THE MESSAGE SLOWLY scrawled its way onto paper. A word appeared, another, another. Then:
“Ten point twenty-five!” said Mallory. “Followed by 69.87! What the hell are they?”
Bud said, “Maybe he made a mistake? Boron’s 10.82. Lithium’s 6.94—”
“No. That’s not it,” said Mallory. He frowned. Captain Algase had long since wakened completely, was listening to his two juniors with glowing pride. Now he cut the Gordian knot.
“Chromium,” he suggested, “is fifty-two point one, Dan. The reverse of the number that stumps you.”
“Right! That’s it, Skipper! And the meaning must be that the symbol is to be written in reverse. ‘Rc’ instead of ‘Cr.’ There aren’t enough combinations to spell every word in the language unless you use some subterfuges like that.”
“Which makes the word,” said Bud, “‘forces
