Gilchrist had no fear of the sun's heat.
Then Biggs gave him a new kind of hotfoot.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories May 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I guess it was about 7:58 Solar Constant Time--yes, it was exactly
that, because I'd just received a clearance O.Q. for 8:00 from the
Sun City portmaster--when the portal of my radio turret opened and
in waddled Cap Hanson, skipper of our void-mangling freighter, the
_Saturn_.
The Old Man's optics were dancing like a nudist in a hailstorm, and
he wore a grin on his lips that stretched from ear to there.
"Guess what, Sparks?" he chortled. "I got a s'prise for you! Guess who
just came aboard?"
I said gloomily, "If it's anybody like that sourpuss
encyclopedia-on-legs who came aboard at Luna, you can have my
resignation right now, if not sooner. I've been hectored and bulldozed
and criticised so much lately that I'm beginning to feel like one large
apology with corpuscles."
I wasn't joking, either. You know me--Bert Donovan--the easy-goingest
bug-pounder who ever loused up the ether with Morse code. I don't get
mad often, and my nerves are as steady as a forger's fingers, but this
newest addition to the _Saturn's_ personnel had me on the verge of
babbling baby-talk.
His name was Horatio Gilchrist, his rank was "Major" and his title was
"efficiency expert." To summarize briefly: Major Horatio Gilchrist was
a rank efficiency expert--and I _do_ mean rank! He had pale, green,
watery, squinting eyes and a nose like a gimlet. Said proboscis was
always in everybody else's business. He snooped and sniffed and sidled
about the _Saturn_ like a pup in the Petrified Forest, and he had a
habit of popping out where least expected, like a fat man in tights.
He was always making suggestions. He told me how to conserve juice by
pre-heating the tubes before I transmitted. He advised Cap Hanson, who
has been roving the spaceways, man and boy, for more than forty years,
on astrogation practices. He quoted facts, figures and statistics at
Dick Todd till our acting First Mate grew as haggard as a parson at a
burleyque.
"I can't stand it, Sparks!" Todd moaned to me feebly after a
session with Gilchrist. "He's driving me whacky with his confounded
'efficiency'! The hell of it is half the time he's right! There _are_
ways to save time, money and materials while operating the _Saturn_. We
all know that. But you can't run a spaceship like an adding-machine!"
But such complaints were as futile as a bathing-suit on Mars. Major
Gilchrist ranked every officer on the _Saturn_, and his "suggestions"
had to be obeyed--or else!
Cap Hanson said commiseratingly, "I know, Sparks. I hate his g--I
mean, _I_ don't like the gentleman much, either. But, listen! This is
something swell! The guy who joined us at Sun City is none other than--"
But he never finished his sentence. At that moment, the chronometer
tagged 8:00, the hypos whined, the stern-jets roared, and the _Saturn_
lifted gravs from Venus as smoothly as hot butter sliding off a
griddle. My eyes opened wide and my mouth dittoed. There was only one
pilot in space whose touch on the controls was that deft, that gentle!
"_Biggs!_" I cried. "Good old Lancelot Biggs!"
* * * * *
I turned and banged hell-for-leather out of my room, down the ramp,
and into the control cabin, with Hanson vainly trying to lumber along
in the suction of my slipstream. As I had guessed, it was my old chum
and erstwhile roommate, Lance Biggs, at the studs. Beside him stood the
dark-haired beauty who had been Diane Hanson, and was now Mrs. L. Biggs.
I yelled, "Lance, you knobby old son-of-a-scarecrow! Where did you come
from? Where've you been? How did you two get aboard--"
Biggs--_Lieutenant_ Biggs to you, upstart!--swiveled and grinned at
me. Marriage might have worked wonders on the inner man, I wouldn't
know about that, but it had not changed his exterior in any way, shape
or form. He was still the old lean and lanky, gawky and gangling
caricature of humanity I'd always known. Tow-headed and wistful of eye
and blessed with a nervous, oversized Adam's-apple that bobbled up and
down in his throat like an undigested billiard ball.
"Hello, Sparks," he said mildly. "We came aboard at Sun City. We've
been honeymooning. But my leave is up, now, and I've reported back for
duty."
I said, "And, man! am I ever glad to see you! We've been one
hop-skip-and-jump from the loony-bin on this trip--and I don't mean
could be! We can use somebody who has a few brains--"
Biggs looked puzzled.
