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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..0ab05b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #68329 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68329) diff --git a/old/68329-0.txt b/old/68329-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ed2bbea..0000000 --- a/old/68329-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2290 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Redevelopment, by Wesley Long - -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: Redevelopment - -Author: Wesley Long - -Release Date: June 16, 2022 [eBook #68329] - -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 REDEVELOPMENT *** - - - - - - Redevelopment - - By WESLEY LONG - - Illustrated by Williams - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Astounding Science-Fiction, November 1944. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -John McBride hung the phone on the hook and wiped his face. This -face-wiping was not the usual gesture of a man whose face is dirty, or -covered with perspiration. It was the dazed sort of gesture made by a -man who has just been subjected to a surprise, and since the wiping -tended to remove the awed look, replacing it with a slightly dazed -smile, the surprise must not have been too unpleasant. - -He shook his head, as though to clear it, and then made his way through -Station 1 of the Plutonian Lens to the landing platform. Just inside -the gigantic lock, a medium-sized space-ship stood, and sitting on the -edge of the space lock, swinging her feet, was Sandra Drake. - -"Hello," she said brightly. - -"Hi," said John. This was entirely new. Sandra Drake was not usually -given to greeting men as anything but absolute imbeciles. "What brings -you out here? And how did you make it?" - -"Oh," said Sandra lightly, "I remembered the charge on Station 1 and -brought along a charge-compensator. We hardly sparked when we lit." - -One of the attendants said, in a low aside: "About three hundred -amperes! She'd call a major explosion a snap of the fingers! You could -hide an egg in the crater she made." - -But Sandra was still talking. "John," she said in a voice that would -have caused Shylock to give her his last gold piece, "I want help." - -"You need help? What can we do for you?" - -"It's pretty big," warned Sandra. Her low contralto dared him to ask -what it was--and also dared him to deny it to her. - -"Look, Drake, you did us a favor not too long ago. I think we owe you -one." - -Sandra smiled uncertainly. "I was afraid that that little stunt was -only repaying you for the first meeting we had." - -"Shucks," said McBride. "Anyone can make a mistake. Forget it." - -"But being pilot for you on the _Haywire Queen_ did me a lot of good, -too, you know. I got my license back for that one. We both gained." - -"I know. I'm glad we did. But what can you possibly want that is so big -that you're afraid to ask?" - -"Well, and maybe it isn't too big, either. Steve is a friend of both of -us, isn't he? I'd do anything for Steve--and wouldn't you?" - -"Yes. If any favors are owing, I think it is both of us to him." - -"That's what I'm getting at. I need help--for Steve." - -"You sure go a long way around to get it," grinned McBride. "Why didn't -you tell me that first instead of warning me about a favor?" - -"It's pretty big. But look, John, Steve took the _Haywire Queen_ on a -run to Sirius more than six weeks ago. He took along enough stuff to -stay a week; he said he'd be back after one hundred and seventy hours -of stay at, on, or near Sirius. This was just a trial hop to try the -new drive you cooked up and a longer, better equipped expedition would -be made later." - -"He did say something about it the last I saw him. He said he wasn't -particularly interested in exploring a new system. He'd leave that for -the explorers. He was interested in the drive and so on, and after he'd -paved the way for getting to the stars and had proven his drive, he'd -turn it over to those interested in colonization. But six weeks ago, -you say? Gosh, that's a long overstay, isn't it?" - -"It is. I happen to know he didn't take more supplies than he needed. -So I'm worried about him." - -"And where do I come in? You want me to go and help you look for him?" - -Sandra smiled wanly. "Hardly. I'm sure Enid would enjoy that, too. No, -John, what I want is for you to hook up the stuff I've got in the _Lady -Luck_ to make me one of those drives you invented so that I can go -myself." - -"You're taking a chance, you know." - -"That's where the favor part comes in. I want to go and look for Steve -Hammond. I need your drive. And if you don't help me, I'll go out in -space and tinker with the junk until I get it. I was there when you -cooked it up, remember, and I have a good memory for details." - -"But it's dangerous." - -"Is it? 'Might be dangerous' is what you mean. And I've been taking -harebrained chances for a long time, now. Do I or don't I?" - -McBride thought for a long time. "You get it," he said at last. "On one -condition. That you return in not less than one month. If you do not, -I'm going to take it upon myself to follow. So no matter what you find, -get back. Is that a promise?" - -"It is." - -"O.K., Sandra." McBride went to the wall of the big lock and spoke -over the communicator. "Tommy! Get Al and Westy and tell 'em to bring -their tools to the landing lock. We're going to juggle a few generators -around." - -To Sandra, he said: "I hope you've got plenty of what it takes." - -"I have," she said, sensing his meaning. "Matter of fact, I've got the -latest thing in alphatrons--two of 'em. And all the E-grav generators -we'll need are all tacked into what I think are the right places to -make this crate into a super-speed job. There are spares for all three -fields, and a couple of spare cupralum bars, too. Even part of the -wiring is done. I got just so far and then realized that I don't know -too much about gravitics. That's when I decided to come here for help." - -"Good thing," said McBride. "You might have killed yourself." - -Sandra didn't answer, and at that moment, McBride's men came with their -tools. Wordlessly, they nodded to Sandra and then followed McBride into -the _Lady Luck_. - - * * * * * - -McBride wasted no time. "Al," he said, "you fit the mag-G for vertical -bi-lobar field to cover the nose of the crate with the top lobe, and -Westy, you see that the mech-G generator in the nose induces the proper -vectors in the cupralum bar. I'll get Hank and Jim to touch up the -wiring and safety devices. We'll have this crate back in space within -the hour!" - -"Working a little fast, aren't you?" asked Sandra. - -"No. I don't think so. You've got most of the main stuff in place. It's -merely a matter of running the alphatron lines correctly--remember, -Sandra, alphons are not electrons and even low-alphon lines require -smooth, round bends, otherwise they squirt off in a crackling alphonic -discharge that will eat the side out of a steel tank. You've done most -of the heavy work. It just requires touching up here and there: getting -the proper field-intensity out of the gravitic generators and adjusting -the output of the alphatrons. Then there is some tricky relay work with -the safety circuits: it wouldn't improve your beauty to suddenly find -yourself sitting in the pilot's chair at seven thousand gravities." - -Sandra shuddered. - -"Oh, and look, since you've got the compensator. You'll find a -static-charge meter handy, perhaps. If there are planets around Sirius, -who knows what their intrinsic charge is. We'll loan you one so that -you can make planet without making a corona at the same time. Rarefied -air makes pretty lights when it comes under a few trillion volts--and -being a cathode is no worse than being an anode when your voltage is -running up into a bushel of zeroes--either is equally disconcerting. -How do you intend to spot any planets?" - -"I've got a pair of hemisphere lenses. I'll sail through the Sirian sky -at about forty thousand miles per second and expose for ten minutes. -The stars will still appear as spots, but anything close enough to be -planet-wise will make streaks unless it is dead ahead. - -"In which case you'll see it personally," grinned McBride. "That's the -best stunt I've heard of yet to find planets." - -"It isn't new. They used it to see if there were any planets outside -of Pluto several years ago, though they exposed for several hours while -running at ten or fifteen thousand. Steve has a pair of hemis with him, -too." - -Al came trudging in with a roll of alphon cable over his shoulder and -dropped it on the floor. "She's in--my end, anyway." - -"Running already?" - -"On test power. Drake had the bi-lobar field almost on the ball. Westy -found about the same thing. I think another couple of days and Drake -wouldn't have needed help." - -"I couldn't make it work," complained Sandra. - -"Well, you missed a few minor points," said Al. "Never, never run -alphon lines anywhere near a relay rack. It induces crosscurrents -in the windings and either makes 'em more sensitive or almost dead, -depending on the polarity. It won't hurt AC relays, but they aren't -used too much on a space-ship, so it's best to play safe." - -"I'll remember that, too," Sandra promised him. - -"O.K." - - * * * * * - -And so an hour passed, and another one added to it before the _Lady -Luck_ was fitted for super drive. It was finished, then, and Sandra -Drake was more than voluble in her thanks. - -"Never mind the thanks," said McBride, "or we'll be into that original -wrangle as to who owes who what kind of a favor. Where we sit out here -in the lens, favors are not weighted and set down as an asset. Forget -it. G'wan out there and get Steve Hammond--and do not forget for one -minute I'm coming after you if you're gone more than thirty days. Seven -hundred and twenty hours! Get me?" - -"Sure thing," said Drake. "And, John, you're pretty swell." - -"Nuts!" - -"All right, 'Nuts!' But some day I'm going to settle down and be a good -girl, and then you can believe me." - -"That, I'll believe when I see it. Go on, Sandra, go out and get Steve." - -"I'll get Steve," promised Sandra. "Oh, but definitely." - -"Well, good luck." - -"Thanks." - -The space lock closed, and the men retreated inside of the Station's -air lock. The gigantic doors swung open, letting a huge puff of air out -into space. Then the _Lady Luck_ lifted gracefully for all of her tons -of mass, and wafted out through the opened door. It was a dead-center -passage, one that could be made only with a master pilot running the -board personally. - -Then she was gone. Halfway around the lens she would have to go -before Sirius came into a safe line of flight. Sandra was taking no -more chances on contacting the surface of that mighty space-warp that -focused Sol on Pluto. - -McBride wondered: _Has Sandra learned her lesson?_ - - * * * * * - -One week passed. One week, filled to the very brim with all of those -routine things that make life full of wonder--as to whether there -isn't something better in the hereafter. The sheer millions of miles -of gravitic-induced space-warp refracted Sol's light endlessly and -perfectly to make for Pluto a synthetic sun that sported a dozen -darting points. On Pluto, men lived and worked and pursued happiness, -and the valuable ore came up from the ground in the Styx Valley and -created the need for Pluto and the lens. Over Mephisto, the smelters -cast their glow against the sky, which the inhabitants of Hell always -called "The Eternal Fire." Across the River Styx from Hell, Sharon lay -like a city of marble by day and a string of pearls by night. - -Nor was Hell, as seen from Sharon, any less beautiful. The twin cities -of Pluto, rivals in everything, fought as usual. And the bone of -contention for that particular week was a simple, age-old epithet. It -is a sorry fact that with the entire solar system running as it always -did, Sharon and Hell found it possible to make the headlines of all the -cities of the system by their arguments. - -Sharon lost. Hell succeeded in bringing to mind the fact that Hell, -Pluto, was a fine place to be, and the poor citizens of Sharon were -forced into second consideration. But then, Sharon had not been a -running business for centuries. - -_Go to Sharon!_ had no familiar ring. - -But the Road to Hell was a broad highway. - -McBride looked up as the door to his office opened, and his jaw fell -away down to here. He blinked. He looked again, and then jumped to his -feet. "She found you!" he said. - -"Who found who?" asked Steve Hammond. "Has that dame--?" - -"Drake? Yep. She came here and we fixed that drive for her. She's -changed, Steve. Even I can see it." - -"So she was here?" - -"You bet. Sandra has changed." - -"Has she?" - -"Why, Steve, she was actually worried about you. Near frantic." - -"Was she?" - -"She may have concealed it from you. After all, she's been a pretty -hard-boiled girl and the change is a little abrupt. She's probably -concealing her real feelings." - -"Would she?" - -"Probably. After all she's said about men in general, she's probably -fighting an internal battle. But she let it go right here." - -"Did she?" - -"Did she! Why, she tried to hook up the super drive herself, and -when it didn't work, she came here for help. I'd say she was really -interested in finding you. Going out of her way to help you, Steve, is -quite a difference from the Sandra as I know her." - -"Do you?" - -"Say! What is the matter with you? 'Has she?' 'Was she?' 'Would she?' -'Did she?' is that the best you can do?" - -"Look, John, how long ago was that?" - -"About a week or so." - -"What did she do, exactly." - -"She came here and told us that you've been a month or six weeks -overdue on that trip to Sirius. She wanted the drive fixed so that she -could go out and look for you. I offered to go along, but she said no. -So we fixed her drive and she took off like the devil was in her hair." - -"Mac, you're a sucker!" - -"Oh, now look--" - -"So she's changed, has she? Full of remorse. Sputtering like a leaky -alphatron field because she was hamstrung without a drive. Her heart -was reeking with love for me, and she wanted, if she couldn't have me, -to go out into the deep, unknown void of interstellar space and die -where I had died, so we could be together in that last, long resting -place." - -"What are--" - -"So John, please, for the small help I was to you, and for the love of -Steve that lies within both of us, give me the drive so that I may go -forth and seek he whom I crave. I want so little, John, and Steve is -such a fine fellow--" - -"Say! Have I been took?" - -"The proper word is 'Taken' and the answer is in the affirmative." - -"I'll be damned." - -"You probably will," smiled Hammond. "Mac, all that dame wanted was to -be the first human being to set foot on another, extra-solarian planet! -She wanted to be known as the first person to ever seek another star." - -"I take it that you haven't been further than a long stone's throw?" - -"Shucks. I haven't even been out to the Los Angeles city limits." - -"Darn her hide!" - -"Yeah. I've been looking for her--and I'm as big a dope as you. I -wanted to offer her the chance to pilot the _Haywire Queen_ out there. -I couldn't find her in the inner system and so I was going to take a -squint at Pluto. I stopped off to ask if you'd care to take the run -with me." - -"You know I would." - -"Well, that takes care of both answers. Drake is on her way--shucks, -she's there already--and the second part is you--and you want to go." - -"I'll ask Enid," said McBride. "Come on, we'll go right down and see -her now." - - * * * * * - -Enid McBride smiled. "His asking me is a matter of form," she told -Hammond. "Naturally he'll go. I think it will be swell for him to go. -He needs a vacation anyway." - -"But--" - -"No buts. You'll go and like it. I wouldn't want you to miss anything -like this for the world." - -"How about you?" - -Enid smiled again. "I'm no pioneer type, John. You know that. I'd be -out of place--and what would John Junior do? Oh, we could leave him -with Anna, if I wanted to go, but somehow this is as far as I care to -get from home--my folk's home, I mean. It's funny how after seven years -a woman still speaks of her parents' home as her home in spite of the -fact that she has a home and family of her own." - -"What'll you do?" - -"I'm going to take this opportunity to go home--my parents' home, I -mean. You see, Steve, Dad and John talk different languages. Dad is a -metal broker on Pluto. The only reason why he tolerated John at all was -because John's lens kept Dad in business. Dad wouldn't know a cupralum -pig from an acceleration cushion, though he deals in a million tons -of the stuff every year. It's all on paper. On the other hand, John -wouldn't know how to sell the stuff, but he sure can make it do tricks. -So they sit and glare at one another and each one wonders how the other -makes a living. Dad's money is obvious, and John's success is equally -well-known, but how and why are lost on each other. - -"So I keep 'em as far apart as I can." - -"I get it," smiled Hammond. "Pretty bad, hey?" - -Enid laughed, "This ring is pure iridium. Dad was horrified because -he first thought that iridium was radioactive like radium and that -I'd get burned or worse. Then he found out it wasn't--and offered to -buy a real, honest-to-goodness platinum ring if John couldn't afford -it. Then he discovered that iridium is so rare that they do not have -a market price per gram and that was all right, but he also confused -it with iodine, and worried about its chemical action on my hand. Poor -Dad still is not sure about it, so he has to inspect it every time he -sees it to ascertain whether or not it is turning green, or my finger -is falling off, or that it hasn't sublimed and disappeared. You can't -detect the wearing, so Dad then accuses John of either buying a new one -every time I come home or making me keep it in a safe while I'm here." - -"Cupralum, to Enid's father, is something that he shunts around by -signing papers and which, if he shunts fast enough, will increase his -bank account, though if the other guy shunts faster, will cause him no -end of deficit. Space, to him, is something that you can't breathe, and -the stars are little bits of brightness that twinkle on a clear night. -Oh, we get along," smiled McBride. "After all, he's Grandpa now, and -John Junior is likely to get a slab of Cupralum. Preferred, for his -birthday. The kid'll prefer something he can chew on, I'll bet." - -"So that's neither here nor there," said Enid. "You take your space -hop, and I'll take Little Johnny to Pluto to see his grandparents. -Frankly, Steve, I've been wondering just what excuse I could use to run -off alone for a month. This makes it perfect." - -"We'll stop at Hell on the way back and pick you up," said McBride. - -"Fine. How soon are you leaving?" - -Hammond said: "Anytime he's ready. How soon can you cut loose from the -lens, John?" - -"Give me an hour to get things cleaned up and I'll be on the beam." - -"Right." - -"I'll pack you a bag," said Enid. "Have any preferences?" - -"Shirts, shoes, socks, and shaving kit, mostly." - -"Want your dinner clothing?" - -"Oh sure. And pack my swimming suit, too. Also my tennis racket, and -see that the golf bag has plenty of spare balls. Have Timmy wax the -skis and sharpen my skates, and I'll also take along the shotgun, a pup -tent, the oil stove, a fur coat, a quart of whiskey, six lemons, an -orange, a lime, and a bottle of Angostura. Might pack me a light lunch, -too." - -"Don't bother, Enid. We've got most of that stuff with us," laughed -Hammond. - -"All right," chuckled Enid. "He'll get one shirt and a bar of soap; -one pair of socks, and a bar of soap; and so on--with a bar of soap. -Well, keep 'em coasting, Steve, and see that he doesn't run off with -any red-headed witches." - -"If we see any, I'll bring 'em back for me," laughed Steve. "See you -later." - -McBride was not as abrupt as he sounded. His business clean-up -consisted of dictating a letter, putting