"It's the crew, sir. You know how these long runs are. Months with
nothing to do, nothing to see."
There was a flicker around the Captain's mouth that might have been
amusement. "Trouble?"
Adam looked startled. "Oh, no, nothing yet. I just wanted to head off
trouble before it started, sir. You heard Miss de Vries broadcast just
now?"
Captain McCausland nodded, and this time the smile of amusement was
definitely present. "I think the word was 'depressed' wasn't it? And
you're afraid it will throw the crew into a panic, and they'll turn the
ship around on us and head for home. Is that it, Mr. Longworth?"
Adam, wishing he were anywhere but just there, and wilting visibly
under the sarcastic gaze of the Captain, plunged desperately ahead.
"Well, sir, I took the liberty of asking her not to do it again.... She
said she was taking orders only from you ... that is ... I'm sorry,
sir, I didn't know you were going to...."
"To be married, you mean? Well, why not?" He smiled again. "The
ceremony will take place as soon as we come back from this expedition.
That gives her a certain amount of privilege you understand." His face
turned suddenly grave and his voice a trifle sharp. "Moreover, Miss de
Vries is here as radio reporter for the Interplanetary broadcasting.
I want you to understand, Mr. Mate, that I'll have no interference
with her. Instead of chasing bugaboos, suppose you check the course
through the planetoid belt. I'll leave you with it; that will give you
something real to worry about for a change."
Adam stared hopelessly after his retreating back. Damnation!
Everything had seemed to go wrong since the beginning of this voyage.
The harder he tried to prove himself worthy of the appointment as
second-in-command to "Old Steel-Wall" the worse things went. With a
shrug he turned doggedly to the chart work.
Two hours later he stepped over to the chart-room port and gazed out
into the velvet blue-black of space where the thousand suns of the
Milky Way burned across the horizon. It was no use. He was going to
have to make a fool of himself again.
But could he help it? Captain McCausland had certainly asked him to
check the course through the planetoid belt. Perhaps he would forget
now, and not ask about the checking operation. But if he did? Certainly
Walter McCausland couldn't have been wrong. Yet the figures--? Adam
studied his work sheet again, shaking his head.
"Finished the checking, Longworth?" The voice startled him so that he
jumped.
"Yes, sir. Shall I take over the watch, sir?"
"Little early, aren't you? What do you think of the course, Mister?"
Adam hesitated.
"It seems ... likely to get us there, sir."
McCausland's eyes became points. "Are you by any chance evading my
question? I'll repeat it. It was--what do you think of the course? What
is your opinion?"
Adam gulped. Here it was.
"There seems to be a fault in it, sir. I'm sorry."
"Indeed?" The tone was sarcastic. "Elucidate, Mister Mate."
"It takes us up out of the plane of the ecliptic, then back again
beyond the planetoid belt. That's very good, sir, and quite safe, but
didn't you omit the fuel consumption factor? The course as plotted
gives two shifts of forty-five degrees each, or half a complete stop,
as far as fuel is concerned. It would cut down the amount of fuel
available for exploration on Pluto to--well, here are the figures as
I've worked them out. We'd have about enough for two or three landings.
But if we went right through the danger belt of the planetoids as
originally planned, we would save enough fuel to really explore the
planet. We have to explore thoroughly if we're going to find beryllium
there. It won't lie on the surface. Why, it's hardly worth going on at
all if we can't do any more exploring than that.... That's my opinion,
sir, and I didn't volunteer it, and I ask your pardon in advance."
* * * * *
The great space captain smiled easily. "No need to beg my pardon
at all. At first glance one would think you had the right of it,
but I just happen to have gone into the matter a little deeper. You
understand the reasons behind this voyage? Well, suppose that after
having been away for two years we come back right on schedule, but
without a load of beryllium, without having found any trace of it.
What will happen? The League of Planets simply orders out another
expedition, better equipped, and we go down as having failed."
"But Captain! In two years there may not be enough light alloys left on
the three planets to build another ship as big as this! The service to
Mars will have to be stopped long before that. The lithium mines there
can't operate unless the water supply from Venus is maintained."
"Well, what of it? Nobody likes to work in that Martian colony."
Adam caught his breath.
"But how are the atomic motors that do all the work going to operate
without the lithium from Mars?"
"And what of that, even? It would be temporary. Just a few months or
years till another expedition could be sent out. You take things too
seriously. What is there to prove that some other method of armoring
space-ships won't be found? Beryllium may not be necessary after all."
