"We're a lot better off," Drake said. "We have a chance now."
"What makes you think so?"
"He controls the animals by radio," Drake said. "We know the frequency
he operates on. We can broadcast on the same frequency. We can jam his
signal."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Am I _sure_? Of course not. But I do know that two stations in the
same area can't broadcast over the same frequency. If we tuned in
to the frequency the Quedak uses, made enough noise to override his
signal--"
"I see," Sorensen said. "Maybe it would work! If we could interfere
with his signal, he wouldn't be able to control the animals. And then
we could hunt him down with the RDFs."
"That's the idea," Drake said. "It has only one small flaw--our
transmitter isn't working. With no transmitter, we can't do any
broadcasting. No broadcasting, no jamming."
"Can you fix it?" Sorensen asked.
"I'll try," Drake said. "But we'd better not hope for too much. Eakins
was the radio man on this expedition."
"We've got all the spare parts," Sorensen said. "Tubes, manual,
everything."
"I know. Give me enough time and I'll figure out what's wrong. The
question is, how much time is the Quedak going to give us?"
The bright copper disk of the sun was half submerged in the sea. Sunset
colors touched the massing thunderheads and faded into the brief
tropical twilight. The men began to barricade the copra shed for the
night.