by John Blaine
“You dropped this, sir.”
The man whirled, snatched the envelope, and for an instant his eyes locked, almost fearfully it seemed, with Rick’s. Then he ran up the stairs.
The name on the envelope had been Fred Lewis. Cap’n Gait confirmed the identification.“Says he’s a writer. Been here ‘bout a month, I’d say.Strange cuss. Ever see a face like that before? Looks like someone skinned him.”
That was a good description, Rick thought. He wished they knew more about the white-faced man.
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Rick stretched and threw the covers aside. An expertly aimed pillow caught Scotty on the side of the head.
“Hit the deck,” Rick called. “Rise and shine. It’s time to go to work.”
“Tell ‘em I quit,” Scotty said comfortably. He started to roll over again.
“Not on your life,” Rick said. He grabbed the covers
pressure: ten atmospheres 45
andtugged. Scotty struggled for a moment,then gave up.
An hour later, dressed and with a hearty breakfast under their belts, they walked into the Quonset hut.
Doug greeted them with a wave of his coffee cup.
“Morning.All ready for work?”
“Ready and eager,” Rick answered.
Scotty looked around the hut. “Where’s Tom?”
“Gone toBridgeport.He’s going to see some employment agencies and try to hire workers. We’ve given up trying to get Crayville people to come to work.”
“Thanks to Gunner Stoles,” Rick murmured.
“I’m afraid so. Tom suggested that we have some handbills printed, telling the truth about the plant, that it won’t poison fish, and so on. We’ll have them distributed and see if we can’t overcome some of this ridiculous prejudice. But meanwhile, we need workmen.”
“That will cost a lot, bringing them fromBridgeport ,” Rick commented.
Doug’s lips tightened.“Too much. But there’s nothing else we can do. Rick, you can help me finish wiring the electronic controls for the pressure domes. I want to test them this afternoon. Scotty, you said that you can drive a powerboat. I want you to help Tony. Go out to the sea inlet and check the filter screen.”
The morning passed rapidly while they worked on the intricate control panel. Rick watched Doug with respect. He knew what he was doing, allright, The automatic electronic controls controlled both heat and pressure within the concrete domes. They were very complex.
Once he crawled in through the turret like door of one of them to check a thermostat and saw that the interior was like that of an igloo, but coated with something thick, hard, and glossy.
When he asked about it, Doug answered: “That’s something I dreamed up. It’s plastic. We applied it while hot, and it hardened into a firm coating that’s not only chemical-proof, but adds strength to the domes. They’ll have to take a lot of pressure.More than ten atmospheres.”
Rick thought that over. He recalled that one atmosphere was fourteen and seven-tenths pounds to the Page 23
square inch. That was normal pressure at sea level.And ten atmospheres . . . one hundred and forty-seven pounds to the square inch.
When Scotty returned with the dark, wiry foreman, he stopped to say a word to Rick before trotting off to clean out one of the big sediment tanks. “Not a hard job, but this Tony is a queer cuss. No more sociable than a wild bull.”
By lunchtime, the last wire had been soldered into place. Doug straightened up with a relieved sigh.
“There she is. You’re a neat workman, Rick. You’ll be a lot of help. Well, let’s have lunch, then well give this thing a test.”
pressure: ten atmospheres 47
Rick, pleased at Doug’s praise, took the opportunity to ask questions. “What do you expect to get out of the sea water? And how do you do it? Golly, I never saw such complex electronic circuits. Even Dad would have to think about it for a while before he could figure them out.
“I doubt that.” Doug smiled. “Don’t forget that your dad probably knows more about electronics than any man living. But to answer your questions, we expect to get metals, largely. There’s a lot of treasure in the sea, you know. For instance, if we could get all the gold, silver, and platinum out of a single cubic mile of sea water we could build a plant ten times the size of this one and have money left over.”
Rick whistled. “Are you going after gold and silver?”
