told you my price."

"I know," sighed Faragaut. "It seems a shame though. Those IP board men
would pay higher. And they're so damn tight it seems a crime not to make
'em pay up when they have to."

"The IP will need the money worse elsewhere. Where do I--oh, here?"

"Right. I'll be out again this evening. The regular group will be here?"

Kendall nodded as he signed in triplicate.

* * * * *

That evening, Buck had found the trouble in his apparatus, for as he
well knew, the theory was right, only the practical apparatus needed
changing. Before the group composed of Faragaut, McLaurin and the
members of Kendall's "bank," he demonstrated it.

It was merely a small, model apparatus, with a mirror of space-strained
silver that was an absolutely perfect reflector. The mirror had been
ground out of a block of silver one foot deep, by four inches square,
carefully annealed, and the work had all been done in a cooling bath.
The result was a mirror that was so nearly a perfect paraboloid that the
beam held sharp and absolutely tight for the half-mile range they tested
it on. At the projector it was three and one-half inches in diameter. At
the target, it was three and fifty-two one hundredths inches in
diameter.

"Well, you've got the mirror, what are you going to reflect with it
now?" asked McLaurin. "The greatest problem is getting a radiant source,
isn't it? You can't get a temperature above about ten thousand degrees,
and maintain it very long, can you?"

"Why not?" Kendall smiled.

"It'll volatilize and leave the scene of action, won't it?"

"What if it's a gaseous source already?"

"What? Just a gas-flame? That won't give you the point source you need.
You're using just a spotlight here, with a Moregan Point-light. That
won't give you energy, and if you use a gas-flame, the spread will be so
great, that no matter how perfectly you figure your mirror, it won't
beam."

"The answer is easy. Not an ordinary gas-flame--a very extra-special
kind of gas-flame. Know anything about Renwright's ionization-work?"

"Renwright--he's an IP man isn't he?"

"Right. He's developed a system, which, thanks to the power we can get
in that atostor, will sextuply ionize oxygen gas. Now: what does that
mean?"

"Spirits of space! Concentrated essence of energy!"

"Right. And in preparation, Cole here had one made up for me. That--and
something else. We'll just hook it up--"

With Devin's aid,