And the floor rotated until it was the usual, level platform. The huge busbar swung gently on its loose mooring like a ponderous, irresistible mass.
And there was a man who came striding in. His contempt for her still hurt, and Sandra winced. Even in that motion-picture dreaming, wherein the girl in the picture seemed apart from Sandra Drake, the ire vented upon the red-headed image made Sandra writhe in sympathy.
And then she heard the words come from the man's lips. They were clear and concise, and seemed to come from the man himself instead of from within her own memory:
"The electronic charge is great enough to force an inert element—xenon—to accept an additional electron in its ring-system. This permits combination with active elements such as bromine. When xenon-bromide forms, we know that our intrinsic charge is highly electro-negative. See?"
The scene within Sandra's mind dissolved, and she shook her head. It cleared, but the words remained.
"Orfall," she called. "Theodi! Thuni—bring them here!"
They returned. "McBride," she said. "He can do it!"
"How?" asked Theodi skeptically.
"You've read their books," said Sandra Drake. "You know the principle of the Plutonian Lens—and also that the alternating stations require terrible electronic charges to maintain the lens that focuses Sol on Pluto. They check that with the formation of xenon-bromide for negative, and decomposition of tetrachloro dibromo-methane for the positive charge. They can do it."