“Yes, to some extent. Our main interest will be in aluminum, magnesium, and copper, but we hope to extract enough precious metals to pay for a large part of our operating cost.”
“But how do you do it? I understand about electrolysis and stuff like that, but I still can’t figure out how you’ll get metals.”
Doug laughed. “I’ll tell you in detail the day you graduate from college. I’m afraid it’s a little complex.”
“But give me an idea of how it works,” Rick persisted.
Doug scratched his head. “I don’t know how to put it in simple terms. The metals we want are in solution.
That is, they’re dissolved in the sea water, not in pure form, but in compounds, like copper sulphate and gold chloride. Well, I’ve had to figure out the electronic structure of the compound molecules, and I’ve made up a table of what I call molecular electronic coefficients . . .”
“Never mind,” Rick said, laughing. “My head aches already. I guess I’d just better keep my eyes open and see what I can see.”
“Good idea.” Doug grinned. “And I’ll try to explain as we go along.”
The boys had intended hiking into town for lunch, but Doug invited them to share his simple meal of canned soup, crackers, and milk. Tony ate with them, sipping his soup noisily and saying nothing.
“His voice is baritone,” Scotty said later, “but he drinks soup in a tenor key.”
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They ate hastily, anxious to get back to testing the domes. Doug told Tony to turn on the pump and suggested that the boys go along to see how it was done while he rechecked the pressure data. He would join them at the dome.
As they left Doug and walked toward the pump house, Rick tried to engage Tony in conversation.
“Have you been in the construction business long?”
“Yeah.”Tony said shortly.
“Around here?” Rick persisted.
“No.”
pressure: ten atmospheres 49
Rick gave up and they walked in silence the rest of the way.
The pump house, a large wooden shed, contained a gasoline engine geared to a large rotary pump. The big sea inlet pipe ran in one side, and smaller pipes ran out the other. Tony opened the valves leading to the pressure domes.
Scotty found the engine starter and the switch, and tried to get the engine going, without success.
“Choke it a little,” Rick suggested, pointing to the choke wire.
“No,” Tony growled. “Like this, see?” He put his whole hand over the carburetor air inlet, closing it off, then he pushed the starter button. The engine whirred into life. “Chokedon’t work,” he said briefly. He shifted the gear that threw power into the pump and they heard the blades turn inside the circular housing.
In a moment they could hear water gurgling,
“Let’s go,” Rick said.
He and Scotty hurried to the domes, leaving Tony at the pump house. Doug was standing by the domes, and the boys joined him. Out at the sea inlet, the waters of Long Island Sound gurgled and swirled. Doug made a final check on the circular door of pressure dome one, then walked back to where the boys were watching the instruments.
There was the sound of roaring water, audible even through the thick concrete. For a long while the needle of the pressure gauge remained still,then with agonizing slowness it began to climb.
“Two atmospheres,” Doug said. His voice sounded loud.
The dome was full, and pressure was building. Already the mysterious processes that Rick only dimly understood were starting to take place. He watched the p
ressure gauge, waiting. He couldn’t have said why he was so tense.
Scotty shifted from one foot to the other.
“Five atmospheres,” Doug said.
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They fell silent; even the gurgling of water had ceased. Only the thrum of the pump engine broke the silence.
“Eight,” Doug said.
The needle quivered, advanced a half point. If they were in the dome now, pressure would crush them.
What was happening to the sea water?
The needle crept ahead. Nine anda ...
A tremendous gust of pressure blew Rick back, sent him tumbling head over heels. Something smashed into his ribs, driving the air out of him. He collapsed in a heap, gasping for breath. Pain ran up his left arm.
Through blurred eyes he saw Scotty stagger, saw Doug hurtling back, driven by inexorable force.
Concrete rained around him.
The dome had exploded!
CHAPTER V
Was It Sabotage?
To Rick’s shocked mind it seemed that broken bits of concrete rained around him for long minutes.
