Dr. Munro let a heavy glass ash tray drop on Condemeign's watch. The stem wheel with its axle fell out and rolled, flattened and broken on the desk top. He swept the debris together and tossed it into a disposal chute.
"That was supposed to correlate the courses of the two oncoming, opposing containers, each of which was able to correct its direction when it received the proper signal from the watch stem." The Doctor sighed. "Thank heaven, neither of them did. Condemeign would have had to work it from outside Nepenthe—our power plants tended to blank out the radio signal—and he couldn't, of course."
"You mean those two components were supposed to reach critical mass just over Nepenthe?"
The Doctor whistled softly.
"I hardly think it would have blown us entirely to flinders, but undoubtedly we would have gone out of business."
Miss Gluck rose and went to the round window well.
"But I still don't understand about Condemeign. You said he wasn't a fraud at all."
Dr. Munro plucked at her hand. He hardly seemed to be concentrating on what he was saying. He had eyes for other things.
"No, he wasn't a fraud. He was a member of Bios and he really wanted to die, and that's why they sent him."