"Maybe this idea isn't sensible, but could it be that the walkie-talkie beam just wasn't strong enough? It was too much like—like tickling it, arousing its appetite. Maybe if the beam were powerful enough it would be like paralysis."
Borden did not even answer. He hauled at the objects that had been found to be the covers to the power-leads of the vehicle. He and Jerry worked feverishly, without words. Then Borden stood up.
"This time we are really risking everything," he said grimly. "The full power of the car's power source goes into the beam. If a walkie-talkie beam was appetizing, this ought to curl its hair. Switch, Jerry! Microphone on!"
VIII
Some hundreds of kilowatts of power in modulated-wave form would go out now into the body of a creature whose normal sensory reception centers would be accustomed to handling minute fractions of one watt. The talkie could handle the power, of course. With cold-emission oscillators, there was no danger of burning out a wave-generating unit.
"'—the lamb was sure to go,'" said Borden.
The two-mile distant mass of horrid jelly began to quiver uncontrollably. But without any purpose at all. Borden said with a terrible satisfaction:
"'It followed her to school one day, which was against the rule. It made the children laugh and play to see the lamb at school.'"
The shapeless mass of living stuff made tortured upheavals. It flung up spires of glistening stuff. It writhed. It contorted. It flung itself crazily against the hillsides.