Suddenly a bell rang shrilly, startling everyone. All heads swung around.
“The space decoder!” Slim cried out. “A message is coming through from your space friends!”
Months before, a black meteorlike missile, etched with strange symbols, had plunged to earth at Swift Enterprises. Tom and his father had manA MESSAGE IN SPACE CODE 35
aged to decode the symbols and discovered they were a message from another planet.
Other messages had been received by radio and put on an oscilloscope-type screen. The Swifts had replied, beaming out code signals over a powerful transmitter, and a friendship had developed with the unknown space creatures, who seemed to monitor the Swifts’ activities closely. It was they who had moved the asteroid Nestria into orbit around the earth.
Later, Tom had invented a translating computer which automatically coded or decoded the outgoing or incoming space messages. The English translation was tapped out on a teletype keyboard and appeared on printed tape.
As Tom dashed to the machine, the strange code symbols were already flashing on the oscilloscope screen. Tom read the message aloud: ” ‘Stop! Go into orbit at following point in space.’ ” The exact position was given in relative bearings from the earth, moon, and Nestria. ” ‘Repeat, stop here!
Power off! Then resume flight.’ “
“What’s it mean, boss?” Chow asked excitedly.
Tom studied the tape with a frown. “Just what it says, I guess,” he replied thoughtfully.
“But how come?” asked Slim. “I mean, what’s the reason for our stopping?”