels by the haywire rig, built into whatlooked suspiciously like a chassis extracted from one of the standardcontrol consoles of the communication department.
Reaching gingerly in through the haywire mass of cables surroundingthe central components, he pointed to one of the coils and exclaimedin the tones of a Sherlock Holmes, "Ah-ha, my dear Watson! I have justlocated the final clue to my missing magnaswedge. I suppose you knowthe duty cycle on those coils is only about 0.01?"
"Not after I finished with them!" Ishie grinned unrepentant. "Besides,I don't want to squash anything in the field. I just want a nice,steady field of a reasonable magnitude. As Confusion would say, he whosquashes small object may unbalance great powers."
* * * * *
While he talked, Ishie had been busy inserting the carefully machinedpiece of quartz plate that Chernov had brought, into a conglomerationof glassware that looked like a refugee from the chem lab, and flippeda switch that caused a glowing coil inside a pyrex boiler to heat asmall quantity of water, which must escape through the carefullymachined capillary holes in the plate he had just installed. Each jetwould pass through two grids, and on towards a condenser arrangementfrom which the water would be recirculated into the boiler by a smallpump which was already beginning to churkle to itself.
"O.K.," Mike said. "I dig the magnetic resonance part. And how you'reusing the stolen coils. But what's this gadget?" and he pointed to themaze of glass and glass tubing.
"Oh. Permit me to introduce Dr. Ishie's adaptation of a Frenchinvention of some years previous, which permits the development ofhigh voltages by the application of heat to the evaporation of a fluidmedium such as water--of which we have plenty aboard and you won'tmiss the little that I requisitioned--causing these molecules toseparate and pass at high speed through these various grids, providingelectrostatic potentials in their passage which can be added quitefantastically to produce the necessary D.C. field which...."
As he spoke, Mike's finger moved nearer a knob-headed bolt that seemedto be one of the two holding the glass device to its mounting board,and an inch and a half spark spat forth and interrupted thedissertation with a loud "Yipe!"
"Confusion say," Ishie continued as Mike stuck his finger in hismouth, "he who point finger of suspicion should be careful of lurkingdragons!
"Anyhow, that's what it does. There are two thousand separate littlegrids, each fed by its capillary jet, and each grid provides aboutninety volts."
Tombu took the opportunity to inquire, "Have you got that RFfield-phase generator under control yet?" He pointed to still anothersection of the chassis.
"Oh, yes." The physicist nodded. "See, I have provided a feedbackcircuit to co-ordinate the pick-up signal with the three-phase RFoutput. The control must be precise. Can't have it skipping around orwe don't get a good alignment."
There was a gurgling churkle from the innocent-looking maze as the"borrowed" aerator pump from the FARM supplies began returning thecondensate back to the boiler.
* * * * *
Major Steve Elbertson stood on the magnetic stat-walk of the southpolar loading lock, gazing along the anchor tube to Project Hot Rodfive miles away.
"There are no experts in the ability to maneuver properly in freefall," he told himself, quieting his dissatisfaction with his ownself-conscious efforts at maintaining the military dignity of theUnited Nations Security Forces in a medium in which a man inevitablylost the stances that to him connotated that dignity.
Awkwardly, he attached the ten-pound electric device affectionatelyknown to spacemen as the scuttlebug, to the flat ribbon-cable thatwould both power and guide him to Hot Rod.
As the wheels of the scuttlebug clipped over the ribbon-cable, oneabove and two below, and made contact with the two electricallyconductive surfaces, he saw the warning light change from green tored, indicating that the ribbon was now in use, and that no one elseshould use it until he had arrived at the far end.
Seeing that the safety light was now in his favor, he swung his legsover the seat--a T-bar at the bottom of the rod which swung down fromthe drive mechanism--grasped the rod, and pulled the starting trigger.
The accelerative force of one gee, the maximum of which the scuttlebugwas capable, provided quite a jolt, but settled down very quickly toalmost zero as he picked up speed and reached the maximum of onehundred twenty miles per hour.
A very undignified method of travel, he thought. Yet for all that, thescuttlebugs were light and efficient, and reduced transit time betweenoutlying projects and the big wheel to a very reasonable time,compared to that which it would take for a man to jump the distanceunder his own power--and, he thought, without wasting the preciousmass that rockets would have required.
The low voltage power supplied by the two flat sides of the ribbon wasinsufficient to have provided lethal contact, even if the person werethere without the insulation of a spacesuit around him, a veryunlikely occurrence. Furthermore, the structure of the cable, with theflat, flexible insulation between its two conductive surfaces, made itpractically impossible to short it out; and the flanged wheels of thescuttlebug clipped over it in such a fashion that, once locked, it wasthought to be impossible that they could lose their grip without beingunlocked.
As Steve gained speed along the ribbon, "his" Project Hot Rod was inview before him--appearing to be a half moon which looked larger thanthe real moon in the background behind it; and seeming to stand in thevastness of space at a distance from the
far end of the long anchortube, a narrow band of bright green glowing near its terminator line.
From the rounded half of the moon, extending sunward, four bright,narrow traceries seemed to outline a nose that ended in a pale,globular tracery at its tip, pointing to the sun.
The narrow traceries were in actuality four anchor tubes, similar tothe one beside which he rode; and mounted in their tip was thedirecting mirror that would aim Hot Rod's beam of energy.
* * * * *
Project Hot Rod was actually a giant balloon eight thousand feet indiameter, one-half "silvered" with a greenish reflective surfaceinside that reflected only that light that could be utilized by theruby rods at its long focal center; and that absorbed the remainder ofthe