Radio is an absolute necessity in modern
organization--and particularly in modern
naval organization. If you could silence all
radio--silence of that sort would be deadly!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Astounding Science-Fiction April 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The hurried _rat-a-tat_ of knuckles hammered on the cabin door.
Commander Bob Curtis roused himself from his doze, got up from his
chair, stretched himself to his full, lanky height and yawned. That
would be Nelson, his navigating officer. Nelson always knocked that
way--like a man in an external state of jitters over nothing at all.
Curtis didn't hurry. It pleased him to let Nelson wait. He moved slowly
to the door, paused there, and flung a backward glance at the man in
the cabin with him--Zukor Androka, the elderly Czech scientist, a guest
of the United States navy, here aboard the cruiser _Comerford_.
The wizened face of the older man was molded in intent lines of
concentration, as his bushy gray head bent over his drawing board.
Curtis got a glimpse of the design on which he was working, and his
lips relaxed in a faint smile.
Androka had arrived on board the _Comerford_ the day before she sailed
from Norfolk. With him came a boatload of scientific apparatus and
equipment, including a number of things that looked like oxygen tanks,
which were now stored in the forward hold. Androka had watched over
his treasures with the jealous care of a mother hen, and spent hours
daily in the room in the superstructure that had been assigned as his
laboratory.
Sometimes, Curtis thought old Androka was a bit wacky--a scientist
whose mind had been turned by the horror that had come to his country
under the domination of the Nazi _gestapo_. At other times, the man
seemed a genius. Perhaps that was the answer--a mad genius!
Curtis opened the door and looked out. Rain whipped against his face
like a stinging wet lash. Overhead, the sky was a storm-racked mass of
clouds, broken in one spot by a tiny patch of starlit blue.
His eyes rested inquiringly on the face of the man who stood before
him. It _was_ Nelson, his shaggy blond brows drawn scowlingly down
over his pale eyes; his thin face a mass of tense lines; his big hands
fumbling at the neck of his slicker. Rain was coursing down his white
cheeks, streaking them with glistening furrows.
The fellow was a headache to Curtis. He was overfriendly with a
black-browed bos'n's mate named Joe Bradford--the worst trouble maker
on board. But there was no question of his ability. He was a good
navigating officer--dependable, accurate, conscientious. Nevertheless,
his taut face, restless, searching eyes, and eternally nervous manner
got Curtis' goat.
"Come in, Nelson!" he said.
Nelson shouldered his way inside, and stood there in his dripping
oilskins, blinking his eyes against the yellow light.
Curtis closed the door and nodded toward the bent form of Zukor
Androka, with a quizzical grin. "Old Czech-and-Double-Czech is working
hard on his latest invention to pull Hitler's teeth and re-establish
the Czech Republic!"
Nelson had no answering smile, although there had been a great deal
of good-natured joking aboard the _Comerford_ ever since the navy
department had sent the scientist on board the cruiser to carry on his
experiments.
"I'm worried, sir!" Nelson said. "I'm not sure about my dead reckoning.
This storm--"
Curtis threw his arm around Nelson's dripping shoulders. "Forget it!
Don't let a little error get you down!"
"But this storm, sir!" Nelson avoided Curtis' friendly eyes and slipped
out from under his arm. "It's got me worried. Quartering wind of
undetermined force, variable and gusty. There's a chop to the sea--as
if from unestimated currents among the islets. No chance to check by
observation, and now there is a chance--look at me!"
He held out his hands. They were shaking as if he had the chills.
"You say there is a chance?" Curtis asked. "Stars out?"
"As if by providence, sir, there's a clear patch. I'm wondering--" His
voice trailed off, but his eyes swung toward the gleaming sextant on
the rack.
Commander Curtis shrugged good-naturedly and reached for the
instrument. "Not that I've lost confidence in you, Nels, but just
because you asked for it!"
* * * * *
Curtis donned his slicker and went outside, sextant in hand. In a few
minutes he returned and handed Nelson a sheet of paper with figures
underlined heavily.
"Here's what I make it," the commander told his navigating officer.
"Bet you're not off appreciably."
Nelson stared at the computations with shaking head. Then he mutely
held up his own.
Curtis stared, frowned, grabbed his own sheet again. "Any time I'm
that far off old Figure-'em Nelson's estimate, I'm checking back," he
declared, frowning at the two papers and hastily rechecking his own
figures.
"Call up to the bridge to stop her," he told Nelson. "We can't afford
to move in these waters with such a possibility of error!"
Nelson complied, and the throbbing drive of the engines lessened
at once. Nelson said: "I've been wondering, sir, if it wouldn't be
advisable to try getting a radio cross-bearing. With all these rocks
and islets--"
"Radio?" repeated the little Czech, thrusting his face between the
other two, in his independent fashion that ignored ship's discipline.
"You're using your radio?" He broke into a knowing chuckle, his keen
old eyes twinkling behind their thick lenses. "Go ahead and try it. See
how much you can get! It will be no more than Hitler can get when Zukor
Androka decrees silence over the German airways! Try it! Try it, I say!"
Bob Curtis stared at him, as if questioning his sanity. Then he
hastened to the radio room, with Nelson at his heels, and the Czech
trotting along behind.
