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| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-21 21:57:46 -0800 |
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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-21 21:57:46 -0800 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e29b423 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #68047 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68047) diff --git a/old/68047-0.txt b/old/68047-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b4a1623..0000000 --- a/old/68047-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1599 +0,0 @@ -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68047 *** - - Off the Beam - - By GEORGE O. SMITH - - Illustrated by Orban - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Astounding Science-Fiction, February 1944. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -Thirty hours out of Mars for Terra, the _Solar Queen_ sped along her -silent, invisible course. No longer was she completely severed from -all connection with the planets of the inner system; the trick cams -that controlled the beams at Venus Equilateral kept the ship centered -by sheer mathematics. It was a poor communications system, however, -since it was but a one-way job. Any message-answering would have to be -done thirty hours later when the ship made planetfall, and the regular -terminal office of Interplanetary Communications could be employed. - -In spite of her thirty hours at 2-G, which brought her velocity to -eleven hundred miles per second, the beam-director cams did their -job well enough. It was only in extreme cases of course-changing to -dodge meteors that the beams lost the ship; since the cams were not -clairvoyant, there was no way to know when the autopilot juggled the -controls to miss a bit of cosmic dust. The cams continued to spear the -space through which the ship was supposed to pass according to the -course constants. - -What made this trip ironic was the fact that Don Channing was aboard. -The beams had been bombarding the _Solar Queen_ continually ever since -she left Mars with messages for the Director of Communications. In -one sense, it seemed funny that Channing was for once on the end of a -communications line where people could talk to him but upon which he -could not talk back. On the other hand it was a blessing in disguise, -for the Director of Communications was beginning to paper-talk himself -into some means of contacting the Relay Station from a spaceship. - -A steward found Channing in the salon and handed him a 'gram. Channing -smiled, and the steward returned the smile and added: "You'll fix these -ships to talk back one day. Wait until you read that one--you'll burn -from here to Terra!" - -"Reading my mail?" asked Channing cheerfully. The average spacegram was -about as secret as a postcard, so Channing didn't mind. He turned the -page over and read: - - HOPE YOU'RE WELL FILLED WITH GRAVANOL AND ADHESIVE TAPE FOR YOUR - JUMP FROM TERRA TO STATION. SHALL TAKE GREAT DELIGHT IN RIPPING - ADHESIVE TAPE OFF YOUR MEASLY BODY. LOVE. - - ARDEN - -"She will, too," grinned Don. "Well, I'd like to toss her one back, but -she's got me there. I'll just fortify myself at the bar and think up a -few choice ones for when we hit Mojave." - -"Some day you'll be able to answer those," promised the steward. "Mind -telling me why it's so tough?" - -"Not at all," smiled Channing. "The problem is about the same as -encountered by the old-time cowboy. It's a lot easier to hit a man on -a moving horse from a nice, solid rock than it is to hit a man on a -nice, solid rock from a moving horse. Venus Equilateral is quite solid -as things go. But a spaceship's course is fierce. We're wobbling a few -milliseconds here and a few there, and by the time you use that arc to -swing a line of a hundred million miles, you're squirting quite a bit -of sky. We're tinkering with it right now, but so far we have come up -with nothing. Ah, well, since the human race got along without electric -lights for a few million years, we can afford to tinker with an idea -for a few months. Nobody is losing lives or sleep because we can't talk -to the boys back home." - -"We've been hopping from planet to planet for quite a number of years -too," said the steward. "Quite a lot of them went by before it was even -possible to contact a ship in space." - -"And that was done because of an emergency. Probably this other -thing will go on until we hit an emergency; then we shall prove that -old statement about a loaf of bread being the maternal parent of a -locomotive." Channing lit a cigarette, and puffed deeply. "Where do we -stand?" - -"Thirty hours out," answered the steward. "About ready for turnover. I -imagine that the poor engineer's gang is changing cathodes about now." - -"It's a long drag," said Channing. He addressed himself to his glass -and began to think of a suitable answer for his wife's latest thrust. - - * * * * * - -Bill Hadley, of the power engineer's gang, spoke to the pilot's -greenhouse below the ship. "Hadley to pilot room: Cathodes 1 and 3 -ready." - -"Pilot Greenland to Engineer Hadley: Power fade-over from even to odd -now under way. Tubes 2 and 4 now dead; load on 1 and 3. You may enter 2 -and 4." - -"Check!" - -Hadley cracked an air valve beside a circular air door. The hiss of -entering air crescendoed and died, and then Hadley cracked the door -that opened in upon the huge driver tube. With casual disregard for -the annular electrodes that filled the tube and the sudden death that -would come if the pilot sent the driving voltages surging into the -electrodes, Hadley climbed to the top of the tube and used a spanner to -remove four huge bolts. A handy differential pulley permitted him to -lower the near-exhausted cathode from the girders to the air door where -it was hauled to the deck. A fresh cathode was slung to the pulley and -hoisted to place. Hadley bolted it tight and clambered back into the -ship. He closed the air door and the valve, and then opened the valve -that led from the tube to outer space. The tube evacuated and Hadley -spoke once more to the pilot room. - -"Hadley to Greenland: Tube 4 ready." - -"Check." - -The operation was repeated on Tube 2, and then Pilot Greenland said: -"Fade-back beginning. Power diminishing on 1 and 3, increasing on 2 and -4. Power equalized, acceleration 2-G as before. Deviation from norm: -two-tenths-G." - -Hadley grinned at the crew. "You'd think that Greenland did all that -himself, the way he talks. If it weren't for autopilots, we'd have been -all over the sky." - -Tom Bennington laughed. He was an old-timer, and he said in a -reminiscent tone: "I remember when we used to do that on manual. There -were as many cases of _mal de void_ during cathode change as during -turnover. Autopilots are the nuts--look! We're about to swing right -now, and I'll bet a fiver that the folks below won't know a thing about -it." - -A coincidence of mammoth proportions occurred at precisely that -instant. It was a probability that made the chance of drawing a royal -flush look like the chances of tomorrow coming on time. It was, in -fact, one of those things that they said couldn't possibly happen, -which went to prove only how wrong they were. It hadn't happened yet -and probably wouldn't happen again for a million million years, but it -did happen once. - -Turnover was about to start. A relay circuit that coupled the -meteor-spotter to the autopilot froze for a bare instant, and the -coincidence happened between the freezing of the relay contacts -and the closing of another relay whose purpose it was to shunt the -coupler circuits through another line in case of relay failure. In -the inconceivable short time between the failure and the device that -corrected failure, the _Solar Queen_ hit a meteor head on. - -It is of such coincidences that great tragedies and great victories are -born. - - * * * * * - -The meteor, a small one as cosmic objects go, passed in through the -broad observation dome at the top of the ship. Unhampered, it zipped -through the central well of the _Solar Queen_ and passed out through -the pilot's greenhouse at the bottom of the ship. Its speed was nothing -worth noting; a scant twenty miles per second almost sunward. But the -eleven hundred miles per second of the _Solar Queen_ made the passage -of the meteor through the six hundred feet of the ship's length of less -duration than the fastest camera shutter. - -In those microseconds, the meteor did much damage. - -It passed through the main pilotroom cable and scrambled those circuits -which it did not break entirely. It tore the elevator system from -its moorings. It entered as a small hole in the observation dome and -left taking the entire pilot's greenhouse and all of the complex -paraphernalia with it. - -The lines to the driver tubes were scrambled, and the ship shuddered -and drove forward at 10-G. An inertia switch tried to function, but the -resetting solenoid had become shorted across the main battery and the -weight could not drop. - -Air doors clanged shut, closing the central well from the rest of the -ship and effectively sealing the well from the crew. - -The lights in the ship flickered and died. The cable's shorted lines -grew hot and fire crept along its length and threatened the continuity. -The heat opened fire-quenching vents and a cloud of CO_{2}, emerged -together with some of the liquid gas itself. The gas quenched the -fire and the cold liquid cooled the cable. Fuses blew in the shorted -circuits-- - -And the _Solar Queen_ continued to plunge on and on at 10-G; the -maximum possible out of her driving system. - -The only man who remained aware of himself aboard the _Solar Queen_ was -the man who was filled with gravanol and adhesive tape. No other person -expected to be hammered down by high acceleration. Only Channing, who -was planning to leave Terra in his own little scooter, was prepared to -withstand high G. He, with his characteristic hate of doing anything -slowly, was ready to make the Terra to Venus Equilateral passage at 5- -or 6-G. - -It might as well have caught him, too. With all of the rest -unconscious, hurt, or dead, he was alone and firmly fastened to the -floor of the salon under eighteen hundred pounds of his own, helpless -weight. - -And as the hours passed, the _Solar Queen_ was driving farther and -farther from the imaginary spot that was the focus of the communicator -beams from Venus Equilateral. - -The newly-replaced cathodes in the driving tubes were capable of -driving the ship for about two hundred G-hours at 1-G, before -exhaustion to the point of necessary replacement for safety purposes. -The proportion is not linear, nor is it a square-law, but roughly it -lies in the region just above linear, so that the _Solar Queen_ drove -on and on through space for ten hours at 10-G before the cathodes died -for want of emitting surface. They died, not at once, but in irregular -succession so that when the last erg of power was gone from the ship -it was zooming on a straight line tangent from its point of collision -but rolling in a wild gyration through the void. - -And twenty-five hundred miles per second added to her initial velocity -of eleven hundred miles per second added up to thirty-six hundred miles -per second. She should have had about seventy-five million miles to go -at 2-G, to reach Terra in thirty hours from the halfway point where she -turned ends to go into deceleration. Instead, the _Solar Queen_ after -ten hours of misdirected 10-G acceleration was thirty million miles on -her way, or about halfway to Terra. Three hours later, driving free, -the _Solar Queen_ was passing Terra, having missed the planet by a few -million miles. - -Back in space, at an imaginary junction between the beams from Venus -Equilateral and the course registered for the _Solar Queen_, Arden -Channing's latest message was indicating all sorts of mild punishment -for her husband when she got him home. - -By the time that the _Solar Queen_ should have been dropping out of -the sky at Mojave Spaceport, the ship would be one hundred and ninety -million miles beyond Terra and flirting with the imaginary line that -marked the orbit of Mars. - -That would be in seventeen hours. - - * * * * * - -Weightless, Channing pursued a crazy course in the salon of the -spinning ship. He ached all over from the pressure, but the gravanol -had kept his head clear and the adhesive tape had kept his body intact. -He squirmed around in the dimness and could see the inert figures -of the rest of the people who had occupied the salon at the time of -the mishap. He became sick. Violence was not a part of Channing's -nature--at least he confined his violence to those against whom he -required defense. But he knew that many of those people who pursued -aimless orbits in the midair of the salon with him would never set foot -on solidness again. - -He wondered how many broken bones there were among those who had lived -through the ordeal. He wondered if the medical staff of one doctor and -two nurses could cope with it. - -Then he wondered what difference it made if they were to go on and on, -and from that thought came the one he should have thought of first: How -were they to stop going on and on? Channing had a rough idea of what -had happened. He knew something about the conditions under which they -had been traveling, how long, and in which direction. It staggered him, -the figures he calculated in his mind. It behooved him to do something. - -He bumped an inert figure, and grabbed. One hand took the back of the -head and came away wet and sticky. Channing retched, and then threw -the inert man from him. He coasted back against a wall, and caught a -handrail. Hand-over-hand he went to the door and into the hall. Down -the hall he went to the passengers' elevator shaft and with no thought -of what his action would have been on any planet, Channing opened the -door and drove down the shaft for several decks. He emerged and headed -for the sick ward. - -He found the doctor clinging to his operating table with his knees and -applying a bandage to one of his nurses' heads. - -"Hello, Doc," said Channing. "Help?" - -"Grab Jen's feet and hold her down," snapped the doctor. - -"Bad?" asked Don as he caught the flailing feet. - -"Seven stitches, no fracture," said the doctor. - -"How's the other one?" - -"Unconscious, but unharmed. Both asleep in bed, thank God. So was I. -Where were--? You're Channing and were all doped up with gravanol and -adhesive. Thank yourself a god for that, too. I'm going to need both of -my nurses and we'll all need you." - -"Hope I can do some good," said Don. - -"You'd better. Or any good I can do will be wasted. Better start right -now. Here," the doctor produced a set of keys, "these will unlock -anything in the ship but the purser's safe. You'll need 'em. Now get -along and do something and leave the body-mending to me. Scram!" - -"Can you make out all right?" - -"As best I can. But you're needed to get us help. If you can't, no man -in the Solar System can. You're in the position of a man who can not -afford to help in succoring the wounded and dying. It'll be tough, but -there it is. Get cutting. And for Heaven's sake, get us two things: -Light and a floor. I couldn't do more than slap on tape whilst floating -in air. See you later, Channing, and good luck." - -The nurse squirmed, groaned, and opened her eyes. "What happened?" she -asked, blinking into the doctor's flashlight. - -"Tell you later, Jen. Get Fern out of her coma in the ward and then -we'll map out a plan. Channing, get out of here!" - -Channing got after borrowing a spare flashlight from the doctor. - - * * * * * - -He found Hadley up in the instrument room with a half dozen of his men. -They were a mass of minor and major cuts and injuries, and were working -under a single incandescent lamp that had been wired to the battery -direct by means of spare cable. The wire went snaking through the air -in a foolish, crooked line, suspended on nothing. Hadley's gang were -applying first aid to one another and cursing the lack of gravity. - -"Help?" said Channing. - -"Need it or offer it?" asked Hadley with a smile. - -"Offer it. You'll need it." - -"You can say that again--and then pitch in. You're Channing, of -Communications, aren't you? We're going to have a mad scramble on -the main circuits of this tub before we can unwind it. I don't think -there's an instrument working in the whole ship." - -"You can't unravel the whole works, can you?" - -"Won't try. About all we can do is replace the lighting system and hang -the dead cathodes in again. They'll be all right to take us out of this -cockeyed skew-curve and probably will last long enough to keep a half-G -floor under us for tinkering, for maybe forty or fifty hours. Assistant -Pilot Darlange will have to learn how to run a ship by the seat of his -pants--as far as I can guess there isn't even a splinter of glass left -in the pilot room--so he'll have to correct this flight by feel and by -using a haywire panel." - -"Darlange is a school-pilot," grinned one of Hadley's men. - -"I know, Jimmy, but I've seen him work on a bum autopilot, and he -can handle haywire all right. It'll be tough without Greenland, but -Greenland--" Hadley let the sentence fall; there was no need to mention -the fact that Greenland was probably back there with the rest of the -wreckage torn from the _Solar Queen_. - -Jimmy nodded, and the action shook him from his position. He grabbed at -a roll of tape that was floating near him and let it go with a laugh as -he realized it was too light to do him any good. - -"Too bad that this gyration is not enough to make a decent gravity -at the ends, at least," snorted Hadley. He hooked Jimmy by an arm and -hauled the man back to a place beside him. "Now look," he said, "I -can't possibly guess how many people are still in working condition -after this. Aside from our taped and doped friend here, the only ones -I have are we who were snoozing in our beds when the crush came. I'll -bet a cooky that the rest of the crowd are all nursing busted ribs, -and worse. Lucky that full-G died slowly as the cathodes went out; -otherwise we'd all have been tossed against the ceilings with bad -effects. - -"Jimmy, you're a committee of one to roam the crate and make a list of -everyone who is still in the running and those who can be given minor -repairs to make them fit for limited work. Doc has a pretty good supply -of Stader splints; inform him that these are only to be used on men who -can be useful with them. The rest will have to take to plaster casts -and the old-fashioned kind of fracture-support. - -"Pete, you get to the executive deck and tell Captain Johannson that -we're on the job and about to make with repairs. As power engineer, -I've control of the maintenance gang too, and we'll collect the whole, -hale, and hearty of Michaels' crew on our merry way. - -"Tom, take three of your men and begin to unravel the mess with an eye -toward getting us lights. - -"Tony, you can do this alone since we have no weight. You get the stale -cathodes from the supply hold and hang 'em back in the tubes. - -"Channing, until we get a stable place, you couldn't do a thing about -trying to get help, so I suggest that you pitch in with Bennington, -there, and help unscramble the wiring. You're a circuit man, and though -power-line stuff is not your forte, you'll find that running a lighting -circuit is a lot easier than neutralizing a microwave transmitter. Once -we get light, you can help us haywire a control panel. Right?" - -"Right. And as far as contacting the folks back home goes, we couldn't -do a darned thing until the time comes when we should be dropping in -on Mojave. They won't be looking for anything from us until we're -reported missing; then I imagine that Walt Franks will have everything -from a spinthariscope to a gold-foil electroscope set up. Right now I'm -stumped, but we have seventeen hours before we can start hoping to be -detected. Tom, where do we begin?" - -Bennington smiled inwardly. To have Don Channing asking him for orders -was like having Captain Johannson request the batteryman's permission -to change course. "If you can find and remove the place where the -shorted line is, and then splice the lighting circuits again, we'll -have a big hunk of our work done. The rest of us will begin to take -lines off of the pilot's circuits right here in the instrument room so -that our jury-controls can be hooked in. You'll need a suit, I think, -because I'll bet a hat that the shorted line is in the well." - - * * * * * - -For the next five hours, the instrument room became a beehive of -activity. Men began coming in driblets, and were put to work as -they came. The weightlessness gave quite a bit of trouble; had the -instrument panels been electrically hot, it would have been downright -dangerous since it was impossible to do any kind of work without -periodically coming against bare connections. Tools floated around -the room in profusion, and finally Hadley appointed one man to do -nothing but roam the place to retrieve "dropped" tools. The soldering -operations were particularly vicious, since the instinctive act of -flinging excess solder from the tip of an iron made droplets of hot -solder go zipping around the room to splash against something, after -which the splashes would continue to float. - -Men who came in seeking to give aid were handed tools and told to do -this or that, and the problem of explaining how to free a frozen relay -to unskilled help was terrific. - -Then at the end of five hours, Channing came floating in to the -instrument room. He flipped off the helmet and said to Hadley: "Make -with the main switch. I think I've got it." - -Throughout the ship the lights blinked on. - -With the coming of light, there came hope also. Men took a figurative -hitch in their belts and went to work with renewed vigor. It seemed -as though everything came to a head at about this time, too. Hadley -informed Darlange that his jury-control was rigged and ready for -action, and about the same time, the galley crew came in with -slender-necked bottles of coffee and rolls. - -"It was a job, making coffee," grinned the steward. "The darned stuff -wanted to get out of the can and go roaming all over the place. There -isn't a one of us that hasn't got a hot coffee scar on us somewhere. -Now if he"--nodding at Darlange--"can get this thing straightened out, -we'll have a real dinner." - -"Hear that, Al? All that stands between us and dinner is you. Make with -the ship-straightening. Then we'll all sit around and wait for Channing -to think." - -"Is the ship's communicator in working order?" asked Darlange. - -"Sure. That went on with the lights." - -Darlange called for everyone in the ship to hold himself down, and -then he tied his belt to the frame in front of the haywired panel. He -opened the power on drivers 1 and 2, and the ship's floor surged ever -so little. - -"How're you going to know?" asked Hadley. - -"I've got one eye on the gyro-compass," said Darlange. "When it stops -turning, we're going straight. Then all we have to do is to set our -bottom end along the line of flight and pack on the decel. Might as -well do it that way since every MPS we can lose is to our advantage." - -He snapped switches that added power to Driver 3. Gradually the -gyro-compass changed from a complex rotation-progression to a simpler -pattern, and eventually the simple pattern died, leaving but one -freedom of rotation. "I'm sort of stumped," grinned Darlange. "We're -now hopping along, but rotating on our long axis. How we stop axial -rotation with drivers set parallel to that axis I'll never guess." - -"Is there a lifeship in working order?" asked Hadley. - -"Sure." - -"Tom, turn it against the rotation and apply the drivers on that until -we tell you to stop." - -An hour later the ship had ceased to turn. Then Darlange jockeyed the -big ship around so that the bottom was along the line of flight. Then -he set the power for a half-G, and everyone relaxed. - -Ten minutes later Captain Johannson came in. - -"You've done a fine job," he told Hadley. "And now I declare an hour -off for dinner. Dr. MacLain has got a working medical center with -the aid of a few people who understand how such things work, and the -percentage of broken bones, though terrific in number, is being taken -care of. The passengers were pretty restive at first, but the coming of -light seemed to work wonders. This first glimmer of power is another. -About nine or ten who were able to do so were having severe cases -of skysickness." He smiled ruefully. "I'm not too sure that I like -no-weight myself." - -"Have you been in the observation dome?" asked Don. - -"Yes. It's pierced, you know." - -"Did the meteor hit the telescope?" - -"No, why?" - -"Because I'm going to have to get a sight on Venus Equilateral before -we can do anything. We'll have to beam them something, but I don't know -what right now." - -"Can we discuss that over a dinner?" asked the captain. "I'm starved, -and I think that the rest of this gang is also." - -"You're a man after my own heart," laughed Channing. "The bunch out -at the Station wouldn't believe me if I claimed to have done anything -without drawing it up on a tablecloth." - - * * * * * - -"Now," said Channing over his coffee. "What have we in the way of -electronic equipment?" - -"One X-ray machine, a standard set of communicating equipment, one beam -receiver with 'type machine for collecting stuff from your Station, and -so on." - -"You wouldn't have a betatron in the place somewhere?" asked Don -hopefully. - -"Nope. Could we make one?" - -"Sure. Have you got about ten pounds of No. 18 wire?" - -"No." - -"Then we can't." - -"Couldn't you use a driver? Isn't that some kind of beam?" - -"Some kind," admitted Channing. "But it emits something that we've -never been able to detect except in an atmosphere where it ionizes the -air into a dull red glow." - -"You should have been wrecked on the _Sorcerer's Apprentice_," laughed -Hadley. "They're the guys who have all that kind of stuff." - -"Have they?" asked Johannson. - -"The last time I heard, they were using a large hunk of their upper -hull for a VanDerGraf generator." - -"That would do it," said Channing thoughtfully. "But I don't think I'd -know how to modulate a VanDerGraf. A betatron would be the thing. -You can modulate that, sort of, by keying the input. She'd give out -with hundred-and-fifty-cycle stuff, but so what? We made the _Empress -of Kolain_ sit up and say uncle on hundred-cycle stuff. How much of a -trick is it to clear the observation dome from the top?" - -"What do you intend to do?" - -"Well, we've got a long, hollow tube in this ship. Knock out the -faceted dome above, and we can rig us up a huge electron gun. We'll -turn the ship to point at the Station and beam 'em a bouquet of -electrons." - -"How're you going to do that?" - -"Not too tough, I don't think. Down here," and Channing began to trace -on the tablecloth, "we'll put us a hot cathode. About this level we'll -hang the first anode, and at this level we'll put the second anode. -Here'll be an acceleration electrode, and up near the top we'll put -a series of focusing anodes. We'll tap in to the driver-tube supply -and take off voltages to suit us. Might use a tube at that, but the -conversion to make an honest electron gun out of it would disrupt our -power, and then it would be impossible to make a driver out of it again -without recourse to a machine shop." - -"How are you going to make electrodes?" - -"We'll use the annular gratings that run around the central well at -each level," said Channing. "We'll have a crew of men cut 'em free and -insulate the resulting rings with something. Got anything?" - -"There is a shipment of methyl-methacrylate rods for the Venus Power -Co. in Hold 17," said the cargo master. - -"Fine," said Channing. "What size?" - -"Three inches by six feet." - -"It'll be tricky work, and you'll have to wait until your cut edge has -cooled before you hook on the rods," mused Don. "But that's the ticket." - -"Which floors do you want?" - -"Have you got a scale drawing of the _Solar Queen_?" - -"Sure." - -"Then this is where my tablecloth artistry falls flat. The focusing of -an electron beam depends upon the electrode spacing and the voltage. -Since our voltage is fixed if we take it from the driver electrodes, -we'll have to do some mighty fine figuring. I'll need that scale -drawing." - - * * * * * - -Channing's tablecloth engineering was not completely wasted. By the -time the scale drawing was placed before him, Channing had half of the -table filled with equations. He studied the drawing, and selected the -levels which were to serve as electrodes. He handed the drawing to -Hadley, and the power engineer began to issue instructions to his gang. - -Then the central well began to swarm with spacesuited men who bore -cutting torches. Hot sparks danced from the cut girders that held the -floorings, and at the same time, a crew of men were running cables from -the various levels to the instrument room. More hours passed while the -circular sections were insulated with the plastic rods. - -The big dome above was cut in sections and removed, and then the sky -could be seen all the way from the bottom of the ship where the pilot's -greenhouse should have been. - -Channing looked it over and then remarked: "All we need now is an -electron collector." - -"I thought you wanted to shoot 'em off," objected Hadley. - -"I do. But we've got to have a source of supply. You can't toss -baseballs off of the Transplanet Building in Northern Landing all -afternoon, you know, without having a few brought to you now and then. -Where do you think they come from?" - -"Hadn't thought of it in that way. What'd happen?" - -"We'd get along for the first umpty-gillion electrons, and then all -the soup we could pack on would be equalized by the positive charge on -the ship and we couldn't shoot out any more until we got bombarded by -the sun--and that bombardment is nothing to write home about as goes -quantity. What we need is a selective solar intake plate of goodly -proportions." - -"We could use a mental telepathy expert, too. Or one of those new beams -that Baler and Carroll dug up out of the Martian desert. I've heard -that those things will actually suck power out of any source, and bend -beams so as to enter the intake vent, or end." - -"We haven't one of those, either. Fact of the matter is," grinned -Channing ruefully, "we haven't much of anything but our wits." - -"Unarmed, practically," laughed Hadley. - -"Half armed, at least. Ah, for something to soak up electrons. I'm now -wondering if this electron gun is such a good idea." - -"Might squirt some protons out the other direction," offered Hadley. - -"That would leave us without either," said Don. "We'd be like the man -who tossed baseballs off of one side and himself off the other--Hey! -Of course we have some to spare. We can cram electrons out of the -business end, thus stripping the planetary rings from the atoms in our -cathode. From the far side we'll shoot the canal rays, which in effect -will be squirting protons, or the nuclei. Since the planetaries have -left for the front, it shouldn't be hard to take the protons away, -leaving nothing. At our present voltages, we might be able to do it." -Channing began to figure again, and he came up with another set of -anodes to be placed beyond the cathode. "We'll ventilate the cathode -and hang these negative electrodes on the far side. They will attract -the protons, impelled also by the positive charge on the front end. -We'll maintain a balance that way, effectively throwing away the whole -atomic structure of the cathode. The latter will fade, just as the -cathodes do in the driving tubes, only we'll be using electronic power -instead of sub-electronic. Y'know, Hadley, some day someone is going to -find a way to detect the--we'll call it radiation for want of anything -better--of the driver. And then there will open an entirely new field -of energy. I don't think that anybody has done more about the so-called -sub-electronic field than to make a nice, efficient driving device out -of it. - -"Well, let's get our canal-ray electrodes in place. We've got about two -hours before they realize that we aren't going to come in at Mojave. -Then another two hours worth of wild messages between the Relay Station -and Mojave. Then we can expect someone to be on the lookout. I hope to -be there when they begin to look for us. At our present velocity, we'll -be flirting with the Asteroid Belt in less than nothing flat. That -isn't too bad--normally--but we're running without any meteor detector -and autopilot coupler. We couldn't duck anything from a robin's egg on -up." - -"We'll get your anodes set," said Hadley. - - * * * * * - -Walt Franks grinned at Arden Channing. "That'll burn him," he assured -her. - -"It's been on the way for about twenty minutes," laughed Arden. "I -timed it to arrive at Terra at the same time the _Solar Queen_ does. -They'll send out a special messenger with it, just as Don is getting -aboard his little scooter. It'll be the last word, for we're not -following him from Terra to here." - -"You know what you've started?" asked Franks. - -"Nothing more than a little feud between husband and self." - -"That's just the start. Before he gets done, Don will have every ship -capable of answering back. I've found that you can catch him off -base just once. He's a genius--one of those men who never make the -same mistake twice. He'll never again be in a position to be on the -listening end only." - -"Don's answer should be on the way back by now," said Arden. "Could be -you're right. Something should be done." - -"Sure I'm right. Look at all the time that's wasted in waiting for -a landing to answer 'grams. In this day and age, time is money, -squared. The latter is to differentiate between this time and the first -glimmering of speedy living." - -"Was there a first glimmering?" asked Arden sagely. "I've often thought -that the speed-up was a stable acceleration from the dawn of time to -the present." - -"All right, go technical on me," laughed Walt. "Things do move. That -is, all except that message from your loving husband." - -"You don't suppose he's squelched?" - -"I doubt it. Squelching Donald Channing is a job for a superbeing. And -I'm not too sure that a superbeing could squelch Don and make him stay -squelched. Better check on Mojave." - -"Gosh, if Don missed the _Solar Queen_ and I've been shooting him all -kinds of screwy 'types every hour on the hour; Walt, that'll keep him -quiet for a long, long time." - -"He'd have let you know." - -"That wouldn't have been so bad. But if the big bum missed and was -ashamed of it--that'll be the pay-off. Whoa, there goes the 'type!" - -Arden drew the tape from the machine: - - MESSAGE BEING HELD FOR ARRIVAL OF _SOLAR QUEEN_. - -Walt looked at his watch and checked the course constants of the _Solar -Queen_. He called the beam-control dome and asked for the man on the -_Solar Queen_ beam. - -"Benny," he said, "has the _Solar Queen_ arrived yet?" - -"Sure," answered Benny. "According to the mechanical mind here, they've -been on Mojave for twenty minutes." - -"Thanks." To Arden he said: "Something's strictly fishy." - -Arden sat at the machine and pounded the keys: - - _SOLAR QUEEN_ DUE TO ARRIVE AT 19:06:41. IT IS NOW 19:27:00. BEAM - CONTROL SAYS TRANSMISSIONS ENDED BECAUSE OF COINCIDENCE BETWEEN - TERRA BEAM AND STATION-TO-SHIP BEAM. PLEASE CHECK. - -Arden fretted and Walt stamped up and down the room during the long -minutes necessary for the message to reach Terra and the answer to -return. It came right on the tick of the clock: - - HAVE CHECKED COURSE CONSTANTS. _SOLAR QUEEN_ OVER-DUE NOW FIFTY - MINUTES. OBVIOUSLY SOMETHING WRONG. CAN YOU HELP? - -Walt smiled in a grim fashion. "Help!" he said. "We go on and on for -years and years with no trouble--and now we've lost the third ship in a -row." - -"They claim that those things always run in threes," said Arden. "What -are we going to do?" - -"I don't know. We'll have to do something. Funny, but the one reason we -must do something is the same reason why something can be done." - -"I don't get that." - -"With Channing on the _Solar Queen_, something can be done. I don't -know what, but I'll bet you a new hat that Don will make it possible -for us to detect the ship. There is not a doubt in my mind that if the -ship is still spaceworthy, we can narrow the possibilities down to a -thin cone of space." - -"How?" - -"Well," said Franks, taking the fountain pen out of the holder on the -desk and beginning