"Please do so—thanks a million," and the Lensmen disconnected.
"The conceited old goat!" Haynes snorted. "I'd like to smack him down!"
"I've felt like it more than once, but it wouldn't do any good. You've got to handle him with gloves—besides, you can afford to make concessions to a man with a brain like that."
"I suppose so. But how about that infernal tube? Knowing that it cannot be set up within or very near Tellus helps some, but not enough. We've got to know where it is—if it is. Can you detect it?"
"Yes. That is, I can't, but the specialists can, I think. Wise of Medon would know more about that than anyone else. Why wouldn't it be a thought to call him over here?"
"It would that;" and it was done.
Wise of Medon and his staff came, conferred and departed.
Sir Austin Cardynge solved his minor problem, reporting that the minimum distance from the Sun's center to the postulated center of the terminus of the vortex—actually, the geometrical origin of the three-dimensional figure which was the hyperplane of intersection—was three point two six four seven, approximately, astronomical units; the last figure being tentative and somewhat uncertain because of the rapidly moving masses of Jupiter—
"Cover everything beyond three units out in every direction," Haynes directed, when he got that far along the tape. He had no time to listen to an hour of mathematical dissertation. What he wanted was facts.