diameter, one-half "silvered" with a greenish reflective surface
inside that reflected only that light that could be utilized by the
ruby rods at its long focal center; and that absorbed the remainder of
the incident solar radiation, dumping it through to its black outside
surface, and on into the vastness of space. This half of the big
balloon was the spherical collector mirror, facing, through the clear
plastic of its other half, the solar disk.
Well inside the balloon, at the tip of the ruby barrel that was its
heart, were located the boiler tubes that activated the self-centering
inertial orientation servos which must remain operational at all
times. If the big mirror were ever to present its blackened rear
surface to the sun for more than a few minutes, the rise in
temperature would totally destroy the entire project. Therefore, these
servos had been designed as the ultimate in fail-safe, fool-proof
control to maintain the orientation of the mirror always within one
tenth of one degree of the center of Sol.
Their action was simplicity itself. The black boiler tubes were
shielded in such a way that so long as the aim was dead center on the
sun they received no energy; but let the orientation shift by a
fraction of a degree, and one of these blackened surfaces would begin
to receive reflected energy from the mirror behind it; the liquid
nitrogen within would boil, and escape under pressure through a jet in
such manner as to re-orient the position to the center of the tracking
alignment.
[Illustration]
Since the nitrogen gas escaped into the balloon, the automatic
pressure regulator designed to maintain pressure within the balloon
would extract an equal quantity of gas, put it back through the
cooling system on the back side of the mirror, and return it as liquid
to the boiler.
These jets were so carefully and precisely balanced that there was
virtually no "hunting" in the system.
The balloon itself was attached to its anchor tube by a one hundred
meter cable that gave free play to these orientation servos. The
anchor point was the exact center of the black outside surface of the
mirror-half of the balloon; and beside that anchor point was the air
lock to the control center, to which Steve was now going.
From the control room, a column extended up through the axis of the
balloon for thirty-five hundred feet--and most of the surface of this
column was covered with the new type, high power ruby rods, thirty
feet long and one-half inch in diameter, mounted in tubular trays of
reflective material which took up sufficient space to make each rod
occupy two inches of the circumference of the tube on which it was
mounted.
These ruby rods were the heart of the power system, converting the
random wave fronts of noncoherent light received from the mirror into
a tremendous beam of coherent infrared energy which could be bundled
in such a pattern as to reach Earth's surface in a focal point
adjustable from here to be something between twenty-two feet in
diameter to approximately one mile in diameter.
[Illustration]
The banks of rods were so arranged that each of the one hundred
sections comprising the three thousand feet of receptive surface at
the focus of the mirror formed a concentric circle of energy beams;
each circle becoming progressively smaller in diameter, so that the
energy combined into one hundred concentric circles, one within the
other, as it left the rods; but these circles were capable of the
necessary focusing that could bring them all together into a single
small point near Earth's surface.
* * * * *
The beam leaving the rods represented three hundred seventy-five
million watts of energy, tightly packaged for delivery to Earth. But
this was only a small fraction of the solar energy arriving at the big
mirror.
The remainder, the loss, must be dumped by the black surface at the
back; and to account for the loss in the rods themselves, to prevent
their instantaneous slagging into useless globules of aluminum oxide,
their excess loss energy must also be dumped.
A cooling bath of liquid nitrogen therefore circulated over each rod
and brought the excess heat to the rear of the big lens, where it,
too, could be dumped into the blackness of space beyond.
For all its size and complexity, Hot Rod was only a trifle over six
per cent efficient; but that six per cent of efficiency arriving on
Earth would be highly welcome to supplement the power sources that
statistics said were being rapidly depleted.
The spherical shape of the mirror itself, one of the easiest possible
structures to erect in space, had dictated the placement of the rods
through its center since there was no single focal point for the
entire mirror surface.
But it had also added a complication. From this position, the rods
could have been designed to fire either straight forward or straight
back.
However, due to the hollow nature of the thirty-five hundred foot
laser barrel; the necessity for access to the rods from inside that
barrel; and the placement of the control booth at its outside end, the
firing could only be forward, straight towards the sun on which the
mirror was focused.
But to be useful, the beam must be able to track an ever-moving
target.
This problem had been solved by one of the largest mirror surfaces
that man had ever created--flat to a quarter of a wave-length of
light, and two hundred fifty feet in diameter, the beam director, from
this distance looking as though it were a carelessly tossed
looking-glass from milady's handbag, anchored one diameter forward of
the big power balloon.
For all its size, this director mirror had very little mass.
Originally it had been planned to be made of glass in much the same
manner as Palomar's 200-inch eye. But this plan had been rejected on
the basis of the weight involved.
Instead, its structure was a rigid honeycomb of plastic; surfaced by a
layer of fluorocarbon plastic which had been brought to its final
polish in space, and then carefully aluminized to provide a highly
reflective, extremely flat surface.
This mirror was also cooled by the liquid nitrogen supplied from the
back side of the big mirror. Necessarily so, since even its best
reflectivity still absorbed a sufficient portion of the energy from
the beam it deflected to have rapidly ruined it if it were not
properly cooled.
The several tons of ruby rods in the barrel, with their clear sapphire
coatings, were far more valuable than any gems of any monarch that had
ever lived on Earth. Synthetic though they were, Steve Elbertson, the
project's military commander, knew they had been shipped here at
fantastic cost and were expected to pay for themselves many thousands
of times over in energy delivered.
* * * * *
As yet, the project had had no specific target; nor had it been fully
operational as of midnight yesterday.
But this "morning" for the first time the terrific energy of the laser
beam would be brought to bear on the Greenland ice cap--three hundred
seventy-five million watts of infrared energy adjusted to a
needle-point expected to be twenty-two feet in diameter at Earth's
surface, delivering one million watts per square foot, that should put
a hole a good way through the several thousand feet of glacier there
in its fifteen minutes of operation, possibly even exposing the bare
rock beneath, and certainly releasing a mighty cloud of steam.
Focused to this needle sharpness, the rate of energy delivery was many
orders of magnitude higher than that delivered by man's largest
nuclear weapons only a few yards from ground zero.
Today's test was primarily scheduled as a test of control in aiming
and energy concentration. Careful co-ordination of the project by
ground control was vital, so that no misalignment of the beam could
possibly bring it to bear on any civilized portion of Earth's surface.
