Dusty grinned, perhaps for the first time in weeks. "Look," he said. "I know the patter well enough. Doc Smith invented the Bergenholm and Murray Leinster came along with the superdrive and George O. Smith developed the matter transmitter to a fare-thee-well, but all this guff is so much birdfood."
"What are you getting at, Dusty?"
"I wish I had studied a bit more science," said Dusty plaintively. "But dammit, I don't know a microfarad from a polysyllabic neutron. But I'm telling you that my so-called strange fancy is the God's Truth. Some time in the next couple of weeks the Earth is going to get itself transplanted. You can either help me now or you can come back later and tell me that you're damned sorry you tossed me out. Take it or leave it."
"All right. So maybe I'll take it. I've only a couple of weeks to lose. What do you want me to say?"
"Look, Doc, supposing that you were convinced that interstellar travel is possible; that these phanobands do exist. That this menslator is a commercial instrument. And so on. Take the first premise: faster-than-light travel is a commercial fact due to the development of a theory called the machinus theory of space-time. Can you do a bit of hypothetical theorization?"
"Sure thing. I don't mind. We'll take this on the basis of plenic syllogistics. Our first premise will be that this menslator works as your pal Scyth claims."
"It's Scyth. Not scythe."
"Then as I put it, the menslator produces the mental image that Scyth intends. He will say, for instance: 'A gostak distims the doshes,' and because he means that a professional preparer of comestibles has placed an unstated number of crustaceans under an open flame, you receive this statement of Scyth as: 'The cook broiled some lobsters.' Is that clear?"
"I can follow you," said Dusty. "This much Scyth explained."
"Good. Now let's look at our commonly accepted definition of 'Mechanus'. This means that it works. In other words we have him telling us that their culture has developed a 'workable theory of space-time' which has been taken up after the theory of general relativity displayed a number of gaping holes. So their 'mechanus theory of space-time' is a workable theory."