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vapor.
"Shall I try the radio now, Doc?" Deston asked.
"By no means. This first blast would, of course, be the worst, but there will
be several more, of decreasing vio-
lence."
There were. The second, while it volatilized the boom and its grounding
network, merely fused portions of the an-
chorages. The third took only the boom itself; the fourth took only the
dangling miles of wire. At the sixth trial
nothing-apparently-happened; whereupon the wire was drawn in and a two-hundred
pound mass of steel was
lowered until it was in firm and quiescent contact with the solid rock of the
planet.
"Now you may try your radio," Adams said.
Deston flipped a switch and spoke, quietly but clearly" into a microphone.
"Procyon One to Control Six. Flight
Eight Four Nine. Subspace Radio Test Ninety-Five-I think. How do you read me,
Control Six?"
The reply was highly unorthodox. It was a wild yell, followed by words not
directed at Deston at all. "Captain
Reamer! Captain French! Captain Holloway! ANYBODY! It's the Procyon! The
PROCYON, that was lost a year
ago! Unless some fool is playing a dumb joke."
"It's no joke-I hope." Another voice, crisp and authoritative, came in;
growing louder as its source approached the
distant pickup. "Or somebody will rot in jail for a hundred years."
"Procyon One to Control Six," Deston said again. His voice was not quite
steady this time; both girls were crying
openly and joyfully. "How do you read me" Frenchy old horse?"
"It is Procyon One-the Runt himself- Hi, Babe!" the new voice roared, then
quieted to normal volume. "I read you
eight and one. Survivors.?"
"Five. Second Officer Jones, our wives, and Dr. Andrew Adams, a Fellow of the
College of Advanced Study. He's
solely responsible for our being here, so-"
"Skip that for now. In a lifecraft? No, after this long" it must be the ship.
Not navigable, of course?"
"Not in subspace, and only so-so in normal. The Chaytors are OK, but the whole
Top is spun out and the rest of her
won't hold air-air, hell! She won't hold shipping crates! All the Wesleys are
shot, and all the Q-converters. Half the
Grahams are leaking like sieves, and-"
"Skip that, too. Just a sec-I'll cut in the downstairs recorder. Now start in
at your last check and tell us what's
happened since."
"It's a long story."
"Unwind it, Runt, I don't give a damn how long it is. Not a full-detailed
report, just hit the high spots-but don't leave
out anything really important."
"Wow!" Jones remarked, audibly. "Wotta man, Frenchy! Like the exurbanite said
to the gardener: "I don't want you
to work hard just take big shovelfuls and lots of 'em per minute."'
"That's enough out of you, Herc my boy. You'll be next. Go ahead, Babe."
Deston went ahead, and spoke almost steadily for thirty minutes. He did not
mention the gangsters; nor any per-
sonal matters. Otherwise, his report was accurate and complete. He had no idea
that everything he said was going
out on an Earth-wide hookup; or that many other planets, monitoring constantly
all subspace channels, were
hooking on. When he was finally released Captain French said, with a chuckle:
"Off the air for a minute. You've no idea what an uproar this has stirred up
already. They let them have all your stuff,
but we aren't putting out a thing until some Brass gets out there and gets the
real story-"
"That is the real story, damn it!"
"Oh, sure, and a very nice job, too, for an extemporaneous effort-if it was.
Semantics says, though, that in a couple
of spots it smells like slightly rancid cheese, and . . . no-no, keep still!
Too many planets listening in-verbum .rap.
Anyway, THE PRESS smells something, too, and they're screaming their lungs
out, especially the sob-sisters.
Now, Here, on the air, you're orbiting the fourth planet of a sun. What sun?
Where?"
"I don't know. Unlisted. We're in completely unexplored territory. Standard
reference angles are as follows"-and
Jones read off a long list of observations, not only of the brightest stars of
the galaxy, but also of the standard
reference points, such as S-Doradus, lying outside it. "When you get that
stuff all plotted, you'll find a hell of a big
confusion; but I hope there aren't enough stars in it but what you can find us
sometime."
"Off the air-for good, I hope. Don't make me laugh, Buster. Your probable
center will spear it. If there's ever more
than one star in any confusion you set up, I'll eat all the extras. But
there's a dozen Big Brains here, gnawing their
nails off up to the wrist to talk to Adams all the rest of the night, so put
him on and let's get back to sleep, huh?
They're cutting this mike now."
"Just a minute!" Deston snapped. "What's your time?" "Three, fourteen,
thirty-seven. So go back to bed, you
night-prowling owl."
"Of what day, month, and year?" Deston insisted. "Friday, Sep-" French's
voice was replaced by a much older one;
very evidently that of a Fellow of the College. After listening for a moment
to the newcomer and Adams, Barbara
took Deston by the arm and led him away. "Just a little bit of that gibberish
is a bountiful sufficiency" husband
mine. So I think we'd better take Captain French's advice, don't you?"
Since there was only one star in Jones' "Confusion" (by the book, "Volume of
Uncertainty") finding the Procyon
was no problem at all. High Brass came in quantity and the entire story-except
for one bit of biology-was told. Two
huge subspace-going machine shops also came, and a thousand mechanics, who
worked on the crippled liner for al-
most three weeks.
Then the Procyon started back for Earth under her own subspace drive, under [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]