And two lifeboats sprang from each side of the freighter.
The scope lost them for a moment, then picked up one pair. They were
almost invisible specks in the background.
In another five minutes they had joined the other pair of lifeboats,
and all four were now headed slowly toward Mars, apparently well
behind the mother ship.
The scope shifted back to the abandoned ship. The announcer was
saying:
"And now take a long last look at this--this compounded missile that
in a few hours may very well destroy a world unless a miracle--"
The scene, the words could not have been more perfectly timed even in
a class B trideo space thriller. The racing derelict was framed
against a background of ruddy Mars, then the next instant the area
completely around it seemed to blacken out. Then it started glowing,
increasing in intensity, expanding, throwing fiery arms wildly
outward. It became a nova of fury. The scope had it centered
beautifully. Even the coolest molten blobs could be seen being pushed
from the mass until the inner hell caught up with them and turned them
into vapor.
A quick-thinking engineer must have thrown a filter somewhere in the
scope's innards, for the scene became sort of an X-ray one in which
the glare of the light no longer impeded vision. The heart of the fury
could easily be seen as it expanded itself, feeding and growing on the
solid matter within its reach. The central fury overtook the lagging
perimeter forces, engulfed them, then blossomed out, thinned, and
became a diaphanous curtain rippling and shimmering in an uncertainty
of direction. It waned, leaving a residual flicker that might have
been only a product of imagination.
The entire magnificent show lasted ten minutes. For each second of
each minute of that time, I'll swear I held my breath! And everyone
else in the station at that time would say the same about himself. It
was that striking, that breath-taking.
Some seconds after the spectacle was over, there was a near-silence.
Then cheers broke loose. Such a confined din I hope never to hear
again. The dramatic suspense had been so effectively communicated for
so many hours, the miraculous sudden release seemed to demand an
over-compensating effect. Everyone seemed suddenly to believe it an
excellent reason to celebrate--and they certainly did!
* * * * *
Speculation as to what caused the explosion ran riot. But to me it was
plainly Willy's influence reaching out to a company ship's crew and
Mars personnel. It might seem that I had gambled a little too much on
Willy's influence, but not really. I had observed and recorded that
particular synergism and had every confidence in the results. Willy's
Rube Goldberg had a combination of built-in errors which produced a
series of compensating course alterations that made the asteroid
de-energize and materialize right smack in normal space where the
freighter was--after the crew escaped.
The blackness that had been noticeable for an instant was, of course,
the asteroid coming out of sub-space. And with the runaway trying to
co-exist right in the middle of the asteroid, naturally everything
vaporized. Mars was saved.
So was Willy.
So was I.
Goil? Well, I nailed him right away; confessed my duplicity in the
course figures and tapes, and explained that I needed the time to let
things happen the way Willy's influence makes them happen. I don't
think Goil was totally convinced. But he must have been partly, at
least, for with all the system's experts arguing about just exactly
what made the ship explode, and with no two experts agreeing on an
explanation, he might have given some benefit of the doubt to Willy.
Anyway, he was so relieved that his interests in Mars were saved that
he smiled for the next three days, dismissed me as an incurable
visionary or some other sort of nut, and chewed Willy out for two
hours, then seemed to forget the matter.
Me? An appropriate length of time before the ship was abandoned, I
radioed to a stock broker friend of mine on Earth and put every dime
plus that I had into the mightily fallen stocks on Mars. Goil and I
are now both big holders in the company.
Willy? He never suspected his part in the episode. Last time I heard,
he was working on some fabulous government project as fifteenth
assistant engineer. I guess the government had heard about him
somehow. It seems that the fabulous project has working for it an
egghead whose brainpower is such a necessity that he is hired even
though he is a notorious accident prone. Willy, of course, neutralizes
him so work can progress at normal rate.