"Nope. I accepted it just like everybody else. It took some outsider to laugh at me and tell me why." Kingman smiled. "It's easy to get into easy thinking. They took power from Sirius--believe it or not--and then made some there-and-back time measurements and came up with a figure that was about the square of one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second. But you know that you can't square a velocity and come up with anything that looks sensible. The square of a velocity must be some concept like an expanding area." "Or would it be two spots diverging along the sides of a right angle?" queried Horman idly. "What was their final answer?" "The velocity of light is a concept. It is based on the flexibility of space--its physical constants, so to speak. Channing claims that the sub-etheric radiation bands of what we have learned to call the driver radiation propagates along some other medium than space itself. I think they were trying to establish some mathematical relation--which might be all right, but you can't establish that kind of relation and hope to hold it. The square of C in meters comes out differently than the square of C in miles, inches, or a little-used standard, the light-second, in which the velocity of light is unity, or One. Follow? Anyway, they made modulation equipment of some sort and measured the velocity and came up with a finite figure which is slightly less than the square of one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second. Their original idea was wrong. It was just coincidence that the two figures came out that way. Anyway," smiled Kingman, "I pointed it out to them and they quick changed their patent letters. So, you see, I've been of some help." "Nice going. Well, I'm going to make those gauges. It'll take us one long time, too. Johannson Blocks aren't the easiest thing in the world to make." "What would you make secondary standards out of?" "We use glass gauges, mostly. They don't dinge or bend when dropped--they go to pieces or not at all. We can't have a bent gauge rejecting production parts, you know, and steel gauges can be bent. Besides, you can grind glass to a half wave length of light with ease, but polishing steel is another item entirely." "I'm going to call Channing and ask him about glass blocks. It may be that he might use them. Plus the fact that I may get an inkling of the ultimate use. They have no production lines running on Venus Equilateral, have they?" "Nope. Not at all. They're not a manufacturing company." "Well, I'm going to call." * * * * * Kingman's voice raced across Terra to Hawaii, went on the communications beams of the sky-pointing reflectors, and rammed through the Heaviside Layer to Luna. At the Lunar Station, his voice was mingled in multiplex with a thousand others and placed on the sub-ether beams to Venus Equilateral. Don Channing answered the 'phone. "Yes?" "Kingman, Dr. Channing."