all things in the hands of -his chief assistant. The rest of the time he spent with Enid, saying -good-by. Whatever transpired, whatever they discussed, whatever plans -they made--and they must have talked of many things and made many -plans, for in spite of the familiarity of running all over the solar -system, this was a big step, indeed, since for the first time in -history, man and wife would be light-years apart--they did it well -enough in private so that their parting was simple and quick. - -John kissed Enid adequately, and said: "Stay healthy." - -Enid laughed and said: "Stay whole!" - -And then McBride was in the _Haywire Queen_ and the air lock was -cracked. The big ship lifted gently and zipped out of the lock with a -casual disregard for distances. Unlike Drake's precision take-off, the -_Haywire Queen_ went through the open door with the air of wanting to -leave quickly because there were better things to do than worry about -hitting the center plus or minus an inch. - -Enid pointed out the Dog Star to John McBride, Junior. "That's where -your daddy is going," she told him. Junior McBride was more interested -in the teething bone that he had clamped between toothless gums, than -he was in the stellar regions. - -He knew his daddy would be back. - - * * * * * - -The _Haywire Queen_ approached and passed the speed of light from the -hard side, and her terrific velocity dropped down to a figure that was -expressible in miles per second without running out of zeroes. Below, -and thirty degrees from the axis of the ship, Sirius and the Dark -Companion beckoned from less than a thousand million miles. The lower -dome of the ship sported the faces of the men, who were laying on their -stomachs, looking down at the splendor of the first binary ever seen -by man. Hammond mentioned it, as a matter of fact. - -"How about Drake?" asked McBride. - -"We're still the first _men_," returned Hammond. - -"Wouldn't Drake howl to hear you say that," laughed McBride. "She's -been suffering under the fact that every time she did anything new, -she had to qualify it by saying: 'The first woman--' Well, she's got -something this time." - -"Think it'll satisfy her?" - -"Not until someone proves definitely that Thomas Edison, Franklin -Roosevelt, William Shakespeare, George Washington, Richard the First, -Julius Caesar, and Jack Frost were all women." - -"Well, let's get the hemis working. We'll never know whether Sirius has -planets until we do. I'd hate to sit in the _Queen_ and go through all -the growing pains of looking for planets by observation." - -"Yeah, that would take years. What's our velocity, Larry?" - -Timkins looked at the velocimeter; squinted through the instrument -quickly, adjusting the thumb-screw; and then said: "Thirty-four -thousand and dropping at one hundred feet per second, per second, per -second." - -"We can get good pix of anything close enough to the primary to support -life--also big enough, too--in about thirty minutes exposure," said -Hammond. "We'll take two shots in each direction, since I've got six -hemispherical cameras. That'll give us complete overlapping coverage -and double protection against dust streaks. Let's go. Also cut the -drive by half." - -For thirty minutes the ship plunged on through the Sirian system at the -double deceleration. Then for fifteen minutes, the entire personnel -was in the darkroom, waiting for the first glimmer of the plates. -And at the time that the plates were finished, the velocity of the -_Haywire Queen_ had dropped from thirty thousand-odd miles per second -to velocities normally used in mere interplanetary travel. - -The super drive was cut and the ship coasted under standard drive at -thirty feet per second, per second, acceleration, and the men hung -the plates up in the darkroom and began to inspect them for telltale -streaks. - -"Here's one," said McBride. "About four hundred million miles from -Sirius." - -"And another," offered Larry, plying dividers and log tables, "about -three thousand million." - -"Got another," offered Hammond, "but it's doubtful as a possible -landing place. Almost ten thousand million mites from the primary. Bet -it's colder than a pawn-broker's heart." - -"Couple more on my plate," said McBride. He went to the formerly empty -solar map and added the discoveries according to scale. "But that one -at four hundred million is my best bet." - -"Sounds reasonable," agreed Hammond. "Sirius would support humanoid -life at that distance. Let's concentrate on it." - -"Good. It's in fine position to be concentrated on. Let's see, now, -what should we be looking out for?" - -"Might be seetee matter," suggested Larry. - -"Good. How do we find out?" - -"We don't until the last ditch. But it is the most important, -nevertheless. We wait until everything else has been disposed of and -then make for the planet. Just outside of the atmosphere we heave 'em a -rock or two and watch what happens." - -"A slow moving rock?" grinned McBride. - -"Doesn't really matter. If it is slow enough to keep from -friction-incandescence, fine. But the eruption made by seetee contact -is quite a bit different, spectroscopically. Also we can check the -explosion with counters. The by-products of such a bit of eruption is -full of nuclear radiations. Mere incandescence is just that and nothing -more." - -"Well, that's that. We can wait. What's next?" - -"Radioactivity. How much and what kind? Atmosphere. How much and what -kind? Et cetera. Also how much and what kind? Do we intend to land?" - -"I don't know. After all, we came for the express purpose of trying out -our drive on an interstellar basis, you know. It can be done with ease, -neatness, and dispatch. Seems to me that a landing on one of those -planets will have to be made attractive or we won't. We're equipped -for all kinds of spacial research, power research, and so on. But -we're not equipped for much planetary investigation, exploration, or -diplomatically involved intrigue." - -"Going to let Drake get away with being the only person making the -first landing on an alien star system?" - -"I don't give a care what happens to Drake. She can come busting in -with the safety valve tied down if she wants to. Some day she'll -learn that sticking that pretty little snoot of hers into strange -places is a fine way to have it knocked right off of the front of her -face. We're interested in technicalities, not in getting involved -in a storybook adventure. Meanwhile, let's take it strictly on the -easy side and investigate everything from the solar radiation from -Sirius to the secondary radiation produced by Sirian radiation in the -super-stratosphere." - - * * * * * - -Larry began to fiddle with the radio. There was nothing on the -electronic radio at all, and Larry said: "Well, didn't expect it, -really. No culture worthy of the name would be using radio in space. -Too inefficient. And if they got off of their planets, they'd be using -gravitics." He turned to the space radio, and covered the communication -bands of the electrogravitic spectrum, switching from band to band -quickly. Halfway across the third band, the panoramic tuner came to a -definite stop and retraced itself minutely, vacillating a bit until -the signal came in clear and clean. - -"What happened to Drake?" asked Timkins. "Listen. Here she is." - -The gravitic radio was calling: "--_Haywire Queen_. Calling _Haywire -Queen_. This is Sandra Drake calling the _Haywire Queen_. This is an -automatic transmission set for break-in. As soon as this call gets to -you, answer please. The answer will register here and we will be able -to make this two-way. This is Sandra Drake--" - -"Uh-huh," said Hammond, turning down the gain to a reasonable level. -"Larry, shoot her an answer." - -Timkins snapped on the transmitter, tuned it to the same band, and -said: "This is the _Haywire Queen_ calling Sandra Drake. _Haywire -Queen_ answering Drake. Come in, Sandra Drake. Answer." - -They listened to the automatic broadcast for some minutes, and then in -the middle of a sentence--"This is Sandra Drake calling the _Haywire -Queen_--" _Click._ "Hello, fellows. Got here finally, didn't you? Glad -to have you come in. What's new?" - -Hammond took the mike. "Hello, Sandra," he answered. "Nothing new. -Where are you?" - -"On planet number five. That is the one that I think is somewhere about -five hundred million miles from Sirius. Know it?" - -"We think so. It's dead ahead. Yeah, wait a minute. Larry has a -directional bearing on you and it is the one we're approaching. That -takes care of that." - -"Well, come on in and I'll build you a cup of tea." - -"You find everything all right?" - -"Everything's perfect. Only thing, they would like to have someone here -that knows all about the gravitics. They're not too sharp. Frankly, -neither am I, so you're the guys who'll have to do it." - -"You've been there quite a bit," said Hammond. "How's conditions?" - -"Pretty good. Air is O.K., though slightly pungent in smell. The people -are very much like humans, though they have their big differences which -take them out of the human class." - -"For instance?" - -"Well, they are all covered with a funny kind of hair. It's a sort of -half-hair, half-feathers kind of stuff. It's as soft as a baby's scalp -and on a dog or something like that it would be beautiful. I'd like a -coat made of it, frankly." - -"I'll bet they appreciate your offer to wear one of 'em for a winter -coat," said Hammond dryly. "You haven't changed a bit, have you, Drake?" - -"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Sandra. "After all, I was merely trying -to explain the beauty of their skin." - -"You gave yourself away," said Steve Hammond. "Like as usual, Sandra -Drake thinks of everything in accordance with how it will couple to -her, or her name, or her reputation." - -"Now, you're being hard," complained Sandra. "Give me a break, Steve. -You shouldn't take issue with me for a statement of that kind. After -all, it was just a sort of slip of the tongue. I'm not really thinking -of skinning one of them for my coat." - -"If I were you," put in McBride, "I'd think hard of one other thing -that might be closer to home. D'jever think that you are in no position -to do any skin collecting? The odds are agin' it. But, Sister Drake, -those birds are! You might enhance the beauty of one of their females -some day. How would the pelt of Sandra Drake look on the living room -floor, nine light-years from Terra? Take it clean and easy, Drake, or -you might not get back to Terra with that satiny, soft, practically -flawless hide of yours intact." - -"What do you mean, 'practically flawless'?" snapped Sandra. - -"Well," drawled McBride, "I've never seen all of it." - -"Why don't you give me the benefit of the doubt?" - -"I wouldn't give you any benefit of any doubt," McBride told her. -"You're probably concealing something." - -"Why--" the radio broke down into a series of liquid, spluttering -sounds as Sandra strove to keep that throaty contralto from sounding -like a fishmonger's. - -"Whistle," chuckled Timkins. "Then count ten. Then let's get back to -the problem of the Sirians." - -"Take it, Sandra," laughed Hammond. "We were only kidding you. -Or--can't you take it?" - -The spluttering died, and then that throaty laugh came back again. It -was slightly forced and they knew it. The chances are that Sandra knew -they knew it, but she didn't want to give them any more reason for -laughter at her expense. Then she spoke, directly and honestly, both -factors due to the fact that she was sure of herself and now could -afford to laugh at them. - -"Well, stop worrying about Sandra's hide," she told them. "This -gang down here are fine people except that they can't talk Terran. -They'll do anything for me that I can make them understand. That's the -trouble--getting them to understand. But that's coming. I'm teaching -them to speak Terran. That should fix things up fine." - -"Why not learn to speak Sirian?" asked McBride. - -"Why? Let them do the work. Learning a new language is not Drake's idea -of a year's fun." - -"O.K., sister," grinned Hammond, winking at McBride. "But you'll find -out that there is something to those old adages. I'm thinking of the -one that begins: 'When in Rome, et cetera.' Those old boys used to dust -off some old saws, but there is a lot of meat on them." - -"And contradictions. No, fellows, Sandra doesn't like talking in -something that sounds like a phonograph record played backwards. -Besides, these fellows have a pretty sharp capacity for understanding. -I've been here for a week or so, and already they can understand a lot -of what I say. Frankly, better than I could." - -"Play it your way, then," said McBride. "But look, you say they're nice -guys?" - -"Sure. When I landed, they gave me the old send-off. I was taken to -the royal house and given the prize suite. I'm given everything, as I -said before. They look upon me as the guy who'll give their world the -benefit of the Terran and Solarian scientific achievements. That's not -true, of course. It'll be fellows like yourselves who really understand -it. But nevertheless, I'm the harbinger of spring. I'm the guy who -pointed the way for the rest of Sol's children." - -"The Moses in the bulrushes?" - -"Sort of like. I'm just lucky, and I know it. If I'd come second, they -wouldn't pay any attention to me at all. But since I came first and -now that I'm talking to my friends, they will obviously think that -I'm calling for them to come and help them ... their world's name is -Telfu, by the way ... Telfans out of their scientific rut. They have -the glimmerings of the gravitic spectra, but it's like the difference -between the Leyden Jar and the electron microscope. It'd take a hundred -years before they got off of Telfu if we hadn't got here first." - -"If they're really O.K.," said McBride, "we'll help." - -"Thanks," said Sandra simply. "That'll be for me, too, you know." - -"Yes?" - -"Sure. They'll thank me for coming first, even though they know I'm not -the bright guy with the answers under my skull. I've got a good thing -here, and I know all of you well enough to know that you won't spoil -it." - -"No?" - -"Sure you won't. After all, there isn't one of you that would care a -rap for what they have to offer in the way of historic gain. The old -moola, sure; and there's plenty of it to be had for all of us. You'll -go down in their histories as the geniuses that gave them a boot in the -tail worth a hundred years of solid research. I, and I'm sure you'll -permit me, will ride in on the tail of your coat." - -"O.K. Well, we'll come in. But not for long this time. After all, -we're interested in tinkering with the new drive, not making diplomatic -overtures to a bunch of aliens. We'll leave the latter for the Solarian -Government." - -"How soon'll you be landing?" - -"Not too sudden," said Hammond. "We're going to make a few space-checks -first. We're getting cautious in our old age." - -"Shucks," said Sandra disparagingly, "there's nothing to it at all." - -"Well, could be, but we'll run this show our way. There is no objection -to your leaving?" - -"No. Definitely not. They'd be sorry to see me go, but it is personal -affection and the possibility for their ultimate gain that makes it so. -They wouldn't dare detain me even though they might consider it. To my -knowledge, they haven't even considered it." - -"Why wouldn't they dare?" asked McBride. - -"Afraid. After all, they know that both of us came from a star nine -light-years away. They haven't even got the primary drive, let alone -the third-derivative drive. Any untoward move to a Solarian would bring -the devil himself down about their ears and they know it." - -"I suppose so. We could drop plenty of stuff on 'em with a half dozen -space cans. And a couple of monolobar mechano-gravitics would scramble -up the works of any fleet of stratosphere planes they could send -against us. Never gave the gravitic armament much thought, but it could -be done. O.K., Sandra, as soon as we sniff the air and check our gas -and water, we'll be in." - -"I'm going back to bed, then," said Sandra. "Slip me another call -before you land and I'll have the village band out to meet you. That's -a promise." - - * * * * * - -Steve Hammond turned to McBride after Sandra had clicked her -transmitter off, and said: "No use checking for seetee matter, is -there? Seems to me that Drake would have found it out the hard way." - -"No, we can skip the seetee. But Drake may not worry about -radioactivity but we will. We'll check for it; I'd like for John Jr. -to have a brother or sister some day--with the proper amount of arms, -legs, fingers, toes, ears, eyes, noses--" - -"What's the proper amount of noses for a son?" asked Hammond. - -"One," grinned McBride. - -"A kid with two noses could smell a lot," observed Timkins. - -"_Phew!_" said McBride holding his nose. "That was fierce. Man the -counter and check the region for hot stuff, Larry. Looks like the -landing of LaDrake saves us a lot of work. The physical properties -of ... Telfu ... seem to be all right. So we'll go to work on the -electrical properties, the nuclear properties, and also see if there's -anything running around loose in the gravitics other than the inherent -mechanogravitic property of matter." - -Larry Timkins set up a series of plungers on the control board and -locked the pre-set operations into the autopilot. "This," he said, -"will hang us on a logarithmic spiral approaching Telfu. While we're -roaming around the planet, we'll check the hot-properties of the -neighborhood. Any comment?" - -"Nope. Give 'em the works." - -Timkins drove the coupler button home and the _Haywire Queen_ swung -gently to follow the pre-determined course. - -"You know, Steve, there's a cod-liver-oil smell about this, somewhere." - -"So? What's fishy?" - -"The old tub isn't behaving like a lady." - -"What do you mean?" - -"There's a big drop in efficiency compared to when we left the -Plutonian Lens." - -"How much?" - -"Not too much. But it's getting progressively worse." - -"Y'don't suppose we've hit upon some saturation factor in the secondary -drive?" - -"I'm not saying. What do we know about it? What does it work on?" - -"Glibly speaking, it works on the inherent qualities of space. We -wrap ourselves up in a space-warp of sorts, and then shoot out -a couple of hooks that catch on to the gravitic-propagational -continuum that permits the planetary masses to exert Newton's Law of -Universal Gravitation. It has been called 'sub-ether' but that is like -multiplying with unreal numbers. After all, the 'ether' has never been -defined, isolated, explained, or held in one hand. If the prime 'ether' -has never been satisfactorily established, we shouldn't go on building -our houses on a foundation that doesn't have any sound basis." - -"Both electronic and gravitic spectra must rely upon something for -propagation," objected McBride. "For lack of taking it apart, brick by -brick, and feeling each stone, let's continue to call them 'ether' and -'sub-ether.'" - -"O.K., sport. But to get back to the drive. Have we got a saturation -point? Or some sort of gravitic fatigue? Either of these would be -indicated by a gradual decrease in efficiency." - -"Larry, set up a sigma recorder and let's see if we can check the curve -of inefficiency. It's getting worse, you say?" - -"Apparently. I didn't notice it before. But it is quite apparent now. -Must be non-linear, because if this falling-off had been linear, I -would have noticed it long before this. An increasing curve would not -be noticeable until a sufficient interval had been passed for it to -become evident. Yeah, I'll slap a sigma recorder on him and see what -makes." - -"Meanwhile, let's get busy with the detectors." - -The counters clicked for a few minutes, and McBride finally reported -that Telfu was no higher than Terra in radioactivity. Hammond -established the intrinsic electronic charge on Telfu as being only a -few million volts negative with respect to Terra. - -"Not enough to worry about," he said. "The first touch with the -stratosphere layers will take care of that without a glimmer. Wouldn't -dare without an atmosphere, but we have plenty of air to cushion the -charge and let it leak off in the upper layers where it is ionized by -Sirius' radiations. What's with the gravitics?" - -"Bit of something in the electrogravitic. Can't place it. Not enough to -worry about." - -"What is it like?" - -"Well, it is not E-grav radiation. It's a sort of dip, or valley, in -the radiation-pattern of this part of space. A place where the normal -density of E-grav is less." - -"How much?" - -"You tell me. The free-running gravitons are never high enough to do -more than flicker the finest instrument. The threshold is way, way, -way, way down in the mud. So here's a place where we have less." - -"Sort of like having nothing and wanting to share it with someone?" - -"Not much better. Oh well, a lack of free E-grav energy surely isn't -anything to write home about. Might be a factor of the Sirian Double. -After all, who knows what kind of effect that little, dark-red, -dense-as-hell devil will do to gravitic threshold levels." - -"So it's a safe bet--" - -Timkins came running in, waving a sheet of cross-ruled paper. "Hell's -bells," he yelled. "We're it! Our drive is approaching zero efficiency -as the third power of--" - - * * * * * - -Above, in the working innards of the _Haywire Queen_, great circuit -breakers crashed open. Smaller switches added to the din as they -clicked open, one after the other. Pilot lights on the polished black -panel began to glow an angry red and alarm bells created such a din -that speech became almost impossible. - -The drive went off. - -And the men and their portable equipment left the solid floor and began -to float aimlessly across the room in midair. - -Hammond clutched wildly at a spectrograph, and caught it. - -"Catch!" he yelled at McBride, hurling the heavy instrument at John. - -McBride folded himself over the instrument with a grunt of escaping -breath. The act did two things. It sent Hammond across the room to -the emergency panel in one direction and McBride went in the opposite -direction to the navigator's calculating machine. McBride caught the -navigator's table at the same time that Hammond caught the emergency -panel. - -Steve fought with the emergency panel and succeeded in setting up about -eleven feet per second deceleration. McBride lowered the spectrograph -to the table and seated himself in the chair. - -"Woah, Nellie," grunted McBride as the alarm bells ceased. "Where do we -go from here and how fast?" - -"I dunno, but we're leaving both Sirius and Sol at a terrific velocity -and a deceleration of eleven feet per. From a mental calculation of -the fundamental drive at this velocity, I'd say it would take about -fourteen years to get down to a stop." - -"What happened to the emergency relays?" - -"They worked," said Steve dryly. "Yeah, they worked. But the -inefficiency extends to the fundamental drive, too, it seems. I'm -beginning to think that this is not inherent." - -"That's a quick decision." - -"Sure. But the prime drive is O.K. The meters say so. It's just -inefficient as the devil which is not true of a good drive. Holy smoke! -We're getting efficient again!" - -Timkins picked himself off of the floor painfully. "Uh-huh," he -grunted. "Also, we're leaving Telfu behind at a fierce rate. Can you -keep that eleven feet prime acceleration for a bit?" - -"We're going to." - -"I'm going to dash madly upstairs and hang the sigma recorder on again. -Something is slippery here." - -"What's our velocity at the present time?" asked McBride. - -"Up in the fifteen thousand miles per second," answered Hammond. - -"Hm-m-m. Then at what point with respect to Telfu did the drive go -out?" - -"About a million and a half miles, roughly." - -"A minute and forty seconds from spot to conjunction," mused McBride. -"If, little playmate, we can pet power again after one more minute and -thirty seconds-odd, we'll feel more or less sure that it is Telfu and -not us. Larry!" he yelled. "Any sign of upswing?" - -"Yup," said Larry. "Sure thing!" - -"Set the super drive up on test power with automatics to turn it on as -soon as the overload point is passed," said McBride. "We won't blow any -fuses with test power." - - * * * * * - -Hammond hit the test buttons and then settled down to wait. Then the -drive cut in again, and they all slid down in their chairs. - -McBride grinned. "They must not like us." - -"Something must not," laughed Hammond shakily. - -"Telfu?" asked Timkins entering with the last sigma curve. - -"What does it say?" - -"We passed through a negative peak. We hit a new low in efficiency at -conjunction with Telfu." - -"How much?" - -"Less than a half percent." - -"Jeepers. That is a new low in gravitics. Can we think our way out of -this one?" - -"Why?" - -"As much as I dislike seeing Drake, I'd not force her to live on an -alien planet. I'd feel better at marooning her for a couple of years if -I knew we could go in and get her." - -McBride laughed. "Got to have the last laugh, hey?" - -"Meaning?" - -"Marooning her wouldn't be half so much fun if it is impossible to get -her out. Marooning her when we have the means to get her out puts it -strictly in our own lap. Right?" - -"I suppose so. We could laugh at her honestly then." - -"She's strictly a stinker," agreed McBride. "I get that cod-liver-oil -smell now. All that soft soap and palaver she was handing out about -our being the boys with the brains. We were the guys who would -be responsible for lifting a struggling civilization up from the -primordial slime by our brain and our genius. Baloney!" - -"I get it," growled Hammond. "She's stuck. God knows how she -landed--probably emergency and shot her load of battery juice. Anyway, -she could land under emergency battery, but taking off is a megawatt of -another color, battery-wise. They aren't equipped to make a take-off. -Idea being the old one--don't start if you can't stop." - -"She's a bright girl in her own stinking way," said McBride. "She's -been around this gang long enough to know that if a way is possible, -we'll think of it. Oh, sure, that's a brag but we've done pretty well -so far. So inveigle us into the same trap she's in and then ride out -with us. She'd roast in the brimstone of the nether regions before -she'd wail for help honestly. But if we get stuck with her she's got -two outs. One, we may be able to think our way out. Two, at least we -are Terrans like she is." - -"Meaning?" asked Hammond darkly. - -"Frankly, Sandra Drake is an awful lot of woman, and she knows it. -She'd make a plaster saint turn to whistle at her if she turned on the -old charm. And with no competition, we'd be fighting one another for -the privilege of polishing her shoes." - -"Fine future." - -"No thanks." - -"I'll have a bit of that, too. Well, how can we slip her the old -triple-cross?" - -"Steve, you'd throw a woman to the lions?" - -"With that woman, I'd hate to do it. The S.P.C.A, would haul me in -to court for subjecting poor, dumb, defenseless lions to cruelty and -inhuman tortures. You're darned right I'd heave her into the drink. But -I want to do it in such a way that Sandra Drake will know that it was -far from purely coincidental." - -"O.K., Steve. We're with you. Larry, throw the _Haywire Queen_ into an -orbit around Telfu just outside of the danger zone and slap another -recorder on the drive. Make it a high velocity orbit, powered all the -way. We should be able to circle Telfu in about fifteen minutes with -the super drive. Check?" - -"Sure. Here we go." - -"Meanwhile, Steve, we'll check a few items on the drive itself. I'm -beginning to suspect a huge and celestial soak-up of gravitic power in -the region of Telfu." - -"We can set up the small, experimental drive-model complete with power -recorders, spring balances, and torque measuring devices and work on -that." - -"Swell. That's the ticket. Let's go." - -Hammond hauled the model from the cabinet and plugged in a complex -cable from the master control panel. He juggled the dials until the -gadget started to work, and then they began to check the efficiency of -the device. - -McBride muttered: "Power generating equipment is running O.K." - -"Yeah," agreed Hammond. "Everything's on the beam from the explosion -chamber to the inverted alphatron. We've got plenty of potential power -handy. Larry, zoop in close and check the power equipment on a pure, -resistive load." - -"You mean shut off the drive and coast through the zero region with no -drive and with the gravitron running at full output on resistance load?" - -"Right. This fishy smell has a rare odor. I think we're on the trail of -it." - -"O.K., Steve. Can you wait about three minutes? The first encirclement -of Telfu will be over then and we'll have our first experimental curve." - -"We'll wait." - - * * * * * - -The sigma curve was completed, and Larry circled far out and made a -fast run toward the planet, in a course similar to the one they used on -their first try. - -Meanwhile, Hammond looked at the curve and grinned. - -McBride looked over his shoulder and grinned, too. - -Hammond slapped the curve down on a drawing board and began to plot -efficiency against a polar co-ordinate. The curve was roughly circular, -but exhibited a tendency towards a cardioid. McBride played with the -figures for a minute, and as he opened his mouth to say something, the -_Haywire Queen_ gave that sickening lurch and changed abruptly from -super drive to the emergencies. - -"Darn!" said McBride. "This everlasting acceleration changing business -is going to make a nervous wreck of me yet." - -"Also physical if it is taken in too large doses," grinned Steve. "The -human anatomy can accept velocity without limit--well, up to the point -where the ultimate velocity is reached. We've gone a goodly hunk of -stuff over the speed of light." - -"That's questionable." - -"We came over from Terra in a lot less time than light. That'll be -arriving nine years from now." - -"Uh-huh. But don't forget we wrapped ourselves in a space-warp and ran -the space-warp. I think that we can safely assume that the warp is -another space and that we were not traveling better than the speed of -light with respect to our own space." - -"Whoof! What a theory! Drag that one past again, slow enough so I can -climb aboard." - -"You got it," laughed McBride. "And if it smells, you fling out a -better one for us to shoot holes in." - -"O.K. But to get back to velocity, the human anatomy can stand -velocity without limit. Period. Argue if you like, Mac, but that's my -statement. No one has ever been able to prove that velocity alone is -harmful to man, beast, bird, or fish!" - -"I'm as silent as the tomb." - -"Acceleration can be adapted to--in meagre doses. A man can stand up -under 4-G. On his tummy, lying down, 8- or 9-G isn't too hard on him. -Dunk him up to the breathing-vents in a good grade of oxidized hydrogen -and 15-G is possible without too much harm." - -"Yes. O Learned Scholar." - -"But, students," said Hammond standing up and taking a bow. He was -interrupted by the resumption of the super drive which, being set at -ninety feet per second per second apparent instead of eleven feet, -caught him off balance and almost dropped him on the end of his nose. - -"What I was saying," laughed McBride, "was the effect that rates of -change of acceleration have upon the anatomy." - -"As I demonstrated," grinned Hammond from the floor, "it is changes in -acceleration that cause havoc. It causes jerks--" - -"To sit on the floor," chuckled McBride. "Get up. Stop playing on the -floor, Steve, and take a squint at this curve. Plotting an exponential -factor for the ordinates of the graph, using Telfu for the center, we -find a locus of equal power-soak-up out here--which I estimate to be a -little more than two hundred thousand miles!" - -"Ah, the wonders of analyst," said Hammond. "With a defunct drive and -a wild idea, Jawn McBride hauls a satellite out of the sky and plants -it--Here!" - -"What do you think?" - -"Who am I to argue with people who understand the mysteries of A to the -Xth power equals zero, divided by the date of the month times the ace -of spades, equals eleven o'clock. All joking aside, Mac, it looks right -to my uninitiated mind." - -"Does, hey?" - -"Sure. That means that said moonlet--I say moonlet because our pix -show that Telfu hasn't anything worthy of the name of a full, honest -moon--must be high in cupralum." - -"Sort of hard to believe." - -"Yeah, but not impossible. It's quite believable that the right alloys -should be found _au naturel_, so to speak. There's nothing tricky about -cupralum. Mix it together and smelt it down--_voila_!--cupralum. A -totally useless and good-for-nothing alloy prior to the discovery of -the gravitic spectrum." - -"Must be fairly large," suggested Timkins. - -"Sure--according to man-made standards. Celestially, it might be a mere -scrap of dirt. A sub-sub-sub-microscopic bit of cosmic dust less than a -hundred miles in diameter." - -"Ugh," grunted Larry. "You make man and his works sort of -insignificant." - -"We are. Do the planets care what we do on their miles-thick hides? Do -the suns care that we wonder at them? Does the cosmos give a rap that -we chase from planet to planet and from sun to sun?" - -"You make it sound as though they are capable of thinking." - -"If they did, we wouldn't know about it; and they wouldn't know we -existed. Proportionally, man is smaller than the filterable virus. So -we have a slab of cupralum, which is--according to Mac--Here! That's -fine. It blankets Telfu like a complete shroud, as far as the good old -gravitics go." - -Larry Timkins looked up from a page of scrawled equations. "A slab of -cupralum a hundred miles in diameter, rotating in the mechanogravitic -field thrown out by Sirius would certainly soak up every bit of power. -Must be a slick tie-in. The gravitron puts our O.K. on a resistive -load. Hooked to the drive, everything goes _phhht_." - -"Sure. That's part of the trouble. It's the drive, coupled with the -general gravitic interference cut up by Soaky." - -"Soaky?" - -"I have hung a name on the satellite. Heretofore it has been nameless. -We have named it _Soaky_." - - * * * * * - -"There is a slight discrepancy between this cardioid and the calculated -curve," said McBride. "Obviously, the cusp would be on a line between -Telfu and Soaky, projected from the satellite through the planet to the -far side. We orbited around the planet and were closer to Soaky on the -side he was on--" - -"Is that syllogistic reasoning?" asked Hammond. "Or sheer conjecture? -How about shadow?" - -"This is quite a wide effect." - -"Any shading of Soaky's sphere of influence would tend to deepen the -cusp like that. That cardioid is such a curve; there's no reason to -doubt that Telfu would tend to shade the field." - -"Larry. Can you calculate the field absorption of a standard model -planet with the above figures?" - -"The attenuation?" - -"Yes." - -"Sure. It'd help if I knew the chemical components, mass, physical -constants, electrical properties, gravitic properties, and nuclear -emanations. How close do you want it?" - -"Plus or minus twenty percent." - -"I can give that to you without calculating," said Timkins. "Telfu is -similar to Terra within twenty percent. Terra's attenuation amounts -to twenty-nine percent; in other words, the attenuation due to the -presence of Terra in the light-line between source and measuring device -is twenty-nine percent greater than it would be if Terra were not there -and the spacial attenuation only cut the strength." - -"Thirty percent, roughly, because it's easier to figure," said McBride. -He made calculations, set them down linearly as to the magnitudes, and -then transferred the vectors to the curve. - -"That's one large bit closer," he said. "We'll better that, some day. -But for now, playmates, I've had my Idea-for-the-Week. Let's cut us -another caper around Telfu at right angles to this curve. One side will -pass the peak and the opposite side will cut the cusp. Same distance, -same speed, same everything. Follow?" - -"At some distance." - -"I believe that we will find a place where the cusp really comes down -closer to Telfu," said McBride. "How much drive inefficiency can we -tolerate and still lift?" - -"From Telfu? Not enough to keep the breakers from blowing. And don't -say wire 'em shut. They're right on the ragged edge now, on account -of we know what we're doing and do not want to blow circuit breakers -during experiments unless they are really in trouble. But the -gravitron-cupralum driving equipment is not our only ace in the bucket. -The emergency batteries, though inefficient, can still put us down -and get us off. Providing, of course, that your map there gives us a -chance." - -"Not knowing the orbital constants of Soaky; the plane of Soaky's -ecliptic: the rotational features of Telfu, we are taking chances. One -rotation of Telfu might be plenty safe if we hit it on the nose. Two -might put us out here and then we'd have to go through seven years of -astronomical investigations before we found the place where that cusp -came in again--and we'd probably have to wait anything from sixteen -to nine thousand years before Soaky passed overhead again. The latter -might get boring. But we can take a chance on one day, plus whatever -angular movement Soaky makes with Telfu as center." - -"Think Soaky's ecliptic is fairly close to Telfu's equator?" - -"Within twenty or thirty degrees. I'm assuming the old theory of the -Planitesimal Hypothesis. Sling out your molten stuff, let it condense, -and you'll find everything rotating in the same direction in about the -same plane. Might be clockwise or counter-clockwise, but only one way -per solar system. One moon in all of the junk that goes around Sol is -contrariwise--and they think that was a captured wanderer. The greatest -obliquity is somewhere near forty degrees, most of the large planets -being less than ten, I think." - -"Celestially, I believe it may be impossible for a satellite to hold -an orbit whose plane is vertical to the planet's orbit. I've never -given it any thought, but it sounds dangerous to the satellite. Also, -Sirius' tidal drag would tend to bring all the planets' axes into -vertical line, too." - -"Oh the devil. I want to land. If waiting overnight is dangerous, we'll -slide in there and out again inside of an hour. But, darn it, I want to -plant my number eleven EE's on that planet. Anyone agree?" - -"Anyone who doesn't like the idea may get out and walk," said Hammond. -"Hold your hat, fellows. Here we go again--" - - * * * * * - -Sandra Drake reached out of her luxurious bed and pulled a cord. She -did it in a languorous move, like a lithe and lazy cat. She did it with -a sort of God-given right to do so, and her expression was one of deep -self-delight. Whatever she got from Telfu, they owed to Sandra Drake-- - -Her second pull on the call-cord was more of an impertinent yank. Her -self-delight changed to exasperation that they should keep her waiting. -Yet she would forgive them, for they were ignorant, in forgiving them -her grace would be more evident. They would love her the more for -forgiving them their sins of omission-- - -Sandra's third pull caused the collapse of the call-bell box, and the -cord fell, landing in long, graceful loops over her outstretched arm. - -Sandra rolled out of bed and threw the cord across the room, where it -draped itself about the throat of a marble nude of a Telfan woman. It -could not have been placed there with more delicacy; adding just the -right touch of decoration to the nude. The center of the cord depended -across the chest of the statue in a graceful loop, the bottom of which -crossed just above the upper pair of breasts. The ends of the cord -passed once more about the throat in opposite directions, and the ends -crossed the looped center to dangle between the lower breasts. - -The decorative touch did not strike a responsive chord in Sandra Drake. -She wanted rip-roaring action, not interior decoration. So she stamped -over and jerked the cord from the statue and tried to rend it in her -hands. She was not strong enough to do the cord