Mass production of zinc carbon batteries should thus be an easy matter, and they would serve perfectly satisfactorily, as neither compactness nor portability was a requisite. The radio man accordingly abandoned the idea of dynamos and accumulators in favor of large quantities of wet cells.
The tubes, it appeared to Myles, would present the greatest problem. Platinum for the filaments, grids, and plates had been fairly common in nugget form in Cupia, and so presumably could be found in Vairkingia. Glass, of course, would be easy to make.
Alcohol for laboratory burners could be distilled from decayed fruit.
But the chief stumbling block was how to exhaust the air from his tubes, and how to secure magnesium to use in completing the vacuum. These matters he would have to leave to the future in the hope of a chance idea. For the present there were enough elements to be collected so that he would be kept busy for a great many days. Accordingly he copied off the following two lists:
Materials readily available:
Wood Wood ashes Charcoal Clay Common salt White sand Animal refuse Decayed fruit
Materials to hunt for:
Mica Copper ore Quartz Limestone Fluorspar Galena Zinc ore Platinum Chalk Magnesium
But that afternoon all his plans were disrupted by a message reading:
To The Furless One:
You are directed to appear for my amusement at my palace to-morrow. Fail not.
Theoph The Grim.