"I don't give a care what happens to Drake. She can come busting in with the safety valve tied down if she wants to. Some day she'll learn that sticking that pretty little snoot of hers into strange places is a fine way to have it knocked right off of the front of her face. We're interested in technicalities, not in getting involved in a storybook adventure. Meanwhile, let's take it strictly on the easy side and investigate everything from the solar radiation from Sirius to the secondary radiation produced by Sirian radiation in the super-stratosphere." * * * * * Larry began to fiddle with the radio. There was nothing on the electronic radio at all, and Larry said: "Well, didn't expect it, really. No culture worthy of the name would be using radio in space. Too inefficient. And if they got off of their planets, they'd be using gravitics." He turned to the space radio, and covered the communication bands of the electrogravitic spectrum, switching from band to band quickly. Halfway across the third band, the panoramic tuner came to a definite stop and retraced itself minutely, vacillating a bit until the signal came in clear and clean. "What happened to Drake?" asked Timkins. "Listen. Here she is." The gravitic radio was calling: "--_Haywire Queen_. Calling _Haywire Queen_. This is Sandra Drake calling the _Haywire Queen_. This is an automatic transmission set for break-in. As soon as this call gets to you, answer please. The answer will register here and we will be able to make this two-way. This is Sandra Drake--" "Uh-huh," said Hammond, turning down the gain to a reasonable level. "Larry, shoot her an answer." Timkins snapped on the transmitter, tuned it to the same band, and said: "This is the _Haywire Queen_ calling Sandra Drake. _Haywire Queen_ answering Drake. Come in, Sandra Drake. Answer." They listened to the automatic broadcast for some minutes, and then in the middle of a sentence--"This is Sandra Drake calling the _Haywire Queen_--" _Click._ "Hello, fellows. Got here finally, didn't you? Glad to have you come in. What's new?" Hammond took the mike. "Hello, Sandra," he answered. "Nothing new. Where are you?" "On planet number five. That is the one that I think is somewhere about five hundred million miles from Sirius. Know it?" "We think so. It's dead ahead. Yeah, wait a minute. Larry has a directional bearing on you and it is the one we're approaching. That takes care of that." "Well, come on in and I'll build you a cup of tea." "You find everything all right?" "Everything's perfect. Only thing, they would like to have someone here that knows all about the gravitics. They're not too sharp. Frankly, neither am I, so you're the guys who'll have to do it." "You've been there quite a bit," said Hammond. "How's conditions?"