The captain relaxed a little, and a half-smile played near the corner of his mouth as he said to Mike, "I believe, then, we may have found therealsaboteur, Mr. Blackhawk." Then to Ishie. "Doctor, I believe that your field is the one in which the most experience lies towards finding a means for counteracting the effect that is now influencing our orbit. I am putting you in charge of the problem. The pull, according to the computer, is as I said, six hundred forty pounds. Do you think you can work out a method for counteraction?"
"I think ... possibly, yes, captain. Let me say, probably yes."
"Then please do so, and report the method to me. I will then submit it to the other scientists aboard that may have some selective knowledge in the field, and to Earth. You may, of course, call on any of the personnel of the ship for assistance, and possibly Mr. Blackhawk may be of assistance to you. He is familiar with the equipment aboard.
"You probably recognize the urgency of the problem so I shall not attempt to underline that urgency further, other than to say that it is of the utmost importance," he ended.
Five minutes later the two conspirators were back in the engineering quarters, grinning like Cheshire cats, and mentally rolling up their sleeves to go to work. They had, to all intents and purposes, carte blanche to work out the construction of the device they would need for an enlarged Confusor with a real thrust, even though they would have to appear to co-operate with a multitude of other interested parties. Mike and Ishie were both becoming adept students of the mythical Dr. Confusion, and neither doubted their combined ability to handle that part of the problem.
"Now," said Ishie, "Confusion say he who can fly on wings of mosquito fly better on wings of eagle. How much thrust do we want, Mike?"
"What are our limits?" asked the practical engineer.
"Limits, schlimits. We gotpower. Of course," he added, "wearelimited by the acceptable stress limits on the wheel, and ... yes ... by the stress limits on our plastic, too."
"The wheel was designed to stand upwards of 1.5 gee maximum spin—but that's only radial strength," Mike began figuring. "Don't think anybody ever calculated the stress of pulling the hub loose, endwise. No reason to, you know, and it wasn't expected to land or anything. And really, nobody expected it to stand in service more than a 1.5 gee spin on the rim. They computed these racks to take all kinds of shock, but the overall structure is rather flimsily built." He paused for thought. "We could maybe put a tenth of a gee on the axis, but I better check some of the stress figures against the structural pattern with the Cow first. We'll have to give some thought to strengthening things later, if we really want to go into the fantastic possibility of landing this monster anywhere."
Consulted, the Sacred Cow computed a potential maximum stress-safety at the hub of something over two-tenths of a gee, and the two finally settled on one-tenth as well within the limits.
"Now the other limit," said Ishie. "This little piece of plastic will only stand a pressure approaching the point at which it begins to distort and run out of the field. This stuff is quoted to have a compression-yield strength of one hundred ten pounds to the square inch. We probably shouldn't exceed ... hm-m-m ... ninety pounds. Let's get the Cow to tell us how big a chunk of surface area that represents."
The answer was discouraging. Mike rapidly converted the figure in centimeters to feet, and came up with nearly an eighty-three foot diameter for a circular surface.
"Looks like we'll have to put it out on the spokes," he muttered in disgust, but Ishie shook his head quickly.
"No need, Mike. Later on we'll need a few thrust points out on the rim for good aiming, but we don't have to have all this surface area in one unit or even in one place. Also, we do not need to consider only the surface of an homogeneous piece of plastic material.
"This plastic can be cast. Very easily. In it, we can insert structures that will absorb the strain from many surfaces within, rather than only on a front surface.
"I expect some of the glass thread with which the hull of the ship was made could be inserted with no trouble. Each thread, then, would take up the strain, and a mass of them distributed through the plastic could deliver a greatly increased amount of thrust from a volume of plastic rather than from a surface area."
Mike started to object. "To get an absolutely parallel magnetic field, the gap between the pole faces can't be very wide."
"Perhaps I wasn't considering pole faces," Ishie answered. "Our investigation has already shown that once initiated the thrust-effect works best in a very low magnetic field.
"Such a low, parallel magnetic field would quite probably be found inside of a simple solenoid coil."
"O.K.," Mike answered, "but you have also found that a very high magnetic field is required to initiate the action. How do you get that inside a solenoid without an iron core?"
"As you say, a strong field mustinitiatethe action. Let us try another experiment, Mike."
Ishie turned the Confusor off, selected a piece of wire from Mike's supplies, and wound a ten-turn coil over the large magnetic coils of the experimental device.
The leads from this he ran to a pulse-generator that could be accurately adjusted to supply pulses of anything from a tenth microsecond to a tenth second.
Selecting the shortest possible duration, he then set the magnetic field adjustment on the experimental device to a point just below that point on which it had turned on previously.
"Now we see." Turning on the device, he glanced at the display panel which still showed zero thrust. Then he triggered a single one-microsecond pulse into the additional ten turns of winding. The readout display showed zero thrust. He triggered a ten microsecond pulse. Nothing happened. One hundred microseconds. Nothing. One thousand microseconds—the display changed, dropping so quickly into position that the pulse thrust itself was not recorded—but the figure turned up seven hundred thirty pounds thrust on the display panel.
