Rocket Ship Galileo (8 page)

The following day the doctor turned all the boys to work on the conversion of the drive mechanism. He was expecting delivery of the atomic fission element, thorium; the anti-radiation shield had to be ready. This shield was constructed of lead, steel, and organic plastic, in an arrangement which his calculations indicated would be most effective in screening the alpha, beta, and gamma radiations and the slippery neutrons, from the forward part of the rocket.

Of these radiations, the gamma are the most penetrating and are much like X-rays. Alpha particles are identical with the nuclei of helium atoms; beta particles are simply electrons moving at extremely high speeds. Neutrons are the electrically uncharged particles which make up much of the mass of most atomic nuclei and are the particles which set off or trigger the mighty explosions of atomic bombs.

All of these radiations are dangerous to health and life.

The thorium drive unit was to be shielded only on the forward side, as radiations escaping to outer space could be ignored. Morrie had landed the rocket with one side facing the cabin, inside the corral. It was now necessary to jack the rocket around until the tubes pointed away from the cabin, so that radiations, after the thorium was in place, would go harmlessly out across the crater of the Doomsday Bomb and, also, so that the rocket would be in position for a captive test run with the exhaust directed away from the cabin.

The jacking-around process was done with hydraulic jacks, muscle, and sweat, in sharp contrast to the easy-appearing, powered manipulation of rockets by dolly and cradle and mobile sling, so familiar a sight on any rocket field. It took all of them until late afternoon. When it was over Cargraves declared a holiday and took them on a long-promised trip into the Doomsday Crater.

This bomb site has been pictured and described so much and the boys were so used to seeing it in the distance that the thrill of being in it was limited. Nevertheless the desolation, the utter deadness, of those miles and miles of frozen, glassy waste made their flesh creep. Cargraves marched ahead, carrying a Geiger radiation counter, of the sort used to prospect for uranium in Canada during the war. This was largely to impress the boys with the necessity for unsleeping watchfulness in dealing with radioactive elements. He did not really expect to hear the warning rattle of danger in the ear phones; the test had been made so long before that the grim lake was almost certainly as harmless as the dead streets of Hiroshima.

But it put them in the mood for the lecture he had in mind. “Now, listen, sports,” he started in when they got back, “day after tomorrow the thorium arrives. From then on the holiday is over. This stuff is poison. You’ve got to remember that all the time.”

“Sure,” agreed Morrie. “We all know that.”

“You know it at the tops of your minds. I want you to know it every minute, way down in your guts. We’ll stake out the unshielded area between the ship and the fence. If your hat blows into that stretch, let it stay there, let it rot—but don’t go after it.”

Ross looked perturbed. “Wait a second, Doc. Would it really hurt anything to expose yourself for just a few seconds?”

“Probably not,” Cargraves agreed, “provided that were all the dosage you ever got. But we will all get some dosage all the time, even through the shield. Radioactivity accumulates its poisonous effect. Any exposure you can possibly avoid, you
must
avoid. It makes your chances better when you get a dose of it accidentally. Art!”

“Uh? Yes, sir!”

“From now on you are the medical officer. You must see to it that everybody wears his X-ray film all the time—and I mean
all
the time—and his electroscope. I want you to change the films and develop them and check the electroscopes according to the dose in the manual. Complete charts on everything, and report to me each Friday morning—oftener if you find anything outside the limits. Got me?”

“Got you, Doc.”

“Besides that, you arrange for blood counts once a week for everybody, over in town.”

“I think I could learn to do a blood count myself,” Art offered.

“You let the regular medic do it. You’ve got enough to worry about to keep all the electronic equipment purring along properly. One more thing.” He looked around him, waiting to get their full attention. “If any one shows the possibility of overdosage of radiation.

“If any one shows the possibility of overdosage of radiation, by film or by blood count or whatever, I will have to send him home for treatment. It won’t be a case of ‘just one more chance.’ You are dealing with hard facts here—not me, but natural laws. If you make a mistake, out you go and we’ll have to find somebody to take your place.”

They all nodded solemnly. Art said, “Doc?”

“Yes?”

“Suppose it’s your film that shows the overdosage?”

“Me? Not likely! If it does you can kick me all the way to the gate—I’m afraid of that stuff!

