Taking his nerve in his teeth, Walt forced his brain to clear.
Christine--didn't deserve this.
Yet if he got out from beneath those covers he would most certainly
freeze in a matter of minutes. Yet he must--do--something.
He considered the tubes and their tangles of wire through puffed,
half-closed eyes. He thought he was moving with lightning-rapidity
when he leaped out of the bed but his motion was insufferably slow.
He dropped on his knees beside the tubes and with his bare hands he
fumbled for the hot wires. They seared his fingers and sent pungent
curls of smoke up to torture his nose, but his fingers felt no pain and
his olfactory sense did not register the nauseous odor of burning flesh.
He found the switch and turned off the tiny tubes.
He collected loop after loop and shorted them close to the terminals
of the two tubes. A hundred feet of wire looped back and forth in a
one-inch span across the terminal lugs would produce a mighty overload.
It made a bulky bundle of wire the very mass of which would prevent it
from heating to incandescence and blowing out in a shower of droplets.
One chance in a million!
Just one!
Walt snapped the switches on.
For to the trained technician, a blown fuse is not an ill. It is a
symptom of an ill, and no trained technician ever replaced a blown fuse
without attempting to find out why and where the overload occurred.
Walt crept painfully back to bed and huddled under the blankets against
Christine.
"Kiddo," he said in a dry-cracked voice, "I did what I could! Honest."
The oblivion of cold claimed Walt again....
* * * * *
"--there is but one unhappy note in this scene of revelry," continued
Don Channing a bit soberly. "We're sorry that Walt Franks took this
opportunity of rushing off to get matrimonially involved with Christine
Baler. He didn't know this was imminent, of course, otherwise he'd have
been here. We all love Walt and he'll be unhappy that he missed the
blowout here. Fact is, fellers, I'd give eight years off of the end of
my life to get any kind of word from Walt--"
An alarm clamored in the hallway and Wes Farrell jumped a foot. He
headed for the door, but Channing stopped him with a gesture.
"Friend Farrell forgets that we no longer care," laughed Channing.
"That was the main fuse in the solar-energy tubes blowing out and we
won't be needing them any more. It is sort of pleasant to know that a
fuse blew--a thing that was formerly master and we the slave--and that
we don't have to give a hoot whether it blew or not. Let it blow, Wes.
We don't need power any more!
"So I suggest that we all have a quick one on Walt Franks wishing him
health and happiness for the rest of his life with Christine nee Baler,
even though the big bum did cheat us out of the privilege of kissing
his bride.
"And now, I'm going to step aside and let Santa Claus take over."
There was a thunderous roar of applause, and Channing rejoined Arden
and the rest of them, who had sort of gravitated together.
"Merry Christmas," he grinned at them.
Keg Johnson nodded. "Merry Christmas--and on to Terra for your Happy
New Year!"
They raised their glasses, and it was Wes Farrell who said: "To
Walt--and may he be as happy as we are!"
Arden chuckled. "We used to sing a song about 'Walt's Faults' but
there's one thing, Walt would have replaced that fuse even though we
didn't need it. The old string-saver!"
A messenger came up and tapped Don on the shoulder. Channing turned
with an apologetic smile to his guests and said: "I get more damned
interruptions. They tell me that someone is knocking on the spacelock
door. If anyone here knows any prayers, let 'em make with a short one.
Pray this--whoever it is--knows something about Walt."
Don left the party and went along the cold, snow-filled corridor to his
office. As one of the few remaining places where operations were in
full tilt, Channing's office was where any visitor would be conducted.
Once the business was finished, Channing could hurl the guest into the
middle of the big party, but the party was no place to try to conduct
business in the first place.
So with heels on desk, a glass of Scotch from his favorite file drawer,
Don Channing idled and waited for the visitor.