Hands-On Database 2nd

Edition Steve Conger

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Hands-On Database, 2e (Conger)

Chapter 5 Normalization and Design Review

5.1 Multiple Choice

1) Which of the following is the term for an anomaly in which you cannot enter data because
other data is required?
A) Insertion anomaly
B) Update anomaly
C) Deletion anomaly
D) None of the above
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 83

2) Which of the following is the term for an anomaly in which you must edit the same data in
more than one place?
A) Insertion anomaly
B) Update anomaly
C) Deletion anomaly
D) None of the above
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 83
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3) Which of the following is the term for an anomaly in which removing data unintentionally
causes the loss of other data?
A) Insertion anomaly
B) Update anomaly
C) Deletion anomaly
D) None of the above
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 83

4) An insertion anomaly occurs when:

A) You cannot enter data because other data is required
B) You must edit the same information in several places
C) Removing data accidently causes the loss of other data
D) None of the above
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 83

5) An update anomaly occurs when:

A) You cannot enter data because other data is required
B) You must edit the same information in several places
C) Removing data accidently causes the loss of other data
D) None of the above
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 83

6) A deletion anomaly occurs when:

A) You cannot enter data because other data is required
B) You must edit the same information in several places
C) Removing data accidently causes the loss of other data
D) None of the above
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 83

7) Which of the following best defines the term normalization?

A) When you cannot enter data because other data is required
B) When you must edit the same information in several places
C) When removing data accidently causes the loss of other data
D) The process of removing anomalies and redundancies from database design
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 83,84

8) Which term best describes the process of removing anomalies and redundancies from a
database?
A) First Normal Form
B) Second Normal Form
C) Third Normal Form
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Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education, Inc.
D) Normalization
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 83, 84

9) Which of the following is the normal form that removes all repeating groups and arrays?
A) First Normal Form
B) Second Normal Form
C) Third Normal Form
D) Boyce Codd Normal Form
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 85

10) Which of the following is the normal form that removes all functional dependencies?
A) First Normal Form
B) Second Normal Form
C) Third Normal Form
D) Boyce Codd Normal Form
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 89

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Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education, Inc.
11) Which of the following is the normal form that removes all transient dependencies?
A) First Normal Form
B) Second Normal Form
C) Third Normal Form
D) Boyce Codd Normal Form
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 93

12) Which of the following best defines First Normal Form?

A) Removes transient dependencies from entities
B) Removes functional dependencies from entities
C) Removes repeating groups and arrays from entities
D) None of the above
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 85

13) Which of the following best defines Second Normal Form?

A) Removes transient dependencies from entities
B) Removes functional dependencies from entities
C) Removes repeating groups and arrays from entities
D) None of the above
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 91

14) Which of the following best defines First Normal Form?

A) Removes transient dependencies from entities
B) Removes functional dependencies from entities
C) Removes repeating groups and arrays from entities
D) None of the above
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 85

15) Which of the following is the best definition for a functional dependency?
A) An attribute that depends on another attribute, not the key, for its meaning
B) A set of related attributes that form a sub theme in the entity
C) Repeated groups or arrays in a column
D) None of the above
Answer: B
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 89

16) Which of the following is the best definition for a transient dependency?
A) An attribute that depends on another attribute, not the key, for its meaning
B) A set of related attributes that form a sub theme in the entity
C) Repeated groups or arrays in a column
D) None of the above
Answer: A
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 93
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Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education, Inc.
17) Which of the following is the best definition for normal forms?
A) Forms programmers create to make data easier to access
B) The number of records permitted in a related table
C) The logical design of a database
D) A set of rules for removing anomalies and redundancies from database design
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 83,84

18) Which of the following best describes what is wrong with this entity?

A) There is a transient dependency

B) There is a functional dependency. The entity falls into two main themes
C) There are repeated groups or arrays
D) It is fine the way it is
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 89

5
Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education, Inc.
Another document from Scribd.com that is
random and unrelated content:
"Use bos'n's chairs," snapped Burbank.
"A bos'n's chair would be worthless," Warren informed Burbank. "You
must remember that to anyone trying to operate on the outer hull, the
outer hull is a ceiling and directly overhead.
"Another thing," said Warren, "you paint that hull and you'll run this
station by yourself. Why d'ya think we have it shiny?"
"If we paint the hull," persisted Burbank, "it will be more presentable
than that nondescript steel color."
"That steel color is as shiny as we could make it," growled Warren. "We
want to get rid of as much radiated heat as we can. You slap a coat of any
kind of paint on that hull and you'll have plenty of heat in here."
"Ah, that sounds interesting. We'll save heating costs—"
"Don't be an idiot," snapped Warren. "Heating costs, my grandmother's
eye. Look, Burbank, did you ever hear of the Uranium Pile? Part of our
income comes from refining uranium and plutonium and the preparation
of radioisotopes. And—Good Lord, I'm not going to try to explain
fission-reacting materials to you; get that first old copy of the Smyth
Report and get caught up to date.
"The fact remains," continued Warren, cooling somewhat after
displaying Burbank's ignorance, "that we have more power than we
know what to do with. We're operating on a safe margin by radiating just
a little more than we generate. We make up the rest by the old methods
of artificial heating.
"But there have been a lot of times when it became necessary to dissipate
a lot of energy for divers reasons and then we've had to shut off the
heating. What would happen if we couldn't cool off the damned coffee
can? We'd roast to death the first time we got a new employee with a
body temperature a degree above normal."
"You're being openly rebellious," Burbank warned him.
"So I am. And if you persist in your attempt to make this place
presentable, you'll find me and my gang outright mutinous! Good day,
sir!"
He stormed out of the office and slammed the door.
"Take a note, Miss Westland, 'Interplanetary Communications
Commission, Terra. Gentlemen: Michael Warren, superintendent of
maintenance at Venus Equilateral, has proven to be unreceptive to certain
suggestions as to the appearance and/or operation of Venus Equilateral. It
is my request that he be replaced immediately. Signed, Francis Burbank,
Director.'" He paused to see what effect that message had upon the faces
of the men around the table. "Send that by special delivery!"
Johnny Billings opened his mouth to say something, but shut it with a
snap. Westland looked up at Burbank, but she said nothing. Arden gave
Channing a sly smile, and Channing smiled back. There were grins about
the table, too, for everyone recognized the boner. Burbank had just sent a
letter from the interworld communications relay station by special
delivery mail. It would not get to Terra for better than two weeks; a use
of the station's facilities would have the message in the hands of the
Commission within the hour.
"That will be all, gentlemen." Burbank smiled smugly. "Our next
conference will be next Monday morning!"

