He reported to Little that the device would probably be completed that night. The doctor nodded and said:
"Good work, Art. We probably had another week before the ship left, but this is better than I expected. As soon as Leo gets his photometer done and finds our distance from S Doradus, things should start to pop; and that should be fairly soon." In this statement Little was half right; things started happening quite soon, but they did not wait for the navigator's mate to complete his tasks.
The doctor found Leo seated on one of the steps which lined the outer wall. He was examining closely an object, consisting chiefly of several small fragments of darkened glass, which proved to be his photometer; and like his brother, he was obviously in good humor.
"All done, doc," he said on sighting Little. "I can measure tonight—calibrate this thing on stars I can estimate, and then do the beacon. It's lucky I already know its absolute magnitude. What do you think are the chances of that gadget of Art's reaching a United receiver?"
Little smiled without speaking, and shrugged his shoulders. His opinion was that the question was unimportant, but it would not do to say so. He might be misunderstood. He fully believed that they would be caught the moment they attempted to start broadcasting. Without committing himself, he admonished Leo not to lose the photometer, and went in search of Magill.
To that officer he spoke earnestly for several minutes, making several requests which were granted only after persuasion. One of them had to do with the disposal of kitchen waste, and for once the doctor's interest was not in sanitation.
The rest of the day passed in as boring a fashion as had the two preceding.
Evening found the three conspirators in their room, planning the night's activities. Arthur, of course, would remain to "sleep." They found difficulty in deciding whether Little should remain with him, or accompany Leo on his astronomical expedition. If he went without an obvious purpose, the guards might wonder why he was the only curious sightseer and why Arthur didn't go, too; if he remained, they might wonder why he behaved differently from the previous occasion, and investigate the sleepers. Even the insight Little had gained into their thought processes could throw no light on this question.
Finally, he accompanied Leo, carrying the latter's pencil and pad to provide himself with an excuse. As on the previous occasion, none of the guards followed them through the door. They took up their former station by the wall and seated themselves on the steps until S Doradus should rise. The moon was only a little past first quarter, and the beacon would not rise tonight until some two hours after the eclipse, so they had a wait of nearly four hours. They had chosen to come out early, to avoid falling asleep and missing their chance.