Others Are Catching Up Too

"Tap, tap... tap..."

The receiver started automatically. A paper roll fed through, and when it came out, black marks had been burned into it by sparks.

Half an hour later, the decoded telegram was delivered to Frederick.

Psyche said, sounding a little bored, "It's actually in plain text. I thought cracking a cipher might give me something fun to do."

Frederick poured Psyche a cup of tea, took the telegram, and read it carefully.

"It's a mass message." Frederick pursed his lips. "It says Buksa was arrested for poisoning the wheat."

He put down the telegram and asked, "What do you plan to do?"

After taking a sip of tea, Psyche said, "We've finished cracking this telegraph machine's signal system. We identified the signal range from the transmission's characteristics and monitored the message reporting Buksa's arrest."

"What happens next is up to you."

Frederick nodded and began to think.

The intelligence department had collected reports that people in several countries were developing things like air guns and steam engines. Some had made a degree of progress, but this was the first time a radio had turned up.

Then again, it wasn't surprising. The telegraph had been around for years, and so many had been sold that someone was bound to copy one.

This model from the Piaster Kingdom was based on the ship radios widely sold by the Duchy of Weissen. It had several modifications, but the workmanship was poor, so the result was an inferior version.

Quite a few wealthy hobbyists bought ship radios to tinker with. If Frederick hadn't known the design of the core components and spotted the problem, he would most likely have assumed this one was simply a modified model.

The fact that spies were already equipped with radios suggested the country had quite a