The Spectrology Expert had also noticed the subtle addition and he rose quietly and began a rapid test of the control board. He switched from micro-sfellar wave to solarwave, and the hissing died, and the screen cleared to a transparent blue, on which showed a formation of speeding red dots. Ordinary static crackled, as he tuned the solar band; but immediately he returned to the micro-stellar wave, the screen was obscured by its earlier glowing confusion, and the myriad tongues of the galaxies flooded in. The new note persisted. It seemed, if anything, to have gained in isolating itself from the surrounding medley of star chord and discord.
"I can't find anything wrong with it," Jaguers said, in response to Professor Grant's raised eyebrows. "Definitely, I'd say, sir, the interference is not a mechanical fault. Just a minute, though . . ."
He touched the Odor Switch, and the air of the cupola was faintly impregnated with the indefinable scents of the Universe—the perfume of incredibly distant Elysian Fields; the sharp, acrid flavours of laboring creative tissues; the reek of cosmic chemicals, and the warmth and balminess of life budding under far-off suns. They were familiar with such cosmic blendings—on the whole, pleasant and exciting. But every man now recognized a slight and sinister taint.
Jaguers shrugged and turned the switch off.
He said, as he took his place at the granite desk: "It's not in the machine, whatever it is, sir. All the same. I'll make a check-up later. That new smell . . ."
"Stink," the Ace Commander said. "Maybe a dead planet some place."
He grinned.
Professor Graut said soberly: "I don't like it. Jaguers, make the check as soon as you can. No, leave the screen alive. That new sound may link with the odor. Well, now . . . time's getting on. First, I'd like to run over the position of D.S.S. Challenge Queen, now cruising off Jupiter VIII. Follow me on the chart here . . .
"Right. Jupiter VIII, I don't need to remind you, is the eighth satellite of the Planet Jupiter. Now, the peculiar thing about this satellite—the problem with which the Challenge Queen expedition is in fact, primarily concerned—is that whereas the seven inner satellites revolve around the parent planet in the same direction as it rotates on its axis, the eighth—Jupiter VIII—has a retrograde motion; it goes round the other way. Its average distance from Jupiter—I'm sorry to inflict this elemental stuff on you, gentlemen, but it is necessary we should bold all our data clearly in mind—is some fourteen and a half million miles, and it revolves in a little over two years. Jupiter VIII was, of course, discovered by Melotte in 1908."
Dr. Walstab was only half listening. This was, as he had bluntly
