Читать книгу The Science Fiction Anthology онлайн

312 страница из 776

“Can you fix it?” Sorensen asked.

“I’ll try,” Drake said. “But we’d better not hope for too much. Eakins was the radio man on this expedition.”

“We’ve got all the spare parts,” Sorensen said. “Tubes, manual, everything.”

“I know. Give me enough time and I’ll figure out what’s wrong. The question is, how much time is the Quedak going to give us?”

The bright copper disk of the sun was half submerged in the sea. Sunset colors touched the massing thunderheads and faded into the brief tropical twilight. The men began to barricade the copra shed for the night.

VI

Drake removed the back from the transmitter and scowled at the compact mass of tubes and wiring. Those metal boxlike things were probably condensers, and the waxy cylindrical gadgets might or might not be resistors. It all looked hopelessly complicated, ridiculously dense and delicate. Where should he begin?

He turned on the set and waited a few minutes. All the tubes appeared to go on, some dim, some bright. He couldn’t detect any loose wires. The mike was still dead.