"I think it may bring us a bit of change," said Channing. "It's great stuff, Wes." "Thanks. It annoyed me to see those terrific oil-breakers we have here. All I wanted to do was to replace 'em with something smaller and more efficient." "You did, Wes. And that isn't all. How did you dream up that high-dielectric?" "Applied several of the physical phenomena." "That's a good bet, too. We can use several fluids of various dielectric constants. Can you make solids as well?" "Not as easily. But I can try--?" "Go ahead and note anything you find above the present, listed compounds and their values." "I'll list everything, as I always do." "Good. And the first thing to do is to can that stuff in a steel case." "It'll have to be plastalloy." "That's as strong as steel and non-conducting. Go ahead." Channing led Franks from the laboratory, and once outside Channing gave way to a session of the shakes. "Walt," he said plaintively, "take me by the hand and lead me to Joe's. I need some vitamins." "Bad?" "Did you see that glassblower's nightmare?" "You mean that collection of cut glass?" grinned Walt. "Uh-huh. It looked as though it were about to collapse of its own dead weight!" "That held an electrolyte of dielectric constant thirteen times ten to the sixth. He had it charged to a mere three thousand volts. Ye gods, Walt. Thirteen farads at three KV. _Whew!_ and when he discharged it, the confounded leads that went through the glass sidewalls to the condenser plates positively glowed in the cherry red. I swear it!" "He's like that," said Walt. "You shouldn't worry about him. He'll have built that condenser out of good stuff--the leads will be alloys like those we use in the bigger tubes. They wouldn't fracture the glass seals no matter what the temperature difference between them and the glass was. Having that alloy around the place--up in the tube maintenance department they have a half ton of quarter-inch rod--he'd use it naturally." "Could be, Walt. Maybe I'm a worry wart." "You're not used to working with his kind." "I quote: 'Requiring a high voltage source of considerable current capacity, I hit upon the scheme of making a super-high capacity condenser and discharging it through my no-arc alloy. To do this it was necessary that I invent a dielectric material of K equals thirteen times ten to the sixth.' Unquote." "Wes is a pure scientist," reminded Walt. "If he were investigating the electrical properties of zinc, and required solar power magnitudes to complete his investigation, he'd invent it and then include it as an incidental to the investigation on zinc. He's never really understood our recent divergence in purpose over the power tube. That we should make it soak up power from Sol was purely incidental and useful only as a lever or means to make Terran Electric give us our way. He'd have forgotten it, I'll bet, since it was not the ultimate goal of the investigation." "He knows his stuff, though."