The Project Gutenberg eBook ofRedevelopmentThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: RedevelopmentAuthor: George O. SmithIllustrator: A. WilliamsRelease date: June 16, 2022 [eBook #68329]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: Street & Smith Publications, Incorporated, 1955Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REDEVELOPMENT ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: RedevelopmentAuthor: George O. SmithIllustrator: A. WilliamsRelease date: June 16, 2022 [eBook #68329]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: Street & Smith Publications, Incorporated, 1955Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
Title: Redevelopment
Author: George O. SmithIllustrator: A. Williams
Author: George O. Smith
Illustrator: A. Williams
Release date: June 16, 2022 [eBook #68329]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Original publication: United States: Street & Smith Publications, Incorporated, 1955
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REDEVELOPMENT ***
RedevelopmentBy WESLEY LONGIllustrated by Williams[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromAstounding Science-Fiction, November 1944.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Illustrated by Williams
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromAstounding Science-Fiction, November 1944.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
John McBride hung the phone on the hook and wiped his face. This face-wiping was not the usual gesture of a man whose face is dirty, or covered with perspiration. It was the dazed sort of gesture made by a man who has just been subjected to a surprise, and since the wiping tended to remove the awed look, replacing it with a slightly dazed smile, the surprise must not have been too unpleasant.
He shook his head, as though to clear it, and then made his way through Station 1 of the Plutonian Lens to the landing platform. Just inside the gigantic lock, a medium-sized space-ship stood, and sitting on the edge of the space lock, swinging her feet, was Sandra Drake.
"Hello," she said brightly.
"Hi," said John. This was entirely new. Sandra Drake was not usually given to greeting men as anything but absolute imbeciles. "What brings you out here? And how did you make it?"
"Oh," said Sandra lightly, "I remembered the charge on Station 1 and brought along a charge-compensator. We hardly sparked when we lit."
One of the attendants said, in a low aside: "About three hundred amperes! She'd call a major explosion a snap of the fingers! You could hide an egg in the crater she made."
But Sandra was still talking. "John," she said in a voice that would have caused Shylock to give her his last gold piece, "I want help."
"You need help? What can we do for you?"
"It's pretty big," warned Sandra. Her low contralto dared him to ask what it was—and also dared him to deny it to her.
"Look, Drake, you did us a favor not too long ago. I think we owe you one."
Sandra smiled uncertainly. "I was afraid that that little stunt was only repaying you for the first meeting we had."
"Shucks," said McBride. "Anyone can make a mistake. Forget it."
"But being pilot for you on theHaywire Queendid me a lot of good, too, you know. I got my license back for that one. We both gained."
"I know. I'm glad we did. But what can you possibly want that is so big that you're afraid to ask?"
"Well, and maybe it isn't too big, either. Steve is a friend of both of us, isn't he? I'd do anything for Steve—and wouldn't you?"
"Yes. If any favors are owing, I think it is both of us to him."
"That's what I'm getting at. I need help—for Steve."
"You sure go a long way around to get it," grinned McBride. "Why didn't you tell me that first instead of warning me about a favor?"
"It's pretty big. But look, John, Steve took theHaywire Queenon a run to Sirius more than six weeks ago. He took along enough stuff to stay a week; he said he'd be back after one hundred and seventy hours of stay at, on, or near Sirius. This was just a trial hop to try the new drive you cooked up and a longer, better equipped expedition would be made later."
"He did say something about it the last I saw him. He said he wasn't particularly interested in exploring a new system. He'd leave that for the explorers. He was interested in the drive and so on, and after he'd paved the way for getting to the stars and had proven his drive, he'd turn it over to those interested in colonization. But six weeks ago, you say? Gosh, that's a long overstay, isn't it?"
"It is. I happen to know he didn't take more supplies than he needed. So I'm worried about him."
"And where do I come in? You want me to go and help you look for him?"
Sandra smiled wanly. "Hardly. I'm sure Enid would enjoy that, too. No, John, what I want is for you to hook up the stuff I've got in theLady Luckto make me one of those drives you invented so that I can go myself."
"You're taking a chance, you know."
"That's where the favor part comes in. I want to go and look for Steve Hammond. I need your drive. And if you don't help me, I'll go out in space and tinker with the junk until I get it. I was there when you cooked it up, remember, and I have a good memory for details."
"But it's dangerous."
"Is it? 'Might be dangerous' is what you mean. And I've been taking harebrained chances for a long time, now. Do I or don't I?"
McBride thought for a long time. "You get it," he said at last. "On one condition. That you return in not less than one month. If you do not, I'm going to take it upon myself to follow. So no matter what you find, get back. Is that a promise?"
"It is."
"O.K., Sandra." McBride went to the wall of the big lock and spoke over the communicator. "Tommy! Get Al and Westy and tell 'em to bring their tools to the landing lock. We're going to juggle a few generators around."
To Sandra, he said: "I hope you've got plenty of what it takes."
"I have," she said, sensing his meaning. "Matter of fact, I've got the latest thing in alphatrons—two of 'em. And all the E-grav generators we'll need are all tacked into what I think are the right places to make this crate into a super-speed job. There are spares for all three fields, and a couple of spare cupralum bars, too. Even part of the wiring is done. I got just so far and then realized that I don't know too much about gravitics. That's when I decided to come here for help."
