"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."