"Mr. Channing," chortled the pleasant voice of Arden Westland, "now

that the trifling influence of the boss versus secretary taboo is off, will
you have the pleasure of buying me a drink?"
"Can you repeat that word for word and explain it?" grinned Don.
"A man isn't supposed to make eyes at his secretary. A gal ain't supposed
to seduce her boss. Now that you are no longer Acting Director, and I no
longer your stenog, how about some sociability?"
"I never thought that I'd be propositioned by a typewriter jockey," said
Channing, "but I'll do it. What time is it? Do we do it openly, or must we
sneak over to the apartment and snaffle a snort on the sly?"
"We snaffle. That is, if you trust me in your apartment."
"I'm scared to death," Channing informed her. "But if I should fail to
defend my honor, we must remember that it is no dishonor to try and
fail."
"That sounds like a nice alibi," said Arden with a smile. "Or a come-on. I
don't know which. Or, Mr. Channing, am I being told that my advances
might not be welcome?"
"We shall see," Channing said. "We'll have to make a careful study of the
matter. I cannot make any statements without first making a thorough
examination under all sorts of conditions. Here we are. You will precede
me through the door, please."
"Why?" asked Arden.
"So that you cannot back out at the last possible moment. Once I get you
inside, I'll think about keeping you there!"
"As long as you have some illegal fluid, I'll stay." She tried to leer at Don
but failed because she had had all too little experience in leering. "Bring
it on!"
"Here's to the good old days," toasted Don as the drinks were raised.
"Nope. Here's to the future," proposed Arden. "Those good old days—all
they were was old. If you were back in them, you'd still have to have the
pleasure of meeting Burbank."
"Grrrr," growled Channing. "That name is never mentioned in this
household."
"You haven't a pix of the old bird turned to the wall, have you?" asked
Arden.
"I tossed it out."
"We'll drink to that." They drained glasses. "And we'll have another."
"I need another," said Channing. "Can you imagine that buzzard asking
me to invent something big in seven days?"
"Sure. By the same reasoning that he uses to send a letter from Venus
Equilateral instead of just slipping it in on the Terra beam. Faulty."
"Phony."
The door opened abruptly and Walt Franks entered. "D'ja hear the
latest?" he asked breathlessly.
"No," said Channing. He was reaching for another glass automatically.
He poured, and Walt watched the amber fluid creep up the glass, led by a
sheet of white foam.
"Then look!" Walt handed Channing an official envelope. It was a
regular notice to the effect that there had been eleven failures of service
through Venus Equilateral.
"Eleven! What makes?"
"Mastermind."
"What's he done?"
"Remember the removal of my jurisdiction over the beam control
operators? Well, in the last ten days, Burbank has installed some new
features to cut expenses. I think that he hopes to lay off a couple of
hundred men."
"What's he doing, do you know?"
"He's shortening the dispersion. He intends to cut the power by
slamming more of the widespread beam into the receptor. The tighter
beam makes aiming more difficult, you know, because at seventy million
miles, every time little Joey on Mars swings his toy horseshoe magnet on
the end of his string, the beam wabbles. And at seventy million miles,
how much wabbling does it take to send a narrow beam clear off the
target?"
"The normal dispersion of the beam from Venus is over a thousand miles
wide. It gyrates and wabbles through most of that arc. That is why we
picked that particular dispersion. If we could have pointed the thing like
an arrow, we'd have kept the dispersion down."
"Right. And he's tightened the beam to less than a hundred miles'
dispersion. Now, every time a sunspot gets hit amidships with a lady
sunspot, the beam goes off on a tangent. We've lost the beam eleven
times in a week. That's more times than I've lost it in three years!"
"O.K.," said Channing. "So what? Mastermind is responsible. We'll sit
tight and wait for developments. In any display of abilities, we can spike
Mr. Burbank. Have another drink?"
"Got any more? If you're out, I've got a couple of cases cached
underneath the bed in my apartment."
"I've plenty," said Channing. "And I'll need plenty. I have exactly
twenty-two hours left in which to produce something comparable to the
telephone, the electric light, the airplane, or the expanding universe!
Phooey. Pour me another, Arden."
A knock at the door; a feminine voice interrupted simultaneously. "May I
come in?"
It was Walt's secretary. She looked worried. In one hand she waved
another letter.
"Another communiqué?" asked Channing.
"Worse. Notice that for the last three hours, there have been less than
twelve percent of messages relayed!"
"Five minutes' operation out of an hour," said Channing. "Where's that
from?"
"Came out on the Terra beam. It's marked number seventeen, so I guess
that sixteen other tries have been made."
"What has Mastermind tried this time?" stormed Channing. He tore out
of the room and headed for the Director's office on a dead run. On the
way, he hit his shoulder on the door, caromed off the opposite wall,
righted himself, and was gone in a flurry of flying feet. Three heads
popped out of doors to see who was making the noise.
Channing skidded into Burbank's office on his heels. "What gives?" he
snapped. "D'ya realize that we've lost the beam? What have you been
doing?"
"It is a minor difficulty," said Burbank calmly. "We will iron it out
presently."
"Presently! Our charter doesn't permit interruptions of service of that
magnitude. I ask again: What are you doing?"
"You, as electronics engineer, have no right to question me. I repeat, we
shall iron out the difficulty presently."
Channing snorted and tore out of Burbank's office. He headed for the
Office of Beam Control, turned the corner on one foot, and slammed the
door in roughly.
"Chuck!" he yelled. "Chuck Thomas! Where are you?"
No answer. Channing left the beam office and headed for the master
control panels, out near the air lock end of Venus Equilateral. He found
Thomas stewing over a complicated piece of apparatus.
"Chuck, for the Love of Michael, what in the devil is going on?"
"Thought you knew," answered Thomas. "Burbank had the crew install
photoelectric mosaic banks on the beam controls. He intends to use the
photomosaics to keep Venus, Terra, and Mars on the beam."
"Great Snivelling Scott! They tried that in the last century and tossed it
out three days later. Where's the crew now?"
"Packing for home. They've been laid off!"
"Get 'em back! Put 'em to work. Turn off those darned photomosaics and
use the manual again. We've lost every beam we ever had."
A sarcastic voice came in at this point. "For what reason do you interfere
with my improvements?" sneered the voice. "Could it be that you are
accepting graft from the employees to keep them on the job by
preventing the installation of superior equipment?"
Channing turned on his toe and let Burbank have one. It was a neat job,
coming up at the right time and connecting sweetly. Burbank went over
on his head.
"Get going," Channing snapped at Thomas.
Charles Thomas grinned. It was not Channing's one-ninety that decided
him to comply. He left.
Channing shook Burbank's shoulder. He slapped the man's face. Eyes
opened, accusing eyes rendered mute by a very sore jaw, tongue, and
throat.
"Now listen," snapped Channing. "Listen to every word! Mosaic
directors are useless. Know why? It is because of the lag. At planetary
distances, light takes an appreciable time to reach. Your beam wabbles.
Your planet swerves out of line because of intervening factors; varying
magnetic fields, even the bending of light due to gravitational fields will
shake the beam microscopically. But, Burbank, a microscopic
discrepancy is all that is needed to bust things wide open. You've got to
have experienced men to operate the beam controls. Men who can think.
Men who can, from experience, reason that this fluctuation will not last,
but will swing back in a few seconds, or that this type of swerving will
increase in magnitude for a half-hour, maintain the status, and then
return, pass through zero and find the same level on the minus side.
"Since light and centimeter waves are not exactly alike in performance, a
field that will swerve one may not affect the other as much. Ergo your
photomosaic is useless. The photoelectric mosaic is a brilliant gadget for
keeping a plane in a spotlight or for aiming a sixteen-inch gun, but it is
worthless for anything over a couple of million miles.
"So I've called the men back to their stations. And don't try anything
foolish again without consulting the men who are paid to think!"
Channing got up and left. As he strode down the stairs to the apartment
level, he met many of the men who had been laid off. None of them said
a word, but all of them wore bright, knowing smiles.
By Monday morning, however, Burbank was himself again. The rebuff
given him by Don Channing had worn off and he was sparkling with
ideas. He speared Franks with the glitter in his eye and said: "If our
beams are always on the center, why is it necessary to use multiplex
diversity?"
Franks smiled. "You're mistaken," he told Burbank. "They're not always
on the button. They vary. Therefore, we use diversity transmission so
that if one beam fails momentarily, one of the other beams will bring the
signal in. It is analogous to tying five or six ropes onto a hoisted stone. If
one breaks, you have the others."
"You have them running all the time, then?"
"Certainly. At several minutes of time-lag in transmission, to try and
establish a beam failure of a few seconds' duration is utter foolishness."
"And you disperse the beam to a thousand miles wide to keep the beam
centered at any variation?" Burbank shot at Channing.
"Not for any variation. Make that any normal gyration and I'll buy it."
"Then why don't we disperse the beam to two or three thousand miles
and do away with diversity transmission?" asked Burbank triumphantly.
"Ever heard of fading?" asked Channing with a grin. "Your signal comes
and goes. Not gyration, it just gets weaker. It fails for want of something
to eat, I guess, and takes off after a wandering cosmic ray. At any rate,
there are many times per minute that one beam will be right on the nose
and yet so weak that our strippers cannot clean it enough to make it
usable. Then the diversity system comes in handy. Our coupling
detectors automatically select the proper signal channel. It takes the one
that is the strongest and subdues the rest within itself."
"Complicated?"
"It was done in the heyday of radio—1935 or so. Your two channels
come in to a common detector. Automatic volume control voltage comes
from the single detector and is applied to all channels. This voltage is
proper for the strongest channel, but is too high for the ones receiving the
weaker signal; blocking them by rendering them insensitive. When the
strong channel fades and the weak channel rises, the detector follows
down until the two signal channels are equal and then it rises with the
stronger channel."
"I see," said Burbank, "Has anything been done about fading?"
"It is like the weather, according to Mark Twain," smiled Channing.
"'Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.' About all
we've learned is that we can cuss it out and it doesn't cuss back."
"I think it should be tried," said Burbank.
"If you'll pardon me, it has been tried. The first installation at Venus
Equilateral was made that way. It didn't work, though we used more
power than all of our diversity transmitters together. Sorry."
"Have you anything to report?" Burbank asked Channing.
"Nothing. I've been more than busy investigating the trouble we've had
in keeping the beams centered."
Burbank said nothing. He was stopped. He hoped that the secret of his
failure was not generally known, but he knew at the same time that when
three hundred men are aware of something interesting, some of them will
see to it that all the others involved will surely know. He looked at the
faces of the men around the table and saw suppressed mirth in every one
of them. Burbank writhed in inward anger. He was a good poker player.
He didn't show it at all.
He then went on to other problems. He ironed some out, others he
shelved for the time being. Burbank was a good business man. But like
so many other businessmen, Burbank had the firm conviction that if he
had the time to spare and at the same time was free of the worries and
paper work of his position, he could step into the laboratory and show
the engineers how to make things hum. He was infuriated every time he
saw one of the engineering staff sitting with hands behind head, lost in a
gazy, unreal land of deep thought. Though he knew better, he was often
tempted to raise hell because the man was obviously loafing.
But give him credit. He could handle business angles to perfection. In
spite of his tangle over the beam control, he had rebounded excellently
and had ironed out all of the complaints that had poured in. Ironed it out
to the satisfaction of the injured party as well as the Interplanetary
Communications Commission, who were interested in anything that cost
money.
He dismissed the conference and went to thinking. And he assumed the
same pose that infuriated him in other men under him; hands behind
head, feet upon desk.

