Having apparently lost interest in the conversation, Randall was staring ahead at the onrushing satellite.
"That's one way of looking at it," Carol said pensively. "But there's also another possibility—resistance to the expansion."
"You kidding? In two centuries we haven't run into a single life form that's the intellectual equivalent of a Terran fiddler crab. What do you think, Chief?"
The director blew a stream of smoke at the swiftly expanding disc of Four-B. "I think our Maid of the Megacycles ought to start sniffing for that telepuppet team. I wouldn't want to rely on Mortimer's locating them with directional gear."
Carol faced the view port with her eyes closed for perhaps three minutes. Then she grinned. "I think I've got it! Not just a single, strong signal. Bundles of weak ones."
"It figures," Stewart verified. "The OC wouldn't be transmitting now. But the lesser puppets would be funneling the stuff into the CXB-1624. Can you identify any frequencies?"
She hesitated. "I'd say they're spaced out between fifteen hundred and two thousand kilo-cycles."
"You're a bit off. Should be sixteen to twenty-four hundred."
She opened her eyes, studied the rugged face of the satellite, then pointed. "There—near the end of that mountain range."
He handed her a mike and earphone set. "I'll tell McAllister you're ready to guide him in."