The day came--or was it the night?--when Karen took a slab of darkly shining substance out of the furnace where it had been heat-aging. Rakkan sawed it into several chunks for testing. It was Lancaster who worked on the electric properties. He applied voltage till his generator groaned, and watched in awe as meters climbed and climbed without any sign of stopping. He discharged the accumulated energy in a single blue flare that filled the lab with thunder and ozone. He tested for time lag of an electric signal and wondered wildly if it didn't feel like sleeping on its weary path. The reports came in, excited yells from one end of the long, cluttered room to the other, exultant whoops and men pounding each other on the back. This was it! This was the treasure at the rainbow's end. * * * * * The substance and its properties were physically and chemically stable over a temperature range of hundreds of degrees. The breakdown voltage was up in the millions. The insulation resistance was better than the best known to Earth's science. The dielectric constant could be varied at will by a simple electric field normal to the applied voltage gradient--a field which could be generated by a couple of dry cells if need be--and ranged from a hundred thousand to about three billion. For all practical purposes, here was the ultimate dielectric. "We did it!" Friedrichs slapped Lancaster's back till it felt that the ribs must crack. "We have it!" "Whooppee!" yelled Karen. Suddenly they had joined hands and were dancing idiotically around the induction furnace. Lancaster clasped Rakkan's talons without caring that it was a Martian. They sang then, sang till heads appeared at the door and the glassware shivered. _Here we go 'round the mulberry bush, The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush--_ It called for a celebration. The end of a Project meant no more than filing a last report and waiting for the next assignment, but they ran things differently out here. Somebody broke out a case of Venusian aguacaliente. Somebody else led the way to a storeroom, tossed its contents into the hall, and festooned it with used computer tape. Rakkan forgot his Martian dignity and fiddled for a square dance, with Isaacson doing the calling. The folk from the other end of the station swarmed in till the place overflowed. It was quite a party. Hours later, Lancaster was hazily aware of lying stretched on the floor. His head was in Karen's lap and she was stroking his hair. The hardy survivors were following the Dufreres in French drinking songs, which are the best in the known universe. Rakkan's fiddle wove in and out, a lovely accompaniment to voices that were untrained but made rich and alive by triumph. _"Sur ma tomb' je veux qu'on inscrive: 'Ici-git le roi des buveurs.' Sur ma tomb' je veux qu'on inscrive: 'Ici-git le roi des buveurs. Ici-git, oui, oui, oui, Ici-git, non, non, non--'"_