It was built in the shape of a T. One side of the cross-stroke
contained the cartridge-case plant, where presses formed sheet-steel
cylinders, some as small as a round of pistol ammunition and some the
size of ten-gallon kegs. They moved toward the center on a production
line, finally reaching a matter-collapser where they were plated with
collapsium. From the other side, radioactive isotopes, mostly
reactor-waste, came in through evacuated and collapsium-shielded
chambers, were sorted, and finally, where the cross-arm of the T
joined the downstroke, packed in the collapsium cases. The production
line continued at right angles down the long building in which the
apparatus which converted nuclear energy to electric current was
assembled and packed; at the end, the finished power cartridges came
off, big ones for heavy machines and tiny ones for things like hand
tools and pocket lighters and razors. There were stacks of them, in
all sizes, loaded on skids and ready to move out. Except for the
minute and unavoidable leakage of current, they were as good as the
day they were assembled, and would be for another century.

Like almost everything else, the power-cartridge plant was airtight
and had its own oxygen-generator. The air-analyzer reported the oxygen
insufficient to support life. That was understandable; there were a
lot of furnaces which had evidently been hot when the power was cut
off; they had burned up the oxygen before cooling. They put on their
oxygen equipment when they got out of the car.

"I'll go back and have a look at the power plant," Matsui said. "If
it's like the rest of this place, it'll be ready to go as soon as the
reactors are started. I wish everybody here had left things like
this."

"Well, we'll have to check everything to make sure nothing was left on
when the main power was cut," Conn said. "Don't do anything back there
till we give you the go-ahead."

Matsui nodded and set off on foot along the broad aisle in the middle.
Conn looked around in the dim light that filtered through the dusty
glass overhead. On either side of the central aisle were two
production lines; between each pair, at intervals, stood massive
machines which evidently fabricated parts for the power cartridges.
Over them, and over the machines directly involved in production,
were receptor aerials, all oriented toward a stubby tower, twenty
feet thick and fifty in height, topped by a hemispherical dome.

"That'll be the