“Those must be the exhaust blowers, I guess,” he told Brown, pointing them out. “Though I don’t know what any of the rest of the stuff hooked on is.”
“I know— I’ve been inside the plant Bob’s father had.” She lifted an inquiring eyebrow at him, went on as he nodded. “The pipes are for exhaust gases, all right, and those big square things are the motors and fans—they put in one at each five hundred feet or less of piping. The things they’re wrapping around the pipe must be the heaters to keep the gases hot. Are they going to try to suck all that out?”
Doc didn’t know, though it was the only thing he could see. But he wondered how they’d get around the problem of moving in close enough to do any good. “I heard your husband order some thermodyne bombs, so they’ll probably try to gassify the magma; then they’re pumping it down the river.”
As he spoke, there was a flurry of motion at one side, and his eyes swung over instantly, to see one of the cranes laboring with a long framework stuck from its front, holding up a section of pipe with a nozzle on the end. It tilted precariously, even though heavy bags were well piled everywhere to add weight, but an inch at a time it lifted its load and began forcing its way forward, carrying the nozzle out in front and rather high.
Below the main exhaust pipe was another smaller one. As it drew near the outskirts of the danger zone, a small object ejaculated from the little pipe, hit the ground, and was a sudden blazing inferno of glaring blue-white light, far brighter than it seemed, judging by the effect on the eyes. Doc shielded his, just as someone below put something into his hands.
“Put ’em on. Palmer says the light’s actinic.”
He heard Brown fussing beside him, then his vision cleared, and he looked back through the goggles again to see a glowing cloud spring up from the magma, spread out near the ground, narrowing down higher up, until it sucked into the nozzle above, and disappeared. Another bomb slid from the tube, and erupted with blazing heat. A sideways glance followed another crane being fitted, and a group of men near it wrapping what might have been oiled rags around the small bombs; probably no tubing fitted them exactly, and they were padding them so pressure could blow them forward and out. Three more dropped from the tube one at a time, and the fans roared and groaned, pulling the cloud that rose into the pipe and feeding it down toward the river.
Then the crane inched back out carefully as men uncoupled its piping from the main line, and a second went in to replace it. The heat generated must be too great for the machine to stand steadily without the pipe fusing, Doc decided; though they couldn’t have kept a man inside the heavily armored cab for any length of time, if the metal had been impervious. Now another crane was ready, and went in from another place; it settled down to a routine of ingoing and outcoming cranes, and men feeding materials in, coupling and uncoupling the pipes and replacing the others who came from the cabs. Doc began to feel like a man at a tennis match, watching the ball without knowing the rules.
* * * *
Brown must have had the same idea, for she caught Ferrel’s arm and indicated a little leather case that came from her handbag. “Doc, do you play chess? We might as well fill our time with that as sitting here on the edge, just watching. It’s supposed to be good for nerves.”
He seized on it gratefully, without explaining that he’d been city champion three years running; he’d take it easy, watch her game, handicap himself just enough to make it interesting by the deliberate loss of a rook, bishop, or knight, as was needed to even the odds—Suppose they got all the magma out and into the river; how did that solve the problem? It removed it from the plant, but far less than the fifty-mile minimum danger limit.
“Check,” Brown announced. He castled, and looked up at the half-dozen cranes that were now operating. “Check! Checkmate!”
He looked back again hastily, then, to see her queen guarding all possible moves, a bishop checking him. Then his eye followed down toward her end. “Umm. Did you know you’ve been in check for the last half-dozen moves? Because I didn’t.”
She frowned, shook her head, and began setting the men up again, Doc moved out the queen’s pawn, looked out at the workers, and then brought out the king’s bishop, to see her take it with her king’s pawn. He hadn’t watched her move it out, and had counted on her queen’s to block his. Things would require more careful watching on this little portable set. The men were moving steadily and there was a growing clear space, but as they went forward, the violent action of the thermodyne had pitted the ground, carefully as it had been used, and going become more uncertain. Time was slipping by rapidly now.
