Lindsay nodded, held a finger up to his lips. Jenna nodded, too, having
been warned that the recorder was on, and also that Roberts could hear
every word.
"I'm within one hundred feet of the crater, Lindsay. My first approach
will be with the standard radiation detectors and the initial tools."
This was well-known to all, but stated for recording purposes. "I have
stopped the battle wagon at this distance. I am picking up my kit. I am
stepping to the ground, now, and--"
He was interrupted by the ka-plunking sound in the speaker. It was a
cross, in sound, between plucking a screen door spring and dropping a
boulder into a placid lagoon. A blinding flash of light burst against
the dark sky, an expanding ball of flame raced skyward and died in
a faintly luminous cloud that boiled upwards to a terrific height.
Immediately afterwards, the ground shook madly. The counting-rate meter
chattered and screeched as it overloaded and the radiation identifier
winked furiously on all pilot lights, indicating all kinds of possible
radiation. The pale actinic glow on the walls of the squat buildings
flamed bright, wavered, flickered, paled again, and went out for good.
The area and the ship was pelted with a fine rain of dirt, pebbles, and
fused glass.
The roar of the sound came, then, a thundering tortured blast that
tore at the planeted ship, whistling through the minute scratches from
previous blasts, and producing a thrumming sound.
Quiet came once more, and only the faint buzz of the counting rate
meter audio broke the silence.
Then a slight sob from Jenna.
And Colonel Ralph Lindsay took a deep, indrawn breath that shuddered
his large frame.
He shook himself, and turned to his wife. "Get hold of yourself," he
said harshly.
Jenna nodded, tossed away two tears, blinked her eyes and sat down
weakly. "I'll be all right," she said. "I must."
"They all get it, sooner or later," gritted Lindsay. "That's ...
that's--"
"Shut up, Ralph," ordered his wife. "You'll be blubbering next. Save it
for when you can. We've got work to do."
Lindsay looked at her, and as he looked, he calmed. "It's rather
tough," he said. "There's been several ... many. But few within sight.
Well, he's gone and there's nothing we can do to bring him back."
"What makes it particularly tough is that Jim Roberts was the only one
in the crew that was halfway stable, mentally," said Jenna. "The only
one who was not carrying a mental load."
Lindsay nodded. "A case of having specialized mechanical ability and
putting it to use in the best way. But Jenna ... I'm ... you're--?"
Jenna smiled. "We aren't," she agreed. She stood up and leaned against
him lightly, and then moved into the circle of his arm. "But remember
that neither of us is active in decontamination work. General Haynes
needed a stable man to direct the group, one that would correlate the
information and keep it. Not one that he'd have to replace every few
weeks. Losing Jim is tough. Better it have been one of the others;
Lacy, who lost his family and the will to live at the same instant of
blast; Grant, who is just a plain thrill-seeker and sportsman; Garrard,
who does anything and everything without looking ahead because he is
convinced that the Book of Fate has his every minute move printed in
letters of fire; Harris, who saw his brother die and who now has a
psychopathic hatred against the things but has no great dislike for the
Martians who fashioned them. He hates our robombs as much as he hates
theirs. Well--"
* * * * *
She was interrupted by the phone. Lindsay answered. It was General
Haynes.
"Who?"
"Roberts."
"Bad?"
"As soon as the dust clears away we'll know. The force fields are
usually good, and they kept out the radiation from the buildings. As
soon as the surface activity dies out, Mojave will be workable again.
We're leaving as soon as we can."
"Better mobilize your big men," said Haynes. "The second just hissed
past us. Looks like a long siege. That one was mercurite, wasn't it?"
"Nothing else."
"Thought so. We saw the blast from here in space. Know what that means?"
Lindsay nodded and said: "It means they think they have an untouchable
fuse. Otherwise they'd not bother sending the high-powered stuff over."
"Right. They'd not make us a present."
"Also, there is something about that fuse. Something, something. Look,
sir, robombing is a fine art. There is but one defense against it--and
that is for those who want to live to get out of the neighborhood.
