"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—"