“Checkmate!” He found himself in a hole, started to nod; but she caught herself this time. “Sorry, I’ve been playing my king for a queen, Doctor, let’s see if we can play at least one game right.”
Before it was half finished, it became obvious that they couldn’t. Neither had chess very much on the mind, and the pawns and men did fearful and wonderful things, while the knights were as likely to jump six squares as their normal L. They gave it up, just as one of the cranes lost its precarious balance and toppled forward, dropping the long extended pipe into the bubbling mass below. Tanks were in instantly, hitching on and tugging backward until it came down with a thump as the pipe fused, releasing the extreme forward load. It backed out on its own power, while another went in. The driver, by sheer good luck, hobbled from the cab, waving an armored hand to indicate he was all right. Things settled back to an excited routine again that seemed to go on endlessly, though seconds were dropping off too rapidly, turning into minutes that threatened to be hours far too soon.
“Uh!” Brown had been staring for some time, but her little feet suddenly came down with a bang and she straightened up, her hand to her mouth. “Doctor, I just thought; it won’t do any good—all this!”
“Why?” She couldn’t know anything, but he felt the faint hopes he had go downward sharply. His nerves were dulled, but still ready to jump at the slightest warning.
“The stuff they were making was a superheavy—it’ll sink as soon as it hits the water, and all pile up right there! It won’t float down river!”
Obvious, Ferrel thought; too obvious. Maybe that was why the engineers hadn’t thought of it. He started from the plank, just as Palmer stepped up, but the manager’s hand on his shoulder forced him back.
“Easy Doc, it’s O.K. Umm, so they teach women some science nowadays, Mrs. Jenkins…Sue…Dr. Brown, whatever your name is? Don’t worry about it, though—the old principle of Brownian movement will keep any colloid suspended, if it’s fine enough to be a real colloid. We’re sucking it out and keeping it pretty hot until it reaches the water—then it cools off so fast it hasn’t time to collect in particles big enough to sink. Some of the dust that floats around in the air is heavier than water, too. I’m joining the bystanders, if you don’t mind; the men have everything under control, and I can see better here than I could down there, if anything does come up.”
Doc’s momentary despair reacted to leave him feeling more sure of things t han was justified. He pushed over on the plank, making room for Palmer to drop down beside him. “What’s to keep it from blowing up anyway, Palmer?”
“Nothing! Got a match?” He sucked in on the cigarette heavily, relaxing as much as he could. “No use trying to fool you, Doc, at this stage of the game. We’re gambling, and I’d say the odds are even; Jenkins thinks they’re ninety to ten in his favor, but he has to think so. What we’re hoping is that by lifting it out in a gas, thus breaking it down at once from full concentration to the finest possible form, and letting it settle in the water in colloidal particles, there won’t be a concentration at any one place sufficient to set it all off at once. The big problem is making sure we get every bit of it cleaned out here, or there may be enough left to take care of us and the nearby city! At least, since the last change, it’s stopped spitting, so all the man have to worry about is burn!”
“How much damage, even if it doesn’t go off all at once?”
“Possibly none. If you can keep it burning slowly, a million tons of dynamite wouldn’t be any worse than the same amount of wood, but a stick going off at once will kill you. Why the dickens didn’t Jenkins tell me he wanted to go into atomics? We could have fixed all that—it’s hard enough to get good men as it is!”
Brown perked up, forgetting the whole trouble beyond them, and went into the story with enthusiasm, while Ferrel only partly listened. He could see the spot of magma growing steadily smaller, but the watch on his wrist went on ticking off minutes remorselessly, and the time was growing limited. He hadn’t realized before how long he’d been sitting there. Now three of the crane nozzles were almost touching, and around them stretched the burned-out ground, with no sign of converter, masonry, or anything else; the heat from the thermodyne had gassified everything, indiscriminately.
