Part 2

He gloated over that. His belief that he could beat the Venus Equilateral crowd if he fought them on his ground with his weapon was being corroborated. That, plus the fact that he was using some of Venus Equilateral's own thunder to do the job, was giving him to think that it was but a matter of time.

And, he laughed, the poor fools were not aware of their peril. Oh, some bird was trying to buck him, but he was not prepared as Kingman was, nor had he the source of information that Kingman had.

No, the thing that worried him was--

And there it came again! A wild, cacophonous wailing, like a whole orchestra of instruments playing at random, in random keys. It shook the very roots of the body, that terrible caterwauling, and not only did it shake the body, and the mind, but it actually caused loose plates to rattle in the bulkhead, and the cabinet doors followed in unison. The diapason stop was out for noon, and the racket filled the small control room and bounced back and forth, dinning at the ears of Kingman as it went echoing by. It penetrated to the upper reaches of the ship, and the crew gritted their teeth and cursed the necessity of being able to hear orders, for cotton plugs would have been a godsend and a curse simultaneously. Anything that would blot that racket out would also deafen them to the vital orders necessary to the operation of the ship in this precarious poising maneuver.

Two hundred sheer watts of undistorted audio power boomed forth in that tiny room--two hundred watts of pure, undistorted power to racket forth something that probably started out as sheer distortion.

And yet--

Faintly striving against that fearful racket there came a piping, flat-sounding human voice that said: "Kingman! I.C. Preferred just hit eighty-nine!"

Kingman scowled and punched on the intership teletype machine. Using the communicator set with that racket would have been impossible.

The radio man read the note that appeared on his 'type, and smiled grimly. He saw to his helio-mirror and sighted through a fine telescope at a spot on Venus, three thousand miles below. The helio began to send its flashing signal to this isolated spot near the Boiling River, and it was read, acknowledged, and repeated for safety's sake. The radio man flashed "O.K." and went back to his forty-seventh game of chess with the assistant pilot.

The helio man on the Boiling River read the message, grinned, and stepped to the telephone. He called a number at Northern Landing, and a tight beam sped across the Northern quarter of Venus to a man connected with the Venus Stock Market. The man nodded, and said to another: "Buy fifteen hundred--use the name of Ralph Gantry this time."

The stock purchased under the name of Ralph Gantry was signed, sealed, and delivered exactly fourteen minutes before the ticker projection on the grand wall of the Exchange showed the I.C. Preferred stock turn the bottom curve and start upward by hitting Eighty-nine!

* * * * *

Back in the Terran Electric spaceship, Kingman's ears were still beset by the roaring, alien music.

He was sitting in his chair with his head between his hands, and did not see the man approaching the instrument panel with a pair of side-cutters in one hand. The man reached the panel, lifted it slightly, and reached forward. Then Kingman, hearing a slight imperfection in the wail of the speaker, looked up, jumped from his chair, and tackled the engineer.

"You blasted fool!" blazed Kingman. "You idiot!"

The music stopped at his third word, and the scream of his voice in the silence of the room almost scared Kingman himself.

"Mark, I'm going nuts. I can't stand that racket."

"You're going to stand it. Unless you can get something to cut it out."

"I can't. I'm not brilliant enough to devise a circuit that will cut that noise and still permit the entry of your fellow on Luna."

"Then you'll live with it."

"Mark, why can't we take that relay apart and work on it?"

"Ben, as far as I know, that relay is what Channing and his gang would give their whole Station for--and will, soon enough. I don't care how it works--or why."

"That's no way to make progress," objected Ben.

"Yeah, but we've got the only detector for driver radiation in this part of the universe! I'm not going to have it wrecked by a screwball engineer who doesn't give a care what's going on as long as he can tinker with something new and different. What do we know about it? Nothing. Therefore how can you learn anything about it? What would you look for? What would you expect to find?"

"But where is that music coming from?"

"I don't know. As best as we can calculate, driver radiation propagates at the square of the speed of light, and that gives us a twenty-four minute edge on Venus Equilateral at the present time. For all I know, that music may be coming from the other end of the galaxy. At the square of the speed of light, you could talk to Centauri and get an answer in not too long."

