ce. The relux plate
cooled slightly, and the voltmeter remained steady.

"The coil you see is storing the energy that is flowing into it," Arcot
explained. "Notice that the coronium resistor is increasing its
resistance, but otherwise there is little increase in the back E.M.F.
The energy is coming from the rays which strike the polarized relux
plate to give the current."

He paused a moment to make slight adjustments in the controls, then
turned his attention back to the screen.

The kilovoltmeter still read twenty.

"Forty-five hundred amperes at twenty thousand volts," the elder Arcot
said softly. "Where is it going?"

"Take a look at the space within the right angle of the torus coils,"
said Arcot junior. "It's getting dark in there despite the powerful
light shed by the ionized air."

Indeed, the space within the twin coils was rapidly growing dark; it was
darkening the image of the things behind it, oddly blurring their
outlines. In a moment, the images were completely wiped out, and the
region within the coils was filled with a strangely solid blackness.

"According to the instruments," young Arcot said, "we have stored
fifteen thousand kilowatt hours of energy in that coil and there seems
to be no limit to how much power we can get into it. Just from the power
it contains, that coil is worth about forty dollars right now, figured
at a quarter of a cent per kilowatt hour.

"I haven't been using anywhere near the power I can get out of this
apparatus, either. Watch." He threw another switch which shorted around
the coronium resistor and the ammeter, allowing the current to run into
the coil directly from the plate.

"I don't have a direct reading on this," he explained, "but an indirect
reading from the magnetic field in that room shows a current of nearly a
_hundred million amperes!_"

The younger Morey had been watching a panel of meters on the other side
of the screen. Suddenly, he shouted: "Cut it, Arcot! The conductors are
setting up a secondary field in the plate and causing trouble."

Instantly, Arcot's hand went to a switch. A relay slammed open, and the
ray projector died.

The power coil still held its field of enigmatic blackness.

"Watch this," Arcot instructed. Under his expert manipulation, a small
robot handler rolled into the room. It had a pair of pliers clutched in
one claw. The spectators watched the screen in fascination as the robot
drew back its arm and hurled the pliers at th