"We passed a strange ship. We heated up to uncomfortable temperatures in a matter of nine seconds flat. They didn't warm us with thought waves, or vector-invectives. Sheer dislike wouldn't do it alone. I guess that someone is trying to do the trick started by our esteemed Mr. Franks here a year or so ago. Only with something practical instead of an electron beam. Honest-to-goodness energy, right from Sol himself, funneled through some tricky inventions. Walt, that experiment of yours. Did you bring it along?"
Walt looked downcast. "No," he said. "It was another one."
"Let's see."
"It's not too good—"
"Same idea?"
Walt went to get his experiment. He returned with a tray full of laboratory glassware, all wired into a maze of electronic equipment.
Channing went white. "You, too?" he yelled.
"Take it easy, sport. This charges only to a hundred volts. We get thirteen hundred microfarads at one hundred volts. Then we drain off the dielectric fluid, and get one billion three hundred million volts charge in a condenser of only one hundred micro-microfarads. It's an idea for the nuclear physics boys. I think it may tend to solidify some of the uncontrollables in the present system of developing high electron velocities."
"That thirteen million dielectric constant stuff is strictly electro-dynamite, I think," said Channing. "Farrell may have developed it as a by-product, but I have a hunch that it will replace some heretofore valuable equipment. The Franks-Farrell generator will outdo Van-Der Graf's little job, I think."
"Franks-Farrell?"