"Good thing," said McBride. "You might have killed yourself."
Sandra didn't answer, and at that moment, McBride's men came with their tools. Wordlessly, they nodded to Sandra and then followed McBride into theLady Luck.
McBride wasted no time. "Al," he said, "you fit the mag-G for vertical bi-lobar field to cover the nose of the crate with the top lobe, and Westy, you see that the mech-G generator in the nose induces the proper vectors in the cupralum bar. I'll get Hank and Jim to touch up the wiring and safety devices. We'll have this crate back in space within the hour!"
"Working a little fast, aren't you?" asked Sandra.
"No. I don't think so. You've got most of the main stuff in place. It's merely a matter of running the alphatron lines correctly—remember, Sandra, alphons are not electrons and even low-alphon lines require smooth, round bends, otherwise they squirt off in a crackling alphonic discharge that will eat the side out of a steel tank. You've done most of the heavy work. It just requires touching up here and there: getting the proper field-intensity out of the gravitic generators and adjusting the output of the alphatrons. Then there is some tricky relay work with the safety circuits: it wouldn't improve your beauty to suddenly find yourself sitting in the pilot's chair at seven thousand gravities."
Sandra shuddered.
"Oh, and look, since you've got the compensator. You'll find a static-charge meter handy, perhaps. If there are planets around Sirius, who knows what their intrinsic charge is. We'll loan you one so that you can make planet without making a corona at the same time. Rarefied air makes pretty lights when it comes under a few trillion volts—and being a cathode is no worse than being an anode when your voltage is running up into a bushel of zeroes—either is equally disconcerting. How do you intend to spot any planets?"
"I've got a pair of hemisphere lenses. I'll sail through the Sirian sky at about forty thousand miles per second and expose for ten minutes. The stars will still appear as spots, but anything close enough to be planet-wise will make streaks unless it is dead ahead.
"In which case you'll see it personally," grinned McBride. "That's the best stunt I've heard of yet to find planets."
"It isn't new. They used it to see if there were any planets outside of Pluto several years ago, though they exposed for several hours while running at ten or fifteen thousand. Steve has a pair of hemis with him, too."
Al came trudging in with a roll of alphon cable over his shoulder and dropped it on the floor. "She's in—my end, anyway."
"Running already?"
"On test power. Drake had the bi-lobar field almost on the ball. Westy found about the same thing. I think another couple of days and Drake wouldn't have needed help."
"I couldn't make it work," complained Sandra.
"Well, you missed a few minor points," said Al. "Never, never run alphon lines anywhere near a relay rack. It induces crosscurrents in the windings and either makes 'em more sensitive or almost dead, depending on the polarity. It won't hurt AC relays, but they aren't used too much on a space-ship, so it's best to play safe."
"I'll remember that, too," Sandra promised him.
"O.K."
And so an hour passed, and another one added to it before theLady Luckwas fitted for super drive. It was finished, then, and Sandra Drake was more than voluble in her thanks.
"Never mind the thanks," said McBride, "or we'll be into that original wrangle as to who owes who what kind of a favor. Where we sit out here in the lens, favors are not weighted and set down as an asset. Forget it. G'wan out there and get Steve Hammond—and do not forget for one minute I'm coming after you if you're gone more than thirty days. Seven hundred and twenty hours! Get me?"
"Sure thing," said Drake. "And, John, you're pretty swell."
"Nuts!"
"All right, 'Nuts!' But some day I'm going to settle down and be a good girl, and then you can believe me."
"That, I'll believe when I see it. Go on, Sandra, go out and get Steve."
"I'll get Steve," promised Sandra. "Oh, but definitely."
"Well, good luck."
"Thanks."
The space lock closed, and the men retreated inside of the Station's air lock. The gigantic doors swung open, letting a huge puff of air out into space. Then theLady Lucklifted gracefully for all of her tons of mass, and wafted out through the opened door. It was a dead-center passage, one that could be made only with a master pilot running the board personally.
Then she was gone. Halfway around the lens she would have to go before Sirius came into a safe line of flight. Sandra was taking no more chances on contacting the surface of that mighty space-warp that focused Sol on Pluto.
McBride wondered:Has Sandra learned her lesson?
One week passed. One week, filled to the very brim with all of those routine things that make life full of wonder—as to whether there isn't something better in the hereafter. The sheer millions of miles of gravitic-induced space-warp refracted Sol's light endlessly and perfectly to make for Pluto a synthetic sun that sported a dozen darting points. On Pluto, men lived and worked and pursued happiness, and the valuable ore came up from the ground in the Styx Valley and created the need for Pluto and the lens. Over Mephisto, the smelters cast their glow against the sky, which the inhabitants of Hell always called "The Eternal Fire." Across the River Styx from Hell, Sharon lay like a city of marble by day and a string of pearls by night.
Nor was Hell, as seen from Sharon, any less beautiful. The twin cities of Pluto, rivals in everything, fought as usual. And the bone of contention for that particular week was a simple, age-old epithet. It is a sorry fact that with the entire solar system running as it always did, Sharon and Hell found it possible to make the headlines of all the cities of the system by their arguments.
