"Shut up, Arden," snapped the man. "People will think that I've been
kissing you."
"If someone else was taking advantage of the situation," she said, "you
got gypped. I thought I was kissing you and I cooked with gas!"
"Did you ever try that before?" asked Channing interestedly.
"Why?" she asked.
"I liked it. I merely wondered, if you'd worked it on other men, what
there was about you that kept you single."
"They all died after the first application," she said. "They couldn't
take it."
"Let me outta here! I get the implication. I am the first bird that
hasn't died, hey?" He yawned luxuriously.
"Company or the hour?" asked Arden.
"Can't be either," he said. "Come on, let's break a bottle of beer
open. I'm dry!"
"I've got a slight headache," she told him. "From what, I can't
imagine."
"I haven't a headache, but I'm sort of logy."
"What have you been doing?" asked Arden. "Haven't seen you for a couple
of days."
"Nothing worth mentioning. Had an idea a couple of days ago and went to
work on it."
"Haven't been working overtime or missing breakfast?"
"Nope."
"Then I don't see why you should be ill. I can explain my headache away
by attributing it to eyestrain. Since Billyboy came here, and censored
the movies to the bone, the darned things flicker like anything. But
eyestrain doesn't create an autointoxication. So, my fine fellow, what
have you been drinking?"
"Nothing that I haven't been drinking since I first took to my second
bottlehood some years ago."
"You wouldn't be suffering from a hangover from that hangover you had a
couple of weeks ago?"
"Nope. I swore off. Never again will I try to drink a whole quart of
Two Moons in one evening. It got me."
"It had you for a couple of days," laughed Arden. "All to itself."
Don Channing said nothing. He recalled, all too vividly, the rolling
of the tummy that ensued after that session with the only fighter that
hadn't yet been beaten: Old John Barleycorn.
"How are you coming on with Burbank?" asked Arden. "I haven't heard
a rave for--well, ever since Monday morning's conference. Three days
without a nasty dig at Our Boss. That's a record."
"Give the devil his due. He's been more than busy placating irate
citizens. That last debacle with the beam control gave him a real
Moscow winter. His reforms came to a stop whilst he retrenched. But
he's been doing an excellent job of squirming out from under. Of
course, it has been helped by the fact that even though the service was
rotten for a few hours, the customers couldn't rush out to some other
agency to get communications with the other planets."
"Sort of: 'Take us, as lousy as we are?'"
"That's it."
* * * * *
Channing opened the door to his apartment and Arden went in. Channing
followed, and then stopped cold.
"Great Jeepers!" he said in an awed tone. "If I didn't know--"
"Why, Don! What's so startling?"
"Have you noticed?" he asked. "It smells like the inside of a chicken
coop in here!"
Arden sniffed. "It does sort of remind me of something that died and
couldn't get out of its skin." Arden smiled. "I'll hold my breath. Any
sacrifice for a drink."
"That isn't the point. This is purified air. It should be as sweet as a
baby's breath."
"Some baby," whistled Arden. "What's she been drinking?"
"It wasn't cow juice. Nor yet lake filler. What I've been trying to put
over is that the air doesn't seem to have been changed in here for nine
weeks."
Channing went to the ventilator and lit a match. The flame bent over,
flickered, and went out.
"Air intake is O.K.," he said. "Maybe it is I. Bring on that bottle,
Channing; don't keep the lady waiting."
He yawned again, deeply and jaw-stretchingly. Arden yawned too, and the
thought of both of them stretching their jaws to the breaking-off point
made both of them laugh foolishly.
"Arden, I'm going to break one bottle of beer with you, after which I'm
going to take you home, kiss you goodnight, and toss you into your own
apartment. Then I'm coming back here and I'm going to hit the hay!"
Arden took a long, deep breath. "I'll buy that," she said. "And
tonight, it wouldn't take much persuasion to induce me to snooze right
here in this chair!"
"Oh fine," cheered Don. "That would fix me up swell with the neighbors.
I'm not going to get shotgunned into anything like that!"
"Don't be silly," said Arden.
"From the look in your eye," said Channing, "I'd say that you were
just about to do that very thing. I was merely trying to dissolve any
ideas that you might have."
