Bud brought them. Tom and his father studied the symbols as the copilot looked on.
“A mathematical nightmare!” Bud muttered in an undertone. “Just watching those squiggles makes my head ache!”
Not just one, but two symbols of the message proved to be strange, never before received by the Swifts. But Tom and his father got right to work.
Sandy, Bud, and Mrs. Swift watched in anxious silence as the two scientists consulted several abstruse mathematical reference books and worked out what seemed like an endless number of equa-SOLAR-SYSTEM GIFT 127
tions. But nothing seemed to yield the slightest clue. Both Tom and his father were baffled.
After minutes of brooding, however, Tom yelled in triumph. “I think I have it!
According to Maxwell’s theorems, this one is obviously a field symbol. And since they’re talking about the sun, they must mean ‘outside the sun’s field’; in other words, ‘beyond the solar system’!”
Mr. Swift literally leaped from his chair. He was excited not only by Tom’s theory, but by what this implied about the space beings’ mastery of space travel.
“Son, you’re right!” The elder scientist paced up and down again for a few moments, then seized a pencil and dashed off several more equations which he showed to Tom. “In vector terms,” Mr. Swift exclaimed, “this other symbol must then mean a resultant-something brought back from their voyage beyond the solar system!”
Tom chuckled. “Right, Dad! A souvenir from outer space!”
The others were bursting with curiosity as Tom finally wrote down the complete message: