Don sighed a false sigh. "Arden, hand me my electronics text," he said.
"And shall I wipe your fevered brow?" cooed Arden.
"Leave him alone," directed Franks. "You distract him."
"It seems to me that you two are taking this rather lightly," said Arden.
"What do you want us to do? Get down on the floor and chew the rug? You know us better than that. If we can find the answer to contacting a spaceship in flight, we'll add another flower to our flag. But we can't do it by clawing through the first edition of Henney's 'Handbook of Radio Engineering.' It will be done by the seat of our pants, if at all; a pair of side-cutters, and a spool of wire, a hunk of string and a lump of solder, a—"
"A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair?" asked Franks.
"Leave Kipling out of this. He didn't have to cover the entire Solar System. Let's get cooking."
Don and Walt left the office just a trifle on the fast side. Arden looked after them, out through the open door, shaking her head until she remembered something that she could do. She smiled and went to her typewriter, and pounded out a message back to Keg Johnson at Interplanet. It read:
"CHANNING AND FRANKS AT WORK ON CONTACTING THE EMPRESS OF KOLAIN. WILL DO OUR BEST.
VENUS EQUILATERAL."