For, fantastic as this Project Hot Rod might be as a source of power
for Earth, Major Elbertson knew that it was also the most dangerous
weapon that man had ever devised.
Therefore, the scientists were never alone in the control booth,
despite the mile-long security records of each. Therefore, he and his
men were in absolute control of the men who controlled the laser.
Therefore, too, Steve told himself, as the time came when there would
be a question of command between himself and Captain Nails Andersen,
science advisor to the U.N. and commander of Space Lab One, his own
secret orders were that he was to take command--and the rank that
would give him that command was already bestowed, ready for
activation.
Nails Andersen, Steve reminded himself with amusement, had originated
the laser project; had fought it through against the advice of more
cautious souls; and had, through that project, attained command of the
space lab, and the rank that made that command possible, all in the
name of civilian science.
But not command of the laser project, Steve told himself.
Not of the most dangerous military weapon ever devised--dangerous and
military for all that it was a civilian project, developed on the
excuse that it would power Earth, which was rapidly eating itself out
of its power sources.
Not in command of that, Steve told himself. Nobody but a military man
could properly protect--and if necessary, properly use--such power.
Those were his secret orders; and he had the papers--and the authority
from Earth--to back him up. And orders to shoot to kill without
hesitation if those orders were questioned.
Meantime, today's peacetime experiment would bring forcibly to the
attention of Earth both the power for good and the power for
destruction of the laser which he commanded.
Project Hot Rod was manned twenty-four hours a "day." The new shift of
scientists--the ones who would turn on the powerful--or deadly--beam,
would come aboard in about half an hour. The men who had put the
finishing touches on the project during the past shift would remain
for another hour. His own crew of Security men shifted with the
scientists--but he, himself, shifted at will.
The immensity around him went unheeded as Steve Elbertson, eyes on
Project Hot Rod, savored the power of the beam that could control
Earth.
* * * * *
In the observatory, Perk Kimball and his assistant Jerry Wallace were
having coffee as the various electronic adjuncts to the instruments of
the observatory warmed up. Transistors and other solid state
components that made up the majority of the electronic equipment in
the observatory required no "warm up" in the sense that the older
electron tubes had--but when used in critical equipment, they were
temperature sensitive, and he allowed for time to reach a stable
operating temperature. Then, too, the older electron tubes had not
been entirely replaced. Many of them were still in faithful service.
The day would not be spent in the observation which was their main job
there, because calibration of many of the instruments remained to be
done, and the observatory was behind schedule, having had a good deal
of its time taken up in the sightings required by the communications
lab and Project Hot Rod.
Both of the astronomers were heartily sick of spending so much of
their observational time with recalcitrant equipment; and in making
observations of the globe from which they had come. After all, why
should an astronomer be interested in Earth? Though admittedly this
was the first observatory in man's entire history that had had the
opportunity for such a careful scrutiny.
"This flare business, that our captive Indian was predicting," Jerry
asked. "Think there's anything to it? Or am I just learning rumors
about my profession from lay sources?"
"A rather presumptuous prediction, though he may be right." Perk's
clipped tone was partly English, partly the hauteur of the
professional. To him, solar phenomena were strictly sourced on the
sun, and if they were to be understood at all, it would be in
reference to the internal dynamics of the sun itself.
"The torroidal magnetic fields dividing the slowly rotating polar
regions from the more rapid rotation near the solar equator," he said
slowly, rather pedantically, but as though talking to himself, "should
have far more effective control over solar phenomena than the periodic
unbalance created by the off-center gravitic fields when the inner
planets bunch on the same side of their solar orbits.
"To imply otherwise would be rather like saying that the grain of sand
is responsible for the tides.
"Yet," he added honestly, "the records compiled by some of the
communications interests that used to be greatly disturbed by the
solar flares' influence on radio communications, seem to indicate that
there is a connection. So there is the possibility, however remote,
that our captive redskin might be right; or rather, that there is a
force involved that makes the two coincidental."
But even as he talked, an unnoticed needle on the board began an
unusual, wiggling dance, far different from its ordinary, slow
averaging reactions. Twice, without being noticed, it swung rapidly
towards the red line on its meter face; and then on its third approach
the radiation counter swung over the red line and triggered an alarm.
From only one source in their environment could they expect that level
of X-ray intensity. Without so much as a pause for thought, as the
alarm screamed, barely glancing at the counter, Perk reached for the
intercom switch and intoned the chant that man had learned was the
great emergency of space: "Flare, flare, flare--take cover."
Simultaneously, he flipped three switches putting the observatory, the
only completely unshielded area within the satellite, on automatic, to
record as much as it could of the progress of the solar flare with its
incomplete equipment, while he and Jerry dove through the open air
lock down the central well to the emergency shield room in the center
of the hub.
It was a poor system, Perk thought, that hadn't devised sufficient
shielding for the observatory so that they could watch this phenomenon
more directly. "We'll have to work on that problem," he told himself
and since his recommendations would carry much weight after this tour
of duty, he could be sure that any such system that he could devise
would be instrumented.
* * * * *
Major Steve Elbertson, caught in mid-run between the lab and Project
Hot Rod, resisted the temptation to reverse the scuttlebug on the line
and pull himself to a fast stop, as the flare warning from the
observatory came to him over the emergency circuit of his suit,
followed by Bessie's clipped official voice saying:
"A flare is in progress. Any personnel outside the ship should get in
as rapidly as possible. Personnel in the rim have seven minutes in
which to secure their posts and report to the flare-shield area in the
hub. Spin deceleration will take effect in three minutes; and we are
counting on my mark towards deceleration. Mark, three minutes."
The Security officer squeezed the trigger of the "bug" tighter in a
vain effort to force it and himself forward at a higher speed.
The lesser shielding of the Hot Rod control room would not provide a
sufficient safety factor even for the X rays that he knew were already
around him; but he must supervise the security of the shutdown; and he
could only be very thankful that he was already nearly there and would
not have to make the entire round trip under emergency conditions.
The scuttlebug automatically reversed and began slowing for the end of
its run--tripped by a block signal set in the ribbon cable. As it came
to a stop at the end of the long anchor tube, Steve dismounted and
kicked over the short remaining distance, which was spanned only by a
slack cable to permit the inertial orientation servos of Hot Rod
unhindered freedom to maintain their constant tracking of the solar
disk.