"But if we had a chance to tinker with that relay, we might be able to find out what tunes it and then we can tune in the Lunar station and tune out that cat-melody."

"I'm running this show--and this relay is going to stay right where it is. I don't care a hoot about the control circuit it breaks; those contacts are set, somehow, so that we can detect driver radiation, and I'm not taking any chances of having it ruined."

"Can't you turn the gain down, at least?"

"Nope. We'd miss the gang at Luna."

The speaker spoke in that faint, flat-toned human voice again. It was easy to see that all that gain was necessary to back up the obviously faint response of Kingman's detector. The speaker said: "Kingman! Addison got power through the Channing Layer!"

That was all for about an hour. Meanwhile, the mewling tones burst forth again and again, assaulting the ears with intent to do damage. The messages were terse and for the most part, interesting. They gave the market reports; they intercepted the beam transmissions through the Terran Heaviside Layer before they got through the Lunar Relay Station, inspected the swiftly-moving tape and transmitted the juicy morsels to Kingman via the big driver tube that stood poised outside of the landed spaceship.

Kingman enjoyed an hour of celebration at Addison's success, and then the joy turned to bitter hate as the message came through telling of the ozone that resulted in the passage of the solar beam through the atmosphere. The success of the beam, and the utter impossibility of using it were far worse than the original fact of the beam's failure to pass the Channing Layer.

So Kingman went back to his stock market machinations, and applied himself diligently. And as the days wore on, Kingman's group manipulated their watered stock and ran the price up and down at will, and after each cycle Kingman's outfit owned just one bit more of Venus Equilateral.

Terran Electric would emerge from this battle with Interplanetary Communications as a subsidiary--with Kingman at the helm!

* * * * *

Walt Franks entered Channing's office with a wild-eyed look on his face. "Don! C^2!"

"Huh? What are you driving about?"

"C^2. The speed of light, squared!"

"Fast--but what is it?"

"The solar beam! It propagates at C^2!"

"Oh, now look. Nothing can travel that fast!"

"Maybe this isn't _something_!"

"It has energy, energy has mass, mass cannot travel faster than the limiting speed of light."

"O.K. It can't do it. But unless my measurements are all haywire, the beam gets to Sol and back at C^2. I can prove it."

"Yeah? How? You couldn't possibly measure an interval so small as two times sixty-seven million miles--the radius of Venus' orbit--traversed at the speed of light squared."

"No. I admit that. But, Don, I got power out of Sirius!"

"You WHAT?" yelled Channing.

"Got power out of Sirius. And unless I can't use a micro-clock, it figured out from here to Sirius and back with the bacon in just about ninety-three percent of the speed of light, squared. Seven percent is well within the experimental error, I think, since we think of Sirius as being eight-and-one-half light-years away. That's probably not too accurate as a matter of fact, but it's the figure I used. But here we are. Power from Sirius at C^2. Thirty-five billion miles per second! This stuff doesn't care how many laws it breaks!"

"Hm-m-m. C^2, hey? Oh, lovely. Look, Walt, let's run up and take a whirl at Wes Farrell's detector. I'm beginning to envision person-to-person service, ship-to-ship service, and possibly the first Inter-planet Network. Imagine hearing a play-by-play description of the Interplanetary Series!"

"Wool-gathering," snorted Walt. "We've gotta catch our detector first!"

"Wes has something. First glimmer we've had. I think this is the time to rush into it with all feet and start pushing!"

"O.K. Who do we want?"

"Same gang as usual. Charley and Freddy Thomas, Walton, Jim Warren, Wes Farrell, of course, and you can get Jim Baler into it too. No, Walt, Christine Baler is not the kind of people you haul into a screwdriver meeting."

"I was merely thinking."

"I know. But you're needed, and if she were around, you'd be a total loss as far as cerebration."

"I like her."

"So does Barney Carroll."

"Um. Hadn't thought of that one. O.K., no Christine in our conference. I'll have Jeanne call the screwballs on the communicator."