"So," said Ishie, "we can initiate thrust with a one thousand microsecond pulse. Can you design a power supply that would achieve that field for that time in a solenoid having ... say ... one per cent as high a field strength as the one we are using here?"
"O.K.," said Mike. "I get you. Sounds to me like this thing is going to look like a barrel when we get through with it.
"I wish," he added, "that we could get one point one gee. And land this thing on Earth. And have a big parade, with Space Lab One hovering just overhead to the cheers and the blaring bands and the—"
"Confusion say, he who would poke hole in hornets nest had best be prepared with long legs." Ishie grinned. "You don't think anybody would really appreciate our doing that, do you Mike? Outside of the people themselves, that is, that aren't directly concerned with man'swelfare? We haven't done this in the proper manner of team research and billions spent in experiments and planned predicted achievements made with the proper Madison Avenue bow to the financier that made it possible. You know what they do to wild-haired individualists down there, don't you?"
Mike shrugged. "Oh, well," he said, "you're right of course. But it was a beautiful dream. How do you suppose we can build these and still keep all the scientists aboard and on Earth happy that they're just innocent magneto-ionic effect cancelers? Boy, that was a beauty, Ishie!"
"Best we have two sets of drawings. The ones for us can be sketchy, and need not have too much exactitude of design. We know what we're doing—at least, I hope we do.
"But let us make a second set of drawings that is somewhat different, though of a simpler shape and design, on which other scientists aboard can speculate, and which can be sent to Earth to confuse the confusion."
The two went to work with a will, and as the two sets of drawings emerged, they were indeed different. The set from which they would actually work was only mildly described as sketchy. The papers looked like the notations a man makes for himself to get the figures he will set into a formalized pattern as it takes shape, before throwing his penciled figurings into the wastebasket.
The second set was exact; created with drawing instruments on Mike's drafting board, and each of the component circuits would have created an effect that would have interlocked in the whole, but it would take the most erudite of persons to figure each into its effect, and its effect into the whole, and the effect of the whole was somewhat that somebody might someday figure out—but would possibly cancel a magneto-ionic effect if such existed. The drawings looked extremely impressive.
As the second set of drawings neared completion, Ishie glanced at the clock, then turned to the Cow's vocoder.
"How soon will Space Lab One reach the northernmost point of her present orbit and begin a swing to the south?" he asked.
Mike looked puzzled, but the Cow answered, "In ten minutes, thirty-seven seconds. At precisely 05:27:53 ship time."
"I think," said Ishie, "we'd best put a switch on our magnetic field so that we can reverse the field and the thrust."
"Why?" asked Mike.
"Because," Ishie explained, "when we reach the top of our course northward, then the thrust of the Confusor and Earth's gravity come into conflict, moving our entire orbit off-center and bringing us closer to the pole. In not too many orbits, that eccentricity in our orbit might pull us into the Van Allen belt. We can't afford that. Now, if we reverse the thrust at the right time, our orbit will be enlarged and we stay out of troubled spaces."
Mike was still puzzled. "I don't see how that works," he said. "Why wouldn't we just go off in a spiral on our present thrust?"
"The acceleration of Earth is a much greater influence," Ishie tried to make it clear, "than our little mosquito here. As long as they work together, things go well. But when Earth dictates that we will now swing south, be it ever so few degrees south, our mosquito is overpowered and can only drag us clear to Earth-center on a closing spiral, which would eventually lead us to crash somewhere in the southern hemisphere, a good many orbits from now.
"I hope," he said, "reversing the magnetic field will indeed reverse our little mosquito's thrust." He moved toward the Confusor.
"Hold it," said Mike. "The displacement in orbit won't be very much, at least on the first few go-arounds, will it? and if we switch it now, somebody'll start getting suspicious of this magneto-ionic effect. The effect that's doing all this. A sudden reversal might not be in its character, if it had a character. And anyhow, we don't want to give another jerk on Hot Rod. We might jerk something loose this time. We've already wiped out Thule Base—and there's no use adding scalps to an already full belt."
"O.K.," said Ishie. "Then now, I think it is time that we presented our formal drawings to the captain; and I think that when we present them we will suggest that we start work immediately on construction, even while he is checking out our drawings through his experts, so that the project will not be delayed."
On the bridge, the captain received the drawings with relief.
"Thank you, gentlemen. If these prove out, you may have saved the satellite by the rapidity of your work. Dr. Kimball calculated that our present acceleration will take us dangerously close to the Van Allen belt in about three orbits, and I need not tell you what that would mean."
Ishie spoke up immediately. "In that case, captain, perhaps Mr. Blackhawk and I had better start construction on this device immediately, without waiting for you to complete the check-out. That may save us invaluable time."
"Of course," said the captain. "What assistance will you need?"