any damage but she did -succeed in breaking a one-inch fingernail. - -She stormed and stamped, and said a few things that are better -mentioned in the abstract, including references to the statue's maker -and his family for several generations coming and going. To Sandra's -Terran-minded ideas of beauty, the statue was an abomination in spite -of its perfection of workmanship. It was not merely un-Terran and -therefore strange, it was almost-but-not-quite human, and therefore -downright repulsive, and Sandra said so in unladylike language. -That the same reactions, in reverse, applied in the Telfan-Sandra -relationship was not yet clear to her. Her language sounded more -adapted to caisson workers, space-ship builders, or mule skinners than -it did the luxury of her present abode. - -Then at long and exasperating last, the door opened gingerly and a -serving woman entered. - -"Well!" exploded Sandra. "Where have you been?" - -The woman said something clear and articulate, which meant she was very -sorry but which meant nothing to Drake. That made Drake boil merrily. - -"Can't you speak Terran?" stormed Sandra. - -The woman came into the room, followed by another. - -"Who are you?" shouted Sandra. "Where's that other one--I can hardly -tell you apart." - -The first Telfan woman turned to her friend and said: "She's throwing -another fit." - -"She wants the Lady Thani. Thani is the only one who can speak much of -her language." - -"If I were Thani, I'd slip a thumb into each eye and pry." - -"I wouldn't waste my time on that," returned the second woman. "I'd -just make away with her and forget about it. I wouldn't care to have my -sleep disturbed by blood, screams, and torture." - -Sandra huffed up tall. "Will you two creatures stop gabbling at one -another and get me Thani. Where is that creature?" - -"Yes, she wants Thani. I heard her mention her name." - -"If Thani isn't here, get me Tet'h. Or Gormal. Or Elyon." - -"How can we tell her that Thani, Tet'h, Gormal, and Elyon went to meet -the other Terrans?" - -Sandra heard the names and the word _Terrans_. "Did they run off and -leave me here?" she yelled. - -They shook their heads. - -"Go ... yes?" asked Sandra. - -"Go ... yes!" answered Delya. - -"I want to go, too." - -"I ... go ... no," said Delya. - -"Not you, me." - -"You ... no?" - -"Me ... yes." - -"Me ... yes!" agreed Delya. - -Sandra put both palms against her cheeks and gave vent to a yell of -sheer frustration. Then she calmed once more. "Did every one of you -that knows a word of Terran go?" - -"Tonla, I think she's asking about Thani and the rest." - -"But how can we tell her?" - -"Do we want to? If all are like her--this Terra must be a bad, bad -place indeed. And she is but a female. What must the males be?" - - * * * * * - -At this point it must be recorded that the first Interstellar incident -was averted by Sandra Drake's refusal to work in learning the Telfan -language. Drake's possible actions if she had been able to understand -Delya's remark might have led to the First Interplanetary War. Amicable -relations resulted from Sandra Drake's ignorance. - -"After all," said Tonla, "they went because there isn't much of her -language between all of them. All together they may be able to converse -with the Terrans." - -"And Elyon says that she is quite uninformed as to the technicalities -of this device which will not work on Telfu. She inferred that these -others know much about it. They are the ones to contact if Telfu is to -gain. Why shouldn't they all go?" - -"Had I the right, I'd have sent them," said Tonla. "We'd better get out -of here before this woman gets violent. I think she's about to start -throwing things." - -"She should throw a fit," sneered Delya. "Only the very beautiful can -behave in that arrogant manner." - -"Or the very rich." - -"Name it the very desirable. Thani is very desirable, and yet she does -not raise hob with Tet'h. And Thani is not only beautiful, but she is -wealthy, too." - -"And Tet'h is not without his own desirability," smiled Tonla. "Nor his -wealth. Beauty walks in the arms of grace. She has neither." - -"Let's get out. And let us hope that all Terrans are not as nasty as -this one." - -"I fear, though. If I were a Terran, I'd never have come to get her," -said Tonla. "Unless she and they are well met." - -"Perhaps they are afraid of the bad impression she'll make if they -leave her here." - -"You hope for that?" - -"No race could be that bad." - -Sandra mustered enough coherency to ask another question. "How can I -get to my friends?" - -Much negation. - -"Can't anyone understand me?" - -More gestures of complete misunderstanding. - -"Get out!" yelled Sandra, and then as they started to leave, Sandra -exploded again. The slamming of the door coincided with the first -eruption, but the molten lava and hot ashes fell on an empty room. - -"If she'd bothered to learn one word of Telfan, they'd have taken her," -said Delya. "But they couldn't weigh down that little flier with one -more--especially one who could be of no use to them. They'll return for -her later." - -"Too bad we can't put postage on her and mail her back to this Terra of -hers." - -"She'd come back stamped: 'Mail not wanted!'" - -Sandra swore a few blood-curdlers and won her point by making an -impression on the marble statue with the hard, sharp corner of a heavy -metal box that stood on the table beside her bed. Then she ripped -out of her pajamas and dressed quickly. She ran from her room and -confronted the first man she met. - -"Where are they?" she snapped. - -He shook his head and pointed down the hall. - -Drake followed the pointing finger to a large room. She stamped in, -obviously interrupting some sort of governmental meeting. - -"I want to go to my friends," she said imperiously. - -The man at the head of the table shook his head sadly. - -"I must go to them! Or," she asked superciliously, "are they coming -here?" - -More shaking of the patriarchal head. - -"Can't you understand, either?" she stormed. - -A shrug of the shoulder and a shake of the head gave Sandra to -understand that she was speaking in an alien language to them. - -"Crano!" she snapped. She didn't know its meaning, but it was the only -Telfan word she knew, and she did know that it was a term signifying -that the receiver of the epithet was slightly less than educated. - -The elderly man went white. Two of the younger men arose, came forward, -took Sandra Drake by the arms--one to each--and removed her from the -chamber. They were not gentle, and on any inhabited planet employing -the use of the Terran vernacular, she had been "Bounced!" - -And Sandra knew it. - -And then there came a bit of understanding. It hit hard. And in the -brief minutes that Sandra looked facts in the face before she took to -demanding impossible things once more, she realized that she had backed -into her own trap. She had been demanding. She had chosen to teach -those who met her the Terran language instead of learning Telfan. Now -those who understood any bit of Terran had gone to meet the _Haywire -Queen_, leaving her among those who could not understand her at all. -She could not communicate her desires to any of them. - -She could not even tell them of the desire that they wanted to hear: -That she wanted to leave. - -The whole city would have broken a blood vessel to get her out. - -But they didn't talk the same language. - -The _Haywire Queen_ came down in a screaming, wild landing. She rifled -down out of the sky, careening. She slanted for a half mile, and -then squared away and came plummeting down vertically. Inside, the -accelerometer was making wild gyrations as Timkins fought the controls. - -The whistling of the big ship's passage through the air slid down the -audible scale as the velocity dropped. The ship slowed, and came to a -perfect landing-- - -Twelve feet above the surface! - -Like a slug of lead, the _Haywire Queen_ poised for the barest instant, -and then dropped the intervening distance. The landing plates sank into -the soft soil of Telfu for several feet and the plates groaned, a rivet -or two squeaked, and some welded joints disagreed. But spaceships are -rigid structures, made for hard usage and considerable stresses and -strains. It weathered the hard landing, though the angle was slightly -cocked due to the unevenness of the turf's hardness. The _Haywire -Queen_ was still space-worthy. - -"Rotten pilot," muttered Hammond. - -"Terrible," agreed McBride. - -"Look, you two grinning apes. I missed Telfu by exactly one hundred and -forty-four inches. Twelve feet in 2,630,000,000,000,000,000 feet. Well -within the experimental error, I think." - -"Twelve feet in nine light-years isn't bad," said McBride. "Some day, -Larry, you can bend that mathematical mechanism you use instead of a -brain into calculating whether the landing effect would have been worse -at _plus_ twelve feet instead of minus." - -"A mere matter of kinetic energy dissipated--" - -"Yeah, we know. Well, you didn't kill us," laughed Hammond. "So let's -go out and take a look at the wonders of the Telfan scenery." - -"Take a quick look," said McBride. "Here come some Telfans to take a -look at some Terran science." - -"Wonder how they got here so quick," asked Timkins of no one in -particular. - -"Ask 'em." - -Timkins stepped out of the space lock and smiled at the Telfans. "Ave, -Canis Majoris," he said in a deep voice. - -"Lousy Latin," snorted McBride. - -"That's where they live." - -"Do they know that?" - -The foremost Telfan, who was Tet'h, stepped forward and smiled. -"You ... Terrans?" - -"Yes." - -He pointed to the ship. "_'Aywire Queen?_" - -"Yes." - -Tet'h smiled once more and offered his hand. - -"Universal gesture?" asked Hammond. - -"No. Drake must have taught them that." - -"Drake?" asked Tet'h. "You like?" - -"Extremely doubtful," said Hammond. He was misunderstood. McBride said -nothing but that pinching of the nose between thumb and forefinger -conveyed the idea excellently. - -"Telfans ... no like Drake." - -"No?" - -"No. Tall. Ugly-bald." Tet'h indicated his own luxurious pelt and -then became confused as he realized that the Terrans were of the -same, "Ugly-bald" complexion. He covered his face with both hands and -muttered something that sounded apologetic and humble. - -"Forget it," laughed McBride. "We ... like Telfans." - -"Not like Drake," said Tet'h. - -"Thanks," said Hammond honestly. - -"How know ... here?" asked Timkins. - -"You here?" asked Tet'h pointing to the ship and the surrounding -landscape. - -"Aren't we?" grinned Timkins. - -"Save the fine rhetoric for later when they get the point of double -talk," suggested Hammond. - - * * * * * - -Tet'h led them to the plane and Gormal and Elyon lifted a large case -out. Tet'h opened it and handed McBride a little instrument. It was a -cabinetless job, every part exposed. - -"Holy spinach," he said. "A mechanogravitic detector." - -Hammond got a small mechanical planetarium showing Telfu and a minute -sphere. Tet'h pulled a roller-map out of the base and indicated Telfu -and the sphere. The map was a fairly accurate contour map of the -blanketed region's contour. - -Tet'h signified the cusp and then pointed to the position of Soaky. -Below the cusp, Tet'h indicated the planet and then pointed to the -ground. - -"Here," he said. - -McBride and Hammond tangled in an effort to shake Tet'h's hand. The -Telfan looked proud. - -"Many years," he said haltingly. "Work," indicating the detector. He -made assembly motions. He pulled a book of mathematical identities -from a pocket and said: "Found ... here." Then he made vast motions -indicating a large construction. "Many years ... try like hell ... no -work." He indicated the small satellite. "He make stop." - -"Bright lads," grinned Hammond. "Their civilization was ready to -discover the gravitic spectra. They did. They found it in math. They -tried it and it didn't click too well. They discovered why. Never -having anything of any great power operating, they never got to the -point where they could build anything big enough to get off of Telfu. -Just plain stuck. Well, fellers, if that moonlet is cupralum, I can see -a lot of birds mining it." - -"How're they going to land on it? Nothing gravitic will be worth a hoot -that close." - -"Lift 'em off the dead spot by battery-powered gravitics. Inefficient -as hell. Get into space and then use rockets to land on that moonlet. -Mine it. Load it full of detonite and blast." - -"A hundred-mile moonlet?" - -"They've got a nine-thousand-mile planet here to support it. They -can't power their machinery with gravitrons, but electronics is an art -worth remembering. One of the earlier atomic gadgets would do plenty." - -"Might bore a large hole in it and pack in a mile of Atomite," -suggested McBride. "I'd hate to support that, though." - -"Better get some seetee meteors and pelt it by remote control," said -Hammond. "Well, we can cover that later." To Tet'h he said: "You come -in?" - -Tet'h and Thani held a quick conference. "She come, too?" he asked. - -"All of you." - -"No. They stay. We go Terra." - -"Terra!" exploded Hammond. - -"Much to learn--both of us. You and I. You learn Telfan. We learn -Terran. Better talk. This ... lousy." - -"Easy to see Sandra's delicate hand in this language lesson," grinned -Timkins. - -"Better call that wild woman. Tell her we're going to take off in one -hour and ten minutes because if we don't, we'll be as stuck as she is -and we don't like that. As long as we have a bit of Telfu to take back -with us in the shape of Tet'h and his woman Thani, we needn't stick -around. I'll feel better about getting off on this rotation anyway. -G'wan, we'll listen to you make the excuses, Larry." - -"My turn to poke her on the pretty little schnozzola?" - -"You won that by that three times something to the minus umpty-umpth -power percentage of landing error. Twelve feet in what?" - -"2,630,000,000,000,000,000 feet." - -"Was that the same he said before?" asked McBride with a smile. "Or was -he working that old gag about our not remembering?" - -"I don't remember either." - -"So, you win," said McBride to Larry Timkins. - - * * * * * - -Timkins called, and Sandra Drake's slightly hysterical voice replied. - -"How you doing?" asked Larry. - -"Where are you?" - -"I don't know." - -"Don't know?" said Sandra. Her voice went up in a crescendo and hit "G" -above High "C" on the last note. - -"No," said Larry. "Chicago, Venuland, Canalport, and Sharon are my best -landmarks and they're all equally distant and in the same direction -from here." - -"Go to hell." - -"That's across the River Styx from Sharon, on Pluto," said Timkins. -"And that expression is making the Sharonites unhappy because people -have been going there for thousands of years. Sharon hasn't the -popularity." - -"But look, Larry, I want to go along." - -"Can you get here in one hour and eleven minutes. That's the absolute -deadline until we can get to Terra and cook up a drive that's detuned -enough from the cupralum-absorption region to permit us to tinker off -and on around here." - -"Where are you? How can I get there if you don't know where you are?" - -"Ask someone." - -Sandra's language became something that the communications commission -has legislated against. - -"Can you come here and get me?" - -"We'll be doing fine if we get off with our skin," said Larry. "We -definitely have not enough power to go roaming all over Telfu. We're on -the one spot that will allow us to leave under the emergencies. An hour -and thirty minutes from now that spot will be somewhere else. We'll -wait an hour and ten and take off on the edge of the spot." - -"Won't they come back and get me?" - -"Wait a minute." Then he turned to Tet'h. "Could you send them back for -Drake?" - -"Yes," answered Tet'h. "Better not, though. She bad ... but lazy. Teach -Terran so not ... learn Telfan." - -"Sandra? No dice. That's it, toots. Take it or leave it." - -"Look, Larry, isn't there something you can do?" - -"I doubt it. Give you a tip, though. Next time you poke someone else's -nose into a mess remember that he who laughs last isn't always too -dumb to catch on quick. At the next sound, it will be exactly three -people making with deep belly laughs. So long, until we meet again--in -about six months! In-you, we're at these Telfan co-ordicidentally, if -you should find someone who would like to get rid of nates: South -Longitude.... Hey, Tet'h, how do you pronounce these figures?" - -Tet'h caught his meaning and said: "Me tell." - -He addressed the microphone, and spoke in Telfan. "There," he finished, -"is where ... are!" - -Timkins added: "So now you can get here all right." - -He closed the mike as the speaker started to make little animal sounds. -"Fellows," said Larry. "She's mad!" - -"Crazy mad or angry mad?" - -"Boiling mad." - -"She'll be hard-boiled by the time she gets through stewing in her own -juice," grinned Hammond. "Let's get some sky, fellows. O.K. ... we go?" -he asked Tet'h. - -"We go," said Tet'h cheerfully. - -There was a quick conference between the two men who were to stay and -Tet'h. Then the air-lock door was closed, and Timkins started to set up -the controls. - -Up in the emergency room, the batteries started to fume and fret as the -terrible overload hit them. The _Haywire Queen_ lifted uncertainly, -gained a little speed, and then took off into the cloudless sky at an -acceleration that varied continuously between nine to twenty feet per -second per second per second under the super drive. - -Not too long after, the gravitron-cupralum drive took over, and the -_Haywire Queen_ pointed her dome upwards at tiny Sol, blinking there in -the sky between the constellations Aquila and Ophiuchus. - - - THE END. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REDEVELOPMENT *** - -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. 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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: Redevelopment</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Wesley Long</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 16, 2022 [eBook #68329]</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 REDEVELOPMENT ***</div> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>Redevelopment</h1> - -<h2>By WESLEY LONG</h2> - -<p>Illustrated by Williams</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Astounding Science-Fiction, November 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" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>John McBride hung the phone on the hook and wiped his face. This -face-wiping was not the usual gesture of a man whose face is dirty, or -covered with perspiration. It was the dazed sort of gesture made by a -man who has just been subjected to a surprise, and since the wiping -tended to remove the awed look, replacing it with a slightly dazed -smile, the surprise must not have been too unpleasant.</p> - -<p>He shook his head, as though to clear it, and then made his way through -Station 1 of the Plutonian Lens to the landing platform. Just inside -the gigantic lock, a medium-sized space-ship stood, and sitting on the -edge of the space lock, swinging her feet, was Sandra Drake.</p> - -<p>"Hello," she said brightly.</p> - -<p>"Hi," said John. This was entirely new. Sandra Drake was not usually -given to greeting men as anything but absolute imbeciles. "What brings -you out here? And how did you make it?"</p> - -<p>"Oh," said Sandra lightly, "I remembered the charge on Station 1 and -brought along a charge-compensator. We hardly sparked when we lit."</p> - -<p>One of the attendants said, in a low aside: "About three hundred -amperes! She'd call a major explosion a snap of the fingers! You could -hide an egg in the crater she made."</p> - -<p>But Sandra was still talking. "John," she said in a voice that would -have caused Shylock to give her his last gold piece, "I want help."</p> - -<p>"You need help? What can we do for you?"</p> - -<p>"It's pretty big," warned Sandra. Her low contralto dared him to ask -what it was—and also dared him to deny it to her.</p> - -<p>"Look, Drake, you did us a favor not too long ago. I think we owe you -one."