"Don't bother," she said pettishly. "I haven't any ideas. I'm as free
as you are, and I intend to stay that way!"
Channing stood up. "The next thing we know, we'll be fighting," he
observed. "Stand up, Arden. Shake."
Arden stood up, shook herself, and then looked at Channing with a
strange light in her eyes. "I feel sort of dizzy," she admitted. "And
everything irritates me."
She passed a hand over her eyes wearily. Then, with a visible effort,
she straightened. She seemed to throw off her momentary ill feeling
instantly. She smiled at Channing and was her normal self in less than
a minute.
"What is it?" she asked. "Do you feel funny, too?"
"I do!" he said. "I don't want that beer. I want to snooze."
"When Channing would prefer snoozing to boozing, he is sick," she said.
"Come on, fellow, take me home."
Slowly they walked down the long hallway. They said nothing. Arm in arm
they went, and when they reached Arden's door, their goodnight kiss
lacked enthusiasm. "See you in the morning," said Don.
Arden looked at him. "That mug was a little flat. We'll try it
again--tomorrow or next week."
* * * * *
Don Channing's night sleep was broken by dreams. He was warm. His
dreams depicted him in a warm, airless chamber, and he was forced to
breathe that same stale air again and again. He awoke in a hot sweat,
weak and feeling--well, lousy!
He dressed carelessly. He shaved hit-or-miss. His morning coffee tasted
flat and sour. He left the apartment in a bad mood, and bumped into
Arden at the corner of the hall.
"Hello," she said. "I feel rotten. But you have improved. Or is that
passionate breathing just a lack of fresh air?"
"Hell! That's it!" he said. He snapped up his wrist watch, which was
a chronograph, equipped with a stop-watch hand. He looked about, and
finding a man sitting on a bench, apparently taking it easy while
waiting for someone, Channing clicked the sweep hand into gear. He
started to count the man's respiration.
"What gives?" asked Arden. "What's 'It'? Why are you so excited? Did I
say something?"
"You did," said Channing after fifteen seconds. "That bird's
respiration is better than fifty! This whole place is filled to the
gills with carbon dioxide. Come on, Arden, let's get going!"
Channing led the girl by several yards by the time that they were
within sight of the elevator. He waited for her, and then sent the car
upward at a full throttle. Minutes passed, and they could feel that
stomach-rising sensation that comes when gravity is lessened. Arden
clasped her hands over her middle and hugged. She squirmed and giggled.
"You've been up to the axis before," said Channing. "Take long, deep
breaths."
The car came to a stop with a slowing effect. A normal braking stop
would have catapulted them against the ceiling. "Come on," he grinned
at her, "here's where we make time!"
Channing looked up the little flight of stairs that led to the
innermost level. He winked at Arden and jumped. He passed up through
the opening easily. "Jump," he commanded. "Don't use the stairs!"
Arden jumped. She sailed upward, and as she passed through the opening,
Channing caught her by one arm and stopped her flight. "At that speed
you'd go right on across," he said.
She looked up, and there about two hundred feet overhead she could see
the opposite wall.
Channing snapped on the lights. They were in a room two hundred feet
in diameter and three hundred feet long. "We're at the center of the
station," Channing informed her. "Beyond that bulkhead is the air lock.
On the other side of the other bulkhead, we have the air plants, the
storage spaces, and several cubic inches of machinery."
"Inches?" asked Arden. Then she saw that he was fooling.
"Come on," he said. He took her by the hand and with a kick he
propelled himself along on a long, curving course to the opposite side
of the inner cylinder. He gained the opposite bulkhead as well.
"Now, that's what I call traveling," said Arden. "But my tummy goes
_whoosh, whoosh_, every time we cross the center."
Channing operated a heavy door. They went in through rooms full of
machinery and into rooms stacked to the center with boxes; stacked from
the wall to the center and then packed with springs. Near the axis of
the cylinder, things weighed so little that packing was necessary to
keep them from bouncing around.
"I feel giddy," said Arden.
"High in oxygen," said he. "The CO_{2} drops to the bottom, being
heavier. Then, too, the air is thinner up here because centrifugal
force swings the whole out to the rim. Out there we are so used to
'down' that here, a half mile above--or to the center, rather--we have
trouble in saying, technically, what we mean. Watch!"