Sharon lost. Hell succeeded in bringing to mind the fact that Hell, Pluto, was a fine place to be, and the poor citizens of Sharon were forced into second consideration. But then, Sharon had not been a running business for centuries.
Go to Sharon!had no familiar ring.
But the Road to Hell was a broad highway.
McBride looked up as the door to his office opened, and his jaw fell away down to here. He blinked. He looked again, and then jumped to his feet. "She found you!" he said.
"Who found who?" asked Steve Hammond. "Has that dame—?"
"Drake? Yep. She came here and we fixed that drive for her. She's changed, Steve. Even I can see it."
"So she was here?"
"You bet. Sandra has changed."
"Has she?"
"Why, Steve, she was actually worried about you. Near frantic."
"Was she?"
"She may have concealed it from you. After all, she's been a pretty hard-boiled girl and the change is a little abrupt. She's probably concealing her real feelings."
"Would she?"
"Probably. After all she's said about men in general, she's probably fighting an internal battle. But she let it go right here."
"Did she?"
"Did she! Why, she tried to hook up the super drive herself, and when it didn't work, she came here for help. I'd say she was really interested in finding you. Going out of her way to help you, Steve, is quite a difference from the Sandra as I know her."
"Do you?"
"Say! What is the matter with you? 'Has she?' 'Was she?' 'Would she?' 'Did she?' is that the best you can do?"
"Look, John, how long ago was that?"
"About a week or so."
"What did she do, exactly."
"She came here and told us that you've been a month or six weeks overdue on that trip to Sirius. She wanted the drive fixed so that she could go out and look for you. I offered to go along, but she said no. So we fixed her drive and she took off like the devil was in her hair."
"Mac, you're a sucker!"
"Oh, now look—"
"So she's changed, has she? Full of remorse. Sputtering like a leaky alphatron field because she was hamstrung without a drive. Her heart was reeking with love for me, and she wanted, if she couldn't have me, to go out into the deep, unknown void of interstellar space and die where I had died, so we could be together in that last, long resting place."
"What are—"
"So John, please, for the small help I was to you, and for the love of Steve that lies within both of us, give me the drive so that I may go forth and seek he whom I crave. I want so little, John, and Steve is such a fine fellow—"
"Say! Have I been took?"
"The proper word is 'Taken' and the answer is in the affirmative."
"I'll be damned."
"You probably will," smiled Hammond. "Mac, all that dame wanted was to be the first human being to set foot on another, extra-solarian planet! She wanted to be known as the first person to ever seek another star."
"I take it that you haven't been further than a long stone's throw?"
"Shucks. I haven't even been out to the Los Angeles city limits."
"Darn her hide!"
"Yeah. I've been looking for her—and I'm as big a dope as you. I wanted to offer her the chance to pilot theHaywire Queenout there. I couldn't find her in the inner system and so I was going to take a squint at Pluto. I stopped off to ask if you'd care to take the run with me."
"You know I would."
"Well, that takes care of both answers. Drake is on her way—shucks, she's there already—and the second part is you—and you want to go."
"I'll ask Enid," said McBride. "Come on, we'll go right down and see her now."
Enid McBride smiled. "His asking me is a matter of form," she told Hammond. "Naturally he'll go. I think it will be swell for him to go. He needs a vacation anyway."
"But—"
"No buts. You'll go and like it. I wouldn't want you to miss anything like this for the world."
"How about you?"
Enid smiled again. "I'm no pioneer type, John. You know that. I'd be out of place—and what would John Junior do? Oh, we could leave him with Anna, if I wanted to go, but somehow this is as far as I care to get from home—my folk's home, I mean. It's funny how after seven years a woman still speaks of her parents' home as her home in spite of the fact that she has a home and family of her own."
"What'll you do?"
"I'm going to take this opportunity to go home—my parents' home, I mean. You see, Steve, Dad and John talk different languages. Dad is a metal broker on Pluto. The only reason why he tolerated John at all was because John's lens kept Dad in business. Dad wouldn't know a cupralum pig from an acceleration cushion, though he deals in a million tons of the stuff every year. It's all on paper. On the other hand, John wouldn't know how to sell the stuff, but he sure can make it do tricks. So they sit and glare at one another and each one wonders how the other makes a living. Dad's money is obvious, and John's success is equally well-known, but how and why are lost on each other.
"So I keep 'em as far apart as I can."
"I get it," smiled Hammond. "Pretty bad, hey?"
Enid laughed, "This ring is pure iridium. Dad was horrified because he first thought that iridium was radioactive like radium and that I'd get burned or worse. Then he found out it wasn't—and offered to buy a real, honest-to-goodness platinum ring if John couldn't afford it. Then he discovered that iridium is so rare that they do not have a market price per gram and that was all right, but he also confused it with iodine, and worried about its chemical action on my hand. Poor Dad still is not sure about it, so he has to inspect it every time he sees it to ascertain whether or not it is turning green, or my finger is falling off, or that it hasn't sublimed and disappeared. You can't detect the wearing, so Dad then accuses John of either buying a new one every time I come home or making me keep it in a safe while I'm here."