Small pieces struck him, but fortunately no sizable chunks fell near.
For a moment he lay still,then he got to his feet, and was surprised that he still had the power of movement. A few yards away, Scotty was also getting to his feet, shaking his head dizzily. Doug Chambers put both hands on his chest and groaned.
“What happened? What happened?” Tony yelled as he ran toward them.
Rick didn’t bother to answer. He called to Scotty, “Are you hurt?”
“I’m all right, but let’s see how Doug is.”
The ex-Marine was already kneeling at Doug’s side. Rick joined him, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs from it. As the two boys bent over him anxiously, the young engineer managed a tight grin.
“I’m okay. Just had the wind knocked out ofme.You all right?”
They helped him to his feet and he took a deep shuddering breath, placing a hand on his chest again. “A piece hit me, I think.”
“Let’s get to the hut,” Rick said. “You might have a broken rib.”
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“Who’s bleeding?” Tony asked suddenly, and then exclaimed, “Brant! Your sleeve’s bloody.”
Rick looked at his arm. There was a tear in the shirt sleeve, and it was wet with blood. He wondered why he hadn’t felt anything.
“Come on,” Scotty said.
He took Rick’s good arm and led him toward the Quonset hut. Tony gave Doug Chambers a hand.
A quick examination showed that the cut wasn’t serious. Scotty cleaned and bandaged itexpertly, using the first-aid kit the partners kept in the hut. Doug, meanwhile, shed his shirt, disclosing an area right over his breastbone where the skin was already turning purple. He pressed gingerly, his fingers probing for a possible fracture.
“Nothing serious,” he announced.“Just a bad bruise.”
“You got off easy,” Tony said.
“Easy is right!” Doug’s lips thinned. “We might have been killed, all of us. Where were you, Tony?”
“Down by the pump house. I was checking on the water flow. Then I heard the explosion and I ran.”
Rick tried to get up from the chair in which Scotty had seated him and found that his knees were shaky.
He was sweating profusely. So were the others.
“Stay put,” Scotty advised. “You’ll be all right in a minute.”
“Tony, you’re all right,” Doug said. “Go out, will you? Try to find out why the dome blew. And bring a piece of that concrete in here. I can’t understand it,” the engineer added slowly. “I know I figured the stresses right. I rechecked the specifications a dozen times. Those domes were designed to take up to fifteen atmospheres.”
Rick started to comment, but the expression on Doug’s face stopped him.
“It’s been this way from the very beginning,” Doug continued. “We knew it was risky, trying to get a plant like this going on shoestring finances, but we were sure we could do it. We planned to start on a small scale. We were going to put all the profits right back into expansion, until we had something really big. But right from the very first we had bad luck.”
Rick saw an expression of sympathy forming on Scotty’s lips and motioned him to be quiet. Doug felt like talking; he had to get it off his chest.
“First it was the property. A firm inNew York claimed it belonged to an estate they handled. It took a lot of money for lawyer’s fees before we proved we had clear title to it. Then a cable broke while we were putting the sea inlet pipe sections together, and some of the sections dropped into the mud at the bottom. It took us a week to get them out and back together again.
“Then the sediment tanks arrived. They were in sheet sections, of course. I’d ordered them specially made, with an electroplating of chrome alloy. Well, when they arrived, some of the chrome had been ground right off. The railroad compensated us for the expense of having them repaired, but we lost more Page 27
time. And time means money.
“About then, the Crayville people began quitting. We tried to reason with them, but they wouldn’t listen.
Tom even went to a few homes and tried to talk with them, but they’re not interested. A few said something about ruining the fishing, but we didn’t take it too seriously- until now.”
Tony came in, holding a piece of concrete.
“And now this,” Doug finished. “It cost us plenty to have those domes built. I can’t understand . . . oh, Tony. Let’s see that.”
He took the piece of concrete and examined it. The boys went to his side and watched.
“The side blew out,” Tony said.
