Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 20 – And His Megascope Space Prober

terminal point-whatever distance the viewer wished to see.

“In other words, they give us our point of view,” Tom said. “And the third wave signal acts as our lens. It picks up an ‘image,’ you might say, from the light rays reflected by the object we want to look at-and transmits the image back to our receiver, so we can see it on a screen.”

Chow circled cautiously around the workbench, squinting at the electronic apparatus from all angles.

“Where is this here ‘third wave signal’ you’re talkin’ about, boss?”

Tom smiled. “You won’t be able to see any of the three waves that the prober beams out into space, Chow,” he explained. “They’re invisible, just like all radio signals.”

“Well, I’ll be jing-whistled!” Chow eyed the young inventor in amazement. “An invisible camera lens that makes pictures you can see! Tom, that’s remarkable!”

“I’ll be satisfied if it’s just plain workable,” Tom said, laughing.

Doggedly he kept at the job day and night. Early Tuesday morning he had the final circuitry completed. The whole prober apparatus-his high-gain amplifier with the helium-extraction device, the anti-inverse-square-wave generator, the wave-terminal equipment, and the radiation

140 MEGASCOPE SPACE PROBER

“lens”-was enclosed in a neat console, ten feet high, ten feet wide, and two feet deep. The front of it was studded with dials, control knobs, and the receiver viewing screen.

Tom had the device moved into the observatory atop Enterprises’ main building. Here the huge wirework antenna had already been mounted on a swiveling pedestal.