Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 241: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“I'll give you the location.” Craig snatched up a pencil, wrote rapidly as the voice Spat and crackled at him. “Bigger than anything on record,” shrilled Knut’s voice. “Space busted wide open and twisted all to hell. The instruments went nuts.” “We'll have to slap a tracer on it,” said Craig, tensely. “Take a lot of power, but we’ve got to do it. If that thing starts to move—” Knut’s voice snapped and blurred and sputtered so Craig couldn’t hear a word he said. “You come back right away,” Craig yelled. “It’s dangerous out there. If you get too close to that thing—” Knut interrupted, his voice wallowing in the wail of tortured beam. “There’s something else, chief. Something funny. Damn funny—” The voice pinched out. Craig shrieked into the mouthpiece. “What ts it, Knut? What’s funny?” He stopped, astonished, for suddenly the crackle and hissing and whistle of the communications beam was gone. His left hand flicked out to the board and snapped a toggle. The board hummed as tremendous power surged into the call. It took power—lots of power—to maintain a tight beam on Mercury. But there was no answering hum, no indication the beam was being restored. Something had happened out there! Something had Snapped the beam. Craig stood up, white-faced, to stare through the ray filter port to the ashy plains. There was nothing to get excited about —not yet, anyway. He had to wait for Knut to get back. It wouldn’t take long. He had told Knut to start at once, and those puddle jumpers could travel. CORniclooo SS CO