to sketch on the blotter, "the course of the _Solar -Queen_ is not a very crooked one, as courses go. It's a very shallow -skew curve. Admitting the worst, collision, we can assume only one -thing. If the meteor were small enough to leave the ship in a floating -but undirigible condition, it would also be small enough to do nothing -to the general direction of the ship. Anything else would make it -useless to hunt, follow?" - -"Yes, go on." - -"Therefore we may assume that the present position of the _Solar Queen_ -is within the volume of a cone made by the tangents of the outermost -elements of the space curve that is the _Solar Queen's_ course. We can -take an eight-thousand-mile cylinder out of one place--for the origin -of their trouble is between Mars and Terra and the 'shadow' of Terra in -the cone will not contain the _Solar Queen_." - -"Might have passed close enough to Terra to throw her right into the -'shadow' of Terra by attraction," objected Arden. - -"Yeah, you're right. O.K., so we can't take out that cylinder of space. -And we add a sort of side-wise cone on to our original cone, a volume -through which the _Queen_ might have flown after passing close enough -to Terra to be deflected. I'll have the slipstick experts give a guess -as to the probability of the _Queen's_ course, and at the same time -we'll suspend all incoming operations. I'm going to set up every kind -of detector I can think of, and I don't want anything upsetting them." - -"What kind of stuff do you expect?" asked Arden. - -"I dunno. They might have a betatron aboard. In that case we'll -eventually get a blast of electrons that'll knock our front teeth out. -Don may succeed in tinkering up some sort of electrostatic field. We -can check the solar electrostatic field to about seven decimal places -right here, and any deviation in the field to the tune of a couple -of million electron volts at a distance of a hundred million miles -will cause a distortion in the field that we can measure. We'll ply -oscillating beams through the area of expectation and hope for an -answering reflection, though I do not hope for that. We'll have men on -the lookout for everything from smoke signals to helio. Don't worry too -much, Arden, your husband is capable of doing something big enough to -be heard. He's just the guy to do it." - -"I know," said Arden soberly. "But I can't help worrying." - -"Me, too. Well, I'm off to set up detectors. We'll collect something." - - * * * * * - -"Have we got anything like a piece of gold leaf?" asked Channing. - -"I think so, why?" - -"I want to make an electroscope. That's about the only way I'll know -whether we are getting out with this cockeyed electron gun." - -"How so?" asked Hadley. - -"We can tell from the meter that reads the beam current whether -anything is going up the pipe," explained Channing. "But if -we just build us up a nice heavy duty charge--as shown by the -electroscope--we'll be sure that the electrons are not going far. This -is one case where no sign is good news." - -"I'll have one of the boys set up an electroscope in the instrument -room." - -"Good. And now have the bird on the telescope forget trying to find -Venus Equilateral by dead reckoning and sight. Have him set the scope -angles to the figures here, and then have him contact Darlange and have -the ship slued around so that Venus is on the cross hairs. That'll put -us on a line for the Station by a few thousand miles. We can afford to -miss. A bundle of electrons of our magnitude zipping past the detectors -that Walt can set up will make a reading." - -Hadley called the observation dome. "Tim," he said, giving a string of -figures, "set your 'scope for these and then get Darlange to slue the -crate around so that your cross hairs are on Venus." - -"O.K.," answered Tim. "That's going to be a job. This business of -looking through a 'scope while dressed in a spacesuit is no fun. Here -goes." - -He called Darlange, and the communicator system permitted the men in -the instrument room to hear his voice. "Dar," he said, "loop us around -about forty-one degrees from Driver 3." - -Darlange said: "Right!" and busied himself at his buttons. - -"Three degrees on Driver 4." - -"Right." - -"Too far, back her up a degree on 4." - -Darlange laughed. "What do you think these things are, blocks and -tackles? You mean: 'Compensate a degree on 2.'" - -"You're the pilot. That's the ticket--and I don't care if you lift it -on one hand. Can you nudge her just a red hair on 3?" - -"Best I can do is a hair and a half," said Darlange. He gave Driver 3 -just a tiny, instantaneous surge. - -"Then take it up two and back one and a half," laughed Tim. "Whoa, -Nellie, you're on the beam." - -"Fine." - -"O.K., Dar, but you'll have to play monkey on a stick. I'll prime you -for any moving so that you can correct immediately." - -"Right. Don, we're on the constants you gave us. What now?" - -"At this point I think a short prayer would be of assistance," said -Channing soberly. "We're shooting our whole wad right now." - -"I hope we make our point." - -"Well, it's all or nothing," agreed Don as he grasped the switch. - -He closed the switch, and the power demand meters jumped up across -their scales. The gold-leaf electroscope jumped once; the ultra-thin -leaves jerked apart by an inch, and then oscillated stiffly until they -came to a balance. Channing, who had been looking at them, breathed -deeply and smiled. - -"We're getting out," he said. - -"Can you key this?" asked Hadley. - -"No need," said Channing. "They know we're in the grease. We know that -if they can collect us, they'll be on their way. I'm going to send out -for a half-hour, and then resort to a five-minute transmission every -fifteen minutes. They'll get a ship after us with just about everything -we're likely to need, and they can use the five-minute transmissions -for direction finding. The initial shot will serve to give them an idea -as to our direction. All we can do now is to wait." - -"And hope," added Captain Johannson. - - * * * * * - -Electrically, Venus Equilateral was more silent than it had ever been. -Not an electrical appliance was running on the whole station. People -were cautioned about walking on deep-pile rugs, or combing their hair -with plastic combs, or doing anything that would set up any kind of -electronic charge. Only the highly filtered generators in the power -rooms were running and these had been shielded and filtered long -years ago; nothing would emerge from them to interrupt the ether. All -incoming signals were stopped. - -And the men who listened with straining ears claimed that the sky was -absolutely clear save for a faint crackle of cosmic static which they -knew came from the corona of the sun. - -One group of men sat about a static-field indicator and cursed the -minute wiggling of the meter, caused by the ever-moving celestial -bodies and their electronic charges. A sunspot emission passed through -the Station once, and though it was but a brief passage, it sent the -electrostatic field crazy and made the men jump. - -The men who were straining their ears to hear became nervous, and were -jumping at every loud crackle. - -And though the man at the telescope knew that his probability of -picking up a sight of the _Solar Queen_ was as slender as a spider's -web, he continued to search the starry heavens. He swept the narrow -cone of the heavens wherein the _Solar Queen_ was lost according to the -mathematical experts, and he looked at every bit of brightness in the -field of his telescope as though it might be the missing ship. - -The beam-scanners watched their return-plates closely. It was difficult -because the receiver gains were set to maximum, and every tick of -static caused brief flashes of light upon their plates. They would jump -at such a flash and watch for it to reappear on the next wipe, for -a continuous spot of light indicated the ship they sought. Then, as -the spot did not reappear, they would go on with their beams to cover -another infinitesimal portion of the sky. Moving forward across the -cone of expectancy bit by bit, they crossed and recrossed until they -were growing restive. - -Surely the ship must be there! - -At the South End landing stage, a group of men were busy stocking a -ship. Supplies and necessities were carried aboard, while another -group of men tinkered with the electrical equipment. They cleared a -big space in the observation dome, and began to install a replica of -the equipment used on the Station for detection. No matter what kind -of output Channing sent back, they would be able to follow it to the -bitter end. - -They made their installations in duplicate, with one piece of each -equipment on opposite sides of the blunt dome. Balancing the inputs of -each kind by turning the entire ship would give them a good indication -of direction. - -Franks did not hope that the entire installation could be completed -before the signal came, but he was trying to outguess himself by -putting some of everything aboard. When and if it came, he would be -either completely ready with everything or he at least would have a -good start on any one of the number of detectors. If need be, the -equipment from the Station itself could be removed and used to complete -the mobile installation. - -Everything was in a complete state of nervous expectancy. Watchers -watched, meter readers squinted for the barest wiggle, audio observers -listened, trying to filter any kind of man-made note out of the -irregular crackle that came in. - -And the Station announcing equipment was dead quiet, to be used only -in case of emergency or to announce the first glimmer of radiation, -whether it be material, electrical, kinetic, potential, or wave front. - -Long they listened--and then it came. - - * * * * * - -The Station announcing equipment broke forth in a multitude of voices. - -"Sound input on radio." - -"Visual indication on scanner plates!" - -"Distortion on electrostatic field indicator." - -"Super-electroscopes indicate negative charge!" - -"Nothing on the telescope!" - -There were mingled cheers and laughter as the speaker system broke away -from its babel, and each group spoke its piece with no interference. -Walt Franks left the ship at the South End and raced to the Beam -Control dome, just as fast as the runway car would take him. He ran -into the dome in spacesuit and flipped the helmet back over his -shoulders. "What kind of indication?" he yelled. - -Men crowded around him, offering him papers and shouting figures. - -"Gosh," he said, "Don can't have everything going up there." - -"He's hit just about everything but the guy squinting through the -'scope." - -"What's he doing?" asked Franks of no one in particular. - -One of the radiation engineers who had been busy with the electrostatic -field indicator said: "I think maybe he's using some sort of electron -gun--like the one you tried first off on the meteor-destroyer-job, -remember?" - -"Yeah, but that one wouldn't work--unless Don has succeeded in doing -something that we couldn't do. Look, Charley, we haven't had time to -set up a complete field indicator on the ship. Grab yours and give the -boys a lift installing it, hey?" - -"Sure thing." - -"And look, fellows, any indication of direction, velocity, or distance?" - -"Look for yourself," said the man on the beam scanner. "The whole plate -is shining. We can't get a fix on them this way--they're radiating -themselves and that means that our scanner-system finder is worthless." - -"We can, but it's rough," offered one of the radio men. "It came from -an area out beyond Terra--and as for our readings it might have covered -a quarter of the sky." - -"The field indicator is a short-base finder," explained Charley. "And -no less rough than the radio boys. I'd say it was out beyond Terra by -fifty million miles at least." - -"Close enough. We'll have to track 'em down like a -radio-equipped bloodhound. Charley, come along and run that -mechanico-electro-monstrosity of yours. Gene, you can come along and -run the radio finder. Oh yes, you, Jimmy, may continue to squint -through that eyepiece of yours--but on the _Relay Girl_. We need a -good, first-class squinter, and you should have an opportunity to -help." - -Jimmy laughed shortly. "The only guy on the Station that didn't get an -indication was me. Not even a glimmer." - -"Channing didn't know we'd be _looking_ for him, or he'd probably -light a flare, too. Cheer up, Jimmy, after all this crude, electrical -rigamarole is finished, and we gotta get right down to the last -millimeter, it's the guy with the eye that polishes up the job. You'll -have your turn." - -Twenty minutes after the first glimmer of intelligent signal, the -_Relay Girl_ lifted from the South End and darted off at an angle, -setting her nose roughly in the direction of the signal. - -Her holds were filled with spare batteries and a whole dozen -replacement cathodes as well as her own replacements. Her crew was -filled to the eyebrows with gravanol, and there must have been a mile -of adhesive tape and cotton on their abdomens. At 6-G she left, and at -6-G she ran, her crew immobilized but awake because of the gravanol. -And though the acceleration was terrific, the tape kept the body from -folding of its own weight. When they returned, they would all be in the -hospital for a week, but their friends would be with them. - -Ten minutes after take-off, the signals ceased. - -Walt said: "Keep her running. Don's saving electricity. Tell me when we -pick him up again." - -Franklen, the pilot, nodded. "We haven't got a good start yet. It'll -be touch and go. According to the slipstick boys, they must be clapping -it up at between twenty-five hundred and five thousand miles per second -to get that far--and coasting free or nearly so. Otherwise they'd have -come in. Any suggestions as to course?" - -"Sure. Whoop it up at six until we hit about six thousand. Then -decelerate to four thousand by using 1-G. We'll vacillate in velocity -between four and five until we get close." - -Forty-one hours later, the _Relay Queen_ made turnover and began to -decelerate. - - * * * * * - -Channing said to Captain Johannson: "Better cut the decel to about a -quarter-G. That'll be enough to keep us from bumping our heads on the -ceiling and it will last longer. This is going to be a long chase, and -cutting down a few MPS at a half-G isn't going to make much never-mind. -I'll hazard a guess that the boys are on their way right now." - -"If you say so," said Johannson. "You're the boss from now on. You -know that wild bunch on the Station better than I do. For myself, I've -always felt that an answer was desirable before we do anything." - -"I know Franks and my wife pretty well--about as well as they know me. -I've put myself in Walt's place--and I know that Walt would do. So--if -Walt didn't think of it, Arden would--I can assume that they are aware -of us, have received our signals, and are, therefore, coming along -as fast as they can. They'll come zipping out here at from five- to -seven-G to what they think is halfway and then decelerate again to a -sane velocity. We won't catch sight of them for sixty or seventy hours, -and when we do, they'll be going so fast that it will take another -twenty hours worth of manipulation to match their speed with ours. -Meanwhile, I've got the gun timed to shoot our signal. When the going -gets critical, I'll cut the power and make it continuous." - -"You're pretty sure of your timing?" - -"Well, the best they can do as for direction and velocity and distance -is a crude guess. They'll place us out here beyond Terra somewhere. -They'll calculate the course requirements to get us this far in the -time allotted, and come to a crude figure. I'd like to try keying -this thing, but I know that keying it won't work worth a hoot at this -distance. Each bundle of keyed electrons would act as a separate -negative charge that would spread out and close up at this distance. -It's tough enough to hope that the electron beam will hold together -that far, let alone trying to key intelligence with it. We'll leave -well enough alone--and especially if they're trying to get a fix on us; -there's nothing worse than trying to fix an intermittent station. Where -are we now?" - -"We're on the inner fringe of the Asteroid Belt, about thirty million -miles North, and heading on a secant course at thirty-four hundred MPS." - -"Too bad Jupiter isn't in the neighborhood," said Channing. "We'll be -flirting with his orbit by the time they catch us." - -"Easily," said Johannson. "In sixty hours, we'll have covered about six -hundred and fifty million miles. We'll be nearer the orbit of Saturn, -in spite of the secant course." - -"Your secant approaches a radius as you get farther out," said Don, -absently. "As far as distances go. Ah, well, Titan, here we come!" - -Johannson spoke to the doctor. "How're we doing?" - -"Pretty well," said Doc. "There's as pretty an assortment of fractured -ribs, broken limbs, cracked clavicles, and scars, mars, and abrasions -as you ever saw. There are a number dead, worse luck, but we can't do -a thing about them. We can hold on for a week as far as food and water -goes. Everyone is now interested in the manner of our rescue rather -than worrying about it." He turned to Channing. "The words Channing and -Venus Equilateral have wonderful healing powers," he said. "They all -think your gang are part magician and part sorcerer." - -"Why, for goodness' sake?" - -"I didn't ask. Once I told 'em you had a scheme to contact the Relay -Station, they were all satisfied that things would happen for the -better." - -"Anything we can do to help you out?" - -"I think not," answered Doc. "What I said before still goes. Your job -is to bring aid--and that's the sum total of your job. Every effort -must be expended on that and that alone. You've got too many whole -people depending on you to spend one second on the hurt. That's my job." - -"O.K.," said Channing, "But it's going to be a long wait." - -"We can afford it." - -"I hope we're not complicating the job of finding us by this quartering -deceleration," said Johannson. - -"We're not. We're making a sort of vector from our course, but the -deviation is very small. As long as the fellows follow our radiation, -we'll be found," Channing said with a smile. "The thing that is tough -is the fact that all the floors seem to lean over." - -"Not much, though." - -"They wouldn't lean at all if we were running with the whole set of -equipment," said Darlange. "We run a complete turnover without spilling -a drop from the swimming pool." - -"Or even making the passengers aware of it unless they're looking at -the sky." - -"Stop worrying about it," said Doc. "I'm the only guy who has to worry -about it and as long as the floor is still a floor, I can stand sliding -into the corner once in a while." - -"We might tinker with the turnover drivers," offered Don. "We can -bring 'em down to a place where the velocity-deceleration vectors -are perpendicular to the floor upon which we stand while our ship is -sluing. We've got a lot of time on our hands, and I, for one, feel a -lot happier when I'm doing something." - -"It's a thought," said Hadley. "Wanna try it?" - -"Let's go." - - * * * * * - -Thirty hours after the _Relay Girl_ left the Station, Walt and Franklen -held a council of war, in which Charley Bren was the prime factor. - -"We've come about two hundred million miles, and our present velocity -is something like four thousand miles per second," said Walt. "We're -going out towards Mars on a slightly-off radial course, to the North -of the ecliptic. That means we're a little over a quarter of a billion -miles from Sol, or about to hit the Asteroid Belt. Thinking it over a -little, I think we should continue our acceleration for another thirty -hours. What say?" - -"The field has shown no change in intensity that I can detect," said -Bren. "If they haven't dropped their radiated intensity, that means -that we are no closer to them than we were before. Of course, we'd -probably have to cut the distance by at least a half before any -measurable decrement made itself evident." - -"They must be on the upper limit of that four thousand MPS," observed -Walt. "There's one thing certain, we'll never catch them by matching -their speed." - -"Where will another thirty hours at 6-G put us and how fast?" asked -Franklen. - -Silence ensued while they scribbled long figures on scratch paper. - -"About eight hundred million miles from Sol," announced Walt. - -"And about eight thousand MPS," added Charley. - -"That's a little extreme, don't you think?" asked Franklen. - -"By about thirty percent," said Walt, scratching his chin. "If we hold -to our original idea of hitting it for six thousand, where will we be?" - -"That would make it about forty-five hours from take-off, and we'd be -about four hundred and sixty million miles from Sol." Charley grinned -widely and said: "By Jove!" - -"What?" - -"By Jove!" - -"'By Jove!' What?" - -"That's where we'd be--By Jove!" - -"_Phew._" - -"I agree with you," said Franklen to Walt. "Better ignore him." - -"Sure will after that. So then we'll be 'By Jove' at six thousand. -That would be a swell place to make turnover, I think. At 1-G decel, -to about four thousand MPS, that'll put us about ... um, that'd take -us ninety hours! We'll make that 3-G, at twenty hours, which will put -us about three hundred and fifty million miles along, which plus the -original four hundred and sixty million adds up to eight hundred and -ten million miles--" - -"When an astronaut begins to talk like that," interrupted Arden, "we of -the skyways say that he is talking in Congressional figures. The shoe -is on the other foot. What on earth are you fellows figuring?" - -"Where we'll be and how fast we'll be going at a given instant of no -particular importance," offered Walt. "When did you wake up?" - -"About the third hundred million. All of those ciphers going by made a -hollow sound, like a bullet whistling in the wind." - -"Well, we're trying to make the theories of probability match with -figures. We'll know in about forty-five hours whether we were right or -not." - -"It's a good thing we have all space to go around in. Are you sure that -we have all eternity?" - -"Don't get anxious. They're still coming in like a ton of bricks -four times per hour, which means that they're riding easy. I don't -want to overrun them at about three thousand MPS and have to spend a -week decelerating, returning, more decelerating, and then matching -velocities." - -"I see. You know best. And where is this Asteroid Belt that I've heard -so much about?" - -"To the South of us by a few million miles. Those bright specks that -you can't tell from stars are asteroids. The common conception of the -Asteroid Belt being filled to overflowing with a collection of cosmic -rubble like the rings of Saturn is a lot of hooey. We'll be past in -a little while and we haven't even come close to one. Space is large -enough for all of us, I think." - -"But not when all of us want the same space." - -"I don't care for their area," said Walt with a smile. "Let 'em have -it, I don't care. I'll stay up here and let them run as they will." - -"You mean the ones that are moving downward?" asked Arden, indicating -the sky. - -"Those are asteroids, yes. We're to the North, as you may check by -going around the ship to the opposite side. You'll see Polaris almost -directly opposite, there. Sol is almost directly below us, and that -bright one that you can see if you squint almost straight up out of the -port is Saturn." - -"I won't bother crossing the ship to see Polaris. I prefer the Southern -Cross anyway. The thing I'm most interested in is: Are we accomplishing -anything?" - -"I think that we've spent the last thirty hours just catching up," -explained Walt. "Up to right now we were going backwards, so to speak: -we're on even terms now, and will be doing better from here on in." - -"It's the waiting that gets me down," said Arden. "Oh, for something to -do!" - -"Let's eat," suggested Walt. "I'm hungry, and now that I think of it, I -have not eaten since we left the Station. Arden, you are hereby elected -to the post of galley chief. Get Jimmy from the dome if you need help." - -"Help? What for?" - -"He can help you lift it out of the oven. Don must have a cast-iron -stomach." - -"That's hearsay. I'll show you! As soon as I find the can opener, -breakfast will be served." - -"Make mine dinner," said Charley. "We've been awake all the time." - -"O.K., we will have a combined meal, from grapefruit to ice cream. -Those who want any or all parts may choose at will. And fellows, please -let me know as soon as you get something tangible." - -"That's a promise," said Walt. "Take it easy, and don't worry. We'll -be catching up with them one of these days." - - * * * * * - -"Hadley, how much coating have we got on those cathodes?" - -"Not too much. We had about twenty G-hours to begin with. We went to a -half-G for about twenty hours, and now we're running on a quarter-G, -which would leave us go for forty hours more. That's a grand total of -about sixty hours." - -"And the batteries?" - -"In pretty good shape." - -"Well, look. If it should come to a choice between floor and signal -gun, we'll choose the gun. We've about twelve hours left in the -cathodes, and since everybody is now used to quarter-G we might even -slide it down to an eighth-G, which would give us about twenty-four -hours." - -"Your gun is still putting out?" - -"So far as I can tell. Ten hours from now, we should know, I think, -predicating my guess on whatever meager information they must have." - -"We could save some juice by killing most of the lights in the ship." - -"That's a thought. Johannson, have one of your men run around and -remove all lights that aren't absolutely necessary. He can kill about -three quarters of them, I'm certain. That'll save us a few kilowatt -hours," said Channing. "And another thing. I'm about to drop the power -of our electron gun and run it continuously. If the boys are anywhere -in the neighborhood, they'll be needing the continuous disturbance for -direction finding. I'd say in another five hours that we should start -continuous radiation." - -"You know, Channing, if this thing works out all right, it will be a -definite vote for pure, deductive reasoning." - -"I know. But the pure deduction is not too pure. It isn't guesswork. -There are two factors of known quantity. One is that I know Walt -Franks, and the other is that he knows me. The rest is a simple matter -of the boys on the Station knowing space to the last inch, and applying -the theory of probabilities to it. We'll hear from them soon, or I'll -miss my guess. You wait." - -"Yeah," drawled Captain Johannson, "we'll wait!" - - * * * * * - -Charley Bren made another computation and said: "Well, Walt, we've been -narrowing them down for quite a time now. We're getting closer and -closer to them, according to the field intensity. I've just got a good -idea of direction on that last five-minute shot. Have Franklen swivel -us around on this course; pretty soon we'll be right in the middle of -their shots." - -"We're approaching them asymptotically," observed Walt. "I wish I knew -what our velocity was with respect to theirs. Something tells me that -it would be much simpler if I knew." - -"Walt," asked Arden, "how close can you see a spaceship?" - -"You mean how far? Well, I don't know that it's ever been tried and -recorded. But we can figure it out easy enough, by analogy. A period -is about thirty thousandths of an inch in diameter, and visible from -a distance of thirty inches. I mean visible with no doubt about -it's being there. That's a thousand to one. Now, the _Solar Queen_ -is about six hundred feet tall and about four hundred feet in its -major diameter, so we can assume a little more than the four hundred -feet--say five hundred feet average of circular area, say--follow me?" - -"Go on, you're vague, but normal." - -"Then at a thousand to one, that becomes five hundred thousand -feet, and dividing by five thousand--round figures because it isn't -important enough to use that two hundred and eighty feet over the five -thousand--gives us one thousand miles. We should be able to see the -_Solar Queen_ from a distance of a thousand miles." - -"Then at four thousand miles per second we'll be in and out of visual -range in a half second?" - -"Oh no. They're rambling on a quite similar course at an unknown -but high velocity. Our velocity with respect to theirs is what will -determine how long they're within visual range." - -"Hey, Walt," came the voice of Charley Bren. "The intensity of Don's -beam has been cut to about one quarter and is now continuous. Does that -mean anything?" - -"Might mean trouble for them. Either they're running out of soup and -mean for us to hurry up, or they assume we're close enough to obviate -the need for high power. We'd better assume they want haste and act -accordingly. How're the boys on the radio detectors coming along?" - -"Fine. They've taken over the direction finding and claim that we are -right on their tail." - -"Anything in the sights, Jimmy?" - -"Not yet. But the electroscope boys claim that quarter power or not, -the input is terrific." - -"Take a rest, Jimmy. We won't be there for a while yet. No use burning -your eyes out trying to see 'em. There'll be time enough for you to do -your share after we get 'em close enough to see with the naked eye. -What do the beam-scanners say?" - -"Shucks," answered the man on the scanners, "they're still radiating. -How are we going to fix 'em on a reflected wave when they're more -powerful on their own hook? The whole plate is glaring white. And, -incidentally, so is the celestial globe in the meteor-spotter. I've had -the threshold cut to the devil on that or we'd never be able to hold -this course. Anything like a meteor that comes in our way now will not -register until we're right on top of it and--" - - * * * * * - -The _Relay Girl_ lurched sickeningly. All over the ship, things rattled -and fell to the floors. Men grabbed at the closest solid object, and -then the _Relay Girl_ straightened out once more. - -"_Woosh_," said Franks. "That was a big one." - -"Big one?" called Charley Bren. "That, my friend, was none other than -the _Solar Queen_!" - -"Can you prove that?" - -"Sure. Our electroscopes now indicate a positive charge; they crossed -over just as we lurched." - -"Jimmy, get your scope a-top and get looking. Franklen, hang on about -7-G and follow Jimmy's orders. Charley, see if you can get anything -cogent out of your gadget. Holy Green Fire, with all of a cubic million -million million megaparsecs in which to run, we have to be so good that -we run right into our quarry. Who says that radio direction finding is -not a precise science? Who says that we couldn't catch--" - -"Walt, they're in sight, but losing fast." - -"O.K., Jimmy, can you give me any idea as to their velocity with -respect to ours?" - -"How long is she?" - -"Six hundred feet." - -Jimmy was silent for some seconds. "They're out of sight again, but I -make it about four to seven hundred miles per second." - -"At 7-G we should match that seven hundred in about four hours." - -"And then go on decelerating so that they'll catch up?" - -"No," said Walt. "I used the max figure and we can assume that they -aren't going that fast, quite. At the end of four hours, we'll -turnover and wait until they heave in sight again and then we'll do -some more oscillating. We can match their velocity inside of ten hours, -or Franklen will get fired." - -"If I don't," promised Franklen, "I'll quit. You can't fire me!" - -"We should be able to contact them by radio," said Walt. - -"Their beam is off," said Bren. - -"And they are using the landing set," called the radio man, "It's -Channing. He says: 'Fancy meeting you here.' Any answer?" - -"Just say, 'Dr. Channing, I presume?'" - -Channing's voice came out of the ship's announcer system as the radio -man made the necessary connections. It said: "Right--but what kept you -so long?" - -"Our boss was away," said Walt. "And we can't do a thing without him." - -"Some boss. Some crew of wild men. Can't go off on a fishing trip -without having my bunch chasing all over the Solar System." - -"What's wrong with a little sightseeing tour? We didn't mean any harm. -And speaking of harm, how are you and the rest of that bunch getting -along?" - -"We're O.K. What do you plan after we finally get close enough together -to throw stones across?" - -"We've got a whole hold full of spare batteries and a double set of -replacement cathodes. There is a shipload of gravanol aboard, too. -You'll need that and so will we. By the time we finish this jaunt, -we'll have been about as far out as anybody ever gets." - -"Yeah--got any precise figures? We've been running on a guess and a -hope. I make it out about seven hundred million." - -"Make it eight and a half. At 6-G, you'll cover another hundred and -fifty million miles before you stop. Take it twenty-two hours at -6-G--and then another twenty-two at 6. That should put you right back -here but going the other way at the same velocity. But wait, you've -been coasting. Mark off that last twenty-two hours and make it like -this: You'll be one thousand million miles from Sol when you come to a -stop at the end of the first twenty-two hours at 6-G. That hangs you -out beyond the orbit of Saturn by a couple of hundred million. Make it -back forty-four hours at 6-G, turnover and continue. By that time we'll -all be in so close that we can make any planet at will--preferably you -to Terra and we'll head for Venus Equilateral. You'll come aboard us? -No need for you to go with the rest." - -"I can have the scooter sent out," said Channing. "How's Arden?" - -"I'm fine, you big runabout. Wait until I get you!" - -"Why Arden, I thought you might be glad to see me." - -"Glad to see you?" - -"But Arden--" - -"Don't you 'But Arden' me, you big gadabout. Glad to see you? Boy, any -man that makes me chase him all over the Solar System! You just wait. -As soon as I get ahold of you, Don Channing, I'm going to--bust out and -bawl like a kid! Hurry up, willya?" - -"I'll be right over," said Don soberly. - -And, strangely enough, Don did not deviate this time. - - - THE END - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68047 *** diff --git a/old/68047-h/68047-h.htm b/old/68047-h/68047-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index cca5c94..0000000 --- a/old/68047-h/68047-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1725 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Off the Beam, by George O. Smith. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.blockquot { - margin-left: 5%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -x-ebookmaker-drop {display: none;} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1 { text-align: right; text-indent: 0em; } -.ph1 { font-size: medium; margin: .67em auto; } - -.ph2 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } -.ph2 { font-size: medium; margin: .67em auto; } - - </style> - </head> -<body> -<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68047 ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter x-ebookmaker-drop"> - <img src="images/illusc.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>Off the Beam</h1> - -<h2>By GEORGE O. SMITH</h2> - -<p>Illustrated by Orban</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Astounding Science-Fiction, February 1944.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Thirty hours out of Mars for Terra, the <i>Solar Queen</i> sped along her -silent, invisible course. No longer was she completely severed from -all connection with the planets of the inner system; the trick cams -that controlled the beams at Venus Equilateral kept the ship centered -by sheer mathematics. It was a poor communications system, however, -since it was but a one-way job. Any message-answering would have to be -done thirty hours later when the ship made planetfall, and the regular -terminal office of Interplanetary Communications could be employed.</p> - -<p>In spite of her thirty hours at 2-G, which brought her velocity to -eleven hundred miles per second, the beam-director cams did their -job well enough. It was only in extreme cases of course-changing to -dodge meteors that the beams lost the ship; since the cams were not -clairvoyant, there was no way to know when the autopilot juggled the -controls to miss a bit of cosmic dust. The cams continued to spear the -space through which the ship was supposed to pass according to the -course constants.