Don smiled in a thoughtful fashion. "It doesn't look so good right now.
Some gang of stock market cutthroats have been playing football with
Venus Equilateral, and Cartwright says he is sure they want control.
It's bad; he's been clipped a couple of hard licks, but we're still
pitching. The thing I'm wondering right now is this: Shall we toss this
possibility of person-to-person and ship-to-ship communication just at
the right turn of the market to bollix up their machinations, or shall
we keep it to ourselves and start up another company with this as our
basis?"
"Can we screw 'em up by announcing it?"
"Sure. If we drop this idea just at the time they're trying to run the
stock down, it'll cross over and take a run up, which will set 'em on
their ear."
"I don't know. Better keep it to ourselves for a bit. Something may
turn up. But come on down to Wes' lab and give a look at our new
set-up."
Channing stood up and stretched. "I'm on the way," he said.
Farrell was working furiously on the detector device, and as they
entered, he indicated the meter that was jumping up and down. Out of a
speaker there was coming the full, rich tones of Freddie Thomas' voice,
announcing solemnly: "One, two, three, four, test."
Wes said, "I'm getting better, Chuck has been bettering his modulator
now, and the detector is three notches closer to whatever this level of
energy uses for resonance. Evacuation and the subsequent incandescence
was the answer. Another thing I've found is this--" Farrell held up a
flat disk about six inches in diameter with one sawcut from edge to
center. "As you see, the color of this disk changes from this end of
the cut, varying all the way around the disk to the other side of the
cut. The darned disk is a varying alloy--I've discovered how to tune
the driver-radiation through a limited range. We hit resonance of the
_Relay Girl's_ driver system just off the end of this disk. But watch
while I turn the one in the set."
Farrell took a large knob and turned it, Freddie's voice faded, and
became toneless. Farrell returned the knob to its original position and
the reception cleared again. "Inside of that tube there," said Farrell,
"I have a selsyn turning the disk, and a small induction loop that
heats the whole disk to incandescence. A brush makes contact with the
edge of the disk and the axle makes the center connection. Apparently
this stuff passes on a direct line right through the metal, for it
works."
"Have you tried any kind of tube amplification?" asked Don.
"Not yet. Shall we?"
"Why not? I can still think that the relay tube will amplify if we hook
up the input and output loads correctly."
"I've got a tube already hooked up," said Walt. "It's mounted in a
panel with the proper voltage supplies and so on. If your resistance
calculation is correct, we should get about three thousand times
amplification out of it."
He left, and returned in a few minutes with the tube. They busied
themselves with the connections, and then Don applied the power.
Nothing happened.
"Run a line from the output back through a voltage-dividing circuit to
the in-phase anode," suggested Walt.
"How much?"
"Put a potentiometer in it so we can vary the amount of voltage. After
all, Barney Carroll said that the application of voltage in phase with
the transmitted power is necessary to the operation of the relay tube.
In transmission of D. C., it is necessary to jack up the in-phase anode
with a bit of D. C. That's in-phase with a vengeance!"
"What you're thinking is that whatever this sub-level energy is, some
of it should be applied to the in-phase anode?"
"Nothing but."
The cabinet provided a standard potentiometer, and as Don advanced the
amount of fed-back voltage, Freddie's voice came booming in louder
and louder. It overloaded the audio amplifier, and they turned the
gain down as Channing increased the in-phase voltage more and more.
It passed through a peak, and then Don left the potentiometer set for
maximum.
"Wes," he said, "call Freddie and tell him to take off for Terra, at
about four G. Have the gang upstairs hang a ship beam on him so we can
follow him with suggestions. Too bad we can't get there immediately."
"What I'm worrying about is the available gain," said Wes. "That thing
may have given us a gain of a couple of thousand, but that isn't going
to be enough. Not for planet-to-planet service."
"Later on we may be able to hang a couple of those things in cascade,"
suggested Walt.
"Or if not, I know a trick that will work--one that will enable us to
get a gain of several million."
"Yeah? Mirrors, or adding machines? You can't make an audio amplifier
of a three million gain."
"I know it--at least not a practical one. But, we can probably use
our audio modulator to modulate a radio frequency, and then modulate
the driver with the RF. Then we hang a receiver onto the detector
gadget here, and collect RF, modulated, just like a standard radio
transmission, and amplify it at RF, convert it to IF, and detect it to
AF. Catch?"