That's what the skytrains are for. That's why you send us immediate
word when you have their course predicted. The secondary defense is not
really a defense as it is a preservative measure. The force fields go
up to protect man's work, and when the blast comes, it really destroys
nothing. Then, after a given time, the people return and go to work in
safety because the force fields kept the insides of the building from
either destruction or radioactivity.
"Now," continued Lindsay, "that one went off within ten to twenty
minutes after it landed. The immobilization period for that area is but
a couple of days at best. If not touched, the fuse would tick away for
weeks while the area stands idle. But not with this new, high-speed job
that is also loaded with mercurite. Something--
"Where was this new job?" he asked, changing the subject abruptly.
"Headed for the Gary steel mills," came Haynes' answer.
"I'm putting in a call for my crew," said Lindsay. "We'll all meet in
Chicago-South. There's something--" He shook the thought away with a
violent shake of his head. "We'll find out in Gary."
He went to the general call phone and cut a tape, fed the end into the
automatic transmitter, and checked to see that the general call was
being transmitted. He wondered, briefly, just which of them would get
to Gary first.
* * * * *
When the decontamination headquarters ship arrived, it was second.
The little private strato-speedster that was Jack Grant's own pride
and joy was sitting in the main landing field of the Gary port when
Lindsay arrived. Lindsay sort of expected that, for Grant's little
high-powered job placed the owner no more than a couple of hours from
any place on Terra, most of which was spent in going up and down
through the thicker atmosphere near the surface.
They landed, and the air lock clanged open. Moments later Jack Grant
entered the scanning room with his usual whirlwind manner.
"What's cooking, Ralph?" he greeted, extending an eager hand. His free
arm he swept around Jenna, giving her a vigorous hug and a kiss on the
forehead. "Jenna, I swear you're more beautiful by the day. Please?"
"Please what?" she countered, freeing herself and backing off a bit.
"Please poison him and marry me?"
"Nope," she said with finality. "And I won't stand to see him ...
ah ... removed, as you indelicately put it."
"Ralph, you wouldn't mind getting bumped off for your wife's happiness,
would you?"
Lindsay usually lived through Grant's brash manner; made a mental
apology for the man because he himself did not understand the kind of
mind that saw little serious in life. And usually Grant's disregard of
the serious side of life gave all a moral uplift, a chance to disregard
with Grant all of the problems that hack and tear. But Lindsay had
just seen Jim Roberts go up in a sun-hot inferno, and he was slightly
sick with shock. Now, Grant's blithe manner seemed banal, crude;
insufficiently sensitive. If Grant had no feelings, he should at least
consider the sensitivity of others. Lindsay tried to cheer himself, and
managed at best a weak, sickly grin that was lost on Grant completely.
Lindsay might have made some biting remark, but he noted with some
wonder that Jenna was not bitterly unhappy in the badinage. Jenna,
he knew, could and would clutch hysterically at any light point in a
crisis to gain just a bit of stability. Lindsay himself was inclined
to cling doggedly to a situation, deviating not one bit, until it was
finished satisfactorily. Then he would let down.
So noting Jenna's whimsical smile, he merely said, and it was with an
effort: "Think it would make her happy?"
Grant laughed and hugged Jenna quickly and said: "Look, you don't mean
she's actually happy--?"
Jenna nodded brightly, made a full turn to unwind Grant's arm from her
waist and pirouetted over to her husband. That stopped Grant, and he
smiled cheerfully and tried to look downcast.
"Love, unrequited," he sang in an off-tone basso, the opening bars of
Gilbert and Sullivan's "'Love unrequited robs me of my rest.'" Then he
grinned. "Love unrequited and my boss and his best wife who haul me out
of a sound and peaceful sleep to go out and pin a baby-blue ribbon on
a Martian robomb. O.K., fellers, I'll pull its teeth and then, Jenna,
may we continue where you left me off?"
"Been watching it?" asked Lindsay.
Grant nodded. "I've been here since it started in. The mills are clean,
the force fields are up, and the temperature of the thing is low enough
to handle by now. I'm ready."
