"That's a thought. Our solar beam uses an incandescent dynode."
Channing removed the second coil and handed it to Freddy. "Take this
thing down to the metallurgical lab and tell 'em to analyze it right
down to the trace of sodium that seems to be in everything. I want
quantitative figures on every element in it. Also, cut off a hunk and
see if the crystallographic expert can detect anything peculiar, that
would make this hunk of copper wire different from any other hunk.
Follow?"
"Yup," said Freddy. "We'll also start making similar alloys with a few
percent variation on the composition metals. Right?"
"That's the ticket. Wes, can we evacuate a tube with this wire in it
and make it incandescent?"
"Let's evacuate the room. I like that stunt."
"You're the engineer on this trick. Do it your way."
"Thanks. I get the program, all right. Why not have Charley build us a
modulator for the driver tube? Then when we get this thing perfected,
we'll have some way to test it."
"Can do, Charley?"
"I think so. It's easy. We'll just modulate the cathode current of the
electron guns that bombard the big cathode. That is the way we adjust
for drive; it should work as a means of amplitude-modulation."
"O.K.," said Channing. "We're on the rails for this one. We'll get
together as soon as our various laboratories have their answers and
have something further to work with."
* * * * *
Above Venus, Mark Kingman was listening to the wailing roar of alien
symphony and cursing because he could hardly hear the voice of his
Lunar accomplice saying: "V. E. Preferred just hit one hundred and two!"
Fifteen minutes before the peak hit Northern Landing, share after
share was being dumped, and in addition, a message was on its way
back to Terra. It went on the regular beam transmission through Venus
Equilateral, carefully coded. It said:
"Have sufficient stock and additional collateral to ply the first
pressure. Apply phase two of plan. Kingman."
In the ten hours that followed, Venus Equilateral stock went down and
down and down, passed through a deep valley, and started up again.
Up it went. Up past the one hundred mark, up into the one hundred
and fifties. It hovered there for a bit, and then started up again.
Kingman's crowd was offering twice the market for the preferred stock,
and there was little to have. It took a short-time dip at three
hundred, and the few minutes of decline smoked a lot of stock out of
the hands of people who looked upon this chance as the right time to
make their money and get out.
Then the stock began to climb again, and those people who thought that
the price had been at its peak-and-passed were angrily trying to buy in
again. That accelerated the climb, but Kingman's crowd, operating on
Venus and on Mars and on Terra were buying only, and selling not one
share of Interplanetary Communications.
Terran Electric stock took a gradual slide, for Kingman's crowd
needed additional money. But the slide was slow, and controlled, and
manipulated only for the purpose of selling short. Terran Electric
stock eventually remained in the hands of Kingman's crowd, though its
value was lessened.
I. C. Preferred hit four hundred and sixty-eight, and hovered. It
vacillated around that point for another hour, and the market closed at
four hundred and sixty-nine and three-eighths.
Kingman looked at his watch and smiled. He reached forth and cut the
dinning sound of the cacophony with a vicious twist of the gain knob.
Silence reigned in the spaceship; grand, peaceful silence. Kingman,
his nerves frayed by the mental activity and the brain-addling
music-from-nowhere, took a hot shower and went to bed.
He locked the panel of the control room first, however. He wanted no
engineer tinkering with his pet relay.
* * * * *
Cartright came into Channing's living room with a long face. "It's
bad," he said. "Bad."
"What's bad?"
"Oh I, like the rest of the fools, got caught in his trap."
"Whose trap?"
"The wild man who is trying to rock Interplanetary Communications on
its axis."
"Well, how?"
"They started to buy like mad, and I held out. Then the thing dropped
a few points, and I tried to take a bit of profit, so that we could
go on bolstering the market. They grabbed off my stock, and then, just
like _that!_ the market was on the way up again and I couldn't find
more than a few odd shares to buy back."
"Don't worry," said Channing, "I don't think anybody is big enough to
really damage us. Someone is playing fast and loose, making a killing.
When this is over, we'll still be in business."
"I know, Don, but whose business will it be? Ours, or theirs?"
"Is it that bad?"
"I'm afraid so. One more flurry like today, and they'll be able to tow
Venus Equilateral out and make Mars Equilateral out of it, and we won't
be able to say a word."
"Hm-m-m. You aren't beaten?"
"Not until the last drop. I'm not bragging when I say that I'm as good
an operator as the next. My trouble today was not being a mind reader.
I'd been doing all right, so far. I've been letting them ride it up and
down with little opposition, and taking off a few here and there as I
rode along. Guessing their purpose, I could count on their next move.
But this banging the market sky-high has me stumped, or had me stumped
for just long enough for me to throw our shirt into the ring. They took
that quick--our shirt, I mean."
"That's too bad. What are you leading up to?"
"There are a lot of unstable stocks that a guy could really play hob
with; therefore their only reason for picking on I. C. is to gain
control!"
"Pirates?"
"Something like that."
"Well," said Channing in a resigned voice, "about all we can do is to
do our best and hope we are smart enough to outguess 'em. That's your
job, Cartright. A long time ago I. C. made their decision concerning
the executive branch of this company, and they elected to run the joint
with technical men. The business aspects and all are under the control
of men who know what they're fighting. We hire business men, just like
business men hire engineers, and for the opposite purpose. You're the
best we could get, you know that. If those guys get Venus Equilateral,
they'll get you too. But if you do your best and fail, we can't shoot
you in the back for it. We'll all go down together. So keep pitching,
and remember that we're behind you all the way!"
"Can we float a bit of a loan?"
"Sure, if it's needed. I'd prefer Interplanetary Transport if they'll
do business with us. We've been in the way of helping them out a couple
of million dollar losses; they might be anxious to reciprocate."
"O.K., I have your power of attorney anyway. If I get in a real crack,
I'll scream for I. T. to help. Right?"
"Right."
* * * * *
Cartright left, and as he closed the door, Channing's face took on a
deep, long look. He was worried. He put his head between his hands and
thought himself into a tight circle from which he could not escape. He
did not hear Walt Franks enter behind Arden and Christine.
"Hey!" said Walt. "Why the gloom? I bear glad tidings!"
Channing looked up. "Spill," he said with a glum smile. "I could use
some glad tidings right now."
"The lab just reported that that hunk of copper wire was impure. Got
a couple of traces of other metals in it. They've been concocting
other samples with more and less of the impurities, and Wes has been
trying them as they were ready. We've got the detector working to the
point where Freddy has taken the _Relay Girl_ out for a run around the
Station at about five hundred miles and Wes is still getting responses!"
"Is he? How can he know?"
"Charley rigged the _Relay Girl's_ drivers up with a voice modulator,
and Freddy is jerking his head off because the acceleration is directly
proportional to the amplitude of his voice, saying: 'One, two, three,
four, test.' Don, have you ever wondered why an engineer can't count
above four?"
"Walt, does it take a lot of soup to modulate a driver?" asked Arden.
"Peanuts," grinned Franks. "This stuff is not like the good old
radio; the power for driving the spaceship is derived mostly from the
total disintegration of the cathode and the voltage applied to the
various electrodes is merely for the purpose of setting up the proper
field-conditions. They draw quite a bit of current, but nothing like
that which would be required to lift a spaceship at 2-G for a hundred
hours flat."