She reached for the phone, and spoke into it briefly. Then there was a wait, before she handed it over, and a voice came on. "This is General Dawes at Oak Ridge. Who's calling?"
"William Norden, Project A-sub-zero, Moon Base. I want five pounds of K-40 up here in four hours. Use my top priority and mark the shipment for delivery to me only."
There was the usual few seconds of waiting while the message traveled to Earth, and back. "Five pounds?" the voice asked, incredulously.
"Five pounds! And I may want more as fast as it can be gathered."
Pat was on another phone. Before Earth could answer again, there was a click, and General Miles' voice broke in sharply. "This is Miles, Dawes. Give Norden what he wants."
A sputter of protest began, but it ended abruptly as Miles' voice reached Earth. The silence was broken by a sigh. "Okay, Norden, we'll get it to you in four hours somehow."
It arrived in less time, and Norden and Pat began the tricky job of getting the highly active elements into a container which was both chemically and radio-actively safe. They clamped it over the cage at last, and watched the pressure on the female cages.
The results weren't spectacular, but they were unquestionable. And later, when they had reduced the amount of K-40 to a thin coating, it still worked. The quantity of potassium made very little difference beyond a certain minimum.
The effects still weren't good enough. They tried painting various substances with the chloride of the potassium, with equally good results and much greater ease of handling. The nitrate was even better to work with.
But it took them until late that night before they learned that coating the nitrate over cleaned iron was a major step forward. Until then it had been all hit and miss, except for vague directional hunches.