"Of the greatest priority," replied Ishie gravely, "is access to the machine shop. The solar flare should be about wearing itself out."
"Oh ... of course. It may be." The captain's face was slightly red as he realized he had not thought to check this point. "Bessie, ask the computer...."
"Yes, sir," she answered quickly, and returned shortly. "The computer says the radiation count is down to ten M.R. above normal."
"It's a fairly low reading, even if it is above the Cow's normal-safe mark. That reading could go on for hours, which we may not have," commented Ishie. "Perhaps we could disregard so narrow a differential...."
"In your opinion, doctor," the captain asked, "would it be safe to return the personnel to the rim? Of course, I would have to return the entire ship to normal conditions in order to give the machine shop or any other part of the rim its normal six-foot shielding," he added, "so please consider your answer carefully."
"I think you would be quite safe to do so, captain. Considering the fact that otherwise we may go into the Van Allen belt, I think it should be done without question."
To himself, Mike chortled gleefully. This grave, pedantic physicist was about as unlike the co-conspirator with whom he had worked for the past nearly ten hours as was possible. "The guy's a genius at a lot of things," he thought to himself. "Puts on the social mock-up expected of him like you'd put on a suit of clothes—and takes it off just as completely," he added as an afterthought.
The return to the rim was slower than had been the evacuation—but it was complete within twenty minutes of the decision to return the satellite to normal.
In the machine shop, Paul and Tombu, with Ishie and Mike, were gathering the materials they'd need for the odd construction—Paul singing to himself as he worked.
"I got in the shuttle, thought it went to the Base;I'd learned my trade; there I'd take my placeSafely on Earth; but I found me in space—I'd went where I wasn't going!"
"I got in the shuttle, thought it went to the Base;I'd learned my trade; there I'd take my placeSafely on Earth; but I found me in space—I'd went where I wasn't going!"
"What's that song?" asked Ishie of the spaceman.
"Oh, that's just 'The Spaceman's Lament.' You make it up as you go along." His voice grew louder, taking the minor, wailing key at a volume the others could hear.
"I got on the wheel, thought I'd stay for the ride—I'd found a funny suit in which to hide—But I went through a closet—and I was outside!I'd went where I wasn't going!"
"I got on the wheel, thought I'd stay for the ride—I'd found a funny suit in which to hide—But I went through a closet—and I was outside!I'd went where I wasn't going!"
Tombu and Mike joined happily in the chorus, bawling it out at the top of their lungs as they began the work that would make the big Confusor.
"Oh ... there's a sky-trail leading from here to thereAnd another yonder showing—But when I get to the end of the runIt'll be where I wasn't going!"
"Oh ... there's a sky-trail leading from here to thereAnd another yonder showing—But when I get to the end of the runIt'll be where I wasn't going!"
Meanwhile, facsimile copies of the official drawings had been made for the other interested scientists aboard, and also sent by transfax to U.N. headquarters for distribution among Earth's top-level scientists.
They were innocent enough in concept, and sufficiently complex in design to require a great deal of study by these conservative individuals who would never risk a hasty guess as to the consequences of even so simple an action as sneezing at the wrong time.
Major Steve Elbertson awoke with a start, to see a medic's eyes inches from his own. For a moment, fearing himself under physical attack, he struck out convulsively, and then as the face withdrew he sat up slowly.
He was slightly nauseous; very dizzy; and his instincts told him that he needed a gallon of coffee as soon as he could get it. Then the medic's voice penetrated.
"Please, sir, you must rest. No excitement."
Almost, he was persuaded. It would be so easy to relax; to give someone else the responsibility. But the concept of responsibility brought him struggling up again.
Hot Rod was a dangerous weapon. He could not act irresponsibly.
"How long was I out?" he muttered.
The medic glanced at the clock. "Just over nineteen hours, sir."
"Wha-at? You dared to keep me off duty that long? I must report for duty at once."
"Please, sir. No excitement. You must rest. Just a moment and I'll call Dr. Green." With that the medic turned and fled.
As Dr. Green approached, Steve Elbertson was already on his feet, swaying dizzily, white as a sheet, but perhaps the latter was more from anger than from anything else.
"Major Elbertson. You received a severe dose of radiation. You are under my personal supervision and will return to bed at once."
"Is the flare over?" Elbertson asked the question, although already vaguely aware that the ship was again spinning, that he was standing on the floor fairly firmly, and that, therefore, the emergency must be over.
"Yes."
"In that case, sir, my duty is to my post on Hot Rod."
"Hot Rod's out of commission and so are you. I cannot be responsible for the consequences if you do not follow my orders."
"Explain that, please. About Hot Rod, I mean."
"Why, it was struck by a meteor shortly after the flare last night. I think I heard someone say that it burned out Thule Base before they managed to turn it off."
Without waiting for more, Elbertson brushed past the doctor and headed for the bridge.
