turn on the powerful--or deadly--beam,would come aboard in about half an hour. The men who had put thefinishing touches on the project during the past shift would remainfor another hour. His own crew of Security men shifted with thescientists--but he, himself, shifted at will.
The immensity around him went unheeded as Steve Elbertson, eyes onProject Hot Rod, savored the power of the beam that could controlEarth.
* * * * *
In the observatory, Perk Kimball and his assistant Jerry Wallace werehaving coffee as the various electronic adjuncts to the instruments ofthe observatory warmed up. Transistors and other solid statecomponents that made up the majority of the electronic equipment inthe observatory required no "warm up" in the sense that the olderelectron tubes had--but when used in critical equipment, they weretemperature sensitive, and he allowed for time to reach a stableoperating temperature. Then, too, the older electron tubes had notbeen entirely replaced. Many of them were still in faithful service.
The day would not be spent in the observation which was their main jobthere, because calibration of many of the instruments remained to bedone, and the observatory was behind schedule, having had a good dealof its time taken up in the sightings required by the communicationslab and Project Hot Rod.
Both of the astronomers were heartily sick of spending so much oftheir observational time with recalcitrant equipment; and in makingobservations of the globe from which they had come. After all, whyshould an astronomer be interested in Earth? Though admittedly thiswas the first observatory in man's entire history that had had theopportunity for such a careful scrutiny.
"This flare business, that our captive Indian was predicting," Jerryasked. "Think there's anything to it? Or am I just learning rumorsabout my profession from lay sources?"
"A rather presumptuous prediction, though he may be right." Perk'sclipped tone was partly English, partly the hauteur of theprofessional. To him, solar phenomena were strictly sourced on thesun, and if they were to be understood at all, it would be inreference to the internal dynamics of the sun itself.
"The torroidal magnetic fields dividing the slowly rotating polarregions from the more rapid rotation near the solar equator," he saidslowly, rather pedantically, but as though talking to himself, "shouldhave far more effective control over solar phenomena than the periodicunbalance created by the off-center gravitic fields when the innerplanets bunch on the same side of their solar orbits.
"To imply otherwise would be rather like saying that the grain of sandis responsible for the tides.
"Yet," he added honestly, "the records compiled by some of thecommunications interests that used to be greatly disturbed by thesolar flares' influence on radio communications, seem to indicate thatthere is a connection. So there is the possibility, however remote,that our captive redskin might be right; or rather, that there is aforce involved that makes the two coincidental."
But even as he talked, an unnoticed needle on the board began anunusual, wiggling dance, far different from its ordinary, slowaveraging reactions. Twice, without being noticed, it swung rapidlytowards the red line on its meter face; and then on its third approachthe radiation counter swung over the red line and triggered an alarm.
From only one source in their environment could they expect that levelof X-ray intensity. Without so much as a pause for thought, as thealarm screamed, barely glancing at the counter, Perk reached for theintercom switch and intoned the chant that man had learned was thegreat emergency of space: "Flare, flare, flare--take cover."
Simultaneously, he flipped three switches putting the observatory, theonly completely unshielded area within the satellite, on automatic, torecord as much as it could of the progress of the solar flare with itsincomplete equipment, while he and Jerry dove through the open airlock down the central well to the emergency shield room in the centerof the hub.
It was a poor system, Perk thought, that hadn't devised sufficientshielding for the observatory so that they could watch this phenomenonmore directly. "We'll have to work on that problem," he told himselfand since his recommendations would carry much weight after this tourof duty, he could be sure that any such system that he could devisewould be instrumented.
* * * * *
Major Steve Elbertson, caught in mid-run between the lab and ProjectHot Rod, resisted the temptation to reverse the scuttlebug on the lineand pull himself to a fast stop, as the flare warning from theobservatory came to him over the emergency circuit of his suit,followed by Bessie's clipped official voice saying:
"A flare is in progress. Any personnel outside the ship should get inas rapidly as possible. Personnel in the rim have seven minutes inwhich to secure their posts and report to the flare-shield area in thehub. Spin deceleration will take effect in three minutes; and we arecounting on my mark towards deceleration. Mark, three minutes."
The Security officer squeezed the trigger of the "bug" tighter in avain effort to force it and himself forward at a higher speed.
The lesser shielding of the Hot Rod control room would not provide asufficient safety factor even for the X rays that he knew were alreadyaround him; but he must supervise the security of the shutdown; and hecould only be very thankful that he was already nearly there and wouldnot have to make the entire round trip under emergency conditions.
The scuttlebug automatically reversed and began slowing for the end ofits run--tripped by a block signal set in the ribbon cable. As it cameto a stop at the end of the long anchor tube, Steve dismounted andkicked over the short remaining distance, which was spanned only by aslack cable to permit the inertial orientation servos of Hot Rodunhindered freedom to maintain their constant tracking of the solardisk.
Passing through the air lock of the control room, he reflected thathis exposure would probably be sufficient to give a touch of nausea inthe first half hour.
Inside Hot Rod control there was little excitement. The equipment wasbeing turned off in the standard approved safety procedures necessaryto turn control over to the laser communication beam which would putthe project under Earth control at Thule Base, Greenland, until theemergency was over.
This separate, low-power control beam, focused on Thule Base nearlyeighty miles away from the main focus of Hot Rod on its initialtarget, carried all of the communications and telemetry necessary forthe close co-ordination between Thule and the project.
As Elbertson entered, the Hot Rod communications officer was switchingeach of the control panels in turn to Earth control, while Dr.Benjamin Koblensky, project chief, stood directly behind him,supervising the process. Elbertson took up his post beside Dr.Koblensky, replacing the Security aide who had had the past shift."Suit up," he said to the man briefly.
As the communications officer completed the turnover, and the otherfive scientists in the lab left their posts to suit up, the comofficer glanced up, received a nod from Dr. Koblensky, and said intohis microphone "All circuits have now been placed in telemetrysecurity operation. On my mark it will be five seconds to controlabandonment. Mark," he said after another nod from Dr. Koblensky."Four, three, two, one, release."
His hand on the master switch, he waited for the green light above itto assure him that the communications lag had been overcome, and asthe green light came on, pushed the switch and rose from the console.
Major Elbertson stepped behind him, scanned the switches, inserted hiskey into the Security lock, and turned it with a final snap, forcinga bar home through the handles of all of the switches to prevent theirunauthorized operation by anyone until the official Security keyshould again release them. In the meantime, no function could beinitiated within the laser system by anyone other than the Securitycontrol officer at Thule Base on Earth.
Hot Rod was secured, and its crew were taking turns at the lock tomake the life-saving run back to the flare-shield area in the hub ofLab One.
Last man out, three minutes after the original alarm, Steve glancedcarefully around his beloved control booth, entered the now-
empty airlock, and reaching the outside vacuum dove fast and hard toward theanchor terminal and the scuttlebug that would take him swiftly to thebig wheel and its comparative safety.
* * * * *
In the gymnasium that served under emergency conditions as theflare-shield area of the hub, long since dubbed the "morgue," thecircular nets of hammocks that made it possible to pack six hundredpersonnel into an area with a thirty-two foot diameter and aforty-five foot length, were lowered. They would hardly be packed thistime, since less than one-third of the complement were yet aboard.
Even so, each person aboard had his assigned hammock space, two and ahalf feet wide; two and a half feet below the hammock above; and sevenfeet long; and each made his way toward his assigned slot.
At one end of the morgue was the area where the cages of animals fromDr. Lavalle's labs were being stored on