“I sure can’t run a coaxial cable out in space whenever I want to view something,” Tom said to himself with a wry grin.
Somehow, without the use of reflectors, he would have to find a way to make the radio impulses correct themselves and stay focused in a single beam during their whole journey through space.
For weeks Tom had wrestled with the glimmering of an answer. The signals would have to be generated with a special type of oscillator circuit.
38 MEGASCOPE SPACE PROBER
Grabbing a pencil and a slide rule, Tom was soon covering sheet after sheet of paper with diagrams and computations.
Satisfied at last that he was on the right track, Tom plunged into the job of electronic construction. A tangled assembly of transistorized components and wiring gradually took shape on his workbench.
“Tom! … Tom!” A bellowing foghorn voice suddenly shattered the young inventor’s concentration.
He looked up as a roly-poly figure came clomping into the laboratory with a clatter of high-heeled cowboy boots. He was Charles Winkler, nicknamed Chow, the former chuck-wagon cook from Texas who had attached himself to the Swifts on one of their atomic research trips to the Southwest. Now he was chef on most of the long journeys, and served meals to Tom and his father at the lab.
As usual, Chow was sporting a gaudy shirt, and a ten-gallon hat perched atop his bald dome. Oddly, his leathery sun-bronzed face looked pale.
“What in thunderation’s goin’ on around here?” Chow gasped. “I got fireworks poppin’ in my galley!”
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