“Oh, I will. Say, Doc…”
“Yes, Ross?”
“Nnnn… Oh, nothing. Never mind.”
“I think I know, Ross. I’ve changed my mind. I changed my mind last night before I got to sleep. We’re going through with it.”
“Good!”
“Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s bad. I don’t know. But if that’s the way you fellows feel about it, I’m with you. We’ll go if we have to walk.”
SKYWARD!
• 8 •
“THAT SOUNDS MORE LIKE you, Doc!”
“Thanks. Are the others up yet?”
“Not yet. They didn’t get much sleep.”
“I know. Let’s let them sleep. We’ll sit out in the car. Take my arm.”
When they had settled themselves Ross asked, “Doc, how much longer will it take to get ready?”
“Not long. Why?”
“Well, I think the key to our problems lies in how fast we can get away. If these attempts to stop us keep up, one of them is going to work. I wish we would leave today.”
“We can’t do that,” Cargraves answered, “but it shouldn’t be long. First I’ve got to install the drive, but it’s really just a matter of fitting the parts together. I had almost everything prepared before I ever laid eyes on you guys.”
“I wish my blinkers weren’t on the fritz.”
“It’s one job I’ll have to do myself. Not that I am trying to keep you out of it, Ross,” he added hastily, seeing the boy’s expression. “I’ve never explained it because I thought it would be easier when we had all the gear in front of us.”
“Well, how does it work?”
“You remember Heron’s turbine in elementary physics? Little boiler on the bottom and a whirligig like a lawn sprinkler on top? You heat the boiler, steam comes up through the whirligig, and makes it whirl around. Well, my drive works like that. Instead of fire, I use a thorium atomic power pile; instead of water, I use zinc. We boil the zinc, vaporize it, get zinc ‘steam.’ We let the ‘steam’ exhaust through the jet. That’s the works.”
Ross whistled. “Simple—and neat. But will it work?”
“I know it’ll work. I was trying for a zinc ‘steam’ power plant when I hit on it. I got the hard, hot jet I wanted, but I couldn’t get a turbine to stand up under it. Broke all the blades. Then I realized I had a rocket drive.”
“It’s slick, Doc! But say—why don’t you use lead? You’d get more mass with less bulk.”
“A good point. Concentrated mass means a smaller rocket motor, smaller tanks, smaller ship, less dead weight all around. But mass isn’t our main trouble; what we’ve got to have is a high-velocity jet. I used zinc because it has a lower boiling point than lead. I want to superheat the vapor so as to get a good, fast jet, but I can’t go above the stable limit of the moderator I’m using.”
“Carbon?”
“Yes, carbon-graphite. We use carbon to moderate the neutron flow and cadmium inserts to control the rate of operation. The radiations get soaked up in a bath of liquid zinc. The zinc boils and the zinc ‘steam’ goes whizzing out the jet as merry as can be.”
“I see. But why don’t you use mercury instead of zinc? It’s heavier than lead and has a lower boiling point than either one of them.”
“I’d like to, but it’s too expensive. This is strictly a cut-rate show.” Doc broke off as Morrie stuck his head out the cabin door.
“Hi, there! Come to breakfast, or we’ll throw it out!”
“Don’t do that!” Cargraves slipped a leg over the side of the car—the wrong leg—touched the ground and said, “Ouch!”
“Wait a minute, and lean on me,” Ross suggested.
They crept back, helping each other. “Aside from the pile,” Cargraves went on, “there isn’t much left. The thorium is already imbedded in the graphite according to my calculations. That leaves just two major jobs: the air lock and a test-stand run.”
The rocket, although it had operated on the trans-Atlantic run above the atmosphere, had no air lock, since it’s designers had never intended it to be opened up save on the ground. If they were to walk the face of the moon, an air lock, a small compartment with two doors, was necessary. Cargraves planned to weld a steel box around the inside of the present door frame, with a second air-tight door, opening inward.
“I can weld the lock,” Ross offered, “while you rig the pile. That is, if my eyes clear up in time.”
