“No need to telephone those stations,” Dick said, his voice shaking. “They’ll be burned out, too.”
“And we’re doing it!” whispered Stan. “My God, Dick!—the man said it was as though someone suddenly doubled the load on their generators. That means wireless transmission of power!”
Dick stood rigid, then a faint smile touched his lips, as of tension relieved.
“And now,” he announced, “we’ll go up to a wave-length of one million meters and see what happens to a set of head-phones.”
Turning to the set he worked busily for some minutes, adjusting various devices and concentrating the projector ray upon the detector tube directly below it. Stan, too excited now to think of electrocution, stripped off the clumsy gloves and with his bare hands connected two pairs of receivers to the terminals where the two meters had been. With something very like a prayer they placed the telephones over their ears, and Dick adjusted controls until a low, musical hum became audible.
Suddenly it seemed to Stan as if thousands of conversations were taking place inside his head. He heard no voices, yet within his brain he was aware of the coming and going of myriad thoughts and ideas not his own. He turned to Dick and started to speak, then realized that it was unnecessary. Dick’s mind and his were in perfect tune; they could read each others’ thoughts.
“Do you feel what I do, or am I going crazy?” Stan asked.
“Yes. It’s true.”
“What does it mean? I can’t understand.”