The moving picture theater was dark. The hero reached longing arms to
the heroine, and there was a sort of magnetic attraction. They approached
one another. But the spark misfired. It was blacked out with a nice slice
of utter blackness that came from the screen and spread its lightlessness
all over the theater. In the ensuing darkness, there were several
osculations that were more personal and more satisfying than the
censored clinch. The lights flashed on and several male heads moved
back hastily. Female lips smiled happily. Some of them parted in speech.
One of them said: "Why, Mr. Channing!"
"Shut up, Arden," snapped the man. "People will think that I've been
kissing you."
"If someone else was taking advantage of the situation," she said, "you
got gypped. I thought I was kissing you and I cooked with gas!"
"Did you ever try that before?" asked Channing interestedly.
"Why?" she asked.
"I liked it. I merely wondered, if you'd worked it on other men, what
there was about you that kept you single."
"They all died after the first application," she said. "They couldn't take
it."
"Let me outta here! I get the implication. I am the first bird that hasn't
died, hey?" He yawned luxuriously.
"Company or the hour?" asked Arden.
"Can't be either," he said. "Come on, let's break a bottle of beer open. I'm
dry!"
"I've got a slight headache," she told him, "From what, I can't imagine."
"I haven't a headache, but I'm sort of logy."
"What have you been doing?" asked Arden. "Haven't seen you for a
couple of days."
"Nothing worth mentioning. Had an idea a couple of days ago and went
to work on it."
"Haven't been working overtime or missing breakfast?"
"Nope."
"Then I don't see why you should be ill. I can explain my headache away
by attributing it to eyestrain. Since Billyboy came here, and censored the
movies to the bone, the darned things flicker like anything. But eyestrain
doesn't create an autointoxication. So, my fine fellow, what have you
been drinking?"
"Nothing that I haven't been drinking since I first took to my second
bottlehood some years ago."
"You wouldn't be suffering from a hangover from that hangover you had
a couple of weeks ago?"
"Nope. I swore off. Never again will I try to drink a whole quart of Two
Moons in one evening. It got me."
"It had you for a couple of days," laughed Arden. "All to itself."
Don Channing said nothing. He recalled, all too vividly, the rolling of the
tummy that ensued after that session with the only fighter that hadn't yet
been beaten: Old John Barleycorn.
"How are you coming on with Burbank?" asked Arden. "I haven't heard
a rave for—well, ever since Monday morning's conference. Three days
without a nasty dig at Our Boss. That's a record."
"Give the devil his due. He's been more than busy placating irate
citizens. That last debacle with the beam control gave him a real
Moscow winter. His reforms came to a stop whilst he entrenched. But
he's been doing an excellent job of squirming out from under. Of course,
it has been helped by the fact that even though the service was rotten for
a few hours, the customers couldn't rush out to some other agency to get
communications with the other planets."
"Sort of: 'Take us, as lousy as we are?'"
"That's it."
Channing opened the door to his apartment and Arden went in. Channing
followed, and then stopped cold.
"Great Jeepers!" he said in an awed tone. "If I didn't know—"
"Why, Don! What's so startling?"
"Have you noticed?" he asked. "It smells like the inside of a chicken
coop in here!"
Arden sniffed. "It does sort of remind me of something that died and
couldn't get out of its skin." Arden smiled. "I'll hold my breath. Any
sacrifice for a drink."
"That isn't the point. This is purified air. It should be as sweet as a baby's
breath."
"Some baby," whistled Arden. "What's baby been drinking?"
"It wasn't cow-juice. What I've been trying to put over is that the air
doesn't seem to have been changed in here for nine weeks."
Channing went to the ventilator and lit a match. The flame bent over,
flickered, and went out.
"Air intake is O.K.," he said. "Maybe it is I. Bring on that bottle,
Channing; don't keep the lady waiting."
He yawned again, deeply and jaw-stretchingly. Arden yawned, too, and
the thought of both of them stretching their jaws to the breaking-off point
made both of them laugh foolishly.
"Arden, I'm going to break one bottle of beer with you, after which I'm
going to take you home, kiss you good night, and toss you into your own
apartment. Then I'm coming back here and I'm going to hit the hay!"
Arden took a long, deep breath. "I'll buy that," she said. "And tonight, it
wouldn't take much persuasion to induce me to snooze right here in this
chair!"
"Oh, fine," cheered Don. "That would fix me up swell with the
neighbors. I'm not going to get shotgunned into anything like that!"
"Don't be silly," said Arden.
"From the look in your eye," said Channing, "I'd say that you were just
about to do that very thing. I was merely trying to dissolve any ideas that
you might have."
"Don't bother," she said pettishly. "I haven't any ideas. I'm as free as you
are, and I intend to stay that way!"
Channing stood up. "The next thing we know, we'll be fighting," he
observed. "Stand up, Arden. Shake."
Arden stood up, shook herself, and then looked at Channing with a
strange light in her eyes. "I feel sort of dizzy," she admitted. "And
everything irritates me."
She passed a hand over her eyes wearily. Then, with a visible effort, she
straightened. She seemed to throw off her momentary ill feeling
instantly. She smiled at Channing and was her normal self in less than a
minute.
"What is it?" she asked. "Do you feel funny, too?"
"I do!" he said. "I don't want that beer. I want to snooze."
"When Channing would prefer snoozing to boozing he is sick," she said.
"Come on, fellow, take me home."
Slowly they walked down the long hallway. They said nothing. Arm in
arm they went, and when they reached Arden's door, their good-night
kiss lacked enthusiasm. "See you in the morning," said Don.
Arden looked at him. "That was a little flat. We'll try it again—tomorrow
or next week."
Don Channing's sleep was broken by dreams. He was warm. His dreams
depicted him in a humid, airless chamber, and he was forced to breathe
that same stale air again and again. He awoke in a hot sweat, weak and
feeling—lousy!
He dressed carelessly. He shaved hit-or-miss. His morning coffee tasted
flat and sour. He left the apartment in a bad mood, and bumped into
Arden at the corner of the hall.
"Hello," she said. "I feel rotten. But you have improved. Or is that
passionate breathing just a lack of fresh air?"
"Hell! That's it!" he said. He snapped up his wrist watch, which was
equipped with a stop-watch hand. He looked about, and finding a man
sitting on a bench, apparently taking it easy while waiting for someone,
Channing clicked the sweep hand into gear. He started to count the man's
respiration.
"What gives?" asked Arden, "What's 'It'? Why are you so excited? Did I
say something?"
"You did," said Channing after fifteen seconds. "That bird's respiration is
better than fifty! This whole place is filled to the gills with carbon
dioxide. Come on, Arden, let's get going!"
Channing led the girl by several yards by the time that they were within
sight of the elevator. He waited for her, and then sent the car upward at a
full throttle. Minutes passed, and they could feel that stomach-rising
sensation that comes when gravity is lessened. Arden clasped her hands
over her middle and hugged. She squirmed and giggled.
"You've been up to the axis before," said Channing. "Take long, deep
breaths."
