experimental device.

The leads from this he ran to a pulse-generator that could be
accurately adjusted to supply pulses of anything from a tenth
microsecond to a tenth second.

Selecting the shortest possible duration, he then set the magnetic
field adjustment on the experimental device to a point just below that
point on which it had turned on previously.

"Now we see." Turning on the device, he glanced at the display panel
which still showed zero thrust. Then he triggered a single
one-microsecond pulse into the additional ten turns of winding. The
readout display showed zero thrust. He triggered a ten microsecond
pulse. Nothing happened. One hundred microseconds. Nothing. One
thousand microseconds--the display changed, dropping so quickly into
position that the pulse thrust itself was not recorded--but the figure
turned up seven hundred thirty pounds thrust on the display panel.

"So," said Ishie, "we can initiate thrust with a one thousand
microsecond pulse. Can you design a power supply that would achieve
that field for that time in a solenoid having ... say ... one per cent
as high a field strength as the one we are using here?"

"O.K.," said Mike. "I get you. Sounds to me like this thing is going
to look like a barrel when we get through with it.

"I wish," he added, "that we could get one point one gee. And land
this thing on Earth. And have a big parade, with Space Lab One
hovering just overhead to the cheers and the blaring bands and the--"

"Confusion say, he who would poke hole in hornets nest had best be
prepared with long legs." Ishie grinned. "You don't think anybody
would really appreciate our doing that, do you Mike? Outside of the
people themselves, that is, that aren't directly concerned with man's
_welfare_? We haven't done this in the proper manner of team research
and billions spent in experiments and planned predicted achievements
made with the proper Madison Avenue bow to the financier that made it
possible. You know what they do to wild-haired individualists down
there, don't you?"

Mike shrugged. "Oh, well," he said, "you're right of course. But it
was a beautiful dream. How do you suppose we can build these and still
keep all the scientists aboard and on Earth happy that they're just
innocent magneto-ionic effect cancelers? Boy, that was a beauty,
Ishie!"

"Best we have two sets of drawings. The ones for us can be sketchy,
and need not have too much exactitude of design. We know wha