"Right, boss," said Hannigan.
"Any action?"
"Not yet. First the atmosphere of pure nothing so the stuff won't try to combine with the aforementioned atmosphere. Then twelve hundred degrees Kelvin, and finally the slow-cooling to form large crystals." McBride opened a valve and the trapped air under the sealed glass whipped out into space. "This stuff is stubborn," he added, turning on the heater. The mixture grayed a bit, and then started to turn cherry red all over at once. Hammond manipulated the color-temperature meter and when the color was right, he motioned and McBride cut the heater, riding the control all the way to room temperature.
"Anything?"
"Won't form."
"Huh?" asked Hammond. "I thought we could form anything."
"We can. But we might not live to tell about it. Some items of unstable planetary systems are easily converted from their normal valence-ratings to others of wide and ridiculous values. We picked xenon for our final indicator because it fits in nice with the negative value we need. But this stuff has valence-inertia beyond that value. According to this stuff here, I'd say that its instability was less than that of the carbon-chains that go into the human body."
Hammond whistled.
"And that means, little brother, that by the time we hit the right negative charge to make this stuff combine, we'll end up with being completely and irreplaceably dead."
"Ugh!" grunted Hammond. "Did we get anything?"