The car came to a stop with a slowing effect. A normal braking stop
would have catapulted them against the ceiling. "Come on," he grinned
at her, "here's where we make time!"
Channing looked up at the little flight of stairs that led to the innermost
level. He winked at Arden and jumped. He passed up through the
opening easily. "Jump," he commanded. "Don't use the stairs."
Arden jumped. She sailed upward, and as she passed through the
opening, Channing caught her by one arm and stopped her flight. "At
that speed you'd go right on across," he said.
She looked up, and there about two hundred feet overhead she could see
the opposite wall.
Channing snapped on the lights. They were in a room two hundred feet
in diameter and three hundred feet long. "We're at the center of the
station," Channing informed her. "Beyond that bulkhead is the air lock.
On the other side of the other bulkhead, we have the air plant, the storage
spaces, and several rooms of machinery."
"Come on," he said. He took her by the hand and with a kick he
propelled himself along on a long, curving course to the opposite side of
the inner cylinder. He gained the opposite bulkhead as well.
"Now, that's what I call traveling," said Arden. "But my tummy goes
whoosh, whoosh every time we cross the center."
Channing operated a heavy door. They went in through rooms full of
machinery and into rooms stacked to the center with boxes; stacked from
the wall to the center and then packed with springs. Near the axis of the
cylinder, things weighed so little that packing was necessary to keep
them from floating around.
"I feel giddy," said Arden.
"High in oxygen," said he. "The CO2, drops to the bottom, being heavier.
Then, too, the air is thinner up here because centrifugal force swings the
whole out to the rim. Out there we are so used to 'down' that here, a half
mile above—or to the center, rather—we have trouble in saying,
technically, what we mean. Watch!"
He left Arden standing and walked rapidly around the inside of the
cylinder. Soon he was standing on the steel plates directly over her head.
She looked up, and shook her head.
"I know why," she called, "but it still makes me dizzy. Come down from
up there or I'll be sick."
Channing made a neat dive from his position above her head. He did it
merely by jumping upward from his place toward her place, apparently
hanging head down from the ceiling. He turned a neat flip-flop in the air
and landed easily beside her. Immediately, for both of them, things
became right-side-up again.
Channing opened the door to the room marked: "Air Plant." He stepped
in, snapped on the lights, and gasped in amazement.
"Hell!" he groaned. The place was empty. Completely empty. Absolutely,
and irrevocably vacant. Oh, there was some dirt on the floor and some
trash in the corners, and a trail of scratches on the floor to show that the
life giving air plant had been removed, hunk by hunk, out through
another door at the far end of the room.
"Whoa, Tillie!" screamed Don. "We've been stabbed! Arden, get on the
type and have ... no, wait a minute until we find out a few more things
about this!"
They made record time back to the office level. They found Burbank in
his office, leaning back, and talking to someone on the phone.
Channing tried to interrupt, but Burbank removed his nose from the
telephone long enough to snarl, "Can't you see I'm busy? Have you no
manners or respect?"
Channing, fuming inside, swore inwardly. He sat down with a show of
being calm and folded his hands over his abdomen like the famed statue
of Buddha. Arden looked at him, and for all the trouble they were in, she
couldn't help giggling. Channing, tall, lanky, and strong, looked as little
as possible like the popular, pudgy figure of the Sitting Buddha.
A minute passed.
Burbank hung up the phone.
"Where does Venus Equilateral get its air from?" snapped Burbank.
"That's what I want—"
"Answer me, please. I'm worried."
"So am I. Something—"
"Tell me first, from what source does Venus Equilateral get its fresh air?"
"From the air plant. And that is—"
"There must be more than one," said Burbank thoughtfully.
"There's only one."
"There must be more than one. We couldn't live if there weren't," said the
Director.
"Wishing won't make it so. There is only one."
"I tell you, there must be another. Why, I went into the one up at the axis
day before yesterday and found that instead of a bunch of machinery,
running smoothly, purifying air, and sending it out to the various parts of
the station, all there was was a veritable jungle of weeds. Those weeds,
Mr. Channing, looked as though they must have been put in there years
ago. Now, where did the air-purifying machinery go?"
Channing listened to the latter half of Burbank's speech with his chin at
half-mast. He looked as though a feather would knock him clear across
the office.
"I had some workmen clear the weeds out. I intend to replace the air
machinery as soon as I can get some new material sent from Terra."
Channing managed to blink. It was an effort. "You had workmen toss the
weeds out—" he repeated dully. "The weeds—"
There was silence for a minute, Burbank studied the man in the chair as
though Channing were a piece of statuary. Channing was just as
motionless. "Channing, man, what ails you—" began Burbank. The
sound of Burbank's voice aroused Channing from his shocked condition.
Channing leaped to his feet. He landed on his heels, spun, and snapped at
Arden: "Get on the type. Have 'em slap as many oxy-drums on the fastest
ship as they've got! Get 'em here at full throttle. Tell 'em to load up the
pilot and crew with gravanol and not to spare the horsepower! Scram!"
Arden gasped. She fled from the office.
"Burbank, what did you think an air plant was?" snapped Channing.
"Why, isn't it some sort of purifying machinery?" asked the wondering
Director.
"What better purifying machine is there than a plot of grass?" shouted
Channing. "Weeds, grass, flowers, trees, alfalfa, wheat, or anything that
grows and uses chlorophyll. We breathe oxygen, exhale CO2. Plants
inhale CO2, and exude oxygen. An air plant means just that. It is a
specialized type of Martian sawgrass that is more efficient than anything
else in the system for inhaling dead air and revitalizing it. And you've
tossed the weeds out!" Channing snorted in anger. "We've spent years
getting that plant so that it will grow just right. It got so good that the
CO2 detectors weren't even needed. The balance was so adjusted that
they haven't even been turned on for three or four years. They were just
another source of unnecessary expense. Why, save for a monthly
inspection, that room isn't even opened, so efficient is the Martian
sawgrass. We, Burbank, are losing oxygen!"
The Director grew white. "I didn't know," he said.
"Well, you know now. Get on your horse and do something. At least,
Burbank, stay out of my way while I do something."
"You have a free hand," said Burbank. His voice sounded beaten.
Channing left the office of the Director and headed for the chem lab.
"How much potassium chlorate, nitrate, sulphate, and other oxygen-
bearing compounds have you?" he asked. "That includes mercuric oxide,
spare water, or anything else that will give us oxygen if broken down."
There was a ten-minute wait until the members of the chem lab took a
hurried inventory.
"Good," said Channing. "Start breaking it down. Collect all the oxygen
you can in containers. This is the business! It has priority! Anything, no
matter how valuable, must be scrapped if it can facilitate the gathering of
oxygen. God knows, there isn't by half enough—not even a tenth. But
try, anyway."