</p> - -<p>What made this trip ironic was the fact that Don Channing was aboard. -The beams had been bombarding the <i>Solar Queen</i> continually ever since -she left Mars with messages for the Director of Communications. In -one sense, it seemed funny that Channing was for once on the end of a -communications line where people could talk to him but upon which he -could not talk back. On the other hand it was a blessing in disguise, -for the Director of Communications was beginning to paper-talk himself -into some means of contacting the Relay Station from a spaceship.</p> - -<p>A steward found Channing in the salon and handed him a 'gram. Channing -smiled, and the steward returned the smile and added: "You'll fix these -ships to talk back one day. Wait until you read that one—you'll burn -from here to Terra!"</p> - -<p>"Reading my mail?" asked Channing cheerfully. The average spacegram was -about as secret as a postcard, so Channing didn't mind. He turned the -page over and read:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>HOPE YOU'RE WELL FILLED WITH GRAVANOL AND ADHESIVE TAPE FOR YOUR JUMP -FROM TERRA TO STATION. SHALL TAKE GREAT DELIGHT IN RIPPING ADHESIVE -TAPE OFF YOUR MEASLY BODY. LOVE.</p> - -<p class="ph1">ARDEN</p></div> - -<p>"She will, too," grinned Don. "Well, I'd like to toss her one back, but -she's got me there. I'll just fortify myself at the bar and think up a -few choice ones for when we hit Mojave."</p> - -<p>"Some day you'll be able to answer those," promised the steward. "Mind -telling me why it's so tough?"</p> - -<p>"Not at all," smiled Channing. "The problem is about the same as -encountered by the old-time cowboy. It's a lot easier to hit a man on -a moving horse from a nice, solid rock than it is to hit a man on a -nice, solid rock from a moving horse. Venus Equilateral is quite solid -as things go. But a spaceship's course is fierce. We're wobbling a few -milliseconds here and a few there, and by the time you use that arc to -swing a line of a hundred million miles, you're squirting quite a bit -of sky. We're tinkering with it right now, but so far we have come up -with nothing. Ah, well, since the human race got along without electric -lights for a few million years, we can afford to tinker with an idea -for a few months. Nobody is losing lives or sleep because we can't talk -to the boys back home."</p> - -<p>"We've been hopping from planet to planet for quite a number of years -too," said the steward. "Quite a lot of them went by before it was even -possible to contact a ship in space."</p> - -<p>"And that was done because of an emergency. Probably this other -thing will go on until we hit an emergency; then we shall prove that -old statement about a loaf of bread being the maternal parent of a -locomotive." Channing lit a cigarette, and puffed deeply. "Where do we -stand?"</p> - -<p>"Thirty hours out," answered the steward. "About ready for turnover. I -imagine that the poor engineer's gang is changing cathodes about now."</p> - -<p>"It's a long drag," said Channing. He addressed himself to his glass -and began to think of a suitable answer for his wife's latest thrust.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Bill Hadley, of the power engineer's gang, spoke to the pilot's -greenhouse below the ship. "Hadley to pilot room: Cathodes 1 and 3 -ready."</p> - -<p>"Pilot Greenland to Engineer Hadley: Power fade-over from even to odd -now under way. Tubes 2 and 4 now dead; load on 1 and 3. You may enter 2 -and 4."</p> - -<p>"Check!"</p> - -<p>Hadley cracked an air valve beside a circular air door. The hiss of -entering air crescendoed and died, and then Hadley cracked the door -that opened in upon the huge driver tube. With casual disregard for -the annular electrodes that filled the tube and the sudden death that -would come if the pilot sent the driving voltages surging into the -electrodes, Hadley climbed to the top of the tube and used a spanner to -remove four huge bolts. A handy differential pulley permitted him to -lower the near-exhausted cathode from the girders to the air door where -it was hauled to the deck. A fresh cathode was slung to the pulley and -hoisted to place. Hadley bolted it tight and clambered back into the -ship. He closed the air door and the valve, and then opened the valve -that led from the tube to outer space. The tube evacuated and Hadley -spoke once more to the pilot room.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"Hadley to Greenland: Tube 4 ready."</p> - -<p>"Check."</p> - -<p>The operation was repeated on Tube 2, and then Pilot Greenland said: -"Fade-back beginning. Power diminishing on 1 and 3, increasing on 2 and -4. Power equalized, acceleration 2-G as before. Deviation from norm: -two-tenths-G."</p> - -<p>Hadley grinned at the crew. "You'd think that Greenland did all that -himself, the way he talks. If it weren't for autopilots, we'd have been -all over the sky."</p> - -<p>Tom Bennington laughed. He was an old-timer, and he said in a -reminiscent tone: "I remember when we used to do that on manual. There -were as many cases of <i>mal de void</i> during cathode change as during -turnover. Autopilots are the nuts—look! We're about to swing right -now, and I'll bet a fiver that the folks below won't know a thing about -it."</p> - -<p>A coincidence of mammoth proportions occurred at precisely that -instant. It was a probability that made the chance of drawing a royal -flush look like the chances of tomorrow coming on time. It was, in -fact, one of those things that they said couldn't possibly happen, -which went to prove only how wrong they were. It hadn't happened yet -and probably wouldn't happen again for a million million years, but it -did happen once.</p> - -<p>Turnover was about to start. A relay circuit that coupled the -meteor-spotter to the autopilot froze for a bare instant, and the -coincidence happened between the freezing of the relay contacts -and the closing of another relay whose purpose it was to shunt the -coupler circuits through another line in case of relay failure. In -the inconceivable short time between the failure and the device that -corrected failure, the <i>Solar Queen</i> hit a meteor head on.</p> - -<p>It is of such coincidences that great tragedies and great victories are -born.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The meteor, a small one as cosmic objects go, passed in through the -broad observation dome at the top of the ship. Unhampered, it zipped -through the central well of the <i>Solar Queen</i> and passed out through -the pilot's greenhouse at the bottom of the ship. Its speed was nothing -worth noting; a scant twenty miles per second almost sunward. But the -eleven hundred miles per second of the <i>Solar Queen</i> made the passage -of the meteor through the six hundred feet of the ship's length of less -duration than the fastest camera shutter.</p> - -<p>In those microseconds, the meteor did much damage.</p> - -<p>It passed through the main pilotroom cable and scrambled those circuits -which it did not break entirely. It tore the elevator system from -its moorings. It entered as a small hole in the observation dome and -left taking the entire pilot's greenhouse and all of the complex -paraphernalia with it.</p> - -<p>The lines to the driver tubes were scrambled, and the ship shuddered -and drove forward at 10-G. An inertia switch tried to function, but the -resetting solenoid had become shorted across the main battery and the -weight could not drop.</p> - -<p>Air doors clanged shut, closing the central well from the rest of the -ship and effectively sealing the well from the crew.</p> - -<p>The lights in the ship flickered and died. The cable's shorted lines -grew hot and fire crept along its length and threatened the continuity. -The heat opened fire-quenching vents and a cloud of CO<sub>2</sub>, emerged -together with some of the liquid gas itself. The gas quenched the -fire and the cold liquid cooled the cable. Fuses blew in the shorted -circuits—</p> - -<p>And the <i>Solar Queen</i> continued to plunge on and on at 10-G; the -maximum possible out of her driving system.</p> - -<p>The only man who remained aware of himself aboard the <i>Solar Queen</i> was -the man who was filled with gravanol and adhesive tape. No other person -expected to be hammered down by high acceleration. Only Channing, who -was planning to leave Terra in his own little scooter, was prepared to -withstand high G. He, with his characteristic hate of doing anything -slowly, was ready to make the Terra to Venus Equilateral passage at 5- -or 6-G.</p> - -<p>It might as well have caught him, too. With all of the rest -unconscious, hurt, or dead, he was alone and firmly fastened to the -floor of the salon under eighteen hundred pounds of his own, helpless -weight.</p> - -<p>And as the hours passed, the <i>Solar Queen</i> was driving farther and -farther from the imaginary spot that was the focus of the communicator -beams from Venus Equilateral.</p> - -<p>The newly-replaced cathodes in the driving tubes were capable of -driving the ship for about two hundred G-hours at 1-G, before -exhaustion to the point of necessary replacement for safety purposes. -The proportion is not linear, nor is it a square-law, but roughly it -lies in the region just above linear, so that the <i>Solar Queen</i> drove -on and on through space for ten hours at 10-G before the cathodes died -for want of emitting surface. They died, not at once, but in irregular -succession so that when the last erg of power was gone from the ship -it was zooming on a straight line tangent from its point of collision -but rolling in a wild gyration through the void.</p> - -<p>And twenty-five hundred miles per second added to her initial velocity -of eleven hundred miles per second added up to thirty-six hundred miles -per second. She should have had about seventy-five million miles to go -at 2-G, to reach Terra in thirty hours from the halfway point where she -turned ends to go into deceleration. Instead, the <i>Solar Queen</i> after -ten hours of misdirected 10-G acceleration was thirty million miles on -her way, or about halfway to Terra. Three hours later, driving free, -the <i>Solar Queen</i> was passing Terra, having missed the planet by a few -million miles.</p> - -<p>Back in space, at an imaginary junction between the beams from Venus -Equilateral and the course registered for the <i>Solar Queen</i>, Arden -Channing's latest message was indicating all sorts of mild punishment -for her husband when she got him home.</p> - -<p>By the time that the <i>Solar Queen</i> should have been dropping out of -the sky at Mojave Spaceport, the ship would be one hundred and ninety -million miles beyond Terra and flirting with the imaginary line that -marked the orbit of Mars.</p> - -<p>That would be in seventeen hours.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Weightless, Channing pursued a crazy course in the salon of the -spinning ship. He ached all over from the pressure, but the gravanol -had kept his head clear and the adhesive tape had kept his body intact. -He squirmed around in the dimness and could see the inert figures -of the rest of the people who had occupied the salon at the time of -the mishap. He became sick. Violence was not a part of Channing's -nature—at least he confined his violence to those against whom he -required defense. But he knew that many of those people who pursued -aimless orbits in the midair of the salon with him would never set foot -on solidness again.</p> - -<p>He wondered how many broken bones there were among those who had lived -through the ordeal. He wondered if the medical staff of one doctor and -two nurses could cope with it.</p> - -<p>Then he wondered what difference it made if they were to go on and on, -and from that thought came the one he should have thought of first: How -were they to stop going on and on? Channing had a rough idea of what -had happened. He knew something about the conditions under which they -had been traveling, how long, and in which direction. It staggered him, -the figures he calculated in his mind. It behooved him to do something.</p> - -<p>He bumped an inert figure, and grabbed. One hand took the back of the -head and came away wet and sticky. Channing retched, and then threw -the inert man from him. He coasted back against a wall, and caught a -handrail. Hand-over-hand he went to the door and into the hall. Down -the hall he went to the passengers' elevator shaft and with no thought -of what his action would have been on any planet, Channing opened the -door and drove down the shaft for several decks. He emerged and headed -for the sick ward.</p> - -<p>He found the doctor clinging to his operating table with his knees and -applying a bandage to one of his nurses' heads.</p> - -<p>"Hello, Doc," said Channing. "Help?"</p> - -<p>"Grab Jen's feet and hold her down," snapped the doctor.</p> - -<p>"Bad?" asked Don as he caught the flailing feet.</p> - -<p>"Seven stitches, no fracture," said the doctor.</p> - -<p>"How's the other one?"</p> - -<p>"Unconscious, but unharmed. Both asleep in bed, thank God. So was I. -Where were—? You're Channing and were all doped up with gravanol and -adhesive. Thank yourself a god for that, too. I'm going to need both of -my nurses and we'll all need you."</p> - -<p>"Hope I can do some good," said Don.</p> - -<p>"You'd better. Or any good I can do will be wasted. Better start right -now. Here," the doctor produced a set of keys, "these will unlock -anything in the ship but the purser's safe. You'll need 'em. Now get -along and do something and leave the body-mending to me. Scram!"</p> - -<p>"Can you make out all right?"</p> - -<p>"As best I can. But you're needed to get us help. If you can't, no man -in the Solar System can. You're in the position of a man who can not -afford to help in succoring the wounded and dying. It'll be tough, but -there it is. Get cutting. And for Heaven's sake, get us two things: -Light and a floor. I couldn't do more than slap on tape whilst floating -in air. See you later, Channing, and good luck."</p> - -<p>The nurse squirmed, groaned, and opened her eyes. "What happened?" she -asked, blinking into the doctor's flashlight.</p> - -<p>"Tell you later, Jen. Get Fern out of her coma in the ward and then -we'll map out a plan. Channing, get out of here!"</p> - -<p>Channing got after borrowing a spare flashlight from the doctor.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He found Hadley up in the instrument room with a half dozen of his men. -They were a mass of minor and major cuts and injuries, and were working -under a single incandescent lamp that had been wired to the battery -direct by means of spare cable. The wire went snaking through the air -in a foolish, crooked line, suspended on nothing. Hadley's gang were -applying first aid to one another and cursing the lack of gravity.</p> - -<p>"Help?" said Channing.</p> - -<p>"Need it or offer it?" asked Hadley with a smile.</p> - -<p>"Offer it. You'll need it."</p> - -<p>"You can say that again—and then pitch in. You're Channing, of -Communications, aren't you? We're going to have a mad scramble on -the main circuits of this tub before we can unwind it. I don't think -there's an instrument working in the whole ship."</p> - -<p>"You can't unravel the whole works, can you?"</p> - -<p>"Won't try. About all we can do is replace the lighting system and hang -the dead cathodes in again. They'll be all right to take us out of this -cockeyed skew-curve and probably will last long enough to keep a half-G -floor under us for tinkering, for maybe forty or fifty hours. Assistant -Pilot Darlange will have to learn how to run a ship by the seat of his -pants—as far as I can guess there isn't even a splinter of glass left -in the pilot room—so he'll have to correct this flight by feel and by -using a haywire panel."</p> - -<p>"Darlange is a school-pilot," grinned one of Hadley's men.</p> - -<p>"I know, Jimmy, but I've seen him work on a bum autopilot, and he -can handle haywire all right. It'll be tough without Greenland, but -Greenland—" Hadley let the sentence fall; there was no need to mention -the fact that Greenland was probably back there with the rest of the -wreckage torn from the <i>Solar Queen</i>.</p> - -<p>Jimmy nodded, and the action shook him from his position. He grabbed at -a roll of tape that was floating near him and let it go with a laugh as -he realized it was too light to do him any good.</p> - -<p>"Too bad that this gyration is not enough to make a decent gravity -at the ends, at least," snorted Hadley. He hooked Jimmy by an arm and -hauled the man back to a place beside him. "Now look," he said, "I -can't possibly guess how many people are still in working condition -after this. Aside from our taped and doped friend here, the only ones -I have are we who were snoozing in our beds when the crush came. I'll -bet a cooky that the rest of the crowd are all nursing busted ribs, -and worse. Lucky that full-G died slowly as the cathodes went out; -otherwise we'd all have been tossed against the ceilings with bad -effects.</p> - -<p>"Jimmy, you're a committee of one to roam the crate and make a list of -everyone who is still in the running and those who can be given minor -repairs to make them fit for limited work. Doc has a pretty good supply -of Stader splints; inform him that these are only to be used on men who -can be useful with them. The rest will have to take to plaster casts -and the old-fashioned kind of fracture-support.</p> - -<p>"Pete, you get to the executive deck and tell Captain Johannson that -we're on the job and about to make with repairs. As power engineer, -I've control of the maintenance gang too, and we'll collect the whole, -hale, and hearty of Michaels' crew on our merry way.</p> - -<p>"Tom, take three of your men and begin to unravel the mess with an eye -toward getting us lights.</p> - -<p>"Tony, you can do this alone since we have no weight. You get the stale -cathodes from the supply hold and hang 'em back in the tubes.</p> - -<p>"Channing, until we get a stable place, you couldn't do a thing about -trying to get help, so I suggest that you pitch in with Bennington, -there, and help unscramble the wiring. You're a circuit man, and though -power-line stuff is not your forte, you'll find that running a lighting -circuit is a lot easier than neutralizing a microwave transmitter. Once -we get light, you can help us haywire a control panel. Right?"</p> - -<p>"Right. And as far as contacting the folks back home goes, we couldn't -do a darned thing until the time comes when we should be dropping in -on Mojave. They won't be looking for anything from us until we're -reported missing; then I imagine that Walt Franks will have everything -from a spinthariscope to a gold-foil electroscope set up. Right now I'm -stumped, but we have seventeen hours before we can start hoping to be -detected. Tom, where do we begin?"</p> - -<p>Bennington smiled inwardly. To have Don Channing asking him for orders -was like having Captain Johannson request the batteryman's permission -to change course. "If you can find and remove the place where the -shorted line is, and then splice the lighting circuits again, we'll -have a big hunk of our work done. The rest of us will begin to take -lines off of the pilot's circuits right here in the instrument room so -that our jury-controls can be hooked in. You'll need a suit, I think, -because I'll bet a hat that the shorted line is in the well."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>For the next five hours, the instrument room became a beehive of -activity. Men began coming in driblets, and were put to work as -they came. The weightlessness gave quite a bit of trouble; had the -instrument panels been electrically hot, it would have been downright -dangerous since it was impossible to do any kind of work without -periodically coming against bare connections. Tools floated around -the room in profusion, and finally Hadley appointed one man to do -nothing but roam the place to retrieve "dropped" tools. The soldering -operations were particularly vicious, since the instinctive act of -flinging excess solder from the tip of an iron made droplets of hot -solder go zipping around the room to splash against something, after -which the splashes would continue to float.</p> - -<p>Men who came in seeking to give aid were handed tools and told to do -this or that, and the problem of explaining how to free a frozen relay -to unskilled help was terrific.</p> - -<p>Then at the end of five hours, Channing came floating in to the -instrument room. He flipped off the helmet and said to Hadley: "Make -with the main switch. I think I've got it."</p> - -<p>Throughout the ship the lights blinked on.</p> - -<p>With the coming of light, there came hope also. Men took a figurative -hitch in their belts and went to work with renewed vigor. It seemed -as though everything came to a head at about this time, too. Hadley -informed Darlange that his jury-control was rigged and ready for -action, and about the same time, the galley crew came in with -slender-necked bottles of coffee and rolls.</p> - -<p>"It was a job, making coffee," grinned the steward. "The darned stuff -wanted to get out of the can and go roaming all over the place. There -isn't a one of us that hasn't got a hot coffee scar on us somewhere. -Now if he"—nodding at Darlange—"can get this thing straightened out, -we'll have a real dinner."</p> - -<p>"Hear that, Al? All that stands between us and dinner is you. Make with -the ship-straightening. Then we'll all sit around and wait for Channing -to think."</p> - -<p>"Is the ship's communicator in working order?" asked Darlange.</p> - -<p>"Sure. That went on with the lights."</p> - -<p>Darlange called for everyone in the ship to hold himself down, and -then he tied his belt to the frame in front of the haywired panel. He -opened the power on drivers 1 and 2, and the ship's floor surged ever -so little.</p> - -<p>"How're you going to know?" asked Hadley.</p> - -<p>"I've got one eye on the gyro-compass," said Darlange. "When it stops -turning, we're going straight. Then all we have to do is to set our -bottom end along the line of flight and pack on the decel. Might as -well do it that way since every MPS we can lose is to our advantage."</p> - -<p>He snapped switches that added power to Driver 3. Gradually the -gyro-compass changed from a complex rotation-progression to a simpler -pattern, and eventually the simple pattern died, leaving but one -freedom of rotation. "I'm sort of stumped," grinned Darlange. "We're -now hopping along, but rotating on our long axis. How we stop axial -rotation with drivers set parallel to that axis I'll never guess."</p> - -<p>"Is there a lifeship in working order?" asked Hadley.</p> - -<p>"Sure."</p> - -<p>"Tom, turn it against the rotation and apply the drivers on that until -we tell you to stop."</p> - -<p>An hour later the ship had ceased to turn. Then Darlange jockeyed the -big ship around so that the bottom was along the line of flight. Then -he set the power for a half-G, and everyone relaxed.</p> - -<p>Ten minutes later Captain Johannson came in.</p> - -<p>"You've done a fine job," he told Hadley. "And now I declare an hour -off for dinner. Dr. MacLain has got a working medical center with -the aid of a few people who understand how such things work, and the -percentage of broken bones, though terrific in number, is being taken -care of. The passengers were pretty restive at first, but the coming of -light seemed to work wonders. This first glimmer of power is another. -About nine or ten who were able to do so were having severe cases -of skysickness." He smiled ruefully. "I'm not too sure that I like -no-weight myself."</p> - -<p>"Have you been in the observation dome?" asked Don.</p> - -<p>"Yes. It's pierced, you know."</p> - -<p>"Did the meteor hit the telescope?"</p> - -<p>"No, why?"</p> - -<p>"Because I'm going to have to get a sight on Venus Equilateral before -we can do anything. We'll have to beam them something, but I don't know -what right now."</p> - -<p>"Can we discuss that over a dinner?" asked the captain. "I'm starved, -and I think that the rest of this gang is also."</p> - -<p>"You're a man after my own heart," laughed Channing. "The bunch out -at the Station wouldn't believe me if I claimed to have done anything -without drawing it up on a tablecloth."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Now," said Channing over his coffee. "What have we in the way of -electronic equipment?"</p> - -<p>"One X-ray machine, a standard set of communicating equipment, one beam -receiver with 'type machine for collecting stuff from your Station, and -so on."</p> - -<p>"You wouldn't have a betatron in the place somewhere?" asked Don -hopefully.</p> - -<p>"Nope. Could we make one?"</p> - -<p>"Sure. Have you got about ten pounds of No. 18 wire?"</p> - -<p>"No."</p> - -<p>"Then we can't."</p> - -<p>"Couldn't you use a driver? Isn't that some kind of beam?"</p> - -<p>"Some kind," admitted Channing. "But it emits something that we've -never been able to detect except in an atmosphere where it ionizes the -air into a dull red glow."</p> - -<p>"You should have been wrecked on the <i>Sorcerer's Apprentice</i>," laughed -Hadley. "They're the guys who have all that kind of stuff."</p> - -<p>"Have they?" asked Johannson.</p> - -<p>"The last time I heard, they were using a large hunk of their upper -hull for a VanDerGraf generator."</p> - -<p>"That would do it," said Channing thoughtfully. "But I don't think I'd -know how to modulate a VanDerGraf. A betatron would be the thing. -You can modulate that, sort of, by keying the input. She'd give out -with hundred-and-fifty-cycle stuff, but so what? We made the <i>Empress -of Kolain</i> sit up and say uncle on hundred-cycle stuff. How much of a -trick is it to clear the observation dome from the top?"</p> - -<p>"What do you intend to do?"</p> - -<p>"Well, we've got a long, hollow tube in this ship. Knock out the -faceted dome above, and we can rig us up a huge electron gun. We'll -turn the ship to point at the Station and beam 'em a bouquet of -electrons."</p> - -<p>"How're you going to do that?"</p> - -<p>"Not too tough, I don't think. Down here," and Channing began to trace -on the tablecloth, "we'll put us a hot cathode. About this level we'll -hang the first anode, and at this level we'll put the second anode. -Here'll be an acceleration electrode, and up near the top we'll put -a series of focusing anodes. We'll tap in to the driver-tube supply -and take off voltages to suit us. Might use a tube at that, but the -conversion to make an honest electron gun out of it would disrupt our -power, and then it would be impossible to make a driver out of it again -without recourse to a machine shop."</p> - -<p>"How are you going to make electrodes?"</p> - -<p>"We'll use the annular gratings that run around the central well at -each level," said Channing. "We'll have a crew of men cut 'em free and -insulate the resulting rings with something. Got anything?"</p> - -<p>"There is a shipment of methyl-methacrylate rods for the Venus Power -Co. in Hold 17," said the cargo master.</p> - -<p>"Fine," said Channing. "What size?"</p> - -<p>"Three inches by six feet."</p> - -<p>"It'll be tricky work, and you'll have to wait until your cut edge has -cooled before you hook on the rods," mused Don. "But that's the ticket."</p> - -<p>"Which floors do you want?"</p> - -<p>"Have you got a scale drawing of the <i>Solar Queen</i>?"</p> - -<p>"Sure."</p> - -<p>"Then this is where my tablecloth artistry falls flat. The focusing of -an electron beam depends upon the electrode spacing and the voltage. -Since our voltage is fixed if we take it from the driver electrodes, -we'll have to do some mighty fine figuring. I'll need that scale -drawing."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Channing's tablecloth engineering was not completely wasted. By the -time the scale drawing was placed before him, Channing had half of the -table filled with equations. He studied the drawing, and selected the -levels which were to serve as electrodes. He handed the drawing to -Hadley, and the power engineer began to issue instructions to his gang.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Then the central well began to swarm with spacesuited men who bore -cutting torches. Hot sparks danced from the cut girders that held the -floorings, and at the same time, a crew of men were running cables from -the various levels to the instrument room. More hours passed while the -circular sections were insulated with the plastic rods.</p> - -<p>The big dome above was cut in sections and removed, and then the sky -could be seen all the way from the bottom of the ship where the pilot's -greenhouse should have been.</p> - -<p>Channing looked it over and then remarked: "All we need now is an -electron collector."</p> - -<p>"I thought you wanted to shoot 'em off," objected Hadley.</p> - -<p>"I do. But we've got to have a source of supply. You can't toss -baseballs off of the Transplanet Building in Northern Landing all -afternoon, you know, without having a few brought to you now and then. -Where do you think they come from?"</p> - -<p>"Hadn't thought of it in that way. What'd happen?"</p> - -<p>"We'd get along for the first umpty-gillion electrons, and then all -the soup we could pack on would be equalized by the positive charge on -the ship and we couldn't shoot out any more until we got bombarded by -the sun—and that bombardment is nothing to write home about as goes -quantity. What we need is a selective solar intake plate of goodly -proportions."</p> - -<p>"We could use a mental telepathy expert, too. Or one of those new beams -that Baler and Carroll dug up out of the Martian desert. I've heard -that those things will actually suck power out of any source, and bend -beams so as to enter the intake vent, or end."</p> - -<p>"We haven't one of those, either. Fact of the matter is," grinned -Channing ruefully, "we haven't much of anything but our wits."</p> - -<p>"Unarmed, practically," laughed Hadley.</p> - -<p>"Half armed, at least. Ah, for something to soak up electrons. I'm now -wondering if this electron gun is such a good idea."</p> - -<p>"Might squirt some protons out the other direction," offered Hadley.</p> - -<p>"That would leave us without either," said Don. "We'd be like the man -who tossed baseballs off of one side and himself off the other—Hey! -Of course we have some to spare. We can cram electrons out of the -business end, thus stripping the planetary rings from the atoms in our -cathode. From the far side we'll shoot the canal rays, which in effect -will be squirting protons, or the nuclei. Since the planetaries have -left for the front, it shouldn't be hard to take the protons away, -leaving nothing. At our present voltages, we might be able to do it." -Channing began to figure again, and he came up with another set of -anodes to be placed beyond the cathode. "We'll ventilate the cathode -and hang these negative electrodes on the far side. They will attract -the protons, impelled also by the positive charge on the front end. -We'll maintain a balance that way, effectively throwing away the whole -atomic structure of the cathode. The latter will fade, just as the -cathodes do in the driving tubes, only we'll be using electronic power -instead of sub-electronic. Y'know, Hadley, some day someone is going to -find a way to detect the—we'll call it radiation for want of anything -better—of the driver. And then there will open an entirely new field -of energy. I don't think that anybody has done more about the so-called -sub-electronic field than to make a nice, efficient driving device out -of it.</p> - -<p>"Well, let's get our canal-ray electrodes in place. We've got about two -hours before they realize that we aren't going to come in at Mojave. -Then another two hours worth of wild messages between the Relay Station -and Mojave. Then we can expect someone to be on the lookout. I hope to -be there when they begin to look for us. At our present velocity, we'll -be flirting with the Asteroid Belt in less than nothing flat. That -isn't too bad—normally—but we're running without any meteor detector -and autopilot coupler. We couldn't duck anything from a robin's egg on -up."</p> - -<p>"We'll get your anodes set," said Hadley.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Walt Franks grinned at Arden Channing. "That'll burn him," he assured -her.</p> - -<p>"It's been on the way for about twenty minutes," laughed Arden. "I -timed it to arrive at Terra at the same time the <i>Solar Queen</i> does. -They'll send out a special messenger with it, just as Don is getting -aboard his little scooter. It'll be the last word, for we're not -following him from Terra to here."</p> - -<p>"You know what you've started?" asked Franks.</p> - -<p>"Nothing more than a little feud between husband and self."</p> - -<p>"That's just the start. Before he gets done, Don will have every ship -capable of answering back. I've found that you can catch him off -base just once. He's a genius—one of those men who never make the -same mistake twice. He'll never again be in a position to be on the -listening end only."</p> - -<p>"Don's answer should be on the way back by now," said Arden. "Could be -you're right. Something should be done."</p> - -<p>"Sure I'm right. Look at all the time that's wasted in waiting for -a landing to answer 'grams. In this day and age, time is money, -squared. The latter is to differentiate between this time and the first -glimmering of speedy living."</p> - -<p>"Was there a first glimmering?" asked Arden sagely. "I've often thought -that the speed-up was a stable acceleration from the dawn of time to -the present."</p> - -<p>"All right, go technical on me," laughed Walt. "Things do move. That -is, all except that message from your loving husband."</p> - -<p>"You don't suppose he's squelched?"</p> - -<p>"I doubt it. Squelching Donald Channing is a job for a superbeing. And -I'm not too sure that a superbeing could squelch Don and make him stay -squelched. Better check on Mojave."</p> - -<p>"Gosh, if Don missed the <i>Solar Queen</i> and I've been shooting him all -kinds of screwy 'types every hour on the hour; Walt, that'll keep him -quiet for a long, long time."</p> - -<p>"He'd have let you know."</p> - -<p>"That wouldn't have been so bad. But if the big bum missed and was -ashamed of it—that'll be the pay-off. Whoa, there goes the 'type!"</p> - -<p>Arden drew the tape from the machine:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>MESSAGE BEING HELD FOR ARRIVAL OF <i>SOLAR QUEEN</i>.</p></div> - -<p>Walt looked at his watch and checked the course constants of the <i>Solar -Queen</i>. He called the beam-control dome and asked for the man on the -<i>Solar Queen</i> beam.</p> - -<p>"Benny," he said, "has the <i>Solar Queen</i> arrived yet?"</p> - -<p>"Sure," answered Benny. "According to the mechanical mind here, they've -been on Mojave for twenty minutes."</p> - -<p>"Thanks." To Arden he said: "Something's strictly fishy."</p> - -<p>Arden sat at the machine and pounded the keys:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><i>SOLAR QUEEN</i> DUE TO ARRIVE AT 19:06:41. IT IS NOW 19:27:00. BEAM -CONTROL SAYS TRANSMISSIONS ENDED BECAUSE OF COINCIDENCE BETWEEN TERRA -BEAM AND STATION-TO-SHIP BEAM. PLEASE CHECK.</p></div> - -<p>Arden fretted and Walt stamped up and down the room during the long -minutes necessary for the message to reach Terra and the answer to -return. It came right on the tick of the clock:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>HAVE CHECKED COURSE CONSTANTS. <i>SOLAR QUEEN</i> OVER-DUE NOW FIFTY -MINUTES. OBVIOUSLY SOMETHING WRONG. CAN YOU HELP?</p></div> - -<p>Walt smiled in a grim fashion. "Help!" he said. "We go on and on for -years and years with no trouble—and now we've lost the third ship in a -row."</p> - -<p>"They claim that those things always run in threes," said Arden. "What -are we going to do?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know. We'll have to do something. Funny, but the one reason we -must do something is the same reason why something can be done."</p> - -<p>"I don't get that."</p> - -<p>"With Channing on the <i>Solar Queen</i>, something can be done. I don't -know what, but I'll bet you a new hat that Don will make it possible -for us to detect the ship. There is not a doubt in my mind that if the -ship is still spaceworthy, we can narrow the possibilities down to a -thin cone of space."</p> - -<p>"How?"</p> - -<p>"Well," said Franks, taking the fountain pen out of the holder on the -desk and beginning to sketch on the blotter, "the course of the <i>Solar -Queen</i> is not a very crooked one, as courses go. It's a very shallow -skew curve. Admitting the worst, collision, we can assume only one -thing. If the meteor were small enough to leave the ship in a floating -but undirigible condition, it would also be small enough to do nothing -to the general direction of the ship. Anything else would make it -useless to hunt, follow?