</p> - -<p>Sandra smiled uncertainly. "I was afraid that that little stunt was -only repaying you for the first meeting we had."</p> - -<p>"Shucks," said McBride. "Anyone can make a mistake. Forget it."</p> - -<p>"But being pilot for you on the <i>Haywire Queen</i> did me a lot of good, -too, you know. I got my license back for that one. We both gained."</p> - -<p>"I know. I'm glad we did. But what can you possibly want that is so big -that you're afraid to ask?"</p> - -<p>"Well, and maybe it isn't too big, either. Steve is a friend of both of -us, isn't he? I'd do anything for Steve—and wouldn't you?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. If any favors are owing, I think it is both of us to him."</p> - -<p>"That's what I'm getting at. I need help—for Steve."</p> - -<p>"You sure go a long way around to get it," grinned McBride. "Why didn't -you tell me that first instead of warning me about a favor?"</p> - -<p>"It's pretty big. But look, John, Steve took the <i>Haywire Queen</i> on a -run to Sirius more than six weeks ago. He took along enough stuff to -stay a week; he said he'd be back after one hundred and seventy hours -of stay at, on, or near Sirius. This was just a trial hop to try the -new drive you cooked up and a longer, better equipped expedition would -be made later."</p> - -<p>"He did say something about it the last I saw him. He said he wasn't -particularly interested in exploring a new system. He'd leave that for -the explorers. He was interested in the drive and so on, and after he'd -paved the way for getting to the stars and had proven his drive, he'd -turn it over to those interested in colonization. But six weeks ago, -you say? Gosh, that's a long overstay, isn't it?"</p> - -<p>"It is. I happen to know he didn't take more supplies than he needed. -So I'm worried about him."</p> - -<p>"And where do I come in? You want me to go and help you look for him?"</p> - -<p>Sandra smiled wanly. "Hardly. I'm sure Enid would enjoy that, too. No, -John, what I want is for you to hook up the stuff I've got in the <i>Lady -Luck</i> to make me one of those drives you invented so that I can go -myself."</p> - -<p>"You're taking a chance, you know."</p> - -<p>"That's where the favor part comes in. I want to go and look for Steve -Hammond. I need your drive. And if you don't help me, I'll go out in -space and tinker with the junk until I get it. I was there when you -cooked it up, remember, and I have a good memory for details."</p> - -<p>"But it's dangerous."</p> - -<p>"Is it? 'Might be dangerous' is what you mean. And I've been taking -harebrained chances for a long time, now. Do I or don't I?"</p> - -<p>McBride thought for a long time. "You get it," he said at last. "On one -condition. That you return in not less than one month. If you do not, -I'm going to take it upon myself to follow. So no matter what you find, -get back. Is that a promise?"</p> - -<p>"It is."</p> - -<p>"O.K., Sandra." McBride went to the wall of the big lock and spoke -over the communicator. "Tommy! Get Al and Westy and tell 'em to bring -their tools to the landing lock. We're going to juggle a few generators -around."</p> - -<p>To Sandra, he said: "I hope you've got plenty of what it takes."</p> - -<p>"I have," she said, sensing his meaning. "Matter of fact, I've got the -latest thing in alphatrons—two of 'em. And all the E-grav generators -we'll need are all tacked into what I think are the right places to -make this crate into a super-speed job. There are spares for all three -fields, and a couple of spare cupralum bars, too. Even part of the -wiring is done. I got just so far and then realized that I don't know -too much about gravitics. That's when I decided to come here for help."</p> - -<p>"Good thing," said McBride. "You might have killed yourself."</p> - -<p>Sandra didn't answer, and at that moment, McBride's men came with their -tools. Wordlessly, they nodded to Sandra and then followed McBride into -the <i>Lady Luck</i>.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>McBride wasted no time. "Al," he said, "you fit the mag-G for vertical -bi-lobar field to cover the nose of the crate with the top lobe, and -Westy, you see that the mech-G generator in the nose induces the proper -vectors in the cupralum bar. I'll get Hank and Jim to touch up the -wiring and safety devices. We'll have this crate back in space within -the hour!"</p> - -<p>"Working a little fast, aren't you?" asked Sandra.</p> - -<p>"No. I don't think so. You've got most of the main stuff in place. It's -merely a matter of running the alphatron lines correctly—remember, -Sandra, alphons are not electrons and even low-alphon lines require -smooth, round bends, otherwise they squirt off in a crackling alphonic -discharge that will eat the side out of a steel tank. You've done most -of the heavy work. It just requires touching up here and there: getting -the proper field-intensity out of the gravitic generators and adjusting -the output of the alphatrons. Then there is some tricky relay work with -the safety circuits: it wouldn't improve your beauty to suddenly find -yourself sitting in the pilot's chair at seven thousand gravities."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Sandra shuddered.</p> - -<p>"Oh, and look, since you've got the compensator. You'll find a -static-charge meter handy, perhaps. If there are planets around Sirius, -who knows what their intrinsic charge is. We'll loan you one so that -you can make planet without making a corona at the same time. Rarefied -air makes pretty lights when it comes under a few trillion volts—and -being a cathode is no worse than being an anode when your voltage is -running up into a bushel of zeroes—either is equally disconcerting. -How do you intend to spot any planets?"</p> - -<p>"I've got a pair of hemisphere lenses. I'll sail through the Sirian sky -at about forty thousand miles per second and expose for ten minutes. -The stars will still appear as spots, but anything close enough to be -planet-wise will make streaks unless it is dead ahead.</p> - -<p>"In which case you'll see it personally," grinned McBride. "That's the -best stunt I've heard of yet to find planets."</p> - -<p>"It isn't new. They used it to see if there were any planets outside -of Pluto several years ago, though they exposed for several hours while -running at ten or fifteen thousand. Steve has a pair of hemis with him, -too."</p> - -<p>Al came trudging in with a roll of alphon cable over his shoulder and -dropped it on the floor. "She's in—my end, anyway."</p> - -<p>"Running already?"</p> - -<p>"On test power. Drake had the bi-lobar field almost on the ball. Westy -found about the same thing. I think another couple of days and Drake -wouldn't have needed help."</p> - -<p>"I couldn't make it work," complained Sandra.</p> - -<p>"Well, you missed a few minor points," said Al. "Never, never run -alphon lines anywhere near a relay rack. It induces crosscurrents -in the windings and either makes 'em more sensitive or almost dead, -depending on the polarity. It won't hurt AC relays, but they aren't -used too much on a space-ship, so it's best to play safe."</p> - -<p>"I'll remember that, too," Sandra promised him.</p> - -<p>"O.K."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>And so an hour passed, and another one added to it before the <i>Lady -Luck</i> was fitted for super drive. It was finished, then, and Sandra -Drake was more than voluble in her thanks.</p> - -<p>"Never mind the thanks," said McBride, "or we'll be into that original -wrangle as to who owes who what kind of a favor. Where we sit out here -in the lens, favors are not weighted and set down as an asset. Forget -it. G'wan out there and get Steve Hammond—and do not forget for one -minute I'm coming after you if you're gone more than thirty days. Seven -hundred and twenty hours! Get me?"</p> - -<p>"Sure thing," said Drake. "And, John, you're pretty swell."</p> - -<p>"Nuts!"</p> - -<p>"All right, 'Nuts!' But some day I'm going to settle down and be a good -girl, and then you can believe me."</p> - -<p>"That, I'll believe when I see it. Go on, Sandra, go out and get Steve."</p> - -<p>"I'll get Steve," promised Sandra. "Oh, but definitely."</p> - -<p>"Well, good luck."</p> - -<p>"Thanks."</p> - -<p>The space lock closed, and the men retreated inside of the Station's -air lock. The gigantic doors swung open, letting a huge puff of air out -into space. Then the <i>Lady Luck</i> lifted gracefully for all of her tons -of mass, and wafted out through the opened door. It was a dead-center -passage, one that could be made only with a master pilot running the -board personally.</p> - -<p>Then she was gone. Halfway around the lens she would have to go -before Sirius came into a safe line of flight. Sandra was taking no -more chances on contacting the surface of that mighty space-warp that -focused Sol on Pluto.</p> - -<p>McBride wondered: <i>Has Sandra learned her lesson?</i></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>One week passed. One week, filled to the very brim with all of those -routine things that make life full of wonder—as to whether there -isn't something better in the hereafter. The sheer millions of miles -of gravitic-induced space-warp refracted Sol's light endlessly and -perfectly to make for Pluto a synthetic sun that sported a dozen -darting points. On Pluto, men lived and worked and pursued happiness, -and the valuable ore came up from the ground in the Styx Valley and -created the need for Pluto and the lens. Over Mephisto, the smelters -cast their glow against the sky, which the inhabitants of Hell always -called "The Eternal Fire." Across the River Styx from Hell, Sharon lay -like a city of marble by day and a string of pearls by night.</p> - -<p>Nor was Hell, as seen from Sharon, any less beautiful. The twin cities -of Pluto, rivals in everything, fought as usual. And the bone of -contention for that particular week was a simple, age-old epithet. It -is a sorry fact that with the entire solar system running as it always -did, Sharon and Hell found it possible to make the headlines of all the -cities of the system by their arguments.</p> - -<p>Sharon lost. Hell succeeded in bringing to mind the fact that Hell, -Pluto, was a fine place to be, and the poor citizens of Sharon were -forced into second consideration. But then, Sharon had not been a -running business for centuries.</p> - -<p><i>Go to Sharon!</i> had no familiar ring.</p> - -<p>But the Road to Hell was a broad highway.</p> - -<p>McBride looked up as the door to his office opened, and his jaw fell -away down to here. He blinked. He looked again, and then jumped to his -feet. "She found you!" he said.</p> - -<p>"Who found who?" asked Steve Hammond. "Has that dame—?"</p> - -<p>"Drake? Yep. She came here and we fixed that drive for her. She's -changed, Steve. Even I can see it."</p> - -<p>"So she was here?"</p> - -<p>"You bet. Sandra has changed."</p> - -<p>"Has she?"</p> - -<p>"Why, Steve, she was actually worried about you. Near frantic."</p> - -<p>"Was she?"</p> - -<p>"She may have concealed it from you. After all, she's been a pretty -hard-boiled girl and the change is a little abrupt. She's probably -concealing her real feelings."</p> - -<p>"Would she?"</p> - -<p>"Probably. After all she's said about men in general, she's probably -fighting an internal battle. But she let it go right here."</p> - -<p>"Did she?"</p> - -<p>"Did she! Why, she tried to hook up the super drive herself, and -when it didn't work, she came here for help. I'd say she was really -interested in finding you. Going out of her way to help you, Steve, is -quite a difference from the Sandra as I know her."</p> - -<p>"Do you?"</p> - -<p>"Say! What is the matter with you? 'Has she?' 'Was she?' 'Would she?' -'Did she?' is that the best you can do?"</p> - -<p>"Look, John, how long ago was that?"</p> - -<p>"About a week or so."</p> - -<p>"What did she do, exactly."</p> - -<p>"She came here and told us that you've been a month or six weeks -overdue on that trip to Sirius. She wanted the drive fixed so that she -could go out and look for you. I offered to go along, but she said no. -So we fixed her drive and she took off like the devil was in her hair."</p> - -<p>"Mac, you're a sucker!"</p> - -<p>"Oh, now look—"</p> - -<p>"So she's changed, has she? Full of remorse. Sputtering like a leaky -alphatron field because she was hamstrung without a drive. Her heart -was reeking with love for me, and she wanted, if she couldn't have me, -to go out into the deep, unknown void of interstellar space and die -where I had died, so we could be together in that last, long resting -place."</p> - -<p>"What are—"</p> - -<p>"So John, please, for the small help I was to you, and for the love of -Steve that lies within both of us, give me the drive so that I may go -forth and seek he whom I crave. I want so little, John, and Steve is -such a fine fellow—"</p> - -<p>"Say! Have I been took?"</p> - -<p>"The proper word is 'Taken' and the answer is in the affirmative."</p> - -<p>"I'll be damned."</p> - -<p>"You probably will," smiled Hammond. "Mac, all that dame wanted was to -be the first human being to set foot on another, extra-solarian planet! -She wanted to be known as the first person to ever seek another star."</p> - -<p>"I take it that you haven't been further than a long stone's throw?"</p> - -<p>"Shucks. I haven't even been out to the Los Angeles city limits."</p> - -<p>"Darn her hide!"</p> - -<p>"Yeah. I've been looking for her—and I'm as big a dope as you. I -wanted to offer her the chance to pilot the <i>Haywire Queen</i> out there. -I couldn't find her in the inner system and so I was going to take a -squint at Pluto. I stopped off to ask if you'd care to take the run -with me."</p> - -<p>"You know I would."</p> - -<p>"Well, that takes care of both answers. Drake is on her way—shucks, -she's there already—and the second part is you—and you want to go."</p> - -<p>"I'll ask Enid," said McBride. "Come on, we'll go right down and see -her now."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Enid McBride smiled. "His asking me is a matter of form," she told -Hammond. "Naturally he'll go. I think it will be swell for him to go. -He needs a vacation anyway."</p> - -<p>"But—"</p> - -<p>"No buts. You'll go and like it. I wouldn't want you to miss anything -like this for the world."</p> - -<p>"How about you?"</p> - -<p>Enid smiled again. "I'm no pioneer type, John. You know that. I'd be -out of place—and what would John Junior do? Oh, we could leave him -with Anna, if I wanted to go, but somehow this is as far as I care to -get from home—my folk's home, I mean. It's funny how after seven years -a woman still speaks of her parents' home as her home in spite of the -fact that she has a home and family of her own."</p> - -<p>"What'll you do?"</p> - -<p>"I'm going to take this opportunity to go home—my parents' home, I -mean. You see, Steve, Dad and John talk different languages. Dad is a -metal broker on Pluto. The only reason why he tolerated John at all was -because John's lens kept Dad in business. Dad wouldn't know a cupralum -pig from an acceleration cushion, though he deals in a million tons -of the stuff every year. It's all on paper. On the other hand, John -wouldn't know how to sell the stuff, but he sure can make it do tricks. -So they sit and glare at one another and each one wonders how the other -makes a living. Dad's money is obvious, and John's success is equally -well-known, but how and why are lost on each other.</p> - -<p>"So I keep 'em as far apart as I can."</p> - -<p>"I get it," smiled Hammond. "Pretty bad, hey?"</p> - -<p>Enid laughed, "This ring is pure iridium. Dad was horrified because -he first thought that iridium was radioactive like radium and that -I'd get burned or worse. Then he found out it wasn't—and offered to -buy a real, honest-to-goodness platinum ring if John couldn't afford -it. Then he discovered that iridium is so rare that they do not have -a market price per gram and that was all right, but he also confused -it with iodine, and worried about its chemical action on my hand. Poor -Dad still is not sure about it, so he has to inspect it every time he -sees it to ascertain whether or not it is turning green, or my finger -is falling off, or that it hasn't sublimed and disappeared. You can't -detect the wearing, so Dad then accuses John of either buying a new one -every time I come home or making me keep it in a safe while I'm here."</p> - -<p>"Cupralum, to Enid's father, is something that he shunts around by -signing papers and which, if he shunts fast enough, will increase his -bank account, though if the other guy shunts faster, will cause him no -end of deficit. Space, to him, is something that you can't breathe, and -the stars are little bits of brightness that twinkle on a clear night. -Oh, we get along," smiled McBride. "After all, he's Grandpa now, and -John Junior is likely to get a slab of Cupralum. Preferred, for his -birthday. The kid'll prefer something he can chew on, I'll bet."</p> - -<p>"So that's neither here nor there," said Enid. "You take your space -hop, and I'll take Little Johnny to Pluto to see his grandparents. -Frankly, Steve, I've been wondering just what excuse I could use to run -off alone for a month. This makes it perfect."</p> - -<p>"We'll stop at Hell on the way back and pick you up," said McBride.</p> - -<p>"Fine. How soon are you leaving?"</p> - -<p>Hammond said: "Anytime he's ready. How soon can you cut loose from the -lens, John?"</p> - -<p>"Give me an hour to get things cleaned up and I'll be on the beam."</p> - -<p>"Right."</p> - -<p>"I'll pack you a bag," said Enid. "Have any preferences?"</p> - -<p>"Shirts, shoes, socks, and shaving kit, mostly."</p> - -<p>"Want your dinner clothing?"</p> - -<p>"Oh sure. And pack my swimming suit, too. Also my tennis racket, and -see that the golf bag has plenty of spare balls. Have Timmy wax the -skis and sharpen my skates, and I'll also take along the shotgun, a pup -tent, the oil stove, a fur coat, a quart of whiskey, six lemons, an -orange, a lime, and a bottle of Angostura. Might pack me a light lunch, -too."</p> - -<p>"Don't bother, Enid. We've got most of that stuff with us," laughed -Hammond.</p> - -<p>"All right," chuckled Enid. "He'll get one shirt and a bar of soap; -one pair of socks, and a bar of soap; and so on—with a bar of soap. -Well, keep 'em coasting, Steve, and see that he doesn't run off with -any red-headed witches."</p> - -<p>"If we see any, I'll bring 'em back for me," laughed Steve. "See you -later."</p> - -<p>McBride was not as abrupt as he sounded. His business clean-up -consisted of dictating a letter, putting all things in the hands of -his chief assistant. The rest of the time he spent with Enid, saying -good-by. Whatever transpired, whatever they discussed, whatever plans -they made—and they must have talked of many things and made many -plans, for in spite of the familiarity of running all over the solar -system, this was a big step, indeed, since for the first time in -history, man and wife would be light-years apart—they did it well -enough in private so that their parting was simple and quick.</p> - -<p>John kissed Enid adequately, and said: "Stay healthy."</p> - -<p>Enid laughed and said: "Stay whole!"</p> - -<p>And then McBride was in the <i>Haywire Queen</i> and the air lock was -cracked. The big ship lifted gently and zipped out of the lock with a -casual disregard for distances. Unlike Drake's precision take-off, the -<i>Haywire Queen</i> went through the open door with the air of wanting to -leave quickly because there were better things to do than worry about -hitting the center plus or minus an inch.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Enid pointed out the Dog Star to John McBride, Junior. "That's where -your daddy is going," she told him. Junior McBride was more interested -in the teething bone that he had clamped between toothless gums, than -he was in the stellar regions.</p> - -<p>He knew his daddy would be back.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The <i>Haywire Queen</i> approached and passed the speed of light from the -hard side, and her terrific velocity dropped down to a figure that was -expressible in miles per second without running out of zeroes. Below, -and thirty degrees from the axis of the ship, Sirius and the Dark -Companion beckoned from less than a thousand million miles. The lower -dome of the ship sported the faces of the men, who were laying on their -stomachs, looking down at the splendor of the first binary ever seen -by man. Hammond mentioned it, as a matter of fact.</p> - -<p>"How about Drake?" asked McBride.</p> - -<p>"We're still the first <i>men</i>," returned Hammond.</p> - -<p>"Wouldn't Drake howl to hear you say that," laughed McBride. "She's -been suffering under the fact that every time she did anything new, -she had to qualify it by saying: 'The first woman—' Well, she's got -something this time."</p> - -<p>"Think it'll satisfy her?"</p> - -<p>"Not until someone proves definitely that Thomas Edison, Franklin -Roosevelt, William Shakespeare, George Washington, Richard the First, -Julius Caesar, and Jack Frost were all women."</p> - -<p>"Well, let's get the hemis working. We'll never know whether Sirius has -planets until we do. I'd hate to sit in the <i>Queen</i> and go through all -the growing pains of looking for planets by observation."</p> - -<p>"Yeah, that would take years. What's our velocity, Larry?"</p> - -<p>Timkins looked at the velocimeter; squinted through the instrument -quickly, adjusting the thumb-screw; and then said: "Thirty-four -thousand and dropping at one hundred feet per second, per second, per -second."</p> - -<p>"We can get good pix of anything close enough to the primary to support -life—also big enough, too—in about thirty minutes exposure," said -Hammond. "We'll take two shots in each direction, since I've got six -hemispherical cameras. That'll give us complete overlapping coverage -and double protection against dust streaks. Let's go. Also cut the -drive by half."</p> - -<p>For thirty minutes the ship plunged on through the Sirian system at the -double deceleration. Then for fifteen minutes, the entire personnel -was in the darkroom, waiting for the first glimmer of the plates. -And at the time that the plates were finished, the velocity of the -<i>Haywire Queen</i> had dropped from thirty thousand-odd miles per second -to velocities normally used in mere interplanetary travel.</p> - -<p>The super drive was cut and the ship coasted under standard drive at -thirty feet per second, per second, acceleration, and the men hung -the plates up in the darkroom and began to inspect them for telltale -streaks.</p> - -<p>"Here's one," said McBride. "About four hundred million miles from -Sirius."</p> - -<p>"And another," offered Larry, plying dividers and log tables, "about -three thousand million."</p> - -<p>"Got another," offered Hammond, "but it's doubtful as a possible -landing place. Almost ten thousand million mites from the primary. Bet -it's colder than a pawn-broker's heart."</p> - -<p>"Couple more on my plate," said McBride. He went to the formerly empty -solar map and added the discoveries according to scale. "But that one -at four hundred million is my best bet."</p> - -<p>"Sounds reasonable," agreed Hammond. "Sirius would support humanoid -life at that distance. Let's concentrate on it."</p> - -<p>"Good. It's in fine position to be concentrated on. Let's see, now, -what should we be looking out for?"</p> - -<p>"Might be seetee matter," suggested Larry.</p> - -<p>"Good. How do we find out?"</p> - -<p>"We don't until the last ditch. But it is the most important, -nevertheless. We wait until everything else has been disposed of and -then make for the planet. Just outside of the atmosphere we heave 'em a -rock or two and watch what happens."</p> - -<p>"A slow moving rock?" grinned McBride.</p> - -<p>"Doesn't really matter. If it is slow enough to keep from -friction-incandescence, fine. But the eruption made by seetee contact -is quite a bit different, spectroscopically. Also we can check the -explosion with counters. The by-products of such a bit of eruption is -full of nuclear radiations. Mere incandescence is just that and nothing -more."</p> - -<p>"Well, that's that. We can wait. What's next?"</p> - -<p>"Radioactivity. How much and what kind? Atmosphere. How much and what -kind? Et cetera. Also how much and what kind? Do we intend to land?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know. After all, we came for the express purpose of trying out -our drive on an interstellar basis, you know. It can be done with ease, -neatness, and dispatch. Seems to me that a landing on one of those -planets will have to be made attractive or we won't. We're equipped -for all kinds of spacial research, power research, and so on. But -we're not equipped for much planetary investigation, exploration, or -diplomatically involved intrigue."</p> - -<p>"Going to let Drake get away with being the only person making the -first landing on an alien star system?"</p> - -<p>"I don't give a care what happens to Drake. She can come busting in -with the safety valve tied down if she wants to. Some day she'll -learn that sticking that pretty little snoot of hers into strange -places is a fine way to have it knocked right off of the front of her -face. We're interested in technicalities, not in getting involved -in a storybook adventure. Meanwhile, let's take it strictly on the -easy side and investigate everything from the solar radiation from -Sirius to the secondary radiation produced by Sirian radiation in the -super-stratosphere."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Larry began to fiddle with the radio. There was nothing on the -electronic radio at all, and Larry said: "Well, didn't expect it, -really. No culture worthy of the name would be using radio in space. -Too inefficient. And if they got off of their planets, they'd be using -gravitics." He turned to the space radio, and covered the communication -bands of the electrogravitic spectrum, switching from band to band -quickly. Halfway across the third band, the panoramic tuner came to a -definite stop and retraced itself minutely, vacillating a bit until -the signal came in clear and clean.</p> - -<p>"What happened to Drake?" asked Timkins. "Listen. Here she is."</p> - -<p>The gravitic radio was calling: "—<i>Haywire Queen</i>. Calling <i>Haywire -Queen</i>. This is Sandra Drake calling the <i>Haywire Queen</i>. This is an -automatic transmission set for break-in. As soon as this call gets to -you, answer please. The answer will register here and we will be able -to make this two-way. This is Sandra Drake—"</p> - -<p>"Uh-huh," said Hammond, turning down the gain to a reasonable level. -"Larry, shoot her an answer."</p> - -<p>Timkins snapped on the transmitter, tuned it to the same band, and -said: "This is the <i>Haywire Queen</i> calling Sandra Drake. <i>Haywire -Queen</i> answering Drake. Come in, Sandra Drake. Answer."</p> - -<p>They listened to the automatic broadcast for some minutes, and then in -the middle of a sentence—"This is Sandra Drake calling the <i>Haywire -Queen</i>—" <i>Click.</i> "Hello, fellows. Got here finally, didn't you? Glad -to have you come in. What's new?"</p> - -<p>Hammond took the mike. "Hello, Sandra," he answered. "Nothing new. -Where are you?"</p> - -<p>"On planet number five. That is the one that I think is somewhere about -five hundred million miles from Sirius. Know it?"</p> - -<p>"We think so. It's dead ahead. Yeah, wait a minute. Larry has a -directional bearing on you and it is the one we're approaching. That -takes care of that."</p> - -<p>"Well, come on in and I'll build you a cup of tea."</p> - -<p>"You find everything all right?"</p> - -<p>"Everything's perfect. Only thing, they would like to have someone here -that knows all about the gravitics. They're not too sharp. Frankly, -neither am I, so you're the guys who'll have to do it."</p> - -<p>"You've been there quite a bit," said Hammond. "How's conditions?"</p> - -<p>"Pretty good. Air is O.K., though slightly pungent in smell. The people -are very much like humans, though they have their big differences which -take them out of the human class."</p> - -<p>"For instance?"</p> - -<p>"Well, they are all covered with a funny kind of hair. It's a sort of -half-hair, half-feathers kind of stuff. It's as soft as a baby's scalp -and on a dog or something like that it would be beautiful. I'd like a -coat made of it, frankly."</p> - -<p>"I'll bet they appreciate your offer to wear one of 'em for a winter -coat," said Hammond dryly. "You haven't changed a bit, have you, Drake?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Sandra. "After all, I was merely trying -to explain the beauty of their skin."</p> - -<p>"You gave yourself away," said Steve Hammond. "Like as usual, Sandra -Drake thinks of everything in accordance with how it will couple to -her, or her name, or her reputation."</p> - -<p>"Now, you're being hard," complained Sandra. "Give me a break, Steve. -You shouldn't take issue with me for a statement of that kind. After -all, it was just a sort of slip of the tongue. I'm not really thinking -of skinning one of them for my coat."</p> - -<p>"If I were you," put in McBride, "I'd think hard of one other thing -that might be closer to home. D'jever think that you are in no position -to do any skin collecting? The odds are agin' it. But, Sister Drake, -those birds are! You might enhance the beauty of one of their females -some day. How would the pelt of Sandra Drake look on the living room -floor, nine light-years from Terra? Take it clean and easy, Drake, or -you might not get back to Terra with that satiny, soft, practically -flawless hide of yours intact."</p> - -<p>"What do you mean, 'practically flawless'?" snapped Sandra.</p> - -<p>"Well," drawled McBride, "I've never seen all of it."</p> - -<p>"Why don't you give me the benefit of the doubt?"</p> - -<p>"I wouldn't give you any benefit of any doubt," McBride told her. -"You're probably concealing something."</p> - -<p>"Why—" the radio broke down into a series of liquid, spluttering -sounds as Sandra strove to keep that throaty contralto from sounding -like a fishmonger's.</p> - -<p>"Whistle," chuckled Timkins. "Then count ten. Then let's get back to -the problem of the Sirians."</p> - -<p>"Take it, Sandra," laughed Hammond. "We were only kidding you. -Or—can't you take it?"</p> - -<p>The spluttering died, and then that throaty laugh came back again. It -was slightly forced and they knew it. The chances are that Sandra knew -they knew it, but she didn't want to give them any more reason for -laughter at her expense. Then she spoke, directly and honestly, both -factors due to the fact that she was sure of herself and now could -afford to laugh at them.</p> - -<p>"Well, stop worrying about Sandra's hide," she told them. "This -gang down here are fine people except that they can't talk Terran. -They'll do anything for me that I can make them understand. That's the -trouble—getting them to understand. But that's coming. I'm teaching -them to speak Terran. That should fix things up fine."</p> - -<p>"Why not learn to speak Sirian?" asked McBride.</p> - -<p>"Why? Let them do the work. Learning a new language is not Drake's idea -of a year's fun."</p> - -<p>"O.K., sister," grinned Hammond, winking at McBride. "But you'll find -out that there is something to those old adages. I'm thinking of the -one that begins: 'When in Rome, et cetera.' Those old boys used to dust -off some old saws, but there is a lot of meat on them."</p> - -<p>"And contradictions. No, fellows, Sandra doesn't like talking in -something that sounds like a phonograph record played backwards. -Besides, these fellows have a pretty sharp capacity for understanding. -I've been here for a week or so, and already they can understand a lot -of what I say. Frankly, better than I could."</p> - -<p>"Play it your way, then," said McBride. "But look, you say they're nice -guys?"</p> - -<p>"Sure. When I landed, they gave me the old send-off. I was taken to -the royal house and given the prize suite. I'm given everything, as I -said before. They look upon me as the guy who'll give their world the -benefit of the Terran and Solarian scientific achievements. That's not -true, of course. It'll be fellows like yourselves who really understand -it. But nevertheless, I'm the harbinger of spring. I'm the guy who -pointed the way for the rest of Sol's children."</p> - -<p>"The Moses in the bulrushes?"</p> - -<p>"Sort of like. I'm just lucky, and I know it. If I'd come second, they -wouldn't pay any attention to me at all. But since I came first and -now that I'm talking to my friends, they will obviously think that -I'm calling for them to come and help them ... their world's name is -Telfu, by the way ... Telfans out of their scientific rut. They have -the glimmerings of the gravitic spectra, but it's like the difference -between the Leyden Jar and the electron microscope. It'd take a hundred -years before they got off of Telfu if we hadn't got here first."</p> - -<p>"If they're really O.K.," said McBride, "we'll help."</p> - -<p>"Thanks," said Sandra simply. "That'll be for me, too, you know."</p> - -<p>"Yes?"</p> - -<p>"Sure. They'll thank me for coming first, even though they know I'm not -the bright guy with the answers under my skull. I've got a good thing -here, and I know all of you well enough to know that you won't spoil -it."</p> - -<p>"No?"</p> - -<p>"Sure you won't. After all, there isn't one of you that would care a -rap for what they have to offer in the way of historic gain. The old -moola, sure; and there's plenty of it to be had for all of us. You'll -go down in their histories as the geniuses that gave them a boot in the -tail worth a hundred years of solid research. I, and I'm sure you'll -permit me, will ride in on the tail of your coat."</p> - -<p>"O.K. Well, we'll come in. But not for long this time. After all, -we're interested in tinkering with the new drive, not making diplomatic -overtures to a bunch of aliens. We'll leave the latter for the Solarian -Government."</p> - -<p>"How soon'll you be landing?"</p> - -<p>"Not too sudden," said Hammond. "We're going to make a few space-checks -first. We're getting cautious in our old age."</p> - -<p>"Shucks," said Sandra disparagingly, "there's nothing to it at all."</p> - -<p>"Well, could be, but we'll run this show our way. There is no objection -to your leaving?"</p> - -<p>"No. Definitely not. They'd be sorry to see me go, but it is personal -affection and the possibility for their ultimate gain that makes it so. -They wouldn't dare detain me even though they might consider it. To my -knowledge, they haven't even considered it."</p> - -<p>"Why wouldn't they dare?" asked McBride.</p> - -<p>"Afraid. After all, they know that both of us came from a star nine -light-years away. They haven't even got the primary drive, let alone -the third-derivative drive. Any untoward move to a Solarian would bring -the devil himself down about their ears and they know it."</p> - -<p>"I suppose so. We could drop plenty of stuff on 'em with a half dozen -space cans. And a couple of monolobar mechano-gravitics would scramble -up the works of any fleet of stratosphere planes they could send -against us. Never gave the gravitic armament much thought, but it could -be done. O.K., Sandra, as soon as we sniff the air and check our gas -and water, we'll be in."</p> - -<p>"I'm going back to bed, then," said Sandra. "Slip me another call -before you land and I'll have the village band out to meet you. That's -a promise."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Steve Hammond turned to McBride after Sandra had clicked her -transmitter off, and said: "No use checking for seetee matter, is -there? Seems to me that Drake would have found it out the hard way."</p> - -<p>"No, we can skip the seetee. But Drake may not worry about -radioactivity but we will. We'll check for it; I'd like for John Jr. -to have a brother or sister some day—with the proper amount of arms, -legs, fingers, toes, ears, eyes, noses—"</p> - -<p>"What's the proper amount of noses for a son?" asked Hammond.</p> - -<p>"One," grinned McBride.</p> - -<p>"A kid with two noses could smell a lot," observed Timkins.</p> - -<p>"<i>Phew!</i>" said McBride holding his nose. "That was fierce. Man the -counter and check the region for hot stuff, Larry. Looks like the -landing of LaDrake saves us a lot of work. The physical properties -of ... Telfu ... seem to be all right. So we'll go to work on the -electrical properties, the nuclear properties, and also see if there's -anything running around loose in the gravitics other than the inherent -mechanogravitic property of matter."</p> - -<p>Larry Timkins set up a series of plungers on the control board and -locked the pre-set operations into the autopilot. "This," he said, -"will hang us on a logarithmic spiral approaching Telfu. While we're -roaming around the planet, we'll check the hot-properties of the -neighborhood. Any comment?"</p> - -<p>"Nope. Give 'em the works."</p> - -<p>Timkins drove the coupler button home and the <i>Haywire Queen</i> swung -gently to follow the pre-determined course.</p> - -<p>"You know, Steve, there's a cod-liver-oil smell about this, somewhere."</p> - -<p>"So? What's fishy?"</p> - -<p>"The old tub isn't behaving like a lady."</p> - -<p>"What do you mean?"</p> - -<p>"There's a big drop in efficiency compared to when we left the -Plutonian Lens."</p> - -<p>"How much?"</p> - -<p>"Not too much. But it's getting progressively worse."</p> - -<p>"Y'don't suppose we've hit upon some saturation factor in the secondary -drive?"</p> - -<p>"I'm not saying. What do we know about it? What does it work on?"</p> - -<p>"Glibly speaking, it works on the inherent qualities of space. We -wrap ourselves up in a space-warp of sorts, and then shoot out -a couple of hooks that catch on to the gravitic-propagational -continuum that permits the planetary masses to exert Newton's Law of -Universal Gravitation. It has been called 'sub-ether' but that is like -multiplying with unreal numbers. After all, the 'ether' has never been -defined, isolated, explained, or held in one hand. If the prime 'ether' -has never been satisfactorily established, we shouldn't go on building -our houses on a foundation that doesn't have any sound basis."</p> - -<p>"Both electronic and gravitic spectra must rely upon something for -propagation," objected McBride. "For lack of taking it apart, brick by -brick, and feeling each stone, let's continue to call them 'ether' and -'sub-ether.'"</p> - -<p>"O.K., sport. But to get back to the drive. Have we got a saturation -point? Or some sort of gravitic fatigue? Either of these would be -indicated by a gradual decrease in efficiency."</p> - -<p>"Larry, set up a sigma recorder and let's see if we can check the curve -of inefficiency. It's getting worse, you say?"</p> - -<p>"Apparently. I didn't notice it before. But it is quite apparent now. -Must be non-linear, because if this falling-off had been linear, I -would have noticed it long before this. An increasing curve would not -be noticeable until a sufficient interval had been passed for it to -become evident. Yeah, I'll slap a sigma recorder on him and see what -makes."</p> - -<p>"Meanwhile, let's get busy with the detectors."</p> - -<p>The counters clicked for a few minutes, and McBride finally reported -that Telfu was no higher than Terra in radioactivity. Hammond -established the intrinsic electronic charge on Telfu as being only a -few million volts negative with respect to Terra.</p> - -<p>"Not enough to worry about," he said. "The first touch with the -stratosphere layers will take care of that without a glimmer. Wouldn't -dare without an atmosphere, but we have plenty of air to cushion the -charge and let it leak off in the upper layers where it is ionized by -Sirius' radiations. What's with the gravitics?"</p> - -<p>"Bit of something in the electrogravitic. Can't place it. Not enough to -worry about."</p> - -<p>"What is it like?"</p> - -<p>"Well, it is not E-grav radiation. It's a sort of dip, or valley, in -the radiation-pattern of this part of space. A place where the normal -density of E-grav is less."</p> - -<p>"How much?"