two companions had ducked for cover, Cloudshot his flitter into the air and toward the seething inferno which wasLoose Atomic Vortex Number One. For it was seething, no fooling; and itwas an inferno. The crater was a ragged, jagged hole a full mile fromlip to lip and perhaps a quarter of that in depth. It was not, however,a perfect cone, for the floor, being largely incandescently molten, waspractically level except for a depression at the center, where theactual vortex lay. The walls of the pit were steeply, unstablyirregular, varying in pitch and shape with the hardness andrefractoriness of the strata composing them. Now a section would glareinto an unbearably blinding white puffing away in sparkling vapor.Again, cooled by an inrushing blast of air, it would subside into anangry scarlet, its surface crawling in a sluggish flow of lava.Occasionally a part of the wall might even go black, into pock-markedscoriae or into brilliant planes of obsidian.
For always, somewhere, there was an enormous volume of air pouring intothat crater. It rushed in as ordinary air. It came out, however, in aragingly-uprushing pillar, as--as something else. No one knew--or knowsyet, for that matter--exactly what a loose vortex does to the moleculesand atoms of air. In fact, due to the extreme variability alreadyreferred to, it probably does not do the same thing for more than aninstant at a time.
That there is little actual combustion is certain; that is, except forthe forced combination of nitrogen, argon, xenon, and krypton withoxygen. There is, however, consumption: plenty of consumption. And whatthat incredibly intense bombardment impinges up is ... is altered.Profoundly and obscuredly altered, so that the atmosphere emitted fromthe crater is quite definitely no longer air as we know it. It may becorrosive, it may be poisonous in one or another of a hundred fashions,it may be merely new and different; but it is no longer the air which wehuman beings are used to breathing. And it is this fact, rather than thedestruction of the planet itself, which would end the possibility oflife upon Earth's surface.
* * * * *
It is difficult indeed to describe the appearance of a loose atomicvortex to those who have never seen one; and, fortunately, most peoplenever have. And practically all of its frightful radiation lies in thoseoctaves of the spectrum which are invisible to the human eye. Suffice itto say, then, that it had an average effective surface temperature ofabout fifteen thousand degrees absolute--two and one-half times as hotas the sun of Tellus--and that it was radiating every frequency possibleto that incomprehensible temperature, and let it go at that.
And Neal Cloud, scurrying in his flitter through that murky,radiation-riddled atmosphere, setting up equations from the readings ofhis various meters and gauges and solving those equations almostinstantaneously in his mathematical-prodigy's mind, sat appalled. Forthe activity level was, and even in its lowest dips remained, far abovethe level he had selected. His skin began to prickle and to burn. Hiseyes began to smart and to ache. He knew what those symptoms meant; eventhe flitter's powerful screens were not stopping all the radiation; evenhis suit-screens and his special goggles were not stopping what leakedthrough. But he wouldn't quit yet; the activity might--probablywould--take a nose-dive any instant. If it did, he'd have to be ready.On the other hand, it might blow up at any instant, too.
There were two schools of mathematical thought upon that point. One heldthat the vortex, without any essential change in its physical conditionor nature, would keep on growing bigger. Indefinitely, until, unitingwith the other vortices of the planet, it had converted the entire massof the world into energy.
The second school, of which the forementioned Carlowitz was the loudestvoice, taught that at a certain stage of development the internal energyof the vortex would become so great that generation-radiationequilibrium could not be maintained. This would, of course, result in anexplosion; the nature and consequences of which this Carlowitz was wontto dwell upon in ghoulishly mathematical glee. Neither school, however,could prove its point--or, rather, each school proved its point, bymeans of unimpeachable mathematics--and each hated and derided theother, loudly and heatedly.
And now Cloud, as he studied through his almost opaque defenses thatindescribably ravening fireball, that esuriently rapacious monstrositywhich might very well have come from the deepest pit of the hottest hellof mythology, felt strongly inclined to agree with Carlowitz. It didn'tseem possible that anything _could_ get any worse than that withoutexploding. And such an explosion, he felt sure, would certainly bloweverything for miles around into the smitheriest kind of smithereens.
