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The piece was deposited on the floor of the ship, and a disc formed of artificial matter plugged the hole in its side. Another took a piece of the relux from the broken Thessian ship, pushed it into the hole on the ship. The space about the scene of operation was a crackling inferno of energy breaking down into heat and light.
Arcot grinned. "Simple. We use a small atomic cavity radiator at one end of which is a rough relux parabolic filter. Beyond that is a lux metal lens. The relux heats up tremendously, and since there is no polished relux to reflect it back, the heat is radiated out through the lux metal lens as a powerful heat beam." "Okay, fine," said Fuller. "But stop springing new gadgets on me, will you?"
The elements heated to that enormous temperature when elements cannot exist and broke to other elements that did not resist. The relux flashed into blinding iridescence And from the fort came a beam of pure silvery light. It struck the Thought just behind the bow, for the operator was aiming for the point where he knew the control room and pilot must be.
Then, suddenly, a new sound was added just as Arcot pulled himself into the control chair and strapped himself down. The radiation detector buzzed out its screaming warning! "COSMIC RAYS!" Arcot yelled. He slapped at the switch which shot the heavy relux screens across every window in the ship. There was a sudden crash and a fuse went out below a fuse made of a silver bar two feet thick!
Scratching, fluttering enormous, blood-red wings, the silvery claws tore away great masses of relux, sending them flying into space. Again rays struck at it. Cosmic and moleculars with blinding pencils of light. For now in the close space of the Wall was an atmosphere, the air of two great warships, and though the space was great, the air in the ships was dense. The rays struck its awful face.
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.
"We will not fight," muttered Morey happily as he saw Arcot shift in his seat. Arcot picked the moleculars. They reached out, touched the heavy relux of the fort, and it exploded into opalescence that was hazily white, the colors shifted so quickly. A screen sprang into being, and the ray was chopped off. The screen was a mass of darting flames as energies of stupendous magnitude clashed.
One hand let go, and the thud of the highly elastic lux metal bar's return to its original shape echoed through the soundless room. These men of the twenty-second century knew what relux and lux metals were, and knew their enormous strength. Yet it was putty under these hands. The hands that looked like a woman's! The bar was again placed on the table, and the hands disappeared.
It was finally agreed that the necessary plans and blueprints were to be given to the Nansalians, who could start production at once. The biggest problem was in the supply of lux and relux, which, because of their vast energy-content, required the atomic converters of the Ancient Mariner to make them. The Earthmen agreed to supply the power and the necessary materials to begin operations.
Now in the framework below things were materializing as Arcot's flying thoughts arranged them great tubes of cosmium with relux element huge coils of relux conductors, insulated with microscopic but impenetrable layers of cosmium. Still, for all his swiftness of mind and accuracy of thought, he had to correct two mistakes in all his work. It was nearly an hour before the thing was finished.
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