19
The interstellar ship _Brainchild_ orbited around her destination,waiting during the final checkup before she landed on the planet below.
It was not a nice planet. As far as its size went, it could beclassified as "Earth type," but size was almost the only resemblance toEarth. It orbited in space some five hundred and fifty million milesfrom its Sol-like parent--a little farther away from the primary thanJupiter is from Sol itself. It was cold there--terribly cold. At highnoon on the equator, the temperature reached a sweltering 180 deg. absolute;it became somewhat chillier toward the poles.
H_{2}O was, anywhere on the planet, a whitish, crystalline mineralsuitable for building material. The atmosphere was similar to that ofJupiter, although the proportions of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen weredifferent because of the lower gravitational potential of the planet. Ithad managed to retain a great deal more hydrogen in its atmosphere thanEarth had because of the fact that the average thermal velocity of themolecules was much lower. Since oxygen-releasing life had neverdeveloped on the frigid surface of the planet, there was no oxygen inthe atmosphere. It was all tied up in combination with the hydrogen ofthe ice and the surface rocks of the planet.
The Space Service ship that had discovered the planet, fifteen yearsbefore, had given it the name Eisberg, thus commemorating the name of aspaceman second class who happened to have the luck to be (a) namedRobert Eisberg, (b) a member of the crew of the ship to discover theplanet, and (c) under the command of a fun-loving captain.
Eisberg had been picked as the planet to transfer the potentiallydangerous Snookums to for two reasons. In the first place, if Snookumsactually did solve the problem of the total-annihilation bomb, the worsthe could do was destroy a planet that wasn't much good, anyway. And, inthe second place, the same energy requirements applied on Eisberg as didon Chilblains Base. It was easier to cool the helium bath of the brainif it only had to be lowered 175 degrees or so.
It was a great place for cold-work labs, but not worth anything forcolonization.
* * * * *
Chief Powerman's Mate Multhaus looked gloomily at the figures on thelanding sheet.
Mike the Angel watched the expression on the chief's face and said:"What's the matter, Multhaus? No like?"
Multhaus grimaced. "Well, sir, I don't like it, no. But I can't say I_dis_like it, either."
He stared at the landing sheet, pursing his lips. He looked as though hewere valiantly restraining himself from asking questions about the othernight's escapade--which he was.
He said: "I just don't like to land without jets, sir; that's all."
"Hell, neither do I," admitted Mike. "But we're not going to get downany other way. We managed to take off without jets; we'll manage to landwithout them."
"Yessir," said Multhaus, "but we took off _with_ the grain of Earth'smagnetic field. We're landing _across_ the grain."
"Sure," said Mike. "So what? If we overlook the motors, that's okay. Wemay never be able to get off the planet with this ship again, but wearen't supposed to anyway.
"Come on, Multhaus, don't worry about it. I know you hate to burn up aship, but this one is supposed to be expendable. You may never haveanother chance like this."
Multhaus tried to keep from grinning, but he couldn't. "Awright,Commander. You have appealed to my baser instincts. My subconsciousdesire to wreck a spaceship has been brought to the surface. I can'tresist it. Am I nutty, maybe?"
"Not now, you're not," Mike said, grinning back.
"We'll have a bitch of a job getting through the plasmasphere, though,"said the chief. "That fraction of a second will--"
"It'll jolt us," Mike agreed, interrupting. "But it won't wreck us.Let's get going."
"Aye, sir," said Multhaus.
* * * * *
The seas of Eisberg were liquid methane containing dissolved ammonia.Near the equator, they were liquid; farther north, the seas becameslushy with crystallized ammonia.
The site picked for the new labs of the Computer Corporation of Earthwas in the northern hemisphere, at 40 deg. north latitude, about the samedistance from the equator as New York or Madrid, Spain, would be onEarth. The _Brainchild_ would be dropping through Eisberg's magneticfield at an angle, but it wouldn't be the ninety-degree angle of theequator. It would have been nice if the base could have been built atone of the poles, but that would have put the labs in an uncomfortableposition, since there was no solid land at either pole.
Mike the Angel didn't like the idea of having to land on Eisberg withoutjets any more than Multhaus did, but he was almost certain that the shipwould take the strain.
He took the companionway up to the Control Bridge, went in, and handedthe landing sheet to Black Bart. The captain scowled at it, shrugged,and put it on his desk.
"Will we make it, sir?" Mike said. "Any word from the _Fireball_?"
Black Bart nodded. "She's orbiting outside the atmosphere. CaptainWurster will send down a ship to pick us up as soon as we've finishedour business here."
The _Fireball_, being much faster than the clumsy _Brainchild_, had leftEarth later than the slower ship, and had arrived earlier.