"Cupralum, to Enid's father, is something that he shunts around by signing papers and which, if he shunts fast enough, will increase his bank account, though if the other guy shunts faster, will cause him no end of deficit. Space, to him, is something that you can't breathe, and the stars are little bits of brightness that twinkle on a clear night. Oh, we get along," smiled McBride. "After all, he's Grandpa now, and John Junior is likely to get a slab of Cupralum. Preferred, for his birthday. The kid'll prefer something he can chew on, I'll bet."
"So that's neither here nor there," said Enid. "You take your space hop, and I'll take Little Johnny to Pluto to see his grandparents. Frankly, Steve, I've been wondering just what excuse I could use to run off alone for a month. This makes it perfect."
"We'll stop at Hell on the way back and pick you up," said McBride.
"Fine. How soon are you leaving?"
Hammond said: "Anytime he's ready. How soon can you cut loose from the lens, John?"
"Give me an hour to get things cleaned up and I'll be on the beam."
"Right."
"I'll pack you a bag," said Enid. "Have any preferences?"
"Shirts, shoes, socks, and shaving kit, mostly."
"Want your dinner clothing?"
"Oh sure. And pack my swimming suit, too. Also my tennis racket, and see that the golf bag has plenty of spare balls. Have Timmy wax the skis and sharpen my skates, and I'll also take along the shotgun, a pup tent, the oil stove, a fur coat, a quart of whiskey, six lemons, an orange, a lime, and a bottle of Angostura. Might pack me a light lunch, too."
"Don't bother, Enid. We've got most of that stuff with us," laughed Hammond.
"All right," chuckled Enid. "He'll get one shirt and a bar of soap; one pair of socks, and a bar of soap; and so on—with a bar of soap. Well, keep 'em coasting, Steve, and see that he doesn't run off with any red-headed witches."
"If we see any, I'll bring 'em back for me," laughed Steve. "See you later."
McBride was not as abrupt as he sounded. His business clean-up consisted of dictating a letter, putting all things in the hands of his chief assistant. The rest of the time he spent with Enid, saying good-by. Whatever transpired, whatever they discussed, whatever plans they made—and they must have talked of many things and made many plans, for in spite of the familiarity of running all over the solar system, this was a big step, indeed, since for the first time in history, man and wife would be light-years apart—they did it well enough in private so that their parting was simple and quick.
John kissed Enid adequately, and said: "Stay healthy."
Enid laughed and said: "Stay whole!"
And then McBride was in theHaywire Queenand the air lock was cracked. The big ship lifted gently and zipped out of the lock with a casual disregard for distances. Unlike Drake's precision take-off, theHaywire Queenwent through the open door with the air of wanting to leave quickly because there were better things to do than worry about hitting the center plus or minus an inch.
Enid pointed out the Dog Star to John McBride, Junior. "That's where your daddy is going," she told him. Junior McBride was more interested in the teething bone that he had clamped between toothless gums, than he was in the stellar regions.
He knew his daddy would be back.
TheHaywire Queenapproached and passed the speed of light from the hard side, and her terrific velocity dropped down to a figure that was expressible in miles per second without running out of zeroes. Below, and thirty degrees from the axis of the ship, Sirius and the Dark Companion beckoned from less than a thousand million miles. The lower dome of the ship sported the faces of the men, who were laying on their stomachs, looking down at the splendor of the first binary ever seen by man. Hammond mentioned it, as a matter of fact.
"How about Drake?" asked McBride.
"We're still the firstmen," returned Hammond.
"Wouldn't Drake howl to hear you say that," laughed McBride. "She's been suffering under the fact that every time she did anything new, she had to qualify it by saying: 'The first woman—' Well, she's got something this time."
"Think it'll satisfy her?"
"Not until someone proves definitely that Thomas Edison, Franklin Roosevelt, William Shakespeare, George Washington, Richard the First, Julius Caesar, and Jack Frost were all women."
"Well, let's get the hemis working. We'll never know whether Sirius has planets until we do. I'd hate to sit in theQueenand go through all the growing pains of looking for planets by observation."
"Yeah, that would take years. What's our velocity, Larry?"
Timkins looked at the velocimeter; squinted through the instrument quickly, adjusting the thumb-screw; and then said: "Thirty-four thousand and dropping at one hundred feet per second, per second, per second."
"We can get good pix of anything close enough to the primary to support life—also big enough, too—in about thirty minutes exposure," said Hammond. "We'll take two shots in each direction, since I've got six hemispherical cameras. That'll give us complete overlapping coverage and double protection against dust streaks. Let's go. Also cut the drive by half."
For thirty minutes the ship plunged on through the Sirian system at the double deceleration. Then for fifteen minutes, the entire personnel was in the darkroom, waiting for the first glimmer of the plates. And at the time that the plates were finished, the velocity of theHaywire Queenhad dropped from thirty thousand-odd miles per second to velocities normally used in mere interplanetary travel.
The super drive was cut and the ship coasted under standard drive at thirty feet per second, per second, acceleration, and the men hung the plates up in the darkroom and began to inspect them for telltale streaks.
"Here's one," said McBride. "About four hundred million miles from Sirius."
