The Secret of Saturn’s Rings

by Donald A. Wollheim

  The panel unbolted, Bruce saw that the complicated wiring was exposed, a very neat and exact pattern of many colored wires and tubes. It looked very shipshape to him.

  As it happened, Bruce had studied the wiring on the dummy ship in the school space class, and he was pleased to recognize how exactly the scheme was duplicated.

  Waldron evidently was not so pleased. He stood for a moment staring at it, then, taking pliers in hand, carefully wrenched loose several of the wires and began to reconnect them.

  Bruce watched him, puzzled. Somehow what he was doing didn't seem to make much sense. If anything, it seemed to him that Waldron was making connections that were simply completely wrong. After all, the wires were of different colors, the points of connection were very clearly marked and had seemed to be correct in the first place. Finally Bruce spoke up: “I don't understand how you can expect to get the correct reading for that with the wires as you have placed them. I don't claim to be a mechanic, yet that blue wire is plainly marked as coming from Tank Five. You have attached it to the meter listed for Tank Three. How will the pilot know?”

  Waldron glanced at him sharply. “Mind your own business!” he snapped. “I know what I’m doing!” Bruce's nerves had been on edge all that strange day. He wasn't used to being treated like that and he knew he was right. Now a sudden suspicion surged through him.

  “I still don’t think you’re doing the right thing. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Waldron gave another wire a vicious twist, turned and said, “Why don’t you just keep quiet? In fact, why don’t you get out of here until I finish?” He raised the wrench furiously in a threatening manner.

  “I won’t,” he said slowly, “and I am going to report this business as soon as I find someone else in this crew!”

  “Oh yeah!” yelled Waldron, losing all reserve. The spacehand made a sudden thrust at Bruce with the wrench. The boy had expected it however, sidestepped and swung his fist. In a moment all the pent-up emotions of the day came to the surface. With a zest he waded into Waldron, grabbing his arm, punching him in the stomach, and crowding him back with another flurry of fists.

  Waldron broke suddenly, dropped the wrench and ran out of the engine room, down the short corridor, and leaped through the open space-lock door. When Bruce got after him, he saw the spacehand heading for the car lot, evidently planning to make a quick escape.

  Dr. Rhodes popped out of the charthouse nearby and stared after Waldron. Then he turned and ran up to Bruce in the ship. “What was that about?” he called.

  Quickly Bruce explained, and his father went with him to the engine room to see. He was visibly shocked. Taking out a handkerchief, he mopped his forehead.

  “That was quick thinking, son,” he said. “You were right. It was an attempt at sabotage. With the dials indicating the wrong tanks, we’d have been lost in space within days.”

  Dr. Rhodes picked up the wrench and pliers and started to reconnect the wires carefully. “We’re going to be shorthanded,” he said softly. “I don’t know where I’m going to get someone to replace Waldron who can be trusted, and in such a short time. I plan to take off in the next hour.”

  Bruce looked at his father, then said to him, “Suppose I take Waldron’s place? I’ve studied space ships and astronomy in school and by myself. I’m strong. And you know you can trust me.”

  Dr. Rhodes lowered his pliers and looked long at him. He seemed to struggle with himself., “I have no right to ask you,” he said. “It will be a very difficult trip. Who will be left to take care of your mother if we don’t return?”

  Bruce pressed his offer, his heart beating. “Mother will be proud of us whatever happens. I don’t know where you are going, but I’m sure it must be of real importance. Let me come along as the junior space-hand.”

  Dr. Rhodes nodded slowly. “Yes, I know your mother would never say no. And the trip is important. It may be the most important trip ever made. It may mean life or death for the whole world. I guess you will do.”

  The boy’s heart bounded with joy. And then he asked the one question he had failed to ask so far. “Where are we going, Dad?”

  The old engineer smiled briefly, then his face became quiet and sober. “We’re going to Saturn,” he said.

