their assigned flare-shieldshelves; and where Dr. Millie Williams was supervising thearrangements of the trays and vats of plants that must be protected asthoroughly as the humans.
At the other end of the morgue, the medics were setting up theiremergency treatment area, while nearby the culinary crew pulled outand put in operating condition the emergency feeding equipment.
The big wheel's soft, susurrus lullaby had already changed to a mutedbackground roar as her huge pumps drew the shielding waters of the riminto the great tanks that gave the hub twenty-four feet of shieldingfrom the expected storm of protons that would soon be raging in thevacuum outside.
The ship was withdrawing the hydraulic mass from its rim much as aperson in shock draws body fluids in from the outer limbs to thecentral body cavities. The analogy was apt, for until danger passed,the lab was knocked out, only its automatic functions proceeding asnormal, while its consciousness hovered in interiorized,self-protective withdrawal.
On the panel before Bessie the computer's projection of expectedevents showed the wave-front of protons approaching the orbit ofVenus, and on the numerical panel directly below this display thenegative count of minutes continued to march before her as thewave-front approached at half the speed of light.
The expected diminishment of X rays had not yet occurred. Normally,there would be a space of time between their diminishment and thearrival of the first wave of protons; but so far it had not happened.
Six minutes had passed, and the arriving personnel of Project Hot Rodcame in through the locks from the loading platform, diving throughthe central tunnel over Bessie's head and on to the shielded tankbeyond.
Seven minutes; and from Biology lab came an excited voice. "I needsome help! I've lost a rabbit. I came back for the one I'd beeninoculating but he got away from me, and I can't corner him in thisno-gravity!"
Bessie wasn't sure what to say, but Captain Andersen spoke into hisintercom. "Dr. Lavalle," he said in a low voice, but with the force ofcommand, "ninety per cent of your shielding has already beenwithdrawn. Abandon the rabbit and report immediately to the hub!"
The pumps were still laboring to bring in the last nine per cent ofthe water that would be brought. The remaining one per cent of thenormal hydraulic mass of the rim had been diverted to a verysmall-diameter tube at the extreme inner portion of the rim, and wasnow being driven through this tube at frantically higher velocities tocompensate for the removal of the major mass, and to maintain a smallpercentage of the original spin, so that the hub would not be totallyin free fall, though the pseudo-gravity of centrifugal force hadalready fallen to a mere shadow of a shadow of itself, and some of thepersonnel were feeling the combined squeamishness of the Corioliseffect near the center of the ship, and the lessening of the gravity,pseudo though it had been, that they had had with them in the rim.
As the last tardy technician arrived, the medics were alreadyselecting out the nearly ten per cent of the personnel who had beenexposed to abnormally dangerous quantities of radiation during thewithdrawal procedure, which included, of course, all the personnelthat had been aboard Project Hot Rod at the time of the flare.
Even as the medics went about injecting carefully controlled dosagesof sulph-hydral anti-radiation drugs, the beginnings of nausea wereevident among those who had been overexposed. However, only thedosimeters could be relied on to determine whether the nausea was morefrom the effects of radiation; the effects of the near-free-fall andCoriolis experienced in the hub; or perhaps some of it waspsychosomatic, and had no real basis other than the fear engendered byemergency conditions.
Major Steve Elbertson was already in such violent throes of nauseathat his attending medic was having difficulty reading his dosimeteras he made use of the plastic bag attached to his hammock; and he wasobviously, for the moment at least, one of the least dignified of thepersons on board.
Displays of the various labs in the rim moved restlessly across mostof the thirty-six channels of the computer's video displays, as Bessiescanned about, searching for dangerously loose equipment or personnelthat might somehow have been left behind.
In the Biology lab, the white rabbit that had escaped was franticallystruggling in the near-zero centrifugal field with literally hugebounds, seeking some haven wherein his disturbed senses might feelmore at home, and eventually finding a place in an overturnedwastebasket wedged between a chair and a desk, both suction-cupped tothe floor. Frightened and alone, with only his nose poking out of theburrow beneath the trash of the wastebasket, he blinked back at thesilent camera through which Bessie observed him, and elicited from hera murmur of pity.
Seven minutes and forty-five seconds. The digital readout at thebottom of Bessie's console showed the computer's prediction of fifteenseconds remaining until the expected flood of protons began to arrivefrom the sun.
As radiation monitors began to pick up the actual arrival of the wavefront, the picture on her console changed to display a new wave front,only fractionally in advance of the one that the computer had beendisplaying as a prediction.
* * * * *
The storm of space had broken.
Captain Andersen's voice came across the small area of the bridge thatseparated them. "Check the rosters, please. Are all personnelsecured?"
Bessie glanced at the thirty-two minor display panels, checkingvisually, even as her fingers fed the question to the computer.
The display of the labs, now that the rabbit was settled into place,showed no dangerously loose equipment other than a few minor items ofinsufficient mass to present a hazard, and no personnel, she noted, asthe Cow displayed a final check-set of figures, indicating that allpersonnel were at their assigned, protected stations in the morgue, inthe engineering quarters, and on the bridge.
"All secure," she told the captain. "Evacuation is complete."
"Well handled," he said to her, then over the intercom: "This is yourcaptain. Our evacuation to the flare-shield area is complete. The shipand personnel are secured for emergency conditions, and were securedwell within the time available. May I congratulate you.
"The proton storm is now raging outside. You will be confined to yourposts in the shield area for somewhere between sixteen and forty-eighthours.
"As soon as it is possible to predict the time limit more accurately,the information will be given to you."
As he switched out of the ship's annunciator system, Captain NailsAndersen leaned back in his chair and stretched in relief, closing hiseyes and running briefly over the details of the evacuation.
When he opened them again, he found a pinch bottle of coffee at hiselbow, and tasting it, found it sugared and creamed to his preference.His eyes went across the bridge to the computer console, and lingereda moment on the slender, dark figure there.
Amazing, he thought. The dossier, the personal history, her own andall the others aboard, he had studied carefully before making aselection of the people who would be in his command for this time. Notthat the decision had been totally his, but his influence had countedheavily.
This one he had almost missed. Only by asking for an extra survey ofinformation had he caught that bit about the riot at Moscow Universitythat had raged around her ears, apparently without touching or beinginfluenced by or influencing her own quiet program.
That they didn't think alike was evident. That this was a competentsociologist, and not just a computer technician had not at first beenevident. But Nails was well pleased with his decision in the selectionof this particular unit of his command.
Things would go well in her presence, he felt. Details he might havestruggled with would iron out or disappear, and scarcely come to hisattention at all.
Very competent, he thought. And attractive, too.
* * * * *
In the engineering compartment, Mike was adjusting the power outputfrom the pile ten miles away, down from the full emergency power thathad been required to pump the more than five hundred thousand cubicfeet of wat
er from the rim to the hub in seven minutes, to a levelmore in keeping with the moderate requirements of the lab as it waitedout the storm.
As he threw the last switch, he became aware of a soft scuffling soundbehind him, and turned to see tiny Dr. Y Chi Tung, single-handedlymanhandling through the double bulkhead the bulky magnetic resonancedevice on which he had been working when the flare alarm sounded, andhaving the utmost difficulty even though the near free-fall conditionsmade his problem package next to weightless.
The monkeylike form of the erudite physicist, dwarfed by the bigchassis, gave the appearance of a small boy trying to hide an outsizetreasure; but the nonchalant humor that normally poked constant fun atboth his profession as a physicist and the traditions of his Chineseancestors, was lacking.
Dr. Ishie was both breathless and worried.
"Mike," he gasped. "I was afraid to leave it, unshielded. It mightpick up some residual activity.