There was no way for him to smile with a steel face, but Mike got the
idea.
Mike turned to the Chief Powerman's Mate. "Okay, Multhaus, shut it off.
She's steady now."
Multhaus just sat there, surrounded by a wall of concentration, his
hands still on the verniers, his eyes still on the screen. He didn't
move.
Mike flipped off the switch. "Come on, Multhaus, snap to. We've still
got that beat note to worry about."
Multhaus blinked dizzily as the green line vanished from his sight. He
jerked his hands off the verniers, and then smiled sheepishly. He had
been sitting there waiting for that green line to move a full minute
after the input signal had ceased.
"Happy hypnosis," said Mike. "Let's get back to finding out which of
those tubes in the hull is giving the external field the willies."
Snookums, who had been listening carefully, rolled up and said,
"Generator tubes three, four, and thirteen. Three is out of phase by--"
"You can tell us later, Snookums," Mike interrupted rapidly. "Right now,
we'll get to work on those tubes. You were right once; I hope you're
right again."
Again the power crew swung into action.
Within five minutes Mike and Multhaus were making the proper adjustments
on the external field circuits to adjust for the wobbling of the output.
The throb wavered. It wobbled around, going up to two-point-seven cycles
and dropping back to one-point-four, then climbing again. All the time,
it was dropping in magnitude, until finally it could no longer be felt.
Finally, it dropped suddenly to a low of point-oh-five cycles, hovered
there for a moment, then vanished altogether.
"By the beard of my sainted maiden aunt," said Chief Multhaus in awe. "A
three-tube offbeat solved in less than half an hour! If that isn't a
record, I'll dye my uniform black and join the Chaplains' Corps."
Leda Crannon, looking tired but somehow pleased, said softly: "May I
come in?"