Storm Cloud--the Vortex Blaster!
Doctor Neal Cloud had once been a normal human being, gregarious and
neighborly. He had been concerned as little with death as is the
normal human being. Death was an abstraction. It was inevitable, of
course, but it could not actually touch him or affect him personally,
except at some unspecified, unconsidered and remote future time.
For twenty uneventful years he worked in the Atomic Research
Laboratory of the Galactic Patrol, seeking a way to extinguish the
"loose" atomic vortices resulting from the breaking out of control
of atomic power plants. At home he had had wife Jo and their three
kids--and what Jo had meant to him can be described adequately only in
mathematical, not emotional terms. They had formed practically a closed
system.
Hence, when a loose atomic vortex crashed to earth through his
home, destroying in an instant everything that had made life
worthwhile--Doctor Cloud had changed.
He had had something to live for; he had loved life. Then--suddenly--he
had not, and he did not.
Cloud had always been a mathematical prodigy. Given the various
activity values of a vortex at any instant, he knew exactly the "sigma"
(summation) curve. Or, given the curve itself, he knew every individual
reading of which it was composed--all without knowing how he did it.
Nevertheless, he had never tried to blow out a vortex with duodec. He
wanted to live, and it was a mathematical certainty that that very
love of life would so impede his perceptions that he would die in the
attempt.
Then came disaster. While still numb with the shock of it, he decided
to blow out the oldest and worst vortex on Earth; partly in revenge,
partly in the cold hope that he would fail and die, as so many hundreds
of good men had already died.
But it was the vortex that died, not Cloud. It was a near thing, but
when he was released from the hospital he found himself the most famous
man alive. He was "Storm" Cloud, the Vortex Blaster--Civilization's
only vortex blaster!
He had now extinguished hundreds of the things. The operation, once so
thrilling to others, had become a drab routine to him.
But he had not recovered and never would recover a normal outlook upon
life. Something within him had died with his Jo, a vital something had
been torn from the innermost depths of his being. That terrible psychic
wound was no longer stamped boldly upon him for all to see--it no
longer made it impossible for him to work with other men or for other
men to work with him--but it was there.
Thus he preferred to be alone. Whenever he decently could, he traveled
alone, and worked alone.
* * * * *
He was alone now, hurtling through a barren region of space toward
Rift Seventy-one and the vortex which was next upon his list. In the
interests of time-saving and safety--minions of the Drug Syndicate had
taken him by force from a passenger liner not long since, in order to
save from extinction a vortex which they were using in their nefarious
business--he was driving a light cruiser converted to one-man control.
In one special hold lay his vortex-blasting flitter; in others were his
vast assortment of duodec bombs and other stores and supplies.
And as he drove along through those strangely barren, unsurveyed
wastes, he thought, as always, of Jo. He had not as yet actually
courted death. He had not considered such courting necessary. Everyone
had supposed, and he himself hoped, that a vortex would get him in
spite of everything he could do. That hope was gone--it was as simple
to blow out a vortex as a match.
But it would be _so_ easy to make a slip--and a tiny little bit of a
slip would be enough.... No, the Vortex Blaster simply couldn't put
such a black mark as that on his record. But if something else came
along he might lean just a trifle toward it....
A distress call came in, pitifully, woefully weak--the distress call of
a warm-blooded oxygen-breather!
It would have to be weak, upon his low-powered apparatus, Cloud
reflected, as he sprang to attention and began to manipulate his
controls. He was a good eighty-five parsecs--at least an hour at
maximum blast--from the nearest charted traffic route.
He could not possibly get there in time. When anything happened in
space it usually happened fast--it was almost always a question of
seconds, not of hours. Cloud worked fast, but even so he had no time
even to acknowledge--he was just barely in time to catch upon his
communicator-plate a tiny but brilliant flash of light as the frantic
sending ceased.
Whatever had occurred was already history.
Nevertheless, he had to investigate. He had received the call and it
was possible, even probable, that no other spaceship had been within
range. Law and tradition were alike adamant that every such call
must be heeded by any vessel receiving it, of whatever class or upon
whatever mission bound. He hurled out a call of his own, with all of
his small power. No reply--the ether was empty.
Driving toward the scene of catastrophe at max, Cloud did what little
he could do. He had never witnessed a space emergency before, but he
knew the routine.
There was no use whatever in investigating the wreck itself. The
brilliance of the flare had been evidence enough to the physicist
that that vessel and everything too near it had ceased to exist. It
was lifeboats he was after. They were supposed to stick around to be
rescued, but out here they probably would not--they would head for
the nearest planet to be sure of air. Air was far more important than
either water or food--and lifeboats, by the very nature of things,
could not carry enough air.
Approaching the charted spot, he sent out the universal "_survivors?_"
call and swept all nearby space with his detectors--fruitlessly.
But this was not conclusive. Since his cruiser was intended solely
to get him safely from one planet to another, he had only low-power,
short-range detectors. Of course, his communicator, weak as it was,
could reach two or three times as far as any lifeboat could possibly
be--but he had heard more than once of lifeboats, jammed full of women
and children, being launched into space without anyone aboard who could
operate even a communicator.
It required only a few minutes to pick out the nearest sun. As he shot
toward it he kept his detectors fanning out ahead, combing space mile
by plotted cubic mile. And when he was halfway to that sun his plate
revealed a lifeboat.
It was very close to the solar system toward which Cloud was
blasting--entering it--nearing one of the planets. Guided by his plate,
he drove home a solid communicator beam.
Still no answer!
Either the lifeboat did not have a communicator--some of the older
types didn't--or else it was smashed, or nobody aboard could run it.
He'd have to keep his plate on them and follow them down to the ground.
But what was that? Another boat on the plate? Not a lifeboat--too big,
but not big enough to be a regular spaceship. It was coming out from
the planet, apparently. To rescue? No--what the hell! The lug was
beaming the lifeboat!
"Let's go, you sheet-iron lummox!" the Blaster cried aloud, kicking in
his every remaining watt of drive. Then, eyes upon his plate, he swore
viciously, corrosively.