Doug crumbled a piece of the concrete and rolled it between his fingers. “That’s funny,” he said as it crumbled, “it shouldn’t do that.”
He found a wrench and struck the concrete a sharp blow. It fell to pieces in his hand.
“Well, now we know,” he said. He sounded very tired. “This stuff isn’t much stronger than so much sand. The plastic seal evidently held in the pressure until it finally gave. The concrete just wasn’t strong enough.”
“Someone doped off,” Scotty said.
“So it seems,” Doug said grimly. He took the shattered concrete to the door and examined it in the bright sunlight. Then, suddenly, he held it close to his eyes, rubbing it with his finger. “That’s strange,” he mused. “I wonder where this white powder came from.”
Rick looked over his shoulder and saw flecks of white mixed in with the gray. “Maybeit’s raw cement,”
he suggested.
“No. All the cement would have combined in the mixture. This is something else.”
Doug dumped the stuff on the table, then went to a cabinet, opened it, and brought out a case from which he took a microscope. He explained as he plugged in the cord that lit the small bulb at the bottom:
“I have this to use in examining the crystalline structure of the minerals we hoped to get.”
He sprinkled a pinch of the concrete on a glass slide, inserted it and sat down, his eye to the microscope. He turned the adjustment screws until he had the focus just right, then hunched over the eyepiece.
Presently Doug straightened up. “I can’t be sure,” he said, “but from the structure of the crystals, I’d say that the white powder is gypsum.” His dark eyes went from Rick, to Tony, to Scotty, and his voice got harsh. “And that means that the failure of the dome-the defective concrete-was the result of carelessness.”
“Maybe whoever mixed the cement was trying to make a bigger profit,” Scotty suggested.
“Yes. And there’s another possibility,” Doug said.
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Rick took a deep breath. Another possibility had occurred to him, too.
“There is a chance that this was deliberate sabotage!”
Rick leaned forward anxiously. That was the thought that had crossed his mind. All those “accidents”
Doug had mentioned,
the telegram, Gunner Stoles’ agitating among the fishermen . . .
“Why do you say that?” Rick queried.
“I had some trouble with Jenkins, the contractor who built the domes. I found him trying to get into the process vault one day, and I’m afraid I got rather upset. We had words, and I’m sorry to say that I took a swing at him. I apologized later, of course, but he didn’t seem appeased. He probably would have quit, but Tom talked him out of it. The thought came to me just now that perhaps he deliberately adulterated the cement in order tc get even with me.”
“Who was this Jenkins?” Rick asked.
The name seemed familiar, but of course it was a very common one. Only where had he heard it recently?
“A small contractor fromNew Haven ,” Doug replied.
“He approached us, and his price was so reasonable that we hired him. The job wasn’t very complicated, since I made the forms for the domes myself-or, rather- supervised the carpenters who did.
All Jenkins had to do was mix the cement and pour.”
He rose and started out the door. Rick and Scotty fell in step. Tony followed behind. The foreman hadn’t said a word. Rick wondered if Tony just didn’t care, or whether he was simply a man of few words.
Examination of the dome showed that they had been very lucky, as Tony had said. The entire dome had not vanished, as Rick seemed to remember. There was only a hole, perhaps three feet square, where concrete had blown away from the reinforcing steel mesh up near the curve of the top. It had seemed such a terrific explosion because they had happened to be directly in front of the weak spot that gave under the pressure.
Water had poured from the hole; the initial spray had wetted the boys thoroughly, but they had hardly noticed. Most of the concrete blown out had crumbled into small pieces. Only one or two sizable chunks had been blown far. One of them had struck Doug.
Doug went to the second pressure dome and rubbed the surface. Rick had only to look at the engineer’s face to know that it, too, had been sabotaged.
Silently Doug left them and walked down to the pier where the motorboat was tied. They saw him sit down and stare out to sea.
Tony departed in the direction of the pump houses, and the boys were left alone.