unscramble a television signal even when you know all about the transmitter. If there's a transmitter sending this, I don't know any of its constants." Over Tommy's head he said to Professor Wardle, "The possible combinations run ten to the ninth."

Professor Wardle nodded.

"Lines per inch, size of screen, images per second, possible colors." He grunted. "Then the scanning pattern and possible three dimensions and so on. You've got several billion possible variations, all right!"

"Unscramble it, Dad!" said Tommy eagerly. "Please! I want to see what the people look like who're sending it! Do you think we can lick them if they get tough?"

"I'm telling you," his father explained, "that I can try several billion ways to unscramble this supposed signal. Even if it can be done, only one of them will be right. It's going to take time."

"But, Dad, please try!"

Tommy was filled with infinite excitement. Which, of course, was not only necessary if the comic books were to be made to come true, but was wholly normal small boy.

Here was an interstellar signal! He had heard it! Tune the set right and he would see—maybe something like the giraffe-men who almost killed Captain McGee on the Planet of Sand! Or the frog men the Star Rover had to fight when a crippled space liner was forced to descend on the watery planet Alith!

"I've got to figure out a way to unscramble it, Tommy," his father said. "I've got to calculate the settings that are most likely to show some change on the screen. It's rather like breaking a code. It will take a couple of weeks to compute a series of settings to try one after the other."

Tommy was unconvinced. He argued. Space Captain McGee's friend Doc Blandy would simply have whipped out his trusty slide rule and made the computations in seconds. He would push the slide back and forth, set the television controls according to his computations, and say, "On the beam, McGee!" And Space Captain McGee would gaze into the television screen and see the worm monsters of Blathok about to chloroform Jenny—Captain McGee's girl friend—to transfer the brain of a worm-monster into her skull. Her body would thereafter house an inveterate enemy to the human race, with specific plans for annihilating it.

Tommy argued. Impassionedly. In the end his father had to resort to authority to stop 

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