The Worlds of George O

by George O. Smith

  His mental fumblings for something to say were interrupted by a slight flickering in the sky, followed by a muttering of thunder. A few pelting drops of rain--large, wet ones--struck Phil on the head and splashed from Louise's cheeks.

  Startled, they turned out of the half embrace and peered into the night.

  * * * *

  The sky was split by a jagged streak of blue-white and the roll of thunder crescendoed to an artillery-crashing. Phil drew Louise back into the shelter of the door frame as the rain increased to a steady downpour.

  "Talk about your careful controls and your planning," said Louise uncertainly.

  "This can happen," he said matter-of-factly. "So one of the circuits went out. Chances are that it went out an hour ago and is now repaired, but the time lag let this catch up with us only now. If it were bad they'd have let us know. Everything's under con--"

  The lightning and the resulting crash came simultaneously, and the heavens opened up. Water lashed down at them in sheets, driven by the wind. Startled, they retreated into the living room, and the rain followed them, soaking the rug and the floor, and driving all the way across the apartment to fleck the far wall with darkly wet blotches that tried to run down but soaked into the plaster before the wetness could reach the floor. There was a banshee howl as the wind changed direction; driving rain lashed in through the back windows and slammed the French doors shut. Panes of glass shattered, and fell on the tiny balcony outside. Then the wind whipped around again, and slashed rain in through the open panes before it banged the doors inward and against the wall, finishing the job of ruining them completely.

  Water churned along the baseboard molding like a small flood. The wind whipped a picture from the wall, and hurled it against the floor. The shade blew from a floorlamp, and mere was the warning sizzle from the wall plug, enough to call their attention that way in time to see blue-white smoke issue from the socket before the lamp went out.

  "It's all right--the fuse blew--" said Phil, groping in the semidark. The back of the apartment still had light; the place was on two fused circuits.

  They went into the kitchen by the roundabout way, to close whatever windows there were; they sat in the kitchen and eyed the water running on the linoleum.

  "This is to be expected?" asked Louise in a cynical tone.

  "Something must have happened. I'd better--"

  The wind howled again, cutting him off. They went to the window and looked out. Between the lashings of rain that completely obscured the glass in a running sheet of water, the landscape was flashed on and off in the lightning. In its flicker they could see the red mud leaping and churning as the cloudburst whipped down.

  "You can't go out in this," said Louise.

  "They'll be needing me."

  "But you can't--"

  Phil rubbed his damp scalp unhappily. "Open roadster," he gritted.

  "Damn it!"

  Louise laughed. "Funny," she said. "Screamingly funny."

  "What's so damned funny?" he demanded.

  "The gentleman comes a-wooing. Nothing could better fit the gentleman's plans than to be entrapped with the lady of his desire so that she, hard-hearted as she might be, would not suggest that he leave. But the gentleman happens to be big cheese in Weather Control, and in the case of emergency he must forego pleasure for business, no matter if he gets drowned for it!"

  Phil grunted. That just about pinned it down pat. "Wouldn't do me much good to stay," he grumbled. "Atop it all, every darned bed in the joint is soaked to the springs."

  He left her and went to the telephone. He tried it, but even Louise could hear the constant rattle of static that chattered out of the earpiece.

  The telephone was useless.

  The lights flickered a bit, went dim, then came on again at about half-brilliance, wavering slightly. The semidarkness and the wail of the wind and the constant roar of the rain made Phil's nerves grate. The helplessness of his position added to his state of nerves; he knew that he had no chance to get to the weather control station some twenty miles away in his open roadster.

  Louise was visibly jittering. Phil poured a stiff jolt from the bottle on the sink and put it in her hand. Louise tossed it down without wincing; it seemed to iron her out a bit. Phil tried a jolt himself, but it was raw and bitter instead of the smooth stuff he knew it to be. It did not help him at all.