Passing through the air lock of the control room, he reflected that
his exposure would probably be sufficient to give a touch of nausea in
the first half hour.
Inside Hot Rod control there was little excitement. The equipment was
being turned off in the standard approved safety procedures necessary
to turn control over to the laser communication beam which would put
the project under Earth control at Thule Base, Greenland, until the
emergency was over.
This separate, low-power control beam, focused on Thule Base nearly
eighty miles away from the main focus of Hot Rod on its initial
target, carried all of the communications and telemetry necessary for
the close co-ordination between Thule and the project.
As Elbertson entered, the Hot Rod communications officer was switching
each of the control panels in turn to Earth control, while Dr.
Benjamin Koblensky, project chief, stood directly behind him,
supervising the process. Elbertson took up his post beside Dr.
Koblensky, replacing the Security aide who had had the past shift.
"Suit up," he said to the man briefly.
As the communications officer completed the turnover, and the other
five scientists in the lab left their posts to suit up, the com
officer glanced up, received a nod from Dr. Koblensky, and said into
his microphone "All circuits have now been placed in telemetry
security operation. On my mark it will be five seconds to control
abandonment. Mark," he said after another nod from Dr. Koblensky.
"Four, three, two, one, release."
His hand on the master switch, he waited for the green light above it
to assure him that the communications lag had been overcome, and as
the green light came on, pushed the switch and rose from the console.
Major Elbertson stepped behind him, scanned the switches, inserted his
key into the Security lock, and turned it with a final snap, forcing
a bar home through the handles of all of the switches to prevent their
unauthorized operation by anyone until the official Security key
should again release them. In the meantime, no function could be
initiated within the laser system by anyone other than the Security
control officer at Thule Base on Earth.
Hot Rod was secured, and its crew were taking turns at the lock to
make the life-saving run back to the flare-shield area in the hub of
Lab One.
Last man out, three minutes after the original alarm, Steve glanced
carefully around his beloved control booth, entered the now-empty air
lock, and reaching the outside vacuum dove fast and hard toward the
anchor terminal and the scuttlebug that would take him swiftly to the
big wheel and its comparative safety.
* * * * *
In the gymnasium that served under emergency conditions as the
flare-shield area of the hub, long since dubbed the "morgue," the
circular nets of hammocks that made it possible to pack six hundred
personnel into an area with a thirty-two foot diameter and a
forty-five foot length, were lowered. They would hardly be packed this
time, since less than one-third of the complement were yet aboard.
Even so, each person aboard had his assigned hammock space, two and a
half feet wide; two and a half feet below the hammock above; and seven
feet long; and each made his way toward his assigned slot.
At one end of the morgue was the area where the cages of animals from
Dr. Lavalle's labs were being stored on their assigned flare-shield
shelves; and where Dr. Millie Williams was supervising the
arrangements of the trays and vats of plants that must be protected as
thoroughly as the humans.
At the other end of the morgue, the medics were setting up their
emergency treatment area, while nearby the culinary crew pulled out
and put in operating condition the emergency feeding equipment.
The big wheel's soft, susurrus lullaby had already changed to a muted
background roar as her huge pumps drew the shielding waters of the rim
into the great tanks that gave the hub twenty-four feet of shielding
from the expected storm of protons that would soon be raging in the
vacuum outside.
The ship was withdrawing the hydraulic mass from its rim much as a
person in shock draws body fluids in from the outer limbs to the
central body cavities. The analogy was apt, for until danger passed,
the lab was knocked out, only its automatic functions proceeding as
normal, while its consciousness hovered in interiorized,
self-protective withdrawal.
On the panel before Bessie the computer's projection of expected
events showed the wave-front of protons approaching the orbit of
Venus, and on the numerical panel directly below this display the
negative count of minutes continued to march before her as the
wave-front approached at half the speed of light.
The expected diminishment of X rays had not yet occurred. Normally,
there would be a space of time between their diminishment and the
arrival of the first wave of protons; but so far it had not happened.
Six minutes had passed, and the arriving personnel of Project Hot Rod
came in through the locks from the loading platform, diving through
the central tunnel over Bessie's head and on to the shielded tank
beyond.
Seven minutes; and from Biology lab came an excited voice. "I need
some help! I've lost a rabbit. I came back for the one I'd been
inoculating but he got away from me, and I can't corner him in this
no-gravity!"
Bessie wasn't sure what to say, but Captain Andersen spoke into his
intercom. "Dr. Lavalle," he said in a low voice, but with the force of
command, "ninety per cent of your shielding has already been
withdrawn. Abandon the rabbit and report immediately to the hub!"
The pumps were still laboring to bring in the last nine per cent of
the water that would be brought. The remaining one per cent of the
normal hydraulic mass of the rim had been diverted to a very
small-diameter tube at the extreme inner portion of the rim, and was
now being driven through this tube at frantically higher velocities to
compensate for the removal of the major mass, and to maintain a small
percentage of the original spin, so that the hub would not be totally
in free fall, though the pseudo-gravity of centrifugal force had
already fallen to a mere shadow of a shadow of itself, and some of the
personnel were feeling the combined squeamishness of the Coriolis
effect near the center of the ship, and the lessening of the gravity,
pseudo though it had been, that they had had with them in the rim.
As the last tardy technician arrived, the medics were already
selecting out the nearly ten per cent of the personnel who had been
exposed to abnormally dangerous quantities of radiation during the
withdrawal procedure, which included, of course, all the personnel
that had been aboard Project Hot Rod at the time of the flare.
Even as the medics went about injecting carefully controlled dosages
of sulph-hydral anti-radiation drugs, the beginnings of nausea were
evident among those who had been overexposed. However, only the
dosimeters could be relied on to determine whether the nausea was more
from the effects of radiation; the effects of the near-free-fall and
Coriolis experienced in the hub; or perhaps some of it was
psychosomatic, and had no real basis other than the fear engendered by
emergency conditions.
Major Steve Elbertson was already in such violent throes of nausea
that his attending medic was having difficulty reading his dosimeter
as he made use of the plastic bag attached to his hammock; and he was
obviously, for the moment at least, one of the least dignified of the
persons on board.