"Perhaps you're right." Adam was still skeptical. "But is it likely,
sir? You've been on the space run so long you haven't kept up with
chemistry. The armor against meteorites now is so thick that any metal
but beryllium would double the weight of the vessel, and even with
these seven million horsepower Buvier-Manleys we couldn't make the run
from Venus to Mars. Why, sir, it would mean the end of the lithium
mines, it would mean the end of atomic power, and we'd have to go back
to the barbarism of the twentieth century, when they ran everything by
electricity from waterfalls!"
Captain McCausland raised an athletic hand. "Spare me that, Mister
Mate! I have heard it at approximately a hundred banquets before
starting out on this expedition. Yes, we carry the fate of the world
and all that. We have to find beryllium or else the Mars mines can't
be run and the atomic motors stop. I could sing it in my sleep. But
suppose we do take chances and get this ship wrecked. Won't the world
have to go back to 'barbarous' electric power after all? For my part, I
think some of those people in the twentieth century probably had a good
time."
Adam was silent. There was something in the Captain's reasoning,
he felt. Yet he, Adam Longworth, could not but feel that the issue
was a desperately serious one for every inhabitant of the three
worlds--Earth, Venus and Mars--belonging to the planetary league. The
entire known supply of beryllium, the precious light, strong metal that
was alone suitable for the armor of space ships, had been exhausted.
All that remained was in the hulls of the few dozen ships carrying
water from Venus to Mars, and from the arid deserts of Mars, bringing
to Earth the equally precious lithium which was the only material with
which atomic motors could be powered.
Every year, in spite of the best of care, one or two space ships would
be wrecked--caught in the sun's gravitational field, or lost through
some small error of navigation. Soon there would be no more space
ships; and no more could be built. Each of the outer planets had been
explored in turn--each but the last, the outermost and most distant;
Pluto. They were on their way there now; if they could not make it--
"Very well, sir," he said aloud. "I see your point. Will you take over
the controls at the change of course?"
"I'll take over now. Report in two hours.... One more thing, Longworth.
You're young, damn young, to be first mate on this expedition. You know
you were a last-minute choice, because of an accident to a much more
experienced, and from what I've seen so far, a much better man. Make
the most of your chance, but don't forget I'm captain here. I can't go
into my reasons for everything I do. That's all, Mister Mate."
* * * * *
"_Hello, Earth! This is Paulette de Vries speaking, aboard 7-LOP,
space-ship_ Goddard _. For the last two days we have been running along
the first leg of the angle that will lift us over the dangerous belt
of tiny planets thirty million miles beyond Mars. In a few minutes,
the ship's motors will be started to turn our course again--straight
for Pluto. I'm going to turn you over to the microphone in the motor
compartment and let you listen as the seven-million-horse-power atomics
take hold. Jake Burchall is in charge down there at the motors....
Ready, Jake? Take it away!
... "That's all, folks. We're on the new course, with the engines shut
off, and we'll coast along for eight months at a speed of two miles a
second, 120 miles a minute, 7,200 miles an hour toward Pluto. Nothing
for anyone to do--a nice vacation for eight months. We're giving a
costume ball, folks; it's all we can think of. It won't be much of a
ball, though, as I'm the only woman aboard. I'm going to lend some of
the space-men some of my dresses--" (CRASH!)_
"What was that, quick--!"
She got the answer, and went on.
"_It's all right, just one of the incidents of interplanetary
navigation. Hit by a meteorite. Out here above the planetoid zone and
close to Jupiter meteorites are more common. Here's Mr. Wayland, one
of the junior officers, with a report. What's the damage, Mr. Wayland?
It is! Folks back on Earth, we surely got it that time! The meteorite
penetrated! Right through the twenty-inch beryll-steel armor of our
hull into compartment eighteen. The whole wall of the hull is crushed
in there, we've lost a few hundred cubic feet of air, but the doors are
closed and our air supply is safe. Here's First Mate Longworth, just
back from compartment eighteen. He says they'll leave the compartment
as it is, and build a tunnel of thin metal through it to reach the five
compartments toward the stern.
"Folks, can you imagine the shock of that meteorite? It's only a foot
through and weighs five hundred pounds. If it had been one of the
planetoids our whole hull would be crushed now. Captain McCausland
turned our course to avoid the planetoid zone entirely and does that
prove he was right? It does, and how! Well, folks, it's been a long day
and an exciting one. This is 7-LOP, space-ship_ Goddard _, signing off.
Paulette de Vries speaking. 0-nine-two-seven, May 27, 2432._"
* * * * *
Adam had returned from the damaged compartment in time to catch the
close of the broadcast as he was stripping off the space suit in which
he was making the examination. Dog-tired, he had just switched off the
light preparatory to turning in when the light and buzzer flashed at
the door.
"It's me, Jake," came a voice.