The boys drove him by jeep to the communications building where Mr. Swift and Professor Glennon were waiting. As the conference began, Dr. Faber said, “If we’re to help, we’ll need to know more about the symptoms of the disease.”
Evan Glennon nodded between puffs on his huge briar pipe. “Quite right. We can hardly make a diagnosis until we have the facts.”
“I suggest we call our space friends now and ask them for further details,”
Mr. Swift replied. “Then you two can ask questions.”
“Excellent,” Dr. Faber agreed.
Immediately Tom beamed out a request for more information. Several minutes went by before the bell signaled a reply. But to everyone’s surprise, no message was punched out on the tape!
“Hey, what’s wrong?” said Bud.
Frowning, Tom pointed to a red light which had lit up above the keyboard.
“That means the machine couldn’t translate the message.”
“Ask them to rephrase it, using the symbols we know,” Mr. Swift suggested.
Tom did so. Finally an answer came through:
WE CANNOT DESCRIBE DISEASE WITHOUT USING NEW SYMBOLS.
The group exchanged baffled looks. “I’m afraid it’s hopeless without something more to go on.” Dr. Faber said. “We might tell 24 THE RACE TO THE MOON
them about our new synthetic drugs and antibiotics. However, the chance is slim that these would conquer a totally unknown disease.”
Mr. Swift drummed his fingers on the conference table. “And trying to translate those unknown symbols might take days,” he said, frowning.
“What do you suppose caused the outbreak, Dad?” put in Tom.
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