XII
The silence in the auditorium was broken by the clicking of a telegraph instrument, which acted as a monitor on the receiving desk. The mechanical equipment on the stage was similar to that found in the radio department of any large New York newspaper office, with two typewriter desks, one fitted for the receiving and transcribing of code messages, the other equipped for their transmission.
The Martian signals were coming in by direct wire control, from the receiving station Henry had erected for his interstellar experiments, at great expense, at Orient Point, Long Island, about seventy miles from the city. The replies from the earth, that were to follow, would go by wire control from the stage to his transmitting station, situated at Longhampton. His two private stations were twenty-five miles apart, a distance necessary to prevent interference.
The moment Mars was reported on the air by the engineers at the Long Island receiving station, Henry's mind, likewise Olinski's, suddenly developed, as it were, enormous dynamic activity, and the audience seemed to become so remote to them as to be non-existent.
Henry strode back quickly to the microphone, and said: "Stand by all stations! Stand by, Mars! We can hear Mars calling! Lost their way? Hello, Mars! Earth—New York—calling!"
Olinski was an expert wireless operator and typist. His fingers flew over the keyboard as he transcribed the Martian code characters that were being impressed by the ink recorder on narrow tape, resembling ticker tape. Operated by a pull-motor, this tape ran in a brass-groove attached to the front of the typewriter, under the operator's eyes.
On the completion of each sentence, Olinski would call: "All right!" and Henry would rip off a short length of paper containing the sentence, and begin the second transcription, into understandable English—the Martian classical style. He wrote them in chalk, on the blackboard, while Olinski's laboratory assistant read them off into the microphone.
The blackboard was just about half filled when the short waves began to fade, and nothing further was heard except a weird chattering in a receiving apparatus at the back of the stage. The message, so far received, decoded and transcribed on the blackboard, ran as follows:
"Salutations to the men of the Blue Sphere, with one moon, from the white men, your brothers in space, inhabitants of the Red Sphere, with two moons! Electric waves, radiant energy of the gods, at last bridges the fearsome gulf that yawns between us. No longer shall we be as strangers in our great universe, but united in bonds of sympathy and understanding. Your wireless messages fill the air; they have taught us many strange and wonderful things. Yet we thirst for more knowledge of thee, and the planet on which thou dwellest. The Red Sphere is matter in old age, slowly drying up. We are facing extinction. Long has been the struggle of the minority, the white race, against the majority, the ape-men of the jungles, now warring to become our masters...."