When he awoke, the sun was quite low in the west. Its enormous disk, ill-defined at the best of times, was nearly hidden in haze; the western half of the sky was tinted a deep blood-red never approached by a terrestrial sunset. The daily cumulus cloud was still above the mountain, its top streaming away inland and forming a crimson-lit finger pointing at Observatory Hill. Vickers, looking at it, was reminded to turn on the homing transmitter in his ship, in case his help should have difficulty in locating him.
He spent more than an hour at the board, using all his radio equipment in every combination and on every band he could reach, in an effort to pick up Heklan communications. On the entire electromagnetic spectrum, except the bands of too high frequency for communication beyond the horizon, static was strong and constant; frequency modulation did little to help, and brought nothing that might have been an intelligent message. He considered charging a spare crystal, but realized that no unit so far energized on any Federation world had chanced on the medium of a widely separated crystal, and the chances against doing so had been computed as something like the number of electrons in the universe. Two crystals had to be charged in physical contact to respond to each other across what, for want of a better name, was called a “medium.” Even if Heklan science had reached such a point, there was no hope of discovering the fact by searching the legions of possible media. Vickers took that for granted, and after some time at the radios was prepared to state that they had no other means of long-range communication.
He had given up the search and was eating, when a second lifeboat settled down beside his own. Vickers failed to notice it for several minutes; when he did, he immediately snapped on the standard communicator and tuned to the frequency his crew normally used on such occasions. He gave the set a moment to warm, and then called.
“Hello, Dave! Is everything all right?” The answer came back at once.
“This is Macklin. Rodin is here, all right. He’s in the air lock, compressing; I’m afraid he’s a little annoyed at you. Why in the name of common sense didn’t you let us know that you had an atmospheric pressure of forty pounds on this blasted hilltop? He could have ridden all the way in the lock, building up gradually. He’ll be over there as soon as possible; as soon as he opens the lock, you’d better trot over and help him. He had enough stuff to set up in business for himself. All right?”
“All serene. Can you stay with us, or do they want the boat back in a hurry?”
“I have to go back. I don’t know what they want with this can, and I’m much too modest to suppose they’d need me, but them’s the orders. You’d better watch for Dave; the lock pressure is nearly forty now.”
“All right. Don’t get lost.”
Vickers snapped off the set, and opened the inner lock door. A glance through the control room port showed that the other ship was still sealed, but he strolled out onto the landing stage and waited there for Rodin to emerge. He noted with a shiver that the temperature at the top of the hill had not increased perceptibly since morning.
He had only a few moments to wait; the lock of the visiting ship opened silently, and its occupant hailed him.