"Sounds like him. Yeah, we can make you an alloy consisting of Russell's Mixture. Tony's got it here, now, and it doesn't look hard. How big a dynode do you want?"
Walt gave him the dimensions of the dynode in the solar tube.
"Cinch," said Riley. "You can have it in two hours."
"Swell."
"But it'll be hotter than hell. Better make that six or seven hours. We may run into trouble making it jell."
"I'll have Arden slip you some pectin," said Walt. "Tomorrow morning then?"
"Better. That's a promise."
Walt turned to the rest. "If any of us can sleep," he said, "I'd suggest it. Something tells me that tomorrow is going to be one of those days that mother told me about. I'll buy a drink."
Walt opened the anode-coupler circuit, and the needle of the output ammeter slammed across the scale and wound the needle halfway around the stop pin. The shunt, which was an external, high-dissipation job, turned red, burned the paint off of its radiator fins, and then proceeded to melt. It sputtered in flying droplets of molten metal. Smoke spewed from the case of the ammeter, dissipating in the vacuum of the blister.