Read "Lie on the Beam" by John Victor Peterson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Slowly Silvy Ward rotated the flat, indexed dial of the goniometer. Eighty-nine degrees gone. One more degree. The destroyer should be at the south of the field now, coming in unknowingly over the blacked-out metropolis. Soon he should hear the thunder of its rockets. Were his computations wrong? Did the destroyer have improved compasses and other directional finding instruments which it was using instead of relying on the beam? If not, why did he not hear it coming out of --
A chill swept over him. What was that far, thin thunder throbbing across the night? The destroyer! And that other, higher pitched roar? The Patrol had said that there were two unlisted ships coming in! Who was in that other ship? If he could only warn them without the destroyer catching the signal! But, dear God, he couldn't!