"'By the wit Osiris gave me! This same bit of glass shall save me!
I shall sell it as a diamond at some stupendous price!
And whoe'er I ask to take it will find, for his own sweet sake, it
Will be better not to wait until I have to ask him twice!'"
The theory behind the heat projector was simply an extension of the laser theory, plus a few refinements. Inside a ring made of the proper material, the light, acted upon by exterior magnetic fields, tended to move in a circle, so that the photon cascade effect was all in one direction instead of bouncing back and forth between a pair of mirrors. That light could be bent around corners by making it travel through a glass rod was well known, and the Malekrinova Q-tube took advantage of that effect.
In a way, the principle was similar to that of the cyclotron, except that instead of spinning ions around in a circle to increase their velocity a beam of coherent light was circulated to increase its intensity.
Then, at the proper moment, a beam of intense coherent light shot out of the tangent that formed the tail of the Q-tube. If the material of the Q was properly constructed and contained atoms that fluoresced strongly in the infra red, you had a heat beam that delivered plenty of power. And, since the radiation was linear and "in step," the Q-tube didn't heat up much at all. The cascade effect took most of the energy out as radiation.
"Then a Royal Proclamation was dispatched throughout the nation,
Most imperatively calling to appear before the King.
Under penalties most cruel, every man who sold a jewel
Or who bought and bartered precious stones, and all that sort of thing."
But knowing all that didn't help Raphael Poe or the United States of America one whit if the information couldn't be gotten out of Russia and into Colonel Spaulding's hands. Lenny had told him of the trouble the colonel was having with Dr. Davenport.
If he could only communicate with Lenny! But if he did, Dr. Malekrinova would pick up every bit of it, and that would be the end of that. No, he had to figure out some way to get himself and the information both out of the country.
Meanwhile, he had to keep thinking of an animated necktie. And he had to keep singing.
"Thereupon, the jewelers' nether joints all quaked and knocked together, As they packed their Saratogas in lugubrious despair. It was ever their misfortune to be pillaged by extortion, And they thought they smelled a rodent on the sultry desert air."