They'd been hammering away at this nightmare problem for days, sleeping a minimal amount and going out for meals in greasy fast-food franchises. Hell, he hadn't even got down to the beach to do any jogging. And Penny–Christ, he'd hardly caught a glimpse of her. She'd said something abrupt and feisty to him last night, just before he fell asleep and it hadn't registered with him until he was getting dressed, alone, this morning. So there was some patching up to do there, when he got home. If he ever got home, he added, because he was damned if he'd give up on this puzzle until...
"Hey, try this," Cooper said, jarring Gordon out of his musing. "Suppose we're seeing a time-varying input here, the way you said it was, you know, days ago when we started searching for outside noise sources. Our transcribing pen is moving at a constant rate across the paper, right?"
Gordon nodded. "So these spikes here are spaced about a centimeter apart, and then two spaced half a centimeter. Then a one centimeter interval, three half-centimeters, and so on."
Gordon suddenly saw what he was driving at, but he let Coop finish.
"That's the way the signal came in, spaced out in time. Not frequency, time."
Gordon nodded. It was obvious, now that he stared at the wiggles and peaks of the recording pens. "Something coming in bursts, all across the frequency spectrum we're studying." He pursed his lips. "Bursts with long intervals between them, then some with shorter intervals."
"Right." Cooper nodded enthusiastically. "That's it."
"Short ones, long ones... Short, long, short, short. Like ..."
"Like a goddamned code," Cooper finished.
Cooper wiped at his mouth and stared at the x-y recordings.
"Do you know Morse code?" Gordon asked him quietly. "I don't."
"Well, yeah. I did when I was a kid, anyway."
"Let's lay out these sheets, in the order I took the data." Gordon stood up with renewed energy. He picked the broken pencil off the floor and inserted it in a pencil sharpener and started turning the handle. It made a raw, grinding noise.
When Isaac Lakin came into the nuclear resonance laboratory anyone, even a casual visitor, could tell it was his. Of course, the National Science Foundation paid for essentially all of it, except the war surplus electronics gear acquired from the Navy, and the University of California owned the immense pancake magnets under a Grantor's Assignment, but in any useful sense of the term the laboratory belonged to Isaac Lakin. He had established his reputation at MIT in a decade of sound work, research occasionally flecked by the sparkle of real brilliance. From there he had gone to General Electric and Bell Labs, each step taking him higher. When the University of California began building a new campus around the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Lakin became one of their first "finds."
He had the contacts in Washington and brought a big chunk of money with him, money that translated into gear and lab space and slots for junior faculty. Gordon had been one of the first to fill those slots, but from the beginning he and Lakin had failed to hit it off. When Lakin came into Gordon's lab he usually found something out of place, a snarl of wires that almost tripped him, a dewar poorly secured, something that soured his mood.
Lakin nodded to Cooper and murmured a hello to Gordon, his eyes scanning the lab. Gordon quickly led Lakin through a summary of their process of elimination. Lakin nodded, smiling faintly, as Cooper then detailed the weeks he had spent checking and rechecking the rig. As Cooper went on Lakin drifted away, thumbing a knob here, studying a circuit there.
"These leads are reversed," he declared, holding up wiring with alligator clips attached.
"That unit we aren't using anyway," Gordon replied mildly. Lakin studied Cooper's circuitry, made a remark about assembling it better, and moved on. Cooper's voice followed him around the large laboratory bay. To Cooper, describing an experiment was like
"Hey, try this," Cooper said, jarring Gordon out of his musing. "Suppose we're seeing a time-varying input here, the way you said it was, you know, days ago when we started searching for outside noise sources. Our transcribing pen is moving at a constant rate across the paper, right?"
Gordon nodded. "So these spikes here are spaced about a centimeter apart, and then two spaced half a centimeter. Then a one centimeter interval, three half-centimeters, and so on."
Gordon suddenly saw what he was driving at, but he let Coop finish.
"That's the way the signal came in, spaced out in time. Not frequency, time."
Gordon nodded. It was obvious, now that he stared at the wiggles and peaks of the recording pens. "Something coming in bursts, all across the frequency spectrum we're studying." He pursed his lips. "Bursts with long intervals between them, then some with shorter intervals."
"Right." Cooper nodded enthusiastically. "That's it."
"Short ones, long ones... Short, long, short, short. Like ..."
"Like a goddamned code," Cooper finished.
Cooper wiped at his mouth and stared at the x-y recordings.
"Do you know Morse code?" Gordon asked him quietly. "I don't."
"Well, yeah. I did when I was a kid, anyway."
"Let's lay out these sheets, in the order I took the data." Gordon stood up with renewed energy. He picked the broken pencil off the floor and inserted it in a pencil sharpener and started turning the handle. It made a raw, grinding noise.
When Isaac Lakin came into the nuclear resonance laboratory anyone, even a casual visitor, could tell it was his. Of course, the National Science Foundation paid for essentially all of it, except the war surplus electronics gear acquired from the Navy, and the University of California owned the immense pancake magnets under a Grantor's Assignment, but in any useful sense of the term the laboratory belonged to Isaac Lakin. He had established his reputation at MIT in a decade of sound work, research occasionally flecked by the sparkle of real brilliance. From there he had gone to General Electric and Bell Labs, each step taking him higher. When the University of California began building a new campus around the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Lakin became one of their first "finds."
He had the contacts in Washington and brought a big chunk of money with him, money that translated into gear and lab space and slots for junior faculty. Gordon had been one of the first to fill those slots, but from the beginning he and Lakin had failed to hit it off. When Lakin came into Gordon's lab he usually found something out of place, a snarl of wires that almost tripped him, a dewar poorly secured, something that soured his mood.
Lakin nodded to Cooper and murmured a hello to Gordon, his eyes scanning the lab. Gordon quickly led Lakin through a summary of their process of elimination. Lakin nodded, smiling faintly, as Cooper then detailed the weeks he had spent checking and rechecking the rig. As Cooper went on Lakin drifted away, thumbing a knob here, studying a circuit there.
"These leads are reversed," he declared, holding up wiring with alligator clips attached.
"That unit we aren't using anyway," Gordon replied mildly. Lakin studied Cooper's circuitry, made a remark about assembling it better, and moved on. Cooper's voice followed him around the large laboratory bay. To Cooper, describing an experiment was like
Similar Books
![Blake, Abby - Keen Inclination [A Bride for Eight Brothers 4] (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever)](https://fs.dianahicksbooks.com/546081/thumbs/152x264/blake-abby-keen-inclination-a-bride-for-eight-brothers-4-siren-publishing-lovextreme-forever.jpg)