They dribbled into Farrell's laboratory one by one, and then Don said:

"We have a detector. It is about as efficient as a slab of marble; only more so. We can get a tinkle of about ten micromicroamps at twenty feet distance from a driver tube using eight KVA input, which if we rate this in the usual spaceship efficiency, comes to about one-half G. That's about standard, for driver tubes, since they run four to a ship at 2-G total.

"Now, that is peanuts. We should be able to wind a megameter around the peg at twenty feet. Why the red ionization comes out of the tube and hits our so-called detector, and the amount of ozone it creates is terrific. Yet we can't get a good reading out of it."

Walt asked: "Wes, what worked, finally?"

"A four-turn coil on a ceramic form, in series with a twenty micromicrofarad tuning condenser. I've been using a circular plate as a collector."

"Does it tune?"

"Nope. Funny thing, though, it won't work without a condenser in the circuit. I can use anything at all there without tuning it. But, darn it, the coil is the only one that works."

"That's slightly ridiculous. Have you reconstructed all factors?"

"Inductance, distributed capacity, and factor 'Q' are all right on the button with two more I made. Nothing dioding."

"Hm-m-m. This takes the cake. Nothing works, you say?"

"Nothing in my mind. I've tried about three hundred similar coils, and not a wiggle since. That's the only one."

Charley Thomas said: "Wes, have you tried your tube-amplifier system ahead of it?"

"Yes, and nothing at all happens then. I don't understand that one, because we know that any kind of input power will be re-beamed as similar power. I should think that the thing would amplify the same kind of stuff. I've used a solar beam miniature with a driver-alloy dynode in it, but that doesn't work either."

"Shucks," said Charley.

* * * * *

Don stood up and picked up the coil. "Fellows, I'm going to make a grand, old college try!"

"Yes?" asked Walt.

"I've got a grand idea, here. One, I'm still remembering that business of making the receptor dynode of the same alloy as the transmitter cathode. I've a hunch that this thing is not so much an inductor, but something sour in the way of alloy-selectivity. If I'm right, I may cut this in half, and make two detectors, each of similar characteristics. Shall I?"

"Go ahead. We've established the fact that it is not the physico-electrical characteristics of that coil," said Wes. "I, too, took my chances and rewound that same wire on a couple of other forms. So it doesn't count as far as an inductance goes. So we can't ruin anything but the total make-up of the wire. I think we may be able to re-establish the wire by self-welding if your idea doesn't work. Now, unless we want to search the three planets for another hunk of wire to work like this one did, without knowing what to look for and therefore trying every foot of wire on three planets--"

"I'll cut it," said Channing with a smile. His cutters snipped, and then fastened one end of the wire to the coil, stripping the other portion off and handing it to Charley Thomas, who rewound it on another form.

"Now," said Don, "crank up your outfit and we'll try this hunk."

The beam tubes were fired up, and the smell of ozone began to make itself prominent. Channing cranked up the air-vent capacity to remove the ozone more swiftly. The men applied themselves to the detector circuits, and Wes, who recognized the results, said: "This hunk works. About as good as the whole coil."

Channing replaced the first coil with the second. Wes inspected the results and said: "Not quite as good, but it does work."

Walt nodded, and said: "Maybe it should be incandescent."

"That's a thought. Our solar beam uses an incandescent dynode." Channing removed the second coil and handed it to Freddy. "Take this thing down to the metallurgical lab and tell 'em to analyze it right down to the trace of sodium that seems to be in everything. I want quantitative figures on every element in it. Also, cut off a hunk and see if the crystallographic expert can detect anything peculiar, that would make this hunk of copper wire different from any other hunk. Follow?"

"Yup," said Freddy. "We'll also start making similar alloys with a few percent variation on the composition metals. Right?"

"That's the ticket. Wes, can we evacuate a tube with this wire in it and make it incandescent?"

"Let's evacuate the room. I like that stunt."

"You're the engineer on this trick. Do it your way."