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, go on."</p> - -<p>"Therefore we may assume that the present position of the <i>Solar Queen</i> -is within the volume of a cone made by the tangents of the outermost -elements of the space curve that is the <i>Solar Queen's</i> course. We can -take an eight-thousand-mile cylinder out of one place—for the origin -of their trouble is between Mars and Terra and the 'shadow' of Terra in -the cone will not contain the <i>Solar Queen</i>."</p> - -<p>"Might have passed close enough to Terra to throw her right into the -'shadow' of Terra by attraction," objected Arden.</p> - -<p>"Yeah, you're right. O.K., so we can't take out that cylinder of space. -And we add a sort of side-wise cone on to our original cone, a volume -through which the <i>Queen</i> might have flown after passing close enough -to Terra to be deflected. I'll have the slipstick experts give a guess -as to the probability of the <i>Queen's</i> course, and at the same time -we'll suspend all incoming operations. I'm going to set up every kind -of detector I can think of, and I don't want anything upsetting them."</p> - -<p>"What kind of stuff do you expect?" asked Arden.</p> - -<p>"I dunno. They might have a betatron aboard. In that case we'll -eventually get a blast of electrons that'll knock our front teeth out. -Don may succeed in tinkering up some sort of electrostatic field. We -can check the solar electrostatic field to about seven decimal places -right here, and any deviation in the field to the tune of a couple -of million electron volts at a distance of a hundred million miles -will cause a distortion in the field that we can measure. We'll ply -oscillating beams through the area of expectation and hope for an -answering reflection, though I do not hope for that. We'll have men on -the lookout for everything from smoke signals to helio. Don't worry too -much, Arden, your husband is capable of doing something big enough to -be heard. He's just the guy to do it."</p> - -<p>"I know," said Arden soberly. "But I can't help worrying."</p> - -<p>"Me, too. Well, I'm off to set up detectors. We'll collect something."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Have we got anything like a piece of gold leaf?" asked Channing.</p> - -<p>"I think so, why?"</p> - -<p>"I want to make an electroscope. That's about the only way I'll know -whether we are getting out with this cockeyed electron gun."</p> - -<p>"How so?" asked Hadley.</p> - -<p>"We can tell from the meter that reads the beam current whether -anything is going up the pipe," explained Channing. "But if -we just build us up a nice heavy duty charge—as shown by the -electroscope—we'll be sure that the electrons are not going far. This -is one case where no sign is good news."</p> - -<p>"I'll have one of the boys set up an electroscope in the instrument -room."</p> - -<p>"Good. And now have the bird on the telescope forget trying to find -Venus Equilateral by dead reckoning and sight. Have him set the scope -angles to the figures here, and then have him contact Darlange and have -the ship slued around so that Venus is on the cross hairs. That'll put -us on a line for the Station by a few thousand miles. We can afford to -miss. A bundle of electrons of our magnitude zipping past the detectors -that Walt can set up will make a reading."</p> - -<p>Hadley called the observation dome. "Tim," he said, giving a string of -figures, "set your 'scope for these and then get Darlange to slue the -crate around so that your cross hairs are on Venus."</p> - -<p>"O.K.," answered Tim. "That's going to be a job. This business of -looking through a 'scope while dressed in a spacesuit is no fun. Here -goes."</p> - -<p>He called Darlange, and the communicator system permitted the men in -the instrument room to hear his voice. "Dar," he said, "loop us around -about forty-one degrees from Driver 3."</p> - -<p>Darlange said: "Right!" and busied himself at his buttons.</p> - -<p>"Three degrees on Driver 4."</p> - -<p>"Right."</p> - -<p>"Too far, back her up a degree on 4."</p> - -<p>Darlange laughed. "What do you think these things are, blocks and -tackles? You mean: 'Compensate a degree on 2.'"</p> - -<p>"You're the pilot. That's the ticket—and I don't care if you lift it -on one hand. Can you nudge her just a red hair on 3?"</p> - -<p>"Best I can do is a hair and a half," said Darlange. He gave Driver 3 -just a tiny, instantaneous surge.</p> - -<p>"Then take it up two and back one and a half," laughed Tim. "Whoa, -Nellie, you're on the beam."</p> - -<p>"Fine."</p> - -<p>"O.K., Dar, but you'll have to play monkey on a stick. I'll prime you -for any moving so that you can correct immediately."</p> - -<p>"Right. Don, we're on the constants you gave us. What now?"</p> - -<p>"At this point I think a short prayer would be of assistance," said -Channing soberly. "We're shooting our whole wad right now."</p> - -<p>"I hope we make our point."</p> - -<p>"Well, it's all or nothing," agreed Don as he grasped the switch.</p> - -<p>He closed the switch, and the power demand meters jumped up across -their scales. The gold-leaf electroscope jumped once; the ultra-thin -leaves jerked apart by an inch, and then oscillated stiffly until they -came to a balance. Channing, who had been looking at them, breathed -deeply and smiled.</p> - -<p>"We're getting out," he said.</p> - -<p>"Can you key this?" asked Hadley.</p> - -<p>"No need," said Channing. "They know we're in the grease. We know that -if they can collect us, they'll be on their way. I'm going to send out -for a half-hour, and then resort to a five-minute transmission every -fifteen minutes. They'll get a ship after us with just about everything -we're likely to need, and they can use the five-minute transmissions -for direction finding. The initial shot will serve to give them an idea -as to our direction. All we can do now is to wait."</p> - -<p>"And hope," added Captain Johannson.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Electrically, Venus Equilateral was more silent than it had ever been. -Not an electrical appliance was running on the whole station. People -were cautioned about walking on deep-pile rugs, or combing their hair -with plastic combs, or doing anything that would set up any kind of -electronic charge. Only the highly filtered generators in the power -rooms were running and these had been shielded and filtered long -years ago; nothing would emerge from them to interrupt the ether. All -incoming signals were stopped.</p> - -<p>And the men who listened with straining ears claimed that the sky was -absolutely clear save for a faint crackle of cosmic static which they -knew came from the corona of the sun.</p> - -<p>One group of men sat about a static-field indicator and cursed the -minute wiggling of the meter, caused by the ever-moving celestial -bodies and their electronic charges. A sunspot emission passed through -the Station once, and though it was but a brief passage, it sent the -electrostatic field crazy and made the men jump.</p> - -<p>The men who were straining their ears to hear became nervous, and were -jumping at every loud crackle.</p> - -<p>And though the man at the telescope knew that his probability of -picking up a sight of the <i>Solar Queen</i> was as slender as a spider's -web, he continued to search the starry heavens. He swept the narrow -cone of the heavens wherein the <i>Solar Queen</i> was lost according to the -mathematical experts, and he looked at every bit of brightness in the -field of his telescope as though it might be the missing ship.</p> - -<p>The beam-scanners watched their return-plates closely. It was difficult -because the receiver gains were set to maximum, and every tick of -static caused brief flashes of light upon their plates. They would jump -at such a flash and watch for it to reappear on the next wipe, for -a continuous spot of light indicated the ship they sought. Then, as -the spot did not reappear, they would go on with their beams to cover -another infinitesimal portion of the sky. Moving forward across the -cone of expectancy bit by bit, they crossed and recrossed until they -were growing restive.</p> - -<p>Surely the ship must be there!</p> - -<p>At the South End landing stage, a group of men were busy stocking a -ship. Supplies and necessities were carried aboard, while another -group of men tinkered with the electrical equipment. They cleared a -big space in the observation dome, and began to install a replica of -the equipment used on the Station for detection. No matter what kind -of output Channing sent back, they would be able to follow it to the -bitter end.</p> - -<p>They made their installations in duplicate, with one piece of each -equipment on opposite sides of the blunt dome. Balancing the inputs of -each kind by turning the entire ship would give them a good indication -of direction.</p> - -<p>Franks did not hope that the entire installation could be completed -before the signal came, but he was trying to outguess himself by -putting some of everything aboard. When and if it came, he would be -either completely ready with everything or he at least would have a -good start on any one of the number of detectors. If need be, the -equipment from the Station itself could be removed and used to complete -the mobile installation.</p> - -<p>Everything was in a complete state of nervous expectancy. Watchers -watched, meter readers squinted for the barest wiggle, audio observers -listened, trying to filter any kind of man-made note out of the -irregular crackle that came in.</p> - -<p>And the Station announcing equipment was dead quiet, to be used only -in case of emergency or to announce the first glimmer of radiation, -whether it be material, electrical, kinetic, potential, or wave front.</p> - -<p>Long they listened—and then it came.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Station announcing equipment broke forth in a multitude of voices.</p> - -<p>"Sound input on radio."</p> - -<p>"Visual indication on scanner plates!"</p> - -<p>"Distortion on electrostatic field indicator."</p> - -<p>"Super-electroscopes indicate negative charge!"</p> - -<p>"Nothing on the telescope!"</p> - -<p>There were mingled cheers and laughter as the speaker system broke away -from its babel, and each group spoke its piece with no interference. -Walt Franks left the ship at the South End and raced to the Beam -Control dome, just as fast as the runway car would take him. He ran -into the dome in spacesuit and flipped the helmet back over his -shoulders. "What kind of indication?" he yelled.</p> - -<p>Men crowded around him, offering him papers and shouting figures.</p> - -<p>"Gosh," he said, "Don can't have everything going up there."</p> - -<p>"He's hit just about everything but the guy squinting through the -'scope."</p> - -<p>"What's he doing?" asked Franks of no one in particular.</p> - -<p>One of the radiation engineers who had been busy with the electrostatic -field indicator said: "I think maybe he's using some sort of electron -gun—like the one you tried first off on the meteor-destroyer-job, -remember?"</p> - -<p>"Yeah, but that one wouldn't work—unless Don has succeeded in doing -something that we couldn't do. Look, Charley, we haven't had time to -set up a complete field indicator on the ship. Grab yours and give the -boys a lift installing it, hey?"</p> - -<p>"Sure thing."</p> - -<p>"And look, fellows, any indication of direction, velocity, or distance?"</p> - -<p>"Look for yourself," said the man on the beam scanner. "The whole plate -is shining. We can't get a fix on them this way—they're radiating -themselves and that means that our scanner-system finder is worthless."</p> - -<p>"We can, but it's rough," offered one of the radio men. "It came from -an area out beyond Terra—and as for our readings it might have covered -a quarter of the sky."</p> - -<p>"The field indicator is a short-base finder," explained Charley. "And -no less rough than the radio boys. I'd say it was out beyond Terra by -fifty million miles at least."</p> - -<p>"Close enough. We'll have to track 'em down like a -radio-equipped bloodhound. Charley, come along and run that -mechanico-electro-monstrosity of yours. Gene, you can come along and -run the radio finder. Oh yes, you, Jimmy, may continue to squint -through that eyepiece of yours—but on the <i>Relay Girl</i>. We need a -good, first-class squinter, and you should have an opportunity to -help."</p> - -<p>Jimmy laughed shortly. "The only guy on the Station that didn't get an -indication was me. Not even a glimmer."</p> - -<p>"Channing didn't know we'd be <i>looking</i> for him, or he'd probably -light a flare, too. Cheer up, Jimmy, after all this crude, electrical -rigamarole is finished, and we gotta get right down to the last -millimeter, it's the guy with the eye that polishes up the job. You'll -have your turn."</p> - -<p>Twenty minutes after the first glimmer of intelligent signal, the -<i>Relay Girl</i> lifted from the South End and darted off at an angle, -setting her nose roughly in the direction of the signal.</p> - -<p>Her holds were filled with spare batteries and a whole dozen -replacement cathodes as well as her own replacements. Her crew was -filled to the eyebrows with gravanol, and there must have been a mile -of adhesive tape and cotton on their abdomens. At 6-G she left, and at -6-G she ran, her crew immobilized but awake because of the gravanol. -And though the acceleration was terrific, the tape kept the body from -folding of its own weight. When they returned, they would all be in the -hospital for a week, but their friends would be with them.</p> - -<p>Ten minutes after take-off, the signals ceased.</p> - -<p>Walt said: "Keep her running. Don's saving electricity. Tell me when we -pick him up again."</p> - -<p>Franklen, the pilot, nodded. "We haven't got a good start yet. It'll -be touch and go. According to the slipstick boys, they must be clapping -it up at between twenty-five hundred and five thousand miles per second -to get that far—and coasting free or nearly so. Otherwise they'd have -come in. Any suggestions as to course?"</p> - -<p>"Sure. Whoop it up at six until we hit about six thousand. Then -decelerate to four thousand by using 1-G. We'll vacillate in velocity -between four and five until we get close."</p> - -<p>Forty-one hours later, the <i>Relay Queen</i> made turnover and began to -decelerate.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Channing said to Captain Johannson: "Better cut the decel to about a -quarter-G. That'll be enough to keep us from bumping our heads on the -ceiling and it will last longer. This is going to be a long chase, and -cutting down a few MPS at a half-G isn't going to make much never-mind. -I'll hazard a guess that the boys are on their way right now."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"If you say so," said Johannson. "You're the boss from now on. You -know that wild bunch on the Station better than I do. For myself, I've -always felt that an answer was desirable before we do anything."</p> - -<p>"I know Franks and my wife pretty well—about as well as they know me. -I've put myself in Walt's place—and I know that Walt would do. So—if -Walt didn't think of it, Arden would—I can assume that they are aware -of us, have received our signals, and are, therefore, coming along -as fast as they can. They'll come zipping out here at from five- to -seven-G to what they think is halfway and then decelerate again to a -sane velocity. We won't catch sight of them for sixty or seventy hours, -and when we do, they'll be going so fast that it will take another -twenty hours worth of manipulation to match their speed with ours. -Meanwhile, I've got the gun timed to shoot our signal. When the going -gets critical, I'll cut the power and make it continuous."</p> - -<p>"You're pretty sure of your timing?"</p> - -<p>"Well, the best they can do as for direction and velocity and distance -is a crude guess. They'll place us out here beyond Terra somewhere. -They'll calculate the course requirements to get us this far in the -time allotted, and come to a crude figure. I'd like to try keying -this thing, but I know that keying it won't work worth a hoot at this -distance. Each bundle of keyed electrons would act as a separate -negative charge that would spread out and close up at this distance. -It's tough enough to hope that the electron beam will hold together -that far, let alone trying to key intelligence with it. We'll leave -well enough alone—and especially if they're trying to get a fix on us; -there's nothing worse than trying to fix an intermittent station. Where -are we now?"</p> - -<p>"We're on the inner fringe of the Asteroid Belt, about thirty million -miles North, and heading on a secant course at thirty-four hundred MPS."</p> - -<p>"Too bad Jupiter isn't in the neighborhood," said Channing. "We'll be -flirting with his orbit by the time they catch us."</p> - -<p>"Easily," said Johannson. "In sixty hours, we'll have covered about six -hundred and fifty million miles. We'll be nearer the orbit of Saturn, -in spite of the secant course."</p> - -<p>"Your secant approaches a radius as you get farther out," said Don, -absently. "As far as distances go. Ah, well, Titan, here we come!"</p> - -<p>Johannson spoke to the doctor. "How're we doing?"</p> - -<p>"Pretty well," said Doc. "There's as pretty an assortment of fractured -ribs, broken limbs, cracked clavicles, and scars, mars, and abrasions -as you ever saw. There are a number dead, worse luck, but we can't do -a thing about them. We can hold on for a week as far as food and water -goes. Everyone is now interested in the manner of our rescue rather -than worrying about it." He turned to Channing. "The words Channing and -Venus Equilateral have wonderful healing powers," he said. "They all -think your gang are part magician and part sorcerer."</p> - -<p>"Why, for goodness' sake?"</p> - -<p>"I didn't ask. Once I told 'em you had a scheme to contact the Relay -Station, they were all satisfied that things would happen for the -better."</p> - -<p>"Anything we can do to help you out?"</p> - -<p>"I think not," answered Doc. "What I said before still goes. Your job -is to bring aid—and that's the sum total of your job. Every effort -must be expended on that and that alone. You've got too many whole -people depending on you to spend one second on the hurt. That's my job."</p> - -<p>"O.K.," said Channing, "But it's going to be a long wait."</p> - -<p>"We can afford it."</p> - -<p>"I hope we're not complicating the job of finding us by this quartering -deceleration," said Johannson.</p> - -<p>"We're not. We're making a sort of vector from our course, but the -deviation is very small. As long as the fellows follow our radiation, -we'll be found," Channing said with a smile. "The thing that is tough -is the fact that all the floors seem to lean over."</p> - -<p>"Not much, though."</p> - -<p>"They wouldn't lean at all if we were running with the whole set of -equipment," said Darlange. "We run a complete turnover without spilling -a drop from the swimming pool."</p> - -<p>"Or even making the passengers aware of it unless they're looking at -the sky."</p> - -<p>"Stop worrying about it," said Doc. "I'm the only guy who has to worry -about it and as long as the floor is still a floor, I can stand sliding -into the corner once in a while."</p> - -<p>"We might tinker with the turnover drivers," offered Don. "We can -bring 'em down to a place where the velocity-deceleration vectors -are perpendicular to the floor upon which we stand while our ship is -sluing. We've got a lot of time on our hands, and I, for one, feel a -lot happier when I'm doing something."</p> - -<p>"It's a thought," said Hadley. "Wanna try it?"</p> - -<p>"Let's go."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Thirty hours after the <i>Relay Girl</i> left the Station, Walt and Franklen -held a council of war, in which Charley Bren was the prime factor.</p> - -<p>"We've come about two hundred million miles, and our present velocity -is something like four thousand miles per second," said Walt. "We're -going out towards Mars on a slightly-off radial course, to the North -of the ecliptic. That means we're a little over a quarter of a billion -miles from Sol, or about to hit the Asteroid Belt. Thinking it over a -little, I think we should continue our acceleration for another thirty -hours. What say?"</p> - -<p>"The field has shown no change in intensity that I can detect," said -Bren. "If they haven't dropped their radiated intensity, that means -that we are no closer to them than we were before. Of course, we'd -probably have to cut the distance by at least a half before any -measurable decrement made itself evident."</p> - -<p>"They must be on the upper limit of that four thousand MPS," observed -Walt. "There's one thing certain, we'll never catch them by matching -their speed."</p> - -<p>"Where will another thirty hours at 6-G put us and how fast?" asked -Franklen.</p> - -<p>Silence ensued while they scribbled long figures on scratch paper.</p> - -<p>"About eight hundred million miles from Sol," announced Walt.</p> - -<p>"And about eight thousand MPS," added Charley.</p> - -<p>"That's a little extreme, don't you think?" asked Franklen.</p> - -<p>"By about thirty percent," said Walt, scratching his chin. "If we hold -to our original idea of hitting it for six thousand, where will we be?"</p> - -<p>"That would make it about forty-five hours from take-off, and we'd be -about four hundred and sixty million miles from Sol." Charley grinned -widely and said: "By Jove!"</p> - -<p>"What?"</p> - -<p>"By Jove!"</p> - -<p>"'By Jove!' What?"</p> - -<p>"That's where we'd be—By Jove!"</p> - -<p>"<i>Phew.</i>"</p> - -<p>"I agree with you," said Franklen to Walt. "Better ignore him."</p> - -<p>"Sure will after that. So then we'll be 'By Jove' at six thousand. -That would be a swell place to make turnover, I think. At 1-G decel, -to about four thousand MPS, that'll put us about ... um, that'd take -us ninety hours! We'll make that 3-G, at twenty hours, which will put -us about three hundred and fifty million miles along, which plus the -original four hundred and sixty million adds up to eight hundred and -ten million miles—"</p> - -<p>"When an astronaut begins to talk like that," interrupted Arden, "we of -the skyways say that he is talking in Congressional figures. The shoe -is on the other foot. What on earth are you fellows figuring?"</p> - -<p>"Where we'll be and how fast we'll be going at a given instant of no -particular importance," offered Walt. "When did you wake up?"</p> - -<p>"About the third hundred million. All of those ciphers going by made a -hollow sound, like a bullet whistling in the wind."</p> - -<p>"Well, we're trying to make the theories of probability match with -figures. We'll know in about forty-five hours whether we were right or -not."</p> - -<p>"It's a good thing we have all space to go around in. Are you sure that -we have all eternity?"</p> - -<p>"Don't get anxious. They're still coming in like a ton of bricks -four times per hour, which means that they're riding easy. I don't -want to overrun them at about three thousand MPS and have to spend a -week decelerating, returning, more decelerating, and then matching -velocities."</p> - -<p>"I see. You know best. And where is this Asteroid Belt that I've heard -so much about?"</p> - -<p>"To the South of us by a few million miles. Those bright specks that -you can't tell from stars are asteroids. The common conception of the -Asteroid Belt being filled to overflowing with a collection of cosmic -rubble like the rings of Saturn is a lot of hooey. We'll be past in -a little while and we haven't even come close to one. Space is large -enough for all of us, I think."</p> - -<p>"But not when all of us want the same space."</p> - -<p>"I don't care for their area," said Walt with a smile. "Let 'em have -it, I don't care. I'll stay up here and let them run as they will."</p> - -<p>"You mean the ones that are moving downward?" asked Arden, indicating -the sky.</p> - -<p>"Those are asteroids, yes. We're to the North, as you may check by -going around the ship to the opposite side. You'll see Polaris almost -directly opposite, there. Sol is almost directly below us, and that -bright one that you can see if you squint almost straight up out of the -port is Saturn."</p> - -<p>"I won't bother crossing the ship to see Polaris. I prefer the Southern -Cross anyway. The thing I'm most interested in is: Are we accomplishing -anything?"</p> - -<p>"I think that we've spent the last thirty hours just catching up," -explained Walt. "Up to right now we were going backwards, so to speak: -we're on even terms now, and will be doing better from here on in."</p> - -<p>"It's the waiting that gets me down," said Arden. "Oh, for something to -do!"</p> - -<p>"Let's eat," suggested Walt. "I'm hungry, and now that I think of it, I -have not eaten since we left the Station. Arden, you are hereby elected -to the post of galley chief. Get Jimmy from the dome if you need help."</p> - -<p>"Help? What for?"</p> - -<p>"He can help you lift it out of the oven. Don must have a cast-iron -stomach."</p> - -<p>"That's hearsay. I'll show you! As soon as I find the can opener, -breakfast will be served."</p> - -<p>"Make mine dinner," said Charley. "We've been awake all the time."</p> - -<p>"O.K., we will have a combined meal, from grapefruit to ice cream. -Those who want any or all parts may choose at will. And fellows, please -let me know as soon as you get something tangible."</p> - -<p>"That's a promise," said Walt. "Take it easy, and don't worry. We'll -be catching up with them one of these days."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Hadley, how much coating have we got on those cathodes?"</p> - -<p>"Not too much. We had about twenty G-hours to begin with. We went to a -half-G for about twenty hours, and now we're running on a quarter-G, -which would leave us go for forty hours more. That's a grand total of -about sixty hours."</p> - -<p>"And the batteries?"</p> - -<p>"In pretty good shape."</p> - -<p>"Well, look. If it should come to a choice between floor and signal -gun, we'll choose the gun. We've about twelve hours left in the -cathodes, and since everybody is now used to quarter-G we might even -slide it down to an eighth-G, which would give us about twenty-four -hours."</p> - -<p>"Your gun is still putting out?"</p> - -<p>"So far as I can tell. Ten hours from now, we should know, I think, -predicating my guess on whatever meager information they must have."</p> - -<p>"We could save some juice by killing most of the lights in the ship."</p> - -<p>"That's a thought. Johannson, have one of your men run around and -remove all lights that aren't absolutely necessary. He can kill about -three quarters of them, I'm certain. That'll save us a few kilowatt -hours," said Channing. "And another thing. I'm about to drop the power -of our electron gun and run it continuously. If the boys are anywhere -in the neighborhood, they'll be needing the continuous disturbance for -direction finding. I'd say in another five hours that we should start -continuous radiation."</p> - -<p>"You know, Channing, if this thing works out all right, it will be a -definite vote for pure, deductive reasoning."</p> - -<p>"I know. But the pure deduction is not too pure. It isn't guesswork. -There are two factors of known quantity. One is that I know Walt -Franks, and the other is that he knows me. The rest is a simple matter -of the boys on the Station knowing space to the last inch, and applying -the theory of probabilities to it. We'll hear from them soon, or I'll -miss my guess. You wait."</p> - -<p>"Yeah," drawled Captain Johannson, "we'll wait!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Charley Bren made another computation and said: "Well, Walt, we've been -narrowing them down for quite a time now. We're getting closer and -closer to them, according to the field intensity. I've just got a good -idea of direction on that last five-minute shot. Have Franklen swivel -us around on this course; pretty soon we'll be right in the middle of -their shots."</p> - -<p>"We're approaching them asymptotically," observed Walt. "I wish I knew -what our velocity was with respect to theirs. Something tells me that -it would be much simpler if I knew."</p> - -<p>"Walt," asked Arden, "how close can you see a spaceship?"</p> - -<p>"You mean how far? Well, I don't know that it's ever been tried and -recorded. But we can figure it out easy enough, by analogy. A period -is about thirty thousandths of an inch in diameter, and visible from -a distance of thirty inches. I mean visible with no doubt about -it's being there. That's a thousand to one. Now, the <i>Solar Queen</i> -is about six hundred feet tall and about four hundred feet in its -major diameter, so we can assume a little more than the four hundred -feet—say five hundred feet average of circular area, say—follow me?"</p> - -<p>"Go on, you're vague, but normal."</p> - -<p>"Then at a thousand to one, that becomes five hundred thousand -feet, and dividing by five thousand—round figures because it isn't -important enough to use that two hundred and eighty feet over the five -thousand—gives us one thousand miles. We should be able to see the -<i>Solar Queen</i> from a distance of a thousand miles."</p> - -<p>"Then at four thousand miles per second we'll be in and out of visual -range in a half second?"</p> - -<p>"Oh no. They're rambling on a quite similar course at an unknown -but high velocity. Our velocity with respect to theirs is what will -determine how long they're within visual range."</p> - -<p>"Hey, Walt," came the voice of Charley Bren. "The intensity of Don's -beam has been cut to about one quarter and is now continuous. Does that -mean anything?"</p> - -<p>"Might mean trouble for them. Either they're running out of soup and -mean for us to hurry up, or they assume we're close enough to obviate -the need for high power. We'd better assume they want haste and act -accordingly. How're the boys on the radio detectors coming along?"</p> - -<p>"Fine. They've taken over the direction finding and claim that we are -right on their tail."</p> - -<p>"Anything in the sights, Jimmy?"</p> - -<p>"Not yet. But the electroscope boys claim that quarter power or not, -the input is terrific."</p> - -<p>"Take a rest, Jimmy. We won't be there for a while yet. No use burning -your eyes out trying to see 'em. There'll be time enough for you to do -your share after we get 'em close enough to see with the naked eye. -What do the beam-scanners say?"</p> - -<p>"Shucks," answered the man on the scanners, "they're still radiating. -How are we going to fix 'em on a reflected wave when they're more -powerful on their own hook? The whole plate is glaring white. And, -incidentally, so is the celestial globe in the meteor-spotter. I've had -the threshold cut to the devil on that or we'd never be able to hold -this course. Anything like a meteor that comes in our way now will not -register until we're right on top of it and—"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The <i>Relay Girl</i> lurched sickeningly. All over the ship, things rattled -and fell to the floors. Men grabbed at the closest solid object, and -then the <i>Relay Girl</i> straightened out once more.</p> - -<p>"<i>Woosh</i>," said Franks. "That was a big one."</p> - -<p>"Big one?" called Charley Bren. "That, my friend, was none other than -the <i>Solar Queen</i>!"</p> - -<p>"Can you prove that?"</p> - -<p>"Sure. Our electroscopes now indicate a positive charge; they crossed -over just as we lurched."</p> - -<p>"Jimmy, get your scope a-top and get looking. Franklen, hang on about -7-G and follow Jimmy's orders. Charley, see if you can get anything -cogent out of your gadget. Holy Green Fire, with all of a cubic million -million million megaparsecs in which to run, we have to be so good that -we run right into our quarry. Who says that radio direction finding is -not a precise science? Who says that we couldn't catch—"</p> - -<p>"Walt, they're in sight, but losing fast."</p> - -<p>"O.K., Jimmy, can you give me any idea as to their velocity with -respect to ours?"</p> - -<p>"How long is she?"</p> - -<p>"Six hundred feet."</p> - -<p>Jimmy was silent for some seconds. "They're out of sight again, but I -make it about four to seven hundred miles per second."</p> - -<p>"At 7-G we should match that seven hundred in about four hours."</p> - -<p>"And then go on decelerating so that they'll catch up?"</p> - -<p>"No," said Walt. "I used the max figure and we can assume that they -aren't going that fast, quite. At the end of four hours, we'll -turnover and wait until they heave in sight again and then we'll do -some more oscillating. We can match their velocity inside of ten hours, -or Franklen will get fired."</p> - -<p>"If I don't," promised Franklen, "I'll quit. You can't fire me!"</p> - -<p>"We should be able to contact them by radio," said Walt.</p> - -<p>"Their beam is off," said Bren.</p> - -<p>"And they are using the landing set," called the radio man, "It's -Channing. He says: 'Fancy meeting you here.' Any answer?"</p> - -<p>"Just say, 'Dr. Channing, I presume?'"</p> - -<p>Channing's voice came out of the ship's announcer system as the radio -man made the necessary connections. It said: "Right—but what kept you -so long?"</p> - -<p>"Our boss was away," said Walt. "And we can't do a thing without him."</p> - -<p>"Some boss. Some crew of wild men. Can't go off on a fishing trip -without having my bunch chasing all over the Solar System."</p> - -<p>"What's wrong with a little sightseeing tour? We didn't mean any harm. -And speaking of harm, how are you and the rest of that bunch getting -along?"</p> - -<p>"We're O.K. What do you plan after we finally get close enough together -to throw stones across?"</p> - -<p>"We've got a whole hold full of spare batteries and a double set of -replacement cathodes. There is a shipload of gravanol aboard, too. -You'll need that and so will we. By the time we finish this jaunt, -we'll have been about as far out as anybody ever gets."</p> - -<p>"Yeah—got any precise figures? We've been running on a guess and a -hope. I make it out about seven hundred million."</p> - -<p>"Make it eight and a half. At 6-G, you'll cover another hundred and -fifty million miles before you stop. Take it twenty-two hours at -6-G—and then another twenty-two at 6. That should put you right back -here but going the other way at the same velocity. But wait, you've -been coasting. Mark off that last twenty-two hours and make it like -this: You'll be one thousand million miles from Sol when you come to a -stop at the end of the first twenty-two hours at 6-G. That hangs you -out beyond the orbit of Saturn by a couple of hundred million. Make it -back forty-four hours at 6-G, turnover and continue. By that time we'll -all be in so close that we can make any planet at will—preferably you -to Terra and we'll head for Venus Equilateral. You'll come aboard us? -No need for you to go with the rest."</p> - -<p>"I can have the scooter sent out," said Channing. "How's Arden?"</p> - -<p>"I'm fine, you big runabout. Wait until I get you!"</p> - -<p>"Why Arden, I thought you might be glad to see me."</p> - -<p>"Glad to see you?"</p> - -<p>"But Arden—"</p> - -<p>"Don't you 'But Arden' me, you big gadabout. Glad to see you? Boy, any -man that makes me chase him all over the Solar System! You just wait. -As soon as I get ahold of you, Don Channing, I'm going to—bust out and -bawl like a kid! Hurry up, willya?"</p> - -<p>"I'll be right over," said Don soberly.</p> - -<p>And, strangely enough, Don did not deviate this time.</p> - - -<p class="ph2">THE END</p> - -<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68047 ***</div> -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/68047-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/68047-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 65ed0ce..0000000 --- a/old/68047-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/68047-h/images/illus1.jpg b/old/68047-h/images/illus1.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 2672421..0000000 --- a/old/68047-h/images/illus1.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/68047-h/images/illus2.jpg b/old/68047-h/images/illus2.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 9e8fda4..0000000 --- a/old/68047-h/images/illus2.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/68047-h/images/illus3.jpg b/old/68047-h/images/illus3.