"Why? What seems to be the trouble?"
"Pig-headed bureaucracy, that's what!" puffed Hanson irately. "Take it
from me, son, the Major--"
Then suddenly his gaze, slipping past me, grew wary. His eyes veiled,
and his arteries stopped hardening. Without a pause he continued in a
milder tone:
"--major difficulty seems to be that we need brushin' up on the latest
space practices. We're a bit rusty, you know. So the Corporation has
assigned a very capable officer to--Why, there he is now! Come in,
Major Gilchrist!"
And in slithered the efficiency expert, glaring like a teetotaller in a
taproom. As usual, he had a nasty comment for everybody. To me he said,
"Sparks, you left your battery on! A sheer waste of valuable current,
sir--_waste_! Be kind enough to go aloft and attend to it instantly!"
Then, to the Old Man, "And you, Captain--surely you know the Company
rule against allowing women in the control cabins of space-craft?"
Biggs, having set the studs into lock-posts, slipped from the
bucket-shaped pilot's chair and walked to his wife's side. No, he
didn't exactly walk, either. Biggs' locomotion can scarcely be
dignified by that term. It is a stiff-legged sort of galumph, like an
ostrich on ice-skates. But his tone held a proper degree of uxorious
dignity.
"The _lady_, Major," he said, "is my wife."
But the old freezeroo didn't chill Gilchrist at all. He just sniffed
down his long, sharp nose at Biggs.
"And who," he demanded, "might _you_ be?"
* * * * *
It was Cap Hanson who answered. The skipper's voice was warm with
justifiable pride. "Permit me, Major. This is my son-in-law and First
Officer, Lt. Lancelot Biggs. He just reported back for active duty.
I'm sure you've heard of him. He invented the V-I unit and the uranium
speech-trap--"[1]
[Footnote 1: For previous adventures of the Interplanetary
Corporation's whackiest wisest young officer, see copies of _Fantastic
Adventures_ for 1939-40.--Ed.]
"Oh!" said Gilchrist frigidly, and stared at my chum like a vegetarian
at a hamburger. "So _you're_ Biggs? This is too bad. I had just
succeeded in training Lieutenant Todd to a point of efficiency. Now
I suppose I must start over again and teach _you_ how to manage a
spaceship!"
Imagine it! That kind of crack to Mr. Biggs, one of the brainiest
spacers who ever lifted gravs! Dick Todd was a good guy, but he wasn't
Biggs' equal by ten decimals! I held my breath and waited for the
explosion. Cap Hanson's mottled old cheeks began to glow like a neon
sign, and Diane _whooshed_ like an enraged Bunsen burner. But Biggs
spoke up hurriedly.
"Yes, sir!" he said. "Very good, sir! I'll be most grateful for your
instructions, sir!"
That was the kind of palaver Gilchrist liked. For a moment he looked
half human as a tight little smile shuddered along his lips. He said,
mollified, "That's very sensible of you, Lieutenant. We may get along,
after all. For a while I feared your--er--lucky accomplishments in the
past might--er--make you a bit difficult. Have you plotted our homeward
course?"
"Yes, sir," replied Mr. Biggs. He lifted a sheet of paper from the
chart-desk, handed it to the Major. Gilchrist studied it briefly,
lifted his gimlet eyes.
"Not bad, Lieutenant. Not bad at all. A little old-fashioned, perhaps--"
That was more than I could stand. If Biggs wouldn't take his own part,
I had to. I burst out, "But, Major, Biggs just graduated from the
Academy two years ago! How could his astrogation be 'old-fashioned'?
There's not a better plotter in space. Lance has yanked us out of more
troubles--"
"_Sparks!_" That was Biggs, warning me with his voice and with his
eyes. "Didn't the Major tell you to go turn off your batteries? You'd
better run along."
"O.Q.," I snarled. "I'm on my way. Come up and see me in my turret some
time, Lance--where the air is fresher!" And I beat it before Major
Gilchrist caught his breath.
* * * * *
So there it was. A couple of hours later I was sitting in my
cubby-hole, still fuming over how the Holy Bonds of Matrimony had
changed a once vivid and daring spaceman into a vapid and scary
yes-man, when there came a knock on the door.
"If you owe me money," I growled, "come in! If vice versa, there's
nobody home but us amperes!"
The door eased open, and it was Biggs. His face was sober. He said,
"Sparks, can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Why don't you ask Gilchrist?" I snorted. "He gives the orders around
here."