  With a false feeling of confidence, Phil smoothed her damp hair and patted her shoulder. He could feel the damp warmth under the thin dress, and he dimly realized that this sort of thing should have aroused him, but it did not and he knew why. "Take it easy, Louise," he said with a wry smile.

  "We've got a bunch of good bright eggs at the station and they'll have this ironed out in no time."

  She shivered.

  Phil pushed her gently in the direction of the bedroom. "Get into some dry clothing."

  Rain sprayed in through the ruined French doors and filled the apartment with mist, and Phil suddenly followed Louise into the bedroom.

  She was toweling her bare back as he came in; she looked around, wonderment on her face. Phil grabbed a light blanket from her bed and went out with it. It was only after he had the blanket nailed to the frame of the French door that he realized that she had been completely undressed.

  The blanket did not cut the deluge completely, but it helped.

  Louise came out in a skirt and blouse, with a towel wrapped around her head. She handed Phil another towel, a huge one. He nodded.

  * * * *

  II

  The rain had not decreased; the wind was still howling, and me lights were still flickering. Phil sat on the kitchen table wrapped in the huge towel while Louise tested the clothing she was baking dry in the oven.

  "Well done or rare?" she asked him.

  "Well done, please."

  "I think you can try them now," she said. She left the kitchen while he donned his shapeless trousers and rumpled shirt. He called her, and she came back with the towel gone from her head, fluffing out her hair with her hands. "Dry?"

  "Dry--but for how long?" he mumbled. "I've got to get--"

  "You'll wait here until you can get out without being drowned. Pour me another, will you?"

  Phil did, and he poured himself another, too. It went down more smoothly than the previous drink, but it still lacked something.

  Hours passed; the rain got worse; and Phil could no longer comfort himself with his oft-repeated statement that the boys in the station would have it ironed out in jig time. Something was completely wrong with this picture. Man and man's science had brought water to Mars; but it was never planned, never intended, never computed to deliver water anywhere in quantities approaching this deluge. It was more than blown fuses or a dead vacuum tube or even a ruined servo-amplifier. This was a major catastrophe, and Phil Watson was trapped away from the scene of activities.

  And then eventually the doorbell rang, and they went to answer it. It was Tommy Regan who came in like a ghost, cowering beneath a white rubber poncho that swirled around him like a wet tent with the tentpoles removed. He stumbled into the living room and threw the fore edge of the rubber sheet back and over, flinging a spray of water.

  "God!" he gritted. "Phil--come on!"

  "How'd y' get here?"

  "Covered jeep-wagon. I--Come on!" Tommy Regan tossed a small folded package at Phil and it opened partly on its flight. It was another poncho. Or, more properly, it was a rubber sheet from the station's dispensary. "The process is involved but interesting," said Regan grimly.

  "You lift the front and aim, then you plunge it blind until you have to take aim again. Ready?"

  "Not without me!" wailed Louise.

  "You'll drown," said Regan flatly.

  "Wait--" Louise went into the bathroom, and came out wrapped in the shower curtain. "Let's go," she said.

  "But--"

  She shook her head. "I'm frightened bright purple," she said shakily.

  "But I'm with a couple of people who might
be able to help; I'm not going to stay in this mess of an apartment alone while they go out to stop this thing.

  I'm going along."

  "It's rough," said Regan.

  "Staying here alone would be rougher."

  "But--"

  "Come on, then," Phil broke in. "There's been too much time wasted already."

  * * * *

  They stood downstairs in the lobby while Regan explained. "The crate's out there," he said, pointing through the glass doors. "You can't see it, but it's there. You've got to cover your face and plunge. I'll go first. I'll open the door and get in. Miss Hannon comes second, and I'll swing the door open for her. You come last, Phil. Each of you count twenty seconds so I'll be able to time your arrivals. Got it?"

  They nodded, and Tommy Regan left.

  Twenty seconds later, Phil held the lobby door for Louise; she flopped the edge of the shower curtain over her face, put her head down, and disappeared into the wall of downpour. And twenty seconds later Phil covered his own head and went out into it himself.

