ared for this test. It was
really two devices. One was a very flat cone, much like a coolie-hat and
hardly larger, with a sort of power-pack of coils and batteries
attached. The other was a space-ship's distress-signal rocket, designed
to make a twenty-mile streak of red flame in emptiness. Nobody had yet
figured out what good a distress signal would do, between Earth and
moon, but the idea was soothing. The rocket was four feet long and six
inches in diameter. At its nose there was a second coolie-hat cone, with
other coils and batteries.

Jones set the separate cone on the ground and packed stones around and
under it to brace it. His movements were almost ridiculously deliberate.
Bending over, he bent slowly, or the motion would lift his feet off the
ground. Straightening up, he straightened slowly, or the upward impetus
of his trunk would again lift him beyond contact with solidity. But he
braced the flat cone carefully.

He set the signal-torpedo over that cone. The entire set-up was under
six feet tall, and the coolie-hat cones were no more than eighteen
inches in diameter. He said flatly:

"I'm all ready."

The hand and arm of a space-suited figure lifted, for attention.
Dabney's voice came worriedly from the headphones of every suit:

"I wish it understood," he said in some agitation, "that this first
attempted application of my discovery is made with my consent, but that
I am not aware of the mechanical details. As a scientist, my work has
been in pure science. I have worked for the advancement of human
knowledge, but the technological applications of my discovery are not
mine. Still--if this device does not work, I will take time from my more
important researches to inquire into what part of my discovery has been
inadequately understood and applied. It may be that present technology
is not qualified to apply my discovery--"

Jones said without emotion--but Cochrane could imagine his poker-faced
expression inside his helmet:

"That's right. I consulted Mr. Dabney about the principles, but the
apparatus is my doing, I take the responsibility for that!"

Then Cochrane added with pleasant irony:

"Since all this is recorded, Mr. Dabney can enlarge upon his disinterest
later. Right now, we can go ahead. Mr. Dabney disavows us unless we are
successful. Let us let it go at that." Then he said: "The observatory's
set to track?"

A muffled voice said boredly, by short-wave from the observatory up on
the cra