"In words, what do you mean, Don?"
"International Code is a series of dots and dashes, you may know. Our wabbling beam is whipping through the area in which the Empress of Kolain is passing. Therefore the contact is intermittent. And how could you tell a dot from a dash?"
"Easy," bragged Walt Franks. "We're not limited as to the speed of deviation, are we?"
"Yes—limited by the speed of the selsyn motors that transfer the phase-shifting circuits to the director radiators. Yeah, I get it, Edison, and we can wind them up to a happy six or eight thousand r.p.m. Six would get us a hundred cycles per second—a nice, low growl."
"And how will they receive that kind of signal on the meteor spotter?" asked Arden.
"The Officer of the Day will be treated to the first meteor on record that has intermittent duration—it is there only when it spells in International Code!"
Prying the toy transmitting key from young James Burke was a job only surpassed in difficulty by the task of opening the vault of the Interplanetary Bank after working hours. But Burke, Junior, was plied with soda pop, ice cream and candy. He was threatened, cajoled, and finally bribed. And what Interplanetary Communications paid for the toy finally would have made the manufacturer go out and look for another job. But Walt Franks carried the key to the scene of operations and set it on the bench to look at it critically.
"A puny gadget, at that," he said, clicking the key. "Might key a couple of hundred watts with it—but not too long. She'd go up like a skyrocket under our load!"
Walt opened a cabinet and began to pull out parts. He piled several parts on a bread board, and in an hour had a very husky thyraton hooked into a circuit that was simplicity itself. He hooked the thyraton into the main power circuit and tapped the key gingerly. The transmitter followed the keyed thyraton and Don took a deep breath.