"Yeah, he's nuts. But only in one way, Walt. He's nuts to think that he is smarter than the entire solar system all put together. Well, what do we do now?" "Butter ourselves well and start scratching for the answer. That betatron trick will not work twice. There must be something." "O.K., Walt. We'll all help you think. I'm wondering how much research he had to do to develop that beam. After all, we were five thousand miles away, and he heated us up. He must've thought we were a meteor--and another thing, too--he must've thought that his beam was capable of doing something at five thousand miles distance or he wouldn't have tried. Ergo he must have beaten that two hundred mile bugaboo." "We don't know that the two hundred mile bugaboo is still bugging in space," said Walt, slowly. "That's set up so that the ionization-by-products are not dangerous. Also, he's not transmitting power from station to station, et cetera. He's ramming power into some sort of beam and to the devil with losses external to his equipment. The trouble is, darn it, that we'll have to spend a month just building a large copy of my miniature set-up." "A month is not too much time," agreed Channing. "And Murdoch will take a swing at us as soon as he gets ready to reach. We can have Charley start building the big tubes immediately, can't we?" "Just one will be needed. We'll use one of the standard solar intake tubes that we're running the Station from. There's spare equipment aplenty. But the transmitter-terminal tube will take some building." "Can we buy one from Terran Electric?" "Why not? Get the highest rating we can. That should be plenty. Terran probably has them in stock, and it'll save us building one." "What is their highest rating?" "Two hundred megawatts." "O.K. I'll send 'em a coded requisition with my answer to their letter." "What are you going to tell 'em?" "Tell 'em not to investigate the energy-gun idea unless they want to for their own reasons," Channing grinned. "They'll probably assume--and correctly--that we're going to tinker ourselves." "And?" "Will do nothing since it is an extra-planetary proposition. Unless it becomes suitable for digging tunnels, or melting the Martian ice cap," laughed Channing. * * * * * Mark Kingman took the letter to Murdoch, who was hidden in the depths of the _Black Widow_. Hellion read it twice, and then growled. "They smell something, sure," he snarled. "Why didn't we make that a perfect hit!" "What are we going to do now?" "Step up our plans. They'll have this thing in a few weeks. Hm-m-m. They order a transmitter-terminal tube. Have you got any in stock?" "Naturally. Not in stock, but available for the Northern Landing power-line order."