"_Now hear this! Now hear this! Third Warning! Landing orbit begins inone minute! Landing begins in one minute!_"
Sixty seconds later the _Brainchild_ began her long, logarithmic droptoward the surface of Eisberg.
Landing a ship on her jets isn't an easy job, but at least an ion rocketis built for the job. Maybe someday the Translation drive will bemodified for planetary landings, but so far such a landing has been, assomeone put it, "50 per cent raw energy and 50 per cent prayer." Thelanding was worse than the take-off, a truism which has held since thefirst glider took off from the surface of Earth in the nineteenthcentury. What goes up doesn't necessarily have to come down, but when itdoes, the job is a lot rougher than getting up was.
The plasmasphere of Eisberg differed from that of Earth in two ways.First, the ionizing source of radiation--the primary star--was fartheraway from Eisberg than Sol was from Earth, which tended to reduce thetotal ionization. Second, the upper atmosphere of Eisberg was prettymuch pure hydrogen, which is somewhat easier to ionize than oxygen ornitrogen. And, since there was no ozonosphere to block out the UVradiation from the primary, the thickness of the ionosphere beneath theplasmasphere was greater.
Not until the _Brainchild_ hit the bare fringes of the upper atmospheredid she act any differently than she had in space.
But when she hit the outer fringes of the ionosphere--that upper layerof rarified protons, the rapidly moving current of high velocity ionsknown as the plasmasphere--she bucked like a kicked horse. From deepwithin her vitals, the throb began, a strumming, thrumming sound with asomewhat higher note imposed upon it, making a sound like that of a bassviol being plucked rapidly on its lowest string.
It was not the intensity of the ionosphere that cracked the drive of the_Brainchild_; it was the duration. The layer of ionization was toothick; the ship couldn't make it through the layer fast enough, in spiteof her high velocity.
A man can hold a red-hot bit of steel in his hand for a fraction of asecond without even feeling it. But if he has to hold a hot baked potatofor thirty seconds, he's likely to get a bad burn.
So it was with the _Brainchild_. The passage through Earth's ionosphereduring take-off had been measured in fractions of a second. The_Brainchild_ had reacted, but the exposure to the field had been tooshort to hurt her.
The ionosphere of Eisberg was much deeper and, although the intensitywas less, the duration was much longer.
The drumming increased as she fell, a low-frequency, high-energy sinewave that shook the ship more violently than had the out-of-phase beatthat had pummeled the ship shortly after her take-off.
Dr. Morris Fitzhugh, the roboticist, screamed imprecations into theintercom, but Captain Sir Henry Quill cut him off before anyone tooknotice and let the scientist rave into a dead pickup.
"How's she coming?"
The voice came over the intercom to the Power Section, and Mike theAngel knew that the question was meant for him.
"She'll make it, Captain," he said. "She'll make it. I designed thisthing for a 500 per cent overload. She'll make it."
"Good," said Black Bart, snapping off the intercom.
Mike exhaled gustily. His eyes were still on the needles that keptcreeping higher and higher along the calibrated periphery of the meters.Many of them had long since passed the red lines that marked theallowable overload point. Mike the Angel knew that those points had beenset low, but he also knew that they were approaching the real overloadpoint.
He took another deep breath and held it.
* * * * *
Point for point, the continent of Antarctica, Earth, is one of the mostdeadly areas ever found on a planet that is supposedly non-inimical toman. Earth is a nice, comfortable planet, most of the time, butAntarctica just doesn't cater to Man at all.
Still, it just happens to be the _worst_ spot on the _best_ planet inthe known Galaxy.
Eisberg is different. At its best, it has the continent of Antarcticabeat four thousand ways from a week ago last Candlemas. At its worst, itis sudden death; at its best, it is somewhat less than sudden.
Not that Eisberg is a really _mean_ planet; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, orNeptune can kill a man faster and with less pain. No, Eisberg isn'tmean--it's torturous. A man without clothes, placed suddenly on thesurface of Eisberg--_anywhere_ on the surface--would die. But thetrouble is that he'd live long enough for it to hurt.
Man can survive, all right, but it takes equipment and intelligence todo it.
When the interstellar ship _Brainchild_ blew a tube--just one tube--ofthe external field that fought the ship's mass against the space-strainof the planet's gravitational field, the ship went off orbit. The tubeblew when she was some ninety miles above the surface. She dropped toofast, jerked up, dropped again.
When the engines compensated for the lost tube, the descent was moreleisurely, and the ship settled gently--well, not exactly _gently_--onthe surface of Eisberg.
Captain Quill's voice came over the intercom.
"We are nearly a hundred miles from the base, Mister Gabriel. Anyexcuse?"
"No excuse, sir," said Mike the Angel.