  Bruce’s eyes opened wide. The ringed planet of Saturn! It was beyond the farthest rim of human exploration! But what possible reason could there be for this terrible urgency?

  CHAPTER 2 Slide Into Space

  trip to Saturn would represent a longer journey from Earth than had ever been made before. It had been Bruce's belief, from things he had been taught in school about space ships, that a trip of that distance was still considered beyond the ability of the spacecraft that existed up to then. If his father was indeed going to try to make such a record-breaking flight, why the secrecy, and what special plans did he have?

  These thoughts brought Bruce’s mind back to the first problem—why was his father in trouble, what did Terraluna want, why the hurry? When he regained his tongue from the excitement of being accepted as a crew member on this flight, he bombarded his father with these questions.

  Dr. Rhodes nodded. “I’d better explain the situation to you/’ He glanced at his watch. “We have a little time yet. I believe our course is charted by now, and Garcia can do the checking of the figures. Come forward.”

  The engineer led the way to the control room at the craft’s nose, and there they sat down in the padded chairs that space fliers use. Dr. Rhodes rubbed his forehead a moment, then began:

  “I suppose you’ve seen the papers today, with the story that Terraluna gave them about firing me. This represents their last effort to stop this trip. Up to now they’ve kept silent and fought this thing behind the scenes.

  “To start at the beginning, a couple of years ago I was asked by the directors of the lunar mining project to devise some method of reaching the deep core of the moon. Up to now, our mining has not gone down more than about ten miles. We’ve taken in a lot of valuable material, tons of diamonds, and so forth, but it was believed that at the very center of the moon there would be rich deposits of the heavier and rarer metals, uranium, radium, platinum, and so on.

  “The moon is very light, as you know. It hasn’t got the solidity of Earth; most of it is such light rock as pumice and ash and layers of meteor dust. There are huge empty bubbles through the moon’s interior, like giant caves dozens of miles across. When the moon was first created, it was liquid hot like all the planets, but as it cooled, the heavier elements sank toward the center. Being so much lighter than Earth, they sank completely down; on our own world, there are heavy metals that remained near the surface. Not so on the moon.

  “So it seemed right to believe that there would be some very valuable findings if we could figure out how to mine at the moon’s heart one thousand miles below its surface. This was what I was asked to invent.

  “I worked at that problem for a long time, until I finally solved it. I invented a system of rapid-fire atomic blasting, a sort of directed self-renewing series of atomic bombs that would blast off in any direction we wanted and continue as long as needed. I worked out the idea behind this and showed what was necessary to make the actual machinery to do this.

  “For this work, I was praised and rewarded financially by them. But as for me, I was not quite through. I went on with my studies to determine just what might be the result of such deep-core atomic blasting. I ended my calculations four months ago.

  “I found that the moon is too light and too loose a structure to allow that type of blasting safely. A little atomic blasting on the surface for mining purposes is all right. But if a series of such incredibly powerful explosions were set off near its center, the result would be the crack-up of the moon itself.”

  Bruce was listening, his head resting on his elbow, which was propped up against a panel of the controls. He nodded to show his father he had understood thus far.

  “The moon is not like a free planet such as Mars
or Mercury. It is a satellite, revolving around a bigger and heavier world, our Earth. Because of this, it is subject to great strains from the gravitational pull of the Earth. You know how the moon’s pull draws the water of the ocean to cause our tides. If the moon had oceans, it would have even greater tides due to its lesser gravity and the Earth’s stronger pull. But even without water, it is affected by this pull. Only it is the very mass, the rocks and stuff of which the moon consists, that feels this tidal pull from Earth.

  “Besides its normal motion in space, every particle of the moon feels a constant draw from Earth, is made looser from its brothers by this draw. The moon is fragile.

  “Astronomers have shown that someday, billions of years from now, the moon will fall closer to the Earth and be tom apart into tiny fragments. These fragments will fly around the Earth and finally form a sort of ring around our world. My figures showed that atomic blasting at the moon’s core would shatter the whole satellite into such fragments now'. The moon would burst apart like a bomb!

