ower.

Static disturbance, I should explain, is negligible in the
sub-electronic order, and non-existent in the ultronic.

The pioneer expeditions of our engineers into the ultronic order, I am
told, necessitated the use of most elaborate, complicated and delicate
apparatus, as well as the expenditure of most costly power, but once
established there, all necessary power is developed very simply from
tiny batteries composed of thin plates of _metultron_ and _katultron_.
These two substances, developed synthetically in much the same manner as
ordinary ultron, exhibit dual phenomena which for sake of illustration I
may compare with certain of the phenomena of radioactivity. As radium is
constantly giving off electronic emanations and changing its atomic
structure thereby, so _katultron_ is constantly giving off _ultronic_
emanations, and so changing its _sub-electronic_ form, while
_metultron_, its complement, is constantly attracting and absorbing
_ultronic_ values, and so changing its sub-electronic nature in the
opposite direction. Thin plates of these two substances, when placed
properly in juxtaposition, with insulating plates of inertron between,
constitute a battery which generates an ultronic current.

* * * * *

And it is a curious parallel that just as there were many mysteries
connected with the nature of electricity in the Twentieth Century
(mysteries which, I might mention, never _have_ been solved,
notwithstanding our penetration into the "sub-" orders) so there are
certain mysteries about the ultronic current. It will flow, for
instance, through an ultron wire, from the _katultron_ to the
_metultron_ plate, as electricity will flow through a copper wire. It
will short circuit between the two plates if the inertron insulation is
imperfect. When the insulation is perfect, however, and no ultron
metallic circuit is complete, the "current" (apparently the same that
would flow through the metallic circuit) is projected into space in an
absolutely straight line from the _katultron_ plate, and received from
space by the _metultron_ plate on the same line. This line is the
theoretical straight line passing through the mass-center of each plate.
The shapes and angles of the plates have nothing to do with it, except
that the perpendicular distance of the plate edges from the mass-center
line determines thickness of the beam of parallel current-rays.

Thus a simple battery may be use