Displays of the various labs in the rim moved restlessly across most
of the thirty-six channels of the computer's video displays, as Bessie
scanned about, searching for dangerously loose equipment or personnel
that might somehow have been left behind.
[Illustration]
In the Biology lab, the white rabbit that had escaped was frantically
struggling in the near-zero centrifugal field with literally huge
bounds, seeking some haven wherein his disturbed senses might feel
more at home, and eventually finding a place in an overturned
wastebasket wedged between a chair and a desk, both suction-cupped to
the floor. Frightened and alone, with only his nose poking out of the
burrow beneath the trash of the wastebasket, he blinked back at the
silent camera through which Bessie observed him, and elicited from her
a murmur of pity.
Seven minutes and forty-five seconds. The digital readout at the
bottom of Bessie's console showed the computer's prediction of fifteen
seconds remaining until the expected flood of protons began to arrive
from the sun.
As radiation monitors began to pick up the actual arrival of the wave
front, the picture on her console changed to display a new wave front,
only fractionally in advance of the one that the computer had been
displaying as a prediction.
* * * * *
The storm of space had broken.
Captain Andersen's voice came across the small area of the bridge that
separated them. "Check the rosters, please. Are all personnel
secured?"
Bessie glanced at the thirty-two minor display panels, checking
visually, even as her fingers fed the question to the computer.
The display of the labs, now that the rabbit was settled into place,
showed no dangerously loose equipment other than a few minor items of
insufficient mass to present a hazard, and no personnel, she noted, as
the Cow displayed a final check-set of figures, indicating that all
personnel were at their assigned, protected stations in the morgue, in
the engineering quarters, and on the bridge.
"All secure," she told the captain. "Evacuation is complete."
"Well handled," he said to her, then over the intercom: "This is your
captain. Our evacuation to the flare-shield area is complete. The ship
and personnel are secured for emergency conditions, and were secured
well within the time available. May I congratulate you.
"The proton storm is now raging outside. You will be confined to your
posts in the shield area for somewhere between sixteen and forty-eight
hours.
"As soon as it is possible to predict the time limit more accurately,
the information will be given to you."
As he switched out of the ship's annunciator system, Captain Nails
Andersen leaned back in his chair and stretched in relief, closing his
eyes and running briefly over the details of the evacuation.
When he opened them again, he found a pinch bottle of coffee at his
elbow, and tasting it, found it sugared and creamed to his preference.
His eyes went across the bridge to the computer console, and lingered
a moment on the slender, dark figure there.
Amazing, he thought. The dossier, the personal history, her own and
all the others aboard, he had studied carefully before making a
selection of the people who would be in his command for this time. Not
that the decision had been totally his, but his influence had counted
heavily.
This one he had almost missed. Only by asking for an extra survey of
information had he caught that bit about the riot at Moscow University
that had raged around her ears, apparently without touching or being
influenced by or influencing her own quiet program.
That they didn't think alike was evident. That this was a competent
sociologist, and not just a computer technician had not at first been
evident. But Nails was well pleased with his decision in the selection
of this particular unit of his command.
Things would go well in her presence, he felt. Details he might have
struggled with would iron out or disappear, and scarcely come to his
attention at all.
Very competent, he thought. And attractive, too.
* * * * *
In the engineering compartment, Mike was adjusting the power output
from the pile ten miles away, down from the full emergency power that
had been required to pump the more than five hundred thousand cubic
feet of water from the rim to the hub in seven minutes, to a level
more in keeping with the moderate requirements of the lab as it waited
out the storm.
As he threw the last switch, he became aware of a soft scuffling sound
behind him, and turned to see tiny Dr. Y Chi Tung, single-handedly
manhandling through the double bulkhead the bulky magnetic resonance
device on which he had been working when the flare alarm sounded, and
having the utmost difficulty even though the near free-fall conditions
made his problem package next to weightless.
The monkeylike form of the erudite physicist, dwarfed by the big
chassis, gave the appearance of a small boy trying to hide an outsize
treasure; but the nonchalant humor that normally poked constant fun at
both his profession as a physicist and the traditions of his Chinese
ancestors, was lacking.
Dr. Ishie was both breathless and worried.
"Mike," he gasped. "I was afraid to leave it, unshielded. It might
pick up some residual activity. Radiation, that is. From those
hydrogen hordes outside." He let the object rest for a moment, mopping
his head while he talked. "Can you hide it in here? I'm not really
anxious to have Budget Control know where some of this stuff
went--even though I have honorable intentions of returning the
components later--and the good captain down there on the bridge might
not consider its shielding important, either, if he knew I'd
sabotaged his beautiful evacuation plan to bring my pet along!" The
tone of Ishie's voice indicated his uncertainty as to Mike's
reception.
The idea of Dr. Y Chi Tung worrying about any components he might have
"requisitioned" seemed almost irreverent to Mike. Budget Control would
gladly have given that eminent physicist a good half of the entire
space station, if he had expressed his needs through the proper
channels--as a matter of fact, anything on board that wasn't actually
essential to the lives of those on the satellite.
* * * * *
But Ishie seemed genuinely unaware of his true status, and the high
regard in which he was held. Besides, Mike suspected in him a
constitutional inability to deal through channels.
Recognizing the true sensitivity that underlay Ishie's constant humor
and ridicule of himself, Mike kept himself from laughing aloud at the
stealth of the man who could have commanded the assistance of the
captain himself in shielding whatever he thought it necessary to
shield.
Instead, he carefully kept his face solemn while he commented: "It
ought to fit in that rack over there." He pointed to a group of
half-filled racks. "We can slip a fake panel on it. Nobody will be
able to tell it from any of the other control circuits."
Ishie heaved a deep sigh of relief and grinned his normal grin.
"Confusion say," he declared, "that ninety-six pound weakling who
struggle down shaft with six hundred pound object, even in free fall,
should have stood in bed."
It took the two of them the better part of half an hour to get the
unit into place; to disguise its presence; and to make proper power
connections. Ishie had objected at first to connecting it up, and Mike
explained his insistence by saying that "If it looks like something
that works, nobody will look at it twice. But if it looks like
something dead, one of my boys is apt to take it apart to see what
it's supposed to be doing." He didn't mention his real reason--a heady
desire to run a few tests on the instrument himself.
The job done, the two sat back on their heels, admiring their
handiwork like bad boys.
