"O.K., fella, I see your point. How about that one, Wes?"
Wes Farrell grinned. "Looks like I'd better be getting perfect focus with the electrical system here. I hadn't considered the other angle at all, but it looks a lot tougher than I thought."
He squinted through a wall-mounted telescope at the set-up on the inside of the blister. "She's hot," he remarked quietly, and then set to checking the experiment. Fifteen minutes of checking, and making notes, and he turned to the others with a smile. "Not too bad that way," he said.
"What are you doing?"
"I've established a rather complex field. In order to correct the aberrations, I've got non-linear focussing fields in the places where they tend to correct for the off-axis aberrations. To correct for the height-effect, I'm putting a variable corrector to control the whole cone of energy, stretching it or shortening it according to the needs. I think if I use a longer focal length I'll be able to get the thing running right.
"That'll lessen the need for correction, too," he added, cracking the blister-intake valve and letting the air hiss into the blister. He opened the door and went inside, and began to adjust the electrodes. "You know," he added over his shoulder, "we've got something here that might bring a few dollars on the side. This matter-bank affair produces clean, clear, and practically pure metal. You might be able to sell some metal that was rated 'pure' and mean it."
"You mean absolutely, positively, guaranteed, uncontaminated, unadulterated, perfectly chemically pure?" grinned Don.
"Compared to what 'chemically pure' really means, your selection of adjectives is a masterpiece of understatement," laughed Walt.
"I'm about to make one more try," announced Wes. "Then I'm going to drop this for the time being. I've got to get up to the machine shop and see what they're doing with the rest of the thing."
"We'll take that over if you wish," said Don.