The activity of the vortex stayed high, 'way too high. The tiny controlroom of the flitter grew hotter and hotter. His skin burned and his eyesached worse. He touched a communicator stud and spoke.
"Phil? Better get me three more bombs. Like these, except up around...."
"I don't check you. If you do that, it's apt to drop to a minimum andstay there," the Lensman reminded him. "It's completely unpredictable,you know."
"It may, at that ... so I'll have to forget the five percent margin andhit it on the nose or not at all. Order me up two more, then--one athalf of what I've got here, the other double it," and he reeled off thefigures for the charge and the casing of the explosive. "You might breakout a jar of burn-dressing, too. Some fairly hot stuff is leakingthrough."
"We'll do that. Come down, fast!"
Cloud landed. He stripped to the skin and the observer smeared his everysquare inch of epidermis with the thick, gooey stuff that was not only ahighly efficient screen against radiation, but also a sovereign remedyfor new radiation burns. He exchanged his goggles for a thicker, darker,heavier pair. The two bombs arrived and were substituted for two of theoriginal load.
"I thought of something while I was up there," Cloud informed theobservers then. "Twenty kilograms of duodec is nobody's firecracker, butit may be the least of what's going to go off. Have you got any idea ofwhat's going to become of the energy inside that vortex when I blow itout?"
"Can't say that I have." The Lensman frowned in thought. "No data."
"Neither have I. But I'd say that you better go back to the newstation--the one you were going to move to if it kept on getting worse."
"But the instruments...." the Lensman was thinking, not of theinstruments themselves, which were valueless in comparison with life,but of the records those instruments would make. Those records werepriceless.
"I'll have everything on the tapes in the flitter," Cloud reminded.
"But suppose...."
"That the flitter stops one, too--or doesn't stop it, rather? In thatcase, your back station won't be there, either, so it won't make anydifference." How mistaken Cloud was!
"QX," the Chief decided. "We'll leave when you do--just in case."
* * * * *
Again in air, Cloud found that the activity, while still high, was nottoo high, but that it was fluctuating too rapidly. He could not get evenfive seconds of trustworthy prediction, to say nothing of ten. So hewaited, as close as he dared remain to that horrible center ofdisintegration.
The flitter hung poised in air, motionless, upon softly hissingunder-jets. Cloud knew to a fraction his height above the ground. Heknew to a fraction his distance from the vortex. He knew with equalcertainty the density of the atmosphere and the exact velocity anddirection of the wind. Hence, since he could also read closely enoughthe momentary variations in the cyclonic storms within the crater, hecould compute very easily the course and velocity necessary to land thebomb in the exact center of the vortex at any given instant of time. Thehard part--the thing that no one had as yet succeeded in doing--was topredict, for a time far enough ahead to be of any use, a usably closeapproximation to the vortex's quantitative activity. For, as has beensaid, he had to over-blast, rather than under-, if he could not hit it"on the nose:" to under-blast would scatter it all over the state.
Therefore Cloud concentrated upon the dials and gauges before him;concentrated with every fiber of his being and every cell of his brain.
Suddenly, almost impercepti
bly, the Sigma curve gave signs of flatteningout. In that instant Cloud's mind pounced. Simultaneous equations: nineof them, involving nine unknowns. An integration in four dimensions. Nomatter--Cloud did not solve them laboriously, one factor at a time.Without knowing how he had arrived at it, he knew the answer; just asthe Posenian or the Rigellian is able to perceive every separatecomponent particle of an opaque, three-dimensional solid, but withoutbeing able to explain to anyone how his sense of perception works. Itjust _is_, that's all.
Anyway, by virtue of whatever sense or ability it is which makes amathematical prodigy what he is, Cloud knew that in exactly eight andthree-tenths seconds from that observed instant the activity of thevortex would be slightly--but not too far--under the coefficient of hisheaviest bomb.