The information, however, did not prevent him from calling to Crane a few minutes later, even though he was still deep in conversation with Margaret. Dorothy gave him an exasperated glance and walked away.
"I sure pulled a boner that time," Seaton muttered as he plucked at his hair ruefully. "It nearly did us.
"Let's test this stuff out and see if it's X, Mart, while DuQuesne's out of the way. If it is X, it's SOME find!"
Seaton cut off a bit of metal with his knife, hammered it into a small piece of copper, and threw the copper into the power-chamber, out of contact with the plating. As the metal received the current the vessel started slightly.
"It is X! Mart, we've got enough of this stuff to supply three worlds!"
"Better put it away somewhere," suggested Crane, and after the metal had been removed to Seaton's cabin, the two men again sought a landing-place. Almost in their line of flight they saw a close cluster of stars, each emitting a peculiar greenish light which, in the spectroscope, revealed a blaze of copper lines.
"That's our meat, Martin. We ought to be able to grab some copper in that system, where there's so much of it that it colors their sunlight."
"The copper is undoubtedly there, but it might be too dangerous to get so close to so many suns. We may have trouble getting away."
"Well, our copper's getting horribly low. We've got to find some pretty quick, somewhere, or else walk back home, and there's our best chance. We'll feel our way along. If it gets too strong, we'll beat it."
When they had approached so close that the suns were great stars widely spaced in the heavens, Crane relinquished the controls to Seaton.