"Could be," acknowledged Wes. Walt stepped to the verniers and swung the big intake tube over a minute arc. The meter jumped once more, and Channing stepped the sensitivity down again. Walt fiddled until the meter read maximum and then he left the tube that way. "Coming up," said Channing. "We're now four times our original try. We now have enough juice to run an electric train--a toy train! Someone think of something else, please. I've had my idea for the day." "Let's juggle electrode-spacing," suggested Wes. "Can do," said Walt, brandishing a huge spanner wrench in one gloved hand. * * * * * Four solid, futile hours later, the power output of the solar beam was still standing at a terrifying fourteen watts. Channing was scratching furiously on a pad of paper with a large pencil; Walt was trying voltage-variations on the supply-anodes in a desultory manner; Barney was measuring the electrode spacing with a huge vernier rule, and Wes was staring at the sun, dimmed to seeable brightness by a set of dark glasses. Wes was muttering to himself. "Electrode-voltages, O.K. ... alignment perfect ... solar power output ... not like power-line electricity ... solar composition ... Russell's Mixture--" "Whoooo said that!" roared Channing. "Who said what?" asked Barney. "Why bust our eardrums?" objected Walt. "What do you mean?" asked Wes, coming to life for the moment. "Something about Russell's Mixture. Who said that?" "I did. Why?" "Look, Wes, what are your cathodes made of?" "Thorium, C. P. metal. That's why they are shipped in metal containers in a vacuum." "What happens if you try to use something else?" "Don't work very well. In fact, if the output cathode and the input dynode are not the same metal, they won't pass power at all." "You're on the trail right now!" shouted Channing. "Russell's Mixture?" "Sounds like a brand of smoking tobacco to me. Mind making a noise like an encyclopedia and telling me what is Russell's Mixture?" "Russell's Mixture is a conglomeration of elements which go into the making of Sol--and all the other stars," explained Don. "Hydrogen, Oxygen, Sodium, and Magnesium, Iron, Silicon, Potassium, and Calcium. They, when mixed according to the formula for Russell's Mixture, which can be found in any book on the composition of stars, become the most probable mixture of metals. They--Russell's Mixture--go into the composition of all stars, what isn't mentioned in the mix isn't important." "And what has this Russell got that we haven't got?" asked Walt. "H, O, Na, Mg, Fe, Si, K, and Ca. And we, dear people, have Th, which Russell has not. Walt, call the metallurgical lab and have 'em whip up a batch." "Cook to a fine edge and serve with a spray of parsley? Or do we cut it into cubes--"