  It was like trying to run in a swimming pool; it was like trying to make time through a haymow. The rain hammered at his head through the rubber sheet. The air he took in was heavy with water, and the wind whipped the edge of the sheet around his legs, and the swirling sheet carried wetness up into his face. Water tore at his ankles and made him stumble, and the lashing sheet turned him this way and that so that he lost his direction.

  He lifted the fore edge for a brief second.

  The car was there before him, seen briefly before the water pasted his eyes closed and the wind beat down the uplifted edge of his poncho.

  He lurched forward and stumbled into the car. Louise slammed the door shut as he fell into the seat.

  Regan drove slowly, peering through the rain-pelted windshield. The wipers cut brief arches on the glass and left a bit of transparency just behind them through which the eye could see if it were fast enough. There was, of course, no traffic to contend with, which was a good thing, because Regan swerved from one side of the road to the other. It was only about twenty miles from Louise's apartment to the weather control station, but they took a full two hours to fumble their way along the water-strewn road.

  Going in was no problem. The station was equipped with a garage.

  They were inside with the big door closed against the rain before they opened the door of the car.

  Upstairs in the station was the mess.

  * * * *

  The acrid smell of burned-out electrical components floated in the air like cigar smoke in a night club. Hogarth was wrist-deep in a panel-assembly, Forsyth was changing relays as fast as he could unsolder and replace them, Jones was checking blackish-looking cables with an ohmmeter, Robinson was making a run-down on the terminal strips, Merrivale was probing deep into me guts of a meter with a slender pair of watchmaker's forceps, and Wadsworth was chopping the ruined leads from transformers and dropping the things on the floor behind him. Hansen, the janitor, was stolidly pulling burned-out vacuum tubes from their sockets and replacing them from the large sack he had slung over his shoulder. Two of the station's stenographers were there; elderly Miss Morgan, whose only familiarity with machinery was her knowledge of how to run a typewriter, was trekking back and forth from the stockroom to the operations department bringing replacement parts; and Miss Larrabee, the station's glamor-girl, whose highest asset was her ability to take dictation and keep her stocking seams straight at the same time, was delivering pliers, cutters, screwdrivers, and wrenches from one man to the other as they were needed.

  "What happened?" demanded Phil.

  Regan threw out his hands. "Who knows?" he said plaintively. "All at once everything went to hell. There was a sizzle and then a f-f-f-t! and the whole goddam shooting match went to hell in a five-gallon bucket.

  Overload, I think--"

  "Tried the radio?" said Phil.

  "I tried the telephone. No dice."

  "Radio's worse," Regan broke in. "It's--"

  "Mercury," said Phil flatly. "Something's wrong there."

  Regan said, "But how--"

  Phil looked around the station. "Someone's got to go. You've got the thing under control as best you can--I'll hit space."

  "Okay. But tell 'em to shut the damned water off!"

  There was a flurry and a fuss of voices from the stairway leading from the garage. A group of men in rather soggy business suits came in. They were--literally--as mad as wet hens.

  The foremost of them looked the situation over with the baffled eyes of the layman, and began to sputter. "Who's in charge here?"

  "I am," said Phil.

  High blood pressure became apparent. "What on Mars do you thing you're doing?"

  "We've had a bit of trouble."

  "You've had--" the gentleman choked up. His face purpled, and his throat bulged over the edge of his damp collar.

  Phil eyed the group with just a trace of cynical amusement. "As soon as we can find my magician's wand, which is somewhere in the toolroom, we'll have this fixed. In the meantime we're doing all we can with the standard, old-fashioned things like long-nose pliers and side-cutters."

  "Who are you?"

  "I'm Phillip Watson. Who are you?"

  "I'm John Longacre. I'm chairman of the Senatorial Committee on Internal Affairs, and I'll have you know--"

  "I'm glad to meet you."

  "You're in charge here?" demanded Longacre sharply.

  "Yes."

  "I should think that an older, more responsible man would be in charge."

