He pressed a button connected to the apparatus on the table. A projected silhouette flashed on the wall.
"A spring from a Kimberly Joint," said Bryan Kimberly. "Those wonderful Kimberly Joints! I took this off the production line. The test sample out of this bunch flexed four million and was still good. Now, watch."
He pressed another button. "This box is near zero, Kelvin. The spring is cooled with liquid helium to near operating temperatures. There it goes!"
As they watched, the silhouette shattered. The pieces seemed to explode, then trickled out of sight and there was nothing where the spring had been.
The engineers sat as if stunned. They knew the strength of that bit of metal, the implications of the force that could shatter it like glass.
"What did you do?" breathed Lane.
"Ghost," said Kimberly. "Don't you hear it? Our suits are also haunted, you know."
They listened. Then they heard — the high-pitched screaming that came out of the apparatus.
"One of our tested valves," said Kimberly.
"But they don't squeal like that," said Lane.