Nerves

by Lester Del Rey

  She saw him first. “Hi, Dr. Ferrel, over here in the truck. I thought you’d be coming soon. From up here we can get a look over the heads of all these other people and we won’t be trampled on.” She stuck down a hand to help him up and smiled faintly as he disregarded it and mounted more briskly than his muscles wanted to. He wasn’t so old that a girl had to help him yet.

  “Know what’s going on?” he asked, sinking down onto the plank across the truck body, facing out across the men below toward the converter. There seemed to be a dozen different centers of activity, all crossing each other in complete confusion, and the general pattern was meaningless.

  “No more than you do. I haven’t seen my husband, though Mr. Palmer took time enough to chase me here out of the way.”

  Doc centered his attention on the ‘copters, unloading, rising and coming in with more loads, and he guessed that those boxes must contain the little thermodyne bombs. It was the one thing he could understand and consequently the least interesting. Other men were assembling the big sections of piping he’d seen before, connecting them up in almost endless order, while some of the tanks hooked on and snaked them off in the direction of the small river that ran off beyond the plant.

  “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 and 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 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 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 showed 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; the work 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 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 eyes 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 queen’s bishop, to see her take it with her king’s pawn. He hadn’t watched her move it out, and 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 though it had been used, and going became more uncertain. Time was slipping by rapidly now.

  “Checkmate!” He found himself in a hole, started to nod; but she caught herself in 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 okay. So they teach women some science nowadays, eh, 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 than 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 up 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 men have to worry about is burn!”

  “How much damage, even if it doesn’t go off all at once?”

  “Possibly none, beyond raising the radioactive count of the air a little. 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. Of course, even if it doesn’t erupt violently, the stuff in the swamp afterward will be pure death for months, but that won’t bother us. Why the dickens didn’t Jenkins tell me he wanted to go into atomics? We could have fixed all that for anyone who’d been partly trained by Kellar. 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, including details on how Jenkins had managed to continue his study of atomic theory, 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 the minutes remorselessly, and the time was growing limited. He hadn’t realized before how long he’d been sitting here. 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 ther — modyne 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 a 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-613 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 huge rate, too! But I didn’t expect to get proof that we could prevent any danger from Mahler’s Isotope, so I figure I got a bargain. Okay, come on in, kid; and if you’re interested, and we live through this, you can start sticking an engineering degree 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. “Okay, I expected you to give me the degree, 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 minimum of twelve minutes had ticked by when Jenkins climbed up beside them, mopping off some of the sweat that covered him. 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 the hole that had been Number Four. Silence. Jenkins stirred and grunted.

  “Palmer, I meant to tell you where I got the idea. Jorgenson was trying to remind me of it — not raving — only I didn’t get it until Doc jiggled my thoughts. It was one of Dad’s, the one he told Jorgenson was a last resort, in case the thing they broke up over 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, as he told me later!”

  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 the watch and down the river for a minute!”

  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.

  “Steam from heat — steam, not explosive spray! Three 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 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 a starting point now for digging into that rocket fuel he wants!” 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! This is one time even the Guilden papers won’t be able to twist the truth!”

  “You might see what you can do about hospitalizing the injured and fixing things up for 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 an 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, you and these two kids head for home, where I’m going myself. Don’t come back until you get good and ready, and don’t let anything spoil your sleep this time!”

  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. Men and guards were piling in from the gates, joining crazily in the exultation. There were even a few cars forcing their way slowly through the milling ranks of people.

  One o
f them was almost at Ferrel’s side when the door swung open and a haggard woman began getting out painfully, crying his name. He stopped, staring at her unbelievingly as she limped toward him.

  “Emma!”

  She caught him to her briefly, then shoved him away, blushing, as she saw Jenkins and Brown watching her. She choked and made motions toward the car, unable to talk, But it didn’t matter. Explanations could come later.

  He sank behind the wheel of the car, reaching out a hand for one of hers. Life, he decided, wasn’t bad after all; and it would be even better, once they were out of the mob and headed for home.

  Then he chuckled and climbed out again. “You three get acquainted, will you? If I leave here without making out that order for extra disinfection at the showers, Blake’ll swear I’m getting 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.

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  eBook Info

  Title:Nerves

  Creator:Lester Del Rey

  Type:novel

  Format:text/html

  Identifier:0-7953-0386-6