"The time has come," Murdock therefore addressed the nation in his State-of-the-Union speech, "to stop talking about the weather, and _do_ something about it!" What he proposed doing, in view of the scientists' disclaimer to be able to control, even slightly, the crescendoing perils of wind and water, was to develop a form of housing that would be impervious to the weather. "When there are too many flies to swat," he said, in his famous concluding line, "you put up windowscreens!" Forthwith, every physical scientist in the country began work on the project, the prize being--not the usual medal of commendation and Presidential handshake; Murdock knew people better than that--one million dollars, tax-free. Within six months, Leonard Surbo, a laboratory technician at DuPont, had discovered a method of uniting the helium and oxygen atoms in a continuous chain, by means of super-induced valence, in which the solitary two electrons of the helium atom were joined into the minus-two gaps in two adjoining oxygen atoms, the other gap in each oxygen ring being filled with one electron from adjoining helium atoms, and so on, literally _ad infinitum_. This new compound, Helox, was found to be veritably unbreakable, yet weighed one-sixth less than magnesium, its nearest strength-plus-lightness competitor. There was some haggling from DuPont as to whether Surbo, who had, after all, used their facilities in his search for the new compound, should receive the million dollars. This was ameliorated nicely by President Murdock, who promised them, in lieu of the lost million, the billion-dollar government contract to put Helox into full-scale production, which DuPont gladly accepted. Here again Murdock's program ran into a snag. The delicate processing required to produce Helox put the final cost of the compound at a rate-per-ounce only less than that of pure platinum; the average citizen, indeed, the above-average citizen, would be hard-pressed to afford so much as a windowsill's worth, let alone a complete dwelling. Murdock called his advisory staff together for an emergency session immediately. They remained _in camera_ with the President for three days, meals being sent in from outside. At the end of this time, Murdock emerged from the conference room with a three-day stubble flanking his best successful smile, and--after being cleaned up for public exposition--appeared once more on television with his radical Common-Wall Program.