it? It must be impossible to work it in
any way."

"It cannot be worked in any ordinary way, but we shall take this crystal
into the depths of that white dwarf star, into a region in which obtain
pressures and temperatures only less than those giving it birth. There
we shall play forces upon it which, under those conditions, will be able
to work it quite readily."

"Hm--m--m. I want to see that! Let's go!"

They seated themselves at the panels, and Rovol began to manipulate
keys, levers and dials. Instantly a complex structure of visible
force--rods, beams and flat areas of flaming scarlet energy--appeared at
the end of the tubular, telescope-like network.

"Why red?"

"Merely to render them visible. One cannot work well with invisible
tools, hence I have imposed a colored light frequency upon the invisible
frequencies of the forces. We will have an assortment of colors if you
prefer," and as he spoke each ray assumed a different color, so that the
end of the projector was almost lost beneath a riot of color.

The structure of force, which Seaton knew was the secondary projector,
swung around as if sentient, and a lurid green ray extended itself,
picked up the faidon, and lengthened out, hurling the jewel a thousand
yards out through the open side of the laboratory. Rovol moved more
controls and the structure again righted itself, swinging back into
perfect alignment with the tube and carrying the faidon upon its
extremity, a thousand yards beyond the roof of the laboratory.

"We are now ready to start our projection. Be sure your suit and goggles
are perfectly tight. We must see what we are doing, so the light-rays
must be heterodyned upon our carrier wave. Therefore the laboratory and
all its neighborhood will be flooded with dangerous frequencies from the
sun we are to visit, as well as with those from our own generators."

"O. K., chief! All tight here. You say it's ten light-years to that
star. How long's it going to take us to get there?"

"About ten minutes. We could travel that far in less than ten seconds
but for the fact that we must take the faidon with us. Slight as is its
mass, it will require much energy in its acceleration. Our projections,
of course, have no mass, and will require only the energy of
propagation."

[Illustration: _Looking into the visiplate, he was out in space in
person, hurtling through space at a pace, beside which the best effort
of the Skylark seemed the veriest crawl._]