Jim, the beam-control man, sat down and lighted a cigarette. Freddy let his flitter coast free. And the generators that fed the powerful transmitter came whining to a stop. But there was no sleep for Don and Walt. They kept awake to supervise the work, and to help in hooking up the phase-splitting circuit that would throw out-of-phase radio frequency into the director-elements to swing the beam.
Then once again the circuits were set up. Freddy found the position again and began to hold it. The concentric beam hurled out again, and as the phase-shift passed from element to element, the beam swept through an infinitesimal arc that covered thousands of miles of space by the time the beam reached the position occupied by the Empress of Kolain.
Like a painter, the beam painted in a swipe a few hundred miles wide and swept back and forth, each sweep progressing ahead of the stripe before by less than its width. It reached the end of its arbitrary wall and swept back to the beginning again, covering space as before. Here was no slow, irregular swing of mechanical reflector, this was the electronically controlled wavering of a stable antenna.
And this time the half-hour passed slowly but not uneventfully. Right on the tick of the instant, Freddy called back: "Got 'em."
It was a weakling beam that came back in staccato surges. A fading, wavering, spotty signal that threatened to lie down on the job and sleep. It came and it went, often gone for seconds and never strong for so much as an instant. It vied, and almost lost completely, with the constant crackle of cosmic static. It fought with the energies of the Sun's corona and was more than once the underdog. Had this returning beam carried intelligence of any sort it would have been wasted. About all that could be carried on a beam as sorry as this was the knowledge that there was a transmitter—and that it was transmitting.
But its raucous note synchronized with the paint-brush wiping of the transmitter. There was no doubt.
Don Channing put an arm around Arden's waist and grinned at Walt Franks. "Go to work, genius. I've got the Empress of Kolain on the pipe. You're the bright-eyed lad that is going to wake 'em up! We've shot almost twenty hours of our allotted fifty. Make with the megacycles, Walter. Arden and I will take in a steak, a moom pitcher, and maybe a bit of woo. Like?" he asked the girl.
"I like," she answered.
Walt Franks smiled and stretched lazily. He made no move to the transmitter. "Don't go away," he cautioned them. "Better call up Joe and order beer and sandwiches for the boys in the back room. On you!"