"Yes," he said at last, "it's even higher in the scale than I thought. Lots higher than Curium, even now. And no telling, by any tests we can make, what it was originally, before its many half-life reductions that must have taken place over the long time it has undoubtedly been lying out there. Probably way above anything known, even theoretically, to Terran scientists."
"Can we use it?" Jon was quivering with excitement.
"If we can figure out a way to do so safely, so it doesn't want to disintegrate all at once, I think we've really got a fuel—a super fuel. But we'll have to go at it mighty slow and easy. That stuff could blow us higher than up, if used wrongly."
"Yes, I know. But after our scientists first liberated atomic energy for their bombs, many people said they couldn't control a hydrogen bomb, but they did. And later the thorium bomb. And then they got our activated copper. So I'm betting they can figure this out."
Both fell silent, although there were a dozen eager questions the boy wanted so much to ask. But he did not interrupt his father's line of thought, even though long, long minutes dragged away while the elder still pondered the problem.
At last, after more than a quarter of an hour, Tad Carver stirred and looked up. "This is going to take a long time to figure out," he said slowly. "I'm not too much on atomics, myself, and neither are you. Now you run along and do whatever else you have to do. It's a cinch we won't be able to try this stuff right away—if we try it at all."
The disappointment on Jon's face was plain, but he restrained any protests, knowing his father was right, and not wishing to call down on himself another verbal chastisement like that recent one.
"What about the rest of the stuff?" he asked instead. "Shall I get the box out of the cache and weld it onto the hull, as we thought we might do?"
"I don't see why not. We want to take it back to Terra with us, whether we figure out how to use it, or decide the job's too big for us and turn it over to the scientists there to handle."
"Right." Jon went over to the controls of the handling arms in the lock. Watching in the special visiplate, he opened the outer lockdoor, extended the "hands" and guided them down into the cache, after using them to lift the lid off the larger pit-box.