Part 30 (1/2)
”Signals coming! Not clear. Will you come over, Commander?”
Signals!
It was never Grantline's way to enforce needless discipline. He offered no objection when every man in the camp rushed through the connecting pa.s.sages. They crowded the instrument room where the tense duty man sat bending over his radio receivers. The mirrors were swaying.
The duty man looked up and met Grantline's gaze.
”I ran it up to the highest intensity, Commander. We ought to get it--”
”Low scale, Peter?”
”Yes. Weakest infra-red. I'm bringing it up, even though it uses too much of our power.”
”Get it,” said Grantline shortly.
”I got one slight television swing a minute ago--then it faded. I think it's the _Planetara_.”
”_Planetara_!” The crowding group of men chorused. How could it be the _Planetara_?
But it was. The call came in presently. Unmistakably the _Planetara_, turned back now from her course to Ferrok-Shahn.
”How far away, Peter?”
The duty man consulted the needles of his dial scale. ”Close! Very weak infra-red. But close. Around thirty thousand miles, maybe. It's Snap Dean calling.”
The _Planetara_ here within thirty thousand miles! Excitement and pleasure swept the room. The _Planetara_ had for so long been awaited eagerly!
The excitement communicated to Grantline. It was unlike him to be incautious; yet now with no thought save that some unforeseen and pleasing circ.u.mstance had brought the _Planetara_ ahead of time; incautious, Grantline certainly was!
”Raise the barrage.”
”I'll go. My suit is here.”
A willing volunteer rushed out to the shed.
”Can you send, Peter?” Grantline demanded.
”Yes. With more power.”
”Use it.”
Johnny dictated the message of his location which we received. In his incautious excitement he ignored the secret code.
An interval pa.s.sed. No message had come from us--just Snap's routine signal in the weak infra-red, which we hoped Grantline would not get.
The men crowding Grantline's instrument room waited in tense silence.
Then Grantline tried the television again. Its current weakened the lights with the drain upon the distributors, and cooled the room with a sudden deadly chill as the Erentz insulating system slowed down.
The duty man looked frightened. ”You'll bulge out our walls, Commander. The internal pressure--”