"Thanks. I get the program, all right. Why not have Charley build us a modulator for the driver tube? Then when we get this thing perfected, we'll have some way to test it."

"Can do, Charley?"

"I think so. It's easy. We'll just modulate the cathode current of the electron guns that bombard the big cathode. That is the way we adjust for drive; it should work as a means of amplitude-modulation."

"O.K.," said Channing. "We're on the rails for this one. We'll get together as soon as our various laboratories have their answers and have something further to work with."

* * * * *

Above Venus, Mark Kingman was listening to the wailing roar of alien symphony and cursing because he could hardly hear the voice of his Lunar accomplice saying: "V. E. Preferred just hit one hundred and two!"

Fifteen minutes before the peak hit Northern Landing, share after share was being dumped, and in addition, a message was on its way back to Terra. It went on the regular beam transmission through Venus Equilateral, carefully coded. It said:

"Have sufficient stock and additional collateral to ply the first pressure. Apply phase two of plan. Kingman."

In the ten hours that followed, Venus Equilateral stock went down and down and down, passed through a deep valley, and started up again. Up it went. Up past the one hundred mark, up into the one hundred and fifties. It hovered there for a bit, and then started up again. Kingman's crowd was offering twice the market for the preferred stock, and there was little to have. It took a short-time dip at three hundred, and the few minutes of decline smoked a lot of stock out of the hands of people who looked upon this chance as the right time to make their money and get out.

Then the stock began to climb again, and those people who thought that the price had been at its peak-and-passed were angrily trying to buy in again. That accelerated the climb, but Kingman's crowd, operating on Venus and on Mars and on Terra were buying only, and selling not one share of Interplanetary Communications.

Terran Electric stock took a gradual slide, for Kingman's crowd needed additional money. But the slide was slow, and controlled, and manipulated only for the purpose of selling short. Terran Electric stock eventually remained in the hands of Kingman's crowd, though its value was lessened.

I. C. Preferred hit four hundred and sixty-eight, and hovered. It vacillated around that point for another hour, and the market closed at four hundred and sixty-nine and three-eighths.

Kingman looked at his watch and smiled. He reached forth and cut the dinning sound of the cacophony with a vicious twist of the gain knob. Silence reigned in the spaceship; grand, peaceful silence. Kingman, his nerves frayed by the mental activity and the brain-addling music-from-nowhere, took a hot shower and went to bed.

He locked the panel of the control room first, however. He wanted no engineer tinkering with his pet relay.

* * * * *

Cartright came into Channing's living room with a long face. "It's bad," he said. "Bad."

"What's bad?"

"Oh I, like the rest of the fools, got caught in his trap."

"Whose trap?"

"The wild man who is trying to rock Interplanetary Communications on its axis."

"Well, how?"

"They started to buy like mad, and I held out. Then the thing dropped a few points, and I tried to take a bit of profit, so that we could go on bolstering the market. They grabbed off my stock, and then, just like _that!_ the market was on the way up again and I couldn't find more than a few odd shares to buy back."

"Don't worry," said Channing, "I don't think anybody is big enough to really damage us. Someone is playing fast and loose, making a killing. When this is over, we'll still be in business."

"I know, Don, but whose business will it be? Ours, or theirs?"

"Is it that bad?"

"I'm afraid so. One more flurry like today, and they'll be able to tow Venus Equilateral out and make Mars Equilateral out of it, and we won't be able to say a word."

"Hm-m-m. You aren't beaten?"

"Not until the last drop. I'm not bragging when I say that I'm as good an operator as the next. My trouble today was not being a mind reader. I'd been doing all right, so far. I've been letting them ride it up and down with little opposition, and taking off a few here and there as I rode along. Guessing their purpose, I could count on their next move. But this banging the market sky-high has me stumped, or had me stumped for just long enough for me to throw our shirt into the ring. They took that quick--our shirt, I mean."

"That's too bad. What are you leading up to?"

"There are a lot of unstable stocks that a guy could really play hob with; therefore their only reason for picking on I. C. is to gain control!"

"Pirates?"

"Something like that."

