Astounding Science Fiction (UK Edition) — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

32 sion of the facts concerning our love of the music of our ancestors is proof enough that you must have heard something. I pre- sume that further information is desired, and I shall wait for your return. This is Ling Kai Chaing, Captain of the Lady of Cathay.” , “We got it!” chortled Don. He did a war dance in the lab, and the rest followed sult. Bits of wire and oddments of one sort or another filled the’ air as the big, grown- up men did a spring dance and strewed the floor with daintily thrown junk. At the height of the racket, Arden and Christine entered—no, they were literally hauled in, completely surrounded, and _ almost smothered. Arden fought herself free and said: “What’s going on?” ““We’ve just contacted a ship in space.” “So what? Haven’t we been doing that for months?” ““They’ve just contacted us, too!” “Huh?” asked Arden, her eyes widening. “None other. Wait, I'll get an answer.” Don contacted Ben, in the decoupler room and said: “Ben, hang this line on the Lady of Cathay’s beam, will you?” “Is that her?” “None other.” “Go ahead. She’s coupled.” Don pecked out a message. “Please de- scribe the intercommunication system used by your ship in detail. We have heard you, and you are, therefore, the first ship to contact Venus Equilateral from space flight. Congratulations.” Eight minutes later, the voice of Captain Chaing returned. “Dr. Channing, I am handing the micro- phone over to Ling Wey, our electronics engineer, who knows the system in and out. He'll work with you on this problem.” ' Ling Wey said: “Hello. This is great. But I’m not certain of how it’s done. The output of the phono system is very small, and certainly not capable of putting out the power necessary to reach Venus Equilateral from here. However, we are using a wired- radio system at seventeen hundred and ninety kilocycles in lieu of the usual cable system. The crew all like music, and, there- fore, we play the recordings of our ances- tral musicians almost incessantly.” He paused for breath, and Channing said: “Walt, tap out a message concerning the lead-length of the cables that supply the driver anodes. Have him check them for radio frequency pick-up.” ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION “I get it.” The ’type began to click. This communication was carried on for hour after hour. Don’s guess was right, it turned out; the lead that connected the first driver anode was tuned in wave length to almost perfect resonance with the frequency of the wired-radio communicator system. Channing thanked them profusely, and they rang off. Soon afterward the wailing, moan- ing music returned to the air. “Wonder if we could get that without the radio,” said Don. “Don’t know. We can pack the juice on in the amplifier and see, now that we have it tuned on the button,” said Walt. “It won't,” said Wes. “Ive been all across the dial of the alloy disk. Nothing at all.” “O.K. Well, so what if it doesn’t. We’ve still got us a ship-to-ship communications system. Hey! What was that?” That was a pale, flat-sounding human voice saying: “Kingman! I. C. Pfd. has been at six hundred and nine for two days, now. What’s our next move?” “Kingman!” exploded Channing. . “Why, the... the—” “Careful,” warned Arden. “There’s a lady present.” “Huh?” “Her,” said Arden pointing at Christine. “Wait,” said Walt. ‘““Maybe he'll answer.” Don fiddled with the dials for a full fifteen minutes, keeping them very close to the spot marked, hoping that Kingman’s answer might not be too far out of tune. He gave up as the answer was not to be found, and returned to the original setting. Ten minutes later the voice said: “King- man, where in the devil is my answer? I want to know what our next move is. There isn’t a bit of V. E. stock available. Why don’t you answer?” : Then, dimly in the background, a voice spoke to the operator of the instrument. “Kingman’s probably asleep. That terrible moaning-stuff he’s been complaining about makes him turn the thing off as soon as the day’s market is off. He—and the rest of that crew—can’t stand it. You'll have to wait until tomorrow’s market opens _ before he’ll be listening.” “O.K., said the operator, and the set went ' silent. “Kingman!” said Don Channing in a low, hard voice. “So he’s the bright guy behind this. I get it now. Somehow he dis- covered a detector, and he’s been playing the market by getting the quotations by Oo comiclbooks (©