Channing headed out of the chemistry laboratory and into the electronics
lab. "Jimmie," he shouted, "get a couple of stone jars and get an
electrolysis outfit running. Fling the hydrogen out of a convenient outlet
into space and collect the oxygen. Water, I mean. Use tap water, right out
of the faucet."
"Yeah, but—"
"Jimmie, if we don't breathe, what chance have we to go on drinking? I'll
tell you when to stop."
"O.K., Doc," said Jimmie.
"And look. As soon as you get that running, set up a CO2 indicator and
let me know the percentage at the end of each hour! Get me?"
"I take it that something has happened to the air plant?"
"It isn't functioning," said Channing shortly. He left the puzzled Jimmie
and headed for the beam-control room. Jimmie continued to wonder
about the air plant. How in the devil could an air plant cease functioning
unless it were—dead! Jimmie stopped wondering and began to operate
on his electrolysis set-up furiously.
Channing found the men in the beam-control room worried and ill at
ease. The fine co-ordination that made them expert in their line was
ebbing. The nervous work demanded perfect motor control, excellent
perception, and a fine power of reasoning. The perceptible lack of
oxygen at this high level was taking its toll already.
"Look, fellows, we're in a mess. Until further notice, take five-minute
shifts. We've got about thirty hours to go. If the going gets tough, drop it
to three-minute shifts. But, fellows, keep those beams centered until you
drop!"
"We'll keep 'em going if we have to call our wives up here to run 'em for
us," said one man. "What's up?"
"Air plant's sour. Losing oxy. Got a shipload coming out from Terra, be
here in thirty hours. But upon you fellows will rest the responsibility of
keeping us in touch with the rest of the system. If you fail, we could call
for help until hell freezes us all in—and no one would hear us!"
"We'll keep 'em rolling," said a little fellow who had to sit on a tall stool
to get even with the controls.