  "I believe that I am responsible enough. I've been told so by Solar Weather Control. They didn't pick me for the shape of my head or the size of my ears. I'm also capable of doing everything that can be done."

  "Are you?" demanded Longacre sourly. "Why aren't you helping?

  Why isn't this young woman helping?"

  "I'm not helping because I'm talking to you, and this young lady is not helping because before any work could be assigned to her you gentlemen entered and interrupted the proceedings."

  Longacre harrumphed, took a deep breath, and tried to get hold of his blood pressure. "There is no sense in bandying any more words," he said.

  "I am empowered to instruct you to cause an end to this debacle."

  "Thank you for the privilege. I assure you that we do not care for it any more than you do."

  One of the other gentlemen behind Longacre stepped up while Longacre was regaining his breath. "I'm Senator Forbes. Do you realize that billions of dollars' worth of damage has been done already?"

  "Of course--"

  "You must put a stop to it."

  "Look," said Phil Watson gently. "Please be assured that we are not sitting here with folded hands hoping it will go away."

  Senator Longacre regained his breath, and used it to say, "Whether or not your attitude is sufficiently acute will be decided later. At the present moment I carry authorization from the Martian Senate to deliver unto you the right to do whatever is necessary to cause the abatement of this catastrophe."

  "Senator, we're wasting time. I assure you that if I needed anything that the planet Mars has to offer I would not wait for a senatorial authority to demand it. You're a little late with your offer."

  "This is a deplorable situation," said Senator Forbes. "Some time this week we will have the arrival of the billionth space traveler to Mars--and what will he find?"

  Phil snorted. "Nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand a few odd hundred persons have put their good right foot on Mars and found the place in about every stage of development from hell to breakfast. Your billionth visitor doesn't faze me."

  "But the Mars-wide celebration--"

  "How about the Mars-wide deluge?"

  "This must be stopped!" roared Senator Forbes.

  Longacre added, "You have every authority. Until this terrible thing has been culminated to the satisfaction of--"

  "Why not forget the high-flo
wn language, Senator?"

  "We'll see about this attitude of yours, young man!"

  "I've got every authority?"

  "You have. Use it!"

  "Miss Hannon, Mister Regan: you have heard this. I have authority to use whatever measures I deem necessary to cause the satisfactory conclusion of this cosmic catastrophe. So, gentlemen, my first order under this authority is to impress you as workmen."

  "Impress us?" roared Senator Longacre.

  "Impress you. We have one hundred and sixteen thousand vacuum tubes, all of which must be replaced. There are ten of you, which makes eleven thousand six hundred tubes each. I think you may be able to average about five hundred an hour after you get some practice, which will take you approximately--"

  "We are issuing you an ultimatum, Mister Watson. We--"

  "The title is Doctor Watson, Senator, and no relation to the friend of the brilliant Sherlock Holmes. As to your ultimatum, no one can ultimate to sheer arithmetic, nor especially logical mathematics. One man may dig a hole in ten hours, but that does not mean that thirty-six thousand men can dig the same hole in one second. So I am impressing you as workmen. If you have not completed this job within the time limit of your ultimatum, you have only yourselves to blame. Hansen!"

  "Yes, boss."

  "You are in charge of this group. See that they get these tubes replaced in the shortest possible time."

  "I get it, boss."

  Senator Forbes spluttered. "We'll answer to no underling--"

  "You'll have to."

  * * * *

  Senator Longacre eyed Phil sourly. "And what are you going to be doing?"

  "I'll tell you. When there's trouble, the proper place to stop it is at the source. I am going to Mercury to stop the flow of water!"

  "Mercury?"

  Phil said patiently, "I'll take another minute and a half to explain. We get water from Mercury via matter transmitter. The way a matter transmitter works is too involved and complicated for any simple explanation, but the gist of the argument is that the damned things have to deliver what's put into them or violate the law of conservation of energy. Since the water is stuffed into the transmitter on Mercury, the only way to stop all this wetness is to go there and stop the input, see?"