“Even if they do, I don’t think it would be smart to stare at a welding arc. Can’t the others weld?”
“Well, yes, but just between us chickens, I run a smoother seam.”
“We’ll see.”
At breakfast Cargraves told the other two of his decision to go ahead. Art turned pink and got his words twisted. Morrie said gravely, “I thought your temperature would go down over night. What are the plans?”
“Just the same, only more so. How’s your department?”
“Shucks, I could leave this afternoon. The gyros are purring like kittens; I’ve calculated Hohmann orbits and S-trajectories till I’m sick of ’em; the computer and me are like that.” He held out two fingers.
“Fine. You concentrate on getting the supplies in, then. How about you, Art?”
“Who, me? Why, I’ve got everything lined up, I guess. Both radars are right on the beam. I’ve got a couple wrinkles I’d like to try with the FM circuit.”
“Is it all right the way it is?”
“Good enough, I guess.”
“Then don’t monkey with the radios. I can keep you busy.”
“Oh, sure.”
“How about the radar screen Art was going to rig?” Morrie inquired.
“Eh? Oh, you mean the one for our friend the prowler. Hm…” Cargraves studied the matter. “Ross thinks and I agree that the best way to beat the prowler is to get out of here as fast as we can. I don’t want that radar out of the ship. It would waste time and always with the chance of busting a piece of equipment we can’t afford to replace and can’t get along without.”
Morrie nodded. “Suits. I still think that a man with a gun in his hands is worth more than a gadget anyhow. See here—there are four of us. That’s two hours a night. Let’s stand guard.”
Cargraves agreed to this. Various plans were offered to supplement the human guard and the charged fence, but all were voted down as too time-consuming, too expensive or impractical. It was decided to let the matter stand, except that lights would be left burning at night, including a string to be rigged around the ship. All of these lines were to be wired to cut over automatically to the ship’s batteries.
Cargraves sat down to lunch on Wednesday of the following week with a feeling of satisfaction. The thorium power pile was in place, behind the repaired shield. This in itself was good; he disliked the finicky, ever-dangerous work of handling the radioactive element, even though he used body shields and fished at it with tongs.
But the pile was built; the air lock had been welded in place and tested for air-tightness; almost all the supplies were aboard. Acceleration hammocks had been built for Art and Ross (Cargraves and Morrie would ride out the surges of power in the two pilot seats). The power pile had been operated at a low level; all was well, he felt, and the lights on the board were green.
The phony inspector had not showed up again, nor were the night watches disturbed. Best of all, Ross’s eyesight had continued to improve; the eye specialist had pronounced him a cure on Monday, subject to wearing dark glasses for a couple of weeks.
Cargraves’ sprain still made him limp, but he had discarded his stick. Nothing bothered him. He tackled Aggregate à la Galileo (hash to ordinary mortals) with enthusiasm, while thinking about a paper he would write for the Physical Review. Some Verified Experimental Factors in Space Flight seemed like a good title—by Doctor Donald Morris Cargraves, B.S., Sc.D., LL.D., Nobel Prize, Nat. Acad., Fr. Acad., etc. The honors were not yet his—he was merely trying them on for size.
The car ground to a stop ou
tside and Art came in with the mail. “Santa Claus is here!” he greeted them. “One from your folks, Ross, and one from that synthetic blonde you’re sweet on.”
“I’m not sweet on her and she’s a natural blonde,” Ross answered emphatically.
“Have it your own way—you’ll find out. Three for you, Morrie—all business. The rest are yours, Doc,” he finished, holding back the one from his mother. “Hash again,” he added.
“It’s to soften you up for what you’re going to eat on the moon,” said the cook. “Say, Doc—”
“Yes, Morrie?”
“The canned rations are at the express office in town, it says here. I’ll pick ’em up this afternoon. The other two are bills. That finishes my check-off list.”
“Good,” he answered absently, as he tore open a letter. “You can help Ross and me on the test stand. That’s the only big job left.” He unfolded the letter and read it.
Then he reread it. Presently Ross noticed that he had stopped eating and said, “What’s the matter, Doc?”
