Page:Astounding Science Fiction (1950-01).djvu/6



If time slowed down to a standstill, the world wouldn’t come to an end with a roar—rather, perhaps with a whimper...

For a week the team of Stoddard and Arnold had met with nothing but trouble in their solar infrared exploration program. First the lead sulfide photo-conductive cell had refused to function. Next an electrical storm—practically unknown in September—had put a crimp in the power line to the mountain observatory. And now for some wholly inexplicable reason the automatic recorder stubbornly refused to register a single quantum of radiation beyond 20,000 A.

"Here's the end of the atmospheric carbon dioxide band at sixteen thousand," said Arnold, indicating a point on their last record sheet. "You can see everything's all right out to there. But beyond twenty thousand we aren't getting a thing."

Stoddard grunted, "That's what comes of our big economy drive. Trying to cut expenses by buying from the dime store." He walked over to the spectrometer and regarded it gloomily. It was the product of his own mind, an impressive series of slits and parabolic mirrors fed by a beam of sunlight from the top of the tower. When the optical setup was in perfect adjustment the apparatus would bring just the desired band of infrared radiation onto the sensitive surface of the photoconductive cell. But obviously all was not in perfect adjustment.

"Maybe it's in the amplifier this time," Arnold suggested hopefully.

"Well, that's the only part of this contraption that hasn't balked on us so far," said Stoddard. "Suppose you look it over while I check the cell again."

For the next hour the astronomers probed the interior of the spectrometer as intently as two surgeons performing an exploratory laparotomy, 6