Walt returned after a minute and said: "Warren's measuring the inductance of the betatron magnet. He will then calculate the value of C required to tune the thing to the right frequency and start to achieve that capacity by mazing up whatever high-voltage condensers we have on the station. Now, Don, let's calculate how we're going to make the thing mobile."
"That's a horse of a different color. We'll have to use electromagnetic deflection. From the constants of the electron stream out of our souped-up Suzy, we'll have to compute the necessary field to deflect such a beam. That'll be terrific, because the electrons are hitting it up at a velocity approaching that of light—maybe a hundred and seventy thousand miles per—and their mass will be something fierce. That again will help to murder Murdoch; increasing mass will help to keep the electrons from being deflected, since it takes more to turn a heavy mass—et cetera, see Newton's laws of inertia for complete statement. Have 'em jerk the D plates out of the cyc and bring the magnet frame down here—to the turret, I mean—and set 'em up on the vertical. We'll use that to run the beam up and down, we can't possibly get one hundred and eighty degree deflection, of course, but we can run the deflection over considerable range. It should be enough to catch a spaceship that is circling the station. For the horizontal deflection, what have we got?"
"Nothing. But the cyc magnet is a double pole affair. We could break the frame at the D plates and set one winding sidewise to the other and use half on each direction."
"Sure. Have one of Warren's gang fit the busted pole pieces up with a return-magnetic frame so that the field will be complete. He can weld some girders on and around in an hour. That gives us complete deflection properties up and down; left and right. We should be able to cover a ninety-degree cone from your turret."
"That'll cover all of Murdoch's ships," said Walt.
"Too bad we haven't got some U-235 to use. I'd like to plate up one of his ships with some positive ions of U-235 and then change the beam to slow neutrons. That might deter him from his life of crime."
"Variations, he wants," said Arden. "You're going to impale one ship on a beam of electrons; one ship on a beam of U-235 ions; and what will you have on the third?"
"I'll think of something," said Channing. "A couple of hundred pounds of U-235 should make things hum, though."
"More like making them disappear," said Franks. "Swoosh! No ship. Just an incandescent mass falling into the Sun. I'm glad we haven't any purified U-235 or plutonium in any quantity out here. We catch a few slow neutrons now and then, and I wouldn't be able to sleep nights. The things just sort of wander right through the station as though it weren't here at all; they stop just long enough to register on the counter upstairs and then they're gone."
"Well, to work, people. We've got a job to do in the next three and a half days."