"And another," offered Larry, plying dividers and log tables, "about three thousand million."
"Got another," offered Hammond, "but it's doubtful as a possible landing place. Almost ten thousand million mites from the primary. Bet it's colder than a pawn-broker's heart."
"Couple more on my plate," said McBride. He went to the formerly empty solar map and added the discoveries according to scale. "But that one at four hundred million is my best bet."
"Sounds reasonable," agreed Hammond. "Sirius would support humanoid life at that distance. Let's concentrate on it."
"Good. It's in fine position to be concentrated on. Let's see, now, what should we be looking out for?"
"Might be seetee matter," suggested Larry.
"Good. How do we find out?"
"We don't until the last ditch. But it is the most important, nevertheless. We wait until everything else has been disposed of and then make for the planet. Just outside of the atmosphere we heave 'em a rock or two and watch what happens."
"A slow moving rock?" grinned McBride.
"Doesn't really matter. If it is slow enough to keep from friction-incandescence, fine. But the eruption made by seetee contact is quite a bit different, spectroscopically. Also we can check the explosion with counters. The by-products of such a bit of eruption is full of nuclear radiations. Mere incandescence is just that and nothing more."
"Well, that's that. We can wait. What's next?"
"Radioactivity. How much and what kind? Atmosphere. How much and what kind? Et cetera. Also how much and what kind? Do we intend to land?"
"I don't know. After all, we came for the express purpose of trying out our drive on an interstellar basis, you know. It can be done with ease, neatness, and dispatch. Seems to me that a landing on one of those planets will have to be made attractive or we won't. We're equipped for all kinds of spacial research, power research, and so on. But we're not equipped for much planetary investigation, exploration, or diplomatically involved intrigue."
"Going to let Drake get away with being the only person making the first landing on an alien star system?"
"I don't give a care what happens to Drake. She can come busting in with the safety valve tied down if she wants to. Some day she'll learn that sticking that pretty little snoot of hers into strange places is a fine way to have it knocked right off of the front of her face. We're interested in technicalities, not in getting involved in a storybook adventure. Meanwhile, let's take it strictly on the easy side and investigate everything from the solar radiation from Sirius to the secondary radiation produced by Sirian radiation in the super-stratosphere."
Larry began to fiddle with the radio. There was nothing on the electronic radio at all, and Larry said: "Well, didn't expect it, really. No culture worthy of the name would be using radio in space. Too inefficient. And if they got off of their planets, they'd be using gravitics." He turned to the space radio, and covered the communication bands of the electrogravitic spectrum, switching from band to band quickly. Halfway across the third band, the panoramic tuner came to a definite stop and retraced itself minutely, vacillating a bit until the signal came in clear and clean.
"What happened to Drake?" asked Timkins. "Listen. Here she is."
The gravitic radio was calling: "—Haywire Queen. CallingHaywire Queen. This is Sandra Drake calling theHaywire Queen. This is an automatic transmission set for break-in. As soon as this call gets to you, answer please. The answer will register here and we will be able to make this two-way. This is Sandra Drake—"
"Uh-huh," said Hammond, turning down the gain to a reasonable level. "Larry, shoot her an answer."
Timkins snapped on the transmitter, tuned it to the same band, and said: "This is theHaywire Queencalling Sandra Drake.Haywire Queenanswering Drake. Come in, Sandra Drake. Answer."
They listened to the automatic broadcast for some minutes, and then in the middle of a sentence—"This is Sandra Drake calling theHaywire Queen—"Click."Hello, fellows. Got here finally, didn't you? Glad to have you come in. What's new?"
Hammond took the mike. "Hello, Sandra," he answered. "Nothing new. Where are you?"
"On planet number five. That is the one that I think is somewhere about five hundred million miles from Sirius. Know it?"
"We think so. It's dead ahead. Yeah, wait a minute. Larry has a directional bearing on you and it is the one we're approaching. That takes care of that."
"Well, come on in and I'll build you a cup of tea."
"You find everything all right?"
"Everything's perfect. Only thing, they would like to have someone here that knows all about the gravitics. They're not too sharp. Frankly, neither am I, so you're the guys who'll have to do it."
"You've been there quite a bit," said Hammond. "How's conditions?"
"Pretty good. Air is O.K., though slightly pungent in smell. The people are very much like humans, though they have their big differences which take them out of the human class."
"For instance?"
"Well, they are all covered with a funny kind of hair. It's a sort of half-hair, half-feathers kind of stuff. It's as soft as a baby's scalp and on a dog or something like that it would be beautiful. I'd like a coat made of it, frankly."
"I'll bet they appreciate your offer to wear one of 'em for a winter coat," said Hammond dryly. "You haven't changed a bit, have you, Drake?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Sandra. "After all, I was merely trying to explain the beauty of their skin."
"You gave yourself away," said Steve Hammond. "Like as usual, Sandra Drake thinks of everything in accordance with how it will couple to her, or her name, or her reputation."
"Now, you're being hard," complained Sandra. "Give me a break, Steve. You shouldn't take issue with me for a statement of that kind. After all, it was just a sort of slip of the tongue. I'm not really thinking of skinning one of them for my coat."