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index e174bfd..0000000 --- a/old/68047-h/images/illus3.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/68047-h/images/illusc.jpg b/old/68047-h/images/illusc.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 5793baf..0000000 --- a/old/68047-h/images/illusc.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old/68047-0.txt b/old/old/68047-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index cd53613..0000000 --- a/old/old/68047-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1971 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Off the Beam, by George O. Smith - -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 at -www.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: Off the Beam - -Author: George O. Smith - -Illustrator: Orban - -Release Date: May 10, 2022 [eBook #68047] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OFF THE BEAM *** - - - - - - Off the Beam - - By GEORGE O. SMITH - - Illustrated by Orban - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Astounding Science-Fiction, February 1944. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -Thirty hours out of Mars for Terra, the _Solar Queen_ sped along her -silent, invisible course. No longer was she completely severed from -all connection with the planets of the inner system; the trick cams -that controlled the beams at Venus Equilateral kept the ship centered -by sheer mathematics. It was a poor communications system, however, -since it was but a one-way job. Any message-answering would have to be -done thirty hours later when the ship made planetfall, and the regular -terminal office of Interplanetary Communications could be employed. - -In spite of her thirty hours at 2-G, which brought her velocity to -eleven hundred miles per second, the beam-director cams did their -job well enough. It was only in extreme cases of course-changing to -dodge meteors that the beams lost the ship; since the cams were not -clairvoyant, there was no way to know when the autopilot juggled the -controls to miss a bit of cosmic dust. The cams continued to spear the -space through which the ship was supposed to pass according to the -course constants. - -What made this trip ironic was the fact that Don Channing was aboard. -The beams had been bombarding the _Solar Queen_ continually ever since -she left Mars with messages for the Director of Communications. In -one sense, it seemed funny that Channing was for once on the end of a -communications line where people could talk to him but upon which he -could not talk back. On the other hand it was a blessing in disguise, -for the Director of Communications was beginning to paper-talk himself -into some means of contacting the Relay Station from a spaceship. - -A steward found Channing in the salon and handed him a 'gram. Channing -smiled, and the steward returned the smile and added: "You'll fix these -ships to talk back one day. Wait until you read that one--you'll burn -from here to Terra!" - -"Reading my mail?" asked Channing cheerfully. The average spacegram was -about as secret as a postcard, so Channing didn't mind. He turned the -page over and read: - - HOPE YOU'RE WELL FILLED WITH GRAVANOL AND ADHESIVE TAPE FOR YOUR - JUMP FROM TERRA TO STATION. SHALL TAKE GREAT DELIGHT IN RIPPING - ADHESIVE TAPE OFF YOUR MEASLY BODY. LOVE. - - ARDEN - -"She will, too," grinned Don. "Well, I'd like to toss her one back, but -she's got me there. I'll just fortify myself at the bar and think up a -few choice ones for when we hit Mojave." - -"Some day you'll be able to answer those," promised the steward. "Mind -telling me why it's so tough?" - -"Not at all," smiled Channing. "The problem is about the same as -encountered by the old-time cowboy. It's a lot easier to hit a man on -a moving horse from a nice, solid rock than it is to hit a man on a -nice, solid rock from a moving horse. Venus Equilateral is quite solid -as things go. But a spaceship's course is fierce. We're wobbling a few -milliseconds here and a few there, and by the time you use that arc to -swing a line of a hundred million miles, you're squirting quite a bit -of sky. We're tinkering with it right now, but so far we have come up -with nothing. Ah, well, since the human race got along without electric -lights for a few million years, we can afford to tinker with an idea -for a few months. Nobody is losing lives or sleep because we can't talk -to the boys back home." - -"We've been hopping from planet to planet for quite a number of years -too," said the steward. "Quite a lot of them went by before it was even -possible to contact a ship in space." - -"And that was done because of an emergency. Probably this other -thing will go on until we hit an emergency; then we shall prove that -old statement about a loaf of bread being the maternal parent of a -locomotive." Channing lit a cigarette, and puffed deeply. "Where do we -stand?" - -"Thirty hours out," answered the steward. "About ready for turnover. I -imagine that the poor engineer's gang is changing cathodes about now." - -"It's a long drag," said Channing. He addressed himself to his glass -and began to think of a suitable answer for his wife's latest thrust. - - * * * * * - -Bill Hadley, of the power engineer's gang, spoke to the pilot's -greenhouse below the ship. "Hadley to pilot room: Cathodes 1 and 3 -ready." - -"Pilot Greenland to Engineer Hadley: Power fade-over from even to odd -now under way. Tubes 2 and 4 now dead; load on 1 and 3. You may enter 2 -and 4." - -"Check!" - -Hadley cracked an air valve beside a circular air door. The hiss of -entering air crescendoed and died, and then Hadley cracked the door -that opened in upon the huge driver tube. With casual disregard for -the annular electrodes that filled the tube and the sudden death that -would come if the pilot sent the driving voltages surging into the -electrodes, Hadley climbed to the top of the tube and used a spanner to -remove four huge bolts. A handy differential pulley permitted him to -lower the near-exhausted cathode from the girders to the air door where -it was hauled to the deck. A fresh cathode was slung to the pulley and -hoisted to place. Hadley bolted it tight and clambered back into the -ship. He closed the air door and the valve, and then opened the valve -that led from the tube to outer space. The tube evacuated and Hadley -spoke once more to the pilot room. - -"Hadley to Greenland: Tube 4 ready." - -"Check." - -The operation was repeated on Tube 2, and then Pilot Greenland said: -"Fade-back beginning. Power diminishing on 1 and 3, increasing on 2 and -4. Power equalized, acceleration 2-G as before. Deviation from norm: -two-tenths-G." - -Hadley grinned at the crew. "You'd think that Greenland did all that -himself, the way he talks. If it weren't for autopilots, we'd have been -all over the sky." - -Tom Bennington laughed. He was an old-timer, and he said in a -reminiscent tone: "I remember when we used to do that on manual. There -were as many cases of _mal de void_ during cathode change as during -turnover. Autopilots are the nuts--look! We're about to swing right -now, and I'll bet a fiver that the folks below won't know a thing about -it." - -A coincidence of mammoth proportions occurred at precisely that -instant. It was a probability that made the chance of drawing a royal -flush look like the chances of tomorrow coming on time. It was, in -fact, one of those things that they said couldn't possibly happen, -which went to prove only how wrong they were. It hadn't happened yet -and probably wouldn't happen again for a million million years, but it -did happen once. - -Turnover was about to start. A relay circuit that coupled the -meteor-spotter to the autopilot froze for a bare instant, and the -coincidence happened between the freezing of the relay contacts -and the closing of another relay whose purpose it was to shunt the -coupler circuits through another line in case of relay failure. In -the inconceivable short time between the failure and the device that -corrected failure, the _Solar Queen_ hit a meteor head on. - -It is of such coincidences that great tragedies and great victories are -born. - - * * * * * - -The meteor, a small one as cosmic objects go, passed in through the -broad observation dome at the top of the ship. Unhampered, it zipped -through the central well of the _Solar Queen_ and passed out through -the pilot's greenhouse at the bottom of the ship. Its speed was nothing -worth noting; a scant twenty miles per second almost sunward. But the -eleven hundred miles per second of the _Solar Queen_ made the passage -of the meteor through the six hundred feet of the ship's length of less -duration than the fastest camera shutter. - -In those microseconds, the meteor did much damage. - -It passed through the main pilotroom cable and scrambled those circuits -which it did not break entirely. It tore the elevator system from -its moorings. It entered as a small hole in the observation dome and -left taking the entire pilot's greenhouse and all of the complex -paraphernalia with it. - -The lines to the driver tubes were scrambled, and the ship shuddered -and drove forward at 10-G. An inertia switch tried to function, but the -resetting solenoid had become shorted across the main battery and the -weight could not drop. - -Air doors clanged shut, closing the central well from the rest of the -ship and effectively sealing the well from the crew. - -The lights in the ship flickered and died. The cable's shorted lines -grew hot and fire crept along its length and threatened the continuity. -The heat opened fire-quenching vents and a cloud of CO_{2}, emerged -together with some of the liquid gas itself. The gas quenched the -fire and the cold liquid cooled the cable. Fuses blew in the shorted -circuits-- - -And the _Solar Queen_ continued to plunge on and on at 10-G; the -maximum possible out of her driving system. - -The only man who remained aware of himself aboard the _Solar Queen_ was -the man who was filled with gravanol and adhesive tape. No other person -expected to be hammered down by high acceleration. Only Channing, who -was planning to leave Terra in his own little scooter, was prepared to -withstand high G. He, with his characteristic hate of doing anything -slowly, was ready to make the Terra to Venus Equilateral passage at 5- -or 6-G. - -It might as well have caught him, too. With all of the rest -unconscious, hurt, or dead, he was alone and firmly fastened to the -floor of the salon under eighteen hundred pounds of his own, helpless -weight. - -And as the hours passed, the _Solar Queen_ was driving farther and -farther from the imaginary spot that was the focus of the communicator -beams from Venus Equilateral. - -The newly-replaced cathodes in the driving tubes were capable of -driving the ship for about two hundred G-hours at 1-G, before -exhaustion to the point of necessary replacement for safety purposes. -The proportion is not linear, nor is it a square-law, but roughly it -lies in the region just above linear, so that the _Solar Queen_ drove -on and on through space for ten hours at 10-G before the cathodes died -for want of emitting surface. They died, not at once, but in irregular -succession so that when the last erg of power was gone from the ship -it was zooming on a straight line tangent from its point of collision -but rolling in a wild gyration through the void. - -And twenty-five hundred miles per second added to her initial velocity -of eleven hundred miles per second added up to thirty-six hundred miles -per second. She should have had about seventy-five million miles to go -at 2-G, to reach Terra in thirty hours from the halfway point where she -turned ends to go into deceleration. Instead, the _Solar Queen_ after -ten hours of misdirected 10-G acceleration was thirty million miles on -her way, or about halfway to Terra. Three hours later, driving free, -the _Solar Queen_ was passing Terra, having missed the planet by a few -million miles. - -Back in space, at an imaginary junction between the beams from Venus -Equilateral and the course registered for the _Solar Queen_, Arden -Channing's latest message was indicating all sorts of mild punishment -for her husband when she got him home. - -By the time that the _Solar Queen_ should have been dropping out of -the sky at Mojave Spaceport, the ship would be one hundred and ninety -million miles beyond Terra and flirting with the imaginary line that -marked the orbit of Mars. - -That would be in seventeen hours. - - * * * * * - -Weightless, Channing pursued a crazy course in the salon of the -spinning ship. He ached all over from the pressure, but the gravanol -had kept his head clear and the adhesive tape had kept his body intact. -He squirmed around in the dimness and could see the inert figures -of the rest of the people who had occupied the salon at the time of -the mishap. He became sick. Violence was not a part of Channing's -nature--at least he confined his violence to those against whom he -required defense. But he knew that many of those people who pursued -aimless orbits in the midair of the salon with him would never set foot -on solidness again. - -He wondered how many broken bones there were among those who had lived -through the ordeal. He wondered if the medical staff of one doctor and -two nurses could cope with it. - -Then he wondered what difference it made if they were to go on and on, -and from that thought came the one he should have thought of first: How -were they to stop going on and on? Channing had a rough idea of what -had happened. He knew something about the conditions under which they -had been traveling, how long, and in which direction. It staggered him, -the figures he calculated in his mind. It behooved him to do something. - -He bumped an inert figure, and grabbed. One hand took the back of the -head and came away wet and sticky. Channing retched, and then threw -the inert man from him. He coasted back against a wall, and caught a -handrail. Hand-over-hand he went to the door and into the hall. Down -the hall he went to the passengers' elevator shaft and with no thought -of what his action would have been on any planet, Channing opened the -door and drove down the shaft for several decks. He emerged and headed -for the sick ward. - -He found the doctor clinging to his operating table with his knees and -applying a bandage to one of his nurses' heads. - -"Hello, Doc," said Channing. "Help?" - -"Grab Jen's feet and hold her down," snapped the doctor. - -"Bad?" asked Don as he caught the flailing feet. - -"Seven stitches, no fracture," said the doctor. - -"How's the other one?" - -"Unconscious, but unharmed. Both asleep in bed, thank God. So was I. -Where were--? You're Channing and were all doped up with gravanol and -adhesive. Thank yourself a god for that, too. I'm going to need both of -my nurses and we'll all need you." - -"Hope I can do some good," said Don. - -"You'd better. Or any good I can do will be wasted. Better start right -now. Here," the doctor produced a set of keys, "these will unlock -anything in the ship but the purser's safe. You'll need 'em. Now get -along and do something and leave the body-mending to me. Scram!" - -"Can you make out all right?" - -"As best I can. But you're needed to get us help. If you can't, no man -in the Solar System can. You're in the position of a man who can not -afford to help in succoring the wounded and dying. It'll be tough, but -there it is. Get cutting. And for Heaven's sake, get us two things: -Light and a floor. I couldn't do more than slap on tape whilst floating -in air. See you later, Channing, and good luck." - -The nurse squirmed, groaned, and opened her eyes. "What happened?" she -asked, blinking into the doctor's flashlight. - -"Tell you later, Jen. Get Fern out of her coma in the ward and then -we'll map out a plan. Channing, get out of here!" - -Channing got after borrowing a spare flashlight from the doctor. - - * * * * * - -He found Hadley up in the instrument room with a half dozen of his men. -They were a mass of minor and major cuts and injuries, and were working -under a single incandescent lamp that had been wired to the battery -direct by means of spare cable. The wire went snaking through the air -in a foolish, crooked line, suspended on nothing. Hadley's gang were -applying first aid to one another and cursing the lack of gravity. - -"Help?" said Channing. - -"Need it or offer it?" asked Hadley with a smile. - -"Offer it. You'll need it." - -"You can say that again--and then pitch in. You're Channing, of -Communications, aren't you? We're going to have a mad scramble on -the main circuits of this tub before we can unwind it. I don't think -there's an instrument working in the whole ship." - -"You can't unravel the whole works, can you?" - -"Won't try. About all we can do is replace the lighting system and hang -the dead cathodes in again. They'll be all right to take us out of this -cockeyed skew-curve and probably will last long enough to keep a half-G -floor under us for tinkering, for maybe forty or fifty hours. Assistant -Pilot Darlange will have to learn how to run a ship by the seat of his -pants--as far as I can guess there isn't even a splinter of glass left -in the pilot room--so he'll have to correct this flight by feel and by -using a haywire panel." - -"Darlange is a school-pilot," grinned one of Hadley's men. - -"I know, Jimmy, but I've seen him work on a bum autopilot, and he -can handle haywire all right. It'll be tough without Greenland, but -Greenland--" Hadley let the sentence fall; there was no need to mention -the fact that Greenland was probably back there with the rest of the -wreckage torn from the _Solar Queen_. - -Jimmy nodded, and the action shook him from his position. He grabbed at -a roll of tape that was floating near him and let it go with a laugh as -he realized it was too light to do him any good. - -"Too bad that this gyration is not enough to make a decent gravity -at the ends, at least," snorted Hadley. He hooked Jimmy by an arm and -hauled the man back to a place beside him. "Now look," he said, "I -can't possibly guess how many people are still in working condition -after this. Aside from our taped and doped friend here, the only ones -I have are we who were snoozing in our beds when the crush came. I'll -bet a cooky that the rest of the crowd are all nursing busted ribs, -and worse. Lucky that full-G died slowly as the cathodes went out; -otherwise we'd all have been tossed against the ceilings with bad -effects. - -"Jimmy, you're a committee of one to roam the crate and make a list of -everyone who is still in the running and those who can be given minor -repairs to make them fit for limited work. Doc has a pretty good supply -of Stader splints; inform him that these are only to be used on men who -can be useful with them. The rest will have to take to plaster casts -and the old-fashioned kind of fracture-support. - -"Pete, you get to the executive deck and tell Captain Johannson that -we're on the job and about to make with repairs. As power engineer, -I've control of the maintenance gang too, and we'll collect the whole, -hale, and hearty of Michaels' crew on our merry way. - -"Tom, take three of your men and begin to unravel the mess with an eye -toward getting us lights. - -"Tony, you can do this alone since we have no weight. You get the stale -cathodes from the supply hold and hang 'em back in the tubes. - -"Channing, until we get a stable place, you couldn't do a thing about -trying to get help, so I suggest that you pitch in with Bennington, -there, and help unscramble the wiring. You're a circuit man, and though -power-line stuff is not your forte, you'll find that running a lighting -circuit is a lot easier than neutralizing a microwave transmitter. Once -we get light, you can help us haywire a control panel. Right?" - -"Right. And as far as contacting the folks back home goes, we couldn't -do a darned thing until the time comes when we should be dropping in -on Mojave. They won't be looking for anything from us until we're -reported missing; then I imagine that Walt Franks will have everything -from a spinthariscope to a gold-foil electroscope set up. Right now I'm -stumped, but we have seventeen hours before we can start hoping to be -detected. Tom, where do we begin?" - -Bennington smiled inwardly. To have Don Channing asking him for orders -was like having Captain Johannson request the batteryman's permission -to change course. "If you can find and remove the place where the -shorted line is, and then splice the lighting circuits again, we'll -have a big hunk of our work done. The rest of us will begin to take -lines off of the pilot's circuits right here in the instrument room so -that our jury-controls can be hooked in. You'll need a suit, I think, -because I'll bet a hat that the shorted line is in the well." - - * * * * * - -For the next five hours, the instrument room became a beehive of -activity. Men began coming in driblets, and were put to work as -they came. The weightlessness gave quite a bit of trouble; had the -instrument panels been electrically hot, it would have been downright -dangerous since it was impossible to do any kind of work without -periodically coming against bare connections. Tools floated around -the room in profusion, and finally Hadley appointed one man to do -nothing but roam the place to retrieve "dropped" tools. The soldering -operations were particularly vicious, since the instinctive act of -flinging excess solder from the tip of an iron made droplets of hot -solder go zipping around the room to splash against something, after -which the splashes would continue to float. - -Men who came in seeking to give aid were handed tools and told to do -this or that, and the problem of explaining how to free a frozen relay -to unskilled help was terrific. - -Then at the end of five hours, Channing came floating in to the -instrument room. He flipped off the helmet and said to Hadley: "Make -with the main switch. I think I've got it." - -Throughout the ship the lights blinked on. - -With the coming of light, there came hope also. Men took a figurative -hitch in their belts and went to work with renewed vigor. It seemed -as though everything came to a head at about this time, too. Hadley -informed Darlange that his jury-control was rigged and ready for -action, and about the same time, the galley crew came in with -slender-necked bottles of coffee and rolls. - -"It was a job, making coffee," grinned the steward. "The darned stuff -wanted to get out of the can and go roaming all over the place. There -isn't a one of us that hasn't got a hot coffee scar on us somewhere. -Now if he"--nodding at Darlange--"can get this thing straightened out, -we'll have a real dinner." - -"Hear that, Al? All that stands between us and dinner is you. Make with -the ship-straightening. Then we'll all sit around and wait for Channing -to think." - -"Is the ship's communicator in working order?" asked Darlange. - -"Sure. That went on with the lights." - -Darlange called for everyone in the ship to hold himself down, and -then he tied his belt to the frame in front of the haywired panel. He -opened the power on drivers 1 and 2, and the ship's floor surged ever -so little. - -"How're you going to know?" asked Hadley. - -"I've got one eye on the gyro-compass," said Darlange. "When it stops -turning, we're going straight. Then all we have to do is to set our -bottom end along the line of flight and pack on the decel. Might as -well do it that way since every MPS we can lose is to our advantage." - -He snapped switches that added power to Driver 3. Gradually the -gyro-compass changed from a complex rotation-progression to a simpler -pattern, and eventually the simple pattern died, leaving but one -freedom of rotation. "I'm sort of stumped," grinned Darlange. "We're -now hopping along, but rotating on our long axis. How we stop axial -rotation with drivers set parallel to that axis I'll never guess." - -"Is there a lifeship in working order?" asked Hadley. - -"Sure." - -"Tom, turn it against the rotation and apply the drivers on that until -we tell you to stop." - -An hour later the ship had ceased to turn. Then Darlange jockeyed the -big ship around so that the bottom was along the line of flight. Then -he set the power for a half-G, and everyone relaxed. - -Ten minutes later Captain Johannson came in. - -"You've done a fine job," he told Hadley. "And now I declare an hour -off for dinner. Dr. MacLain has got a working medical center with -the aid of a few people who understand how such things work, and the -percentage of broken bones, though terrific in number, is being taken -care of. The passengers were pretty restive at first, but the coming of -light seemed to work wonders. This first glimmer of power is another. -About nine or ten who were able to do so were having severe cases -of skysickness." He smiled ruefully. "I'm not too sure that I like -no-weight myself." - -"Have you been in the observation dome?" asked Don. - -"Yes. It's pierced, you know." - -"Did the meteor hit the telescope?" - -"No, why?" - -"Because I'm going to have to get a sight on Venus Equilateral before -we can do anything. We'll have to beam them something, but I don't know -what right now." - -"Can we discuss that over a dinner?" asked the captain. "I'm starved, -and I think that the rest of this gang is also." - -"You're a man after my own heart," laughed Channing. "The bunch out -at the Station wouldn't believe me if I claimed to have done anything -without drawing it up on a tablecloth." - - * * * * * - -"Now," said Channing over his coffee. "What have we in the way of -electronic equipment?" - -"One X-ray machine, a standard set of communicating equipment, one beam -receiver with 'type machine for collecting stuff from your Station, and -so on." - -"You wouldn't have a betatron in the place somewhere?" asked Don -hopefully. - -"Nope. Could we make one?" - -"Sure. Have you got about ten pounds of No. 18 wire?" - -"No." - -"Then we can't." - -"Couldn't you use a driver? Isn't that some kind of beam?" - -"Some kind," admitted Channing. "But it emits something that we've -never been able to detect except in an atmosphere where it ionizes the -air into a dull red glow." - -"You should have been wrecked on the _Sorcerer's Apprentice_," laughed -Hadley. "They're the guys who have all that kind of stuff." - -"Have they?" asked Johannson. - -"The last time I heard, they were using a large hunk of their upper -hull for a VanDerGraf generator." - -"That would do it," said Channing thoughtfully. "But I don't think I'd -know how to modulate a VanDerGraf. A betatron would be the thing. -You can modulate that, sort of, by keying the input. She'd give out -with hundred-and-fifty-cycle stuff, but so what? We made the _Empress -of Kolain_ sit up and say uncle on hundred-cycle stuff. How much of a -trick is it to clear the observation dome from the top?" - -"What do you intend to do?" - -"Well, we've got a long, hollow tube in this ship. Knock out the -faceted dome above, and we can rig us up a huge electron gun. We'll -turn the ship to point at the Station and beam 'em a bouquet of -electrons." - -"How're you going to do that?" - -"Not too tough, I don't think. Down here," and Channing began to trace -on the tablecloth, "we'll put us a hot cathode. About this level we'll -hang the first anode, and at this level we'll put the second anode. -Here'll be an acceleration electrode, and up near the top we'll put -a series of focusing anodes. We'll tap in to the driver-tube supply -and take off voltages to suit us. Might use a tube at that, but the -conversion to make an honest electron gun out of it would disrupt our -power, and then it would be impossible to make a driver out of it again -without recourse to a machine shop." - -"How are you going to make electrodes?" - -"We'll use the annular gratings that run around the central well at -each level," said Channing. "We'll have a crew of men cut 'em free and -insulate the resulting rings with something. Got anything?" - -"There is a shipment of methyl-methacrylate rods for the Venus Power -Co. in Hold 17," said the cargo master. - -"Fine," said Channing. "What size?" - -"Three inches by six feet." - -"It'll be tricky work, and you'll have to wait until your cut edge has -cooled before you hook on the rods," mused Don. "But that's the ticket." - -"Which floors do you want?" - -"Have you got a scale drawing of the _Solar Queen_?" - -"Sure." - -"Then this is where my tablecloth artistry falls flat. The focusing of -an electron beam depends upon the electrode spacing and the voltage. -Since our voltage is fixed if we take it from the driver electrodes, -we'll have to do some mighty fine figuring. I'll need that scale -drawing." - - * * * * * - -Channing's tablecloth engineering was not completely wasted. By the -time the scale drawing was placed before him, Channing had half of the -table filled with equations. He studied the drawing, and selected the -levels which were to serve as electrodes. He handed the drawing to -Hadley, and the power engineer began to issue instructions to his gang. - -Then the central well began to swarm with spacesuited men who bore -cutting torches. Hot sparks danced from the cut girders that held the -floorings, and at the same time, a crew of men were running cables from -the various levels to the instrument room. More hours passed while the -circular sections were insulated with the plastic rods. - -The big dome above was cut in sections and removed, and then the sky -could be seen all the way from the bottom of the ship where the pilot's -greenhouse should have been. - -Channing looked it over and then remarked: "All we need now is an -electron collector." - -"I thought you wanted to shoot 'em off," objected Hadley. - -"I do. But we've got to have a source of supply. You can't toss -baseballs off of the Transplanet Building in Northern Landing all -afternoon, you know, without having a few brought to you now and then. -Where do you think they come from?" - -"Hadn't thought of it in that way. What'd happen?" - -"We'd get along for the first umpty-gillion electrons, and then all -the soup we could pack on would be equalized by the positive charge on -the ship and we couldn't shoot out any more until we got bombarded by -the sun--and that bombardment is nothing to write home about as goes -quantity. What we need is a selective solar intake plate of goodly -proportions." - -"We could use a mental telepathy expert, too. Or one of those new beams -that Baler and Carroll dug up out of the Martian desert. I've heard -that those things will actually suck power out of any source, and bend -beams so as to enter the intake vent, or end." - -"We haven't one of those, either. Fact of the matter is," grinned -Channing ruefully, "we haven't much of anything but our wits." - -"Unarmed, practically," laughed Hadley. - -"Half armed, at least. Ah, for something to soak up electrons. I'm now -wondering if this electron gun is such a good idea." - -"Might squirt some protons out the other direction," offered Hadley. - -"That would leave us without either," said Don. "We'd be like the man -who tossed baseballs off of one side and himself off the other--Hey! -Of course we have some to spare. We can cram electrons out of the -business end, thus stripping the planetary rings from the atoms in our -cathode. From the far side we'll shoot the canal rays, which in effect -will be squirting protons, or the nuclei. Since the planetaries have -left for the front, it shouldn't be hard to take the protons away, -leaving nothing. At our present voltages, we might be able to do it." -Channing began to figure again, and he came up with another set of -anodes to be placed beyond the cathode. "We'll ventilate the cathode -and hang these negative electrodes on the far side. They will attract -the protons, impelled also by the positive charge on the front end. -We'll maintain a balance that way, effectively throwing away the whole -atomic structure of the cathode. The latter will fade, just as the -cathodes do in the driving tubes, only we'll be using electronic power -instead of sub-electronic. Y'know, Hadley, some day someone is going to -find a way to detect the--we'll call it radiation for want of anything -better--of the driver. And then there will open an entirely new field -of energy. I don't think that anybody has done more about the so-called -sub-electronic field than to make a nice, efficient driving device out -of it. - -"Well, let's get our canal-ray electrodes in place. We've got about two -hours before they realize that we aren't going to come in at Mojave. -Then another two hours worth of wild messages between the Relay Station -and Mojave. Then we can expect someone to be on the lookout. I hope to -be there when they begin to look for us. At our present velocity, we'll -be flirting with the Asteroid Belt in less than nothing flat. That -isn't too bad--normally--but we're running without any meteor detector -and autopilot coupler. We couldn't duck anything from a robin's egg on -up." - -"We'll get your anodes set," said Hadley. - - * * * * * - -Walt Franks grinned at Arden Channing. "That'll burn him," he assured -her. - -"It's been on the way for about twenty minutes," laughed Arden. "I -timed it to arrive at Terra at the same time the _Solar Queen_ does. -They'll send out a special messenger with it, just as Don is getting -aboard his little scooter. It'll be the last word, for we're not -following him from Terra to here." - -"You know what you've started?" asked Franks. - -"Nothing more than a little feud between husband and self." - -"That's just the start. Before he gets done, Don will have every ship -capable of answering back. I've found that you can catch him off -base just once. He's a genius--one of those men who never make the -same mistake twice. He'll never again be in a position to be on the -listening end only." - -"Don's answer should be on the way back by now," said Arden. "Could be -you're right. Something should be done." - -"Sure I'm right. Look at all the time that's wasted in waiting for -a landing to answer 'grams. In this day and age, time is money, -squared. The latter is to differentiate between this time and the first -glimmering of speedy living." - -"Was there a first glimmering?" asked Arden sagely. "I've often thought -that the speed-up was a stable acceleration from the dawn of time to -the present." - -"All right, go technical on me," laughed Walt. "Things do move. That -is, all except that message from your loving husband." - -"You don't suppose he's squelched?" - -"I doubt it. Squelching Donald Channing is a job for a superbeing. And -I'm not too sure that a superbeing could squelch Don and make him stay -squelched. Better check on Mojave." - -"Gosh, if Don missed the _Solar Queen_ and I've been shooting him all -kinds of screwy 'types every hour on the hour; Walt, that'll keep him -quiet for a long, long time." - -"He'd have let you know." - -"That wouldn't have been so bad. But if the big bum missed and was -ashamed of it--that'll be the pay-off. Whoa, there goes the 'type!" - -Arden drew the tape from the machine: - - MESSAGE BEING HELD FOR ARRIVAL OF _SOLAR QUEEN_. - -Walt looked at his watch and checked the course constants of the _Solar -Queen_. He called the beam-control dome and asked for the man on the -_Solar Queen_ beam. - -"Benny," he said, "has the _Solar Queen_ arrived yet?" - -"Sure," answered Benny. "According to the mechanical mind here, they've -been on Mojave for twenty minutes." - -"Thanks." To Arden he said: "Something's strictly fishy." - -Arden sat at the machine and pounded the keys: - - _SOLAR QUEEN_ DUE TO ARRIVE AT 19:06:41. IT IS NOW 19:27:00. BEAM - CONTROL SAYS TRANSMISSIONS ENDED BECAUSE OF COINCIDENCE BETWEEN - TERRA BEAM AND STATION-TO-SHIP BEAM. PLEASE CHECK. - -Arden fretted and Walt stamped up and down the room during the long -minutes necessary for the message to reach Terra and the answer to -return. It came right on the tick of the clock: - - HAVE CHECKED COURSE CONSTANTS. _SOLAR QUEEN_ OVER-DUE NOW FIFTY - MINUTES. OBVIOUSLY SOMETHING WRONG. CAN YOU HELP? - -Walt smiled in a grim fashion. "Help!" he said. "We go on and on for -years and years with no trouble--and now we've lost the third ship in a -row." - -"They claim that those things always run in threes," said Arden. "What -are we going to do?" - -"I don't know. We'll have to do something. Funny, but the one reason we -must do something is the same reason why something can be done." - -"I don't get that." - -"With Channing on the _Solar Queen_, something can be done. I don't -know what, but I'll bet you a new