"Can't send a damned message on this. Only make an identification call."
"Considering the size of this lifeship, and the fact that an
identification call is all that is really necessary, I can't complain
too much," she told him seriously. "What could you tell them that they
don't know already? Could you urge them to greater haste by the power
of your voice?"
Andrews actually had been thinking exactly that. Between the checkbook
in his wallet and the pen in his pocket, Andrews had always been able
to wield a lot of power. Men had jumped when he spoke, corporations had
stopped their own programs at his signature.
His personal account would have covered the purchase of a spacecraft
of the type in which they had cracked up. That he did not own his own
interstellar runabout was a matter of a different economy. It was
cheaper to buy passage as he needed it than it was to own his private
spacer and keep it parked at some space port for his convenience.
But as Alice taunted him, Andrews could not say, aloud, that he
believed his personal demand would bring help faster than the mere
knowledge that human beings were adrift in space. It would sound as
though he thought himself more important to the Universe than Alice or
Jock Norton. He did think so, of course. But this was no time to insult
his lifeship companions by saying so.
He eyed the switch distastefully. The meter was climbing up to the red
line that meant that the infrawave transmitter was about ready to be
turned on. Then it would hurl out its coded message.
In the back of his mind was a hazy recollection of radio code. He
remembered that 'a' was a dot-dash, and that 'n' was a dash-dot. He did
not recall whether 'd' was a dash-dot-dot or a dash-dash-dot, 'r' was
dot-dash-dot and everybody knew that 'e' was a single dot. The letter
'w' baffled him completely but he was sure that 's' was dot-dot-dot. So
the worst he could do would be to flub two of the letters in his name,
making it come out A-N-D?-R-E-something-S.
* * * * *
That, he felt, would let the Universe know that he was still out there,
drifting. The ragged codes might even cause them to hasten because they
might believe him to be alone, or without the help of the pilot who
probably knew code well.
The meter hit the red line.
Charles Andrews snapped the goggle switch up and down, then
up-pause-down. He waited a second, then made it up-pause-down, then
up-down. He started the 'D' but his faltering hand flipped the second
dot in a jittery fashion.
Down in the guts of the infrawave transmitter was a code wheel,
supposed to turn completely around for one revolution. Along the
periphery of the wheel was a series of serrations, which in passing a
fast-action switch keyed the output of the simple transmitter, sending
the stylized code. The jittery flipping of the main switch coincided
with one of the serrations on the code wheel so that Andrews turned off
the whole gear just as the transmitter was keyed on. The power normally
used for the energizing section, stored in local capacitor banks,
discharged through the output section.
It was not spectacular. The meter just flopped back to zero, a fuse
blew, and the cabin was filled with the pungent odor of burned
insulation.
Below, in the pedal generator saddle, Jock Norton felt the load
bucking, then it went off completely and reflex almost threw the pilot
out of his seat. The pedals pumped with no resistance. He went aloft.
"What happened?" he asked.
He sniffed at the air as Andrews pointed to the meter.
"It shouldn't happen," said Norton. "What made the thing buck, Andrews?"
Andrews was not the kind of man who hides his errors, at least. He
faced Norton and said, "I was keying the transmitter."
Norton growled, "Did it ever occur to you that if this gizmo could be
keyed, it would have been made that way in the first place?"
"No. I assumed that the thing was made to be handled by people not
familiar with code, and that if one knew code one could key it."
Norton growled again, "Ever think that I know code, and that if it
could have been keyed, I'd have done it before this?"
"Now that you say it, I suppose you would have. But what do we do now?"
"We try to repair it," snapped Norton. "Do you want to try it all by
yourself, or will you permit me to help?"
Alice got between them once more. "Get it fixed first," she said
sensibly. "Then argue about it afterwards."
Norton nodded, but he was not happy about it.