"If I were you," put in McBride, "I'd think hard of one other thing that might be closer to home. D'jever think that you are in no position to do any skin collecting? The odds are agin' it. But, Sister Drake, those birds are! You might enhance the beauty of one of their females some day. How would the pelt of Sandra Drake look on the living room floor, nine light-years from Terra? Take it clean and easy, Drake, or you might not get back to Terra with that satiny, soft, practically flawless hide of yours intact."
"What do you mean, 'practically flawless'?" snapped Sandra.
"Well," drawled McBride, "I've never seen all of it."
"Why don't you give me the benefit of the doubt?"
"I wouldn't give you any benefit of any doubt," McBride told her. "You're probably concealing something."
"Why—" the radio broke down into a series of liquid, spluttering sounds as Sandra strove to keep that throaty contralto from sounding like a fishmonger's.
"Whistle," chuckled Timkins. "Then count ten. Then let's get back to the problem of the Sirians."
"Take it, Sandra," laughed Hammond. "We were only kidding you. Or—can't you take it?"
The spluttering died, and then that throaty laugh came back again. It was slightly forced and they knew it. The chances are that Sandra knew they knew it, but she didn't want to give them any more reason for laughter at her expense. Then she spoke, directly and honestly, both factors due to the fact that she was sure of herself and now could afford to laugh at them.
"Well, stop worrying about Sandra's hide," she told them. "This gang down here are fine people except that they can't talk Terran. They'll do anything for me that I can make them understand. That's the trouble—getting them to understand. But that's coming. I'm teaching them to speak Terran. That should fix things up fine."
"Why not learn to speak Sirian?" asked McBride.
"Why? Let them do the work. Learning a new language is not Drake's idea of a year's fun."
"O.K., sister," grinned Hammond, winking at McBride. "But you'll find out that there is something to those old adages. I'm thinking of the one that begins: 'When in Rome, et cetera.' Those old boys used to dust off some old saws, but there is a lot of meat on them."
"And contradictions. No, fellows, Sandra doesn't like talking in something that sounds like a phonograph record played backwards. Besides, these fellows have a pretty sharp capacity for understanding. I've been here for a week or so, and already they can understand a lot of what I say. Frankly, better than I could."
"Play it your way, then," said McBride. "But look, you say they're nice guys?"
"Sure. When I landed, they gave me the old send-off. I was taken to the royal house and given the prize suite. I'm given everything, as I said before. They look upon me as the guy who'll give their world the benefit of the Terran and Solarian scientific achievements. That's not true, of course. It'll be fellows like yourselves who really understand it. But nevertheless, I'm the harbinger of spring. I'm the guy who pointed the way for the rest of Sol's children."
"The Moses in the bulrushes?"
"Sort of like. I'm just lucky, and I know it. If I'd come second, they wouldn't pay any attention to me at all. But since I came first and now that I'm talking to my friends, they will obviously think that I'm calling for them to come and help them ... their world's name is Telfu, by the way ... Telfans out of their scientific rut. They have the glimmerings of the gravitic spectra, but it's like the difference between the Leyden Jar and the electron microscope. It'd take a hundred years before they got off of Telfu if we hadn't got here first."
"If they're really O.K.," said McBride, "we'll help."
"Thanks," said Sandra simply. "That'll be for me, too, you know."
"Yes?"
"Sure. They'll thank me for coming first, even though they know I'm not the bright guy with the answers under my skull. I've got a good thing here, and I know all of you well enough to know that you won't spoil it."
"No?"
"Sure you won't. After all, there isn't one of you that would care a rap for what they have to offer in the way of historic gain. The old moola, sure; and there's plenty of it to be had for all of us. You'll go down in their histories as the geniuses that gave them a boot in the tail worth a hundred years of solid research. I, and I'm sure you'll permit me, will ride in on the tail of your coat."
"O.K. Well, we'll come in. But not for long this time. After all, we're interested in tinkering with the new drive, not making diplomatic overtures to a bunch of aliens. We'll leave the latter for the Solarian Government."
"How soon'll you be landing?"
"Not too sudden," said Hammond. "We're going to make a few space-checks first. We're getting cautious in our old age."
"Shucks," said Sandra disparagingly, "there's nothing to it at all."
"Well, could be, but we'll run this show our way. There is no objection to your leaving?"
"No. Definitely not. They'd be sorry to see me go, but it is personal affection and the possibility for their ultimate gain that makes it so. They wouldn't dare detain me even though they might consider it. To my knowledge, they haven't even considered it."
"Why wouldn't they dare?" asked McBride.
"Afraid. After all, they know that both of us came from a star nine light-years away. They haven't even got the primary drive, let alone the third-derivative drive. Any untoward move to a Solarian would bring the devil himself down about their ears and they know it."
"I suppose so. We could drop plenty of stuff on 'em with a half dozen space cans. And a couple of monolobar mechano-gravitics would scramble up the works of any fleet of stratosphere planes they could send against us. Never gave the gravitic armament much thought, but it could be done. O.K., Sandra, as soon as we sniff the air and check our gas and water, we'll be in."
"I'm going back to bed, then," said Sandra. "Slip me another call before you land and I'll have the village band out to meet you. That's a promise."
