that were rapidly
becoming efficient.

Next door, Dr. Millie Williams' FARM had survived the "take-off" and
the plants, grateful for their new, although partial gravity, were now
stretching themselves towards the overhead fluorescents in a rather
fantastic attempt to imitate the early growing stages of Jack's famous
beanstalk.

In the machine shop, Paul Chernov carefully inspected the alignment of
the numeric controlled laser microbeam milling and boring machine,
brought it to a focus on a work piece, and pressed an activation
switch that started the last pattern of tiny capillary holes in the
quartz on which he was working. In moments the pattern was completed.

Gently removing the work piece from its mounting, he turned to the
open double bulkhead that served as an air lock in emergencies and
that separated his shop from the physics lab beyond, where Dr. Y. Chi
Tung, popularly known as Ishie, was busy over a haywire rig, Chief
Engineer Mike Blackhawk and Tombu beside him.

Reverently, Dr. Chi took the part from Paul's hands. "A thousand
ancestral blessings," he said. "Confusion say the last piece is the
most honored for its ability to complete the gadget, and this is it.

"Of course," he added, "Confusion didn't say whether it would work or
not."

"What does the gadget do?" asked Paul.

"Um-m-m. As the European counterpart of Confusion, Dr. Heisenberg
might have explained it, this is a device to confuse confusion by
aligning certainties and creating uncertainties in the protons of this
innocent block of plastic." The round, saffron-hued Chinese face
looked at Paul solemnly.

"As the good Dr. Heisenberg stated, there is a principle of confusion
or uncertainty as to the exact whereabouts of things on the atomic
level, which cannot be rendered more exact due to disturbance caused
by the investigation of its whereabouts. My humble attempt is to
secure a sufficiently statistical sample of aligned protons to obtain
data on the distortion of the electron orbits caused by an external
electrostatic field, thus rendering my own uncertainties more
susceptible of analysis in a statistical manner."

Suddenly he grinned. "It's a take-off," he said, "from the original
experiments in magnetic resonance back in '46.

"The fields generated in these coils are strong enough to process all
the protons so that their axis of spin is brought into alignment. At
this point, the plastic could be thought of as representing a few
b