  “Some bits of this lunar bombshell would hit the Earth, causing great damage. Most of these pieces would continue to fly along the moon’s orbit and form a ring. But the effect would be just as terrible as if they had struck our world.

  “With the release of the moon’s pull, the tides would cease and the waters of the world equalize. This will flood great parts of the world’s surface, wipe out hundreds of cities and drown millions. Great quakes will probably destroy the rest as the Earth’s bulk is released from the strain of its satellite and readjusts itself. I would say that probably nine-tenths of humanity would die; certainly civilization would be totally destroyed!”

  Bruce gasped. “But surely Terraluna realizes that! They certainly wouldn’t want to risk that. They must have agreed with your discovery!”

  Dr. Rhodes shook his head. “They did not. They refused to accept my figures, plain as they were. They are going ahead with the building of the deep-core atomic blaster!”

  Bruce was horrified. “But how could they? Why should they do such a thing?”

  Dr. Rhodes smiled grimly. “People are sometimes blinded by their own selfishness, Bruce. Terraluna wants to get at that treasure at the moon’s heart. Its directors are not interested in how they get it, they want only the results. When I presented my studies of what would happen, they could not bring themselves to believe it. They called it wild, imaginary, just the product of an old man’s frightened mind. They had some of their scientists, men of my own staff actually, go over the figures. These men sought only for their own advancement, they wanted to keep on the good side of Terraluna’s directors, they felt they could take a chance with Earth’s welfare. So these men made light of my findings, said they were extreme, ridiculed the possibility involved, and denied the discovery.

  “I argued and I fought, but after a month I realized that I could not persuade Terraluna to give up this project. Finally, I returned to Earth.

  “I went to the United Nations and spoke to the members of their Committee on Scientific Research. They held secret sessions with me, and they had my figures checked by various great scientists of the world. These men did not all agree. Finally, the United Nations authorities told me I would have to present more proof of my beliefs before they would issue orders to Terraluna to quit their deep-core project.”

  “But how could you do that?” asked Bruce. “What more could you do?”

  “I'm coming to that now,” his father answered. “I showed them that there was one place in our solar system where factual evidence could be obtained. That was on the planet Saturn, which has a ring around it. If that ring could be shown to be the result of the collapse or explosion of a satellite, then my figures would be accepted and Terraluna stopped. Nowhere else could any further facts be obtained to prove my point.

  “The UN people went into further argument about that, but the issue is very important and there is so much at stake that they finally agreed to let me try to get that evidence. They agreed to lend me a space ship if I could figure out how to reach Saturn with our present type of space rocket. I knew a way and showed them.

  “This ship is the one they lent me. It has been fueled, our course is now worked out, and with you the crew is complete.”

  Bruce nodded, then asked, “But then why did Terraluna tell the papers you were a traitor? Aren't they willing to let you find proof? After all, surely they can’t afford to risk the destruction of two worlds?”

  The old engineer frowned, stood up. “You know the answer to that. The directors are blind with their own selfishness. They are furious at my interference. They are more determined than ever to go ahead and they are going to try to stop me from ever getting such proof.

  “They released their own false story to the press today, to create public hatred toward me. Thus if this ship fails to return or otherwise fails to make its trip, the public will not be angered. They will not care what happens to a ‘traitor’ scientist.

  “The second step you yourself stopped. They had managed, with their tremendous prestige and money, to bribe even a member of my crew. Waldron tried to sabotage our ship at the last hour, as you discovered.”

  “Will that be the end then?” Bruce asked, getting up and following his father to the open entryway of the ship.

  “I am sure it won’t,” said Dr. Rhodes, going down onto the ground. “You can be certain they will try again and again.”

  Bruce followed him down and they started off to the charthouse nearby. “We’ll stop them; we’ve got to stop them!”