The captain was startled by the mad-looking, unshaven scarecrow of an officer that approached him, demanding in a near-scream, "What happened? What have you done? What did you DO to Project Hot Rod? No one should have tampered with it without my direct order! Captain, if that mechanism has been ruined, I'll have them nail your hide to the door!"
"Major!" The captain stood. "This may be a civilian post, but you are still an officer and I am your superior. Return to your quarters and clean up. Then report to me properly!"
For a moment there was seething rebellion on Elbertson's already wild features. Then, automatonlike, he turned and walked stiffly away without saluting.
But the stiffness left him as he passed through the door. Momentarily he sagged against a wall for support, far weaker than he thought possible for a man of his youth and what he thought of as his condition. Making his way almost blindly to Security's quarters in rim-section B-5, he staggered through the door and on towards the latrine, shouting at Chauvenseer to "Get out of that sack and give me a detailed report on events since the flare. Oh, and send somebody for coffee—lots of coffee."
On the bridge the captain flipped the intercom to Dr. Green's station. "Is Major Elbertson under the influence of any unusual drugs, doctor?" he asked when he'd reached the medical staff chief. "Anything that might make his behavior erratic?"
"Only sedatives, captain. And, oh yes, those new sulph-hydral anti-radiation shots. We're not too familiar with what they do, though the reports indicate the worst effect is a mild anoxemia, which generally results in something of a headache. Of course, that's if the quantity of the drug was precisely calibrated. They can be fatal," he added as an afterthought.
"Would anoxemia cause a change in character, doctor?"
"It might. It might make one behave either stupidly or irrationally—temporarily or permanently, depending on the severity of the effect."
"Did Major Elbertson seem normal to you when you discharged him from hospital?"
"I did not discharge him, captain. I ordered him to remain under my care. But he seemed greatly upset, and short of force I could not have kept him from leaving."
"I see." The captain paused, then asked: "Doctor, please consider carefully. Would you consider Major Elbertson's condition serious enough to warrant confining him to bed by force?"
"Probably not. He should come out of it in a few hours. Exercise may possibly be good for him, though I doubt if he's capable of much of it." The doctor chuckled as though at a private joke with himself, then added, "He's really quite weak physically, you know, even without the after effects of radiation and drugs."
"Thank you, doctor."
Back in his quarters, Elbertson was refusing to admit to himself the fact of his own weakness. He had been quite ill in the shower, had managed to slash himself rather badly with the razor while shaving, but was now smartly attired in a clean pair of the regulation coveralls, with the insignia of his rank properly in place—and so weak he could hardly move.
The coffee hadn't helped much.
The briefing had helped even less. The major knew himself guilty of negligence while on duty. Inadvertently, but as though by his very hand, certainly through the agency of some saboteur he had failed to spot, his weapon had been turned on his own troops at Thule, key post in the plan.
It was possible that the entire plan had been sabotaged, though that seemed quite unlikely. Its ramifications were too great. So long as Hot Rod still existed, was still within their reach, the plan was operational.
The nonsense about a magneto-ionic effect he discarded without hesitation. Obviously it was sabotage, possibly by someone with a plan of his own, more probably by someone in the pay of one of the big power companies that would like to see the operation at least postponed. Obviously—he gave up.
Nothing would be obvious until he knew in exact detail what had occurred, what the plans of the enemy would be, where next they would strike—and who was the enemy.
But that last, at least, was almost obvious. Who else, but the man who had carried the political battle, against all odds, that Hot Rod be created? Who else but Captain Naylor Andersen could possibly have delivered this sneaking, underhanded attack against himself and his comrades?
Who else, he thought, but a man so callous as to orderhim, sick as he was, as though he were a mere cadet, to leave the bridge.
Major Elbertson's mind was made up as to the identity of the enemy.
But he would have to proceed with care, or he would key the plan before the time was ripe. There must be no great shake-up in personnel, or undue attention from Earth to the potentials of Project Hot Rod.
Perhaps the saboteur's cover-story of a magneto-ionic effect would serve his ends as well—at least until his comrades on Earth signaled that the time was ripe.
Yet now that Hot Rod had proved its power, the time was ripe. It was that proof on which the plan had waited. And perhaps this very sabotage would prove to be the "incident" on which the plan hinged....
Even as he fought to clear his normally organized mind of the weariness of his body that now sapped at its strength, the call came.
Chauvenseer appeared at his side, saluting smartly. "Com Officer Clark, sir, reports a message from Earth.Themessage, sir. 'Begin Operation Ripe Peach.'"
Major Elbertson pulled himself to a military stance, returning his aide's salute with complete precision.
Briefly he considered gathering all his men, all the Security personnel, and storming the bridge.
No, obviously the enemy was organized—an unforeseen circumstance. Obviously the captain was not alone. Obviouslyhismen included at least some of these slipstick boys—and he would command the loyalty of them all, since he was somewhat of their ilk himself.
No, an officer must seek the most advantageous position from which to deliver his ultimatum.
He must use Hot Rod itself to control them. If Hot Rod itself were actually sabotaged, then the plan must wait until he could have it repaired. He doubted it was hurt.