“Just the same,” he went on more seriously, “you run the same checks on me as on everybody else. Now let’s have supper. I want you and Morrie to do the KP tonight, so that Ross can start his study period right after supper. Ross, you and I are getting up at five, so let’s hit the sack early.”

“Okay. What’s cookin’?”

“Trip into Albuquerque—shopping.” He was reluctant to explain. The place had no firearms. They had seemed a useless expense—many a man has spent years in the desert without shooting off anything but his mouth, he had reasoned. As for the dreamed-of trip—what could one shoot on the moon?

But signs of prowlers, even in this fenced and forbidding area, had him nervous. Art’s watch-dog fence was tested each night and Art slept with the low power-hum of the hot circuit in his ears; thus far there had been no new alarm. Still he was nervous.

Cargraves was awakened about three
A.M.
to find Art shaking his shoulder and light pouring in his eyes. “Doc! Doc! Wake up!”

“Huh? Wassamatter?”

“I got a squawk over the loudspeaker.”

Cargraves was out of bed at once. They bent over the speaker. “I don’t hear anything.”

“I’ve got the volume low, but you’d hear it. There it is again—get it?” There had been an unmistakable squawk from the box. “Shall I wake the others?”

“Mmmm…no. Not now. Why did you turn on the light?”

“I guess I wanted it,” Art admitted.

“I see.” Cargraves hauled on trousers and fumbled with his shoes. “I want you to turn out the lights for ten seconds. I’m going out that window. If I’m not back in twenty minutes, or if you hear anything that sounds bad, wake the boys and come get me. But stay together. Don’t separate for any reason.” He slipped a torch in his pocket. “Okay.”

“You ought not to go by yourself.”

“Now, Art. I thought we had settled such matters.”

“Yes, but—oh, well!” Art posted himself at the switch.

Cargraves was out the window and had cat-footed it around behind the machine shop before the light came on again. He lurked in the shadow and let his eyes get used to the darkness.

It was a moonless night, clear and desert sharp. Orion blazed in the eastern sky. Cargraves soon was able to pick out the sage bushes, the fence posts, the gloomy bulk of the ship a hundred yards away.

The padlock on the machine shop was undisturbed and the shop’s windows were locked. Doing his best to take advantage of the scanty cover, he worked his way down to the ship.

The door was ajar. He could not remember whether he or Ross had been last man out. Even if it had been Ross, it was not like Ross to fail to lock the door.

He found that he was reluctant to enter the craft. He wished that he had not put off buying guns; a forty-five in his hand would have comforted him.

He swung the door open and scrambled in fast, ducking quickly away from the door, where his silhouette would make a target. He crouched in the darkness, listening and trying to slow his pounding heart. When he was sure he could hear nothing, he took the flashlight, held it at arm’s length away from him and switched it on.

The piloting compartment was empty. Somewhat relieved, he sneaked back through the hold, empty also, and into the drive compartment. Empty. Nothing seemed disturbed.

He left the ship cautiously, this time making sure that the door was locked. He made a wide sweep around the cabin and machine shop and tried to assure himself that no one was inside the corral. But in the starlight, fifty men might have hidden in the sage, simply by crouching down and holding still.

He returned to the cabin, whistling to Art as he approached.

“About time you got back,” Art complained. “I was just about to roust out the others and come and get you. Find anything?”

“No. Anything more out of the squawk box?”

“Not a peep.”

“Could it have been a coyote brushing against the wire?”

“How would a coyote get through the outer fence?” Art wanted to know.

“Dig under it. There
are
coyotes in here. We’ve heard them.”

“You can’t tell how far a coyote is from you by its howl.”

“Listen to the old desert rat! Well, leave the light on, but go back to bed. I’ll be awake. I’ve got to be up in another hour in any case. Crawl in the sack.” Cargraves settled down to a pipe and some thought.

Cargraves was too busy on the trip to Albuquerque to worry about the preceding night. Ross’s style of herding his hot rod left little time to think about anything but the shortness of life and the difficulty of hanging on to his hat. But Ross poured them into the city with plenty of time for shopping.

