The meter hit the red line.
Charles Andrews snapped the goggle switch up and down, then up-pause-down. He waited a second, then made it up-pause-down, then up-down. He started the 'D' but his faltering hand flipped the second dot in a jittery fashion.
Down in the guts of the infrawave transmitter was a code wheel, supposed to turn completely around for one revolution. Along the periphery of the wheel was a series of serrations, which in passing a fast-action switch keyed the output of the simple transmitter, sending the stylized code. The jittery flipping of the main switch coincided with one of the serrations on the code wheel so that Andrews turned off the whole gear just as the transmitter was keyed on. The power normally used for the energizing section, stored in local capacitor banks, discharged through the output section.
It was not spectacular. The meter just flopped back to zero, a fuse blew, and the cabin was filled with the pungent odor of burned insulation.
Below, in the pedal generator saddle, Jock Norton felt the load bucking, then it went off completely and reflex almost threw the pilot out of his seat. The pedals pumped with no resistance. He went aloft.
"What happened?" he asked.
He sniffed at the air as Andrews pointed to the meter.
"It shouldn't happen," said Norton. "What made the thing buck, Andrews?"
Andrews was not the kind of man who hides his errors, at least. He faced Norton and said, "I was keying the transmitter."
Norton growled, "Did it ever occur to you that if this gizmo could be keyed, it would have been made that way in the first place?"