“Well, nothing much, but it’s awkward. The Denver outfit can’t supply the dynamometers for the test stand run.” He tossed the letter to Ross.
“How bad off does that leave us?” asked Morrie.
“I don’t know, yet. I’ll go with you into town. Let’s make it right after lunch; I have to call the East Coast and I don’t want to get boxed in by the time difference.”
“Can do.”
Ross handed the letter back. “Aren’t there plenty of other places to buy them?”
“Hardly ‘plenty.’ Half-a-million-pound dynamometers aren’t stock items. We’ll try Baldwin Locomotives.”
“Why don’t we make them?” asked Art. “We made our own for the Starstruck series.”
Cargraves shook his head. “High as my opinion is of you lugs as good, all-around jack-leg mechanics and pretzel benders, some jobs require special equipment. But speaking of the Starstruck series,” he went on, intentionally changing the subject, “do you guys realize we’ve never named the ship? How does Starstruck VI appeal to you?”
Art liked it. Morrie objected that it should be Moonstruck. But Ross had another idea. “Starstruck was a good enough name for our model rockets, but we want something with a little more—oh, I don’t know; dignity, I guess—for the moon ship.”
“The Pioneer?” “Corny.” “The Thor—for the way she’s powered.” “Good, but not enough.” “Let’s call it Einstein.”
“I see why you want to name it for Doctor Einstein,” Cargraves put in, “but maybe I’ve got another name that will symbolize the same thing to you. How about the Galileo?”
There was no dissension; the members of the Galileo Club again were unanimous. The man who had first seen and described the mountains of the moon, the man whose very name had come to stand for steadfast insistence on scientific freedom and the freely inquiring mind—his name was music to them.
Cargraves wondered whether or not their own names would be remembered after more than three centuries. With luck, with lots of luck—Columbus had not been forgotten. If the luck ran out, well, a rocket crash was a fast clean death.
The luck appeared to be running out, and with nothing as gallant and spectacular as a doomed and flaming rocket. Cargraves sweated in a phone booth until after five o’clock, East Coast time, and then another hour until it was past five in Chicago as well before he admitted that dynamometers of the size he needed were not to be had on short notice.
He blamed himself for having slipped up, while neglecting to credit himself with having planned to obtain the instruments from the Denver firm for reasons of economy; he had expected to get them second-hand. But blaming himself comforted him.
Morrie noted his long face as he climbed into the heavily loaded little car. “No soap, eh?”
“No soap. Let’s get back to camp.”
They sped along the desert road in worried silence for several minutes. Finally Morrie spoke up. “How about this, Doc? Make a captive run on the ground with the same yoke and frame you planned to use, but without dynamometers.”
“What good would that do? I have to know what the thrust is.”
“I’m getting to that. We put a man inside. He watches the accelerometer—the pendulum accelerometer of course; not the distance-integrating one. It reads in g’s. Figure the number of gravities against the gross weight of the ship at the time and you come out with your thrust in pounds.”
Cargraves hesitated. The boy’s mistake was so obvious and yet so easy to make that he wished to point it out without hurting his pride. “It’s a clever plan, except that I would want to use remote control—there’s always the chance that a new type of atomic-fission power plant will blow up. But that’s not the hitch; if the ship is anchored to the ground, it won’t be accelerating no matter how much thrust is developed.”
“Oh!” said Morrie. “Hmm. I sure laid an egg on that one, Doc.”
“Natural mistake.”
After another five miles Morrie spoke again. “I’ve got it, Doc. The Galileo has to be free to move to show thrust on the accelerometer. Right? Okay, I’ll test-fly it. Hold it, hold it,” he went on quickly, “I know exactly what you are going to say: you won’t let any one take a risk if you can help it. The ship might blow up, or it might crash. Okay, so it might. But it’s my job. I’m not essential to the trip; you are. You have to have Ross as flight engineer; you have to have Art for the radar and radio; you don’t have to have a second pilot. I’m elected.”
