"Damn!" objected Redmond. Only one who understood what was in Redmond's ambitious mind would know that the disappointment was very false.
"So I came to tell you and also to be curious."
"Curiosity killed a cat," said Redmond.
The doctor laughed. "It's created more kittens than the cats it's killed. Is this still super-top secret or can you let an old man in on it?"
Redmond glowed inwardly at the chance to show off before the doctor. "According to the latest calculations," he said, "the generation of negative space by the force-fields of diagravitic force takes the form of a sphere. Obviously the proper shape for a spacecraft employing one of these generators would be spherical. But we are using a converted spacecraft of the torpedo shape, and I feel that—well, to generate a sphere large enough to enclose the spacecraft in one gulp would produce far too much power. So we are using two of them placed so that their spherical fields produce a pattern something like two equal-sized soap bubbles stuck together. The ship lies longwise through the centers of the circles, since the generators are in the ship, of course."
Hanson nodded. His head bobbed gently, in a measured motion. He was sitting with his back to the room, the window in front of him. He knew that the reflection of the window was in his glasses and that Redmond was watching this spot of light instead of watching the doctor's eyes. Redmond continued to watch as he spoke.
"Within a week we shall have it finished," said Redmond. "Then the stars shall be ours!"
Hanson continued to nod.
"Of course we have not tested the generators as yet. There is no known way of dissipating the energy they develop. Since the realized energy in this real space is sufficient to propel matter faster than the velocity of light, the outpouring of energy must be paradoxically many times the value of infinity."
Hanson continued to nod.