</p> - -<p>"You tell me. The free-running gravitons are never high enough to do -more than flicker the finest instrument. The threshold is way, way, -way, way down in the mud. So here's a place where we have less."</p> - -<p>"Sort of like having nothing and wanting to share it with someone?"</p> - -<p>"Not much better. Oh well, a lack of free E-grav energy surely isn't -anything to write home about. Might be a factor of the Sirian Double. -After all, who knows what kind of effect that little, dark-red, -dense-as-hell devil will do to gravitic threshold levels."</p> - -<p>"So it's a safe bet—"</p> - -<p>Timkins came running in, waving a sheet of cross-ruled paper. "Hell's -bells," he yelled. "We're it! Our drive is approaching zero efficiency -as the third power of—"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Above, in the working innards of the <i>Haywire Queen</i>, great circuit -breakers crashed open. Smaller switches added to the din as they -clicked open, one after the other. Pilot lights on the polished black -panel began to glow an angry red and alarm bells created such a din -that speech became almost impossible.</p> - -<p>The drive went off.</p> - -<p>And the men and their portable equipment left the solid floor and began -to float aimlessly across the room in midair.</p> - -<p>Hammond clutched wildly at a spectrograph, and caught it.</p> - -<p>"Catch!" he yelled at McBride, hurling the heavy instrument at John.</p> - -<p>McBride folded himself over the instrument with a grunt of escaping -breath. The act did two things. It sent Hammond across the room to -the emergency panel in one direction and McBride went in the opposite -direction to the navigator's calculating machine. McBride caught the -navigator's table at the same time that Hammond caught the emergency -panel.</p> - -<p>Steve fought with the emergency panel and succeeded in setting up about -eleven feet per second deceleration. McBride lowered the spectrograph -to the table and seated himself in the chair.</p> - -<p>"Woah, Nellie," grunted McBride as the alarm bells ceased. "Where do we -go from here and how fast?"</p> - -<p>"I dunno, but we're leaving both Sirius and Sol at a terrific velocity -and a deceleration of eleven feet per. From a mental calculation of -the fundamental drive at this velocity, I'd say it would take about -fourteen years to get down to a stop."</p> - -<p>"What happened to the emergency relays?"</p> - -<p>"They worked," said Steve dryly. "Yeah, they worked. But the -inefficiency extends to the fundamental drive, too, it seems. I'm -beginning to think that this is not inherent."</p> - -<p>"That's a quick decision."</p> - -<p>"Sure. But the prime drive is O.K. The meters say so. It's just -inefficient as the devil which is not true of a good drive. Holy smoke! -We're getting efficient again!"</p> - -<p>Timkins picked himself off of the floor painfully. "Uh-huh," he -grunted. "Also, we're leaving Telfu behind at a fierce rate. Can you -keep that eleven feet prime acceleration for a bit?"</p> - -<p>"We're going to."</p> - -<p>"I'm going to dash madly upstairs and hang the sigma recorder on again. -Something is slippery here."</p> - -<p>"What's our velocity at the present time?" asked McBride.</p> - -<p>"Up in the fifteen thousand miles per second," answered Hammond.</p> - -<p>"Hm-m-m. Then at what point with respect to Telfu did the drive go -out?"</p> - -<p>"About a million and a half miles, roughly."</p> - -<p>"A minute and forty seconds from spot to conjunction," mused McBride. -"If, little playmate, we can pet power again after one more minute and -thirty seconds-odd, we'll feel more or less sure that it is Telfu and -not us. Larry!" he yelled. "Any sign of upswing?"</p> - -<p>"Yup," said Larry. "Sure thing!"</p> - -<p>"Set the super drive up on test power with automatics to turn it on as -soon as the overload point is passed," said McBride. "We won't blow any -fuses with test power."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Hammond hit the test buttons and then settled down to wait. Then the -drive cut in again, and they all slid down in their chairs.</p> - -<p>McBride grinned. "They must not like us."</p> - -<p>"Something must not," laughed Hammond shakily.</p> - -<p>"Telfu?" asked Timkins entering with the last sigma curve.</p> - -<p>"What does it say?"</p> - -<p>"We passed through a negative peak. We hit a new low in efficiency at -conjunction with Telfu."</p> - -<p>"How much?"</p> - -<p>"Less than a half percent."</p> - -<p>"Jeepers. That is a new low in gravitics. Can we think our way out of -this one?"</p> - -<p>"Why?"</p> - -<p>"As much as I dislike seeing Drake, I'd not force her to live on an -alien planet. I'd feel better at marooning her for a couple of years if -I knew we could go in and get her."</p> - -<p>McBride laughed. "Got to have the last laugh, hey?"</p> - -<p>"Meaning?"</p> - -<p>"Marooning her wouldn't be half so much fun if it is impossible to get -her out. Marooning her when we have the means to get her out puts it -strictly in our own lap. Right?"</p> - -<p>"I suppose so. We could laugh at her honestly then."</p> - -<p>"She's strictly a stinker," agreed McBride. "I get that cod-liver-oil -smell now. All that soft soap and palaver she was handing out about -our being the boys with the brains. We were the guys who would -be responsible for lifting a struggling civilization up from the -primordial slime by our brain and our genius. Baloney!"</p> - -<p>"I get it," growled Hammond. "She's stuck. God knows how she -landed—probably emergency and shot her load of battery juice. Anyway, -she could land under emergency battery, but taking off is a megawatt of -another color, battery-wise. They aren't equipped to make a take-off. -Idea being the old one—don't start if you can't stop."</p> - -<p>"She's a bright girl in her own stinking way," said McBride. "She's -been around this gang long enough to know that if a way is possible, -we'll think of it. Oh, sure, that's a brag but we've done pretty well -so far. So inveigle us into the same trap she's in and then ride out -with us. She'd roast in the brimstone of the nether regions before -she'd wail for help honestly. But if we get stuck with her she's got -two outs. One, we may be able to think our way out. Two, at least we -are Terrans like she is."</p> - -<p>"Meaning?" asked Hammond darkly.</p> - -<p>"Frankly, Sandra Drake is an awful lot of woman, and she knows it. -She'd make a plaster saint turn to whistle at her if she turned on the -old charm. And with no competition, we'd be fighting one another for -the privilege of polishing her shoes."</p> - -<p>"Fine future."</p> - -<p>"No thanks."</p> - -<p>"I'll have a bit of that, too. Well, how can we slip her the old -triple-cross?"</p> - -<p>"Steve, you'd throw a woman to the lions?"</p> - -<p>"With that woman, I'd hate to do it. The S.P.C.A, would haul me in -to court for subjecting poor, dumb, defenseless lions to cruelty and -inhuman tortures. You're darned right I'd heave her into the drink. But -I want to do it in such a way that Sandra Drake will know that it was -far from purely coincidental."</p> - -<p>"O.K., Steve. We're with you. Larry, throw the <i>Haywire Queen</i> into an -orbit around Telfu just outside of the danger zone and slap another -recorder on the drive. Make it a high velocity orbit, powered all the -way. We should be able to circle Telfu in about fifteen minutes with -the super drive. Check?"</p> - -<p>"Sure. Here we go."</p> - -<p>"Meanwhile, Steve, we'll check a few items on the drive itself. I'm -beginning to suspect a huge and celestial soak-up of gravitic power in -the region of Telfu."</p> - -<p>"We can set up the small, experimental drive-model complete with power -recorders, spring balances, and torque measuring devices and work on -that."</p> - -<p>"Swell. That's the ticket. Let's go."</p> - -<p>Hammond hauled the model from the cabinet and plugged in a complex -cable from the master control panel. He juggled the dials until the -gadget started to work, and then they began to check the efficiency of -the device.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus6.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>McBride muttered: "Power generating equipment is running O.K."</p> - -<p>"Yeah," agreed Hammond. "Everything's on the beam from the explosion -chamber to the inverted alphatron. We've got plenty of potential power -handy. Larry, zoop in close and check the power equipment on a pure, -resistive load."</p> - -<p>"You mean shut off the drive and coast through the zero region with no -drive and with the gravitron running at full output on resistance load?"</p> - -<p>"Right. This fishy smell has a rare odor. I think we're on the trail of -it."</p> - -<p>"O.K., Steve. Can you wait about three minutes? The first encirclement -of Telfu will be over then and we'll have our first experimental curve."</p> - -<p>"We'll wait."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The sigma curve was completed, and Larry circled far out and made a -fast run toward the planet, in a course similar to the one they used on -their first try.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, Hammond looked at the curve and grinned.</p> - -<p>McBride looked over his shoulder and grinned, too.</p> - -<p>Hammond slapped the curve down on a drawing board and began to plot -efficiency against a polar co-ordinate. The curve was roughly circular, -but exhibited a tendency towards a cardioid. McBride played with the -figures for a minute, and as he opened his mouth to say something, the -<i>Haywire Queen</i> gave that sickening lurch and changed abruptly from -super drive to the emergencies.</p> - -<p>"Darn!" said McBride. "This everlasting acceleration changing business -is going to make a nervous wreck of me yet."</p> - -<p>"Also physical if it is taken in too large doses," grinned Steve. "The -human anatomy can accept velocity without limit—well, up to the point -where the ultimate velocity is reached. We've gone a goodly hunk of -stuff over the speed of light."</p> - -<p>"That's questionable."</p> - -<p>"We came over from Terra in a lot less time than light. That'll be -arriving nine years from now."</p> - -<p>"Uh-huh. But don't forget we wrapped ourselves in a space-warp and ran -the space-warp. I think that we can safely assume that the warp is -another space and that we were not traveling better than the speed of -light with respect to our own space."</p> - -<p>"Whoof! What a theory! Drag that one past again, slow enough so I can -climb aboard."</p> - -<p>"You got it," laughed McBride. "And if it smells, you fling out a -better one for us to shoot holes in."</p> - -<p>"O.K. But to get back to velocity, the human anatomy can stand -velocity without limit. Period. Argue if you like, Mac, but that's my -statement. No one has ever been able to prove that velocity alone is -harmful to man, beast, bird, or fish!"</p> - -<p>"I'm as silent as the tomb."</p> - -<p>"Acceleration can be adapted to—in meagre doses. A man can stand up -under 4-G. On his tummy, lying down, 8- or 9-G isn't too hard on him. -Dunk him up to the breathing-vents in a good grade of oxidized hydrogen -and 15-G is possible without too much harm."</p> - -<p>"Yes. O Learned Scholar."</p> - -<p>"But, students," said Hammond standing up and taking a bow. He was -interrupted by the resumption of the super drive which, being set at -ninety feet per second per second apparent instead of eleven feet, -caught him off balance and almost dropped him on the end of his nose.</p> - -<p>"What I was saying," laughed McBride, "was the effect that rates of -change of acceleration have upon the anatomy."</p> - -<p>"As I demonstrated," grinned Hammond from the floor, "it is changes in -acceleration that cause havoc. It causes jerks—"</p> - -<p>"To sit on the floor," chuckled McBride. "Get up. Stop playing on the -floor, Steve, and take a squint at this curve. Plotting an exponential -factor for the ordinates of the graph, using Telfu for the center, we -find a locus of equal power-soak-up out here—which I estimate to be a -little more than two hundred thousand miles!"</p> - -<p>"Ah, the wonders of analyst," said Hammond. "With a defunct drive and -a wild idea, Jawn McBride hauls a satellite out of the sky and plants -it—Here!"</p> - -<p>"What do you think?"</p> - -<p>"Who am I to argue with people who understand the mysteries of A to the -Xth power equals zero, divided by the date of the month times the ace -of spades, equals eleven o'clock. All joking aside, Mac, it looks right -to my uninitiated mind."</p> - -<p>"Does, hey?"</p> - -<p>"Sure. That means that said moonlet—I say moonlet because our pix -show that Telfu hasn't anything worthy of the name of a full, honest -moon—must be high in cupralum."</p> - -<p>"Sort of hard to believe."</p> - -<p>"Yeah, but not impossible. It's quite believable that the right alloys -should be found <i>au naturel</i>, so to speak. There's nothing tricky about -cupralum. Mix it together and smelt it down—<i>voila</i>!—cupralum. A -totally useless and good-for-nothing alloy prior to the discovery of -the gravitic spectrum."</p> - -<p>"Must be fairly large," suggested Timkins.</p> - -<p>"Sure—according to man-made standards. Celestially, it might be a mere -scrap of dirt. A sub-sub-sub-microscopic bit of cosmic dust less than a -hundred miles in diameter."</p> - -<p>"Ugh," grunted Larry. "You make man and his works sort of -insignificant."</p> - -<p>"We are. Do the planets care what we do on their miles-thick hides? Do -the suns care that we wonder at them? Does the cosmos give a rap that -we chase from planet to planet and from sun to sun?"</p> - -<p>"You make it sound as though they are capable of thinking."</p> - -<p>"If they did, we wouldn't know about it; and they wouldn't know we -existed. Proportionally, man is smaller than the filterable virus. So -we have a slab of cupralum, which is—according to Mac—Here! That's -fine. It blankets Telfu like a complete shroud, as far as the good old -gravitics go."</p> - -<p>Larry Timkins looked up from a page of scrawled equations. "A slab of -cupralum a hundred miles in diameter, rotating in the mechanogravitic -field thrown out by Sirius would certainly soak up every bit of power. -Must be a slick tie-in. The gravitron puts our O.K. on a resistive -load. Hooked to the drive, everything goes <i>phhht</i>."</p> - -<p>"Sure. That's part of the trouble. It's the drive, coupled with the -general gravitic interference cut up by Soaky."</p> - -<p>"Soaky?"</p> - -<p>"I have hung a name on the satellite. Heretofore it has been nameless. -We have named it <i>Soaky</i>."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"There is a slight discrepancy between this cardioid and the calculated -curve," said McBride. "Obviously, the cusp would be on a line between -Telfu and Soaky, projected from the satellite through the planet to the -far side. We orbited around the planet and were closer to Soaky on the -side he was on—"</p> - -<p>"Is that syllogistic reasoning?" asked Hammond. "Or sheer conjecture? -How about shadow?"</p> - -<p>"This is quite a wide effect."</p> - -<p>"Any shading of Soaky's sphere of influence would tend to deepen the -cusp like that. That cardioid is such a curve; there's no reason to -doubt that Telfu would tend to shade the field."</p> - -<p>"Larry. Can you calculate the field absorption of a standard model -planet with the above figures?"</p> - -<p>"The attenuation?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"Sure. It'd help if I knew the chemical components, mass, physical -constants, electrical properties, gravitic properties, and nuclear -emanations. How close do you want it?"</p> - -<p>"Plus or minus twenty percent."</p> - -<p>"I can give that to you without calculating," said Timkins. "Telfu is -similar to Terra within twenty percent. Terra's attenuation amounts -to twenty-nine percent; in other words, the attenuation due to the -presence of Terra in the light-line between source and measuring device -is twenty-nine percent greater than it would be if Terra were not there -and the spacial attenuation only cut the strength."</p> - -<p>"Thirty percent, roughly, because it's easier to figure," said McBride. -He made calculations, set them down linearly as to the magnitudes, and -then transferred the vectors to the curve.</p> - -<p>"That's one large bit closer," he said. "We'll better that, some day. -But for now, playmates, I've had my Idea-for-the-Week. Let's cut us -another caper around Telfu at right angles to this curve. One side will -pass the peak and the opposite side will cut the cusp. Same distance, -same speed, same everything. Follow?"</p> - -<p>"At some distance."</p> - -<p>"I believe that we will find a place where the cusp really comes down -closer to Telfu," said McBride. "How much drive inefficiency can we -tolerate and still lift?"</p> - -<p>"From Telfu? Not enough to keep the breakers from blowing. And don't -say wire 'em shut. They're right on the ragged edge now, on account -of we know what we're doing and do not want to blow circuit breakers -during experiments unless they are really in trouble. But the -gravitron-cupralum driving equipment is not our only ace in the bucket. -The emergency batteries, though inefficient, can still put us down -and get us off. Providing, of course, that your map there gives us a -chance."</p> - -<p>"Not knowing the orbital constants of Soaky; the plane of Soaky's -ecliptic: the rotational features of Telfu, we are taking chances. One -rotation of Telfu might be plenty safe if we hit it on the nose. Two -might put us out here and then we'd have to go through seven years of -astronomical investigations before we found the place where that cusp -came in again—and we'd probably have to wait anything from sixteen -to nine thousand years before Soaky passed overhead again. The latter -might get boring. But we can take a chance on one day, plus whatever -angular movement Soaky makes with Telfu as center."</p> - -<p>"Think Soaky's ecliptic is fairly close to Telfu's equator?"</p> - -<p>"Within twenty or thirty degrees. I'm assuming the old theory of the -Planitesimal Hypothesis. Sling out your molten stuff, let it condense, -and you'll find everything rotating in the same direction in about the -same plane. Might be clockwise or counter-clockwise, but only one way -per solar system. One moon in all of the junk that goes around Sol is -contrariwise—and they think that was a captured wanderer. The greatest -obliquity is somewhere near forty degrees, most of the large planets -being less than ten, I think."</p> - -<p>"Celestially, I believe it may be impossible for a satellite to hold -an orbit whose plane is vertical to the planet's orbit. I've never -given it any thought, but it sounds dangerous to the satellite. Also, -Sirius' tidal drag would tend to bring all the planets' axes into -vertical line, too."</p> - -<p>"Oh the devil. I want to land. If waiting overnight is dangerous, we'll -slide in there and out again inside of an hour. But, darn it, I want to -plant my number eleven EE's on that planet. Anyone agree?"</p> - -<p>"Anyone who doesn't like the idea may get out and walk," said Hammond. -"Hold your hat, fellows. Here we go again—"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Sandra Drake reached out of her luxurious bed and pulled a cord. She -did it in a languorous move, like a lithe and lazy cat. She did it with -a sort of God-given right to do so, and her expression was one of deep -self-delight. Whatever she got from Telfu, they owed to Sandra Drake—</p> - -<p>Her second pull on the call-cord was more of an impertinent yank. Her -self-delight changed to exasperation that they should keep her waiting. -Yet she would forgive them, for they were ignorant, in forgiving them -her grace would be more evident. They would love her the more for -forgiving them their sins of omission—</p> - -<p>Sandra's third pull caused the collapse of the call-bell box, and the -cord fell, landing in long, graceful loops over her outstretched arm.