“Of course an X-ray tube operates in accordance with the electron theory, but it shoots the electrons off--it doesn’t throw them out as an electromagnetic field of force, which is probably the fashion in which our earthly radio waves are propagated. In other words, although I was still using the electrons in my work, I had an entirely new type of receiving set, and one which, although it might not actually hear messages from another planet, would perhaps be the stepping stone on which some future inventor might build success. So I started. “In the cabinet on the bench there are, as you noticed, two divisions. One contains an oversize receiving set, with some appliances of my own attached to it, and the other the ray projecting and focusing device. The whole thing is wired with copper tubing, for the simple reason that in my earlier experiments the current developed was sufficient to fuse ordinary wire. The tubes are about the size of fifty watt transmitting tubes, and vary in construction, the one directly beneath the projector, which corresponds to the detector, having five electrodes made of radium-coated quartz. I am not sure that I could explain all of the action, but the radium seems to give off some new emanation that I have never seen before, under the stimulus of the rays from the projector. Do you follow me?” “I’m trailing,” said Stan. “Now tell me about the projector.” “The projector? It’s just an unusually large tube similar to an X-ray tube, which I have constructed to withstand extremely high voltages. It produces a tremendous flow of force, which I have named the V-Ray, and which by means of the leaden shield I can direct upon any portion of the net below. Now I believe that with the ray forcing a stream of electrons, or perhaps it would be more correct to say energy, into the tubes, the set will be sensitive to radio waves of a type unknown here on Earth. What the results will be, I do not know. I have never tried the set in its completed form before tonight--I’m just playing a hunch. Ready to go?” * * * * *