Read "Operation Interstellar" by George O. Smith online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
For four solid months, Al Donatti tried to reply by Z-wave and failed. This was because Grayson was busy following the radio beacon between Latham Alpha and the next Galactic Survey station along the network. Because of daily contact and a certain amount of quavering faith, no one dared to retune the Z-wave dials.
Paul and Nora followed the beacon in almost to the station. Then, because Paul did not know that he had already established contact across a myriad of relay connections all the way back to Neoterra, he waited in space until he could pick up the beacon beyond the next link.