The operator jostled the controls. "Look at that," Peterson exclaimed.
"That stuff's hardened."
A quick movement confirmed this and then Peterson ordered the beaker
raised five feet from the floor and slowly tipped. Over the container
went as the claw rotated in its socket. The glass had turned almost
180° towards the floor when the entire mass of solidified glob slid
out.
The watchers caught their breath as it fell to the hard floor. The glob
hit the floor, bounced up a couple of inches, fell back, bounced again
and then quivered to a stop. What was soon to be known as Melody's
Mighty Material had been born.
The testing started. But there was a difference. By the time the brown
chunk had been removed from the bunker it had solidified to the point
that nothing would break or cut it. The surface yielded slightly to the
heaviest cutting edge of a power saw and then sprang back, unmarked. A
diamond drill spun ineffectually.
So the entire block started making the rounds of the various labs. It
was with downright jubilation that radiation labs reported no
properties of resistance for the stuff. One after the other, the test
proved nothing until the physical properties unit came up with an idea.
"You can't cut it, break it or tear it," the technician told Peterson,
as he hefted the chunk of lightweight enigma. "You can't burn it, shoot
holes in it, or so much as mark the surface with any known acid. This
stuff's tougher than steel and about fifty times lighter."
"O.K.," Peterson asked, "so what good is it?"
"You can mold it when you mix it," the technician said significantly.
"Hey, you're right," Peterson jumped up excitedly. "Why, a spacer cast
out of this stuff and coated with Sally's paint would be light enough
and shielded enough to work on regular missile fuels."
* * * * *
Working under crash priorities, the nation's three leading plastics
plants turned out three, lightweight, molded, one-man space vehicles
from the government-supplied Melody's Mix. A double coating of Sally's
Paint then covered the hulls and a single stage liquid fuel rocket
engine was hooked to the less-than-one-ton engineless hull.
Twenty-eight days after the milk first appeared, on a warm August
evening, the first vehicle stood on the pads at Cape Canaveral,
illuminated by towers of lights. Fuel crews had finished loading the
tanks which would be jettisoned along with the engine at burn-out.
Inside the rocket, Major Quartermain lounged uncomfortably and cramped
in the take-off sling for a short but telling trip through the Van
Allen radiation fields and back to Earth.
The take-off sling rested inside an escape capsule since the use of
chemical fuel brought back many of the old uncertainties of launchings.
On the return trip, Quartermain would eject at sixty thousand feet and
pull the capsule's huge parachute for a slow drop to the surface of the
Atlantic where a recovery fleet was standing by. The light rocket hull
would pop a separate chute and also drift down for recovery and
analysis.
Inside the ship, Quartermain sniffed the air and curled his nose.
"Let's get this thing on the road," he spoke into his throat mike.
"Some of that Florida air must have seeped in here."
"Four minutes to final countdown," blockhouse control replied. "Turn on
your blowers for a second."
Outside the ship, the fuel crews cleared their equipment away from the
pad. The same ripe, heavy odor hung in the warm night air.
At 8:02 p.m., twenty-eight days after the new milks made their first
appearance, Major Quartermain blasted off in a perfect launching.
At 8:03 p.m., the two other Melody Mix hulls standing on nearby pads,
began to melt.
At 8:04 p.m., the still-roaring engine fell from the back end of
Quartermain's rocket in a flaming arc back towards Earth. Fifteen
seconds later, he hurtled his escape capsule out of the collapsing
rocket hull. The parachute opened and the daring astronaut drifted
towards the sea.
Simultaneously, in a dozen labs around the nation, blocks and molds of
Melody's Mix made from that first batch of milk, collapsed into piles
of putrid goo. Every day thereafter, newer blocks of the mix reached
the twenty-eight-day limit and similarly broke down into malodrous
blobs.
* * * * *
It was a month before the stinking, gooey mess that flowed over the
launching pads at the Cape was cleaned up by crews wearing respirators
and filter masks. It took considerably longer to get the nation's three
top plastics firms back in operation as the fetid flow of unfinished
rocket parts wrecked machinery and drove personnel from the area.
The glob that had been Quartermain's vehicle fell slowly back to Earth,
disintegrating every minute until it reached the consistency of thin
gruel. At this point, it was caught by a jet air stream and carried in
a miasmic cloud halfway around the world until it finally floated down
to coat the Russian city of Urmsk in a veil of vile odor. The United
States disclaimed any knowledge of the cloud.
* * * * *
"LAS VEGAS, NEV., May 8 (AP)--The Atomic Energy Commission today
announced it has squeezed the last drop from Operation Milkmaid."
"After a year of futile experimentation has failed to get anything
more than good, Grade A milk from the world's two most famous cows,
the AEC says it has closed down its field laboratory at the Circle
T ranch."
"Dr. Floyd Peterson, who has been in charge of the attempt to again
reproduce Sally's Milk, told newsmen that the famed Guernsey and
her stablemate, Melody, no longer gave exotic and unidentifiable
liquids that sent man zooming briefly to the stars."
"For a while, it looked like we had it in the bag," Peterson said.
"You might say now, though, that the tests have been an udder
failure."
"Meanwhile, in Washington, AEC commissioner...."