It's a serious consideration, but Newton's overly complex thought process lightens the mood a bit. He leans back against Newton and lets him work for awhile before draining a bit more soup.

"Australia is positioned rather far from both American and Russian soil," he muses. "I doubt they've bothered to have any presence there. Of course, it would be more difficult to offer much in way of aid so remotely, but we can't afford to suffer through the shocks and there's no way to test--"

Hermann stops abruptly, and turns to stare at Newton. "Newton, I'd rather not have to ask this, but how would you feel about losing a finger for an experiment?"

His mind is suddenly a race of half-formed theories and ideas for slapdash tech to run in their limited window of time for a solution.