"Coffee?" asked Mike.
"Snarl. Honorable ancestor Confusion doesn't even need to tell me what
to do now. My toy is safe. I am going to bed. I have worked without
stopping for two days and now the flare has stopped me.
"Confusion decide to relent. He tell me now: 'He who drive self like
slave for forty-eight hours is nuts and should be sent to bed.' I
hope," he added, "that the hammocks are soft; but I don't think I
shall notice. I know just where to go for I checked in once to fool
the Sacred Cow before I went to get my beautiful. Now I go back
again."
And without so much as a thank-you, he staggered out, grasping for
hand-holds to guide himself in a most unspacemanlike manner.
* * * * *
Mike craftily sat back, still on his heels beside the object, and
watched until Ishie had disappeared, and then turned his full interest
to the playtoy that fortune had placed in his shop.
Without hesitation he removed the false front they had so carefully
put in place. He still had a long tour of duty ahead, and it was very
unlikely that he would be interrupted, or, if interrupted, that anyone
would question the object on which he worked. It would be assumed that
this was just another piece of equipment normally under his care.
Carefully he looked over the circuits, checking in his mind the
function of each. Then he went to his racks and began selecting test
equipment designed to fit in the empty racks around it. Oscilloscope,
signal generator, volt meters and such soon formed a bank around the
original piece of equipment, in positions of maximum access.
Gingerly he began applying power to the individual circuits, checking
carefully his understanding of each component.
The magnetic field effect, Ishie had explained; but this three-phase
RF generator--that puzzled him for a while.
Then he remembered some theory. Brute strength alone would not cause
the protons to tip. Much as a top, spinning off-center on its point,
will swing slowly around that point instead of tipping over, the
spinning protons in the magnetic field would precess, but would not
tip and line up without the application of a rotating secondary
magnetic field at radio frequencies which would make the feat of
lining them up easy.
There, then, were two of the components that Ishie had built into his
device. A strong magnetic field supplied by the magnaswedge
coils--stolen magnaswedge coils if you please--and a rotating RF field
supplied by the generator below the chassis.
But this third effect? The DC electric field? That one was new to him.
In his mind he pictured the tiny gyroscopes all brought into alignment
by the interplay of magnetic forces; and around each proton the tiny,
planetary electrons.
Yet it was very well to think of the proton nucleus of the hydrogen
atom as a simple top, he reminded himself; but they were more complex
than that. Each orbiting electron must also contribute something to
the effect.
At that point, Mike remembered, the electron itself would be spinning,
a lighter-weight gyroscope, much as Earth has a lighter weight than
the Sun. The electron, too, had a magnetic field; more powerful than
the proton's field because of its higher rate of spin, despite its
lighter mass. The electron could also be lined up.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Mike remembered having read of
another effect. The electron's resonance. Electron para-magnetic
resonance.
It, too, could be controlled by radio frequencies in a magnetic
field--but the frequencies were different, far up in the microwave
region; about three centimeters as Mike recalled--and he went back to
his supply cabinet to get another piece of equipment, a spare klystron
that actually belonged to the radar department but that was "stored"
in his shop.
At these frequencies, the three centimeter band of the electromagnetic
spectrum, energy does not flow on wires as it does in the lower
frequency regions. Here plumbing is required. But Mike, amongst other
things, was an expert RF plumber.
Even experts take time to set up klystrons, and it was three hours
later before Mike was ready with the additional piece of haywire
equipment which carefully piped RF energy into the plastic block.
This refinement by itself had been done before; but some of the others
that Mike applied during his investigation probably hadn't--at least
not to any such tortured piece of plastic as now existed between the
pole faces of the device.
To have produced the complete alignment of both the protons and the
electrons within a mass might have been attempted before. To have applied
an electrostatic field in addition to this had perhaps been attempted
before. To have done all three, at the same time to the same piece of
plastic, and then to have added the additional tortures that Mike thought
up as he went along, was perhaps a chance combination, repeatable once in
a million tries, one of those experimental accidents that sometimes
provide more insight into the nature of matter than all of the careful
research devised by multi-million-dollar-powered teams of classical
researchers.
When the contraption was in full operation, he simply sat on his heels
and watched, studying out in his mind the circuits and their effects.
The interruption of the magnetic resonance by the electrostatic
field--by the DC--with the RF plumbing--twisted by--each time the
concept came towards the surface, it sank back as he tried to pull it
into consciousness.
Churkling to itself, the device continued applying its alternate
fields and warps and strains.
"It's a Confusor out of Confusion by Ishie, who is probably as great a
creator of Confusion as you could ask," Mike told himself, forgetting
his own part in the matter, watching intently, waiting for the concept
to come clear in his mind.
Presently he went over to his console, to his pads of paper and
pencils, and began sketching rapidly, drawing the interlocking and
repulsing fields, the alignments, mathing out the stresses--in an
attempt to visualize just what it was that the Confusor would now be
doing....
* * * * *
In the Confusor itself, a tiny chunk of plastic, four by four inches
square and one-half inch thick, resting in the middle of the machine
between the carefully aligned pole-faces of the magnet, was subjected
to the cumulatively devised stresses, a weird distortion of its own
stresses and of the inertia that was its existence.
Each proton and electron within the plastic felt an urge to be where
it wasn't--felt a pseudo-memory, imposed by the outside stresses, of
having been traveling at a high velocity towards the north star, on
which the machine chanced to be oriented; felt the new inertia of that
velocity....
Each proton and electron fitted itself more snugly against the north
pole face and pushed with the entire force of its newly-imposed
inertial pattern.
Forty pounds to the square inch six hundred forty pounds over the
surface of the block, the plastic did its best to assume the motion
that the warped laws of its existence said that it already had.
It was only one times ten to the minus five of a gravity that the four
by four by half inch piece of carefully machined plastic presented to
the sixty-four million pound mass of Space Lab One.
But the force was presented almost exactly along the north-south axis
of the hub of the ship, and in space a thrust is cumulative and
momentum derives per second per second.
The Confusor churkled quietly as the piece of plastic exerted its tiny
mass in a six hundred forty pound attempt to take off towards the
north star. And, since the piece itself was rigidly mounted to its
frame, and the frame to the ship, the giant bulk of five million cubic
feet of water, thirty-two million pounds of mass; and the matching
mass-bulk of the ship itself, responded to the full mosquito-sized
strength of the six hundred forty pound thrust, and was moved--a
fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a centimeter in the first
second; a fraction of a fraction in the second; a fraction....
