A month later, a thousand miles above Earth and exactly 180° behind
the _Tsiolkovsky_, the _Goddard_ swung steadily around the globe in a
two-hour circumpolar orbit. Outwardly, it looked like the great metal
doughnut that space artists had pictured for decades. On the inside,
however, the evidence of hasty, crash-planned work was everywhere.
The air fans whined and vibrated, the halls creaked and groaned,
and the water needed to maintain balance gurgled and banged through
ill-conceived piping. It was cramped and totally inadequate for the
needs of the nation that had put it into space eight years before in a
rush attempt to match the Russian "Sulky".
Jerry Blane should have been used to such conditions. He'd been one
of the original space-struck men who'd helped to build it and then
had been lucky enough to get a permanent assignment. Now he drifted
in the weightless hub, watching the loading of a ship bound back for
the home planet, wondering what hell's brew the boxes contained. The
project that had usurped the cryogenic labs had involved its own crew
of scientists, who were already on board the ship, taking their secret
with them.
He shrugged, trying to dismiss the problem. The motion twitched
him about, and he corrected automatically. His tall, thin body was
accustomed to weightlessness.
Beside him, the head of the science corps on the station also floated
in midair. The big body of Dr. Austin Peal was revealed in the single
pair of shorts customary on the _Goddard_, and its darkness contrasted
sharply with the blond hair and pale skin of Blane. Only the frowns
matched.
The short, intense figure of General Devlin popped into the hub
from the tube elevator ahead of the pilot, Edwards. In spite of the
weightlessness, the station commandant managed to pull himself to rigid
attention at sight of Blane. He scowled, but held out his hand with
formal correctness.
"All right, Blane. You're in charge officially until I get back,"
he admitted grudgingly. He obviously resented the order that left
a civilian in charge while he went down to testify for the station
appropriations and receive new orders. "You'll find detailed notes on
my desk. I suggest you follow them to the letter."
He grabbed a handhold and began pulling himself into the airlock to the
ship without waiting for a reply.
Edwards had lingered. Now he also held out his hand. "Wish me luck,
Jerry," he said. "I may need it."
* * * * *
Because of the contents of the boxes and the presence of Devlin,
Edwards had been ordered to make his landing at Canaveral, under
military security. Most space work was done from Johnston Island in the
Pacific; the inadequate facilities at the Cape were supposed to be used
only by smaller rockets. But lately the rules were shot in a lot of
ways. Ever since the last meeting at Geneva, nothing seemed normal.
"You'll make out," Drake told him. "Our predictions give you perfect
landing weather, at least."
"Yeah. Clear weather and thunder below." In the station slang, thunder
stood for heavy trouble. The weather forecast didn't matter; there was
always thunder below.
Edwards moved through the airlock and into his ship. A moment later,
fire bloomed from the rocket tubes and the ship began moving away. In
the station, motors began whining, restoring the hub's spin to match
that of the rest of the _Goddard_.
From the viewing ports, Earth filled almost the entire field of vision,
like a giant opal set in black velvet. More than half was covered by
bright cloud masses, but the rest showed swirls and patterns of blue
water, green forest and reddish brown barren patches. Over everything
lay the almost fluorescent blue of atmosphere, forming a brilliant
violet halo at the horizon. It looked incredibly beautiful. So, Blane
thought, does a Portuguese man-of-war--until one sees the slime
underneath or touches the poisoned stings.
"Why can't they leave us alone?" Peal asked, as if reading Blane's
mind. "Why can't they blow themselves up quietly without ruining our
chances here?"
Blane chuckled bitterly. He'd been on vacation down there a month
before, and Earth was fresher in his memory than it was to Peal. "They
don't see it that way. To them, we're the danger, the biggest sword of
Damocles ever invented. They look up and see us going overhead, loaded
with enough megaton bombs to blast life off Earth. Every time we orbit
over them, they see Armageddon right over their heads, waiting some
fool's itching finger. They could risk the holocaust when everything
was halfway around the world, but not when it's where they can look up
and see it. Most of the thunder down there is caused by the chained
lightning we're carrying up here."
It wasn't an original idea. The panic on Earth had been increasing
since the building of the Russian station. Now panic bred false moves,
and errors bred more panic. Sooner or later, that panic could get out
of hand and bring about the very ruin they feared.
"Besides," he added, "there's the expense of keeping us up here. They
think the billions needed to maintain us are pauperizing them."
"We're paying three to one on every cent we get! Even forgetting the
work in astronomy, bio-chemistry, cryogenics and high-vacuum research,
our weather predictions are worth billions a year in crop returns."
Blane shrugged. "Most of our work is for the government without
payment, so Congress still has to appropriate billions for us yearly.
That's all the people see. We're poison down there. They'd vote to
ditch us if they weren't so scared of the bombs on the _Sulky_."
"That's what comes of putting scientific tools under government
control," Peal grumbled. "The stations should have been private
enterprises from the beginning."
* * * * *
Blane nodded automatically. It was an old argument, and it made sense.
But there was no chance of the government ever letting go now. They
took the clanking elevator down toward the rim, while weight built up
to the normal one-third Earth gravity that was produced by the spin
at the outer edge of the _Goddard_. Then they moved along the hallway
that circled the rim, through the recreation hall, past the vacuum
labs that were busy with some kind of military development, and past
the cryogenic section, where men were busy getting ready to resume
normal work. Beyond that lay the weather study section. It should have
been located in the hub, but there had been too little room, and the
pickups were remotely controlled, flashing their pictures of Earth onto
big screens here. Now the screens showed Madagascar to the west of them
as they swung northward. Men were busy plotting the final details for
next month's weather predictions.