  They walked on. “It won’t be easy,” said his father at last. “They’ll stop at nothing, not even at murder.”

  Bruce tightened his lips. “What is the price of five men’s lives, including my own, if the lives of billions of people are at stake?”

  Dr. Rhodes looked at his son, liked what he saw. “That’s the way I look at it, son.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ve got another forty minutes before takeoff. Come on in and meet the rest of our crew.”

  As they approached the charthouse, the door popped open and a young fellow came out looking for them. He seemed rather upset, and when he saw Dr. Rhodes approaching, waved to him in relief. “I was just about to look for you,” the man called.

  “Something come up?” asked Dr. Rhodes.

  The newcomer, Bruce saw, seemed to be in his early twenties. A wide-awake sort of chap, with sparkling dark eyes, and a shock of unruly black hair. Right now, he had grabbed the old engineer by the arm and was saying, “What’s this about Waldron? He just phoned from the airport and says he’s going to call the police. He said something about an attack on him and that he was going to have you all arrested!” “What’s that?” gasped Bruce and his father at the same time. And Bruce added, “He’s lying! Waldron was trying to damage the ship!”

  “Yes,” Dr. Rhodes put in. “And he’s still trying to hurt our flight. This is a new trick!”

  At this point two other men, overhearing the excited words, came out of the little frame structure that held their charts and the machines by which their space course was being determined. One was a shortish man, with an olive complexion, and looking quite studious; the other tall and lanky, with thin blond hair and the deep-set eyes of an experienced space traveler.

  The shorter man seemed alarmed by what he had heard. “If the police come, it will delay our take-off. If we delay beyond our limit, we will have to refigure everything all over again. It will be days before we can make a new start!”

  “That's exactly what Waldron’s game is,” said Bruce’s father. “He still hopes to damage our flight. He wants to make us as much trouble as possible.” “What's this all about?” asked the tall blond chap. Bruce's father hastily told them what had happened, that Waldron had evidently been in the pay of Terraluna.

  They nodded thoughtfully when he was through. “But then,” said the young fellow they had first met, “we're going to be shorthanded. How can we get a replacement for Waldron in a hurry?”
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br />   Dr. Rhodes put a hand on Bruce's shoulder. “My son has volunteered to join us. He’s a bit young, but I think he can do his share.”

  The three others looked at Bruce. Then the youngest snorted a bit. “He’s only a kid! How can we take a chance?”

  Bruce grew angry. “I’m sixteen and I’ll bet I’m as strong as you are! You just watch me!”

  “O.K., O.K.,” said his father hastily, “no arguments now. We haven't the time. I’d better introduce you.” The young chap with the black hair turned out to be Arpad Benz, the other spacehand who would work with Bruce at the general jobs, engine room, manual and other chores aboard ship. He shook hands hesitantly.

  The short Latin-appearing man was named Frank Garcia, and he was to be the ship’s astrogator, the navigator of space. He had been an expert charter of astronomical courses for many years on the space lines to Mars and Venus and was considered one of the best.

  The tall lanky man was their pilot, Kurt Jennings. He needed no further introduction to Bruce, who had heard of his exploits many times. Jennings was famous. He had pioneered a number of important flights, and had been the first to land on a couple of Jupiter’s moons. Bruce knew his father was fortunate to have Jennings along, because if anybody could pilot this unusual trip, Jennings could.

  Jennings said now, “If Waldron has called the police, they may be here in a half-hour. We’ve got to leave then or else we can’t make it.”

  Garcia glanced at his watch. “Yes. As a matter of fact we have barely thirty minutes to get in the ship, get it on the rails, and start.”

  “Then let’s go!” Dr. Rhodes said. “Hurry!”

  Garcia dashed back into the charthouse and emerged a few minutes after with his arms loaded with lists and notebooks containing the figures for their course. Fie took these to the ship himself, to set up on the racks in the control room.