Steve Hammond turned to McBride after Sandra had clicked her transmitter off, and said: "No use checking for seetee matter, is there? Seems to me that Drake would have found it out the hard way."
"No, we can skip the seetee. But Drake may not worry about radioactivity but we will. We'll check for it; I'd like for John Jr. to have a brother or sister some day—with the proper amount of arms, legs, fingers, toes, ears, eyes, noses—"
"What's the proper amount of noses for a son?" asked Hammond.
"One," grinned McBride.
"A kid with two noses could smell a lot," observed Timkins.
"Phew!" said McBride holding his nose. "That was fierce. Man the counter and check the region for hot stuff, Larry. Looks like the landing of LaDrake saves us a lot of work. The physical properties of ... Telfu ... seem to be all right. So we'll go to work on the electrical properties, the nuclear properties, and also see if there's anything running around loose in the gravitics other than the inherent mechanogravitic property of matter."
Larry Timkins set up a series of plungers on the control board and locked the pre-set operations into the autopilot. "This," he said, "will hang us on a logarithmic spiral approaching Telfu. While we're roaming around the planet, we'll check the hot-properties of the neighborhood. Any comment?"
"Nope. Give 'em the works."
Timkins drove the coupler button home and theHaywire Queenswung gently to follow the pre-determined course.
"You know, Steve, there's a cod-liver-oil smell about this, somewhere."
"So? What's fishy?"
"The old tub isn't behaving like a lady."
"What do you mean?"
"There's a big drop in efficiency compared to when we left the Plutonian Lens."
"How much?"
"Not too much. But it's getting progressively worse."
"Y'don't suppose we've hit upon some saturation factor in the secondary drive?"
"I'm not saying. What do we know about it? What does it work on?"
"Glibly speaking, it works on the inherent qualities of space. We wrap ourselves up in a space-warp of sorts, and then shoot out a couple of hooks that catch on to the gravitic-propagational continuum that permits the planetary masses to exert Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. It has been called 'sub-ether' but that is like multiplying with unreal numbers. After all, the 'ether' has never been defined, isolated, explained, or held in one hand. If the prime 'ether' has never been satisfactorily established, we shouldn't go on building our houses on a foundation that doesn't have any sound basis."
"Both electronic and gravitic spectra must rely upon something for propagation," objected McBride. "For lack of taking it apart, brick by brick, and feeling each stone, let's continue to call them 'ether' and 'sub-ether.'"
"O.K., sport. But to get back to the drive. Have we got a saturation point? Or some sort of gravitic fatigue? Either of these would be indicated by a gradual decrease in efficiency."
"Larry, set up a sigma recorder and let's see if we can check the curve of inefficiency. It's getting worse, you say?"
"Apparently. I didn't notice it before. But it is quite apparent now. Must be non-linear, because if this falling-off had been linear, I would have noticed it long before this. An increasing curve would not be noticeable until a sufficient interval had been passed for it to become evident. Yeah, I'll slap a sigma recorder on him and see what makes."
"Meanwhile, let's get busy with the detectors."
The counters clicked for a few minutes, and McBride finally reported that Telfu was no higher than Terra in radioactivity. Hammond established the intrinsic electronic charge on Telfu as being only a few million volts negative with respect to Terra.
"Not enough to worry about," he said. "The first touch with the stratosphere layers will take care of that without a glimmer. Wouldn't dare without an atmosphere, but we have plenty of air to cushion the charge and let it leak off in the upper layers where it is ionized by Sirius' radiations. What's with the gravitics?"
"Bit of something in the electrogravitic. Can't place it. Not enough to worry about."
"What is it like?"
"Well, it is not E-grav radiation. It's a sort of dip, or valley, in the radiation-pattern of this part of space. A place where the normal density of E-grav is less."
"How much?"
"You tell me. The free-running gravitons are never high enough to do more than flicker the finest instrument. The threshold is way, way, way, way down in the mud. So here's a place where we have less."
"Sort of like having nothing and wanting to share it with someone?"
"Not much better. Oh well, a lack of free E-grav energy surely isn't anything to write home about. Might be a factor of the Sirian Double. After all, who knows what kind of effect that little, dark-red, dense-as-hell devil will do to gravitic threshold levels."
"So it's a safe bet—"
Timkins came running in, waving a sheet of cross-ruled paper. "Hell's bells," he yelled. "We're it! Our drive is approaching zero efficiency as the third power of—"
Above, in the working innards of theHaywire Queen, great circuit breakers crashed open. Smaller switches added to the din as they clicked open, one after the other. Pilot lights on the polished black panel began to glow an angry red and alarm bells created such a din that speech became almost impossible.
The drive went off.
And the men and their portable equipment left the solid floor and began to float aimlessly across the room in midair.
Hammond clutched wildly at a spectrograph, and caught it.
"Catch!" he yelled at McBride, hurling the heavy instrument at John.
McBride folded himself over the instrument with a grunt of escaping breath. The act did two things. It sent Hammond across the room to the emergency panel in one direction and McBride went in the opposite direction to the navigator's calculating machine. McBride caught the navigator's table at the same time that Hammond caught the emergency panel.