The flare had thrown off all original sequences—but perhaps that was to his advantage.
To Chauvenseer he snapped: "This is the detail of our immediate operation. Get four of our best men besides yourself. Have each of them come separately and unobtrusively to the south polar lock, where I will meet them. I will bring Smith with me.
"Have each of the others take his assigned post for Operation Ripe Peach—but order them to take no action other than to prevent anyone on board from doing anything unusual that might be an enemy operation—until I alert them that Operation Ripe Peach is operational.
"Their orders will, of course, come on our personal radios, Security Band 2Z21.
"Execute!" he ended, saluting smartly.
As the Security squad moved, with individual secrecy, towards their various posts, Captain Andersen was considering that Elbertson would probably snap out of it as soon as he had had coffee and a shave. The man had probably been severely affected by the drugs he had been given. He would make no further reference to the incident of erratic behavior, unless it continued.
Bessie, having at the moment nothing else to do, was busily plying the Sacred Cow not only for her own horoscope for the day, but also those of the several persons of whom she was most fond, while carefully keeping a shielding bunch of paper work in a place to make it appear that she was officially busy. The captain's horoscope, she recognized, didn't look much worse than the rest of them, but was definitely the worst. One of those mathematical jumbles that somehow didn't interpret clearly. None of them looked very good today.
Out on the rim, things were getting back to normal. The labs were functioning again, most of them according to their assigned, routine procedures; but in some, heads were drawn together over the absorbing diagrams supplied by Mike and Ishie.
Mike and Ishie themselves had already put in twelve hours almost without a break. Working under stress, neither of them had remembered to eat.
There was a cough at the entrance to the machine shop, and Dr. Millie Williams' soft voice said "May I come in?"
The two looked up as the slender figure of the dark-skinned biologist entered the lab, balancing "trays" with plastic bottles atop.
"If I know you, Dr. Ishie; and you, too, Mike—you haven't eaten," she said with a smile. "Now, have you?"
"Millie," said Mike, "you've just reminded me that I'm as hollow as a deserted bee-stump after the bears get through with it!"
"Little Millie," said Ishie, looking up at the figure nearly as tiny as his own, "you must be telepathic as well as beautiful. Confusion say 'Gee, I'm hungry!'"
"I'm told that the fate of the satellite depends on you two," Millie smiled. "I thought I'd just give our fate a little extra chance. Now drop what you're doing and light into this.
"After that, if you've got a job for a mere biologist, I've got my lab readied up where it can last till I get back and—I'm not bad with a soldering iron. Meantime, why don't you let Paul and Tombu go eat while you eat?"
"Good idea," said Mike. "You two. You heard the lady. We gotta give our fate the benefit of victuals. Scat."
As soon as the physicist and the engineer were settled to the plastic containers of food and coffee she had brought, wolfing them down hungrily, Millie opened up.
"While we're alone, I'm going to speak my piece," she said. "You two will do me the honor of not taking offense if I say that you have the most brains and the least consciences aboard—and I happen to share the latter characteristic."
The two looked up guiltily and waited.
"Now don't stop eating, for I'm not through talking," she said. "That magneto-ionic effect canceler you dreamed up would probably cancel the six hundred forty pound magneto-ionic effect pull you dreamed up—if such a thing existed.
"What I want to know ... don't stop eating until you've decided whether you're going to let me in on your game or not ... is what really does exist? I might be of some help, you know."
"But—" Mike and Ishie simultaneously choked over their food, looked at each other, and then Mike blurted out, "but how couldsheknow?"
"Don't worry," said Millie. "I'm probably the only one. It takes a person with little conscience and much imagination—takes a thief to catch a thief, I mean—yes, I think I mean that quite literally. Besides, I can help with some of that glassware that disappeared out of my supplies several days ago. Oh yes, I knew it was gone and where it went—but I figured any purpose you had was a good one, Ishie.
"But for how I personally canceled the idea of your magneto-ionic effect from the flare—it just happens that last night I was curious while everybody was asleep. When Bessie first came on duty this morning, I offered to relieve her while she had a cup of coffee, and I got a half-hour all by myself with the Cow. The captain wasn't up yet. Her console's so simple anyone with a basic knowledge of computers and cybernetics could figure her out.
"Practically the first question I asked—something about our orbit—the Cow told me that the information was top secret, and to get it I must go to the proper channel and identify myself as Mike. I started to intercom you, Mike, to tell you that your machinations were showing, but Bessie came back about then. I hung around to see what would happen, and pretty soon Bessie asked the Cow about the same question—but instead of getting the same answer, the Cow told her that an external magneto-ionic field was pulling us out of line.
"So I went up to your engineering place. I rather thought you'd like to know what the Cow had told me—but Dr. Ishie was there, and so instead I went about my own business until I could figure things out.