* * * * *
On the bridge, the com officer had completed transmitting the
captain's detailed report of the evacuation to the hub-shield area
caused by the solar flare.
On another line, under Bessie's ministrations, the computer was
feeding the data obtained by the incomplete equipment in the
observatory in its automatic operation.
The captain himself was finishing a plastic-bottle of coffee, while he
wrote up his log.
It was exactly nine minutes since the Confusor had come into full
operation.
The fractions of fractions of centimeters had added on the square of
the number of seconds; and the sixty-four million pounds of mass of
Space Lab One has moved over thirteen meters.
Trailing the wheel ten miles off, was the atomic pile, directly
attached to its anchor tube.
Tightening, each with a whanging snap too tiny to be remarked within
the mass of the ship, were the cables that attached the various items
of the dump to their anchor finger.
But still free on the loose one hundred meter cable that attached it
to its anchor, and which had had fifteen meters of slack when the
ship first began its infinitesimal movement, was Project Hot Rod.
Nine minutes and twenty-three seconds. The velocity of the wheel with
its increasing mass of trailing items, was five point four six
centimeters per second. The nearly four million pound mass of Hot Rod
was slowly being left behind.
The cable tautened the final fraction of a centimeter. Its tug was not
fast, but was unfortunately applied very close to the center of
gravity of the entire device, since most of Hot Rod's weight was
concentrated in and around the control room.
Five point four six centimeters per second. Four million pounds of
mass.
If the shock had been direct, it would have equaled two point eight
million ergs of energy, created by the fractional movement of the
mighty mass of the ship against Hot Rod.
But the shock was transmitted through the short end of a long lever.
The motion at the beam director mirror, a full diameter out from the
eight thousand foot diameter balloon that was Hot Rod, was multiplied
nearly sixteen thousand times. Hot Rod rolled on its center of
gravity, and its beam-director mirror swung in a huge arc. Sixteen
thousand centimeters per centimeter of original motion. Eight hundred
and seventy-three meters in the first second, before the tracking
servos took over and began to fight back.
* * * * *
Hot Rod fought at the end of its tether like a mighty jellyfish hooked
on the end of a line.
Gradually the swings decreased. Four hundred meters; two hundred
meters; one hundred meters; fifty meters; twenty-five meters--and it
had come back to a nearly stable focus on the sun.
But the beam director had also been displaced, and vibrated.
Internally, the communications beam to Thule Base had been
interrupted; and the fail-safe had not failed-safely.
The mighty beam had lashed out. The vibrations of the directing mirror
began placing gigantic spots and sweeps of unresistible energy across
the ice cap of Greenland, in an ever-diminishing Lissajous pattern.
By the time the servos refocused the communications beam on Thule,
there was no Thule; only a burnt-out crater where it had been.
Slowly, but surely, the giant balloon settled itself to the task of
burning a hole through the Greenland ice cap at a spot eighty miles
north of that now-burnt-out Thule Base that had originally been
planned as a test of its accuracy; and to the simple task of holding
that focus in spite of the now steady, though infinitesimal
acceleration under which it joined the procession headed by Lab One.
Now that the waves of action and reaction from the shock energy of its
sudden start had subsided, Hot Rod's accuracy was proving great
indeed; and its beam focus was proving as small as had been
predicted.
But the instruments that would have measured those facts no longer
existed.
In the engineering control center of Space Lab One, the Confusor
churkled quietly and continued to pit its mosquito might against its
now nearly seventy-eight million pound antagonist, as the protons and
electrons of the plastic that was center to its forces did their
inertial best to occupy that position in space towards the north star
in which the warped fields around them forced them to belong--the
mosquito strained its six hundred forty pound thrust against its giant
in the per second per second acceleration that was effective only in
the fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a centimeter in the first
second, but that compounded its fractions per second.
* * * * *
On the quiet bridge, the captain looked up as the Com Officer said,
"Thule Base, sir," and switched on his mike.
"Hot Rod has been sabotaged," a frantic voice on the other end of the
beam shouted in his ear without formalities. "She's running wild. Kill
her! Repeat, Hot Rod is wild! Kill Hot Rod! Kill--" the mike went dead
as Captain Andersen switched to the morgue intercom.
"Hot Rod crew," he said briefly. "Report to the bridge on the double.
Repeat. Hot Rod crew. The bridge. On the double."
As he switched off the intercom, the communications officer spoke
urgently. "Captain. I've lost contact with Thule base."
"Keep trying to raise them," Captain Andersen said. He turned to
Bessie. "Give me a display of the Hellmaker," he said; then, almost to
himself, "There's still a flare in progress out there. We've got to
kill it without sending men into that--"
He cut himself off in midsentence, as the computer displayed both Hot
Rod, swaying gently as she fought out the battle of the focus through
its final moments, and a telescopic view of Greenland, a tiny, glowing
coal of red showing at the center of her focus.
Through the door nearly catapulted the first of the Project Hot
Rodders, followed almost on his heels by twelve more.
"Where is Major Elbertson?"
"In sick bay, sir. He got a big radiation dose--"
The captain flipped the intercom key.
"Calling Major Elbertson in sick bay. Report to the bridge on the
double, no matter what your condition. This is the captain speaking."
The intercom came alive at far end.
"This is Dr. Green, Captain Andersen. Major Elbertson is unconscious.
He cannot report for duty. He was extremely ill from exposure to
radiation and we have administered sulph-hydral, antispasmodic, and
sedative."
Nails Andersen turned to the project crew.
"Which of you are Security officers?"
Three men stepped forward.
"Are all the project members here?"
"No, sir," said one. "Eight of our men are in sick bay."
"Very well," said the captain. "Now hear this, all of you. There is a
saboteur--maybe more than one, we do not know--among you. There is no
time to find out which of you it is. However, he has managed to leave
Project Hot Rod operational while unattended. You are to turn it off,
and to prevent the saboteur from stopping you. Do you understand?"
A voice in back--a rather high voice--spoke up. "Of course it's
operational," it said. "We left it operational."
"You ... WHAT?"