Steve fought with the emergency panel and succeeded in setting up about eleven feet per second deceleration. McBride lowered the spectrograph to the table and seated himself in the chair.
"Woah, Nellie," grunted McBride as the alarm bells ceased. "Where do we go from here and how fast?"
"I dunno, but we're leaving both Sirius and Sol at a terrific velocity and a deceleration of eleven feet per. From a mental calculation of the fundamental drive at this velocity, I'd say it would take about fourteen years to get down to a stop."
"What happened to the emergency relays?"
"They worked," said Steve dryly. "Yeah, they worked. But the inefficiency extends to the fundamental drive, too, it seems. I'm beginning to think that this is not inherent."
"That's a quick decision."
"Sure. But the prime drive is O.K. The meters say so. It's just inefficient as the devil which is not true of a good drive. Holy smoke! We're getting efficient again!"
Timkins picked himself off of the floor painfully. "Uh-huh," he grunted. "Also, we're leaving Telfu behind at a fierce rate. Can you keep that eleven feet prime acceleration for a bit?"
"We're going to."
"I'm going to dash madly upstairs and hang the sigma recorder on again. Something is slippery here."
"What's our velocity at the present time?" asked McBride.
"Up in the fifteen thousand miles per second," answered Hammond.
"Hm-m-m. Then at what point with respect to Telfu did the drive go out?"
"About a million and a half miles, roughly."
"A minute and forty seconds from spot to conjunction," mused McBride. "If, little playmate, we can pet power again after one more minute and thirty seconds-odd, we'll feel more or less sure that it is Telfu and not us. Larry!" he yelled. "Any sign of upswing?"
"Yup," said Larry. "Sure thing!"
"Set the super drive up on test power with automatics to turn it on as soon as the overload point is passed," said McBride. "We won't blow any fuses with test power."
Hammond hit the test buttons and then settled down to wait. Then the drive cut in again, and they all slid down in their chairs.
McBride grinned. "They must not like us."
"Something must not," laughed Hammond shakily.
"Telfu?" asked Timkins entering with the last sigma curve.
"What does it say?"
"We passed through a negative peak. We hit a new low in efficiency at conjunction with Telfu."
"How much?"
"Less than a half percent."
"Jeepers. That is a new low in gravitics. Can we think our way out of this one?"
"Why?"
"As much as I dislike seeing Drake, I'd not force her to live on an alien planet. I'd feel better at marooning her for a couple of years if I knew we could go in and get her."
McBride laughed. "Got to have the last laugh, hey?"
"Meaning?"
"Marooning her wouldn't be half so much fun if it is impossible to get her out. Marooning her when we have the means to get her out puts it strictly in our own lap. Right?"
"I suppose so. We could laugh at her honestly then."
"She's strictly a stinker," agreed McBride. "I get that cod-liver-oil smell now. All that soft soap and palaver she was handing out about our being the boys with the brains. We were the guys who would be responsible for lifting a struggling civilization up from the primordial slime by our brain and our genius. Baloney!"
"I get it," growled Hammond. "She's stuck. God knows how she landed—probably emergency and shot her load of battery juice. Anyway, she could land under emergency battery, but taking off is a megawatt of another color, battery-wise. They aren't equipped to make a take-off. Idea being the old one—don't start if you can't stop."
"She's a bright girl in her own stinking way," said McBride. "She's been around this gang long enough to know that if a way is possible, we'll think of it. Oh, sure, that's a brag but we've done pretty well so far. So inveigle us into the same trap she's in and then ride out with us. She'd roast in the brimstone of the nether regions before she'd wail for help honestly. But if we get stuck with her she's got two outs. One, we may be able to think our way out. Two, at least we are Terrans like she is."
"Meaning?" asked Hammond darkly.
"Frankly, Sandra Drake is an awful lot of woman, and she knows it. She'd make a plaster saint turn to whistle at her if she turned on the old charm. And with no competition, we'd be fighting one another for the privilege of polishing her shoes."
"Fine future."
"No thanks."
"I'll have a bit of that, too. Well, how can we slip her the old triple-cross?"
"Steve, you'd throw a woman to the lions?"
"With that woman, I'd hate to do it. The S.P.C.A, would haul me in to court for subjecting poor, dumb, defenseless lions to cruelty and inhuman tortures. You're darned right I'd heave her into the drink. But I want to do it in such a way that Sandra Drake will know that it was far from purely coincidental."
"O.K., Steve. We're with you. Larry, throw theHaywire Queeninto an orbit around Telfu just outside of the danger zone and slap another recorder on the drive. Make it a high velocity orbit, powered all the way. We should be able to circle Telfu in about fifteen minutes with the super drive. Check?"
"Sure. Here we go."
"Meanwhile, Steve, we'll check a few items on the drive itself. I'm beginning to suspect a huge and celestial soak-up of gravitic power in the region of Telfu."
"We can set up the small, experimental drive-model complete with power recorders, spring balances, and torque measuring devices and work on that."
"Swell. That's the ticket. Let's go."
Hammond hauled the model from the cabinet and plugged in a complex cable from the master control panel. He juggled the dials until the gadget started to work, and then they began to check the efficiency of the device.