"I know electronics!" Morrow smiled grimly. "I suppose I could open up a little radio repair shop somewhere." "You? A radio repair shop? The first real genius this country's had for--" Smitty broke off, staring at him. Morrow stared back, scowling. "Genius?" he echoed. "What in hell ever gave you _that_ idea?" Smitty grinned faintly as he lighted a cigarette. "Guess I'm just carried away by your two heads," he said, spewing smoke. * * * * * It was a full month's work just to purchase the shop machinery, the building materials to patch up the old sawmill, the materials for the ship's construction, and to truck it out and install it in the building. They worked from daylight 'till dark, then retired to their shack and spent most of the night going over the blue-prints for the ship. Gradually, it took shape and form on paper. Masses of cloud were banked against the surrounding mountains, covering the sky with a solid, gray mass that shook loose a thin drizzle of rain, just enough to dampen the ground, the morning they conducted the first weight-test. They used the gravity-control mechanism--they called it a _gravitor_ by then--which Morrow had built in Westerton. The test was conducted outside, with a sling suspended under the gravitor to support a pile of sandbags, with a rope hanging from its bottom to a small hand-winch on the ground. The gravitor rose up into the drizzle with its load, lifting three hundred and sixty-nine pounds to a height of forty feet. It floated there, the rope dangling loosely from it. There was an odd three-foot S-curve in the rope just below the sandbagged sling. Smitty stared up at it, squinting against the misty rain. "It just floats there!" he exclaimed huskily. "On four flashlight batteries--" "The wind's drifting it toward the trees," Morrow said in a tight voice. "Better take up the slack." Smitty stooped and wound up the little hand-winch. Then he straightened and stared upward again. "On four batteries," he repeated in his husky murmur. "Look at that snake-twist in the rope!" "That part of it's inside the gravitor's field," Morrow explained quietly. "As for the batteries, I think it's because the mechanism is shielded from the gravity and magnetic influence of the earth. It works entirely within its own magnetic field. Its electronic conductivity is more efficient, so we're getting far more power from those flashlight batteries." "But _is_ there that much power in a flashlight battery?"