Cargraves selected two Garand rifles, Army surplus stock at a cheap price, and added a police thirty-eight special, on a forty-five frame. His mouth watered at a fancy sporting rifle with telescopic sights, but money was getting short; a few more emergency purchases or any great delay in starting would bankrupt the firm.

He ordered a supply of army-style C-rations and K-rations for the trip. Ross remarked privately, while the clerk wrote up the order, “In most stories about space travel, they just eat pills of concentrated food. Do you think it will ever come to that?”

“Not with my money,” the physicist answered. “You guys can eat pills if you want to. I want food I can get my teeth in.”

“Check,” said Ross.

They stopped at a nursery where Cargraves ordered three dozen young rhubarb plants. He planned to use a balanced oxygen-carbon-dioxide air-refreshing system during the stay on the moon, if possible, and the plants were to supply the plant-life half of the cycle. Enough liquid oxygen would be carted along for breathing throughout the round trip, but a “balanced aquarium” arrangement for renewing their air supply would enable them to stay on the moon as long as their food lasted.

The chemical fertilizers needed for hydroponic farming of the rhubarb were ordered also. This done, they grabbed a chocolate malt and a hamburger apiece and high-tailed it for the camp.

Morrie and Art swarmed out of the machine shop as they arrived. “Hi, Doc! Hi, Ross! What’s the good word?”

Ross showed them the guns. Art was eager to try them and Cargraves okayed it. Morrie hung back and said, “By the way, Doc, the CAB inspector was here today.”

“The what?”

“The Civil Aeronautics inspector. He had a letter from you.”

“From me? What did it say?”

“Why, it requested them to send an inspector to go over the rebuilt parts of the rocket and approve it for flight. I told him it wasn’t ready.”

“What else did you say? Did you tell him it was atomic-powered?”

“No, but he seemed to know it. He knew that we planned a space flight, too. What’s the pitch, Doc? I thought you were going to keep it quiet a while longer?”

“So did I,” Cargraves said bitterly. “What
did
you tell him?”

“Nothing—so help me. I decided you ought to handle it, so I played stupid. I tipped Art and he did the same. Did we do wrong?” he went on anxiously. “I know he was CAB, but it seemed to me he ought to talk to you. Do you suppose we offended him?”

“I hope you gave him apoplexy,” Cargraves said savagely. “He was no CAB inspector, Morrie. He was a phony.”

“Huh? Why… But he had your letter.”

“Faked. I’ll bet he’s been holed up somewhere outside the gate, waiting for me to be away. Did you leave him alone at any time?”

“No. Wait a minute—only once, for about five minutes. We were down at the ship and he sent me back for a flashlight. I’m sorry.” The boy looked miserable.

“Forget it. It was the natural, polite thing to do. You didn’t know he was phony. I wonder how he got through the gate? Did he come in a car?”

“Yes. I… Was the gate locked?”

“Yes, but he might have bulldozed the forester into letting him in.” They had been moving down toward the ship as they talked. Cargraves made a quick examination of the ship, but found nothing amiss. It seemed likely that the intruder had not found what he was looking for, probably because the drive was not yet installed.

He still worried about the matter of the locked gate. “I’m going to run down to the gate,” he announced, heading for the car. “Tell the boys.”

“I’ll drive you.” None of the boys approved the way Cargraves drove a car; it was one respect in which they did not look up to him. Privately, they considered his style stuffy.

“Okay. Snap it up.” Morrie ran down toward where the other two were wasting ammunition on innocent tin cans and bellowed at them. Seconds later he had the engine revved up and was ready to gun the rig when Cargraves slid into the seat beside him.

The padlock was intact, but one link of the bullchain had been hack-sawed away and replaced with wire. “So that’s that,” Cargraves dismissed the matter.

“Hadn’t we better put on a new chain?” inquired Morrie.

“Why bother? He’s still got the hacksaw.”

The trip back was gloomy. Cargraves was worried. Morrie felt responsible for not having unmasked and made prisoner the impostor. In retrospect he could think of a dozen dramatic ways to have done it.

Cargraves told him to keep his lip buttoned until after supper. When the dishes were out of the way, he brought the others up to date on the ominous happenings. Art and Ross took it with grave faces but without apparent excitement. “So that’s how it is,” Ross said. “Seems like somebody doesn’t like us.”