Channing looked out of the big, faceted plexiglass dome that covered the
entire end of the Venus Equilateral Station. "Here messages go in and
out," he mused. "The other end brings us things that take our breath
away."
Channing was referring to the big air lock at the other end of the station,
three miles away, right through the center.
At the center of the dome, there was a sighting 'scope. It kept Polaris on
a marked circle, keeping the station exactly even with the Terrestrial
North. About the periphery of the dome, looking out across space, the
beam-control operators were sitting, each with a hundred-foot parabolic
reflector below his position, outside the dome, and under the rim of the
transparent howl. These reflectors shot the interworld signals across
space in tight beams, and the men, half the time anticipating the vagaries
of space-warp, kept them centered on the proper, shining speck in that
field of stars.
Above his head the stars twinkled. Puny man, setting his will against the
monstrous void. Puny man, dependent upon atmosphere. "'Nature abhors
a vacuum,' said Torricelli," groaned Channing. "Nuts! If nature abhorred
a vacuum, why did she make so much of it?"
Arden Westland entered the apartment without knocking. "I'd give my
right arm up to here for a cigarette," she said, marking above the elbow
with the other hand.
"Na-hah," said Channing. "Can't burn oxygen."
"I know. I'm tired, I'm cold, and I'm ill. Anything you can do for a lady?"
"Not as much as I'd like to do," said Channing. "I can't help much. We've
got most of the place stopped off with the air-tight doors. We've been
electrolyzing water, baking KClO3 and everything else we can get oxy
out of. I've a crew of men trying to absorb the CO2 content and we are
losing. Of course, I've known all along that we couldn't support the
station on the meager supplies we have on hand. But we'll win in the
end. Our microcosmic world is getting a shot in the arm in a few hours
that will re-set the balance."
"I don't see why we didn't prepare for this emergency," said Arden.
"This station is well balanced. There are enough people here and enough
space to make a little world of our own. We can establish a balance that
is pretty darned close to perfect. The imperfections are taken care of by
influxes of supplies from the system. Until Burbank upset the balance,
we could go on forever, utilizing natural purification of air and water. We
grow a few vegetables and have some meat critters to give milk and
steak. The energy to operate Venus Equilateral is supplied from the
uranium pile. Atomic power, if you please. Why should we burden
ourselves with a lot of cubic feet of supplies that would take up room
necessary to maintain our balance? We are not in bad shape. We'll live,
though we'll all be a bunch of tired, irritable people who yawn in one
another's faces."
"And after it is over?"
"We'll establish the balance. Then we'll settle down again. We can take
up where we left off," said Don.
"Not quite. Venus Equilateral has been seared by fire. We'll be tougher
and less tolerant of outsiders. If we were a closed corporation before,
we'll be tighter than a vacuum-packed coffee can afterwards. And the
first bird that cracks us will get hissed at."
Three superliners hove into sight at the end of thirty-one hours. They
circled the station, signaling by helio. They approached the air lock end
of the station and made contact. The air lock was opened and space-
suited figures swarmed over the South End Landing Stage. A stream of
big oxygen tanks was brought into the air lock, admitted, and taken to
the last bulwark of huddled people on the fourth level.
From one of the ships there came a horde of men carrying huge square
trays of dirt and green, growing sawgrass.
For six hours, Venus Equilateral was the scene of wild, furious activity.
The dead air was blown out of bad areas, and the hissing of oxygen tanks
was heard in every room. Gradually the people left the fourth level and
returned to their rightful places. The station rang with laughter once
more, and business, stopped short for want of breath, took a deep lungful
of fresh air and went back to work.
The superliners left. But not without taking a souvenir. Francis Burbank
went with them. His removal notice was on the first ship, and Don
Channing's appointment as Director of Venus Equilateral was on the
second.
Happily he entered the Director's office once more. He carried with him
all the things that he had removed just a few short weeks before. This
time he was coming to stay.
Arden entered the office behind him. "Home again?" she asked.
"Yop," he grinned at her. "Open file B, will you, and break out a
container of my favorite beverage?"
"Sure thing," she said.
There came a shout of glee. "Break out four glasses," she was told from
behind. It was Walt Franks and Joe.
It was Arden that proposed the toast. "Here's to a closed corporation,"
she said. They drank on that.
She went over beside Don and took his arm. "You see?" she said, looking
up into his eyes. "We aren't the same. Things have changed since
Burbank came, and went. Haven't they?"
"They have," laughed Channing. "And now that you are my secretary, it
is no longer proper for you to shine up to me like that. People will talk."
"What's he raving about?" asked Joe.
Channing answered, "It is considered highly improper for a secretary to
make passes at her boss. Think of what people will say; think of his wife
and kids."
"You have neither."
"People?" asked Channing innocently.
"No—you ape—the other."
"Maybe so," nodded Don, "but it is still in bad taste for a secretary—"
"No man can use that tone of voice on me!" stormed Arden with a glint
in her eye. "I resign! You can't call me a secretary!"
"But Arden—darling—"
Arden relaxed into the crook of Channing's arm. She winked at Walt and
Joe. "Me—," she said, "I've been promoted!"

