ratus of the artificial
matter machine.

A plane of artificial matter formed, and a stretch of rock rose under
its lift as it cleft the rock apart. A great cleared, level space
resulted. Other artificial matter enclosed the rock, and the fragments
cut free were treated under tremendous pressure. In a few moments a
second enormous mass of cosmium was formed.

For three hours Morey worked steadily, building a tremendous reserve of
materials. Lux metal he did not make, but relux, the infusible, perfect
conductor, and cosmium in tremendous masses, he did make. And he made
some great blocks of oxygen from the rock, transmuting the atoms, and
stored it frozen on the plane, with liquid hydrogen in huge tanks, and
some metals that would be needed. Then he slept while they waited for
Arcot.

Eight hours after he had lain down, Arcot was up, and ate his breakfast.
He set to work at once with the machine. It didn't suit him, it seemed,
and first he made a new tool, a small ship that could move about,
propelled by a piece of artificial matter, and the entire ship was a
tremendously greater artificial matter machine, with a greater power
than before!

His thoughts, far faster than hands could move, built up the gigantic
hull of the new ship, and put in the rooms, and the brace members in
less than twelve hours. A titanic shell of eight-inch cosmium, a space,
with braces of the same nonconductor of heat, cosmium, and a two inch
inner hull. A tiny space in the gigantic hull, a space less than one
thousand cubic feet in dimension was the control and living quarters.

It was held now on great cosmium springs, but Arcot was not by any means
through. One man must do all the work, for one brain must design it, and
though he received the constant advice and help of Morey and the others,
it was his brain that pictured the thing that was built.

At last the hull was completed. A single, glistening tube, of enormous
bulk, a mile in length, a thousand feet in diameter. Yet nearly all of
that great bulk would be used immediately. Some room would be left for
additional apparatus they might care to install. Spare parts they did
not have to carry--they could make their own from the energy abounding
in space.

The enormous, shining hull was a thing of beauty through stark grandeur
now, but obviously incomplete. The ray projectors were not mounted, but
they were to be ray projectors of a type never before possible. Space is
the transmitter o