usly, for there were few rules
that experience could give them. They were developing something entirely
new, and though they were a designing staff of three of the foremost
mathematicians in the world, it was a problem that tested their
ingenuity to the utmost.

By the evening of the first day, however, they had been able to give the
finished designs for the power units to the mechanics who were to make
them. The order for the storage battery and the standard electrical
equipment had been placed at once. By the time they had completed the
drawings for the mail casting, the materials were already being
assembled in a little private camp that Morey owned, up in the hills of
Vermont. The giant freight helicopters could land readily in the wide
field that had been cleared on the small plateau, in the center of which
nestled a little blue lake and a winding trout brook.

The mechanics and electrical engineers had been sent up there
already--officially on vacation. The entire program could be carried out
without attracting the least attention, for such orders from the great
Transcontinental lines were so frequent that no importance was attached
to them.

Four days after the final plans had been completed the last of the
supplies were being assembled in the portable metal shed that was to
house the completed machine. The shining tungsto-steel alloy frame
members were rapidly being welded in place by cathode ray welding
torches in the hands of skilled artisans.

Already at the other end of the shop the generator had been arranged for
use with the molecular motion power units. The many power units to drive
and support the ship were finished and awaiting installation as the crew
quit work on the fourth evening. They would be installed on the frame in
the morning, and the generator would be hoisted into place with the
small portable crane. The storage batteries were connected, and in place
in the hull. The great fused quartz windows rested in their cases along
one wall, awaiting the complete application of the steel alloy plates.
They were to be over an inch thick, an unnecessary thickness, perhaps,
but they had no need to economize weight, as witnessed by their choice
of steel instead of light metal alloys throughout the construction.

The three men had arrived late that afternoon in a small helicopter, and
had gone directly to the shops to see what progress had been made. They
had been forced to remain in New York to superi