naturalmanner the oxygen it was now fed from tanks.
As a method of controlling and changing the rate of rotation of thewheel, the rivers of water had already proven themselves; and as amethod of static balancing to compensate for off-center weights,masses of it could be stopped and held in counterbalance tanks aroundthe rim, thus assuring that the observatory, in its stationaryposition on the hub, would not suddenly take up an oscillatory patternof motion as the balance within the wheel was shifted either by movingequipment or personnel.
* * * * *
In effect, the entire ship operated against a zero-M-I calculationwhich could be handled effectively only by the computer. The moment ofinertia of the ship must be constantly calculated against the momentof inertia of the hydraulic mass flowing in the rim. And theindividual counterbalance tanks must constantly shift their loadaccording to the motions of the crew and their masses of equipmentthat were constantly being shifted during installation. For alreadythe observatory was hard at work, and its time must not be stolen byinappropriate wobbles of the hub.
A continuously operating feedback monitor system was capable ofmaintaining accuracy to better than .01% both in the mass inertialfield of centrifugal force affecting the rim; and in overall balancethat might otherwise cause wobbles in the hub.
While such fine control would not be necessary to the individualcomfort of the personnel aboard, it was very necessary to the accuracyof scientific observation, one major purpose of the lab; and even so,many of the experimenters would require continuous monitor observationfrom the computer to correct their observations against herinstantaneous error curve.
The mass of water in the rim formed a shell six feet through,surrounding the laboratories and living quarters--walls, floor andceiling--since its first function was that of radiation shielding.
But the bulk of this water was not a single unit. It was divided intoseparate streams, twenty in number, in each of which variousbiological reactions could be set up.
While a few of the rivers were in a nearly chemically pure state, mostof them were already filling with the plankton and algae that wouldform the base of the major ecological experiments, some with freshwater as their medium, others using sea water, complete with itsnormal micro-organisms supplemented from the tanks of concentratethat Dr. Millie Williams had brought aboard. One or two of the riverswere operating on different cycles to convert human waste to usableforms so that it might reenter the cycles of food and air.
Several of the rivers were operating to provide fish and other marinedelicacies as part of the experiment to determine the best way ofconverting algae to food in a palatable form.
Within, the rivers were lighted fluorescently--an apparent anomalythat was due to the fact that the problems of shielding marine lifefrom direct sunlight in such a shallow medium had not yet been workedout; while the opaque plastic that walled the laboratories within therivers was a concession to their strength, since the clear plasticthat would have provided aquarium walls for the lab and completeinspection for a constant and overall check of the ecologicalexperiments had been overruled by U.N. Budget Control. Portholes atvarious spots made the seaquariums visible from any part of the rim,but in Dr. Millie's laboratory alone were the large panels of clearplastic that gave a real view into the rivers.
This ecological maze of rivers and eddies and balance tanks; of airjets and current and micro-life; of spin-rate-control and shielding,were all keyed to servo-regulated interdependence that for thisself-contained world replaced the stability achieved in largerecologies through survival mechanisms.
* * * * *
Within the maze, existing by it and contributing to it, were thelaboratories concerned with other things, but surrounded by the watersthat had made life's beginnings possible on Earth, and the continuanceof life possible in space. Man might some day live in space almosttotally without water, but for now they had brought a bit of themother waters with them.
Sitting in complacent control of these overall complexities that mustbe met with automatic accuracy was the Starrett Analogue/DigitalComputer, Optical Wave type 44-63, irreverently referred to by theacronymically-minded as Sad Cow, though more frequently as the SacredCow, or simply Cow.
Most of the computer's intricate circuits were hidden behind thebulkhead in a large compartment between the control center and thesouth polar lock; but it was from this console in the control centerthat her operation was keyed.
From this position, every function of the wheel was ordered.
This was the bridge.
Spaced equally around its thirty-two-foot ring-shaped floor were thecomputer's console where Bessie presided; the com center in charge ofCommunications Officer Clark; and the command console where CaptainNaylor Andersen, commanding officer of Space Lab One had his formal,though seldom-occupied post.
At the moment, Nails Andersen was present, black cigar clamped firmlybetween his teeth; hamlike Norwegian hands maneuvering a pencil, hewas making illegible notes on a scrap of paper--illegible to othersbecause they were in his own form of shorthand that he had worked outover the years as he tried to make penciled notes as fast as hisracing mind worked out their details.
Whether Nails were politician or scientist would be hard to say.Certainly his rise through the ranks of U.N. Bureaus had been rapid;certainly in this rise he had been political, with the new brand ofpolitics that men were learning--world, rather than national politics.Certainly, also, he was a scientist; and certainly he had used hispolitical abilities on the behalf of science, pushing and slashing atred-tape barriers.
Nails was more than most responsible for the very existence of U.N.Space Lab One, and Project Hot Rod besides. He was also a sponsor ofmany other projects, both those that had been done and those that wereyet to be done.
The justification of a space project in these times was difficultindeed; for no longer could nations claim military superiority as amain reason for pushing forward across the barriers of the innermarches of space; for spending billions in taxes in experimentalresearch. For a project to achieve reality now, it must have benefits,visible benefit, for the majority of mankind. It must have a _raisond'etre_ that had nothing of a military flavor. And occasionally Nailshad been hard put to explain why, to people who did not understand; toexplain his feeling that men must expand or die; that from a crowdedplanet there could be only one frontier, and that an expansion outwardinto space.
Of course there were, Nails admitted to himself, other frontiers. Thehuge basin of the Amazon had been by-passed and ignored by man, andquite possibly would be in the future as well. The oceans, coveringseventy-five per cent of Earth's surfaces also presented a challengeto man, and the possibility of a new frontier of conquest.
But these did not present the limitless frontier for expansion offeredby space. Men must look upon them as only temporary challenges, andcherish them as remaining problems, never to be solved for fear of aloss of the problem itself.
Yet space was different. Here man's explorations could touch uponinfinities that were beyond comprehension, into that limitless voidman could plunge ever outward for thousands of generations withoutever reaching a final goal or solving a last problem. Here was afrontier worthy of any man, against which the excess energies of awarrior spirit might be expended without harm to their fellows.
To open a crack in this frontier was Nails' supreme goal, because,once opened, men need never fight again amongst themselves for lack ofa place to go or a thing to do.
* * * * *
Space Lab One had been in spin for two days.
On Earth, TV viewers no longer demanded twenty-four hours of Labnewscasts, and were returning to their normal cycles of Meet thePress, the Doctor's Dilemma, and the Lives of Lucy, and other juicieritems of the imagination that, now that their lab was a functioningreality, seemed far more exciting than the pictures of theinterminably spinning wheel and the interviews with scientists aboardthat had filled
their screens during the spin-out trial period.
On the wheel itself, life was settling into a pattern, with commentsabout being able to stand upright becoming old hat.
In rim sector A-9, Dr. Claude Lavalle's birds and beasts had adaptedthemselves to the light gravity; and their biological mentor hadevolved feeding, watering, and cleaning methods that were rapidlybecoming efficient.
Next door, Dr. Millie Williams' FARM had survived the "take-off" andthe plants, grateful for their new, although partial gravity, were nowstretching themselves towards the overhead fluorescents in a ratherfantastic attempt to imitate the early growing stages of Jack's famousbeanstalk.
In the machine shop, Paul Chernov carefully inspected the alignment ofthe numeric controlled laser microbeam milling and boring machine,brought it to a focus on a work piece, and pressed an activationswitch that started the last pattern of tiny capillary holes in thequartz on which he was working. In moments the pattern was completed.
Gently removing the work piece