ThirtyShaking from his performance, once back at the lab Machuzak headed directly to the pentagon, where he found Abbuhl in the test cell. The magnet temperature stood at 120 absolute, on schedule, but the bakeout had stalled: The damned electric heater that forced hot, high-pressure helium gas through coils wrapping the doughnut to bake it and drive out impurities, had blown a filament. Fred assured him it would be repaired immediately. The coils themselves, thank God, hadn’t sprung a leak. That would have sunk them without trace.
“Fred, we’ve got to get a first plasma in two weeks—”
“Mac, we’re on schedule but—”
“Fred—”
Fred saluted and Machuzak left, punching both balloons of Munch’s Scream.
* * * *
Even as Machuzak exited the tokamak bay, Archangelsky was summoning him to the lak
