* * * * *
Sandra Drake forced the jack-rabbitting ship into a cockeyed orbit
about Pluto after a couple of hours. They had nosebleed, jittery
nerves, aching muscles, and voracious appetites by the time the drive
was cut. They ate, smoked, took showers, and then decided to call a
conference.
Hammond opened it by saying: "There's one quick way to do this.
It's on everybody's tongue, but I have the floor and I'll voice it
first. To keep from getting squashed by our own weight under a few
thousand feet per, we need something to take up the shock--something to
counterbalance the gravity-apparent. Jimmy, how many mechanogravitic
generators have we aboard?"
"Two, including the one we're running in the drive right now. It is as
big, however."
"How's the output of our patched-together alphatron?"
"Plenty. The coil of the E-grav was much oversize, and since electrons
will rush in where alphons fear to tread, we've plenty of soup."
"Then we'll set the other mech-grav up in the nose, and extend the warp
down to envelop the ship. Right?"
"Right. And now for some kind of safety factor? Supposing something
goes blooey?" asked Pete. "And how do we maintain the relationship
between the drive's power and the counter-drive's attraction?"
"Weight-driven power controls for the counter-drive. Inertia switches
for safety. Interlocking circuits for every factor so that either the
drive failure will knock out the counter-drive, or vice versa. We'll
build this like an electric lock, so that the whole shebang must be
right on the button before she'll move. Then the failure of any part
to perform will stop all parts simultaneously. It'll probably be jerky
at first, but the prime function is to get Mac to Station 1, and from
there on in we can tinker with this thing until hell freezes over.
O.K., let's hustle the mech-grav into the nose."
Installing the mech-grav generator in the nose of the ship was not
a difficult job, since it weighed exactly nothing with the ship in
an orbit about Pluto. But the intricate job of hooking the equipment
together was to be more difficult.
They rammed holes in the bulk-heads to pass cables. They tore out
whole sections of unimportant wiring circuits to get wire for the
interlocking circuits--and when the terminals were there, the relays
and inertia switches had to be made or converted from existing
equipment.
Sandra Drake was of little help. She could make the ship perform to
within a thousandth of an inch of its design, and perhaps add a few
items that the designers hadn't included, but her knowledge of the
works was small. She hadn't thought it necessary or desirable to
understand, beyond the rudiments, how the drive worked.
In fact, up to the present time she had scorned the knowledge of any
higher intricacies; her idea had always been that men were paid to
think these things out and she was in a position to pay them for their
knowledge. Let them do it, and give them hell if it was not right. Her
hiring them automatically gave her the right to order them around like
slaves, and since the laws that govern space travel are such that a
ship's pilot or owner may demand attention to the ship, Sandra demanded
such attention, needed or not.
But this was the second time in less than a year that she had seen men
working with equipment. Before, it had been her fault, and she had
sniffed at their labors in a scornful attitude, gaining their hatred as
she had gained the dislike of so many others.
This time it was slightly different. She had been sandbagged into
this job and now it seemed as though her own life depended upon the
clearness of the minds of the men who worked over the equipment.
So she entered this strange world of nuts and bolts and small tools
strewn around in profusion, and stood amazed at the order that was
being worked out of chaos. It was apparent to her that some semblance
to order must be present, since they knew where to turn to pick up the
right tool, and because the right part was always less than a foot from
their ready hands.
* * * * *
A headstrong, spoiled brat she may have been, but Sandra Drake was
by no means unintelligent. After John McBride had cut off a tiny
lathe-turning just in time to hand it to Pete, who seemed to need it at
exactly that moment to fit into his instrument, Sandra said to McBride:
"Is there any pattern to all this mess?"
"If there weren't, we'd really be in a mess." He opened the chuck,
advanced the rod a few inches, and started to turn the rod down to size
again.
"This," said Sandra in that infuriating voice, "is order, neatness,
and efficiency?"
"We like it," answered McBride, his eyes on the cross-feed vernier. "It
may not look like a drawing room, but we know what we're doing."
"Do you? Is this a sample of how the place looks every time the
_Haywire Queen_ goes out to experiment?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Why couldn't it be neat and clean?"
"Because we can't replace every tool back in the cabinet when we are
ready to lay it down for a minute. Because it is far better to run
cutting chips all over the floor and sweep 'em up once instead of
running the broom every seven seconds after each chip. Because it is
easier to work this way."
"Well," said Sandra, unimpressed, "the _Haywire Queen_ seems deserving
of her name."
"There have been a lot of ticklish space problems fought out in her,"
replied McBride. "Just as we're fighting one now."
"But where are your drawings? Where are your plans? Where are your
calculations?"
"Our drawings will be made by draftsmen when we make the thing work,"
answered McBride. "No sense in having a sheaf of drawings when we'll
change the thing a dozen times before it is perfected. Our plans
are step-by-step, and any result from one step may change our next
step. Our calculations and mathematical deductions will be handled by
brilliant mathematicians who can twist simple formulas around to fit
the observed data by adding or subtracting abstract terms that fit the
case."
"Sounds slightly slipshod to me."
McBride cut the part from the bar and handed it to Pete. "Enough?" he
asked, and Pete nodded over his shoulder.
"You can start on part two," he called.
McBride replaced the bar with a larger one and started to work it into
shape. "We don't need drawings," he said. "I know what Pete wants and
how they should fit together and they're fairly simple parts. He knows
what he wants and knows that I know also, so why should we make a lot
of sketches for something trivial?"
"It seems to me that this is far from trivial," said Sandra pettishly.
"You're playing with the lives of us all."
"Your life wasn't worth a peanut when you tried to run through the
lens," said McBride. "Why quibble now?"
