"You've read their books," said Sandra Drake. "You know the principle of the Plutonian Lens--and also that the alternating stations require terrible electronic charges to maintain the lens that focuses Sol on Pluto. They check that with the formation of xenon-bromide for negative, and decomposition of tetrachloro dibromo-methane for the positive charge. They can do it." "Can't they do it on a planet?" asked Orfall sadly. "Not unless they can raise the whole planet to a high negative charge," snapped Sandra. "What do you think?" "I don't know--none of us do. Can they?" "No." "Then--?" "We'll call them, tell McBride what's the matter and what we need. He'll fix it." "It sounds like a fool's gesture to me," said Theodi. "Utterly impossible. How are we going to get in touch with them in the first place?" "Look," said Theodi. "We can call them. See what McBride says and put the problem to them. If there's a way out, fine. If not, we've lost nothing." "But how are we going to call them over nine light-years of space?" "Ah--yes," said Theodi. "We can't." "Maybe I can," said Sandra. "That'll be my contribution. I think I can call them." "Nine light-years--" objected Theodi. "Remember that the gravitic spectrum propagates at the speed of light raised to the 2.71828 ... th power. That'll make talking to Terra like calling across the room. May I try?" "You think they'll be listening for you?" "Can't miss," said Sandra with a positive gesture. "My ship, the _Lady Luck_, is equipped with the standard communications set. It puts out right in the middle of the main communications band of the electrogravitic. If I can get enough power to beam towards Sol, it'll hit them right in the middle." "You intend to use the set in the _Lady Luck_?" "Overloaded to the utmost. They tell me that they'll take one hundred percent overloads for an hour. Make that one thousand percent, and it may last ten minutes. Ten minutes is all I need to give them our trouble--they have recorders if McBride isn't there to hear it in person." "Where are you going to get that power?" asked Theodi. "From you." "Impossible, Sandrake. You know that there is not sufficient power available to make such a program possible." "Ridiculous. The resources of a planet are unmeasurable." "Perhaps so," said Theodi. "But remember that our power, like Terra's power, is spread out all over the face. The transmission of power such as you will require would be impossible because the line losses will be greater than the power input. It might be possible to connect the networks together and draw the entire power output of Telfu into one district, but line losses would prohibit its operation." "I only need ten minutes maximum," said Sandra. "You're asking us to sacrifice--? You mean--overload every plant within efficiency-distance of your ship until it breaks down?" "What have you to lose?" "Can we do it?" asked Orfall.