is
communicator. Don't touch anything else--and particularly not this
switch." She pointed to a large pull-handle set square into the center
of the control board. "Emergency launching. Two seconds after that is
pulled the lifeboat is shot free. And it so happens this boat has no
fuel."

"Hands off for sure," Jason said. "Now have Husky there run me in a line
with ship's power and I'll get this stuff set up."

The detector was simple, though the tuning had to be precise. A
dish-shaped antenna pulled in the signal for the delicately balanced
detector. There was a sharp fall-off on both sides of the input so
direction could be precisely determined. The resulting signal was fed to
an amplifier stage. Unlike the electronic components of the first stage,
this one was drawn in symbols on white paper. Carefully glued-on input
and output leads ran to it.

When everything was ready and clamped into place, Jason nodded to Meta's
image on the screen. "Take her up--and easy please. None of your nine-G
specials. Go into a slow circle around the perimeter, until I tell you
differently."

* * * * *

Under steady power the ship lifted and grabbed for altitude, then eased
into its circular course. They made five circuits of the city before
Jason shook his head.

"The thing seems to be working fine, but we're getting too much noise
from all the local life. Get thirty kilometers out from the city and
start a new circuit."

[Illustration]

The results were better this time. A powerful signal came from the
direction of the city, confined to less than a degree of arc. With the
antenna fixed at a right angle to the direction of the ship's flight,
the signal was fairly constant. Meta rotated the ship on its main axis,
until Jason's lifeboat was directly below.

"Going fine now," he said. "Just hold your controls as they are and keep
the nose from drifting."

After making a careful mark on the setting circle, Jason turned the
receiving antenna through one hundred eighty degrees of arc. As the ship
kept to its circle, he made a slow collecting sweep of any signals
beamed at the city. They were halfway around before he got a new signal.

It was there all right, narrow but strong. Just to be sure he let the
ship complete two more sweeps, and he noted the direction on the
gyro-compass each time. They coincided. The third time around he called
to Meta.

"Get ready for a full right turn, or whatever you