* * * *
“Palmer!” The portable ultrawave set around the manager’s neck came to life suddenly. “Hey, Palmer, these blowers are about shot; the pipe’s pitting already. We’ve been doing everything we can to replace them, but that stuff eats faster than we can fix. Can’t hold up more’n fifteen minutes more.”
“Check, Briggs. Keep ‘em going the best you can.” Palmer flipped the switch and looked out toward the tank standing by behind the cranes. “Jenkins, you get that?”
“Yeah. Surprised they held out this long. How much time till deadline?” The boy’s voice was completely toneless, neither hope nor nerves showing up, only the complete weariness of a man almost at his limit.
Palmer looked and whistled. “Twelve minutes, according to the minimum estimate Hoke made! How much left?”
“We’re just burning around now, trying to make sure there’s no pocket left; I hope we’ve got the whole works, but I’m not promising. Might as well send out all the I-231 you have and we’ll boil it down the pipes to clear out any deposits on them. All the old treads and parts that contacted the R gone into the pile?”
“You melted the last, and your cranes haven’t touched the stuff directly. Nice pile of money’s gone down that pipe—converter, machinery, everything!”
Jenkins made a sound that was expressive of his worry about that. “I’m coming in now and starting the clearing of the pipe. What’ve you been paying insurance for?”
“At a lovely rate, too! O.K., come on in, kid; and if you’re interested, you can start sticking A.E. after the M.D., any time you want. Your wife’s been giving me your qualifications, and I think you’ve passed the final test, so you’re now an atomic engineer, duly graduated from National!”
Brown’s breath caught, and her eyes seemed to glow, even through the goggles, but Jenkins’ voice was flat. “O.K., I expected you to give me one if we don’t blow up. But you’ll have to see Dr. Ferrel about it; he’s got a contract with me for medical practice. Be there shortly.”
Nine of the estimated twelve minutes had ticked by when he climbed up beside them, mopping off some of the sweat that covered him, and Palmer was hugging the watch. More minutes ticked off slowly, while the last sound faded out in the plant, and the men stood around, staring down toward the river or at the hole that had been No. 4. Silence. Jenkins stirred, and grunted.
“Palmer, I know where I got the idea, now. Jorgenson was trying to remind me of it, instead of raving, only I didn’t get it, at least consciously. It was one of dad’s, the one he told Jorgenson was a last resort, in case the thing they broke up about went haywire. It was the first variable dad tried. I was twelve, and he insisted water would break it up into all its chains and kill the danger. Only dad didn’t really expect it to work!”
Palmer didn’t look up from the watch, but he caught his breath and swore. “Fine time to tell me that!”
“He didn’t have your isotopes to heat it up with, either,” Jenkins answered mildly. “Suppose you look up from that watch of yours for a minute, down the river.”
As Doc raised his eyes, he was aware suddenly of a roar from the men. Over to the south, stretching out in a huge mass, was a cloud of steam that spread upward and out as he watched, and the beginnings of a mighty hissing sound came in. Then Palmer was hugging Jenkins and yelling until Brown could pry him away and replace him.
“Ten miles or more of river, plus the swamps, Doc!” Palmer was shouting in Ferrel’s ear. “All that dispersion, while it cooks slowly from now until the last chain is finished, atom by atom! The theta chain broke, unstable, and now there’s everything there, too scattered to set itself off! It’ll cook the river bed up and dry it, but that’s all!”
Doc was still dazed, unsure of how to take the relief. He wanted to lie down and cry or to stand up with the men and shout his head off. Instead, he sat loosely, gazing at the cloud. “So I lose the best assistant I ever had! Jenkins, I won’t hold you; you’re free for whatever Palmer wants.”
“Hoke wants him to work on R—he’s got the stuff for his bomb now!” Palmer was clapping his hands together slowly, like an excited child watching a steam shovel. “Heck, Doc, pick out anyone you want until your own boy gets out next year. You wanted a chance to work him in here, now you’ve got it. Right now I’ll give you anything you want.”
