"I get it. Go ahead, Wes. I want to see this non-arcing switch of yours perform." Farrell checked the meters, and then said: "Now!" and punched the switch at his side. Across the room a solenoid drove the special alloy bar between two clamps of similar metal. Almost immediately, four-thousandths of a second later, to be exact, the solenoid reacted automatically and the no-arc alloy was withdrawn. A minute spark flashed briefly between the contacts. "And that is that," said Channing, dazed by the magnitude of it all, and the utter simplicity of the effects. "But look, Wes, may I ask you a favor? Please discharge that infernal machine and drain that electrolyte out. Then make the thing up in a tool-steel case and seal it. Also hang on busbars right at the plates themselves, and slap a peak-voltage fuse across the terminals. One that will open at anything above three thousand volts. Follow me?" "I think so. But that is not the main point of interest--" "I know," grinned Channing mopping his forehead. "The non-arc is. But that fragile glassware makes me as jittery as a Mexican jumping bean." "But why?" "Wes, if that glassware fractures somewhere, and that electrolyte drools out, you'll have a condenser of one microfarad--charged to thirteen million times three thousand volts. Or, in nice, hollow, round numbers, forty billion volts! Of course, it won't get that far. It'll arc across the contacts before it gets that high, but it might raise particular hell on the way out. Take it easy, Wes. We're seventy million-odd miles from the nearest large body of dirt, all collected in a little steel bottle about three miles long and a mile in diameter. I'd hate to stop all interplanetary communications while we scraped ourselves off of the various walls and treated ourselves for electric shock. It would--the discharge itself, I mean--raise hell with the equipment anyway. So play it easy, Wes. We do not permit certain experiments out here because of the slow neutrons that sort of wander through here at fair density. Likewise, we cannot permit dangerous experiments. And anything that includes a dangerous experiment must be out, too." "Oh," said Wes. His voice and attitude were altogether crestfallen. "Don't take it so hard, fella," grinned Channing. "Any time we have to indulge in dangerous experiments, we always do it with an assistant--and in one of the blister-laboratories. But take that fragile glassware out of the picture, and I'll buy it," he finished. Walt Franks entered and asked what was going on. "Wes was just demonstrating the latest equipment in concentrated deviltry," smiled Channing. "That's my department," said Walt. "Oh, it's not as bad as your stuff," said Channing. "What he's got here is an alloy that will break several million watts without an arc. Great stuff, Walt." "Sounds swell," said Walt. "Better scribble it up and we'll get a patent. It sounds useful."