"We left it operational. It's under Earth control. The control center
at Thule is in charge, sir."
"Who are you?" the captain asked.
"Hot Rod communications officer, sir. I turned it over last thing
before we shut down. Under the instructions of Dr. Koblensky. That's
the shutdown procedure."
"Where's Dr. Koblensky?"
"Out. Out like a light," said another voice. "He got a good dose. Of
radiation. The medics put him out."
"Who's senior officer here?"
"I'm Dr. Johnston." It was a man in front. Rather small,
pedantic-looking. "I'm Dr. Koblensky's ... well, assistant." The word
came hard as though the fact of an assistantship were at the least
distasteful.
"Who's senior in Security?"
"I, sir. Chauvenseer."
"Very well. Dr. Johnston and Chauvens ... sor? ... are in charge. Now
shut down that ruby hellmaker as fast as it can be done."
"But, captain," Dr. Johnston spoke, "we can't turn it off. We haven't
the authority. We haven't the Security key. And the radiation won't
let up for hours."
"I have just given you the authority. As for the radiation, that's a
hazard you'll have to take. What's this about a Security key?" The
captain's voice was not gentle.
"Major Elbertson has the key. He has the only key. Without it, the
station cannot be removed from Earth control. Earth _is_ in control.
They can turn it off, captain." Dr. Johnston's voice took on as firm a
tone of authority as that of the captain.
"Chau ... Chau ... You!" barked the captain. "Get that key!" He waited
until the Security officer had disappeared through the door, then
turned to the scientist.
* * * * *
"Dr. Johnston, Earth is not in control. I do not know why, and there
is no way of finding out. Hot Rod is wild, and _that_," he pointed at
the enlarging red spot that centered the computer display, "is what
your ruby is doing to Earth.
"You will turn off the project, at gunpoint if necessary," he
continued in a grim voice. "If you turn it off volitionally, you will
be treated for radiation. If you refuse, you will not live to be
treated for anything. Do you understand? How many men do you need to
help you ... and I do mean _you_ ... with the job?" he asked.
[Illustration]
Dr. Johnston hesitated only fractionally, and Nails Andersen
mentally put him down on the plus side of the personnel for the
shortness of his com lag. Then he said, "The job will require only two
men for the fastest accomplishment. You realize, captain that you are
probably signing our death warrants--the two of us. But," he added,
glancing only casually at the display on the console, "I can
understand the need to sign that warrant, and I shall not quibble."
The intercom spoke. "This is Dr. Green, captain. There is no key on
the person of Major Elbertson. We have searched thoroughly, sir. I
understand the need is of an emergency nature. The key is not on his
person. We have taken every possible measure to arouse him, as well,
and have been unsuccessful."
Andersen flipped his switch. "Let me speak to the Hot Rod Security
officer," he said briefly.
"Chauvenseer speaking, sir," the man's voice came on.
"Do you know what the key looks like?"
"Yes, sir. It looks somewhat like a common Yale key, sir. But I've
never seen another just like it."
"There is only the one?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where would he keep it, if not on his person?"
"I don't know, sir. We came straight to the morgue--the shield area,
from the air lock. I don't believe he stopped off anywhere he could
have put it."
The captain turned to the second Security officer. "Search Elbertson's
spacesuit," he said. Then to the intercom, "Search his hammock. Search
every spot he went near. That key must be found in minutes. Commandeer
as many men as can help in the search without getting in the way."
He paused a moment, then flipped another intercom key.
"Mr. Blackhawk," he said.
The intercom warmed at the far end. "Yes sir?" Mike's voice was
relaxed.
"Is there any way to turn off Hot Rod without the Security key?"
"Why sure, captain." Mike's voice held a grin. "I could pull the power
switch."
"Pull it. Fast. Hot Rod's out of control."
Mike's hand flashed to a master switch controlling the power that fed
Hot Rod, and blessing as he did it the fallacy of engineering that had
required external power to power the mighty energy collector.
In the big balloon now happily following the wheel at the end of its
tether, the still-undamaged power-off fail-safe went into operation.
The mirror surface behind each ruby rod rotated into its shielding
position, dispersing the energy that the huge mirror directed towards
the rods, back into space.
Hot Rod was secure.
* * * * *
Mike received only one further communication from the captain.
"Mr. Blackhawk," he was asked over the intercom, "is there any way
that you secure the Hot Rod power switch so that it cannot be turned
on without my personal authorization?"
"Sure, captain, I can--"
The captain interrupted. "Mr. Blackhawk, I should prefer that you not
tell me or anyone else aboard the method you will use; and that you
make your method as difficult as possible to discover. This I shall
leave," he added dryly, "to your rather ... fertile ... imagination.
"There is reason to believe that Project Hot Rod was turned on by a
saboteur. Your method must be proof against him, and if he exists, he
will not be stupid." The captain switched off.
Mike turned to the control panel, and after a few minutes thought
busied himself for some time.
Then he headed for the bridge where Dr. Johnston, Chauvenseer, and the
captain had dismissed the others and were utilizing every check that
Dr. Johnston could dream up to assure themselves that Hot Rod was
actually turned off and would remain secure at least for the duration
of the flare; and trying as well to find out just what form the
sabotage had taken.
Without interrupting the others, Mike seated himself at the subsidiary
post at the computer's console on Bessie's right, and got her to brief
him while he examined the close-up display of Hot Rod.
After a few minutes he reached over and increased the magnification to
its maximum, showing only a small portion of the balloon, then moved
the focus to display the control room entrance as well as part of the
anchor tube and the cable between the two.
"I think I've found your saboteur, sir," he said.
The captain was at his side almost instantly. "Where is he?" he asked
briefly.
"Not he, sir. It. And I'm not sure just where--but look. Hot Rod's
cable is taut. There's thrust on the balloon. That probably means a
puncture and escaping nitrogen.
"I think," he said, "that the saboteur may have been a meteor that
punctured the balloon, and the nitrogen escaping through the hole it
made is now producing enough thrust to keep that cable taut. Though,"
he added thoughtfully, "I don't see why the servos couldn't maintain
the beam to Thule--though obviously, they couldn't."
"How dangerous is such a puncture?" asked the captain. "How seriously
would Hot Rod be damaged? How soon must it be repaired?"