“You might see what you can do about hospitalizing the injured and fixing things up with the men in the tent behind the Infirmary. And I think I’ll take Brown in Jenkins’ place, with the right to grab him in all emergency, until that year’s up.”
“Done.” Palmer slapped the boy’s back, stopping the protest, while Brown winked at him. “Your wife likes working, kid; she told me that herself. Besides, a lot of the women work here where they can keep an eye on their men; my own wife does, usually. Doc, take these two kid and head for home, where I’m going myself. Don’t come back until you get good and ready, and don’t let them start fighting about it!”
Doc pulled himself from the truck and started off with Brown and Jenkins following, through the yelling, relief-crazed men. The three were too thoroughly worn out for any exhibition themselves, but they could feel it. Happy ending! Jenkins and Brown where they wanted to be, Hoke with his bomb, Palmer with proof that atomic plants were safe where they were, and he—well, his boy would start out right, with himself and the widely differing but competent Blake and Jenkins to guide him. It wasn’t a bad life, after all.
Then he stopped and chuckled. “You two wait for me, will you? If I leave here without making out that order of extra disinfection at the showers, Blake’ll swear I’m growing old and feeble-minded. I can’t have that.”
Old? Maybe a little tired, but he’d been that before, and with luck would be again. He wasn’t worried. His nerves were good for twenty years and fifty accidents more, and by that time Blake would be due for a little ribbing himself.
SPAWNING GROUND
The star ship Pandora creaked and groaned as her sunken pads settled unevenly in the mucky surface of the ugly world outside. She seemed to be tearing herself free from her fool’s errand here, two hundred light years from the waiting hordes on Earth. Straining metal plates twanged and echoed through her hallways.
Captain Gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. He was a big, rawboned man, barely forty, but ten years of responsibility had pressed down his shoulders and put age-feigning hollows under his reddened eyes. The starlanes between Earth and her potential colonies were rough on the men who traveled them now. He shuffled towards the control room, grumbling at the heavy gravity below him.
Lieutenant Jane Corey looked up, nodding a blonde head at him as he moved towards the ever-waiting pot of murky coffee. “Morning, Bob. You need a shave.”
“Yeah.” He swallowed the hot coffee without tasting it, then ran a hand across his chin, feeling the dark stubble. It could wait. “Anything new during the night?”
“About a dozen blobs held something like a convention a l
ittle way north of us. They broke up about an hour ago and streaked off into the clouds.” The blobs were a peculiarity of this planet about which nobody knew anything. They looked like overgrown fireballs, but seemed to have an almost sentient curiosity about anything moving on the ground. “And our two cadets sneaked out again. Barker followed them, but lost them in the murk. I’ve kept a signal going to guide them back.”
Gwayne swore softly to himself. Earth couldn’t turn out enough starmen in the schools, so promising kids weir being shipped out for training as cadets on their twelfth birthday. The two he’d drawn seemed to be totally devoid of any sense of caution, to add to his responsibility.
Of course there was no obvious need for caution here. The blobs hadn’t seemed dangerous, and the local animals were apparently all herbivorous and harmless. They were ugly enough, looking like insects in spite of their internal skeletons, with anywhere from four to twelve legs each on their segmented bodies. None acted like dangerous beasts. But something had happened to the exploration party fifteen years back and the more recent ship under Hennessy that was sent to check up.
He turned to the port to stare out at the planet. The Sol-type sun must be rising, since there was a dim light, but the thick clouds that wrapped the entire world diffused its rays into a haze. For a change, it wasn’t raining, but the ground was covered by thick swirls of fog. In the distance, the tops of shrubs that made a scrub forest glowed with a yellow-green, and motions around it suggested a herd of feeding animals. Details were impossible to see through the haze. Even the deep gorge where they’d found Hennessy’s carefully buried ship was completely hidden by the fog.
The 13th Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack Page 29