Cargraves tried to make his voice sound offhand. “Morrie, your analysis does your heart credit, but not your head. Even if what you said is true, the last part doesn’t quite add up. I may be essential, if the trip is made. But if the test flight goes wrong, if the power pile blows, or if the ship won’t handle and crashes, then there won’t be any trip and I’m not essential.”
Morrie grinned. “You’re sharp as a tack, Doc.”
“Tried to frame me, eh? Well, I may be old and feeble but I’m not senile. Howsoever, you’ve given me the answer. We skip the captive run and test-fly it. I test-fly it.”
Morrie whistled, “When?”
“Just as soon as we get back.”
Morrie pushed the accelerator down to the floor boards; Cargraves wished that he had kept quiet until they reached the camp.
Forty minutes later he was handing out his final instructions. “Drive outside the reservation and find some place at least ten miles away where you can see the camp and where you can huddle down behind a road cut or something. If you see a Hiroshima mushroom, don’t try to come back. Drive on into town and report to the authorities.” He handed Ross a briefcase. “In case I stub my toe, give this stuff to your father. He’ll know what to do with it. Now get going. I’ll give you twenty minutes. My watch says seven minutes past five.”
“Just a minute, Doc.”
“What is it, Morrie?” His tones showed nervous irritability.
“I’ve polled the boys and they agree with me. The Galileo is expendable but you aren’t. They want you left around to try it again.”
“That’s enough on that subject, Morrie.”
“Well, I’ll match you for it.”
“You’re on thin ice, Morrie!”
“Yes, sir.” He climbed in the car. The other two squeezed in beside him. “So long!” “Good luck!”
He waved back at them as they drove away, then turned toward the open door of the Galileo. He was feeling suddenly very lonely.
The boys found such a spot and crouched down behind a bank, like soldiers in a trench. Morrie had a small telescope; Art and Ross were armed with the same opera glasses they had used in their model rocket tests. “He’s closed the door,” announced Morrie.
“What time is it?”
“I’ve got five twenty-five.”
“Any time now. Keep your eyes peeled.” The rocket was tiny even through the opera glasses; Morrie’s view was slightly better. Suddenly he yelled, “That’s it! Geronimo!”
The tail jet, bright silver even in the sun light, had flared out. The ship did not move. “There go his nose jets!” Red and angry, the aniline-and-nitric reached out in front. The Galileo, being equipped with nose and belly maneuvering jets, could take off without a launching platform or catapult. He brought his belly jets into play now; the bow of the Galileo reared up, but the opposing nose and tail jets kept her nailed to one spot.
“He’s off!” The red plumes from the nose were suddenly cut and the ship shot away from the ground. It was over their heads almost before they could catch their breaths. Then it was beyond them and shooting toward the horizon. As it passed over the mountains, out of sight, the three exhaled simultaneously. “Gosh!” said Art, very softly.
Ross started to run. “Hey, where y’ going?”
“Back to the camp! We want to be there before he is!”
“Oh!” They tore after him.
Ross set a new high in herding the rig back to the camp site, but his speed did not match their urgency. Nor were they ahead of time. The Galileo came pouring back over the horizon and was already braking on her nose jets when the car slammed to a stop.
She came in at a steep dive, with the drive jet already dead. The nose jets splashed the ground on the very spot where she had taken off. He kicked her up with the belly jets and she pancaked in place. Morrie shook his head. “What a landing!” he said reverently.
Cargraves fell out of the door into a small mob. The boys yelled and pounded him on the back.
“How did she behave? How did she handle?”
“Right on the button! The control of the drive jet is logy, but we expected that. Once she’s hot she doesn’t want to cool off. You have to get rid of your head of ‘steam.’ I was half way to Oklahoma City before I could slow down enough to turn and come back.”
“Boy, oh boy! What a ship!”
“When do we start?”
Cargraves’ face sobered. “Does staying up all night to pack suit you?”
“Does it! Just try us!”
“It’s a deal. Art, get in the ship and get going with the radio. Get the Associated Press station at Salt Lake. Get the United Press. Call up the radio news services. Tell them to get some television pick-ups out here. The lid is off now. Make them realize there is a story here.”