"So that _he_ couldn't send any messages after the bug got him," Drake
said. "The more people trampling around, the easier it would be for the
Quedak. If he had possession of the transmitter, he'd be calling for
help right now."
"Yeah, I suppose so," Cable said unhappily. "But, damn it, we can't
handle this _alone_."
"We have to. If the Quedak ever gets us and then gets off the island,
that's it for Earth. Period. There won't be any big war, no hydrogen
bombs or fallout, no heroic little resistance groups. Everybody will
become part of the Quedak Cooperation."
"We ought to get help somehow," Cable said stubbornly. "We're alone,
isolated. Suppose we ask for a ship to stand offshore--"
"It won't work," Drake said. "Besides, we couldn't ask for help even if
we wanted to."
"Why not?"
"Because the transmitter's not working," Drake said. "You've been
talking into a dead mike."
"It's receiving OK," Cable said.
* * * * *
Drake checked to see if all the switches were on. "Nothing wrong with
the receiver. But we must have joggled something taking the transmitter
out of the ship. It isn't working."
Cable tapped the dead microphone several times, then put it down. They
stood around the receiver, listening to the chess game between the man
in Rabaul and the man in Bougainville.
"Pawn to queen bishop four."
"Pawn to king three."
"Knight to Queen bishop three."
There was a sudden staccato burst of static. It faded, then came again
in three distinct bursts.
"What do you suppose that is?" Sorensen asked.
Drake shrugged his shoulders. "Could be anything. Storm's shaping up
and--"
He stopped. He had been standing beside the door of the shed. As the
static crackled, he saw the bird of paradise dive for a closer look.
The static stopped when the bird returned to its slow-circling higher
altitude.
"That's strange," Drake said. "Did you see that, Bill? The bird came
down and the static went on at the same time."
"I saw it," Sorensen said. "Think it means anything?"
"I don't know. Let's see." Drake took out his field glasses. He turned
up the volume of the receiver and stepped outside where he could
observe the jungle. He waited, hearing the sounds of the chess game
three or four hundred miles away.
"Come on now, move."
"Give me a minute."
"A minute? Listen, I can't stand in front of this bleeding set all
night. Make your--"
Static crackled sharply. Drake saw four wild pigs come trotting out of
the jungle, moving slowly, like a reconnaissance squad probing for weak
spots in an enemy position. They stopped; the static stopped. Byrnes,
standing guard with his rifle, took a snap shot at them. The pigs
turned, and static crackled as they moved back into the jungle. There
was more static as the bird of paradise swept down for a look, then
climbed out of range. After that, the static stopped.
Drake put down his binoculars and went back inside the shed. "That must
be it," he said. "The static is related to the Quedak. I think it comes
when he's operating the animals."
"You mean he has come sort of radio control over them?" Sorensen asked.
"Seems like it," Drake said. "Either radio control or something
propagated along a radio wavelength."
"If that's the case," Sorensen said, "he's like a little radio station,
isn't he?"
"Sure he is. So what?"
"Then we should be able to locate him on a radio direction finder,"
Sorensen said.
Drake nodded emphatically. He snapped off the receiver, went to a
corner of the shed and took out one of their portable direction
finders. He set it to the frequency at which Cable had picked up the
Rabaul-Bougainville broadcast. Then he turned it on and walked to the
door.
* * * * *
The men watched while Drake rotated the loop antenna. He located the
maximum signal, then turned the loop slowly, read the bearing and
converted it to a compass course. Then he sat down with a small-scale
chart of the Southwest Pacific.
"Well," Sorensen asked, "is it the Quedak?"
"It's got to be," said Drake. "I located a good null almost due south.
That's straight ahead in the jungle."
"You're sure it isn't a reciprocal bearing?"
"I checked that out."
"Is there any chance the signal comes from some other station?"
"Nope. Due south, the next station is Sydney, and that's seventeen
hundred miles away. Much too far for this RDF. It's the Quedak, all
right."
"So we have a way of locating him," Sorensen said. "Two men with
direction finders can go into the jungle--"
"--and get themselves killed," Drake said. "We can position the Quedak
with RDFs, but his animals can locate us a lot faster. We wouldn't have
a chance in the jungle."