He began to rattle the key. In the power room, the generators screamed
and the lights throughout the station flickered just a bit at the
sudden surges.
Don Channing said to Arden: "If someone on the _Empress of Kolain_ can
understand code--"
* * * * *
The _Empress of Kolain_ was zipping along in its silent passage
through the void. It was an unseen, undetected, unaware bit of human
manufacture marking man's will among the stars. In all the known
universe it moved against the forces of celestial mechanics because
some intelligent mote that infested the surface of a planet once had a
longing to visit the stars. In all the Solar System, most of the cosmic
stuff was larger than it--but it alone defied the natural laws of space.
Because it alone possessed the required _outside force_ spoken of in
Newton's "Universal Laws."
And it was doing fine.
Dinner was being served in the dining room. A group of shapely girls
added grace to the swimming pool on the promenade deck. The bar was
filled with a merry crowd which in turn were partly filled with liquor.
A man in uniform, the Second Officer, was throwing darts with a few
passengers in the playroom, and there were four oldish ladies on
sabbatical leave who were stricken with _mal-de-void_.
The passage up to now had been uneventful. A meteor or two had come to
make the ship swing a bit--but the swerve was less than the pitch of an
ocean vessel in a moderate sea and it did not continue as did an ocean
ship. Most of the time the _Empress of Kolain_ seemed as steady as
solid rock.
Only the First Officer, on the bridge, and the Chief Pilot, far below
in the control room, knew just how erratic their course truly was. But
they were not worried. They were not a shell, fired from a gun; they
were a spaceship, capable of steering themselves into any port on Venus
when they arrived and the minute wobbulations in their course could
be corrected when the time came. For nothing that had come across the
universe yet had ever prevented the ship of space from seeing where it
was going.
Yes, it was uneventful.
Then the meteor screen flashed into life. A circle of light appeared in
the celestial dome and the ship automatic pilot swerved ever so little.
The dot of light was gone.
Throughout the ship, people laughed nervously. A waiter replaced a
glass of water that had been set too close to the edge of the table
and a manly-looking fellow dived into the swimming pool to haul a
good-looking blonde back to the edge again. She'd been in the middle
of a swan dive when the swerve came and the ship had swerved without
her. The resounding smack of feminine stomach against the water was of
greater importance than the meteor, now so many hundred miles behind.
The flash of light returned and the ship swerved again. Upon the
third swerve, the First Officer was watching the celestial globe with
suspicion. He went white. It was conceivable that the _Empress of
Kolain_ was about to encounter a meteor shower.
And that was bad.
He marked the place and set his observation telescope in synchronism
with the celestial globe. There was nothing but the ultimate starry
curtain in the background. He snapped a switch and the voice of the
pilot came out of a speaker in the wall.
"You called, Mr. Hendall?"
"Tony, take the levers, will you please? Something is rotten in the
State of Denmark."
"O.K., sir. I'm riding personal."
"Kick out the meteor-spotter coupling circuits and forget the alarm."
"Right, Mr. Hendall, but will you confirm that in writing?"
Hendall scribbled on the telautograph and then abandoned the 'scope.
The flashing in the celestial globe continued, but the ship no longer
danced in its path.
The big twenty-inch Cassegrain showed nothing at all, and Hendall
returned to the bridge scratching his head. Nothing on the spotting
'scope and nothing on the big instrument.
That intermittent spot was large enough to mean a huge meteor. But
wait. At their speed, it should have retrogressed in the celestial
globe unless it was so huge and so far away--but Sol didn't appear on
the globe and it was big and far away, bigger by far. Nothing short of
a planet at less-than-planetary distances would do this.
Not even a visible change in the position of the spot.
"Therefore," thought Hendall, "this is no astral body that makes this
spot!"
* * * * *
Hendall went to a cabinet and withdrew a cable with a plug on either
end. He plugged one end into the test plug on the meteor spotter and
the opposite end into a speaker. A low humming emanated from the
speaker in synchronism with the flashing of the celestial globe.
It hit a responsive chord.
Hendall went to the main communication microphone and spoke. His voice
went all over the _Empress of Kolain_ from pilot room and cargo spaces
to swimming pool and infirmary.
"Attention!" he said in a formal tone. "Attention to official orders!"
Dancers stopped in midstep. Swimmers paused and then made their way
to the edges of the pool and sat with their feet dangling in the warm
water. Diners sat with their forks poised foolishly.
"Official orders!" That meant an emergency.