He left Arden standing and walked rapidly around the inside of the
cylinder. Soon he was standing on the steel plates directly above her
head. She looked up, and shook her head.
"I know why," she called, "but it still makes me dizzy. Come down from
up there. Or I'll be sick."
Channing made a neat dive from his position above her head. He did it
merely by jumping upward from his place toward her place, apparently
hanging head down from the ceiling. He turned a neat flip-flop in the
air and landed easily beside her. Immediately, for both of them, things
became right-side-up again.
* * * * *
Channing opened the door to the room marked: "Air Plant." He stepped
in, snapped on the lights, and gasped in amazement. The room was empty!
Completely empty! Absolutely, and irrevocably vacant. Oh, there was
some dirt on the floor and some trash in the corners, and a trail of
scratches on the floor to show that the life-giving air plant had been
removed, hunk by hunk, out through another door at the far end of the
room.
"Whoa, Tillie!" screamed Don. "We've been stabbed! Arden, get on the
-type and have ... no, wait a minute until we find out a few more
things about this!"
They made record time back to the office level. They found Burbank in
his office, leaning back, and talking to someone on the phone.
Channing tried to interrupt, but Burbank removed his nose from the
telephone long enough to snarl, "Can't you see I'm busy? Have you no
manners or respect?"
Channing, fuming inside, swore inwardly. He sat down with a show of
being calm and folded his hands over his abdomen like the famed statue
of Buddha. Arden looked at him, and for all of the trouble they were
in, she couldn't help giggling. Channing, tall, lanky, and yet strong,
looked as little as possible like the popular, pudgy figure of the
Sitting Buddha.
A minute passed.
Burbank hung up the phone.
"Where does Venus Equilateral get its air from?" snapped Burbank.
"That's what I want--"
"Answer me, please. I'm worried."
"So am I. Something--"
"Tell me first, from what source does Venus Equilateral get its fresh
air?"
"From the air plant. And that is--"
"There must be more than one," said Burbank thoughtfully.
"There's only one."
"There _must_ be more than one. We couldn't live if there weren't,"
said the Director.
"Wishing won't make it so. There is only one."
"I tell you, there must be another. Why, I went into the one up at the
axis yesterday and found that instead of a bunch of machinery, running
smoothly, purifying air, and sending it out to the various parts of the
station, all there was was a veritable jungle of weeds. Those weeds,
Mr. Channing, looked as though they must have been put in there years
ago. Now, where did the air-purifying machinery go?"
Channing listened to the latter half of Burbank's speech with his chin
at half-mast. He looked as though a feather would knock him clear
across the office.
"I had some workmen clear the weeds out. I intend to replace the air
machinery as soon as I can get some new material sent from Terra."
Channing managed to blink. It was an effort. "You had workmen toss the
weeds out--" he repeated dully. "The weeds--"
There was silence for a minute. Burbank studied the man in the chair
as though Channing were a piece of statuary. Channing was just as
motionless. "Channing, man, what ails you--" began Burbank. The sound
of Burbank's' voice aroused Channing from his shocked condition.
Channing leaped to his feet. He landed on his heels, spun, and snapped
at Arden: "Get on the -type. Have 'em slap as many oxy-drums on the
fastest ship they've got! Get 'em here at full throttle. Tell 'em
to load up the pilot and crew with gravanol and not to spare the
horsepower! Scram!"
Arden gasped. She fled from the office.
"Burbank, what did you think an air plant was?" snapped Channing.
"Why, isn't it some sort of purifying machinery?" asked the wondering
Director.
"What better purifying machine is there than a plot of grass?" shouted
Channing. "Weeds, grass, flowers, trees, alfalfa, wheat, or anything
that grows and uses chlorophyll. We breathe oxygen, exhale CO_{2}.
Plants inhale CO_{2} and exude oxygen. An air plant means just that. It
is a specialized type of Martian sawgrass that is more efficient than
anything else in the system for inhaling dead air and revitalizing it.
And you've tossed the weeds out!" Channing snorted in anger. "We've
spent years getting that plant so that it will grow just right. It got
so good that the CO_{2} detectors weren't even needed. The balance was
so adjusted that they haven't even been turned for three or four years.