The door burst open as they neared it. A frightened operator came out,
still wearing his earphones, and stood staring upward incredulously at
the aƫrial.
"Get us a radio cross-bearing for location at once," Curtis said
sharply, for the operator seemed in a daze.
"Bearing, sir?" The man brought his eyes down with difficulty, as if
still dissatisfied. "I'm sorry, sir, but the outfit's dead. Went out on
me about five minutes ago. I was taking the weather report when the set
conked. I was trying to see if something's wrong."
The Czech inventor giggled. Curtis gave him another curious look and
thrust himself into the radio room.
"Try again!" he told the operator. "See what you can get!"
The radio man leaped to his seat and tried frantically. Again and
again, he sent off a request for a cross-bearing from shore stations
that had recently been established to insure safety to naval vessels,
but there was no answer on any of the bands--not even the blare of a
high-powered commercial program in the higher reach, nor the chatter of
ships or amateurs on the shorter.
"Dead!" Androka muttered, with a bitter laugh. "Yet not dead,
gentlemen! The set is uninjured. The waves are what have been upset. I
have shattered them around your ship, just as I can eventually shatter
them all over Central Europe! For the next two hours, no radio messages
can enter or leave my zone of radio silence--of refracted radio waves,
set up by my little station on one of the neighboring islets!"
* * * * *
There was a long pause, while commander and navigator stared at him.
Curtis was the first to speak.
"Your secrecy might well cost the United States navy one of its best
light cruisers--and us our lives!" he said angrily. "We need that check
by radio at once! If you're not talking nonsense, call off your dogs
till we learn just where we are!"
Androka held out his palms helplessly. "I can do nothing. I have given
orders to my assistant that he must keep two hours of radio silence! I
can get no message to him, for our radio is dead!"
As if to mock him, the ship's radio began to answer:
"Station 297 calling U. S. Cruiser _Comerford_. Station 297 calling U.
S. Cruiser _Comerford_--"
"U. S. Cruiser _Comerford_ calling Station 297!" the operator intoned,
winking at the two officers over Androka's discomfiture, and asked for
the bearings.
The answer came back: "Bearings north east by a quarter east, U. S.
Cruiser _Comerford_!"
Curtis sighed with relief. He saw that Nelson was staring fiercely
at the radio operator, as the man went on calling: "U. S. Cruiser
_Comerford_ calling Station 364. U. S. Cruiser _Comerford_ calling
Station 364--"
Then the instrument rasped again: "Station 364 calling U. S. Cruiser
_Comerford_. Bearings north west by three west. Bearings north west by
three west, U. S. Cruiser _Comerford_ from Cay 364."
Commander and navigator had both scribbled verifications of the
numbers. Ignoring the gibbering Androka, who was wailing his
disappointment that messages had penetrated his veil of silence, they
raced for the chart room.
Quickly the parallels stepped off the bearing from the designated
points. Light intersecting lines proclaimed a check on their position.
Curtis frowned and shook his head. Slowly he forced a reluctant grin as
he stuck out his hand.
"Shake, Nels," he said. "It's my turn to eat crow. You and the radio
must be right. Continue as you were!"
"I'm relieved, sir, just the same," Nelson admitted, "to have the radio
bearings. We'd have piled up sure if you'd been right."
They went on through the night. The starlit gap in the clouds had
closed. The sky was again a blanket of darkness pouring sheets of rain
at them.
Nelson went back to the bridge, and Androka returned to the commander's
cabin. Curtis lingered in the wireless room with the radio operator.
"It's a funny thing," the latter said, still dialing and grousing, "how
I got that cross-bearing through and can't get another squeak out of
her. I'm wondering if that old goat really _has_ done something to the
ether. The set seems O. K."
He lingered over the apparatus, checking and rechecking. Tubes lighted;
wires were alive to the touch and set him to shaking his head at the
tingle they sent through his inquiring fingers.
Curtis left him at it, and went to rejoin Androka in the cabin. He
found the little inventor pacing up and down, shaking his fists in the
air; pausing every now and then to run his bony fingers through his
tangled mop of gray hair, or to claw nervously at his beard.
"You have seen a miracle, commander!" he shouted at Curtis. "_My_
miracle! My invention has shattered the ether waves hereabouts
hopelessly."
"Seems to me," Curtis said dryly, "this invention can harm your friends
as much as your enemies."
The scientist drew himself up to his full height--which was only a
little over five feet. His voice grew shrill. "Wait! Just wait! There
are other inventions to supplement this one. Put them together, and
they will defeat the Nazi hordes which have ravaged my country!"
Curtis was a little shocked by the hatred that gleamed in Androka's
eyes, under their bushy brows. There was something of the wild animal
in the man's expression, as his lips drew back from his yellowed teeth.
"Those tanks you have below," Curtis said, "have they some connection
with this radio silence?"
A far-away look came into Androka's eyes. He did not seem to hear
the question. He lowered his voice: "My daughter is still in Prague.
So are my sister and her husband, and _their_ two daughters. If the
_gestapo_ knew what I am doing, all of them would be better dead. You
understand--better dead?"