They lay like jewels in the homes of most people. People stood around and stared at them, longingly, yet not daring to touch them. They had heard several stories about people who _had_ touched them. Within the spheres, the water was clearly visible for what it was; which made it all the harder to resist. The world now knew, by the word of scientists, that nothing but a thin surface of molecules, strengthened by a million times, lay between them and the water their bodies thirsted for. Surface tension, acted upon by a strange force, broadcasted from a mechanism ten miles beneath the surface of the Atlantic. Another day passed. The mills of industry, working by steam, and the things that depended on water, came to a halt. Power was weak, for it was fed from fast depleting accumulators. The tide machines were useless, for the ocean no longer fell or rose more than a foot in any one place. Numberless ships were stranded on the oceans, their screws able to turn, but their bows unable to push against the enormous contractile force that the surface of the ocean possessed. Crowds roved through the streets, aimless, purposeless, their voices dry, racking, their eyes bloodshot, cheeks sunken. Beer and soft drinks, the only drinkable liquids that were not affected, were selling for ten dollars a bottle. The supply was fast dwindling, and the price was being jacked up. Water was all around them, but they were the children of Tantalus. Newspapers began to demand, in stringent tones, that the situation be remedied. Crowds gathered outside the World Administration Building, shouting for water, and they were fully willing to go to the extreme of meeting the demands of the Martians to get it. * * * * * The Speaker of the Master Conclave, and the Japanese and Spanish sectional governors, stood in a room on the upper floor of the World Administration Building. The room was a kitchen. On the floor lay a huge, polished, glistening drop of water. "That's what it is, gentlemen," said the Speaker. "A drop of water, just what you'd expect if the surface tension of water increased a million times. The surface film acts like a tight skin or jacket surrounding a drop of water, and the jacket contracts down to the least possible area, a sphere. If you put your hands on it--the way I've got my hands on this damned _thing_--you increase the 'coastline,' and the surface film doesn't like that. It tries to decrease the coastline formed by your fingers, so your fingers are crushed together. If you managed to actually penetrate the film, and get your hands wet, the terrific capillary action of the molecules would cause the surface film to literally envelop you, and you'd be inside, and you couldn't get out.... What are we going to do about it?" His face was drawn and haggard and sunken. The Spanish Governor said hoarsely, "We couldn't give in, could we?"