They were just another source of unnecessary expense. Why, save for a
monthly inspection, that room isn't even opened, so efficient is the
Martian sawgrass. We, Burbank, are losing oxygen!"
The Director grew white. "I didn't know," he said.
"Well, you know now. Get on your horse and do something. At least,
Burbank, stay out of my way while I do something."
"You have a free hand," said Burbank. His voice sounded beaten.
* * * * *
Channing left the office of the Director and headed for the chem
lab. "How much potassium chlorate, nitrate, sulphate, and other
oxygen-bearing compounds have you?" he asked. "That includes mercuric
oxide, spare water, or anything else that will give us oxygen if
broken down?"
There was a ten-minute wait until the members of the chem lab took a
hurried inventory.
"Good," said Channing. "Start breaking it down. Collect all the oxygen
you can in containers. This is the business! It has priority! Anything,
no matter how valuable, must be scrapped if it can facilitate the
gathering of oxygen. God knows, there isn't by half enough--not even a
tenth. But try, anyway."
Channing headed out of the chemistry laboratory and into the
electronics lab. "Jimmy," he shouted. "Get a couple of stone jars
and get an electrolysis outfit running. Fling the hydrogen out of a
convenient outlet into space and collect the oxygen. Water, I mean. Use
tap water, right out of the faucet."
"Yeah, but--"
"Jimmy, if we don't breathe, what chance have we to go on drinking?
I'll tell you when to stop."
"O.K., Doc," said Jimmy.
"And look. As soon as you get that running, set up a CO_{2} indicator
and let me know the percentage at the end of each hour! Get me?"
"I take it that something has happened to the air plant?"
"It isn't functioning," said Channing shortly. He left the puzzled
Jimmy and headed for the beam-control room. Jimmy continued to wonder
about the air plant. How in the devil could an air plant cease
functioning unless it were--_dead_! Jimmy stopped wondering and began
to operate on his electrolysis set-up furiously.
Channing found the men in the beam-control room worried and ill at
ease. The fine co-ordination that made them expert in their line was
ebbing. The nervous work, that made it necessary to run the men in
ten-minute shifts with a half hour of rest in between, demanded perfect
motor control, excellent perception, and a fine power of reasoning.
The barely perceptible lack of oxygen at this high level was taking its
toll already.
"Look, fellows, we're in a mess. Until further notice, take five-minute
shifts. We've got about thirty hours to go. If the going gets tough,
drop it to three-minute shifts. But, fellows, keep those beams centered
until you drop!"
"We'll keep 'em going if we have to call our wives up here to run 'em
for us," said one man. "What's up?"
"Air plant's sour. Losing oxy. Got a shipload coming out from Terra, be
here in thirty hours. But upon you fellows will rest the responsibility
of keeping us in touch with the rest of the system. If you fail, we
could call for help until hell freezes us all in--and no one would hear
us!"
"We'll keep 'em rolling," said a little fellow that had to sit on a
tall stool to get even with the controls.
Channing looked out of the big plastiglass dome that covered the entire
end of the Venus Equilateral Station. "Here messages go in and out," he
mused. "The other end brings us things that take our breath away."
Channing was referring to the big air lock at the other end of the
station, three miles away, right through the center.
At the center of the dome, there was a sighting 'scope. It kept
Polaris on a marked circle, keeping the station exactly even with
the Terrestrial North. About the periphery of the dome, looking out
across space, the beam control operators were sitting, each with a
hundred-foot parabolic reflector below his position, outside the dome,
and under the rim of the transparent bowl. These reflectors shot the
interworld signals across space in tight beams, and the men, half the
time anticipating the vagaries of space-warp, kept them centered on the
proper, shining speck in that field of stars.
Above his head, the stars twinkled. Puny man, setting his will against
the monstrous void. Puny man, dependent upon atmosphere. "Nature abhors
a vacuum," once said Torrecelli. What braggadocio! If Nature abhorred a
vacuum, why did she make so much of it?
* * * * *
Arden Westland entered the apartment without knocking. "I'd give my
right arm up to here for a cigarette," she said, marking above the
elbow with the edge of her other hand.