Interlude:

Maintaining Communications through the worst of interference was a

type of problem in which dire necessity demanded a solution. Often there
are other problems of less demanding nature. These are sometimes called
"projects" because they may be desirable but are not born of dire
necessity.
Barring interference, the problem of keeping communication with
another planet across a hundred million miles of interplanetary space is
partially solved by the fact that you can see your target! Keeping the
cross-hairs in a telescope properly centered is a technical job more
arduous than difficult.
But seeing a spacecraft is another problem. Consider the relative sizes of
spacecraft and planet. Where Terra is eight thousand miles in diameter,
the largest of spacecraft is eight hundred feet long. Reduced to a
common denominator and a simple ratio, it reads that the earth is 50,000
times as large as the largest spacecraft. Now go outside and take a look
at Venus. At normal distances, it is a mote in the sky. Yet Venus is only
slightly smaller than the earth. Reduce Venus by fifty thousand times, and
no astronomer would ever suspect its existence.
Then take the invisible mote and place it in a volume of
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic miles and he who found the needle in a
haystack is a piker by comparison.
It could have been lives at stake that drove the job out of the "project"
class and into the "necessity" stage. The fact that it was ebb and flow of
a mundane thing like money may lower the quality of glamor.
But there it was—a problem that cried out for a solution; a man who was
willing to pay for the attempt; and a group of technicians more than
happy to tackle the job.
 CALLING THE EMPRESS
The chart in the terminal building at Canalopsis Spaceport, Mars, was a
huge thing that was the focus of all eyes. It occupied a thirty-by-thirty
space in the center of one wall, and it had a far-flung iron railing about it
to keep the people from crowding it too close, thus shutting off the view.
It was a popular display, for it helped to drive home the fact that space
travel was different from anything else. People were aware that their
lives had been built upon going from one fixed place to another place,
equally immobile. But on interplanet travel, one left a moving planet for
another planet, moving at a different velocity. You found that the shortest
distance was not a straight line but a space curve involving higher
mathematics.
The courses being traveled at the time were marked, and those that
would be traversed in the very near future were drawn upon the chart,
too; all appropriately labeled. At a glance, one could see that in fifty
minutes and seventeen seconds the Empress of Kolain would take off
from Mars, which was the red disk on the right, and she would travel
along the curve so marked to Venus, which was almost one hundred and
sixty degrees clockwise around the Sun. People were glad of the chance
to go on this trip because the Venus Equilateral Relay Station would
come within a telescope's sight on the way.
The Empress of Kolain would slide into Venus on the day side; and a few
hours later she would lift again to head for Terra, a few degrees ahead of
Venus and about thirty million miles away.
Precisely on the zero-zero, the Empress of Kolain lifted upward on four
tenuous pillars of dull-red glow and drove a hole in the sky. The glow
was almost lost in the bright sunshine, and soon it died. The Empress of
Kolain became a little world in itself, and would so remain until it
dropped onto the ground at Venus, almost two hundred million miles
away.
Driving upward, the Empress of Kolain could not have been out of the
thin Martian atmosphere when a warning bell rang in the telephone and
telespace office at the terminal. The bell caught official ears, and all
work was stopped as the personnel of the communications office ran to
the machine to see what was so important that the "immediate attention"
signal was rung.
Impatiently the operator waited for the tape to come clicking from the
machine. It came, letter by letter, click by click, at fifty words per
minute. The operator tore the strip from the machine and read aloud:
"Hold Empress of Kolain. Reroute to Terra direct. Will be quarantined at
Venus. Whole planet in epidemic of Venusian Fever."
"Snap answer," growled the clerk. "Tell 'em: 'Too little and too late.
Empress of Kolain left thirty seconds before warning bell. What do we
do now?'"
The operator's fingers clicked madly over the keyboard. Across space
went the signal, across the void to the Relay Station. It ran through the
Station's mechanism and went darting to Terra. It clicked out as sent in
the offices of Interplanet Transport. A vice president read the message
and swore roundly. He swore in three Terran languages, in the language
of the Venusians, and even managed to visualize a few choice remarks
from the Martian Pictographs that were engraved on the Temples of
Canalopsis.
"Miss Deane," he yelled at the top of his voice. "Take a message! Shoot a
line to Channing on Venus Equilateral. Tell him: 'Empress of Kolain on
way to Venus. Must be contacted and rerouted to Terra direct. Million
dollars' worth of Martian Line Moss aboard; will perish under
quarantine. Spare no expense.' Sign that 'Keg Johnson, Interplanet.'"
"Yes, Mr. Johnson," said the secretary. "Right away."
More minutes of light-fast communication. Out of Terra to Luna, across
space to Venus Equilateral. The machines clicked and tape cleared away
from the slot. It was pasted neatly on a sheet of official paper, stamped
rush, and put in a pneumatic tube.

As Don Channing began to read the message, Williams on Mars was

chewing worriedly on his fourth fingernail, and Vice President Keg
Johnson was working on his second. But Williams had a head start and
therefore would finish first. Both men knew that nothing more could be
done. If Channing couldn't do it, nobody could.
Channing finished the 'gram and swore. It was a good-natured swear-
word, far from downright vilification, though it did consign certain items
to the nether regions. He punched a button with some relish, and a rather
good-looking woman entered. She smiled at him with more intimacy
than a secretary should, and sat down.
"Arden, call Walt, will you?"
Arden Westland smiled. "You might have done that yourself," she told
him. She reached for the call button with her left hand, and the diamond
on her finger glinted like a pilot light.
"I know it," he answered, "but that wouldn't give me the chance to see
you."
"Baloney," said Arden. "You just wait until next October. I'll be in your
hair all the time then."
"By then I may be tired of you," said Channing with a smile. "But until
then, take it or leave it." His face grew serious, and he tossed the
message across the table to her. "What do you think of that?"
Arden read, and then remarked: "That's a huge order, Don. Think you
can do it?"
"It'll cost plenty. I don't know whether we can contact a ship in space. It
hasn't been done to date, you know, except for short distances."
The door opened without a knock and Walt Franks walked in. "Billing
and cooing?" he asked. "Why do you two need an audience?"
"We don't," answered Don. "This was business."
"For want of evidence, I'll believe that. What's the dope?"
"Walt, what are the chances of hooking up with the Empress of Kolain,
which is en route from Mars to Venus?"
"About equal to a snowball—you know where," said Franks looking
slyly at Arden.
"Take off your coat, Walt. We've got a job."
"You mean—Hey! Remind me to quit Saturday."
"This is dead in earnest, Walt." Don told the engineer all he knew.
"Boy, this is a job I wouldn't want my life to depend on. In the first place,
we can't beam a transmitter at them if we can't see 'em. And in the
second place, if we did, they couldn't receive us."
"We can get a good idea of where they are and how they're going," said
Channing. "That is common knowledge."
"Astronomy is an exact science," chanted Franks. "But by the time we
figure out just where the Empress of Kolain is with respect to us at any
given instant we'll all be old men with gray beards. She's crossing toward
us on a skew curve—and we'll have to beam it past Sol. It won't be easy,
Don. And then if we do find them, what do we do about it?"
"Let's find them first and then work out a means of contacting them
afterwards."
"Don," interrupted Arden, "what's so difficult?"
Franks fell backward into a chair. Don turned to the girl and asked: "Are
you kidding?"
"No. I'm just ignorant. What is so hard about it? We shoot beams across
a couple of hundred million miles of space like nothing and maintain
communications at any cost. What should be so hard about contacting a
ship?"
"In the first place, we can see a planet, and they can see us, so they can
hold their beams. A spaceship might be able to see us, but they couldn't
hold a beam on us because of the side sway. We couldn't see them until
they are right upon us and so we could not hope to hold a beam on them.
Spaceships might broadcast, but you have no idea what the square law of
radiated power will do to a broadcast signal when millions upon millions
of miles are counted in. A half million watts on any planet will not quite
cover the planet as a service area on broadcast frequencies. But there's a
lot of difference between covering a few stinking miles of planet and a
volume the size of the Inner Solar System. So they don't try it. A
spaceship may as well be on Rigel as far as contacting her in space goes.
"We might beam a wide-dispersion affair at them," continued Channing.
"But it would be pretty thin by the time it got there. And, having no
equipment, they couldn't hear us."
"May we amend that?" asked Franks. "They are equipped with radio. But
the things are used only in landing operations where the distance is
measured in miles, not Astronomical Units."
"O.K.," smiled Channing. "It's turned off during flight and we may
consider the equipment as being non-existent."
"And, according to the chart, we've got to contact them before the
turnabout," offered Arden. "They must have time to deflect their course
to Terra."
"You think of the nicest complications," said Channing. "I was just about
to hope that we could flash them, or grab at 'em with a skeeter. But we
can't wait until they pass us."
"That will be the last hope," admitted Franks. "But say! Did any bright
soul think of shooting a fast ship after them from Canalopsis?"
"Sure. The answer is the same as Simple Simon's answer to the Pieman:
'Alas, they haven't any!'"
"No use asking why," growled Franks. "O.K., Don, we'll after 'em. I'll
have the crew set up a couple of mass detectors at either end of the
station. We'll triangulate, and calculate, and hope to hit the right
correction factor. We'll find them and keep them in line. You figure out a
means of contacting them, huh?"
"I'll set up the detectors and you find the means," suggested Don.
"No go. You're the director of communications."
Don sighed a false sigh. "Arden, hand me my electronics text," he said.
"And shall I wipe your fevered brow?" cooed Arden.
"Leave him alone," directed Franks. "You distract him."
"It seems to me that you two are taking this rather lightly," said Arden.
"What do you want us to do? Get down on the floor and chew the rug?
You know us better than that. If we can find the answer to contacting a
spaceship in flight, we'll add another flower to our flag. But we can't do
it by clawing through the first edition of Henney's 'Handbook of Radio
Engineering.' It will be done by the seat of our pants, if at all; a pair of
side-cutters, and a spool of wire, a hunk of string and a lump of solder, a
—"
"A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair?" asked Franks.
"Leave Kipling out of this. He didn't have to cover the entire Solar
System. Let's get cooking."
Don and Walt left the office just a trifle on the fast side. Arden looked
after them, out through the open door, shaking her head until she
remembered something that she could do. She smiled and went to her
typewriter, and pounded out a message back to Keg Johnson at
Interplanet. It read:
"CHANNING AND FRANKS AT WORK ON
CONTACTING THE EMPRESS OF KOLAIN. WILL DO
OUR BEST.
VENUS EQUILATERAL."