"Now I couldn't figure things out. But I could figure there's a monkey wrench somewhere—and since the two of you have been sticking together like Siamese twins, I know it will be perfectly all right to ask you in front of Ishie.
"Now," she finished, "do I get my girlish curiosity satisfied? You don't have to tell me. I'll just keep on being puzzled quietly and without indicating the slightest magneto-ionic dubiousness, if you'd rather. But I might be helpful; and Iwouldlike to know."
"Confusion say," Ishie declared through the side of his mouth, "that he who inadvertently puts big foot in mouth is apt to get teeth kicked loose. We are very lucky, Mike, that it was Millie who asked the question of the Cow at that time. Besides, we've got to tell somebody sooner or later. We can't just run off by ourselves.
"Yes, Millie, I think you have a job," he said. "Your help here will be appreciated, of course. But what we really need is a way of bridging the gap between ourselves and the rest of the personnel before it gets too wide. How's your P.R. these days?"
"That's something I learned in a hard school, public relations," she answered nonchalantly. "De-segregation was just beginning when I was a girl back in Georgia. But maybe I'd better know what the gap is."
The two began to talk, interrupting each other, incoherently outlining the Confusor and the various forces it exerted, and the—what Mike kept calling the inertial fish hook.
Finally Mike took over. "To put it simply," he said, "our pet didn't do at all what we expected—it hooked in on inertia and it took us off. A confusing little Confusor—but Millie—it's a space drive! A real, honest-to-gosh space drive!"
Millie gulped. It was far, far more than she had expected. Perhaps this was another form of disguise like the magneto-ionic....
"Are you sure?" Then she answered her own doubts. "Of course you're telling the truth now. That's not something you two would play games about." Then in awe—"You've really got it!"
"But why, then," she said, uncomprehending, "are you hiding it?" But before they could answer, she answered her own question again. "You'd have to. Of course. Otherwise it'll be strangled in red tape. Otherwise nobody'll let you work on it any more, except as head of a research team stuck off somewhere. Otherwise, Budget Control would take it over and make a fifteen-year project out of it—and the two of you will probably have it in practical operation...."
She looked at the molds and wiring taking form all across the machine shop.
"Oh, no! You'll have it in operation—soon!"
"Yes, soon—and we hope soon enough." Ishie sighed, then grinned impudently. "There is," he said, "the little matter of the fact that—in all innocence but nevertheless quite actually—we wiped out Thule Base.
"If we don't get the big Confusor in operation very soon, it may be that we shall spend a good deal of time in Earth's courts proving our innocence while someone else botches most thoroughly the job of creating a Confusor that could take us to the stars. And that," he added mournfully, "neither of us would enjoy. We might not even be able to prove our innocence, for there would be many very anxious to prove us sufficiently guilty to keep us out of the way for many years.
"So you see," he said, "you have a very real P.R. problem. Our assistants here could work better if they knew what they were doing. The people aboard the wheel would be most excited by a space drive, and would give us every aid.
"But what the law says, it says—and the captain would have no choice but to put us in irons if he heard, though I think our captain is such that he would not want to do it.
"We must tell everyone what we have, for where the wheel takes us, they will go. But we can't tell them, for if we tell anyone, it will get back to Earth—and we murdered Thule, according to the law of Earth.
"It is a very neat problem," he said.
Major Steve Elbertson arrived first at Project Hot Rod, and trailing behind him on their scuttlebugs, the other six men.
As he slipped through the lock and out of his spacesuit, he reached down the neck of his coveralls and carefully extracted the Security key in its flat, plastiskin packet, from between his shoulder blades. At least the villainous captain had not gotten his hands on this, he thought, and whatever damage had been done to Hot Rod probably could be quickly repaired.
He had heard of the hunt for the key, and been silently amused, though he had volunteered no information to his briefing officer, Chauvenseer.
Stepping forward as briskly as a sick rag doll, he fitted the key into the Security lock and snapped open the bar that prevented Hot Rod's use.
As the others entered, he turned to them. Supporting himself against the edge of the console and managing to look perfectly erect and capable despite his weakness, he said: "I have instructed each of you to learn as much as you could of the operation of this device. It is now necessary that the civilian scientists," he pronounced the "civilian" as though it were a dirty word, "be relieved of their rule over this weapon, and that the military take its proper place, as the masters of the situation. I trust each of you has learned his lessons carefully, because it is now too late for mistakes—although we have with us assistance far superior to that of the civilians.
"Gentlemen," he said, and his voice took on power as he talked, "it is a pleasure to re-introduce to you a companion whom you have known as Lathe Smith.
"This, gentlemen," he said formally, gesturing one of the men forward, "is the Herr Doktor Heinrich Schmidt, of whom you would have heard were you familiar with the more erudite of the developments of space physics.
"Dr. Schmidt," he added, "it is a pleasure to be able to again accord you the courtesies and respect that are your due.
"Now for myself," he continued, "it may surprise you to know that I, too, have a somewhat more advanced rank than you have suspected." Deliberately he unpinned the major's insignia that he wore, and brought out a sealed packet, opened it, and pinned on four stars.
