Two hundred sheer watts of undistorted audio power boomed forth in that tiny room--two hundred watts of pure, undistorted power to racket forth something that probably started out as sheer distortion-- And yet-- Faintly striving against that fearful racket there came a piping, flat-sounding human voice that said: "Kingman! V.E. Preferred just hit eighty-nine!" Kingman scowled and punched on the intership teletype machine. Using the communicator set with that racket would have been impossible. The radio man read the note that appeared on his 'type, and smiled grimly. He saw to his helio-mirror and sighted through a fine telescope at a spot on Venus, three thousand miles below. The helio began to send its flashing signal to this isolated spot near the Boiling River, and it was read, acknowledged, and repeated for safety's sake. The radio man flashed "O.K." and went back to his forty-seventh game of chess with the assistant pilot. The helio man on the Boiling River read the message, grinned, and stepped to the telephone. He called a number at Northern Landing, and a tight beam sped across the northern quarter of Venus to a man connected with the Venus Stock Market. The man nodded, and said to another: "Buy fifteen hundred--use the name of Ralph Gantry this time." The stock purchased under the name of Ralph Gantry was signed, sealed and delivered exactly fifteen minutes before the ticker projection on the grand wall of the Exchange showed the V.E. Preferred stock turn the bottom curve and start upward by hitting eighty-nine! Back in the Terran Electric spaceship Kingman's ears were still beset by the roaring, alien music. He was sitting in his chair with his head between his hands, and did not see the man approaching the instrument panel with a pair of side-cutters in one hand. The man reached the panel, lifted it slightly, and reached forward. Then Kingman, hearing a slight imperfection in the wail of the speaker, looked up, jumped from his chair, and tackled the engineer. "You blasted fool!" blazed Kingman. "You idiot!" The music stopped at his third word, and the scream of his voice in the silence of the room almost scared Kingman himself. "Mark, I'm going nuts. I can't stand that racket." "You're going to stand it. Unless you can get something to cut it out." "I can't. I'm not brilliant enough to devise a circuit that will cut that noise and still permit the entry of your fellow on Luna." "Then you'll live with it." "Mark, why can't we take that relay apart and work on it?" "Ben, as far as I know, that relay is what Channing and his gang would give their whole station for--and will, soon enough. I don't care how it works--or why!" "That's no way to make progress," objected Ben.