Grinning, Rogers said, “Tim’s from a working-class family north of Boston. Some of the guys kid him that he’s descended from the Younger Brothers, the old frontier outlaw gang. It gets under his skin sometimes. That’s why he can be kind of prickly.”

“So I don’t make any bank robber jokes in front of him.”

“I wouldn’t advise it.”

As they walked across the campus to the faculty cafeteria, Rogers explained more about the MHD generator. A power generator’s efficiency depends on three things: the conductivity of its armature, the speed with which the armature moves through the magnetic field, and the strength of the magnetic field.

“Our armature is the plasma flowing along the channel,” Rogers said. “Conductivity’s a lot lower than copper wire, but the supersonic flow speed more than makes up for that. And our big rig uses a superconducting magnet: a lot stronger field strength than the electromagnet we’ve got on the little baby.”

“Your big rig?” Jake asked.

Rogers looked slightly surprised. “You don’t know about the big rig?”

“No.”

“If you’ve got some time after lunch I’ll take you over to see it.”

“I’ve got a lecture class at two,” Jake said.

Tilting his head slightly, Rogers replied, “Okay, some other time.”

They entered the cafeteria building, already noisy with crowds of students chattering away as they lined up at the counters, dishes and silverware clattering as they loaded trays from the displays of sandwiches, pizza, and hot meals. Jake followed Rogers up the stairs to the top floor and the faculty cafeteria, much quieter and less crowded. The woman at the reception desk showed them to a private room, where a table big enough for eight was set with four places.

“I guess the prof is bringing somebody with him,” Rogers said.

“Should we go get our lunches or wait for him here?” Jake wondered.

Rogers thought it over for a few seconds, then suggested, “Whyn’t you get what you want while I wait here for him?”

“Okay. Can I bring you something?”

“Diet Coke.”

Jake nodded and left the private room. He passed several people carrying loaded trays coming the other way but didn’t turn his head to see if any of them went into the room where Rogers was waiting.

He picked up an unidentifiable sandwich and two Diet Cokes, then found that he couldn’t pass up the dessert table’s apple cobblers. By the time he returned to the room where Rogers was waiting, Professor Sinclair was sitting at the head of the table, deep in discussion with the physicist. And a good-looking young brunette was seated at the professor’s right.

Both men got to their feet as Jake put his tray on the table.

“Professor, this is Jake Ross, from the astronomy department,” said Rogers.