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It would add to the plausibility of reported deceleration, though, and would arouse acute suspicion. Justly so. At 8:20, Lockley called Sattell who was southeast of him. The measuring instruments used microwaves and gave readings of distance by counting cycles and reading phase differences.
It was meeting the Platform after only half a circuit of Earth, while the Platform had climbed upward for three full revolutions. Earth was now 3,000 miles below and appeared as the most gigantic of possible solid objects. It curved away and away to mistiness at its horizons, and it moved visibly as the spaceship floated on. Invisible microwaves flung arrowlike through emptiness.
Far out in space, there was an explosion brighter than the sun, and then a second and a third. There was a cloud of incandescent metal vapor. Presently a missile found its target-seeking microwaves reflected by the ionized metal steam. It plunged into collision with that glowing stuff. It exploded. Two or three more exploded, like the first. Others burned harmlessly.
It wasn't likely she ever would be. Hoddan scowled. Inside of an hour he'd made a hand-sized, five-watt, wave-guide projector of waves of eccentric form. In the beam of that projector, air became ionized. Air became a high-resistance conductor comparable to nichrome wire, when and where the projector sent its microwaves.
As a matter of convenience the microwaves could be modulated by a microphone, so the same instrument could be used for communication while measurements went on. But the microwaves were directed in a very tight beam. The device had to be aimed exactly right and a suitable reception instrument had to be at the target if it was to be used at all. Also, there was no signal to call a man to listen.
Not even microwaves. It might leak. And we want to see if it works." Just forty-two hours later they found out that it did work. A single rocket came climbing furiously out from Earth. It came from the night-side, and they could not see where it was launched, though they could make excellent guesses. They got a single guided missile ready to crash it if necessary. It wasn't necessary.
But from each plastic helmet a six-inch antenna projected straight upward, and the microwaves of suit-talkies made a jumble of slightly metallic sounds in the headphones of each suit. As soon as Cochrane got out of the jeep's air-lock and was recognized, Dabney said agitatedly: "Mr. Cochrane! Mr. Cochrane! I have to discuss something with you! It is of the utmost importance!
Diane had the distant-information transmitter aimed at what she'd said might be a dead comet. Baird pressed the button. An extraordinary complex of information-seeking frequencies and forms sprang into being and leaped across emptiness. There were microwaves of strictly standard amplitude, for measurement-standards.
"If you can trust me not to make deathrays, I'd like to make a generator of odd-shaped microwaves. They're described in textbooks. They ionize the air where they strike. That's all. They make air a high-resistance conductor. Nothing more than that."
But Baird regarded his radar screens. Microwaves penetrated the mist of rapidly ionizing gases. "Radar to navigation!" he said sharply. "The Plumie ship is still approaching, dancing as before!" The skipper said with enormous calm: "Any other Plumie ships, Mr. Baird?" Diane interposed. "No sign anywhere. I've been watching. This seems to be the only ship within radar range."
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