The engineers monitoring the transmission were following the Convention on another channel.
Oster clutched his script convulsively and read on. Sweat rolled down the gulleys of his flat, broken nose, down to his cracked lips and stubbled chin. Breathing hoarsely, he finished his speech and lay back exhausted as the indifferent engineers switched to the next programme.
He had ceased recording. A chance observation had disclosed that the ipvic technicians were speeding up the tape slightly, turning his angry words into the squeaks of a mechanical gnome and his gestures into the twitches of a puppet.
He got to his feet and snatched up the dispatches from the newsmachines that had come in during his speech. He scanned them and then headed at a shambling gait for the sound-proof ipvic booth. A few moments later he was facing Leon Cartwright on a closed-circuit connection.
"This is late to call you," he said, "but I———"
"Wait!" Cartwright cut him off. His face was pale and drawn; dark circles were round his eyes. "I don't trust these ipvic lines. I'm having Tate—President of IPVIC— investigated. He may be tied with Verrick in some way."
"Ipvic is a monopoly. If you don't use its lines you can't get your signal relayed to the ship." Oster ran his heavy hands along the so-called 'guarantee' meters; they alleged that the signal was not being tapped at any point. "And you have to keep in contact with the ship."
"I'm waiting as long as possible." Cartwright saw the wad of newstapes in Oster's fist. "What have you to tell me? I know you get first crack at the reports."
"Just one thing. It came over a few seconds ago; soon it'll be screeched from the public machines."