He closed the door behind him, snapped the safety.
"It's about Gilchrist I wanted to talk--"
"Then do your talking," I advised him rudely, "somewhere else. If I
never hear that skunk's name again, it will be too soon."
"Don't be hasty, Sparks. He's not a bad chap. Just a trifle headstrong,
maybe--"
"Some people," I scorned, "like spiders. There's no accounting for
tastes. Headstrong? You could use that skull of his to split granite.
And _you_--" My indignation rose as I talked--"you're as bad as he is!
Feeding him the good old soft-soap till it ran out of his ears!"
"It doesn't pay," said Biggs in that peculiar, soft, schoolmarm fashion
he sometimes affects, "to antagonize folks you have to get along with.
Whether we like it or not, Major Gilchrist has senior authority on this
ship. But we can talk about that some other time, Sparks. This is what
I wanted to show you--"
And he hauled a plot-chart from his pocket, gazed at me anxiously as I
scanned it.
Well, you know how plot-charts are. Nothing but one solid mess of
figures, figures, figures. Trajectory, flight-velocity, loft and
acceleration computations--all that junk. They're about as easy to read
as the shorthand scribblings of an illiterate Choctaw. I passed it
back. I said:
"Looks O.Q. to me. Why the corrugated forehead?"
"Look again, Bert," demanded Biggs. "Look carefully at those trajectory
co-ordinates. I may be wrong, and I don't want to influence your
opinion by saying anything, but--"
This time I got it. The figures joined together and formed a picture in
my mind, a picture that startled me worse than a surrealist drawing. I
gasped:
"_Sol!_"
* * * * *
Biggs nodded.
"Mm-hmm. That's what I thought, too. The course he plotted skirts the
Sun. Swings past it at a distance of only ten million miles!"
I'm a lot of things--but one of the things I am _not_ is unresponsive
to suggestion. I broke out in a hectic sweat and started for the door.
"Oh, no!" I yelped. "Maybe _he'd_ like to play pussy-wants-a-corner
with the prominences, but not _me_! The nearest I want to get to any
corona is to smoke one! The guy's nuts! I'm going to tell him--"
But Biggs grabbed my arm.
"It's no use, Sparks. I've already told him."
"You--you have?"
"Yes. And he said--" Biggs' larynx performed some incredible
involutions--"he said he knew perfectly well what he was doing."
"And so do I!" I howled. "He's plowing us smack-dab into Sol's
gravitational clutch! Well, I don't want some! I have no ambition to
become part of a sunspot!"
"No-o-o," said Biggs thoughtfully, "that's one thing we don't have
to fear. Gilchrist's mathematics are O.Q. Our velocity will be great
enough to overcome Sol's gravitation."
"But what are we going to do," I stormed, "about the heat? 6000°
Centigrade ain't exactly what I consider a cool, refreshing climate!"
"That's the trouble. I told him we'd be boiled like beans in a pot
if we passed that near Sol, but he pooh-poohed my warning. Said our
refrigerating system would keep us cool and comfortable." Biggs shook
his head helplessly. "I don't know what to do, Sparks. After all, his
word _is_ law."
I moaned. "And how long," I asked, "before we begin to french-fry in
our own carcasses?"
"About five days, Sparks. Five or six days from the current--" He
stopped suddenly. His pale eyes glowed. His larynx began leaping up and
down like a Mexican jumping bean. "_Current!_" he repeated. "But of
course! _That's it!_"
"'Scuse, please?" I demanded, puzzled.
But Biggs shook me off with an evasion.
"Not now, Sparks I can't tell you now. There's no sense in both of
us getting in trouble. But I think I know a way to convince Major
Gilchrist we must change our course."
* * * * *
So a couple of days skidded by, as days have a habit of doing. About
the middle of the second day, Hanson came up to my turret looking as
confused as a stork at the Old Maids' Home. He said, "Sparks, I been
hearin' funny things--"
"Your digestion?" I asked. "Or have you been dosing your asthma with
that 90-proof cough-medicine again? That'll make you hear things and
_see_ 'em too--"
"That's enough," interrupted the Old Man coldly, "of them kind o'
comments! What I been hearin' is bad. They's a rumor floatin' around
that we're on a dead trajectory for Sol due to Major Gilchrist's course
plottin'."
"Oh, that?" I said. "Forget it, skipper. Mr. Biggs knows all about it.
