"You know," Roysland said, "mankind has known for centuries the old dictum that 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,' but we sometimes forget how it works in practice. We still tend to look from cause to effect and from effect to cause.
"But in this case, there were two 'causes' of the mindjammer field, and three 'effects' from the two 'causes.' And that's simplifying a great deal. We still haven't dug into what else we can get from subetheric harmonics phenomena."
Roysland looked at Bilford. "How did you do this quick-cure stunt?"
Bilford shrugged. "Simple. I fiddled around until I got a subetheric harmonic that corresponded to the frequencies of the microwaves I was using. Works fine."
Kiffer chimed in again with: "With the stuff we got from your instruments on the X-69 I think we can build the weapon we've been so afraid of."
"Won't the Enlissa be able to analyze it?" Bilford asked, interestedly. "After all, we figured it out."
"Not the same thing," said Kiffer. "They don't have aJ projectors yet. They can't accidentally generate the field."
"Besides," Commander Allerdyce said grimly, "we won't leave them any evidence. If the weapon works, we'll beam 'em down, board 'em, and end up with prisoners and a perfectly good ship. The Enlissa will never know what happened to them."
Roysland was about to say something when the door flew open and a heavy body propelled its way inside.
It was General Director Eckisster, and he was very obviously seething mad. He glanced around the room and his eyes lit on Bilford.