hat that Don will make it possible -for us to detect the ship. There is not a doubt in my mind that if the -ship is still spaceworthy, we can narrow the possibilities down to a -thin cone of space." - -"How?" - -"Well," said Franks, taking the fountain pen out of the holder on the -desk and beginning to sketch on the blotter, "the course of the _Solar -Queen_ is not a very crooked one, as courses go. It's a very shallow -skew curve. Admitting the worst, collision, we can assume only one -thing. If the meteor were small enough to leave the ship in a floating -but undirigible condition, it would also be small enough to do nothing -to the general direction of the ship. Anything else would make it -useless to hunt, follow?" - -"Yes, go on." - -"Therefore we may assume that the present position of the _Solar Queen_ -is within the volume of a cone made by the tangents of the outermost -elements of the space curve that is the _Solar Queen's_ course. We can -take an eight-thousand-mile cylinder out of one place--for the origin -of their trouble is between Mars and Terra and the 'shadow' of Terra in -the cone will not contain the _Solar Queen_." - -"Might have passed close enough to Terra to throw her right into the -'shadow' of Terra by attraction," objected Arden. - -"Yeah, you're right. O.K., so we can't take out that cylinder of space. -And we add a sort of side-wise cone on to our original cone, a volume -through which the _Queen_ might have flown after passing close enough -to Terra to be deflected. I'll have the slipstick experts give a guess -as to the probability of the _Queen's_ course, and at the same time -we'll suspend all incoming operations. I'm going to set up every kind -of detector I can think of, and I don't want anything upsetting them." - -"What kind of stuff do you expect?" asked Arden. - -"I dunno. They might have a betatron aboard. In that case we'll -eventually get a blast of electrons that'll knock our front teeth out. -Don may succeed in tinkering up some sort of electrostatic field. We -can check the solar electrostatic field to about seven decimal places -right here, and any deviation in the field to the tune of a couple -of million electron volts at a distance of a hundred million miles -will cause a distortion in the field that we can measure. We'll ply -oscillating beams through the area of expectation and hope for an -answering reflection, though I do not hope for that. We'll have men on -the lookout for everything from smoke signals to helio. Don't worry too -much, Arden, your husband is capable of doing something big enough to -be heard. He's just the guy to do it." - -"I know," said Arden soberly. "But I can't help worrying." - -"Me, too. Well, I'm off to set up detectors. We'll collect something." - - * * * * * - -"Have we got anything like a piece of gold leaf?" asked Channing. - -"I think so, why?" - -"I want to make an electroscope. That's about the only way I'll know -whether we are getting out with this cockeyed electron gun." - -"How so?" asked Hadley. - -"We can tell from the meter that reads the beam current whether -anything is going up the pipe," explained Channing. "But if -we just build us up a nice heavy duty charge--as shown by the -electroscope--we'll be sure that the electrons are not going far. This -is one case where no sign is good news." - -"I'll have one of the boys set up an electroscope in the instrument -room." - -"Good. And now have the bird on the telescope forget trying to find -Venus Equilateral by dead reckoning and sight. Have him set the scope -angles to the figures here, and then have him contact Darlange and have -the ship slued around so that Venus is on the cross hairs. That'll put -us on a line for the Station by a few thousand miles. We can afford to -miss. A bundle of electrons of our magnitude zipping past the detectors -that Walt can set up will make a reading." - -Hadley called the observation dome. "Tim," he said, giving a string of -figures, "set your 'scope for these and then get Darlange to slue the -crate around so that your cross hairs are on Venus." - -"O.K.," answered Tim. "That's going to be a job. This business of -looking through a 'scope while dressed in a spacesuit is no fun. Here -goes." - -He called Darlange, and the communicator system permitted the men in -the instrument room to hear his voice. "Dar," he said, "loop us around -about forty-one degrees from Driver 3." - -Darlange said: "Right!" and busied himself at his buttons. - -"Three degrees on Driver 4." - -"Right." - -"Too far, back her up a degree on 4." - -Darlange laughed. "What do you think these things are, blocks and -tackles? You mean: 'Compensate a degree on 2.'" - -"You're the pilot. That's the ticket--and I don't care if you lift it -on one hand. Can you nudge her just a red hair on 3?" - -"Best I can do is a hair and a half," said Darlange. He gave Driver 3 -just a tiny, instantaneous surge. - -"Then take it up two and back one and a half," laughed Tim. "Whoa, -Nellie, you're on the beam." - -"Fine." - -"O.K., Dar, but you'll have to play monkey on a stick. I'll prime you -for any moving so that you can correct immediately." - -"Right. Don, we're on the constants you gave us. What now?" - -"At this point I think a short prayer would be of assistance," said -Channing soberly. "We're shooting our whole wad right now." - -"I hope we make our point." - -"Well, it's all or nothing," agreed Don as he grasped the switch. - -He closed the switch, and the power demand meters jumped up across -their scales. The gold-leaf electroscope jumped once; the ultra-thin -leaves jerked apart by an inch, and then oscillated stiffly until they -came to a balance. Channing, who had been looking at them, breathed -deeply and smiled. - -"We're getting out," he said. - -"Can you key this?" asked Hadley. - -"No need," said Channing. "They know we're in the grease. We know that -if they can collect us, they'll be on their way. I'm going to send out -for a half-hour, and then resort to a five-minute transmission every -fifteen minutes. They'll get a ship after us with just about everything -we're likely to need, and they can use the five-minute transmissions -for direction finding. The initial shot will serve to give them an idea -as to our direction. All we can do now is to wait." - -"And hope," added Captain Johannson. - - * * * * * - -Electrically, Venus Equilateral was more silent than it had ever been. -Not an electrical appliance was running on the whole station. People -were cautioned about walking on deep-pile rugs, or combing their hair -with plastic combs, or doing anything that would set up any kind of -electronic charge. Only the highly filtered generators in the power -rooms were running and these had been shielded and filtered long -years ago; nothing would emerge from them to interrupt the ether. All -incoming signals were stopped. - -And the men who listened with straining ears claimed that the sky was -absolutely clear save for a faint crackle of cosmic static which they -knew came from the corona of the sun. - -One group of men sat about a static-field indicator and cursed the -minute wiggling of the meter, caused by the ever-moving celestial -bodies and their electronic charges. A sunspot emission passed through -the Station once, and though it was but a brief passage, it sent the -electrostatic field crazy and made the men jump. - -The men who were straining their ears to hear became nervous, and were -jumping at every loud crackle. - -And though the man at the telescope knew that his probability of -picking up a sight of the _Solar Queen_ was as slender as a spider's -web, he continued to search the starry heavens. He swept the narrow -cone of the heavens wherein the _Solar Queen_ was lost according to the -mathematical experts, and he looked at every bit of brightness in the -field of his telescope as though it might be the missing ship. - -The beam-scanners watched their return-plates closely. It was difficult -because the receiver gains were set to maximum, and every tick of -static caused brief flashes of light upon their plates. They would jump -at such a flash and watch for it to reappear on the next wipe, for -a continuous spot of light indicated the ship they sought. Then, as -the spot did not reappear, they would go on with their beams to cover -another infinitesimal portion of the sky. Moving forward across the -cone of expectancy bit by bit, they crossed and recrossed until they -were growing restive. - -Surely the ship must be there! - -At the South End landing stage, a group of men were busy stocking a -ship. Supplies and necessities were carried aboard, while another -group of men tinkered with the electrical equipment. They cleared a -big space in the observation dome, and began to install a replica of -the equipment used on the Station for detection. No matter what kind -of output Channing sent back, they would be able to follow it to the -bitter end. - -They made their installations in duplicate, with one piece of each -equipment on opposite sides of the blunt dome. Balancing the inputs of -each kind by turning the entire ship would give them a good indication -of direction. - -Franks did not hope that the entire installation could be completed -before the signal came, but he was trying to outguess himself by -putting some of everything aboard. When and if it came, he would be -either completely ready with everything or he at least would have a -good start on any one of the number of detectors. If need be, the -equipment from the Station itself could be removed and used to complete -the mobile installation. - -Everything was in a complete state of nervous expectancy. Watchers -watched, meter readers squinted for the barest wiggle, audio observers -listened, trying to filter any kind of man-made note out of the -irregular crackle that came in. - -And the Station announcing equipment was dead quiet, to be used only -in case of emergency or to announce the first glimmer of radiation, -whether it be material, electrical, kinetic, potential, or wave front. - -Long they listened--and then it came. - - * * * * * - -The Station announcing equipment broke forth in a multitude of voices. - -"Sound input on radio." - -"Visual indication on scanner plates!" - -"Distortion on electrostatic field indicator." - -"Super-electroscopes indicate negative charge!" - -"Nothing on the telescope!" - -There were mingled cheers and laughter as the speaker system broke away -from its babel, and each group spoke its piece with no interference. -Walt Franks left the ship at the South End and raced to the Beam -Control dome, just as fast as the runway car would take him. He ran -into the dome in spacesuit and flipped the helmet back over his -shoulders. "What kind of indication?" he yelled. - -Men crowded around him, offering him papers and shouting figures. - -"Gosh," he said, "Don can't have everything going up there." - -"He's hit just about everything but the guy squinting through the -'scope." - -"What's he doing?" asked Franks of no one in particular. - -One of the radiation engineers who had been busy with the electrostatic -field indicator said: "I think maybe he's using some sort of electron -gun--like the one you tried first off on the meteor-destroyer-job, -remember?" - -"Yeah, but that one wouldn't work--unless Don has succeeded in doing -something that we couldn't do. Look, Charley, we haven't had time to -set up a complete field indicator on the ship. Grab yours and give the -boys a lift installing it, hey?" - -"Sure thing." - -"And look, fellows, any indication of direction, velocity, or distance?" - -"Look for yourself," said the man on the beam scanner. "The whole plate -is shining. We can't get a fix on them this way--they're radiating -themselves and that means that our scanner-system finder is worthless." - -"We can, but it's rough," offered one of the radio men. "It came from -an area out beyond Terra--and as for our readings it might have covered -a quarter of the sky." - -"The field indicator is a short-base finder," explained Charley. "And -no less rough than the radio boys. I'd say it was out beyond Terra by -fifty million miles at least." - -"Close enough. We'll have to track 'em down like a -radio-equipped bloodhound. Charley, come along and run that -mechanico-electro-monstrosity of yours. Gene, you can come along and -run the radio finder. Oh yes, you, Jimmy, may continue to squint -through that eyepiece of yours--but on the _Relay Girl_. We need a -good, first-class squinter, and you should have an opportunity to -help." - -Jimmy laughed shortly. "The only guy on the Station that didn't get an -indication was me. Not even a glimmer." - -"Channing didn't know we'd be _looking_ for him, or he'd probably -light a flare, too. Cheer up, Jimmy, after all this crude, electrical -rigamarole is finished, and we gotta get right down to the last -millimeter, it's the guy with the eye that polishes up the job. You'll -have your turn." - -Twenty minutes after the first glimmer of intelligent signal, the -_Relay Girl_ lifted from the South End and darted off at an angle, -setting her nose roughly in the direction of the signal. - -Her holds were filled with spare batteries and a whole dozen -replacement cathodes as well as her own replacements. Her crew was -filled to the eyebrows with gravanol, and there must have been a mile -of adhesive tape and cotton on their abdomens. At 6-G she left, and at -6-G she ran, her crew immobilized but awake because of the gravanol. -And though the acceleration was terrific, the tape kept the body from -folding of its own weight. When they returned, they would all be in the -hospital for a week, but their friends would be with them. - -Ten minutes after take-off, the signals ceased. - -Walt said: "Keep her running. Don's saving electricity. Tell me when we -pick him up again." - -Franklen, the pilot, nodded. "We haven't got a good start yet. It'll -be touch and go. According to the slipstick boys, they must be clapping -it up at between twenty-five hundred and five thousand miles per second -to get that far--and coasting free or nearly so. Otherwise they'd have -come in. Any suggestions as to course?" - -"Sure. Whoop it up at six until we hit about six thousand. Then -decelerate to four thousand by using 1-G. We'll vacillate in velocity -between four and five until we get close." - -Forty-one hours later, the _Relay Queen_ made turnover and began to -decelerate. - - * * * * * - -Channing said to Captain Johannson: "Better cut the decel to about a -quarter-G. That'll be enough to keep us from bumping our heads on the -ceiling and it will last longer. This is going to be a long chase, and -cutting down a few MPS at a half-G isn't going to make much never-mind. -I'll hazard a guess that the boys are on their way right now." - -"If you say so," said Johannson. "You're the boss from now on. You -know that wild bunch on the Station better than I do. For myself, I've -always felt that an answer was desirable before we do anything." - -"I know Franks and my wife pretty well--about as well as they know me. -I've put myself in Walt's place--and I know that Walt would do. So--if -Walt didn't think of it, Arden would--I can assume that they are aware -of us, have received our signals, and are, therefore, coming along -as fast as they can. They'll come zipping out here at from five- to -seven-G to what they think is halfway and then decelerate again to a -sane velocity. We won't catch sight of them for sixty or seventy hours, -and when we do, they'll be going so fast that it will take another -twenty hours worth of manipulation to match their speed with ours. -Meanwhile, I've got the gun timed to shoot our signal. When the going -gets critical, I'll cut the power and make it continuous." - -"You're pretty sure of your timing?" - -"Well, the best they can do as for direction and velocity and distance -is a crude guess. They'll place us out here beyond Terra somewhere. -They'll calculate the course requirements to get us this far in the -time allotted, and come to a crude figure. I'd like to try keying -this thing, but I know that keying it won't work worth a hoot at this -distance. Each bundle of keyed electrons would act as a separate -negative charge that would spread out and close up at this distance. -It's tough enough to hope that the electron beam will hold together -that far, let alone trying to key intelligence with it. We'll leave -well enough alone--and especially if they're trying to get a fix on us; -there's nothing worse than trying to fix an intermittent station. Where -are we now?" - -"We're on the inner fringe of the Asteroid Belt, about thirty million -miles North, and heading on a secant course at thirty-four hundred MPS." - -"Too bad Jupiter isn't in the neighborhood," said Channing. "We'll be -flirting with his orbit by the time they catch us." - -"Easily," said Johannson. "In sixty hours, we'll have covered about six -hundred and fifty million miles. We'll be nearer the orbit of Saturn, -in spite of the secant course." - -"Your secant approaches a radius as you get farther out," said Don, -absently. "As far as distances go. Ah, well, Titan, here we come!" - -Johannson spoke to the doctor. "How're we doing?" - -"Pretty well," said Doc. "There's as pretty an assortment of fractured -ribs, broken limbs, cracked clavicles, and scars, mars, and abrasions -as you ever saw. There are a number dead, worse luck, but we can't do -a thing about them. We can hold on for a week as far as food and water -goes. Everyone is now interested in the manner of our rescue rather -than worrying about it." He turned to Channing. "The words Channing and -Venus Equilateral have wonderful healing powers," he said. "They all -think your gang are part magician and part sorcerer." - -"Why, for goodness' sake?" - -"I didn't ask. Once I told 'em you had a scheme to contact the Relay -Station, they were all satisfied that things would happen for the -better." - -"Anything we can do to help you out?" - -"I think not," answered Doc. "What I said before still goes. Your job -is to bring aid--and that's the sum total of your job. Every effort -must be expended on that and that alone. You've got too many whole -people depending on you to spend one second on the hurt. That's my job." - -"O.K.," said Channing, "But it's going to be a long wait." - -"We can afford it." - -"I hope we're not complicating the job of finding us by this quartering -deceleration," said Johannson. - -"We're not. We're making a sort of vector from our course, but the -deviation is very small. As long as the fellows follow our radiation, -we'll be found," Channing said with a smile. "The thing that is tough -is the fact that all the floors seem to lean over." - -"Not much, though." - -"They wouldn't lean at all if we were running with the whole set of -equipment," said Darlange. "We run a complete turnover without spilling -a drop from the swimming pool." - -"Or even making the passengers aware of it unless they're looking at -the sky." - -"Stop worrying about it," said Doc. "I'm the only guy who has to worry -about it and as long as the floor is still a floor, I can stand sliding -into the corner once in a while." - -"We might tinker with the turnover drivers," offered Don. "We can -bring 'em down to a place where the velocity-deceleration vectors -are perpendicular to the floor upon which we stand while our ship is -sluing. We've got a lot of time on our hands, and I, for one, feel a -lot happier when I'm doing something." - -"It's a thought," said Hadley. "Wanna try it?" - -"Let's go." - - * * * * * - -Thirty hours after the _Relay Girl_ left the Station, Walt and Franklen -held a council of war, in which Charley Bren was the prime factor. - -"We've come about two hundred million miles, and our present velocity -is something like four thousand miles per second," said Walt. "We're -going out towards Mars on a slightly-off radial course, to the North -of the ecliptic. That means we're a little over a quarter of a billion -miles from Sol, or about to hit the Asteroid Belt. Thinking it over a -little, I think we should continue our acceleration for another thirty -hours. What say?" - -"The field has shown no change in intensity that I can detect," said -Bren. "If they haven't dropped their radiated intensity, that means -that we are no closer to them than we were before. Of course, we'd -probably have to cut the distance by at least a half before any -measurable decrement made itself evident." - -"They must be on the upper limit of that four thousand MPS," observed -Walt. "There's one thing certain, we'll never catch them by matching -their speed." - -"Where will another thirty hours at 6-G put us and how fast?" asked -Franklen. - -Silence ensued while they scribbled long figures on scratch paper. - -"About eight hundred million miles from Sol," announced Walt. - -"And about eight thousand MPS," added Charley. - -"That's a little extreme, don't you think?" asked Franklen. - -"By about thirty percent," said Walt, scratching his chin. "If we hold -to our original idea of hitting it for six thousand, where will we be?" - -"That would make it about forty-five hours from take-off, and we'd be -about four hundred and sixty million miles from Sol." Charley grinned -widely and said: "By Jove!" - -"What?" - -"By Jove!" - -"'By Jove!' What?" - -"That's where we'd be--By Jove!" - -"_Phew._" - -"I agree with you," said Franklen to Walt. "Better ignore him." - -"Sure will after that. So then we'll be 'By Jove' at six thousand. -That would be a swell place to make turnover, I think. At 1-G decel, -to about four thousand MPS, that'll put us about ... um, that'd take -us ninety hours! We'll make that 3-G, at twenty hours, which will put -us about three hundred and fifty million miles along, which plus the -original four hundred and sixty million adds up to eight hundred and -ten million miles--" - -"When an astronaut begins to talk like that," interrupted Arden, "we of -the skyways say that he is talking in Congressional figures. The shoe -is on the other foot. What on earth are you fellows figuring?" - -"Where we'll be and how fast we'll be going at a given instant of no -particular importance," offered Walt. "When did you wake up?" - -"About the third hundred million. All of those ciphers going by made a -hollow sound, like a bullet whistling in the wind." - -"Well, we're trying to make the theories of probability match with -figures. We'll know in about forty-five hours whether we were right or -not." - -"It's a good thing we have all space to go around in. Are you sure that -we have all eternity?" - -"Don't get anxious. They're still coming in like a ton of bricks -four times per hour, which means that they're riding easy. I don't -want to overrun them at about three thousand MPS and have to spend a -week decelerating, returning, more decelerating, and then matching -velocities." - -"I see. You know best. And where is this Asteroid Belt that I've heard -so much about?" - -"To the South of us by a few million miles. Those bright specks that -you can't tell from stars are asteroids. The common conception of the -Asteroid Belt being filled to overflowing with a collection of cosmic -rubble like the rings of Saturn is a lot of hooey. We'll be past in -a little while and we haven't even come close to one. Space is large -enough for all of us, I think." - -"But not when all of us want the same space." - -"I don't care for their area," said Walt with a smile. "Let 'em have -it, I don't care. I'll stay up here and let them run as they will." - -"You mean the ones that are moving downward?" asked Arden, indicating -the sky. - -"Those are asteroids, yes. We're to the North, as you may check by -going around the ship to the opposite side. You'll see Polaris almost -directly opposite, there. Sol is almost directly below us, and that -bright one that you can see if you squint almost straight up out of the -port is Saturn." - -"I won't bother crossing the ship to see Polaris. I prefer the Southern -Cross anyway. The thing I'm most interested in is: Are we accomplishing -anything?" - -"I think that we've spent the last thirty hours just catching up," -explained Walt. "Up to right now we were going backwards, so to speak: -we're on even terms now, and will be doing better from here on in." - -"It's the waiting that gets me down," said Arden. "Oh, for something to -do!" - -"Let's eat," suggested Walt. "I'm hungry, and now that I think of it, I -have not eaten since we left the Station. Arden, you are hereby elected -to the post of galley chief. Get Jimmy from the dome if you need help." - -"Help? What for?" - -"He can help you lift it out of the oven. Don must have a cast-iron -stomach." - -"That's hearsay. I'll show you! As soon as I find the can opener, -breakfast will be served." - -"Make mine dinner," said Charley. "We've been awake all the time." - -"O.K., we will have a combined meal, from grapefruit to ice cream. -Those who want any or all parts may choose at will. And fellows, please -let me know as soon as you get something tangible." - -"That's a promise," said Walt. "Take it easy, and don't worry. We'll -be catching up with them one of these days." - - * * * * * - -"Hadley, how much coating have we got on those cathodes?" - -"Not too much. We had about twenty G-hours to begin with. We went to a -half-G for about twenty hours, and now we're running on a quarter-G, -which would leave us go for forty hours more. That's a grand total of -about sixty hours." - -"And the batteries?" - -"In pretty good shape." - -"Well, look. If it should come to a choice between floor and signal -gun, we'll choose the gun. We've about twelve hours left in the -cathodes, and since everybody is now used to quarter-G we might even -slide it down to an eighth-G, which would give us about twenty-four -hours." - -"Your gun is still putting out?" - -"So far as I can tell. Ten hours from now, we should know, I think, -predicating my guess on whatever meager information they must have." - -"We could save some juice by killing most of the lights in the ship." - -"That's a thought. Johannson, have one of your men run around and -remove all lights that aren't absolutely necessary. He can kill about -three quarters of them, I'm certain. That'll save us a few kilowatt -hours," said Channing. "And another thing. I'm about to drop the power -of our electron gun and run it continuously. If the boys are anywhere -in the neighborhood, they'll be needing the continuous disturbance for -direction finding. I'd say in another five hours that we should start -continuous radiation." - -"You know, Channing, if this thing works out all right, it will be a -definite vote for pure, deductive reasoning." - -"I know. But the pure deduction is not too pure. It isn't guesswork. -There are two factors of known quantity. One is that I know Walt -Franks, and the other is that he knows me. The rest is a simple matter -of the boys on the Station knowing space to the last inch, and applying -the theory of probabilities to it. We'll hear from them soon, or I'll -miss my guess. You wait." - -"Yeah," drawled Captain Johannson, "we'll wait!" - - * * * * * - -Charley Bren made another computation and said: "Well, Walt, we've been -narrowing them down for quite a time now. We're getting closer and -closer to them, according to the field intensity. I've just got a good -idea of direction on that last five-minute shot. Have Franklen swivel -us around on this course; pretty soon we'll be right in the middle of -their shots." - -"We're approaching them asymptotically," observed Walt. "I wish I knew -what our velocity was with respect to theirs. Something tells me that -it would be much simpler if I knew." - -"Walt," asked Arden, "how close can you see a spaceship?" - -"You mean how far? Well, I don't know that it's ever been tried and -recorded. But we can figure it out easy enough, by analogy. A period -is about thirty thousandths of an inch in diameter, and visible from -a distance of thirty inches. I mean visible with no doubt about -it's being there. That's a thousand to one. Now, the _Solar Queen_ -is about six hundred feet tall and about four hundred feet in its -major diameter, so we can assume a little more than the four hundred -feet--say five hundred feet average of circular area, say--follow me?" - -"Go on, you're vague, but normal." - -"Then at a thousand to one, that becomes five hundred thousand -feet, and dividing by five thousand--round figures because it isn't -important enough to use that two hundred and eighty feet over the five -thousand--gives us one thousand miles. We should be able to see the -_Solar Queen_ from a distance of a thousand miles." - -"Then at four thousand miles per second we'll be in and out of visual -range in a half second?" - -"Oh no. They're rambling on a quite similar course at an unknown -but high velocity. Our velocity with respect to theirs is what will -determine how long they're within visual range." - -"Hey, Walt," came the voice of Charley Bren. "The intensity of Don's -beam has been cut to about one quarter and is now continuous. Does that -mean anything?" - -"Might mean trouble for them. Either they're running out of soup and -mean for us to hurry up, or they assume we're close enough to obviate -the need for high power. We'd better assume they want haste and act -accordingly. How're the boys on the radio detectors coming along?" - -"Fine. They've taken over the direction finding and claim that we are -right on their tail." - -"Anything in the sights, Jimmy?" - -"Not yet. But the electroscope boys claim that quarter power or not, -the input is terrific." - -"Take a rest, Jimmy. We won't be there for a while yet. No use burning -your eyes out trying to see 'em. There'll be time enough for you to do -your share after we get 'em close enough to see with the naked eye. -What do the beam-scanners say?" - -"Shucks," answered the man on the scanners, "they're still radiating. -How are we going to fix 'em on a reflected wave when they're more -powerful on their own hook? The whole plate is glaring white. And, -incidentally, so is the celestial globe in the meteor-spotter. I've had -the threshold cut to the devil on that or we'd never be able to hold -this course. Anything like a meteor that comes in our way now will not -register until we're right on top of it and--" - - * * * * * - -The _Relay Girl_ lurched sickeningly. All over the ship, things rattled -and fell to the floors. Men grabbed at the closest solid object, and -then the _Relay Girl_ straightened out once more. - -"_Woosh_," said Franks. "That was a big one." - -"Big one?" called Charley Bren. "That, my friend, was none other than -the _Solar Queen_!" - -"Can you prove that?" - -"Sure. Our electroscopes now indicate a positive charge; they crossed -over just as we lurched." - -"Jimmy, get your scope a-top and get looking. Franklen, hang on about -7-G and follow Jimmy's orders. Charley, see if you can get anything -cogent out of your gadget. Holy Green Fire, with all of a cubic million -million million megaparsecs in which to run, we have to be so good that -we run right into our quarry. Who says that radio direction finding is -not a precise science? Who says that we couldn't catch--" - -"Walt, they're in sight, but losing fast." - -"O.K., Jimmy, can you give me any idea as to their velocity with -respect to ours?" - -"How long is she?" - -"Six hundred feet." - -Jimmy was silent for some seconds. "They're out of sight again, but I -make it about four to seven hundred miles per second." - -"At 7-G we should match that seven hundred in about four hours." - -"And then go on decelerating so that they'll catch up?" - -"No," said Walt. "I used the max figure and we can assume that they -aren't going that fast, quite. At the end of four hours, we'll -turnover and wait until they heave in sight again and then we'll do -some more oscillating. We can match their velocity inside of ten hours, -or Franklen will get fired." - -"If I don't," promised Franklen, "I'll quit. You can't fire me!" - -"We should be able to contact them by radio," said Walt. - -"Their beam is off," said Bren. - -"And they are using the landing set," called the radio man, "It's -Channing. He says: 'Fancy meeting you here.' Any answer?" - -"Just say, 'Dr. Channing, I presume?'" - -Channing's voice came out of the ship's announcer system as the radio -man made the necessary connections. It said: "Right--but what kept you -so long?" - -"Our boss was away," said Walt. "And we can't do a thing without him." - -"Some boss. Some crew of wild men. Can't go off on a fishing trip -without having my bunch chasing all over the Solar System." - -"What's wrong with a little sightseeing tour? We didn't mean any harm. -And speaking of harm, how are you and the rest of that bunch getting -along?" - -"We're O.K. What do you plan after we finally get close enough together -to throw stones across?" - -"We've got a whole hold full of spare batteries and a double set of -replacement cathodes. There is a shipload of gravanol aboard, too. -You'll need that and so will we. By the time we finish this jaunt, -we'll have been about as far out as anybody ever gets." - -"Yeah--got any precise figures? We've been running on a guess and a -hope. I make it out about seven hundred million." - -"Make it eight and a half. At 6-G, you'll cover another hundred and -fifty million miles before you stop. Take it twenty-two hours at -6-G--and then another twenty-two at 6. That should put you right back -here but going the other way at the same velocity. But wait, you've -been coasting. Mark off that last twenty-two hours and make it like -this: You'll be one thousand million miles from Sol when you come to a -stop at the end of the first twenty-two hours at 6-G. That hangs you -out beyond the orbit of Saturn by a couple of hundred million. Make it -back forty-four hours at 6-G, turnover and continue. By that time we'll -all be in so close that we can make any planet at will--preferably you -to Terra and we'll head for Venus Equilateral. You'll come aboard us? -No need for you to go with the rest." - -"I can have the scooter sent out," said Channing. "How's Arden?" - -"I'm fine, you big runabout. Wait until I get you!" - -"Why Arden, I thought you might be glad to see me." - -"Glad to see you?" - -"But Arden--" - -"Don't you 'But Arden' me, you big gadabout. Glad to see you? Boy, any -man that makes me chase him all over the Solar System! You just wait. -As soon as I get ahold of you, Don Channing, I'm going to--bust out and -bawl like a kid! Hurry up, willya?" - -"I'll be right over," said Don soberly. - -And, strangely enough, Don did not deviate this time. - - - THE END - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OFF THE BEAM *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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Smith. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.blockquot { - margin-left: 5%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -x-ebookmaker-drop {display: none;} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1 { text-align: right; text-indent: 0em; } -.ph1 { font-size: medium; margin: .67em auto; } - -.ph2 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } -.ph2 { font-size: medium; margin: .67em auto; } - - </style> - </head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Off the Beam, by George O. Smith</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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 -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Off the Beam</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: George O. Smith</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: Orban</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: May 10, 2022 [eBook #68047]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OFF THE BEAM ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter x-ebookmaker-drop"> - <img src="images/illusc.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>Off the Beam</h1> - -<h2>By GEORGE O. SMITH</h2> - -<p>Illustrated by Orban</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Astounding Science-Fiction, February 1944.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Thirty hours out of Mars for Terra, the <i>Solar Queen</i> sped along her -silent, invisible course. No longer was she completely severed from -all connection with the planets of the inner system; the trick cams -that controlled the beams at Venus Equilateral kept the ship centered -by sheer mathematics. It was a poor communications system, however, -since it was but a one-way job. Any message-answering would have to be -done thirty hours later when the ship made planetfall, and the regular -terminal office of Interplanetary Communications could be employed.