บท 2383: No Key

"Do you remember the pair of Xona Crystals we've obtained from Ulimo Citadel?" Calabast asked.

"Yes. I heard that they are huge and unwieldy. They demand a lot of energy and they can only be used for 2 minutes and 34 seconds at a time. After that, they have to cool down for as much as 86 hours, 29 minutes and 11 seconds."

Ves stored those numbers in his implant so he was able to recall them at any time.

"Before you ask, we haven't managed to improve the usability of the crystals. We don't have any alien tech researchers or crystallographers on our staff. Our existing techs, engineers and researchers have all puzzled over the two crystals for a time, but we really can't make any progress in improving their usability without starting to study them from scratch."