"Sure. And that gives me another thought. It might just be possible,
if your idea is possible, that we can insert several frequencies of RF
into the tube and hang a number of receivers on the detector, here."
Arden laughed. "From crystal detection to multiplex transmission in ten
easy lessons!"
"Call Chuck and have him begin to concoct an RF stage for
tube-modulation," said Don. "It'll have to be fairly low--not higher
than a couple of megacycles so that he can handle it with the stuff
he has available, but as long as we can hear his dulcet voice
chirping that 'one, two, three, four, test,' of his, we can also have
ship-to-station two-way. We squirt out on the ship beam, and he talks
back on the driver transmitter."
"That'll be a help," observed Wes. "I'd been thinking by habit that we
had no way to get word back from the _Relay Girl_."
"So had I," confessed Walt. "But we'll get over that."
"Meanwhile, I'm going to get this alloy-selectivity investigated right
down to the last nub," said Don. "Chuck's gang can take it from all
angles and record their findings. We'll ultimately be able to devise
a system of mathematics for it from their analysis. You won't mind
being bothered every fifteen minutes for the first week, will you, Wes?
They'll be running to you in your sleep with questions until they catch
up with your present level of ability in this job. Eventually they'll
pass you up, and then you'll have to study their results in order to
keep up."
"Suits me. That sounds like my job, anyway."
"It is. O.K., Arden, I'm coming now."
"It's about time," smiled Arden. "I wouldn't haul you away from your
first love excepting that I know you haven't eaten in eight or nine
hours. I've got roast knolla."
"S'long, fellows," grinned Channing. "I'm one of the few guys in the
inner system who can forget that the knolla is the North Venus brother
to a pussy cat."
"I could feed you pussy cat and you'd eat it if I called it knolla,"
said Arden. "But you wouldn't eat knolla if I called it pussy cat."
"You can't tell the difference," said Walt.
"Tell me," asked Wes, "what does pussy cat taste like?"
"I mean by visual inspection. Unfortunately, there can be no comparison
drawn. The Venusians will eat pussy cat, but they look upon the knolla
as a household pet, not fit for Venusian consumption. So unless we
revive one of the ancient Martians, who may have the intestinal
fortitude--better known as guts--to eat both and describe the
difference, we may never know," offered Walt.
"Stop it," said Arden, "or you'll have my dinner spoiled for me."
"All the more for me," said Don. "Now, when I was in college, we cooked
the dean's cat and offered it to some pledges under the name of knolla.
They said--"
"We'll have macaroni for dinner," said Arden firmly. "I'll never be
able to look a fried knolla in the pan again without wondering whether
it caterwauled on some back fence in Chicago, or a Palanortis Whitewood
on Venus."
She left, and Channing went with her, arguing with her to the effect
that she should develop a disregard for things like their discussion.
As a matter of interest, Channing had his roast knolla that evening, so
he must have convinced Arden.
Walt said: "And then there were three. Christine, has our little
pre-dinner talk disturbed your appetite?"
"Not in the least," said the girl stoutly. "I wouldn't care whether it
was knolla or pussy cat. I've been on Mars so long that either one of
the little felines is alien to me. What have you to offer?"
"We'll hit Joe's for dinner, which is the best bar in sixty million
miles today. Later we may take in the latest celluloid epic, then there
will be a bit of mixed wrestling in the ballroom."
"Mixed wres--Oh, you mean dancing. Sounds interesting. Now?"
"Now, Wes, what are you heading for?"
"Oh, I've got on a cockeyed schedule," said Wes. "I've been catching my
sleep at more and more out-of-phase hours until this is not too long
after breakfast for me. You birds all speak of 'Tomorrow,' 'Today,' and
'Yesterday' out here, but this business of having no sun to come up in
the morning, and the electric lights running all the time has me all
bollixed up."
"That daily nomenclature is purely from habit," said Walt. "As you
know, we run three equal shifts of eight hours each, and therefore what
may be 'Morning' to Bill is 'Noon' to James and 'Night' to Harry. It is
meaningless, but habitual to speak of 'Morning' when you mean 'Just
after I get up'! Follow me?"
"Yup. This, then, is morning to me. Run along and have fun."
"We'll try," said Walt.
"We will," said Christine.