</p> - -<p>In spite of her thirty hours at 2-G, which brought her velocity to -eleven hundred miles per second, the beam-director cams did their -job well enough. It was only in extreme cases of course-changing to -dodge meteors that the beams lost the ship; since the cams were not -clairvoyant, there was no way to know when the autopilot juggled the -controls to miss a bit of cosmic dust. The cams continued to spear the -space through which the ship was supposed to pass according to the -course constants.</p> - -<p>What made this trip ironic was the fact that Don Channing was aboard. -The beams had been bombarding the <i>Solar Queen</i> continually ever since -she left Mars with messages for the Director of Communications. In -one sense, it seemed funny that Channing was for once on the end of a -communications line where people could talk to him but upon which he -could not talk back. On the other hand it was a blessing in disguise, -for the Director of Communications was beginning to paper-talk himself -into some means of contacting the Relay Station from a spaceship.</p> - -<p>A steward found Channing in the salon and handed him a 'gram. Channing -smiled, and the steward returned the smile and added: "You'll fix these -ships to talk back one day. Wait until you read that one—you'll burn -from here to Terra!"</p> - -<p>"Reading my mail?" asked Channing cheerfully. The average spacegram was -about as secret as a postcard, so Channing didn't mind. He turned the -page over and read:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>HOPE YOU'RE WELL FILLED WITH GRAVANOL AND ADHESIVE TAPE FOR YOUR JUMP -FROM TERRA TO STATION. SHALL TAKE GREAT DELIGHT IN RIPPING ADHESIVE -TAPE OFF YOUR MEASLY BODY. LOVE.</p> - -<p class="ph1">ARDEN</p></div> - -<p>"She will, too," grinned Don. "Well, I'd like to toss her one back, but -she's got me there. I'll just fortify myself at the bar and think up a -few choice ones for when we hit Mojave."</p> - -<p>"Some day you'll be able to answer those," promised the steward. "Mind -telling me why it's so tough?"</p> - -<p>"Not at all," smiled Channing. "The problem is about the same as -encountered by the old-time cowboy. It's a lot easier to hit a man on -a moving horse from a nice, solid rock than it is to hit a man on a -nice, solid rock from a moving horse. Venus Equilateral is quite solid -as things go. But a spaceship's course is fierce. We're wobbling a few -milliseconds here and a few there, and by the time you use that arc to -swing a line of a hundred million miles, you're squirting quite a bit -of sky. We're tinkering with it right now, but so far we have come up -with nothing. Ah, well, since the human race got along without electric -lights for a few million years, we can afford to tinker with an idea -for a few months. Nobody is losing lives or sleep because we can't talk -to the boys back home."</p> - -<p>"We've been hopping from planet to planet for quite a number of years -too," said the steward. "Quite a lot of them went by before it was even -possible to contact a ship in space."</p> - -<p>"And that was done because of an emergency. Probably this other -thing will go on until we hit an emergency; then we shall prove that -old statement about a loaf of bread being the maternal parent of a -locomotive." Channing lit a cigarette, and puffed deeply. "Where do we -stand?"</p> - -<p>"Thirty hours out," answered the steward. "About ready for turnover. I -imagine that the poor engineer's gang is changing cathodes about now."</p> - -<p>"It's a long drag," said Channing. He addressed himself to his glass -and began to think of a suitable answer for his wife's latest thrust.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Bill Hadley, of the power engineer's gang, spoke to the pilot's -greenhouse below the ship. "Hadley to pilot room: Cathodes 1 and 3 -ready."</p> - -<p>"Pilot Greenland to Engineer Hadley: Power fade-over from even to odd -now under way. Tubes 2 and 4 now dead; load on 1 and 3. You may enter 2 -and 4."</p> - -<p>"Check!"</p> - -<p>Hadley cracked an air valve beside a circular air door. The hiss of -entering air crescendoed and died, and then Hadley cracked the door -that opened in upon the huge driver tube. With casual disregard for -the annular electrodes that filled the tube and the sudden death that -would come if the pilot sent the driving voltages surging into the -electrodes, Hadley climbed to the top of the tube and used a spanner to -remove four huge bolts. A handy differential pulley permitted him to -lower the near-exhausted cathode from the girders to the air door where -it was hauled to the deck. A fresh cathode was slung to the pulley and -hoisted to place. Hadley bolted it tight and clambered back into the -ship. He closed the air door and the valve, and then opened the valve -that led from the tube to outer space. The tube evacuated and Hadley -spoke once more to the pilot room.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"Hadley to Greenland: Tube 4 ready."</p> - -<p>"Check."</p> - -<p>The operation was repeated on Tube 2, and then Pilot Greenland said: -"Fade-back beginning. Power diminishing on 1 and 3, increasing on 2 and -4. Power equalized, acceleration 2-G as before. Deviation from norm: -two-tenths-G."</p> - -<p>Hadley grinned at the crew. "You'd think that Greenland did all that -himself, the way he talks. If it weren't for autopilots, we'd have been -all over the sky."</p> - -<p>Tom Bennington laughed. He was an old-timer, and he said in a -reminiscent tone: "I remember when we used to do that on manual. There -were as many cases of <i>mal de void</i> during cathode change as during -turnover. Autopilots are the nuts—look! We're about to swing right -now, and I'll bet a fiver that the folks below won't know a thing about -it."</p> - -<p>A coincidence of mammoth proportions occurred at precisely that -instant. It was a probability that made the chance of drawing a royal -flush look like the chances of tomorrow coming on time. It was, in -fact, one of those things that they said couldn't possibly happen, -which went to prove only how wrong they were. It hadn't happened yet -and probably wouldn't happen again for a million million years, but it -did happen once.</p> - -<p>Turnover was about to start. A relay circuit that coupled the -meteor-spotter to the autopilot froze for a bare instant, and the -coincidence happened between the freezing of the relay contacts -and the closing of another relay whose purpose it was to shunt the -coupler circuits through another line in case of relay failure. In -the inconceivable short time between the failure and the device that -corrected failure, the <i>Solar Queen</i> hit a meteor head on.</p> - -<p>It is of such coincidences that great tragedies and great victories are -born.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The meteor, a small one as cosmic objects go, passed in through the -broad observation dome at the top of the ship. Unhampered, it zipped -through the central well of the <i>Solar Queen</i> and passed out through -the pilot's greenhouse at the bottom of the ship. Its speed was nothing -worth noting; a scant twenty miles per second almost sunward. But the -eleven hundred miles per second of the <i>Solar Queen</i> made the passage -of the meteor through the six hundred feet of the ship's length of less -duration than the fastest camera shutter.</p> - -<p>In those microseconds, the meteor did much damage.</p> - -<p>It passed through the main pilotroom cable and scrambled those circuits -which it did not break entirely. It tore the elevator system from -its moorings. It entered as a small hole in the observation dome and -left taking the entire pilot's greenhouse and all of the complex -paraphernalia with it.</p> - -<p>The lines to the driver tubes were scrambled, and the ship shuddered -and drove forward at 10-G. An inertia switch tried to function, but the -resetting solenoid had become shorted across the main battery and the -weight could not drop.</p> - -<p>Air doors clanged shut, closing the central well from the rest of the -ship and effectively sealing the well from the crew.</p> - -<p>The lights in the ship flickered and died. The cable's shorted lines -grew hot and fire crept along its length and threatened the continuity. -The heat opened fire-quenching vents and a cloud of CO<sub>2</sub>, emerged -together with some of the liquid gas itself. The gas quenched the -fire and the cold liquid cooled the cable. Fuses blew in the shorted -circuits—</p> - -<p>And the <i>Solar Queen</i> continued to plunge on and on at 10-G; the -maximum possible out of her driving system.</p> - -<p>The only man who remained aware of himself aboard the <i>Solar Queen</i> was -the man who was filled with gravanol and adhesive tape. No other person -expected to be hammered down by high acceleration. Only Channing, who -was planning to leave Terra in his own little scooter, was prepared to -withstand high G. He, with his characteristic hate of doing anything -slowly, was ready to make the Terra to Venus Equilateral passage at 5- -or 6-G.</p> - -<p>It might as well have caught him, too. With all of the rest -unconscious, hurt, or dead, he was alone and firmly fastened to the -floor of the salon under eighteen hundred pounds of his own, helpless -weight.</p> - -<p>And as the hours passed, the <i>Solar Queen</i> was driving farther and -farther from the imaginary spot that was the focus of the communicator -beams from Venus Equilateral.</p> - -<p>The newly-replaced cathodes in the driving tubes were capable of -driving the ship for about two hundred G-hours at 1-G, before -exhaustion to the point of necessary replacement for safety purposes. -The proportion is not linear, nor is it a square-law, but roughly it -lies in the region just above linear, so that the <i>Solar Queen</i> drove -on and on through space for ten hours at 10-G before the cathodes died -for want of emitting surface. They died, not at once, but in irregular -succession so that when the last erg of power was gone from the ship -it was zooming on a straight line tangent from its point of collision -but rolling in a wild gyration through the void.</p> - -<p>And twenty-five hundred miles per second added to her initial velocity -of eleven hundred miles per second added up to thirty-six hundred miles -per second. She should have had about seventy-five million miles to go -at 2-G, to reach Terra in thirty hours from the halfway point where she -turned ends to go into deceleration. Instead, the <i>Solar Queen</i> after -ten hours of misdirected 10-G acceleration was thirty million miles on -her way, or about halfway to Terra. Three hours later, driving free, -the <i>Solar Queen</i> was passing Terra, having missed the planet by a few -million miles.</p> - -<p>Back in space, at an imaginary junction between the beams from Venus -Equilateral and the course registered for the <i>Solar Queen</i>, Arden -Channing's latest message was indicating all sorts of mild punishment -for her husband when she got him home.</p> - -<p>By the time that the <i>Solar Queen</i> should have been dropping out of -the sky at Mojave Spaceport, the ship would be one hundred and ninety -million miles beyond Terra and flirting with the imaginary line that -marked the orbit of Mars.</p> - -<p>That would be in seventeen hours.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Weightless, Channing pursued a crazy course in the salon of the -spinning ship. He ached all over from the pressure, but the gravanol -had kept his head clear and the adhesive tape had kept his body intact. -He squirmed around in the dimness and could see the inert figures -of the rest of the people who had occupied the salon at the time of -the mishap. He became sick. Violence was not a part of Channing's -nature—at least he confined his violence to those against whom he -required defense. But he knew that many of those people who pursued -aimless orbits in the midair of the salon with him would never set foot -on solidness again.</p> - -<p>He wondered how many broken bones there were among those who had lived -through the ordeal. He wondered if the medical staff of one doctor and -two nurses could cope with it.</p> - -<p>Then he wondered what difference it made if they were to go on and on, -and from that thought came the one he should have thought of first: How -were they to stop going on and on? Channing had a rough idea of what -had happened. He knew something about the conditions under which they -had been traveling, how long, and in which direction. It staggered him, -the figures he calculated in his mind. It behooved him to do something.</p> - -<p>He bumped an inert figure, and grabbed. One hand took the back of the -head and came away wet and sticky. Channing retched, and then threw -the inert man from him. He coasted back against a wall, and caught a -handrail. Hand-over-hand he went to the door and into the hall. Down -the hall he went to the passengers' elevator shaft and with no thought -of what his action would have been on any planet, Channing opened the -door and drove down the shaft for several decks. He emerged and headed -for the sick ward.</p> - -<p>He found the doctor clinging to his operating table with his knees and -applying a bandage to one of his nurses' heads.</p> - -<p>"Hello, Doc," said Channing. "Help?"</p> - -<p>"Grab Jen's feet and hold her down," snapped the doctor.</p> - -<p>"Bad?" asked Don as he caught the flailing feet.</p> - -<p>"Seven stitches, no fracture," said the doctor.</p> - -<p>"How's the other one?"</p> - -<p>"Unconscious, but unharmed. Both asleep in bed, thank God. So was I. -Where were—? You're Channing and were all doped up with gravanol and -adhesive. Thank yourself a god for that, too. I'm going to need both of -my nurses and we'll all need you."</p> - -<p>"Hope I can do some good," said Don.</p> - -<p>"You'd better. Or any good I can do will be wasted. Better start right -now. Here," the doctor produced a set of keys, "these will unlock -anything in the ship but the purser's safe. You'll need 'em. Now get -along and do something and leave the body-mending to me. Scram!"</p> - -<p>"Can you make out all right?"</p> - -<p>"As best I can. But you're needed to get us help. If you can't, no man -in the Solar System can. You're in the position of a man who can not -afford to help in succoring the wounded and dying. It'll be tough, but -there it is. Get cutting. And for Heaven's sake, get us two things: -Light and a floor. I couldn't do more than slap on tape whilst floating -in air. See you later, Channing, and good luck."</p> - -<p>The nurse squirmed, groaned, and opened her eyes. "What happened?" she -asked, blinking into the doctor's flashlight.</p> - -<p>"Tell you later, Jen. Get Fern out of her coma in the ward and then -we'll map out a plan. Channing, get out of here!"</p> - -<p>Channing got after borrowing a spare flashlight from the doctor.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He found Hadley up in the instrument room with a half dozen of his men. -They were a mass of minor and major cuts and injuries, and were working -under a single incandescent lamp that had been wired to the battery -direct by means of spare cable. The wire went snaking through the air -in a foolish, crooked line, suspended on nothing. Hadley's gang were -applying first aid to one another and cursing the lack of gravity.</p> - -<p>"Help?" said Channing.</p> - -<p>"Need it or offer it?" asked Hadley with a smile.</p> - -<p>"Offer it. You'll need it."</p> - -<p>"You can say that again—and then pitch in. You're Channing, of -Communications, aren't you? We're going to have a mad scramble on -the main circuits of this tub before we can unwind it. I don't think -there's an instrument working in the whole ship."</p> - -<p>"You can't unravel the whole works, can you?"</p> - -<p>"Won't try. About all we can do is replace the lighting system and hang -the dead cathodes in again. They'll be all right to take us out of this -cockeyed skew-curve and probably will last long enough to keep a half-G -floor under us for tinkering, for maybe forty or fifty hours. Assistant -Pilot Darlange will have to learn how to run a ship by the seat of his -pants—as far as I can guess there isn't even a splinter of glass left -in the pilot room—so he'll have to correct this flight by feel and by -using a haywire panel."</p> - -<p>"Darlange is a school-pilot," grinned one of Hadley's men.</p> - -<p>"I know, Jimmy, but I've seen him work on a bum autopilot, and he -can handle haywire all right. It'll be tough without Greenland, but -Greenland—" Hadley let the sentence fall; there was no need to mention -the fact that Greenland was probably back there with the rest of the -wreckage torn from the <i>Solar Queen</i>.</p> - -<p>Jimmy nodded, and the action shook him from his position. He grabbed at -a roll of tape that was floating near him and let it go with a laugh as -he realized it was too light to do him any good.</p> - -<p>"Too bad that this gyration is not enough to make a decent gravity -at the ends, at least," snorted Hadley. He hooked Jimmy by an arm and -hauled the man back to a place beside him. "Now look," he said, "I -can't possibly guess how many people are still in working condition -after this. Aside from our taped and doped friend here, the only ones -I have are we who were snoozing in our beds when the crush came. I'll -bet a cooky that the rest of the crowd are all nursing busted ribs, -and worse. Lucky that full-G died slowly as the cathodes went out; -otherwise we'd all have been tossed against the ceilings with bad -effects.</p> - -<p>"Jimmy, you're a committee of one to roam the crate and make a list of -everyone who is still in the running and those who can be given minor -repairs to make them fit for limited work. Doc has a pretty good supply -of Stader splints; inform him that these are only to be used on men who -can be useful with them. The rest will have to take to plaster casts -and the old-fashioned kind of fracture-support.</p> - -<p>"Pete, you get to the executive deck and tell Captain Johannson that -we're on the job and about to make with repairs. As power engineer, -I've control of the maintenance gang too, and we'll collect the whole, -hale, and hearty of Michaels' crew on our merry way.</p> - -<p>"Tom, take three of your men and begin to unravel the mess with an eye -toward getting us lights.</p> - -<p>"Tony, you can do this alone since we have no weight. You get the stale -cathodes from the supply hold and hang 'em back in the tubes.</p> - -<p>"Channing, until we get a stable place, you couldn't do a thing about -trying to get help, so I suggest that you pitch in with Bennington, -there, and help unscramble the wiring. You're a circuit man, and though -power-line stuff is not your forte, you'll find that running a lighting -circuit is a lot easier than neutralizing a microwave transmitter. Once -we get light, you can help us haywire a control panel. Right?"</p> - -<p>"Right. And as far as contacting the folks back home goes, we couldn't -do a darned thing until the time comes when we should be dropping in -on Mojave. They won't be looking for anything from us until we're -reported missing; then I imagine that Walt Franks will have everything -from a spinthariscope to a gold-foil electroscope set up. Right now I'm -stumped, but we have seventeen hours before we can start hoping to be -detected. Tom, where do we begin?"</p> - -<p>Bennington smiled inwardly. To have Don Channing asking him for orders -was like having Captain Johannson request the batteryman's permission -to change course. "If you can find and remove the place where the -shorted line is, and then splice the lighting circuits again, we'll -have a big hunk of our work done. The rest of us will begin to take -lines off of the pilot's circuits right here in the instrument room so -that our jury-controls can be hooked in. You'll need a suit, I think, -because I'll bet a hat that the shorted line is in the well."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>For the next five hours, the instrument room became a beehive of -activity. Men began coming in driblets, and were put to work as -they came. The weightlessness gave quite a bit of trouble; had the -instrument panels been electrically hot, it would have been downright -dangerous since it was impossible to do any kind of work without -periodically coming against bare connections. Tools floated around -the room in profusion, and finally Hadley appointed one man to do -nothing but roam the place to retrieve "dropped" tools. The soldering -operations were particularly vicious, since the instinctive act of -flinging excess solder from the tip of an iron made droplets of hot -solder go zipping around the room to splash against something, after -which the splashes would continue to float.</p> - -<p>Men who came in seeking to give aid were handed tools and told to do -this or that, and the problem of explaining how to free a frozen relay -to unskilled help was terrific.</p> - -<p>Then at the end of five hours, Channing came floating in to the -instrument room. He flipped off the helmet and said to Hadley: "Make -with the main switch. I think I've got it."</p> - -<p>Throughout the ship the lights blinked on.</p> - -<p>With the coming of light, there came hope also. Men took a figurative -hitch in their belts and went to work with renewed vigor. It seemed -as though everything came to a head at about this time, too. Hadley -informed Darlange that his jury-control was rigged and ready for -action, and about the same time, the galley crew came in with -slender-necked bottles of coffee and rolls.</p> - -<p>"It was a job, making coffee," grinned the steward. "The darned stuff -wanted to get out of the can and go roaming all over the place. There -isn't a one of us that hasn't got a hot coffee scar on us somewhere. -Now if he"—nodding at Darlange—"can get this thing straightened out, -we'll have a real dinner."</p> - -<p>"Hear that, Al? All that stands between us and dinner is you. Make with -the ship-straightening. Then we'll all sit around and wait for Channing -to think."</p> - -<p>"Is the ship's communicator in working order?" asked Darlange.</p> - -<p>"Sure. That went on with the lights."</p> - -<p>Darlange called for everyone in the ship to hold himself down, and -then he tied his belt to the frame in front of the haywired panel. He -opened the power on drivers 1 and 2, and the ship's floor surged ever -so little.</p> - -<p>"How're you going to know?" asked Hadley.</p> - -<p>"I've got one eye on the gyro-compass," said Darlange. "When it stops -turning, we're going straight. Then all we have to do is to set our -bottom end along the line of flight and pack on the decel. Might as -well do it that way since every MPS we can lose is to our advantage."</p> - -<p>He snapped switches that added power to Driver 3. Gradually the -gyro-compass changed from a complex rotation-progression to a simpler -pattern, and eventually the simple pattern died, leaving but one -freedom of rotation. "I'm sort of stumped," grinned Darlange. "We're -now hopping along, but rotating on our long axis. How we stop axial -rotation with drivers set parallel to that axis I'll never guess."</p> - -<p>"Is there a lifeship in working order?" asked Hadley.</p> - -<p>"Sure."</p> - -<p>"Tom, turn it against the rotation and apply the drivers on that until -we tell you to stop."</p> - -<p>An hour later the ship had ceased to turn. Then Darlange jockeyed the -big ship around so that the bottom was along the line of flight. Then -he set the power for a half-G, and everyone relaxed.</p> - -<p>Ten minutes later Captain Johannson came in.</p> - -<p>"You've done a fine job," he told Hadley. "And now I declare an hour -off for dinner. Dr. MacLain has got a working medical center with -the aid of a few people who understand how such things work, and the -percentage of broken bones, though terrific in number, is being taken -care of. The passengers were pretty restive at first, but the coming of -light seemed to work wonders. This first glimmer of power is another. -About nine or ten who were able to do so were having severe cases -of skysickness." He smiled ruefully. "I'm not too sure that I like -no-weight myself."</p> - -<p>"Have you been in the observation dome?" asked Don.</p> - -<p>"Yes. It's pierced, you know."</p> - -<p>"Did the meteor hit the telescope?"</p> - -<p>"No, why?"</p> - -<p>"Because I'm going to have to get a sight on Venus Equilateral before -we can do anything. We'll have to beam them something, but I don't know -what right now."</p> - -<p>"Can we discuss that over a dinner?" asked the captain. "I'm starved, -and I think that the rest of this gang is also."</p> - -<p>"You're a man after my own heart," laughed Channing. "The bunch out -at the Station wouldn't believe me if I claimed to have done anything -without drawing it up on a tablecloth."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Now," said Channing over his coffee. "What have we in the way of -electronic equipment?"</p> - -<p>"One X-ray machine, a standard set of communicating equipment, one beam -receiver with 'type machine for collecting stuff from your Station, and -so on."</p> - -<p>"You wouldn't have a betatron in the place somewhere?" asked Don -hopefully.</p> - -<p>"Nope. Could we make one?"</p> - -<p>"Sure. Have you got about ten pounds of No. 18 wire?"</p> - -<p>"No."</p> - -<p>"Then we can't."</p> - -<p>"Couldn't you use a driver? Isn't that some kind of beam?"</p> - -<p>"Some kind," admitted Channing. "But it emits something that we've -never been able to detect except in an atmosphere where it ionizes the -air into a dull red glow."</p> - -<p>"You should have been wrecked on the <i>Sorcerer's Apprentice</i>," laughed -Hadley. "They're the guys who have all that kind of stuff."</p> - -<p>"Have they?" asked Johannson.</p> - -<p>"The last time I heard, they were using a large hunk of their upper -hull for a VanDerGraf generator."</p> - -<p>"That would do it," said Channing thoughtfully. "But I don't think I'd -know how to modulate a VanDerGraf. A betatron would be the thing. -You can modulate that, sort of, by keying the input. She'd give out -with hundred-and-fifty-cycle stuff, but so what? We made the <i>Empress -of Kolain</i> sit up and say uncle on hundred-cycle stuff. How much of a -trick is it to clear the observation dome from the top?"</p> - -<p>"What do you intend to do?"</p> - -<p>"Well, we've got a long, hollow tube in this ship. Knock out the -faceted dome above, and we can rig us up a huge electron gun. We'll -turn the ship to point at the Station and beam 'em a bouquet of -electrons."</p> - -<p>"How're you going to do that?"</p> - -<p>"Not too tough, I don't think. Down here," and Channing began to trace -on the tablecloth, "we'll put us a hot cathode. About this level we'll -hang the first anode, and at this level we'll put the second anode. -Here'll be an acceleration electrode, and up near the top we'll put -a series of focusing anodes. We'll tap in to the driver-tube supply -and take off voltages to suit us. Might use a tube at that, but the -conversion to make an honest electron gun out of it would disrupt our -power, and then it would be impossible to make a driver out of it again -without recourse to a machine shop."</p> - -<p>"How are you going to make electrodes?"</p> - -<p>"We'll use the annular gratings that run around the central well at -each level," said Channing. "We'll have a crew of men cut 'em free and -insulate the resulting rings with something. Got anything?"</p> - -<p>"There is a shipment of methyl-methacrylate rods for the Venus Power -Co. in Hold 17," said the cargo master.</p> - -<p>"Fine," said Channing. "What size?"</p> - -<p>"Three inches by six feet."</p> - -<p>"It'll be tricky work, and you'll have to wait until your cut edge has -cooled before you hook on the rods," mused Don. "But that's the ticket."</p> - -<p>"Which floors do you want?"</p> - -<p>"Have you got a scale drawing of the <i>Solar Queen</i>?"</p> - -<p>"Sure."</p> - -<p>"Then this is where my tablecloth artistry falls flat. The focusing of -an electron beam depends upon the electrode spacing and the voltage. -Since our voltage is fixed if we take it from the driver electrodes, -we'll have to do some mighty fine figuring. I'll need that scale -drawing."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Channing's tablecloth engineering was not completely wasted. By the -time the scale drawing was placed before him, Channing had half of the -table filled with equations. He studied the drawing, and selected the -levels which were to serve as electrodes. He handed the drawing to -Hadley, and the power engineer began to issue instructions to his gang.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Then the central well began to swarm with spacesuited men who bore -cutting torches. Hot sparks danced from the cut girders that held the -floorings, and at the same time, a crew of men were running cables from -the various levels to the instrument room. More hours passed while the -circular sections were insulated with the plastic rods.</p> - -<p>The big dome above was cut in sections and removed, and then the sky -could be seen all the way from the bottom of the ship where the pilot's -greenhouse should have been.</p> - -<p>Channing looked it over and then remarked: "All we need now is an -electron collector."</p> - -<p>"I thought you wanted to shoot 'em off," objected Hadley.</p> - -<p>"I do. But we've got to have a source of supply. You can't toss -baseballs off of the Transplanet Building in Northern Landing all -afternoon, you know, without having a few brought to you now and then. -Where do you think they come from?"</p> - -<p>"Hadn't thought of it in that way. What'd happen?"</p> - -<p>"We'd get along for the first umpty-gillion electrons, and then all -the soup we could pack on would be equalized by the positive charge on -the ship and we couldn't shoot out any more until we got bombarded by -the sun—and that bombardment is nothing to write home about as goes -quantity. What we need is a selective solar intake plate of goodly -proportions."</p> - -<p>"We could use a mental telepathy expert, too. Or one of those new beams -that Baler and Carroll dug up out of the Martian desert. I've heard -that those things will actually suck power out of any source, and bend -beams so as to enter the intake vent, or end."</p> - -<p>"We haven't one of those, either. Fact of the matter is," grinned -Channing ruefully, "we haven't much of anything but our wits."</p> - -<p>"Unarmed, practically," laughed Hadley.</p> - -<p>"Half armed, at least. Ah, for something to soak up electrons. I'm now -wondering if this electron gun is such a good idea."</p> - -<p>"Might squirt some protons out the other direction," offered Hadley.</p> - -<p>"That would leave us without either," said Don. "We'd be like the man -who tossed baseballs off of one side and himself off the other—Hey! -Of course we have some to spare. We can cram electrons out of the -business end, thus stripping the planetary rings from the atoms in our -cathode. From the far side we'll shoot the canal rays, which in effect -will be squirting protons, or the nuclei. Since the planetaries have -left for the front, it shouldn't be hard to take the protons away, -leaving nothing. At our present voltages, we might be able to do it." -Channing began to figure again, and he came up with another set of -anodes to be placed beyond the cathode. "We'll ventilate the cathode -and hang these negative electrodes on the far side. They will attract -the protons, impelled also by the positive charge on the front end. -We'll maintain a balance that way, effectively throwing away the whole -atomic structure of the cathode. The latter will fade, just as the -cathodes do in the driving tubes, only we'll be using electronic power -instead of sub-electronic. Y'know, Hadley, some day someone is going to -find a way to detect the—we'll call it radiation for want of anything -better—of the driver. And then there will open an entirely new field -of energy. I don't think that anybody has done more about the so-called -sub-electronic field than to make a nice, efficient driving device out -of it.</p> - -<p>"Well, let's get our canal-ray electrodes in place. We've got about two -hours before they realize that we aren't going to come in at Mojave. -Then another two hours worth of wild messages between the Relay Station -and Mojave. Then we can expect someone to be on the lookout. I hope to -be there when they begin to look for us. At our present velocity, we'll -be flirting with the Asteroid Belt in less than nothing flat. That -isn't too bad—normally—but we're running without any meteor detector -and autopilot coupler. We couldn't duck anything from a robin's egg on -up."</p> - -<p>"We'll get your anodes set," said Hadley.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Walt Franks grinned at Arden Channing. "That'll burn him," he assured -her.</p> - -<p>"It's been on the way for about twenty minutes," laughed Arden. "I -timed it to arrive at Terra at the same time the <i>Solar Queen</i> does. -They'll send out a special messenger with it, just as Don is getting -aboard his little scooter. It'll be the last word, for we're not -following him from Terra to here."</p> - -<p>"You know what you've started?" asked Franks.</p> - -<p>"Nothing more than a little feud between husband and self."</p> - -<p>"That's just the start. Before he gets done, Don will have every ship -capable of answering back. I've found that you can catch him off -base just once. He's a genius—one of those men who never make the -same mistake twice. He'll never again be in a position to be on the -listening end only."</p> - -<p>"Don's answer should be on the way back by now," said Arden. "Could be -you're right. Something should be done."</p> - -<p>"Sure I'm right. Look at all the time that's wasted in waiting for -a landing to answer 'grams. In this day and age, time is money, -squared. The latter is to differentiate between this time and the first -glimmering of speedy living."</p> - -<p>"Was there a first glimmering?" asked Arden sagely. "I've often thought -that the speed-up was a stable acceleration from the dawn of time to -the present."</p> - -<p>"All right, go technical on me," laughed Walt. "Things do move. That -is, all except that message from your loving husband."</p> - -<p>"You don't suppose he's squelched?"</p> - -<p>"I doubt it. Squelching Donald Channing is a job for a superbeing. And -I'm not too sure that a superbeing could squelch Don and make him stay -squelched. Better check on Mojave."</p> - -<p>"Gosh, if Don missed the <i>Solar Queen</i> and I've been shooting him all -kinds of screwy 'types every hour on the hour; Walt, that'll keep him -quiet for a long, long time."</p> - -<p>"He'd have let you know."</p> - -<p>"That wouldn't have been so bad. But if the big bum missed and was -ashamed of it—that'll be the pay-off. Whoa, there goes the 'type!"</p> - -<p>Arden drew the tape from the machine:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>MESSAGE BEING HELD FOR ARRIVAL OF <i>SOLAR QUEEN</i>.</p></div> - -<p>Walt looked at his watch and checked the course constants of the <i>Solar -Queen</i>. He called the beam-control dome and asked for the man on the -<i>Solar Queen</i> beam.</p> - -<p>"Benny," he said, "has the <i>Solar Queen</i> arrived yet?"</p> - -<p>"Sure," answered Benny. "According to the mechanical mind here, they've -been on Mojave for twenty minutes."</p> - -<p>"Thanks." To Arden he said: "Something's strictly fishy."</p> - -<p>Arden sat at the machine and pounded the keys:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><i>SOLAR QUEEN</i> DUE TO ARRIVE AT 19:06:41. IT IS NOW 19:27:00. BEAM -CONTROL SAYS TRANSMISSIONS ENDED BECAUSE OF COINCIDENCE BETWEEN TERRA -BEAM AND STATION-TO-SHIP BEAM. PLEASE CHECK.</p></div> - -<p>Arden fretted and Walt stamped up and down the room during the long -minutes necessary for the message to reach Terra and the answer to -return. It came right on the tick of the clock:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>HAVE CHECKED COURSE CONSTANTS. <i>SOLAR QUEEN</i> OVER-DUE NOW FIFTY -MINUTES. OBVIOUSLY SOMETHING WRONG. CAN YOU HELP?</p></div> - -<p>Walt smiled in a grim fashion. "Help!" he said. "We go on and on for -years and years with no trouble—and now we've lost the third ship in a -row."</p> - -<p>"They claim that those things always run in threes," said Arden. "What -are we going to do?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know. We'll have to do something. Funny, but the one reason we -must do something is the same reason why something can be done."</p> - -<p>"I don't get that."