“Yeah, but the plasma blows through the magnetic field at supersonic speed,” Younger said, jabbing a forefinger at Jake’s chest.

“Like the exhaust from a rocket engine,” said Rogers.

“Damned sight faster than any copper armature,” Younger emphasized.

“I see,” Jake replied.

“MHD generators are a lot more efficient than the generators that the electric utility companies run,” Rogers said.

Younger huffed. “They’re using the same technology Edison used, for crap’s sake. Forty percent efficiency. Same as Edison got, within a couple of percentage points.”

“This little baby,” Rogers said, glancing at the MHD generator, “runs between sixty and sixty-five percent. And she’s only a little experimental job. The bigger an MHD generator is, the more efficient.”

“Wait a minute,” said Jake. “You’re telling me that this experimental rig is already fifty percent more efficient than the generators our utility companies use?”

Rogers nodded, smiling. Younger’s face twitched into an expression that was as close to a smile as he could get.

“How’d you like to have your electricity bill cut in half?” Younger asked.

Professor Arlan Sinclair

PROFESSOR ARLAN SINCLAIR

His head spinning from the facts and figures that the two men were throwing at him, Jake said, “Look, I’m supposed to have lunch with Professor Sinclair. Why don’t you come along?”

Younger frowned. “I bring my lunch and eat here. I’ve got no time to go out to the cafeteria and socialize.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Rogers. “I need to talk to the prof anyway.”

As they walked along the low-ceilinged tunnel that connected to the main building of the electrical engineering department, Rogers said gently, “Don’t get the wrong impression about Tim. He’s a typical Yankee sourpuss, but he’s a good man.”

“If you say so,” Jake replied.

“He was in charge of the rig when it blew up last year. Killed one of the technicians. Knocked the roof off the shed. They found pieces all over the campus.”

“Geez!”

“We were lucky nobody else got hurt. The technician was a university employee, not a student.”

Jake almost said, Expendable, but caught himself in time.

“Tim’s a hands-on guy, not a theoretiker like me,” Rogers went on.

“You’re a physicist?”

Rogers nodded. “And Tim’s an engineer. He’s not on the faculty, he’s an employee of the university. I don’t pull rank on him or anything like that, but he feels the difference all the time.”

Shrugging as they stepped through the door out into the late-morning sunshine, he added, “Then there’s the family connection. I’m descended from Major Rogers, of Rogers’s Rangers. The French and Indian War and all that.”

Jake felt awed. “Christ, I just saw an old movie on TV about that. Spencer Tracy played Major Rogers!”