"The puncture itself shouldn't be too dangerous. Even if all the
nitrogen's gone, the balloon's in a vacuum and won't collapse--and
that's about the only serious effect a puncture would have. Just a
moment. We'll estimate its size by the thrust it's giving the ship,"
he added, and turned to Bessie.
"Ask the Cow whether we're getting thrust on the ship; and if so, how
much. Wait a minute," he added, "if you ask for thrust on the ship,
she'll say there isn't any because Hot Rod would be pulling us, not
pushing. And if you ask her for the thrust on Hot Rod, she hasn't got
any sensors out there.
"Hm-m-m. Ask her if we have added any off-orbit velocity; and if so
how much."
* * * * *
The computer displayed the answer almost as soon as she received the
question.
"Well," said Mike, "that's not too large a hole. Ask her how ... let's
see ... how many pounds of thrust that velocity represents. That way
we don't confuse her with whether it's push or pull."
The Cow displayed the answer, six hundred forty pounds of thrust.
"O.K.," said Mike. "Thanks." Then to the captain and the scientist and
Security officer who were waiting beside him: "The puncture is
obviously small enough to serve as a jet, rather than to have let the
nitrogen out in one _whoosh_, since that would have given you far more
than six hundred forty pounds of thrust. Therefore, it will probably
be quite simple to patch the hole.
"Nitrogen is obviously escaping, but it wouldn't be worth a man's life
to send him out into that flare-storm to patch it. We may even have
enough nitrogen aboard to replace what we lose.
"The best I can figure," he said, "is that the meteor must have hit
the orientation servos and thrown them off for a bit. We'll have to
wait till after the flare to make more than an educated guess, though.
"We shouldn't be too far off-orbit by the time the flare's over,
either, even with that jet constant. It'll take quite a bit of work,
but we should be able to get her back into position with not too many
hours of lost worktime.
"Except for Thule, I'd say we got off fairly light.
"Yes," he added grimly, "it looks like that's what your saboteur was.
Rather an effective saboteur, but you'll have a hard time putting him
up against a firing wall."
Having satisfied himself as to existing conditions, Mike excused
himself shortly and went back to the engineering quarters, but his
mind was no longer on Ishie's strange device. He glanced rapidly at
the instruments regulating the power flow to the wheel, then stretched
out comfortably on the acceleration couch and in minutes was asleep.
The captain, Dr. Johnston and Chauvenseer remained on the bridge
another hour, convincing themselves that Mike's analysis was correct,
and dictating a report to Earth, before the captain called in an aide
to take over the bridge, and the three retired.
In the morgue, Dr. Y Chi Tung, who still slept peacefully as he had
since the moment he reached his hammock, muttered quietly in his
sleep, "Confusion--"
* * * * *
Mike snapped awake and glanced guiltily at the clock. Six hours had
passed.
A situation report from the Cow was the first thing on his agenda any
time that he had been out of contact for any length of time, flare or
not.
It was not his job to be in constant contact with the complete
situation of the ship and its vast complexities; he was not the
captain. Nor was it in the manuals that he should have access to the
computer's huge memory banks and abilities other than through
"channels"--i.e., Bessie. But the book definition of the information
he needed for his job, and his own criteria, were somewhat different,
and he had built on Earth and installed shortly after he came aboard,
a subcontrol link which put him in direct contact with the placid-Cow.
His original intention in rigging the link had been to use the
calculator for that occasional math problem which might be more
quickly resolved with her help; but then the criteria of needed
information, curiosity, or both, had got the better of him, and the
secret panel hidden in the legitimate control panels of an engineer's
console was actually quite a complete link, covering all of the Cow's
multiple functions without interfering in any was with Bessie's
control links, or revealing its existence. This linkage gave Mike the
only direct access to the computer's store of information and
abilities other than that of the operator at the control console.
And Mike's secret pride was the vocoder circuit with which he had
terminated his link, originated because a teletype system similar to
that used at the control console would have been too obvious; and his
nimble fingers got all tangled up on a keyboard anyhow.
Bessie might speak to the Cow through the teletype link and switches
of her control console, but only Mike had the distinction of being
able to speak directly to the big computer, and get the complacent,
somewhat mooing answers; and only Mike knew of the existence of the
vocoder aboard.
It had taken some care to get used to the literal-minded conversation
that resulted; but eventually Mike felt he had worked out a
satisfactory communications ability with the overly obvious "cow."
What he wanted now was a situation report. If he simply asked for
that, however, he'd have received such miles of data that he'd have
been listening for hours. So instead he broke his question down into
the facets that he needed.
In a few minutes he had elicited the information that the solar flare
was now predicted to be terminated and the major part of the flare
protons past their solar orbital position within another ten hours;
that Earth co-ordinates had shifted, indicating their own orbital
shift to be a trifle over thirty-seven kilometers north in the past
eight hours.
North? he thought. Hot Rod's pull on a taut cable would be to the
south.
No. Lab One could be re-oriented to trail the thrusting balloon. But
the lab's servos should have prevented that re-orientation unless the
thrust were really heavy.
"What is our velocity?" he asked. Temporarily he was baffled by the
placid Cow's literal translation of his request as one for any actual
velocity, since she had replied with a figure very close to their
original orbital speed. "What is our velocity at right angles to
original course?" he inquired.
And the Cow's reply came: "Two-o-o hundred and fifty-seven point seven
six ce-entimeters per se-econd."
That should be about right for six hundred forty pounds of thrust for,
say, six and a half hours; and the distance of the orbit shift was
about right.
But the direction?
"Is Hot Rod pulling us north?" he asked.
"No-o-o," came the placid reply.
"If it's pulling us south, then why--" He stopped himself. Any "why"
required inductive reasoning, and of that the Cow was not capable.
Instead of asking why they were moving north with a south thrust, Mike
broke his question into parts. He'd have to answer the "why" himself,
he knew.
"Is Hot Rod pulling us south?" he asked.
"No-o-oo," came the answer.
This time he was more careful. "In which direction is the thrust on
Hot Rod oriented?" he asked.
"No-oorth."
"Then Hot Rod is--" Quickly he stopped and rephrased the statement
which would have had a question in its tone but not its semantics,
into a question that would read semantically. "Is Hot Rod pulling us
north?"
"No-o-oo," came the reply.