His workmen did not understand what he was doing, but they labored willingly because it was for a purpose.... And down-hill, in the hydraulic-dredged-out lake, water came seeping in, in the form of mud. And another pipe came up from the sea-shore. It was a rather small pipe, and the personnel who laid it were bewildered. Because there was a water-freshening plant down there and all the fresh water was poured back overboard, while the brine, saturated with salts from the ocean, unable to dissolve a single grain of anything, was being used to fill the small artificial lake.
The second day Sandringham called Bordman again, and again Bordman peered wearily into the phone-screen.
"Yes," said Bordman. "The leaked fuel is turning up. In solution. I'm trying to measure the concentration by matching specific gravities of lake-water and brine, and then sticking electrodes in each. The fuel's corrosive as the devil. It gives a different EMF. Higher than brine of the same density. I think I've got it in hand."
"Do you want to start shipping it?" demanded Sandringham.
"You can begin pouring it down the holes," said Bordman. "How's the barometer?"
"Down three-tenths this morning. Steady now."
"Damn!" said Bordman. "I'll set up moulds. Freeze it in plastic bags the size of the bore-holes so it will go down. While it's frozen they can even push it down deep."
Sandringham said grimly:
"There's been more damned technical work done with ship-fuel than any other substance since time began. But remember that the stuff can still be set off, even dissolved in water! Its sensitivity goes down, but it's not gone!"
"If it were," said Bordman drearily, "you could invite in the civilian population to sit on its rump. I've got something like forty tons of ship-fuel in brine solution in this lake I pumped out! But it's in five thousand tons of brine. We don't speak above a whisper when we're around it. We walk in carpet-slippers and you never saw people so polite! We'll start freezing it."