"We're waiting," said Lindsay.
"Waiting?"
"For the rest of the crew, you know. This is serious."
"Well, it is in my district," laughed Grant. "Let the rest assemble. By
the time they get here I'll have the fuse out and in one hand. Probably
semi-disassembled."
"Jim Roberts was a good man," warned Lindsay.
"He was that."
"You're waiting."
"Why?"
"Because there seems to be more to this than meets the eye."
* * * * *
The door opened in time for the entering men to hear Lindsay's last
words. Garrard and Harris came in quietly, sat down, and started to
smoke. Garrard puffed his pipe with calm indifference, and Harris
smoked furiously on a cigarette that he puffed into a long, hot ember
that almost burned his lips. Garrard spoke first.
"More than meets the eye, huh?"
Harris nodded, but his mind seemed elsewhere. "Mutants?" he said,
giving the inert robomb out there a personality. Harris was pitting
himself against a personality when he went to do his job. He had no
real hatred for the Martians who engineered them, but he felt and acted
as though he were pitting his brain against a wholly alien, inimical
sentience.
Lindsay caught his thought, and though Harris was half solemn, the
allegory fitted. For what are engineering improvements but a mechanical
mutant?
Garrard smiled, and shrugged. "I say let's find out who is more
ingenious," he said. "And let's do it quick. Grant, are the mills
running on the servos?"
"Uh-huh, but it isn't good enough. There ought to be a human hand at
the place instead of remote controls. I agree, let's get going before
something happens to that load of steel out there. Stalling production
is the only reason for robombing in the first place. Let's lick that
fuse before they find out how much mercurite to put in in order to
blast the force fields right out of the planet's crust," said Grant.
"Go on with your lecture," he told Lindsay.
"Well, first-off, it's a new, high-speed job. It's also loaded with
mercurite. They've, as usual, packed everything into their Sunday
Punch. Their cocksuredness makes me certain that they think this fuse
unremovable."
Grant turned to Jenna. "Jenna, you're of Martian stock, part way,
anyway. Have any ideas?"
"Only to agree with Ralph. They wouldn't pack a robomb with mercurite
if they thought for one second that it could be inerted. That would
present Terra with a large volume of very valuable material. They
have succeeded in one item, they've used a new high velocity drive in
it. If they weren't certain of the ability of the high-speed drive to
escape all detector-driven gear, they wouldn't use mercurite. Mars is
not profligate, Jack. Tossing away a robomb load of mercurite on a
space-premature is not economically sensible. When they use mercurite,
it must be nearly one hundred percent effective."
"Um ... interesting thought," laughed Grant.
"Like to try it out," said Garrard. "If they feel that certain, I'd
like to know which of us is suitable to survive."
Harris blinked. He flipped the cigarette into the receptacle. "Let me
at the stinking thing," he said in a flat voice.
"Wait for Lacy," said Lindsay.
"Lacy may be late," said Grant. It was one of the very few times that
Jack Grant sounded solemn. He was almost pityingly solemn, and it
made Lindsay wish for his return to the thick-skinned attitude, for
Grant sounding solemn was strictly out of character. "He may be late,"
insisted Grant, "because he hates to come here."
"He won't deny a general alarm," said Lindsay.
"No, he will not. But I say let's not hurt the guy more than we have
to. I say let's go out and pull that thing's teeth and save Lacy the
hurt of seeing you and Jenna together."
Lindsay frowned. He wouldn't say it, but Jenna did. "Jack," she said
softly, "is that a soft spot that makes you want to keep Tom Lacy from
hurt, or are you just giving arguments to get out there and try your
skill against that bomb?"
"A little of both," said Grant cheerfully. "Plus the fact that he makes
me uncomfortable, somehow. It always makes me uncomfortable to see any
man so tied up in his own past emotions that he cannot see clearly."
"Skip it," said Lindsay firmly. "I admit that he is too bound up in the
past, but you, Grant, could stand a little more of his sincerity of
emotion just as he could stand less."
