He was bitter and savage, thinking of Ilse and—himself.
"Men say you are a genius," Xax clicked. "It's not fair, comparing others to yourself."
"Bah!" snorted Kortha. "A man makes himself what he is. But let's not bandy words. I have work to do."
He walked down the aisles of this treasure house of metal machines. His quick green eyes studied condensors and generators, pausing to search the intricacy of bearings, or the purpose of bizarre couplings. Inventions of forgotten ages lay before him, dim light shrouding dusty cables, and plasticine casings. Here were bulbous globes and straight, thin shanks of steel; there in shadowed niches rested wired engines and bulbed machines, silent and mysterious.
"Guantra and his staff took the more obvious machines, perhaps the ones that bore explanatory cards," said Kortha, walking softly in the dust. "These are more complex."
He came to a halt before a queer tangle of rings and wires and generator. Three metal bands floated in air between two looped magnetizers. Kortha rubbed at his jaw, thoughtfully, scowling. The pattern of the machine was utterly new, completely strange to him; yet there was about it a faint air of familiarity. The thing had no obvious purpose. It fired no missile. It had no in-take or out-let valves. It—
"Zut!" he whispered. "It only does one thing. It gives off vibrations!"
Xax merely looked at him. Kortha was saying excitedly, running hands over metal sides and rounded knobs, over cables and rings, "But don't you see? If a thing can be made to give off the proper vibrations, it can affect matter. It can cause a change in the electronic structure of a substance, by speeding up or slowing down the rate of electronic revolution around the atom.
"Remember the old legend about the beggar who had a queer machine strapped to his back? Everywhere he wandered he met harshness and ill treatment, until one night a woodchopper took him into his hut and fed and clothed him. The woodchopper kept him with him until the beggar was healthy again. As a reward, the beggar turned everything in the hut into gold!"