Unknowing of the storm, the Empress of Kolain sped silently through the
void, accelerating constantly at one G. Hour after hour she was adding to
her velocity, building it up to a speed that would make the trip in days,
and not weeks. Her drivers flared dull red no more, for there was no
atmosphere for the ionic stream to excite. Her few portholes sparkled
with light, but they were nothing in comparison to the starry curtain of
the background.
Her hull was of a neutral color, and though the sun glanced from her
metal flanks, a reflection from a convex side is not productive of a beam
of light. It spreads according to the degree of convexity and is lost.
What constitutes an apparent absence? The answer to that question is the
example of a ship in space flight. The Empress of Kolain did not radiate
anything detectable in the electromagnetic scale from ultralong waves to
ultra-high frequencies; nothing at all that could be detected at any
distance beyond a few thousand miles. The sweep of her meteor-spotting
equipment would pass a spot in micro-micro-seconds at a hundred miles;
at the distance from Venus Equilateral the sweep of the beam would be
so fleeting that the best equipment ever known or made would have no
time to react, thus missing the signal.
Theorists claim a thing unexistent if it cannot be detected. The Empress
of Kolain was invisible. It was undetectable to radio waves. It was in
space, so no physical wave could be transmitted to be depicted as sound.
Its mass was inconsiderable. Its size as cosmic sizes go was
comparatively sub-microscopic, and therefore it would occult few, if any,
stars. Therefore, to all intents and purposes, the Empress of Kolain was
non-existent, and would remain in that state of material-non-being until
it came to life again upon its landing at Venus.
Yet the Empress of Kolain existed in the minds of the men who were to
find her. Like the shot unseen, fired from a distant cannon, the Empress
of Kolain was coming at them with ever-mounting velocity, its unseen
course a theoretical curve.
And the ship, like the projectile, would land if the men who knew of her
failed in their purpose.

Don Channing and Walt Franks found their man in the combined dining
room and bar—the only one in sixty million miles. They surrounded
him, ordered a sandwich and beer, and began to tell him their troubles.
Charles Thomas listened for about three minutes. "Boy," he grinned,
"being up in that shiny, plush-lined office has sure done plenty to your
think-tank, Don."
Channing stopped talking. "Proceed," he said. "In what way has my
perspective been warped?"
"You talk like Burbank," said Thomas, mentioning a sore spot of some
months past. "You think a mass detector would work at this distance?
Nuts, fellow. It might, if there were nothing else in the place to interfere.
But you want to shoot out near Mars. Mars is on the other side of the Sun
—and Evening Star to anyone on Terra. You want us to shoot a slap-
happy beam like a mass detector out past Sol; and then a hundred and
forty million miles beyond in the faint hope that you can triangulate upon
a little mite of matter; a stinking six hundred-odd feet of aluminum hull
mostly filled with air and some machinery and so on. Brother, what do
you think all the rest of the planets will do to your piddling little beam?
Retract, or perhaps abrogate the law of universal gravitation?"
"Crushed," said Franks with a sorry attempt at a smile.
"Phew!" agreed Channing. "Maybe I should know more about mass
detectors."
"Forget it," said Thomas. "The only thing that mass detectors are any
good for is to conjure up beautiful bubble dreams, which anyone who
knows about 'em can break with the cold point of icy logic."
"What would you do?" asked Channing.
"Darned if I know. We might flash 'em with a big mirror—if we had a
big mirror and they weren't heading into the Sun."
"Let's see," said Franks, making tabulations on the tablecloth. "They're a
couple of hundred million miles away. In order that your mirror present a
recognizable disk, it should be about twice the diameter of Venus as seen
from Terra. That's eight thousand miles in—at the least visibility—say,
eighty million or a thousand-to-one ratio. The Empress of Kolain is
heading at us from some two hundred million miles, so at a thousand-to-
one ratio our mirror would have to be twenty thousand miles across.
Some mirror!"
Don tipped Walt's beer over the edge of the table, and while the other
man was busy mopping up and muttering unprintables, Don said to
Thomas: "This is serious and it isn't. Nobody's going to lose their skin if
we don't, but a problem has been put to us and we're going to crack it if
we have to skin our teeth to do it."
"You can't calculate their position?"
"Sure. Within a couple of hundred thousand miles we can. That isn't
close enough."
"No, it isn't," agreed Chuck.
Silence fell for a moment. It was broken by Arden, who came in waving
a telegram. She sat down and appropriated Channing's glass, which had
not been touched. Don opened the sheet and read: "Have received
confirmation of your effort. I repeat, spare no expense!" It was signed:
"Keg Johnson, Interplanet."
"Does that letter offer mean anything to you?" asked Arden.
"Sure," agreed Don. "But at the same time we're stumped. Should we be
doing anything?"
"Anything, I should think, would be better than what you're doing at
present. Or does that dinner-and-beer come under 'expenses'?"
Arden stood up, tossed Channing's napkin at him, and started toward the
door. Channing watched her go, his hand making motions on the
tablecloth. His eyes fell to the table and he took Franks' pencil and drew
a long curve from a spot of gravy on one side of the table to a touch of
coffee stain on the other. The curve went through a bit of grape jelly near
the first stain.