"Na-hah," said Channing. "Can't burn oxygen."
"I know. I'm tired, I'm cold, and I'm ill. Anything you can do for a
lady?"
"Not as much as I'd like to do," said Channing. "I can't help much.
We've got most of the place stopped off with the air-tight doors. We've
been electrolyzing water, baking KClO_{3}, and everything else we can
get oxy out of. I've a crew of men trying to absorb the CO_{2}. Jimmy
Dickson is bringing me hourly reports on the CO_{2} content and we
are losing. Slowly, Arden, but we are losing. Of course, I've known
all along that we couldn't support the station on the meager supplies
we have on hand. But we'll win in the end. Our microcosmic world is
getting a shot in the arm in a few hours that will reset the balance."
"I don't see why we didn't prepare for this emergency," said Arden.
"This station is well balanced. There are enough people here and enough
space to make a little world of our own. We can establish a balance
that is pretty darned close to perfect. The imperfections are taken
care of by influxes of supplies from the system. Until Burbank upset
the balance, we could go on forever, utilizing natural purification of
air and water. We grow a few vegetables and have some meat critters
to give milk and steak. The energy to operate Venus Equilateral is
supplied with the photoelectric collectors--sun power, if you please.
Why should we burden ourselves with a lot of cubic feet of supplies
that would take up room necessary to maintain our balance? We are
not in bad shape. We'll live, though we'll all be a bunch of tired,
irritable people who yawn in one another's faces."
"And after it is over?"
"We'll establish the balance. Then we'll settle down again. We can take
up where we left off."
"Not quite. Venus Equilateral has been seared by fire. We'll be tougher
and less tolerant of outsiders. If we were a closed corporation before,
we'll be tighter than a vacuum-packed coffee can afterwards. And the
first bird that cracks us will get hissed at."
* * * * *
Three superliners hove into sight at the end of thirty-one hours. They
circled the station, signaling by helio. They approached the air lock
end of the station and made contact. Their bulk tipped the station
slightly, tipped it and rotated it by gyroscopic reaction. The air lock
was opened and space-suited figures swarmed over the mile-wide end of
the station. A stream of big oxygen tanks were brought into the air
lock, admitted, and taken to the last bulwark of huddled people on the
fourth level.
From one of the ships there came a horde of men carrying huge square
trays of dirt and green, growing sawgrass.
For six hours, Venus Equilateral was the scene of wild, furious
activity. The dead air was blown out of bad areas, and the hissing
of oxygen tanks was heard in every room. Gradually the people left
the fourth level and returned to their rightful places. The station
rang with laughter once more, and business, stopped short for want of
breath, took a deep lungful of fresh air and went back to work.
The superliners left. But not without taking a souvenir. Francis
Burbank went with them. His removal notice was on the first ship, and
Don Channing's appointment as Director of Interplanetary Communications
was on the second.
Happily he entered the Director's office once more. He carried with him
all the things that he had removed just a few short weeks before. This
time he was coming to stay.
Arden entered the office behind him. "Home again?" she asked.
"Yop," he grinned at her. "Open file B, will you, and break out a
container of my favorite beverage?"
"Sure thing," she said.
There came a shout of glee. "Break out four glasses," she was told from
behind. It was Walt Franks and Joe.
It was Arden that proposed the toast. "Here's to a closed corporation,"
she said. They drank on that.
She went over beside Don and took his arm. "You see?" she said, looking
up into his eyes. "We aren't the same. Things have changed since
Burbank came, and went. Haven't they?"
"They have," laughed Channing. "And now that you are my secretary, it
is no longer proper for you to shine up to me like that. People will
talk."
"What's he raving about?" asked Joe.
Channing answered. "It is considered bad taste for a secretary to make
passes at her boss. Think of his wife and kids."
"You have neither."
"Maybe so. But it is still not proper for a secretary to--"
"You can't call me a secretary in that tone of voice," snapped Arden.
"I quit! I resign! I refuse to be secretary to a man like you!"
Channing looked helplessly at Franks.
Walt looked at Arden, saw what was in her eyes, and told Channing: "See
if you can wriggle out of what comes next!" He took Joe by the arm and
said: "Joe, now that the ban is off, may I buy you a drink?"