Hendall continued: "I believe that something never before tried is
being attempted. I am forced against my better knowledge to believe
that some agency is trying to make contact with us; a spaceship
in flight! This is unknown in the annals of space flying and is,
therefore, indicative of something important. It would not have been
tried without preparations unless an emergency exists.
"However, the requirements of an officer of space do not include a
knowledge of code because of the lack of communication with the planets
while in space. Therefore, I request that any person with a working
knowledge of International Morse will please present himself to the
nearest officer."
Minutes passed. Minutes during which the flashing lights continued.
Then the door of the bridge opened and Third Officer Jones entered with
a thirteen-year-old boy at his heels. The youngster's eyes went wide
at the sight of the instruments on the bridge, and he looked around in
amazed interest.
"This is Freddy Thomas," said Jones. "He knows code!"
"Go to it, Mr. Thomas," said Hendall.
The boy swelled visibly. You could almost hear him thinking: "He called
me 'mister'!"
Then he went to the table by the speaker and reached for pencil and
paper. "It's code all right," he said. Then Freddy winked at Jones. "He
has a lousy fist!"
Freddy Thomas began to write.
"--course and head for Terra direct"--the beam faded for
seconds--"Venusian fever and you will be quarantined.
"Calling CQ, calling CQ, calling CQ. Calling _Empress of Kolain_ ...
empowered us to contact you and convey ... message--You are
requested to correct your course and head ... a plague of Venusian
fever and you--Williams of Interplanet has empowered us ... the
following message: 'You are requested to correct your ... head for
Terra direct.' Calling CQ...."
"Does that hash make sense to you?" asked Jones of Hendall.
"Sure," smiled Hendall, "it is fairly plain. It tells us that Williams
of Interplanet wants us to head for Terra direct because of a plague of
Venusian fever that would cause us to stay in quarantine. That would
ruin the Line Moss. Prepare to change course, Mr. Jones!"
"Who could it be?" asked Jones foolishly.
"There is only one outfit in the Solar System that could possibly think
of a stunt like this. And that is Channing and Franks of Interplanetary
Communications. This signal came from Venus Equilateral."
"Wait a minute," said Freddy Thomas. "Here's some more."
"'As soon as this signal--intelligible--at right angles to your
course for ten minutes. That will take--out of--beam and
reflected--will indicate to us--left the area and know of our
attempt.'"
"They're using a beam of some sort that indicates to them that we are
on the other end but we can't answer. Mr. Jones, and Pilot Canton,
ninety degrees north for ten minutes! Call the navigation officer to
correct our course. I'll make the announcement to the passengers. Mr.
Thomas, you are given the freedom of the bridge for the rest of the
trip."
Mr. Thomas was overwhelmed. He'd learn plenty--and that would help him
when he applied for training as a space officer; unless he decided to
take a position with Interplanetary Communications when he grew up.
* * * * *
The signal faded from the little cruiser and silence prevailed. Don
spoke into the microphone and said: "Run her up a millisecond," to the
beam controller. The beam wiped the space above the previous course for
several minutes and Franks was sending furiously:
"You have answered our message. We'll be seeing you."
Channing told the man in the cruiser to return. He kicked the main
switch and the generators whined down the scale and coasted to a stop.
Tube filaments darkened and meters returned to zero.
"O.K., Walton. Let the spinach lay. Get the next crew to clean up the
mess and polish the set-up into something presentable. I'll bet a cooky
that we'll be chasing spaceships all the way to Pluto after this. We'll
work it into a fine thing and perfect our technique. Right now I owe
the gang a dinner, right?"
* * * * *
Nothing ever happens at Venus Equilateral. The weather is always
right. It never rains or storms. There is no icy street nor heat-waved
plain. There is no mud. There is no summer, no winter, no spring, no
fall. People ice skate and swim in adjacent rooms. There is no moon to
enchant for the moon is millions of miles away. There is no night or
day and the stars blaze out in the same sky with the sun; and it has
been said that on Venus Equilateral you have been in the only place
where the Clouds of Magellan and Polaris can be seen at the same time
from your living-room window.
Venus Equilateral is devoted to the business of supplying communication
between the three inner planets. As such, it is more than worth it. And
though electromagnetic waves travel with the speed of light in vacuo,
Channing and his crew were fast asleep by the time that Williams, of
Interplanet, read the following message:
_EMPRESS OF KOLAIN_ CONTACTED AND MESSAGE CONVEYED. SHIP WILL PUT
IN AT TERRA AS PER YOUR REQUEST. YOURS FOR BETTER COMMUNICATIONS.