"Lasers never work well," said Cobb, wobbling back upright. "Lasers are always underpowered. Lethality is in the kilojoule per centimeter range. You just can’t do efficient optical coupling in chlorine-iodine wavelengths. There are ways to slide those pulses around, but when it comes to combining them . . ." Cobb started to hand-wave. He looked for a place to set his empty martini glass. He failed to find one. He absently tucked the narrow stem of the glass into Ted’s sweaty little fist.