"You can stir up a good argument later, here or at the annual meeting of the Gravitic Society. Right now I'm about to turn on the heat." McBride withdrew the boom, leaving the combustion tube in the warp, where it was fixed against the infinitesimal point of zero-attraction, with all sides of the boat in contracting-urge. He snapped the button and watched through the color-temperature meter. Then, as the color was reached, he threw over a series of controls, and the spherical field became a riot of color. It fluoresced, as the bombardment of electrons hit it, coming from all sides. The sphere grew, and McBride tightened the warp by applying more power. Still it grew as the repulsion of the electrons tried to nullify the gravitic attraction, and McBride continued to step up the power of the electrogravitic generator to keep the sphere from expanding. "Hannigan," he called. "Give me just a bit more?" "We can stand about six more electrons," laughed Hannigan. "No more." "Give 'em to me," returned McBride cheerfully. And then the sphere refused to be confined. It grew, and McBride made comic motions with the hand that held the control, as if to turn the knob from its shaft in a supreme effort to increase the power by a single alphon. The sphere grew to huge proportions, and McBride cranked the control to zero just as the surface of the sphere grew instable and threatened to expand without limit. His other hand turned the heat control slowly down, and the color of the combustion tube died. A hiss of air entered, and they ran inside to see the result. The combustion boat was ablaze with scintillating crystals. Beautiful blue-green crystals that were half-hidden in the gray-yellow powder of the catalyst. Their surfaces caught the lights, and sent little darting spots of blue fire dancing over the approaching people. McBride lifted the combustion tube with a pair of tongs. "This is the pure stuff," he said quietly. "Looks like a good crop this year, too. What's it insoluble in, Steve?" "Sulphur dioxide, according to Theodi." "Good. We'll remove the catalyst with that and weigh the residue which will be the entire output of our hundred grams of stuff. The percentage will be higher than .004%, I'd say. Come on--" The communicator barked: "McBride! McBride! This is Peters on Number One, Telfan element." McBride answered: "What's the matter?" "Nothing. We're in! We had a bit of trouble getting the warp going at this end. The image-size of Sirius when projected by a lens as close as the fore element is larger in diameter than Sirius is according to the distances involved, you know, and getting the warp started across the face of the Telfan Lens was some going. But we're about to thicken the center and shorten the focal length of the aft element right now." "O.K. No trouble, hey?" "Excepting it is hot in the hind-end stations. The interstices that give the spill-overs from Lens One do a swell job of heating up the stations when it hits."