He's got ideas."
"Well," said the skipper, relieved, "in that case, I guess everything's
O.Q." And he waddled happily away. Which gives you some idea who's the
real Master Mind on the _Saturn_.
That very same night, Diane Biggs stopped me outside the Officers' Mess.
"Sparks, have you seen Lancelot anywhere? I haven't laid eyes on him
all day, and I'm worried."
"You ought to know better than to fret wrinkles into your pretty brow
over that one-man quiz program," I told her. "He's O.Q. Right now he's
engaged in some mysterious project of his own devising. When last seen
he was swiping generator supplies from the storeroom. Don't ask me why,
because maybe I know the right answer, and I don't want to have to
tell."
"He--he's not going to get in any trouble, is he?"
"Well, not exactly," I chuckled. "Though things _may_ be a trifle
hot for a while." For I had seen the stuff Biggs had snaggled from
the supply room, and I had also watched him sneaking out through the
airlock to the _Saturn's_ hull. I had a pretty fair idea what was going
to happen, but I figured it was his pigeon, and I didn't want to upset
the Bostons.
So that was all till the next day. But the next day everything happened
at once.
* * * * *
To begin with, when I tried to make my daily contact with the
transmitting station on Luna I couldn't coax so much as a squeak out
of my radio apparatus. It was as lifeless as a Venusian swamp-snake on
Pluto. I sweated and swore and got under the banks to find the trouble,
but everything seemed to be O.Q. Wiring, rheos, ampies, all were jake.
But the radio wouldn't rade. It just hissed and spluttered and murmured
as feebly as a college girl in a parked car. The trouble was, I finally
discovered, it wasn't getting any juice. Nary a bit!
Meanwhile, Dick Todd audioed me from the bridge. He fumed, "Sparks, for
Pete's sake tell Garrity to turn down the thermoes! It's getting hot up
here!"
Which sentiment I could personally double in spades. Because it was
getting hot in my turret, too. My shirt was a dishrag, and my forehead
was leaking like a rented rowboat.
So I called Garrity, but the Chief Engineer spoke up before I could
ease a word in edgewise.
"Is thot you, Sparrrks?" he bellowed angrily. "It's aboot time ye were
gettin' in tooch wi' me! Whut the de'il's the motter oop therrre? Yon
contrrrol-turrret is michty nigh stewin' us in oor oon grrravy! Turrn
off the heat!"
Well, I'm not dumb. Not too dumb, anyway. Two plus two equals Lancelot
Biggs. That's why, when Capt. Hanson and Diane wilted into my turret a
few minutes later, looking like a brace of parboiled lobsters, I just
grinned at them.
Hanson's eyes were haggard with despair. He wailed, "Sparks--this awful
heat! You know what's causin' it? It's because we're gettin' too close
to the Sun, that's what! You told me Lancelot had everything under
control. Where is he?"
"If I'm not mistaken," I assured him, "he's entering now by the
portcullis gate."
And I was right. Hatless, jacketless, soaked to the belt with
perspiration but grinning triumphantly, entered Mr. Biggs. He mopped
his forehead and said amiably, "'Lo, folks! Hot, isn't it?"
Diane ran to his side fearfully. She cried, "Lancelot, you must _do_
something! Daddy says this heat means we--we're going to plunge into
the Sun! You mustn't let--"
Biggs smiled serenely.
"Now, honey, don't get excited. We're in no danger. This isn't solar
radiation. _I_ caused this heat."
Well, that didn't surprise me. I had guessed it all along. But Diane
and her papa stared at him wildly. "What?" croaked the skipper. "You
done this, son? But--but why?"
"Why, simply because--" began Biggs. But he didn't finish his
explanation. For there came a savage interruption from the doorway. And
in an angry, spiteful voice:
"Continue, Mr. Biggs!" snarled Major Gilchrist. "_Do_ continue, please!
I am most eager to learn why you performed this abominable act of
sabotage!"
* * * * *
I said, "Oh-oh!" and looked for a hole I could crawl into and drag in
after me. Mr. Biggs' grin faded. "H-hello, Major!" he faltered weakly.
"_Mister_ Biggs!" raged the efficiency expert. "May I ask _why_ you
wound a dozen coils of uninsulated wire about the _Saturn's_ hull and
connected the electrical helix so formed to the power generators? Don't
deny it, sir! I've been outside and seen your handiwork!"