Monical flicked an ignition switch and, within seconds, the engine vibrated to life. There was no shake or rattle like the ones that had accompanied earlier versions. Small amounts of vapour were emitted and then it ran smoothly. Cavalier was able to view the ‘action’ as the plasmoids operated. Sparks were seen. Little lights flashed as moving dots collided.

Haut tore off a read-out of the gases from the exhaust, and grinned. ‘Look at this!’ he said, showing the results to the others. ‘Oxygen! Almost zero toxic emissions, such as carbon, but a lot of oxygen!’

‘This means,’ Cavalier began, his voice incredulous, ‘that every car or generator using your plasmoid device will increase the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere?!’

‘Exactly. It’s a wonderful, unexpected result.’

After the demonstration, Cavalier asked, ‘When do you think it will be refined enough to market?’

‘It’ll take another year with patents and everything,’ Haut said.

‘The smaller one is for cars, and motorbikes—anything with a combustion engine can be upgraded to use water. But this big one?’

‘Will be for ships, spaceships, power plants, nuclear power plants; everything that needs a bigger scale of energy.’

Cavalier moved away from the others to take a call from Wombat.

‘Vic. Just wanted to let you know that a certain Mrs Sally Deere recently had about two million Australian dollars cleared into her electronic bank account.’

‘Very pleased to hear that.’

‘She wondered who the benefactor was.’

‘Better not tell her, eh?’

‘No, I guess not.’ Wombat paused. ‘I’ve been in touch with Big Brother. There will be no investigation into how Dubois’ nearly ill-gotten gains ended up in an Australian woman’s bank account. They’re just happy that the killer of our man Deere, who had worked for them more than I realised, has been dealt with.’

‘I’d hoped you’d caress that through with your usual finesse.’

‘Melody phoned me. She wondered if you may have been involved in what happened to Dubois. I just said the end result was the important thing, and didn’t confirm anything. I can tell you she is more than keen for you to work with her again.’

‘Not on.’

‘The way she gushed, I think you could name your own price for a special assignment in Southeast Asia,’ Wombat said.

‘I can only guess which target that might be. It would mean a Big Brother team working overtime. Forget it.’

‘I had a chat to Al. He is over the moon about the bigger engine version.’

‘That’s where it might end up,’ Cavalier remarked.

‘Try Mars and every other planet. Since his return to Australia, he’s created his second, bigger engine for boats, spaceships, power grids and so on. Think of that!’

‘I’ve just viewed the engine in action, belching out bloody oxygen, would you believe!’

‘He has to finance and market it first,’ Wombat said. ‘That will be a challenge … So will staying alive.’