</p> - -<p>"With Channing on the <i>Solar Queen</i>, something can be done. I don't -know what, but I'll bet you a new hat that Don will make it possible -for us to detect the ship. There is not a doubt in my mind that if the -ship is still spaceworthy, we can narrow the possibilities down to a -thin cone of space."</p> - -<p>"How?"</p> - -<p>"Well," said Franks, taking the fountain pen out of the holder on the -desk and beginning to sketch on the blotter, "the course of the <i>Solar -Queen</i> is not a very crooked one, as courses go. It's a very shallow -skew curve. Admitting the worst, collision, we can assume only one -thing. If the meteor were small enough to leave the ship in a floating -but undirigible condition, it would also be small enough to do nothing -to the general direction of the ship. Anything else would make it -useless to hunt, follow?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, go on."</p> - -<p>"Therefore we may assume that the present position of the <i>Solar Queen</i> -is within the volume of a cone made by the tangents of the outermost -elements of the space curve that is the <i>Solar Queen's</i> course. We can -take an eight-thousand-mile cylinder out of one place—for the origin -of their trouble is between Mars and Terra and the 'shadow' of Terra in -the cone will not contain the <i>Solar Queen</i>."</p> - -<p>"Might have passed close enough to Terra to throw her right into the -'shadow' of Terra by attraction," objected Arden.</p> - -<p>"Yeah, you're right. O.K., so we can't take out that cylinder of space. -And we add a sort of side-wise cone on to our original cone, a volume -through which the <i>Queen</i> might have flown after passing close enough -to Terra to be deflected. I'll have the slipstick experts give a guess -as to the probability of the <i>Queen's</i> course, and at the same time -we'll suspend all incoming operations. I'm going to set up every kind -of detector I can think of, and I don't want anything upsetting them."</p> - -<p>"What kind of stuff do you expect?" asked Arden.</p> - -<p>"I dunno. They might have a betatron aboard. In that case we'll -eventually get a blast of electrons that'll knock our front teeth out. -Don may succeed in tinkering up some sort of electrostatic field. We -can check the solar electrostatic field to about seven decimal places -right here, and any deviation in the field to the tune of a couple -of million electron volts at a distance of a hundred million miles -will cause a distortion in the field that we can measure. We'll ply -oscillating beams through the area of expectation and hope for an -answering reflection, though I do not hope for that. We'll have men on -the lookout for everything from smoke signals to helio. Don't worry too -much, Arden, your husband is capable of doing something big enough to -be heard. He's just the guy to do it."</p> - -<p>"I know," said Arden soberly. "But I can't help worrying."</p> - -<p>"Me, too. Well, I'm off to set up detectors. We'll collect something."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Have we got anything like a piece of gold leaf?" asked Channing.</p> - -<p>"I think so, why?"</p> - -<p>"I want to make an electroscope. That's about the only way I'll know -whether we are getting out with this cockeyed electron gun."</p> - -<p>"How so?" asked Hadley.</p> - -<p>"We can tell from the meter that reads the beam current whether -anything is going up the pipe," explained Channing. "But if -we just build us up a nice heavy duty charge—as shown by the -electroscope—we'll be sure that the electrons are not going far. This -is one case where no sign is good news."</p> - -<p>"I'll have one of the boys set up an electroscope in the instrument -room."</p> - -<p>"Good. And now have the bird on the telescope forget trying to find -Venus Equilateral by dead reckoning and sight. Have him set the scope -angles to the figures here, and then have him contact Darlange and have -the ship slued around so that Venus is on the cross hairs. That'll put -us on a line for the Station by a few thousand miles. We can afford to -miss. A bundle of electrons of our magnitude zipping past the detectors -that Walt can set up will make a reading."</p> - -<p>Hadley called the observation dome. "Tim," he said, giving a string of -figures, "set your 'scope for these and then get Darlange to slue the -crate around so that your cross hairs are on Venus."</p> - -<p>"O.K.," answered Tim. "That's going to be a job. This business of -looking through a 'scope while dressed in a spacesuit is no fun. Here -goes."</p> - -<p>He called Darlange, and the communicator system permitted the men in -the instrument room to hear his voice. "Dar," he said, "loop us around -about forty-one degrees from Driver 3."</p> - -<p>Darlange said: "Right!" and busied himself at his buttons.</p> - -<p>"Three degrees on Driver 4."</p> - -<p>"Right."</p> - -<p>"Too far, back her up a degree on 4."</p> - -<p>Darlange laughed. "What do you think these things are, blocks and -tackles? You mean: 'Compensate a degree on 2.'"</p> - -<p>"You're the pilot. That's the ticket—and I don't care if you lift it -on one hand. Can you nudge her just a red hair on 3?"</p> - -<p>"Best I can do is a hair and a half," said Darlange. He gave Driver 3 -just a tiny, instantaneous surge.</p> - -<p>"Then take it up two and back one and a half," laughed Tim. "Whoa, -Nellie, you're on the beam."</p> - -<p>"Fine."</p> - -<p>"O.K., Dar, but you'll have to play monkey on a stick. I'll prime you -for any moving so that you can correct immediately."</p> - -<p>"Right. Don, we're on the constants you gave us. What now?"</p> - -<p>"At this point I think a short prayer would be of assistance," said -Channing soberly. "We're shooting our whole wad right now."</p> - -<p>"I hope we make our point."</p> - -<p>"Well, it's all or nothing," agreed Don as he grasped the switch.</p> - -<p>He closed the switch, and the power demand meters jumped up across -their scales. The gold-leaf electroscope jumped once; the ultra-thin -leaves jerked apart by an inch, and then oscillated stiffly until they -came to a balance. Channing, who had been looking at them, breathed -deeply and smiled.</p> - -<p>"We're getting out," he said.</p> - -<p>"Can you key this?" asked Hadley.</p> - -<p>"No need," said Channing. "They know we're in the grease. We know that -if they can collect us, they'll be on their way. I'm going to send out -for a half-hour, and then resort to a five-minute transmission every -fifteen minutes. They'll get a ship after us with just about everything -we're likely to need, and they can use the five-minute transmissions -for direction finding. The initial shot will serve to give them an idea -as to our direction. All we can do now is to wait."</p> - -<p>"And hope," added Captain Johannson.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Electrically, Venus Equilateral was more silent than it had ever been. -Not an electrical appliance was running on the whole station. People -were cautioned about walking on deep-pile rugs, or combing their hair -with plastic combs, or doing anything that would set up any kind of -electronic charge. Only the highly filtered generators in the power -rooms were running and these had been shielded and filtered long -years ago; nothing would emerge from them to interrupt the ether. All -incoming signals were stopped.</p> - -<p>And the men who listened with straining ears claimed that the sky was -absolutely clear save for a faint crackle of cosmic static which they -knew came from the corona of the sun.</p> - -<p>One group of men sat about a static-field indicator and cursed the -minute wiggling of the meter, caused by the ever-moving celestial -bodies and their electronic charges. A sunspot emission passed through -the Station once, and though it was but a brief passage, it sent the -electrostatic field crazy and made the men jump.</p> - -<p>The men who were straining their ears to hear became nervous, and were -jumping at every loud crackle.</p> - -<p>And though the man at the telescope knew that his probability of -picking up a sight of the <i>Solar Queen</i> was as slender as a spider's -web, he continued to search the starry heavens. He swept the narrow -cone of the heavens wherein the <i>Solar Queen</i> was lost according to the -mathematical experts, and he looked at every bit of brightness in the -field of his telescope as though it might be the missing ship.</p> - -<p>The beam-scanners watched their return-plates closely. It was difficult -because the receiver gains were set to maximum, and every tick of -static caused brief flashes of light upon their plates. They would jump -at such a flash and watch for it to reappear on the next wipe, for -a continuous spot of light indicated the ship they sought. Then, as -the spot did not reappear, they would go on with their beams to cover -another infinitesimal portion of the sky. Moving forward across the -cone of expectancy bit by bit, they crossed and recrossed until they -were growing restive.</p> - -<p>Surely the ship must be there!</p> - -<p>At the South End landing stage, a group of men were busy stocking a -ship. Supplies and necessities were carried aboard, while another -group of men tinkered with the electrical equipment. They cleared a -big space in the observation dome, and began to install a replica of -the equipment used on the Station for detection. No matter what kind -of output Channing sent back, they would be able to follow it to the -bitter end.</p> - -<p>They made their installations in duplicate, with one piece of each -equipment on opposite sides of the blunt dome. Balancing the inputs of -each kind by turning the entire ship would give them a good indication -of direction.</p> - -<p>Franks did not hope that the entire installation could be completed -before the signal came, but he was trying to outguess himself by -putting some of everything aboard. When and if it came, he would be -either completely ready with everything or he at least would have a -good start on any one of the number of detectors. If need be, the -equipment from the Station itself could be removed and used to complete -the mobile installation.</p> - -<p>Everything was in a complete state of nervous expectancy. Watchers -watched, meter readers squinted for the barest wiggle, audio observers -listened, trying to filter any kind of man-made note out of the -irregular crackle that came in.</p> - -<p>And the Station announcing equipment was dead quiet, to be used only -in case of emergency or to announce the first glimmer of radiation, -whether it be material, electrical, kinetic, potential, or wave front.</p> - -<p>Long they listened—and then it came.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Station announcing equipment broke forth in a multitude of voices.</p> - -<p>"Sound input on radio."</p> - -<p>"Visual indication on scanner plates!"</p> - -<p>"Distortion on electrostatic field indicator."</p> - -<p>"Super-electroscopes indicate negative charge!"</p> - -<p>"Nothing on the telescope!"</p> - -<p>There were mingled cheers and laughter as the speaker system broke away -from its babel, and each group spoke its piece with no interference. -Walt Franks left the ship at the South End and raced to the Beam -Control dome, just as fast as the runway car would take him. He ran -into the dome in spacesuit and flipped the helmet back over his -shoulders. "What kind of indication?" he yelled.</p> - -<p>Men crowded around him, offering him papers and shouting figures.</p> - -<p>"Gosh," he said, "Don can't have everything going up there."</p> - -<p>"He's hit just about everything but the guy squinting through the -'scope."</p> - -<p>"What's he doing?" asked Franks of no one in particular.</p> - -<p>One of the radiation engineers who had been busy with the electrostatic -field indicator said: "I think maybe he's using some sort of electron -gun—like the one you tried first off on the meteor-destroyer-job, -remember?"</p> - -<p>"Yeah, but that one wouldn't work—unless Don has succeeded in doing -something that we couldn't do. Look, Charley, we haven't had time to -set up a complete field indicator on the ship. Grab yours and give the -boys a lift installing it, hey?"</p> - -<p>"Sure thing."</p> - -<p>"And look, fellows, any indication of direction, velocity, or distance?"</p> - -<p>"Look for yourself," said the man on the beam scanner. "The whole plate -is shining. We can't get a fix on them this way—they're radiating -themselves and that means that our scanner-system finder is worthless."</p> - -<p>"We can, but it's rough," offered one of the radio men. "It came from -an area out beyond Terra—and as for our readings it might have covered -a quarter of the sky."</p> - -<p>"The field indicator is a short-base finder," explained Charley. "And -no less rough than the radio boys. I'd say it was out beyond Terra by -fifty million miles at least."</p> - -<p>"Close enough. We'll have to track 'em down like a -radio-equipped bloodhound. Charley, come along and run that -mechanico-electro-monstrosity of yours. Gene, you can come along and -run the radio finder. Oh yes, you, Jimmy, may continue to squint -through that eyepiece of yours—but on the <i>Relay Girl</i>. We need a -good, first-class squinter, and you should have an opportunity to -help."</p> - -<p>Jimmy laughed shortly. "The only guy on the Station that didn't get an -indication was me. Not even a glimmer."</p> - -<p>"Channing didn't know we'd be <i>looking</i> for him, or he'd probably -light a flare, too. Cheer up, Jimmy, after all this crude, electrical -rigamarole is finished, and we gotta get right down to the last -millimeter, it's the guy with the eye that polishes up the job. You'll -have your turn."</p> - -<p>Twenty minutes after the first glimmer of intelligent signal, the -<i>Relay Girl</i> lifted from the South End and darted off at an angle, -setting her nose roughly in the direction of the signal.</p> - -<p>Her holds were filled with spare batteries and a whole dozen -replacement cathodes as well as her own replacements. Her crew was -filled to the eyebrows with gravanol, and there must have been a mile -of adhesive tape and cotton on their abdomens. At 6-G she left, and at -6-G she ran, her crew immobilized but awake because of the gravanol. -And though the acceleration was terrific, the tape kept the body from -folding of its own weight. When they returned, they would all be in the -hospital for a week, but their friends would be with them.</p> - -<p>Ten minutes after take-off, the signals ceased.</p> - -<p>Walt said: "Keep her running. Don's saving electricity. Tell me when we -pick him up again."</p> - -<p>Franklen, the pilot, nodded. "We haven't got a good start yet. It'll -be touch and go. According to the slipstick boys, they must be clapping -it up at between twenty-five hundred and five thousand miles per second -to get that far—and coasting free or nearly so. Otherwise they'd have -come in. Any suggestions as to course?"</p> - -<p>"Sure. Whoop it up at six until we hit about six thousand. Then -decelerate to four thousand by using 1-G. We'll vacillate in velocity -between four and five until we get close."</p> - -<p>Forty-one hours later, the <i>Relay Queen</i> made turnover and began to -decelerate.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Channing said to Captain Johannson: "Better cut the decel to about a -quarter-G. That'll be enough to keep us from bumping our heads on the -ceiling and it will last longer. This is going to be a long chase, and -cutting down a few MPS at a half-G isn't going to make much never-mind. -I'll hazard a guess that the boys are on their way right now."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"If you say so," said Johannson. "You're the boss from now on. You -know that wild bunch on the Station better than I do. For myself, I've -always felt that an answer was desirable before we do anything."</p> - -<p>"I know Franks and my wife pretty well—about as well as they know me. -I've put myself in Walt's place—and I know that Walt would do. So—if -Walt didn't think of it, Arden would—I can assume that they are aware -of us, have received our signals, and are, therefore, coming along -as fast as they can. They'll come zipping out here at from five- to -seven-G to what they think is halfway and then decelerate again to a -sane velocity. We won't catch sight of them for sixty or seventy hours, -and when we do, they'll be going so fast that it will take another -twenty hours worth of manipulation to match their speed with ours. -Meanwhile, I've got the gun timed to shoot our signal. When the going -gets critical, I'll cut the power and make it continuous."</p> - -<p>"You're pretty sure of your timing?"</p> - -<p>"Well, the best they can do as for direction and velocity and distance -is a crude guess. They'll place us out here beyond Terra somewhere. -They'll calculate the course requirements to get us this far in the -time allotted, and come to a crude figure. I'd like to try keying -this thing, but I know that keying it won't work worth a hoot at this -distance. Each bundle of keyed electrons would act as a separate -negative charge that would spread out and close up at this distance. -It's tough enough to hope that the electron beam will hold together -that far, let alone trying to key intelligence with it. We'll leave -well enough alone—and especially if they're trying to get a fix on us; -there's nothing worse than trying to fix an intermittent station. Where -are we now?"</p> - -<p>"We're on the inner fringe of the Asteroid Belt, about thirty million -miles North, and heading on a secant course at thirty-four hundred MPS."</p> - -<p>"Too bad Jupiter isn't in the neighborhood," said Channing. "We'll be -flirting with his orbit by the time they catch us."</p> - -<p>"Easily," said Johannson. "In sixty hours, we'll have covered about six -hundred and fifty million miles. We'll be nearer the orbit of Saturn, -in spite of the secant course."</p> - -<p>"Your secant approaches a radius as you get farther out," said Don, -absently. "As far as distances go. Ah, well, Titan, here we come!"</p> - -<p>Johannson spoke to the doctor. "How're we doing?"</p> - -<p>"Pretty well," said Doc. "There's as pretty an assortment of fractured -ribs, broken limbs, cracked clavicles, and scars, mars, and abrasions -as you ever saw. There are a number dead, worse luck, but we can't do -a thing about them. We can hold on for a week as far as food and water -goes. Everyone is now interested in the manner of our rescue rather -than worrying about it." He turned to Channing. "The words Channing and -Venus Equilateral have wonderful healing powers," he said. "They all -think your gang are part magician and part sorcerer."</p> - -<p>"Why, for goodness' sake?"</p> - -<p>"I didn't ask. Once I told 'em you had a scheme to contact the Relay -Station, they were all satisfied that things would happen for the -better."</p> - -<p>"Anything we can do to help you out?"</p> - -<p>"I think not," answered Doc. "What I said before still goes. Your job -is to bring aid—and that's the sum total of your job. Every effort -must be expended on that and that alone. You've got too many whole -people depending on you to spend one second on the hurt. That's my job."</p> - -<p>"O.K.," said Channing, "But it's going to be a long wait."</p> - -<p>"We can afford it."</p> - -<p>"I hope we're not complicating the job of finding us by this quartering -deceleration," said Johannson.</p> - -<p>"We're not. We're making a sort of vector from our course, but the -deviation is very small. As long as the fellows follow our radiation, -we'll be found," Channing said with a smile. "The thing that is tough -is the fact that all the floors seem to lean over."</p> - -<p>"Not much, though."</p> - -<p>"They wouldn't lean at all if we were running with the whole set of -equipment," said Darlange. "We run a complete turnover without spilling -a drop from the swimming pool."</p> - -<p>"Or even making the passengers aware of it unless they're looking at -the sky."</p> - -<p>"Stop worrying about it," said Doc. "I'm the only guy who has to worry -about it and as long as the floor is still a floor, I can stand sliding -into the corner once in a while."</p> - -<p>"We might tinker with the turnover drivers," offered Don. "We can -bring 'em down to a place where the velocity-deceleration vectors -are perpendicular to the floor upon which we stand while our ship is -sluing. We've got a lot of time on our hands, and I, for one, feel a -lot happier when I'm doing something."</p> - -<p>"It's a thought," said Hadley. "Wanna try it?"</p> - -<p>"Let's go."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Thirty hours after the <i>Relay Girl</i> left the Station, Walt and Franklen -held a council of war, in which Charley Bren was the prime factor.</p> - -<p>"We've come about two hundred million miles, and our present velocity -is something like four thousand miles per second," said Walt. "We're -going out towards Mars on a slightly-off radial course, to the North -of the ecliptic. That means we're a little over a quarter of a billion -miles from Sol, or about to hit the Asteroid Belt. Thinking it over a -little, I think we should continue our acceleration for another thirty -hours. What say?"</p> - -<p>"The field has shown no change in intensity that I can detect," said -Bren. "If they haven't dropped their radiated intensity, that means -that we are no closer to them than we were before. Of course, we'd -probably have to cut the distance by at least a half before any -measurable decrement made itself evident."</p> - -<p>"They must be on the upper limit of that four thousand MPS," observed -Walt. "There's one thing certain, we'll never catch them by matching -their speed."</p> - -<p>"Where will another thirty hours at 6-G put us and how fast?" asked -Franklen.</p> - -<p>Silence ensued while they scribbled long figures on scratch paper.</p> - -<p>"About eight hundred million miles from Sol," announced Walt.</p> - -<p>"And about eight thousand MPS," added Charley.</p> - -<p>"That's a little extreme, don't you think?" asked Franklen.</p> - -<p>"By about thirty percent," said Walt, scratching his chin. "If we hold -to our original idea of hitting it for six thousand, where will we be?"</p> - -<p>"That would make it about forty-five hours from take-off, and we'd be -about four hundred and sixty million miles from Sol." Charley grinned -widely and said: "By Jove!"</p> - -<p>"What?"</p> - -<p>"By Jove!"</p> - -<p>"'By Jove!' What?"</p> - -<p>"That's where we'd be—By Jove!"</p> - -<p>"<i>Phew.</i>"</p> - -<p>"I agree with you," said Franklen to Walt. "Better ignore him."</p> - -<p>"Sure will after that. So then we'll be 'By Jove' at six thousand. -That would be a swell place to make turnover, I think. At 1-G decel, -to about four thousand MPS, that'll put us about ... um, that'd take -us ninety hours! We'll make that 3-G, at twenty hours, which will put -us about three hundred and fifty million miles along, which plus the -original four hundred and sixty million adds up to eight hundred and -ten million miles—"</p> - -<p>"When an astronaut begins to talk like that," interrupted Arden, "we of -the skyways say that he is talking in Congressional figures. The shoe -is on the other foot. What on earth are you fellows figuring?"</p> - -<p>"Where we'll be and how fast we'll be going at a given instant of no -particular importance," offered Walt. "When did you wake up?"</p> - -<p>"About the third hundred million. All of those ciphers going by made a -hollow sound, like a bullet whistling in the wind."</p> - -<p>"Well, we're trying to make the theories of probability match with -figures. We'll know in about forty-five hours whether we were right or -not."</p> - -<p>"It's a good thing we have all space to go around in. Are you sure that -we have all eternity?"</p> - -<p>"Don't get anxious. They're still coming in like a ton of bricks -four times per hour, which means that they're riding easy. I don't -want to overrun them at about three thousand MPS and have to spend a -week decelerating, returning, more decelerating, and then matching -velocities."</p> - -<p>"I see. You know best. And where is this Asteroid Belt that I've heard -so much about?"</p> - -<p>"To the South of us by a few million miles. Those bright specks that -you can't tell from stars are asteroids. The common conception of the -Asteroid Belt being filled to overflowing with a collection of cosmic -rubble like the rings of Saturn is a lot of hooey. We'll be past in -a little while and we haven't even come close to one. Space is large -enough for all of us, I think."</p> - -<p>"But not when all of us want the same space."</p> - -<p>"I don't care for their area," said Walt with a smile. "Let 'em have -it, I don't care. I'll stay up here and let them run as they will."</p> - -<p>"You mean the ones that are moving downward?" asked Arden, indicating -the sky.</p> - -<p>"Those are asteroids, yes. We're to the North, as you may check by -going around the ship to the opposite side. You'll see Polaris almost -directly opposite, there. Sol is almost directly below us, and that -bright one that you can see if you squint almost straight up out of the -port is Saturn."</p> - -<p>"I won't bother crossing the ship to see Polaris. I prefer the Southern -Cross anyway. The thing I'm most interested in is: Are we accomplishing -anything?"</p> - -<p>"I think that we've spent the last thirty hours just catching up," -explained Walt. "Up to right now we were going backwards, so to speak: -we're on even terms now, and will be doing better from here on in."</p> - -<p>"It's the waiting that gets me down," said Arden. "Oh, for something to -do!"</p> - -<p>"Let's eat," suggested Walt. "I'm hungry, and now that I think of it, I -have not eaten since we left the Station. Arden, you are hereby elected -to the post of galley chief. Get Jimmy from the dome if you need help."</p> - -<p>"Help? What for?"</p> - -<p>"He can help you lift it out of the oven. Don must have a cast-iron -stomach."</p> - -<p>"That's hearsay. I'll show you! As soon as I find the can opener, -breakfast will be served."</p> - -<p>"Make mine dinner," said Charley. "We've been awake all the time."</p> - -<p>"O.K., we will have a combined meal, from grapefruit to ice cream. -Those who want any or all parts may choose at will. And fellows, please -let me know as soon as you get something tangible."</p> - -<p>"That's a promise," said Walt. "Take it easy, and don't worry. We'll -be catching up with them one of these days."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Hadley, how much coating have we got on those cathodes?"</p> - -<p>"Not too much. We had about twenty G-hours to begin with. We went to a -half-G for about twenty hours, and now we're running on a quarter-G, -which would leave us go for forty hours more. That's a grand total of -about sixty hours."</p> - -<p>"And the batteries?"</p> - -<p>"In pretty good shape."</p> - -<p>"Well, look. If it should come to a choice between floor and signal -gun, we'll choose the gun. We've about twelve hours left in the -cathodes, and since everybody is now used to quarter-G we might even -slide it down to an eighth-G, which would give us about twenty-four -hours."</p> - -<p>"Your gun is still putting out?"</p> - -<p>"So far as I can tell. Ten hours from now, we should know, I think, -predicating my guess on whatever meager information they must have."</p> - -<p>"We could save some juice by killing most of the lights in the ship."</p> - -<p>"That's a thought. Johannson, have one of your men run around and -remove all lights that aren't absolutely necessary. He can kill about -three quarters of them, I'm certain. That'll save us a few kilowatt -hours," said Channing. "And another thing. I'm about to drop the power -of our electron gun and run it continuously. If the boys are anywhere -in the neighborhood, they'll be needing the continuous disturbance for -direction finding. I'd say in another five hours that we should start -continuous radiation."</p> - -<p>"You know, Channing, if this thing works out all right, it will be a -definite vote for pure, deductive reasoning."</p> - -<p>"I know. But the pure deduction is not too pure. It isn't guesswork. -There are two factors of known quantity. One is that I know Walt -Franks, and the other is that he knows me. The rest is a simple matter -of the boys on the Station knowing space to the last inch, and applying -the theory of probabilities to it. We'll hear from them soon, or I'll -miss my guess. You wait."</p> - -<p>"Yeah," drawled Captain Johannson, "we'll wait!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Charley Bren made another computation and said: "Well, Walt, we've been -narrowing them down for quite a time now. We're getting closer and -closer to them, according to the field intensity. I've just got a good -idea of direction on that last five-minute shot. Have Franklen swivel -us around on this course; pretty soon we'll be right in the middle of -their shots."</p> - -<p>"We're approaching them asymptotically," observed Walt. "I wish I knew -what our velocity was with respect to theirs. Something tells me that -it would be much simpler if I knew."</p> - -<p>"Walt," asked Arden, "how close can you see a spaceship?"</p> - -<p>"You mean how far? Well, I don't know that it's ever been tried and -recorded. But we can figure it out easy enough, by analogy. A period -is about thirty thousandths of an inch in diameter, and visible from -a distance of thirty inches. I mean visible with no doubt about -it's being there. That's a thousand to one. Now, the <i>Solar Queen</i> -is about six hundred feet tall and about four hundred feet in its -major diameter, so we can assume a little more than the four hundred -feet—say five hundred feet average of circular area, say—follow me?"</p> - -<p>"Go on, you're vague, but normal."</p> - -<p>"Then at a thousand to one, that becomes five hundred thousand -feet, and dividing by five thousand—round figures because it isn't -important enough to use that two hundred and eighty feet over the five -thousand—gives us one thousand miles. We should be able to see the -<i>Solar Queen</i> from a distance of a thousand miles."</p> - -<p>"Then at four thousand miles per second we'll be in and out of visual -range in a half second?"</p> - -<p>"Oh no. They're rambling on a quite similar course at an unknown -but high velocity. Our velocity with respect to theirs is what will -determine how long they're within visual range."</p> - -<p>"Hey, Walt," came the voice of Charley Bren. "The intensity of Don's -beam has been cut to about one quarter and is now continuous. Does that -mean anything?"</p> - -<p>"Might mean trouble for them. Either they're running out of soup and -mean for us to hurry up, or they assume we're close enough to obviate -the need for high power. We'd better assume they want haste and act -accordingly. How're the boys on the radio detectors coming along?"</p> - -<p>"Fine. They've taken over the direction finding and claim that we are -right on their tail."</p> - -<p>"Anything in the sights, Jimmy?"</p> - -<p>"Not yet. But the electroscope boys claim that quarter power or not, -the input is terrific."</p> - -<p>"Take a rest, Jimmy. We won't be there for a while yet. No use burning -your eyes out trying to see 'em. There'll be time enough for you to do -your share after we get 'em close enough to see with the naked eye. -What do the beam-scanners say?"</p> - -<p>"Shucks," answered the man on the scanners, "they're still radiating. -How are we going to fix 'em on a reflected wave when they're more -powerful on their own hook? The whole plate is glaring white. And, -incidentally, so is the celestial globe in the meteor-spotter. I've had -the threshold cut to the devil on that or we'd never be able to hold -this course. Anything like a meteor that comes in our way now will not -register until we're right on top of it and—"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The <i>Relay Girl</i> lurched sickeningly. All over the ship, things rattled -and fell to the floors. Men grabbed at the closest solid object, and -then the <i>Relay Girl</i> straightened out once more.</p> - -<p>"<i>Woosh</i>," said Franks. "That was a big one."</p> - -<p>"Big one?" called Charley Bren. "That, my friend, was none other than -the <i>Solar Queen</i>!"</p> - -<p>"Can you prove that?"</p> - -<p>"Sure. Our electroscopes now indicate a positive charge; they crossed -over just as we lurched."</p> - -<p>"Jimmy, get your scope a-top and get looking. Franklen, hang on about -7-G and follow Jimmy's orders. Charley, see if you can get anything -cogent out of your gadget. Holy Green Fire, with all of a cubic million -million million megaparsecs in which to run, we have to be so good that -we run right into our quarry. Who says that radio direction finding is -not a precise science? Who says that we couldn't catch—"</p> - -<p>"Walt, they're in sight, but losing fast."</p> - -<p>"O.K., Jimmy, can you give me any idea as to their velocity with -respect to ours?"</p> - -<p>"How long is she?"</p> - -<p>"Six hundred feet."</p> - -<p>Jimmy was silent for some seconds. "They're out of sight again, but I -make it about four to seven hundred miles per second."</p> - -<p>"At 7-G we should match that seven hundred in about four hours."</p> - -<p>"And then go on decelerating so that they'll catch up?"</p> - -<p>"No," said Walt. "I used the max figure and we can assume that they -aren't going that fast, quite. At the end of four hours, we'll -turnover and wait until they heave in sight again and then we'll do -some more oscillating. We can match their velocity inside of ten hours, -or Franklen will get fired."</p> - -<p>"If I don't," promised Franklen, "I'll quit. You can't fire me!"</p> - -<p>"We should be able to contact them by radio," said Walt.</p> - -<p>"Their beam is off," said Bren.</p> - -<p>"And they are using the landing set," called the radio man, "It's -Channing. He says: 'Fancy meeting you here.' Any answer?"</p> - -<p>"Just say, 'Dr. Channing, I presume?'"</p> - -<p>Channing's voice came out of the ship's announcer system as the radio -man made the necessary connections. It said: "Right—but what kept you -so long?"</p> - -<p>"Our boss was away," said Walt. "And we can't do a thing without him."</p> - -<p>"Some boss. Some crew of wild men. Can't go off on a fishing trip -without having my bunch chasing all over the Solar System."</p> - -<p>"What's wrong with a little sightseeing tour? We didn't mean any harm. -And speaking of harm, how are you and the rest of that bunch getting -along?"</p> - -<p>"We're O.K. What do you plan after we finally get close enough together -to throw stones across?"</p> - -<p>"We've got a whole hold full of spare batteries and a double set of -replacement cathodes. There is a shipload of gravanol aboard, too. -You'll need that and so will we. By the time we finish this jaunt, -we'll have been about as far out as anybody ever gets."</p> - -<p>"Yeah—got any precise figures? We've been running on a guess and a -hope. I make it out about seven hundred million."</p> - -<p>"Make it eight and a half. At 6-G, you'll cover another hundred and -fifty million miles before you stop. Take it twenty-two hours at -6-G—and then another twenty-two at 6. That should put you right back -here but going the other way at the same velocity. But wait, you've -been coasting. Mark off that last twenty-two hours and make it like -this: You'll be one thousand million miles from Sol when you come to a -stop at the end of the first twenty-two hours at 6-G. That hangs you -out beyond the orbit of Saturn by a couple of hundred million. Make it -back forty-four hours at 6-G, turnover and continue. By that time we'll -all be in so close that we can make any planet at will—preferably you -to Terra and we'll head for Venus Equilateral. You'll come aboard us? -No need for you to go with the rest."</p> - -<p>"I can have the scooter sent out," said Channing. "How's Arden?"</p> - -<p>"I'm fine, you big runabout. Wait until I get you!"</p> - -<p>"Why Arden, I thought you might be glad to see me."</p> - -<p>"Glad to see you?"</p> - -<p>"But Arden—"</p> - -<p>"Don't you 'But Arden' me, you big gadabout. Glad to see you? Boy, any -man that makes me chase him all over the Solar System! You just wait. -As soon as I get ahold of you, Don Channing, I'm going to—bust out and -bawl like a kid! Hurry up, willya?"</p> - -<p>"I'll be right over," said Don soberly.</p> - -<p>And, strangely enough, Don did not deviate this time.</p> - - -<p class="ph2">THE END</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OFF THE BEAM ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. 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