een forty quince suggests possibility this message
intercepted and translated personally I think such translation
impossible and that he is wilder than a hawk but just in case they
should be supernaturally intelligent...."

Stevens stopped abruptly and stared at the vociferous sounder.

"Don't stop to listen--keep on writing!" commanded Nadia.

"Can't," replied the puzzled mathematician. "It doesn't make sense. It
sounds intelligent--it's made up of real symbols of some kind or other,
but they don't mean a thing to me."

"Oh, I see--he's sending mush on purpose. Read the last phrase!"

"Oh, sure--'mush' is right," and with no perceptible break the signals
again became intelligible.

"... if they can translate that they are better scholars than we are
signing off until hear from you brandon."

* * * * *

The sounder died abruptly into silence and Nadia sobbed convulsively
as she threw herself into Stevens' arms. The long strain over, the
terrible uncertainty at last dispelled, they were both incoherent for
a minute--Nadia glorifying the exploits of her lover, Stevens crediting
the girl herself and his two fellow-scientists with whatever success had
been achieved. A measure of self-control regained, Stevens cut off his
automatic sender, changed the adjustments of his directors and cut in
his manually operated sending key.

"What waves are you using, anyway?" asked Nadia, curiously. "They must
be even more penetrating than Roeser's Rays, to have such a range, and
Roeser's Rays go right through a planet without even slowing up."

"They're of the same order as Roeser's--that is, they're sub-electronic
waves of the fourth order--but they're very much shorter, and hence more
penetrating. In fact, they're the shortest waves yet known, so short
that Roeser never even suspected their existence."

"Suppose there's a Jovian space-ship out there somewhere that intercepts
our beams. Couldn't they locate us from it?"

"Maybe, and maybe not--we'll just have to take a chance on that. That
goes right back to what we were talking about this morning. They might
be anywhere, so the chance of hitting one is very small. It isn't like
hitting the _Sirius_, because we knew within pretty narrow limits where
to look for her, and even at that we had to hunt for her for half a day
before we hit her. We're probably safe, but even if they should have
located us, we'll probably be able to hide somewhere unti