"Not yet. First the atmosphere of pure nothing so the stuff won't try to combine with the aforementioned atmosphere. Then twelve hundred degrees Kelvin, and finally the slow-cooling to form large crystals." McBride opened a valve and the trapped air under the sealed glass whipped out into space. "This stuff is stubborn," he added, turning on the heater. The mixture grayed a bit, and then started to turn cherry red all over at once. Hammond manipulated the color-temperature meter and when the color was right, he motioned and McBride cut the heater, riding the control all the way to room temperature. "Anything?" "Won't form." "Huh?" asked Hammond. "I thought we could form anything." "We can. But we might not live to tell about it. Some items of unstable planetary systems are easily converted from their normal valence-ratings to others of wide and ridiculous values. We picked xenon for our final indicator because it fits in nice with the negative value we need. But this stuff has valence-inertia beyond that value. According to this stuff here, I'd say that its instability was less than that of the carbon-chains that go into the human body." Hammond whistled. "And that means, little brother, that by the time we hit the right negative charge to make this stuff combine, we'll end up with being completely and irreplaceably dead." "Ugh!" grunted Hammond. "Did we get anything?" "Can't tell," said McBride. "Darned stuff sets like cement when it cools. Warm up the tensile strength machine and we'll crush it and paw through the wreckage." He inspected the crushed mass a few minutes later and managed to separate two minute crystalline specks under the microscope. "I don't know whether these are the stuff, Steve," he said, "or whether it is just wishful thinking. Is it better than that four ten-thousands of one percent yield?" "Not if you can weigh it. We started off with a hundred grams. One percent is one gram; four ten-thousandths of one gram is four hundred micrograms. The balance will swing over on less than ten micrograms. This isn't even that much. No good, Mac." "Call Theodi and ask about that catalyst-conversion stunt." "Huh?" "He intimated that if they could combine the silicon with the catalyst, they'd be able to cause metathesis at better than sixty-one percent efficient. Trick is getting silicon to combine with an already-filled compound." "They are better at chemistry than we," admitted Hammond. "I'll call." Apparently the receiver in the _Lady Luck_ was attended constantly, for the sleepy voice of a Telfan answered. He answered that he would get Theodi, and as he was about to shut off the transmitter, another voice came over. It was Thuni. "Hello, Thuni," said Hammond cheerfully. "How goes it?" "Bad," said the woman. "But I must go." "I wouldn't," advised Steve. "Your sister Thani and her husband would like to talk to you."