"I lived through it," said Drake.
"You'll live through this, perhaps," said McBride. "Besides, we're not
too worried about our own lives. We're all willing to take a chance on
them for Enid."
"Yeah?" drawled Sandra sourly. "How about the rest of them? That's only
speaking for yourself."
Steve Hammond called from across the room: "What he said still goes.
He'd do as much for me!"
"Just a big bunch of mutual admirers," sneered Sandra. "Always sticking
together in a pinch."
"What's wrong with that?"
"Why didn't you think of your wife a long time ago instead of worrying
now. Fine show of nerves for the public consumption!"
"Miss Drake, as far as we are concerned, you haven't been properly
treated. Somewhere in the Good Book is a reference to sparing the rod
and spoiling the child. Do your parents twist their faces in anguish
every time they see you? They should. Anyone who has foisted upon this
solar system a stinking little, unfeeling rotter like yourself should
hate to be alone with their thoughts. Now get out of here and let us
alone."
Sandra moved back at the harshness of his voice. McBride looked behind
her and instinctively put out a hand to stop her; but Sandra thought
that the move meant violence and moved back faster. She collided with a
dangling wire from the alphatron and went rigid. She toppled, as stiff
as a board.
"Great Space!" exploded Hammond. "Jimmy, how much was that?"
"Nine hundred alphons," answered Jimmy, looking at the meters on the
alphatron and making a quick calculation. "Not enough to harm. She's
just had all of her voluntary nervous system paralyzed."
McBride stooped, picked her up, and carried her to a work-chair, which
he kicked horizontal with his foot and dropped her into it. He went
to the medicine cabinet and filled a hypo which he shot into her arm.
Gradually her too-regular breathing became humanly irregular again and
she moved to get up.
"Stay there," said McBride.
"Rest a bit," advised Hammond.
"And remember next time," warned Jimmy, "that this kind of a place is
no place to walk backwards. Another two hundred alphons--and that is
far from impossible--and you'd have been extremely dead." He wiped his
forehead with a dirty cloth, mopping the beads of nervous perspiration
away.
"I suppose that would have left you without a pilot," said Sandra. Her
sharp remark lacked her usual conviction, however, and she realized
that it fell flat. She got out of the chair and left abruptly.
* * * * *
"Well, I'll be--"
"Be careful," said Larry. "She isn't worth it."
"I'm going to take the bad taste out of my mouth by calling the Lens,"
announced McBride.
"Go ahead," offered Pete. "We'll polish off here and by the time you're
through, we'll make a stab at it!"
McBride got a through connection to Station 1, and Dr. Caldwell came to
the phone.
"Doc," asked McBride. "How's Enid?"
"Touch and go, lad. We're still fighting."
"Bad?"
"I'm afraid to say 'no' to that one," answered Caldwell in a tight
voice.
"What does she say?"
"She's been in a coma ever since the fall, except for a minute or two
in which she called for you. John, I shouldn't have sent you away."
"Don't worry about that one. After all, you didn't know she was going
to take a header."
"Yeah, but--"
"You fix her up and we'll forget it."
"But suppose--"
"Doc, is it that bad?"
"I can not deny that she would be infinitely better off if you were
here. She needs an emotional lift."
"I'm trying."
"I know, lad, but the next ship off of Pluto is in five days and then
four more days of flight at a killing drive. Nine interminable days."
McBride debated the advisability of telling Caldwell of their
experiment, but decided against it. If he said anything about the
possibility of getting there sooner, Caldwell might tell Enid on the
chance that it might do her some good. On the other hand, if Enid
thought he were coming, and he did not come, the shock--
"O.K., Doc. We'll get there somehow."
"We'll keep fighting," said Caldwell.
He hung up the phone as Hammond spoke into the communicator. "Sunward
at thirty feet per," he said.
"Thirty feet per," answered Drake. "And may we not get burned!"
"Trusting soul," observed Hammond.
Sandra thrust the main lever home with a savage motion. Deftly she
juggled the steering levers until the ship pointed at Sol. "We're off,"
she said. "Hold your hats!"
* * * * *
The accelerometer climbed by the second. It hit one hundred feet per,
and then slowed in its climb, approaching one twenty in an exponential
curve. In the other room, a step-by-step switch continued to click off
the contacts, and the generators in the turbine room whined higher and
higher up the scale. Minutes passed and became a half hour.
"We're in," said McBride, with a deep exhalation. "But how in the name
of sin can we tell what our acceleration is?"
"The Hooke type of accelerometer is useless when we neutralize the
gravity-apparent," agreed Hammond. "We're going to have some inventing
to do."
"I wonder what the limit of our acceleration is," said Jimmy. "It can't
be infinite, because the mechanogravitic generator above can take only
so much--"
The inertia switches went out with startling clicks, and the
weight-loaded rheostats whirred home to zero. Relays danced madly as
the acceleration went to zero once more.
"Right back where we started from," came the pained voice of Sandra
Drake. "Can't you birds think of something practical?"
She thrust the main control home once more, hooking it up to the
automatic circuit that Larry had installed. The acceleration began
again. "Now we'll have some more jackrabbit drive--but with a longer
jump," said Drake cynically.
"We'll have to limp all the way to the Lens on this drive," said
McBride. "It isn't too good, but I can't see--"
"I'm tired of this jerky stuff," said Sandra Drake entering the room.
"It seems to me that you should be able to duplicate the mess you have
here by something similar up in the nose."
"Yes?" asked Steve Hammond politely. He was interested but not
impressed.
"What I'm trying to say is this: Wouldn't a set-up similar to this
space-eating drive also be capable of exerting mechanical attraction,
thereby getting you a constantly increasing neutralizing force?"