"It seems as though they know a lot," he explained. "But they know no more about this stuff than the nineteen hundreds knew about the electricity they used." "That's natural," she said. "People are always willing to use something beneficial though they know little about its basic fundamentals. One out of a thousand automobile drivers really knows anything about the internal combustion engine. The rest are merely drivers, controlling a mammoth they know nothing about." "Well, perhaps," he said. "Also it is entirely possible that what I'm seeking has no true answer." "You hope to learn why the space-resonant elements cannot be separated?" "Right," said Bronson. He was silent for some time while he digested the answer that had come clicking from the calculator. Then he sent forth another equation and the machine went to work again. "I'd like to try analysis." "Won't work. As far as we can tell there is really only one element." "By analysis," he nodded. He had been reading what Earth Three knew about it and they, too, said as much. "However, the mass spectrograph separates elements according to their atomic masses and according to their atomic charge. "Now why do we have a dispersion of atomic mass--making the space-resonant series of elements seem to be merely isotopes of the same element--and at the same time get a dispersion of atomic charge, which would make them seem like isobars of different elements?" "Heaven knows what we can expect in the transuranic series," observed Virginia. He grunted. "Run down the physical properties of the stable elements," he said, "and you'll run into about every conceivable idea. Metals that melt at room temperature, metals that resist acid and alkali. "Metals that conduct electricity in proportion to the light falling on them, elements that combine with almost any other element--and elements so valently self-satisfied that they will not even combine with themselves. Elements as hard as all get-out and others that can be cut into stove lengths with a soft thumbnail. "But," he continued reflectively, "I'm of the opinion that the answer lies here--that this indivisible property of the space-resonant elements is the answer to a lot of questions." Then Bronson put his head in his hands. "And I'm supposed to find out all this to save my world--when the best brains of that same world in another time-plane have known about the stuff for thirty years and still cannot--" "That is not fair," she said. "After all, how many years did Enrico Fermi seek the answer for his experiments with the fission of uranium? They numbered a good many transuranic elements before they discovered that these new elements were actually the fissioned products and were well-known elements halfway down the atomic chart." "That's true," he nodded. "Also it is against all theory that an element should display more than one atomic identity." "Right. Unless they are incomplete atoms--a house built of brickbats."