Chapter 7.
Dust from the Stars
Ken felt he had grown 3 inches taller after his father's discussion. As if he had passed some ancient ritual, he could be admitted to the company of adults and his opinions would be heard.
This proved to be true. His father rapidly organized the facilities of the college laboratories and recruited every possible science student in the chemistry and physics departments, as well as many from the high school. As these plans were outlined, Ken made a proposal of his own.
"I believe our first move," he said, "should be to set up a network of amateur radio stations operating in cities where there are other laboratories. If you could be in touch with them, ideas could be exchanged and duplication of work avoided."
"An excellent idea," said Professor Maddox. "You can work it out as we go along."
"No. It ought to be done immediately," Ken said. "If not, it may be almost impossible to find anyone on the air later. There may not be many amateurs who will bother to convert their rigs to battery operation. There may not be many who can get the batteries together."
"Good enough!" his father said. "Let that have priority over everything else until you get it organized. Probably you should find at least two contacts in each of the university centers. Put at the top of your list Berkeley, Pasadena, Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C.
"See if you can get relay contacts that will put us in touch with Stockholm, Paris, London, Berlin, and Tokyo. If so, we can have contact with the majority of the workers capable of contributing most to this problem."
"I'll do my best," Ken promised.