There he sat, hour after hour; hands setting up incredibly complex integrals upon its inexhaustible supply of keys and stops; gray eyes staring unseeingly into infinity; he sat there, deaf, dumb, and blind to everything except the fascinatingly fathomless problem upon which he was so diligently at work. Dinner time came and went, then supper time, then bedtime; and Dorothy strode purposefully toward the console, only to be led away, silently and quietly, by the watchful Crane. "But he hasn't come up for air once to-day, Martin!" she protested, when they were in Crane's private sitting room. "And didn't you tell me yourself, that time back in Washington, to make him snap out of it whenever he started to pull off one of his wild marathon splurges of overwork?" "Yes; I did," Crane replied thoughtfully; "but circumstances here and now are somewhat different from what they were there and then. I have no idea of what he is working out, but it is a problem of such complexity that in one process he used more than seven hundred factors, and it may well be that if he were to be interrupted now he could never recover that particular line of thought. Then, too, you must remember that he is now in such excellent physical condition that he is in no present danger. I would say to let him alone, for a while longer, at least." "All right, Martin, that's fine! I hated to disturb him, really--I would hate most awfully to derail an important train of thought." "Yes; let him concentrate a while," urged Margaret. "He hasn't indulged in one of those fits for weeks--Rovol wouldn't let him. I think it's a shame, too, because when he dives in like that after something he comes up with it in his teeth--when he really thinks, he does things. I don't see how those Norlaminians ever got anything done, when they always did their thinking by the clock and quit promptly at quitting time, even if it was right in the middle of an idea." "Dick can do more in an hour, the way he is working now, than Rovol of Rays could ever do in ten years!" Dorothy exclaimed with conviction. "I'm going in to keep him company--he's more apt to be disturbed by my being gone than by having me there. Better come along, too, you two, just as though nothing was going on. We'll give him an hour or so yet, anyway." The trio then strolled back into the control room. But Seaton finished his computations without interruption. Some time after midnight he transferred his integrated and assembled forces to an anchoring plunger, arose from his irksome chair, stretched mightily, and turned to the others, tired but triumphant. "Folks, I think I've got something!" he cried. "Kinda late, but it'll take only a couple of minutes to test it out. I'll put these nets over your heads, and then you all look into that viewing cabinet over there." * * * * *