"Well," said Channing in a resigned voice, "about all we can do is to do our best and hope we are smart enough to outguess 'em. That's your job, Cartright. A long time ago I. C. made their decision concerning the executive branch of this company, and they elected to run the joint with technical men. The business aspects and all are under the control of men who know what they're fighting. We hire business men, just like business men hire engineers, and for the opposite purpose. You're the best we could get, you know that. If those guys get Venus Equilateral, they'll get you too. But if you do your best and fail, we can't shoot you in the back for it. We'll all go down together. So keep pitching, and remember that we're behind you all the way!"

"Can we float a bit of a loan?"

"Sure, if it's needed. I'd prefer Interplanetary Transport if they'll do business with us. We've been in the way of helping them out a couple of million dollar losses; they might be anxious to reciprocate."

"O.K., I have your power of attorney anyway. If I get in a real crack, I'll scream for I. T. to help. Right?"

"Right."

* * * * *

Cartright left, and as he closed the door, Channing's face took on a deep, long look. He was worried. He put his head between his hands and thought himself into a tight circle from which he could not escape. He did not hear Walt Franks enter behind Arden and Christine.

"Hey!" said Walt. "Why the gloom? I bear glad tidings!"

Channing looked up. "Spill," he said with a glum smile. "I could use some glad tidings right now."

"The lab just reported that that hunk of copper wire was impure. Got a couple of traces of other metals in it. They've been concocting other samples with more and less of the impurities, and Wes has been trying them as they were ready. We've got the detector working to the point where Freddy has taken the _Relay Girl_ out for a run around the Station at about five hundred miles and Wes is still getting responses!"

"Is he? How can he know?"

"Charley rigged the _Relay Girl's_ drivers up with a voice modulator, and Freddy is jerking his head off because the acceleration is directly proportional to the amplitude of his voice, saying: 'One, two, three, four, test.' Don, have you ever wondered why an engineer can't count above four?"

"Walt, does it take a lot of soup to modulate a driver?" asked Arden.

"Peanuts," grinned Franks. "This stuff is not like the good old radio; the power for driving the spaceship is derived mostly from the total disintegration of the cathode and the voltage applied to the various electrodes is merely for the purpose of setting up the proper field-conditions. They draw quite a bit of current, but nothing like that which would be required to lift a spaceship at 2-G for a hundred hours flat."

He turned back to Channing and said: "What's the gloom?"

Don smiled in a thoughtful fashion. "It doesn't look so bad right now. Some gang of stock market cutthroats have been playing football with Interplanetary Communications, and Cartright says he is sure that they want control. It's bad; he's been clipped a couple of hard licks, but we're still pitching. The thing I'm wondering right now is this: Shall we toss this possibility of person-to-person and ship-to-ship just at the right turn of the market to bollix up their machinations, or shall we keep it to ourselves and start up another company with this as our basis?"

"Can we screw 'em up by announcing it?"

"Sure. If we drop this idea just at the time they're trying to run the stock down, it'll cross over and take a run up, which will set 'em on their ear."

"I don't know. Better keep it to ourselves for a bit. Something may turn up. But come on down to Wes' lab and give a look at our new set-up."

Channing stood up and stretched. "I'm on the way," he said.

* * * * *

Farrell was working furiously on the detector device, and as they entered, he indicated the meter that was jumping up and down. Out of a speaker there was coming the full, rich tones of Freddy Thomas' voice, announcing solemnly: "One, two, three, four, test."

Wes said: "I'm getting better. Charley has been bettering his modulator now, and the detector is three notches closer to whatever this level of energy uses for resonance. Evacuation and the subsequent incandescence was the answer. Another thing I've found is this--" Farrell held up a flat disk about six inches in diameter with a sawcut from edge to center. "As you see, the color of this disk changes from this edge of the cut, varying all the way around the disk to the other side of the cut. The darned disk is a varying alloy--I've discovered how to tune the driver radiation through a limited range. We hit resonance of the _Relay Girl's_ driver system just off the end of this disk. But watch while I turn the one in the set."