"Gentlemen," he finished, "may I introduce myself? General Steve Elbertson, commanding officer of all space forces of the United Nations Security Forces.
"Now," he said briskly to his astounded men, his voice crackling with authority, "take stations.
"Dr. Schmidt will key in the number one laser bank only. You will select as your target area that area through which the passenger spokes of the wheel pass. These will each in turn be your targets if it becomes necessary to fire.
"Dr. Schmidt has advised me that, should it become necessary to fire on the hub, the resultant explosion of the shielding water will wreck the big wheel.
"If we should miss and hit the rim, the resultant explosion would inevitably wreck both the big wheel and Project Hot Rod.
"Therefore, gentlemen, I caution the most accurate possible aim.
"And Dr. Schmidt, will you connect the storage power supply you have readied, please?"
Quickly then, he slid into the communications officer's seat, as the Security officers assumed each of the four major posts of the project, while Chauvenseer took up a stance at his general's right hand, ready to respond as directed.
On the bridge, Captain Nails had been annoyed. Too many queries from people who really didn't have authority over his satellite. Too many directives and counter-directives were flooding at him from various officials on Earth.
Some one down there even had the temerity to suggest that Security take over—not officially, just sort of take over.
If that didn't take the cake, he thought. Trying to put that crumb Security officer into command,realcommand, of a scientist? Over HIS people? Never!
And just because somebody had a wild idea about sabotage—after all, the whole thing must be some sort of effect or accident. Why couldn't they leave people alone long enough to find out what was really going on?
And where was Elbertson, anyhow? The man had had plenty of time to freshen up. Possibly he had caved in some place. The medic had said he was sick. But even so, I'd best check, he thought.
Reaching for the intercom switch that would give him a private line to Security quarters in the rim, his gaze happened to fall on the panel that still displayed Hot Rod on its taut cable—
—And seven figures riding the end of the cable to the air lock.
Elbertson, of course, he thought furiously. And taking his men out when the proton level was still too high to go beyond the rim shielding....
Then the captain stopped in mid-thought. This was no idle act of a man feeling the effects of drugs.
He switched the intercom quickly to the Hot Rod crew's quarters on the rim. "Dr. Koblensky!" he almost shouted into the mike.
"Just a minute, sir," came the answer, and seconds that seemed like eternities passed before the doctor's calm voice answered, "Dr. Koblensky speaking."
"Did you know that seven men were going out to Hot Rod?"
"Of course not. They mustn't...."
The captain switched off and changed to the intercom for the machine shop. "Dr. Ishie. Mr. Blackhawk. To the bridge on the double.Fast," he said.
It might not be the saboteur, he thought, but the chances looked grimly real that Earth was right—that the whole thing was sabotage, and those were the seven saboteurs. While he waited, he checked the Security quarters for Elbertson. The major was not there, nor was he in the hospital.
Elbertson, he thought. I've been blind.
He decreased the magnification of Hot Rod so that the entire project showed.
Mike arrived first, almost skidding to a stop at the captain's console, Ishie right behind him.
"The saboteur—seven men that I believe to be saboteurs—are aboard Hot Rod," the captain told him crisply. "Can they activate it?"
"Captain, there's no saboteur...." Mike began, but the captain interrupted.
"Gentlemen, I'm not asking you to be the judge of that. If they are saboteurs, is there any way that they can activate Hot Rod?"
"Oh, they could have storage batteries aboard, I suppose." Mike didn't even pretend to be excited.
"Then we will assume they have, Mr. Blackhawk." The tone of the captain's voice told Mike he'd better darned well believe in those saboteurs or tell the captain the truth—and that quickly. "Now, assuming Hot Rod can be activated, we will also assume that their first aim will be to control the wheel. They would, therefore, aim at the hub and issue an ultimatum."
"They might aim at a target on Earth, and issue an ultimatum to us." Mike would play the game.
"No. We would refuse such an ultimatum. They would aim at us. Can you prevent that?"
Mike thought hard. He'd better come up with an answer to that one, saboteurs or no.
"If they shot through the hub, they'd hit our shielding water and explode the hub-hull. That would wreck the wheel, and they'd need the wheel. The only place they could safely shoot us would be the passenger spokes, and that would take some pretty fine target shooting—with only one laser bank. They could do it though," he said thoughtfully.
"Assume, Mr. Blackhawk, that if they couldn't hit the passenger spokes, they'd be willing to destroy the wheel in order to gain control. Is there any way to prevent that?"
Mike stood completely silent for almost a minute. Then he grinned. "Sure," he said. "If we turned the rim towards Hot Rod, they couldn't fire into the rim without hitting that shielding—and that would create an explosion, even from their smallest possible shot, that would almost inevitably take Hod Rod with it. If we turn the lab so that only the rim is towards Hot Rod, it's suicide to shoot us."
