d the screen sprang
into life.

The screen showed a heavy table on which was mounted a small projector
that looked something like a searchlight with several heavy cables
running into it. In the path of the projector was a large lux metal
crucible surrounded by a ring of relux, and a series of points of relux
aimed into the crucible. These points and the ring were grounded. Inside
the crucible was a small ingot of coronium, the strong, hard, Venerian
metal which melted at twenty-five hundred degrees centigrade and boiled
at better than four thousand. The crucible was entirely enclosed in a
large lux metal case which was lined, on the side away from the
projector, with roughened relux.

Arcot moved a switch on the control panel. Far below them, a heavy relay
slammed home, and suddenly a solid beam of brilliant bluish light shot
out from the projector, a beam so brilliant that the entire screen was
lit by the intense glow, and the spectators thought that they could
almost feel the heat.

It passed through the lux metal case and through the coronium bar, only
to be cut off by the relux liner, which, since it was rough, absorbed
over ninety-nine percent of the rays that struck it.

The coronium bar glowed red, orange, yellow, and white in quick
succession, then suddenly slumped into a molten mass in the bottom of
the crucible.

The crucible was filled now with a mass of molten metal that glowed
intensely white and seethed furiously. The slowly rising vapors told of
the rapid boiling, and their settling showed that their temperature was
too high to permit them to remain hot--the heat radiated away too fast.

For perhaps ten seconds this went on, then suddenly a new factor was
added to the performance. There was a sudden crashing arc and a blaze of
blue flame that swept in a cyclonic twisting motion inside the crucible.
The blaze of the arc, the intense brilliance of the incandescent metal,
and the weird light of the beam of radiation shifted in a fantastic play
of colors. It made a strange and impressive scene.

Suddenly the relay sounded again; the beam of radiance disappeared as
quickly as it had come. In an instant, the blue violet glare of the
relux plate had subsided to an angry red. The violent arcing had
stopped, and the metal was cooling rapidly. A heavy purplish vapor in
the crucible condensed on the walls into black, flakey crystals.

The elder Arcot was watching the scene in the screen curiously. "I
wonde