“You see, Stanley,” Dick continued, “that idea of Martian ray propulsion sort of got me, and I kept asking myself if we didn’t have something similar to it here on Earth. There seemed to be something in the back of my head which said we did—a sort of mind-picture of just what I was seeking, yet although I was on the verge of it several times I couldn’t seem to quite visualize the thing. Finally I woke up one night with the answer, and the name of the thing on my lips—it was a common X-ray tube. I got up out of bed and started work, and for a month, steadily, I’ve worked every available minute that I could spare from my studies.”
“But—” Stan broke in, impulsively, “why didn’t you let me help you? I would have been only too glad—”
“I know you would have been, Stan. You’re good about those things. But you will have done more than your share if this thing works, tonight, by just having been here. I may need you for a witness, some day. Now, where was I? Oh, yes—the ray.
“Of course an X-ray tube operates in accordance with the electron theory, but it shoots the electrons off—it doesn’t throw them out as an electromagnetic field of force, which is probably the fashion in which our earthly radio waves are propagated. In other words, although I was still using the electrons in my work, I had an entirely new type of receiving set, and one which, although it might not actually hear messages from another planet, would perhaps be the stepping stone on which some future inventor might build success. So I started.
“In the cabinet on the bench there are, as you noticed, two divisions. One contains an oversize receiving set, with some appliances of my own attached to it, and the other the ray projecting and focusing device. The whole thing is wired with copper tubing, for the simple reason that in my earlier experiments the current developed was sufficient to fuse ordinary wire. The tubes are about the size of fifty watt transmitting tubes, and vary in construction, the one directly beneath the projector, which corresponds to the detector, having five electrodes made of radium-coated quartz. I am not sure that I could explain all of the action, but the radium seems to give off some new emanation that I have never seen before, under the stimulus of the rays from the projector. Do you follow me?”
“I’m trailing,” said Stan. “Now tell me about the projector.”
“The projector? It’s just an unusually large tube similar to an X-ray tube, which I have constructed to withstand extremely high voltages. It produces a tremendous flow of force, which I have named the V-Ray, and which by means of the leaden shield I can direct upon any portion of the net below. Now I believe that with the ray forcing a stream of electrons, or perhaps it would be more correct to say energy, into the tubes, the set will be sensitive to radio waves of a type unknown here on Earth. What the results will be, I do not know. I have never tried the set in its completed form before tonight—I’m just playing a hunch. Ready to go?”
Stan Ross signified his assent, and the two approached the monster on the long work bench. Stan felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. Dick attached to the input terminal of the set a long outdoor antenna, which, including the inductances which it contained every fifty feet, contained more than five miles of wire. There were no filaments in the tubes, hence the only batteries needed were some high-voltage blocks, some five hundred volts, altogether. At the extreme right of the panel were two output terminals, across which Dick had temporarily hooked a milliammeter, not knowing whether the output of the set would be auditory, visual, or what. He turned the 110 volts of the lighting system into the step-up transformer connected to the projector tube; the lights blinked, dimmed, and the huge V-Ray tube came to life, glowing greenly. The hum from the transformer seemed to drone a warning, in its ominous sixty-cycle growl—occasionally its safety gap broke down and a viciously snapping tongue of violet flame crashed between the terminals and added its weird glare to the green glow that filled the room.
Dick, looking monstrous in heavy leaden surplice, goggles and gloves, grasped the projector controls and swept the tubes below with the ray. Peering over his shoulder Stan watched the vacuum tubes begin to glow as the V-rays bombarded, with billions of electrons, their radium-coated elements. First a point at the base of each tube became incandescent, grew, and finally resolved itself into a ruddy ball of fire and rolled to the top of the plates, where it exploded and spread over the quartz surfaces as an opal luminescence, turning them into swirling blazes of color— lavender, gold, red. Stan drew back, dizzied and half-hypnotized by the swirling spectra. The tubes seemed alive. Alive! The word drummed through his befogged brain.