"You will swing the rim of the wheel into that alignment as rapidly as it can possibly be done." The captain's voice practically lifted the two men off the bridge, and they were on their way to the engineering quarters with every appearance of the urgency they should have felt if they had not known who—or rather what—was the real saboteur.
Then Mike heard Ishie's soft voice from behind him, slightly breathless. "At that, you'd better swing the rim and swing her fast, Mike. The captain sure 'nuff believes in his saboteurs, and it's just possible they're real."
O.K., thought Mike, and really moving now he reached the engineering quarters a good ten strides ahead of his companion.
As he entered the open bulkhead lock he saw a man that he recognized as one of the Security personnel, and brushing on past him said, "If you want to see me, come back later. I'm going to be very busy here for a while."
Mike headed for the panel that controlled the air jets and other devices that spun the wheel.
The Security man didn't hesitate. Seeing the ship's engineer about to make important—and possibly subversive—adjustments, he drew his needle gun and aimed it squarely at Mike's back. "Halt—in the name of Security!" he barked.
Slowly Mike swung around, eying the man coldly, and began a question.
But there was no need. Dr. Chi Tung, having seen what was going on through the lock before he entered, had held back just long enough for the Security man to turn fully towards Mike. Now he launched himself through the lock like a small but well-guided missile, and arriving on the Security guard's back, had his gun-arm down and half broken before the man knew what was happening. Had he been alone, it is possible that the larger man might have won. But Mike had never been fond of people who pulled guns on him, even if they were only sleepy guns.
Between the two of them, the Security guard was lucky not to lose his life in the first two seconds of battle.
The conflict ended almost before it had begun, with a meaty slap of Mike's fist connecting with the man's jaw, right below the ear. It hadn't been a clean punch, Mike thought, but then he wasn't really used to fighting in this gravity. Anyhow, the man was out.
And now came the question of what to do with him, but Mike left that to Ish.
He turned back to the precession panel a bit more convinced that perhaps the captain had been right—perhaps there were enemies aboard.
The precession controls, though operational, had not to date been required. Carefully, Mike switched the sequence that would put them into active condition but not operate. That was left to the Cow.
Turning to the vocoder panel, he directed the Cow to take over control of the now active precession equipment; to use the sun as a referrant for the axis of precession, and to move the pole ninety degrees in a clockwise direction around that axis of precession.
Under these directions, the big wheel began to turn, not as it had been turning, but sideways. The operation would take ten minutes, and the axis of this new turn would be aligned directly on Sol by the computer.
The Cow's help in such a maneuver was required, because the precession could only be accomplished by switching valves between the tanks of the rim in such a manner that water was switched north on one side of the wheel, and south on the opposite side of the wheel, and the points of this switching between the tanks must remain in a stable position relative to the spin of the wheel. The valves that accomplished this, seventy-two of them, were spaced at intervals of five degrees around the rim, but only two out of the seventy-two could be active at any time; and these must be selected by the computer's controls so that always the precessive force was properly aligned to produce the required precession.
When the precession was finished, the rim of the wheel would be aligned, still with the sun, but also with Project Hot Rod which had been to their south.
As a third thought, Mike switched off the Confuser.
Having set up the necessary factors, Mike turned back to the problem of the Security guard, or saboteur, whichever he might be, but found this problem had already been well taken care of. Not satisfied with simply tying the man up, Ishie had bound him with wire to somewhat the resemblance of an Egyptian mummy, and then for added good measure, given him two sleepy shots with his own needle gun; put electrician tape across his mouth; and taken from him everything he could possibly use either as a method of communication or as a weapon.
At least, Mike thought, Ishie is a thorough workman when he sets his mind to it.
Having parked the Security man in a nearby tool locker, with the feeling that he would keep for a while there, Ishie turned back to Mike with a grin.
"Confusion say those who play with firearms should be cautious! Mike, this convinces me. I've heard snatches of what's going on on Earth, and it looks like somebody is putting over a fast one down there. Seems like maybe our own Security boys are part of it. They would be the ones the captain saw going out to Hot Rod. And that means they've got a purpose out there. Is good to know they can't shoot us now, at least in a few minutes now, without getting themselves shot back. But they can shoot at Earth. Any ideas?"
"Well ... I thought some time ago that there was a little fallacy involved in that project when I saw how they hung the beam-director way out in front on those little old balloon-poles. They've got 'em bent, and if any one or two of 'em should happen to get punctured, the other two would move the mirror complete out of the laser beam focus. Then the only thing they could shoot would be the sun—and I don't think it'd care.
"Ishie, you stay here just to keep the home fires burning and make sure that nobody fiddles with anything we don't want 'em to. All of the bulkheads leading into this section can be locked from the inside—a feature I haven't seen fit to point out to other people who really don't need to know."
Walking around the floor, Mike carefully secured the four bulkheads, two leading back to the morgue; two leading forward to the north pole end of the hub. And then, jumping catlike upward and grasping the access ladder to the central axis tube, he carefully bolted that one, too.