Peal followed Blane through the side door into the little office of
Devlin. The General was something of a martinet, but his discipline
extended to himself. Everything was in order, and the list of
instructions lay in a folder in the center of the desk. Blane glanced
at it, then at the basket of communications from Earth. He grimaced,
and passed some of the flimsies over to Peal. "There's more evidence,
if you want to prove the profit we could show."
There were requests for projects to be done here, complaints--often
angry--at projects already okayed but delayed by high-priority military
research. There were applications from names already famous below. Five
foundations were demanding that the lunar ships be rushed to completion.
The intercom came to life with a rasping parody of the voice of
Devlin's secretary. "Mr. Blane, Captain Manners insists on seeing you.
He's been waiting nearly an hour."
Blane flipped through Devlin's instructions. There was an entry on
Manners there: _Troublemaker, possibly paranoid. Add his figures to HQ
report as routine only._
"Send him in," Blane ordered. The red-headed young captain had been
assigned here only six months ago, but Blane had met him often enough
to like him.
Almost at once, the connecting office door opened and Manners shoved
in. He was obviously angry, but his voice didn't show it. "Thanks for
seeing me, Blane. I'd just about decided you wouldn't." He slapped a
piece of film down on the desk. "Here. Look at that!"
The film was slightly darkened. Blane turned it over, recognizing it
as one of the strips worn by the men who worked in the bomb section to
warn of any accidental exposure to radiation. But it was well under any
dangerous level of exposure. He passed it to Peal, who studied it in
curiosity.
"That's in five hours of routine work in the bomb bay," Manners said.
"Routine work! And I checked the films before issuing them, so I know
they weren't pre-exposed." He pulled out a sheet of paper covered with
figures and dropped it on the desk. "The radiation's up in there again.
Check it yourself if you won't accept my readings."
Peal had grabbed up the figures which listed the radiation count in
various sections of the bomb bay. They meant nothing to Blane, but the
scientist tensed visibly as he studied them.
"I gather you showed your figures to Devlin," Blane said. "What did he
say about them?"
Bitterness washed over Manners' face. "He told me to forget it, that
readings were higher here than what I'd learned handling warheads below
because we got so many cosmic rays. Three months ago, they were a lot
higher, and he said there was an increase in cosmic radiation. But he
okayed my getting the air pumped out of the bay so nothing hot would be
sucked into the rest of the station. Last month, the figures went up to
about half what they are now, and he mumbled something about a cosmic
ray storm. I haven't been able to see him since then."
"There's no such thing as a cosmic ray storm," Peal said flatly. "Why
wasn't this reported to me? It's partly in my province."
"General Devlin ordered me not to discuss it with anyone!"
"Thunder?" Blane asked the scientist.
"If it keeps doubling every month, it's disaster! The thin walls here
are no protection from radiation. Even now, we'd better evacuate
the bio labs beside the bay. Captain Manners, we'll have to check
you on this. I'm not exactly doubting your word, but these results
are impossible according to anything I know." He swung to Blane. "I
think you'd better come, too, Jerry. This may be something for the
authorities, and you carry the weight here now."
* * * * *
It was a lousy beginning to his temporary command, Blane thought. But
seeing Peal's face, he simply nodded and followed the other two out
into the hall. They were heading toward the bomb section when a shout
went up from some of the men watching the viewing screens.
Blane swore to himself, but turned back.
He saw at once that the screens were set for top magnification, showing
a section of Earth at the extreme limits of resolution. A glance at the
projected coördinates showed that they were over southern Russia. His
eyes were untrained at grasping details, but he saw enough to recognize
that they must be viewing the great Russian rocket base that supplied
the _Sulky_.
Scarfield had taken over from his subordinate and began picking out
details with a moving spot of light. "Rocket--see its shadow? And
there--there--there. Jerry, they've got every ship they own assembled
together. And it looks as if they've been running supplies to them all.
Something big's due."
"Attack?" Blane asked. One of the jobs of the station was to spot any
clustering of military rockets that might presage a ground-based attack.
Scarfield shock his head. "Not a chance. Those are space rockets, not
war missiles. This is like the massed flight they sent up about two
years ago, remember? We never did figure out why they had to take
the whole fleet out. But with what's going on below, this must mean
something important. Think we should alert HQ?"
They obviously should, as soon as they were over one of their own
stations. The rule was clear on that--when in doubt, shout! But
meantime, they'd have to watch while still in view.
There was a faint spot of light, and Scarfield grunted. "They're
blasting off! Maybe we can plot orbits and--"
The bright spot split into lances of fire, exploding savagely outwards!
Every drop of monopropellant in the tanks must have let go at once to
make such a flare. Then, before Blane could catch his breath, there was
another flare and another. Suddenly the whole field was a great spread
of flame as the other rockets were exploded by the savage blast of the
first.
Before the _Goddard_ had passed beyond view, they knew that every
Russian ship on the field was totally demolished--which meant,
according to Scarfield's estimate, every ship that could make the trip
up to the _Sulky_.
They stared at the screen in shocked silence while Blane slowly began
to realize the implications. It had happened while they were directly
overhead. What would that mean to the ever-suspicious people of Russia
who were already conditioned to think of the _Goddard_ as their
greatest enemy? What could be made of that in a world already close to
the edge of panic?