I turned my head quickly toward the screen. There was just the flimsy
outline of something there; something barely perceptible to the waves
that scanned the path ahead of the ship. But whatever it was, it was in
our path and it was very large. A cloud, maybe--only clouds don't show
on radar.
"Meteors!" screamed Spartan. "Heaven help us! It's a meteor cloud!"
He pushed me aside and sprang to the controls. At the same time, he
touched the emergency button, setting off a shrieking siren alarm.
_Chapter 7_
Except for two or three meteor clouds which the earth plows through on
its annual turn around the sun, the number and location of these in
the solar system are unknown. They are not clouds in the sense that
they hang like a heavy mist and obscure objects behind them. They are
so thin and tenuous that if thousands of meteors did not shower on the
earth when it goes through their midst, we would be unaware of their
presence in space.
The cloud ahead of us was, possibly, half a million miles in diameter,
making it rather small. The Perseids and Leonids, for example, may
extend completely around the sun in the orbit of a disintegrated comet.
Very few of the meteors are larger than a grain of sand and they are so
widely scattered that all of the meteors in a cubic mile of space might
be packed into a teacup. However, a few of them might be as large as a
teacup and, very rarely, one might be as big as a house.
For a planet like the earth to plow through a cloud of meteors, there
is little danger. For one thing, most of the meteors are vaporized as
they strike the upper atmosphere. Only a few ever reach the earth and
there have been only a couple of cases on record where a human being
has been harmed by a meteorite.
But the Jehad had no atmosphere to shield it from meteors. True, we
were equipped with double walls capable of vaporizing a meteor up to
a quarter of an inch in diameter. And we had methods of minimizing
the danger of larger meteors--leakproof fluid in the walls, airtight
bulkheads dividing the ship into segments, spacesuits, and a reserve
supply of oxygen. But there was always that extreme chance of striking
a big fellow, which would cancel out all our defenses. This cloud ahead
of us certainly held a few that size.
Had Axel and I not been so interested in the signals from Mars, we
might have spotted the meteors several minutes sooner. Our ship was now
traveling close to 30,000 miles an hour, however, and those minutes had
eaten up precious distance in which we might have maneuvered the craft
out of danger.
We were less than an hour's run from the fringe of the cloud. The
Jehad, using a very small amount of power to accelerate its huge mass,
could not be turned in time to avoid it.
As Spartan sounded the alarm, he spoke tersely into the intercom mike,
warning of the danger ahead and telling the crew to scatter to separate
compartments, to minimize the loss in the event that a large meteor
crashed into one segment of the ship. We had all been drilled on this
procedure, which included the donning of spacesuits.
While Spartan remained in the control room, Axel and I put on our
suits, zipped them, and then I carried one to Spartan, who put it on
while Axel continued to manipulate the controls. The manipulation
simply included increasing the power of the plasma motors.
All twelve were now operating, and auxiliary jets on the sides of the
ship were being fired in order to curve the ship from its trajectory
so that it would pass as near the extreme rear fringe of the cloud as
possible. Here the meteors would be the smallest, driven back from the
central mass by the pressure of sunlight, which would have less effect
on the larger masses.
Wearing a space helmet aboard ship had one major disadvantage. In order
to talk, it was necessary to use the radio transmitters located in the
helmets. All were on the same wave length and since all of us were
talking at the same time, there was a babble of voices in our ears.
"Silence!" Spartan's voice rose above the others. "Keep quiet! You
distract me!"
The sounds subsided. Spartan took over the controls from Axel and
continued to increase the power of the ship. Suddenly he seemed to be
aware that Axel and I were still in the control room. "Go back to my
compartment! Both of you! You know the regulations for an emergency
like this."
Dr. Spartan's compartment, like the shower room and lavatory farther
to the rear of the ship, was divided in half by a corridor. On one
side were his living quarters and on the other was the chartroom which
contained a small but adequate electronic computer, astronomic tables
on microfilm, a projector for the film, and our entire supply of
writing materials.
Axel stationed himself in the chartroom, and I went to Spartan's
sleeping quarters. I felt helpless and trapped. The room, for a
captain's quarters, was bleak. His sleeping bag was lashed to the
bulkhead and there was a private lavatory and shaving mirror, for he
did not share the one the rest of us used. A small chest--like the ones
the rest of us had for our personal belongings--was near the bed roll.
I remembered suddenly that the male members of the crew had been
clean-shaven and had sported butch hair-cuts when they'd come aboard.
Even Gail wore a mannish bob. But Dr. Spartan had kept his beard. If,
in order to cut down on weight, we'd been ordered to trim our hair, why
hadn't Spartan made a sacrifice in that direction?
I thought about these things, perhaps, to turn my mind away from the
approaching danger. This was also the reason I gave myself for looking
into his space chest. I'm not naturally a snooper. Was he the kind of
man who would murder me in order to possess Gail? Would a clue be in
his chest? I looked inside.
I found a toothbrush, soap, extra clothing and shoes, electric razor
for trimming his beard. There was also a locked box which probably
contained poisoned darts. I had an urge to steal it, but I knew his gun
was loaded and I'd never get away with the theft.
Next I found a small square of paper on which were written the names of
the crew. Morrie Grover's name was first. Mine was second. Joel's had
been third, but now it was crossed out and written below Axel's. Gail's
name was followed by a question mark. There was no notation to indicate
the reason for the names. He did not need a roster of the crew--that
was in the log book.
I replaced the paper and closed the chest. I waited for meteors to
strike, and wondered if any would damage the ship. But I knew the only
sound I would hear would be when one struck the ship. The greater the
sound, the larger the meteor.
I put my head to the floor. I was wearing my helmet, of course, but the
vibrations of striking meteors would be transmitted to the helmet and
I would hear them. We had often talked to each other this way without
using our helmet radios.
For several minutes I waited and heard nothing. Then came a sound.
_Ping._
It was faint, but I knew a meteor had made that sound as it hit the
craft.