Astounding Science Fiction (UK Edition) — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

28 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION “What you’re thinking is that whatever this sub-level energy is, some of it should be applied to the in-phase anode?” “Nothing but.” The cabinet provided a standard potentio- meter, and as Don advanced the amount of fed-back voltage, Freddy’s voice came booming in louder and louder. It over- loaded the audio amplifier, and they turned the gain down as Channing increased the in-phase voltage more and more. It passed through a peak, and then Don left the potentiometer for maximum. “Wes,” he said, “call Freddy and tell him to take off for Terra, at about 4-G. Have the gang upstairs hang a ship beam on him so we can follow him with suggestions. Too bad we can’t get there immediately.” “What I’m worrying about is the avail- able gain,” said Wes. “That thing may have given us a gain of a couple of thousand, but that isn’t going to be enough. Not for planet-to-planet service.” “Later on we may be able to hang a couple of those things in cascade,” sug- gested Walt. “Or if not, I know a trick that will work —one that will enable us to get a gain of several million.” “Yeah? Mirrors, or adding machines? You can’t make an audio amplifier of a three million gain.” “TI know it—at least not a practical one. But, we can probably use our audio modu- later to modulate a radio frequency, and then modulate the driver with the RF. Then we hang a receiver on to the detector gadget here, and collect RF, modulated, just like a standard radio transmission, and amplify it at RF, convert it to IF, and detect it to AF. Catch?” “Sure. And that gives me another thought. It might just be possible, if your idea is possible, that we can insert several frequen- cies of RF into the tube and hang a number of receivers on the detector, here.” Arden laughed. “From crystal detection to multiplex transmission in ten easy lessons.” “Call Charley and have him begin to concoct an RF stage for tube-modulation,” said Dan. “It'll have to be fairly low—not higher than a couple of megacycles so that he can handle it with the stuff he has avail- able, but as long as we can hear his dulcet voice chirping that ‘one, two, three, four, test,’ of his, we can also have ship-to- Station two-way. We squirt out on the ship beam, and he talks back on the driver trans- mitter.” “Thatll be a help,” observed Wes. “I'd been thinking by habit that we had no way to get word back from the Relay Girl.” “So had I,” confessed Walt. “But we'll get over that.” ““Meanwhile, I’m going to get this alloy- selectivity investigated right down to the last nub,” said Don. “Charley’s gang can take it from all angles and record their findings. We’ll ultimately be able to devise a system of mathematics for it from their analysis. You won’t mind being bothered every fifteen minutes for the first week, will you, Wes? They'll be running to you in your sleep with questions until they catch up with your present level of ability in this job. Eventually they'll pass you up, and then you'll have to study their results in order to keep up.” “Suits me. That sounds like my job any- way.” j “It is. O.K., Arden, ’m coming now.” “It’s about time,’ smiled Arden. “I wouldn’t haul you away from your first love excepting that I know you haven’t eaten in eight or nine hours. I’ve got roast knolla.” “S‘long, fellows,” grinned Channing. “I’m one of the few guys in the inner system who can forget that the knolla is the North Venus brother to a pussy cat.” “Tt could feed you pussy cat and you’d eat it if I called it knolla,” said Arden. “But you wouldn’t eat knolla if I called it pussy cat.” “You can’t tell the difference,” said Walt. “Tell me,” asked Wes, “what does pussy cat taste like?” “I mean by visual inspection. Unfor- tunately, there can be no _ comparison drawn. The Venusians will eat pussy cat, but they look upon the knolla as a house- hold pet, not fit for Venusian consumption. So unless we revive one of the Ancient Martians, who may have the intestinal for- titude—better known as guts—to eat both and describe the difference, we may never know,” offered Walt. “Stop it,’ said Arden, “or you'll have my dinner spoiled for me.” ‘All the more for me,” said Don. “Now, when I was in college, we cooked the dean’s cat and offered it to some pledges under the name of knolla. They said—” “We'll have macaroni for dinner,” ‘said Arden firmly. “I'll never be able to look a fried knolla in the pan again without won- dering whether it caterwauled on some back comiclbooks.c©