</p> - -<p>Sandra rolled out of bed and threw the cord across the room, where it -draped itself about the throat of a marble nude of a Telfan woman. It -could not have been placed there with more delicacy; adding just the -right touch of decoration to the nude. The center of the cord depended -across the chest of the statue in a graceful loop, the bottom of which -crossed just above the upper pair of breasts. The ends of the cord -passed once more about the throat in opposite directions, and the ends -crossed the looped center to dangle between the lower breasts.</p> - -<p>The decorative touch did not strike a responsive chord in Sandra Drake. -She wanted rip-roaring action, not interior decoration. So she stamped -over and jerked the cord from the statue and tried to rend it in her -hands. She was not strong enough to do the cord any damage but she did -succeed in breaking a one-inch fingernail.</p> - -<p>She stormed and stamped, and said a few things that are better -mentioned in the abstract, including references to the statue's maker -and his family for several generations coming and going. To Sandra's -Terran-minded ideas of beauty, the statue was an abomination in spite -of its perfection of workmanship. It was not merely un-Terran and -therefore strange, it was almost-but-not-quite human, and therefore -downright repulsive, and Sandra said so in unladylike language. -That the same reactions, in reverse, applied in the Telfan-Sandra -relationship was not yet clear to her. Her language sounded more -adapted to caisson workers, space-ship builders, or mule skinners than -it did the luxury of her present abode.</p> - -<p>Then at long and exasperating last, the door opened gingerly and a -serving woman entered.</p> - -<p>"Well!" exploded Sandra. "Where have you been?"</p> - -<p>The woman said something clear and articulate, which meant she was very -sorry but which meant nothing to Drake. That made Drake boil merrily.</p> - -<p>"Can't you speak Terran?" stormed Sandra.</p> - -<p>The woman came into the room, followed by another.</p> - -<p>"Who are you?" shouted Sandra. "Where's that other one—I can hardly -tell you apart."</p> - -<p>The first Telfan woman turned to her friend and said: "She's throwing -another fit."</p> - -<p>"She wants the Lady Thani. Thani is the only one who can speak much of -her language."</p> - -<p>"If I were Thani, I'd slip a thumb into each eye and pry."</p> - -<p>"I wouldn't waste my time on that," returned the second woman. "I'd -just make away with her and forget about it. I wouldn't care to have my -sleep disturbed by blood, screams, and torture."</p> - -<p>Sandra huffed up tall. "Will you two creatures stop gabbling at one -another and get me Thani. Where is that creature?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, she wants Thani. I heard her mention her name."</p> - -<p>"If Thani isn't here, get me Tet'h. Or Gormal. Or Elyon."</p> - -<p>"How can we tell her that Thani, Tet'h, Gormal, and Elyon went to meet -the other Terrans?"</p> - -<p>Sandra heard the names and the word <i>Terrans</i>. "Did they run off and -leave me here?" she yelled.</p> - -<p>They shook their heads.</p> - -<p>"Go ... yes?" asked Sandra.</p> - -<p>"Go ... yes!" answered Delya.</p> - -<p>"I want to go, too."</p> - -<p>"I ... go ... no," said Delya.</p> - -<p>"Not you, me."</p> - -<p>"You ... no?"</p> - -<p>"Me ... yes."</p> - -<p>"Me ... yes!" agreed Delya.</p> - -<p>Sandra put both palms against her cheeks and gave vent to a yell of -sheer frustration. Then she calmed once more. "Did every one of you -that knows a word of Terran go?"</p> - -<p>"Tonla, I think she's asking about Thani and the rest."</p> - -<p>"But how can we tell her?"</p> - -<p>"Do we want to? If all are like her—this Terra must be a bad, bad -place indeed. And she is but a female. What must the males be?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>At this point it must be recorded that the first Interstellar incident -was averted by Sandra Drake's refusal to work in learning the Telfan -language. Drake's possible actions if she had been able to understand -Delya's remark might have led to the First Interplanetary War. Amicable -relations resulted from Sandra Drake's ignorance.</p> - -<p>"After all," said Tonla, "they went because there isn't much of her -language between all of them. All together they may be able to converse -with the Terrans."</p> - -<p>"And Elyon says that she is quite uninformed as to the technicalities -of this device which will not work on Telfu. She inferred that these -others know much about it. They are the ones to contact if Telfu is to -gain. Why shouldn't they all go?"</p> - -<p>"Had I the right, I'd have sent them," said Tonla. "We'd better get out -of here before this woman gets violent. I think she's about to start -throwing things."</p> - -<p>"She should throw a fit," sneered Delya. "Only the very beautiful can -behave in that arrogant manner."</p> - -<p>"Or the very rich."</p> - -<p>"Name it the very desirable. Thani is very desirable, and yet she does -not raise hob with Tet'h. And Thani is not only beautiful, but she is -wealthy, too."</p> - -<p>"And Tet'h is not without his own desirability," smiled Tonla. "Nor his -wealth. Beauty walks in the arms of grace. She has neither."</p> - -<p>"Let's get out. And let us hope that all Terrans are not as nasty as -this one."</p> - -<p>"I fear, though. If I were a Terran, I'd never have come to get her," -said Tonla. "Unless she and they are well met."</p> - -<p>"Perhaps they are afraid of the bad impression she'll make if they -leave her here."</p> - -<p>"You hope for that?"</p> - -<p>"No race could be that bad."</p> - -<p>Sandra mustered enough coherency to ask another question. "How can I -get to my friends?"</p> - -<p>Much negation.</p> - -<p>"Can't anyone understand me?"</p> - -<p>More gestures of complete misunderstanding.</p> - -<p>"Get out!" yelled Sandra, and then as they started to leave, Sandra -exploded again. The slamming of the door coincided with the first -eruption, but the molten lava and hot ashes fell on an empty room.</p> - -<p>"If she'd bothered to learn one word of Telfan, they'd have taken her," -said Delya. "But they couldn't weigh down that little flier with one -more—especially one who could be of no use to them. They'll return for -her later."</p> - -<p>"Too bad we can't put postage on her and mail her back to this Terra of -hers."</p> - -<p>"She'd come back stamped: 'Mail not wanted!'"</p> - -<p>Sandra swore a few blood-curdlers and won her point by making an -impression on the marble statue with the hard, sharp corner of a heavy -metal box that stood on the table beside her bed. Then she ripped -out of her pajamas and dressed quickly. She ran from her room and -confronted the first man she met.</p> - -<p>"Where are they?" she snapped.</p> - -<p>He shook his head and pointed down the hall.</p> - -<p>Drake followed the pointing finger to a large room. She stamped in, -obviously interrupting some sort of governmental meeting.</p> - -<p>"I want to go to my friends," she said imperiously.</p> - -<p>The man at the head of the table shook his head sadly.</p> - -<p>"I must go to them! Or," she asked superciliously, "are they coming -here?"</p> - -<p>More shaking of the patriarchal head.</p> - -<p>"Can't you understand, either?" she stormed.</p> - -<p>A shrug of the shoulder and a shake of the head gave Sandra to -understand that she was speaking in an alien language to them.</p> - -<p>"Crano!" she snapped. She didn't know its meaning, but it was the only -Telfan word she knew, and she did know that it was a term signifying -that the receiver of the epithet was slightly less than educated.</p> - -<p>The elderly man went white. Two of the younger men arose, came forward, -took Sandra Drake by the arms—one to each—and removed her from the -chamber. They were not gentle, and on any inhabited planet employing -the use of the Terran vernacular, she had been "Bounced!"</p> - -<p>And Sandra knew it.</p> - -<p>And then there came a bit of understanding. It hit hard. And in the -brief minutes that Sandra looked facts in the face before she took to -demanding impossible things once more, she realized that she had backed -into her own trap. She had been demanding. She had chosen to teach -those who met her the Terran language instead of learning Telfan. Now -those who understood any bit of Terran had gone to meet the <i>Haywire -Queen</i>, leaving her among those who could not understand her at all. -She could not communicate her desires to any of them.</p> - -<p>She could not even tell them of the desire that they wanted to hear: -That she wanted to leave.</p> - -<p>The whole city would have broken a blood vessel to get her out.</p> - -<p>But they didn't talk the same language.</p> - -<p>The <i>Haywire Queen</i> came down in a screaming, wild landing. She rifled -down out of the sky, careening. She slanted for a half mile, and -then squared away and came plummeting down vertically. Inside, the -accelerometer was making wild gyrations as Timkins fought the controls.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>The whistling of the big ship's passage through the air slid down the -audible scale as the velocity dropped. The ship slowed, and came to a -perfect landing—</p> - -<p>Twelve feet above the surface!</p> - -<p>Like a slug of lead, the <i>Haywire Queen</i> poised for the barest instant, -and then dropped the intervening distance. The landing plates sank into -the soft soil of Telfu for several feet and the plates groaned, a rivet -or two squeaked, and some welded joints disagreed. But spaceships are -rigid structures, made for hard usage and considerable stresses and -strains. It weathered the hard landing, though the angle was slightly -cocked due to the unevenness of the turf's hardness. The <i>Haywire -Queen</i> was still space-worthy.</p> - -<p>"Rotten pilot," muttered Hammond.</p> - -<p>"Terrible," agreed McBride.</p> - -<p>"Look, you two grinning apes. I missed Telfu by exactly one hundred and -forty-four inches. Twelve feet in 2,630,000,000,000,000,000 feet. Well -within the experimental error, I think."</p> - -<p>"Twelve feet in nine light-years isn't bad," said McBride. "Some day, -Larry, you can bend that mathematical mechanism you use instead of a -brain into calculating whether the landing effect would have been worse -at <i>plus</i> twelve feet instead of minus."</p> - -<p>"A mere matter of kinetic energy dissipated—"</p> - -<p>"Yeah, we know. Well, you didn't kill us," laughed Hammond. "So let's -go out and take a look at the wonders of the Telfan scenery."</p> - -<p>"Take a quick look," said McBride. "Here come some Telfans to take a -look at some Terran science."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus5.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"Wonder how they got here so quick," asked Timkins of no one in -particular.</p> - -<p>"Ask 'em."</p> - -<p>Timkins stepped out of the space lock and smiled at the Telfans. "Ave, -Canis Majoris," he said in a deep voice.</p> - -<p>"Lousy Latin," snorted McBride.</p> - -<p>"That's where they live."</p> - -<p>"Do they know that?"</p> - -<p>The foremost Telfan, who was Tet'h, stepped forward and smiled. -"You ... Terrans?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>He pointed to the ship. "<i>'Aywire Queen?</i>"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>Tet'h smiled once more and offered his hand.</p> - -<p>"Universal gesture?" asked Hammond.</p> - -<p>"No. Drake must have taught them that."</p> - -<p>"Drake?" asked Tet'h. "You like?"</p> - -<p>"Extremely doubtful," said Hammond. He was misunderstood. McBride said -nothing but that pinching of the nose between thumb and forefinger -conveyed the idea excellently.</p> - -<p>"Telfans ... no like Drake."</p> - -<p>"No?"</p> - -<p>"No. Tall. Ugly-bald." Tet'h indicated his own luxurious pelt and -then became confused as he realized that the Terrans were of the -same, "Ugly-bald" complexion. He covered his face with both hands and -muttered something that sounded apologetic and humble.</p> - -<p>"Forget it," laughed McBride. "We ... like Telfans."</p> - -<p>"Not like Drake," said Tet'h.</p> - -<p>"Thanks," said Hammond honestly.</p> - -<p>"How know ... here?" asked Timkins.</p> - -<p>"You here?" asked Tet'h pointing to the ship and the surrounding -landscape.</p> - -<p>"Aren't we?" grinned Timkins.</p> - -<p>"Save the fine rhetoric for later when they get the point of double -talk," suggested Hammond.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Tet'h led them to the plane and Gormal and Elyon lifted a large case -out. Tet'h opened it and handed McBride a little instrument. It was a -cabinetless job, every part exposed.</p> - -<p>"Holy spinach," he said. "A mechanogravitic detector."</p> - -<p>Hammond got a small mechanical planetarium showing Telfu and a minute -sphere. Tet'h pulled a roller-map out of the base and indicated Telfu -and the sphere. The map was a fairly accurate contour map of the -blanketed region's contour.</p> - -<p>Tet'h signified the cusp and then pointed to the position of Soaky. -Below the cusp, Tet'h indicated the planet and then pointed to the -ground.</p> - -<p>"Here," he said.</p> - -<p>McBride and Hammond tangled in an effort to shake Tet'h's hand. The -Telfan looked proud.</p> - -<p>"Many years," he said haltingly. "Work," indicating the detector. He -made assembly motions. He pulled a book of mathematical identities -from a pocket and said: "Found ... here." Then he made vast motions -indicating a large construction. "Many years ... try like hell ... no -work." He indicated the small satellite. "He make stop."</p> - -<p>"Bright lads," grinned Hammond. "Their civilization was ready to -discover the gravitic spectra. They did. They found it in math. They -tried it and it didn't click too well. They discovered why. Never -having anything of any great power operating, they never got to the -point where they could build anything big enough to get off of Telfu. -Just plain stuck. Well, fellers, if that moonlet is cupralum, I can see -a lot of birds mining it."</p> - -<p>"How're they going to land on it? Nothing gravitic will be worth a hoot -that close."</p> - -<p>"Lift 'em off the dead spot by battery-powered gravitics. Inefficient -as hell. Get into space and then use rockets to land on that moonlet. -Mine it. Load it full of detonite and blast."</p> - -<p>"A hundred-mile moonlet?"</p> - -<p>"They've got a nine-thousand-mile planet here to support it. They -can't power their machinery with gravitrons, but electronics is an art -worth remembering. One of the earlier atomic gadgets would do plenty."</p> - -<p>"Might bore a large hole in it and pack in a mile of Atomite," -suggested McBride. "I'd hate to support that, though."</p> - -<p>"Better get some seetee meteors and pelt it by remote control," said -Hammond. "Well, we can cover that later." To Tet'h he said: "You come -in?"</p> - -<p>Tet'h and Thani held a quick conference. "She come, too?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"All of you."</p> - -<p>"No. They stay. We go Terra."</p> - -<p>"Terra!" exploded Hammond.</p> - -<p>"Much to learn—both of us. You and I. You learn Telfan. We learn -Terran. Better talk. This ... lousy."</p> - -<p>"Easy to see Sandra's delicate hand in this language lesson," grinned -Timkins.</p> - -<p>"Better call that wild woman. Tell her we're going to take off in one -hour and ten minutes because if we don't, we'll be as stuck as she is -and we don't like that. As long as we have a bit of Telfu to take back -with us in the shape of Tet'h and his woman Thani, we needn't stick -around. I'll feel better about getting off on this rotation anyway. -G'wan, we'll listen to you make the excuses, Larry."</p> - -<p>"My turn to poke her on the pretty little schnozzola?"</p> - -<p>"You won that by that three times something to the minus umpty-umpth -power percentage of landing error. Twelve feet in what?"</p> - -<p>"2,630,000,000,000,000,000 feet."</p> - -<p>"Was that the same he said before?" asked McBride with a smile. "Or was -he working that old gag about our not remembering?"</p> - -<p>"I don't remember either."</p> - -<p>"So, you win," said McBride to Larry Timkins.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Timkins called, and Sandra Drake's slightly hysterical voice replied.</p> - -<p>"How you doing?" asked Larry.</p> - -<p>"Where are you?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know."</p> - -<p>"Don't know?" said Sandra. Her voice went up in a crescendo and hit "G" -above High "C" on the last note.</p> - -<p>"No," said Larry. "Chicago, Venuland, Canalport, and Sharon are my best -landmarks and they're all equally distant and in the same direction -from here."</p> - -<p>"Go to hell."</p> - -<p>"That's across the River Styx from Sharon, on Pluto," said Timkins. -"And that expression is making the Sharonites unhappy because people -have been going there for thousands of years. Sharon hasn't the -popularity."</p> - -<p>"But look, Larry, I want to go along."</p> - -<p>"Can you get here in one hour and eleven minutes. That's the absolute -deadline until we can get to Terra and cook up a drive that's detuned -enough from the cupralum-absorption region to permit us to tinker off -and on around here."</p> - -<p>"Where are you? How can I get there if you don't know where you are?"</p> - -<p>"Ask someone."</p> - -<p>Sandra's language became something that the communications commission -has legislated against.</p> - -<p>"Can you come here and get me?"</p> - -<p>"We'll be doing fine if we get off with our skin," said Larry. "We -definitely have not enough power to go roaming all over Telfu. We're on -the one spot that will allow us to leave under the emergencies. An hour -and thirty minutes from now that spot will be somewhere else. We'll -wait an hour and ten and take off on the edge of the spot."</p> - -<p>"Won't they come back and get me?"</p> - -<p>"Wait a minute." Then he turned to Tet'h. "Could you send them back for -Drake?"</p> - -<p>"Yes," answered Tet'h. "Better not, though. She bad ... but lazy. Teach -Terran so not ... learn Telfan."</p> - -<p>"Sandra? No dice. That's it, toots. Take it or leave it."</p> - -<p>"Look, Larry, isn't there something you can do?"</p> - -<p>"I doubt it. Give you a tip, though. Next time you poke someone else's -nose into a mess remember that he who laughs last isn't always too -dumb to catch on quick. At the next sound, it will be exactly three -people making with deep belly laughs. So long, until we meet again—in -about six months! In-you, we're at these Telfan co-ordicidentally, if -you should find someone who would like to get rid of nates: South -Longitude.... Hey, Tet'h, how do you pronounce these figures?"</p> - -<p>Tet'h caught his meaning and said: "Me tell."</p> - -<p>He addressed the microphone, and spoke in Telfan. "There," he finished, -"is where ... are!"</p> - -<p>Timkins added: "So now you can get here all right."</p> - -<p>He closed the mike as the speaker started to make little animal sounds. -"Fellows," said Larry. "She's mad!"</p> - -<p>"Crazy mad or angry mad?"</p> - -<p>"Boiling mad."</p> - -<p>"She'll be hard-boiled by the time she gets through stewing in her own -juice," grinned Hammond. "Let's get some sky, fellows. O.K. ... we go?" -he asked Tet'h.</p> - -<p>"We go," said Tet'h cheerfully.</p> - -<p>There was a quick conference between the two men who were to stay and -Tet'h. Then the air-lock door was closed, and Timkins started to set up -the controls.</p> - -<p>Up in the emergency room, the batteries started to fume and fret as the -terrible overload hit them. The <i>Haywire Queen</i> lifted uncertainly, -gained a little speed, and then took off into the cloudless sky at an -acceleration that varied continuously between nine to twenty feet per -second per second per second under the super drive.</p> - -<p>Not too long after, the gravitron-cupralum drive took over, and the -<i>Haywire Queen</i> pointed her dome upwards at tiny Sol, blinking there in -the sky between the constellations Aquila and Ophiuchus.</p> - - -<p class="ph1">THE END.</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REDEVELOPMENT ***</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. 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