Harris had been quite alert, and broke in at this point. "All due
respects, Grant, but you run this as though you were playing a game. I
know why Lacy is that way. His game was for the reward, yours is for
the game's sake. He saw everything he'd spent his life for go up in a
flaming volcano. Years of living, of loving, of building; puffed out in
a millionth of a second. Puffed out, obliterated, disintegrated beyond
all recognition. Grant, have you ever loved anything, deeply?"
Grant nodded. "All right, fellows, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I don't
understand Lacy better. I've loved, but I've never let it be my life.
For when I've lost, there has always been something--or someone--else.
Make off like my chips weren't in this deal, will you?"
"Still a game, Grant?" laughed Garrard. "A game where every throw of
the dice is forecast is no game."
"What am I?" chuckled Jack Grant. "Just the baaaaad boy of the
decontamination squadron? Sure it's a game--the whole thing is a game.
And whether you're playing your brother for marbles or playing the
devil for fame, you play to win."
"I say--" started Garrard.
Grant out-talked him. "_I_ say that I am the master of my fate. And if
anybody calls me Invictus Grant I shall cut his throat. Or her throat,"
he added, turning to Jenna with a grin.
* * * * *
The door opened again and Lacy entered. "Quite a conference," he said.
"Well, Ralph, where is it and what's to be done?"
Lindsay brought him up to date. Then they ran off the recording of Jim
Roberts' unhappy attempt.
"You may just be overcautious," said Lacy when the recording had
finished. "It may have been a circumstance."
"Unlikely. The thing is ... has too many facets. Jenna herself claims
that a new item was expectable. Haynes had his statisticians at work,
and their findings were that the quantity of late has been diminishing,
which from past experience means that something new is due."
Jack Grant looked at Lindsay. "You don't suppose they're after the
decontamination squadron?"
"If they were gunning for us," said Harris in a voice that shook with
hatred, "they'd do it this way!" Then he settled back again. "But would
they waste mercurite on us?"
"As a means of keeping production open, we're worth mercurite,"
responded Lindsay. "And it might take something more than the ordinary
to go out and eliminate men who have made a business of defusing the
things. Assassination is almost impossible.
"And," he said reflectively, "we may be barking up the wrong tree. All
I know is that we've a brand new type, and as usual I've called the
entire group in to get the initial factors all complete. Are we a bunch
of persecution-complexes that we think they're after us?"
"No," grinned Jack Grant, "but remind me to tell that idea to Ordnance.
Eliminating the decontamination squadron is like poisoning a city by
shutting off its sewage system, perhaps, but it is effective!"
"We'll forget the personal angle until we get this one solved," said
Ralph Lindsay.
"Well, let's go," said Grant eagerly.
"We'll take this easily," objected Lindsay.
"No gambling instinct?" queried Grant with an amused smile.
"That's why he's boss," said Garrard dryly. "Lindsay has neither an ax
to grind nor an ego to build up."
"Huh?" asked Grant.
"Admitted ... and I'm sorry, Tom," said Garrard to Lacy, "that Lacy has
his ax to grind. You, Jack, apparently get an egotistical lift out of
this 'game.' Lindsay has neither."
"O.K., boss man," smiled Grant. "What do we do?"
"All the radiation meters we can pack into the battle buggy. Also we
set up a radiating system near it. Then come back and we'll run through
the spectrum to see. Now--"
"It's still in my district," reminded Grant.
"You're overeager," objected Garrard.
"And you're too complacent," objected Harris.
"Trouble with you," said Lacy, "is that you get too deep-set in pitting
your skill against a mechanical puzzle and forget to tell us the moves."
Lindsay smiled sourly. "To finish this round robin, may I tell you
_your_ faults, Tom? You are inclined to make a false move. Not
consciously, but there have been a few times when you came out by the
skin of your teeth, having pathologically missed a fine point, and
having caught it consciously."
Grant reached in a back pocket and rolled a pair of dice on the floor.
"Roll for it?" he asked hopefully.
"Never touch dice," objected Harris.