"Report!"
"Report slight increase in phanoradiation high in the subnuclear
region. Cross semi-collateral traces indicating an increase in
lower-level nuclear activity."
The squawk box clicked off and Dusty looked with puzzlement at Gant
Nerley. "What was all that?" he pleaded.
"He means that Transgalactic is hard at work. The lower level of
nuclear reactions has increased in intensity, meaning in simple
prediction that the business of making a variable star out of Sol is
under way."
The Marandanian with the filar micrometer on the barytrine detector
grumbled. "It's going to be a bit rough."
"Why?" asked the pilot. "If it weren't for that barytrine we'd never
find Sol out of that mess dead ahead. We'd be canvassing the stellar
region around there for weeks if we didn't have a focal point--"
"I know," grunted the detector operator. "First you need a barytrine
field large enough to make a homing run on, but then once you're home
you'll want a tiny one so you can locate the generator precisely. Well,
you can't have 'em both, Jann."
Jann Wilkor shook his head. "I wish I'd made this run before. I could
make it faster."
Gant pointed at the screen and nudged Dusty. The color-scale was still
high in the blue-violet and there were a couple of places on the
viewpanel that were a dead black, tiny spots that did not move as Jann
Wilkor's delicate touch corrected the course. Spots burned out of the
substance of the panel like over-exposed film burned through.
"It takes a master pilot to make a run this fast. Even so, we're taking
a rather high risk. But if the channel was free and open from Marandis
to Spiral Cluster, with only a big phanobeacon at either end, we could
make it with the screen burning black-violet. We may even have to
develop a new supraradiant material for ultra-high velocities."
"How fast can you go?"
Jann Wilkor soared around a beacon and centered on the next before
the flicking wave of heat was gone. He did it easily and with the
negligent reflex of the master pilot. "Fitt Mazorn took one of the
high speed jobs into intergalactic space for a speed run a year ago
and claims to have made it from Laranonne to Ultimane in slightly less
than an hour. Or," corrected the pilot, "an equivalent distance, out in
deep-deep space. Some of this is probably guff; I doubt that he could
do it. That's a hundred thousand light-years per hour and just a bit
fantastic. Trouble is that the phanobands propagate at a finite speed,
according to Hahn Tratter, and therefore the true velocity is difficult
to check, since no one has been able to measure phanoband velocity."
"At any rate, it's fast," said Dusty, who did not understand half of
what the pilot said.
Gant nodded. "It's fast. It's what we'll be doing in your clear
channels, Dusty. That will make you rich and famous, that idea of
yours."
"Iffing and providing we can get there in time."
"No matter. If Terra is lost to you, you'll still--"
"Look," said Dusty, "if that bunch wins out, I'll--"
"And I won't blame you," replied Gant.
There came a double report. The man on the barytrine detector said,
"Barytrine field just went into the second phase," at the same time
that the pilot said, "Last lap!" and turned his point of aim around the
beacon to center the hairs on a small star that did not wink.
"Our next problem is to scour Terra inch by inch to find their
barytrine generator," said Gant worriedly.
Dusty groaned. He thought of the trackless wastes of the planet; the
Upper Amazon jungles, the tundra of Alaska and Siberia, the hidden
reaches of Africa, high Tibet, and for that matter the cornfields of
Iowa and the wheat fields of Saskatchewan. The fathomless, staggering
area of the sea bottoms was too vast a hopeless search-problem to
contemplate.
* * * * *
Gant looked at Dusty. "It's bad, Dusty. I'll not fool you, but it's
bad. We have perhaps a day or two, perhaps three. We're late. By the
time we arrive, the phase-two growth will be heavy enough to cause
leakage-reaction in our detector and render the detector completely
ambiguous."
"Meaning what?"
"What I said. That we must scour Terra inch by inch. And here is where
you must help."
"Me?"
"Yes. You must issue orders to your Space Patrol to comb the landscape.
You must find that barytrine generator."
Dusty looked at Gant Nerley blankly. "You realize what you're asking?
That within a matter of hours we must set up a land-scouring search
and completely cover the entire earth? I haven't even got the foggiest
notion of how many million square miles of earth there are, let alone
the ocean-bottom which we couldn't even touch, lacking the equipment."
"They wouldn't plant it on a sea bottom."
"No? Look, Gant, remember that they're planning on keeping this thing
running for a thousand years. They'll have to hide it good."
Gant shook his head with a wan smile. "Not at all. You forget that so
far as anybody within the barytrine field is likely to see it, the
total time will be from right now until the field goes on in a few
hours. Then the enclosure-time will elapse instantaneously for those
within. Anybody who finds it once the job goes on will find it after
you have been freed of the field. The chances are high that they've
dropped it in some comfortable climate, possibly near a large city,
just as Scyth Radnor did."
Dusty eyed Gant sourly. "For the same purpose?" he asked.
"Probably. After all, Dusty--" Gant let the statement hang, suggesting
silently that Dusty was the kind of human who would think of the same
thing and act on it. "So you must issue orders to your Patrol--"
Dusty grunted. His Patrol? Discredited, his position shot to bits, his
public appeal running somewhere near absolute zero, who would even
listen to him? His former admirers had shucked their Space Patrol
clothing for the costume of Jack Vandal, Space Rover.
Then he sat up with a puzzled smile.
"You have an idea?"
"I hope so."
"And--?"
Dusty smiled wistfully. "From the time Scyth Radnor opened his
spacelock and blasted off the end of my antenna, I've been running a
losing battle," he said. "I've been playing a game far over my head;
outpointed, overbid, overdrawn and sinking. About the only reason I'm
still here fighting is that some of the rules of this cockeyed game
seem to fall into my own act. Yes, dammit, I've got an idea. Can I call
the orders, Gant?"
"Take over, Dusty."
Dusty turned to the pilot. "When we get there," he said, "Circle the
planet several times as fast and as low as you can. Create a stir.
Radiate like mad, anything you can radiate. Call attention to us in a
bold fashion and show 'em that what we've got is big, important and
powerful." Then to Gant Nerley he put the question, "You wouldn't have
anything as primitive as a radio set aboard, would you?"
"You mean a radiomagnetic communication device? Well, not for
communications but we do have a small receiver for detecting the
lower-radiation stars and one for scanning planetary systems for
primitive cultures. What did you have in mind?"