Unwise Child Part 32

Point for point, the continent of Antarctica, Earth, is one of the most deadly areas ever found on a planet that is supposedly non-inimical to man. Earth is a nice, comfortable planet, most of the time, but Antarctica just doesn't cater to Man at all.

Still, it just happens to be the _worst_ spot on the _best_ planet in the known Galaxy.

Eisberg is different. At its best, it has the continent of Antarctica beat four thousand ways from a week ago last Candlemas. At its worst, it is sudden death; at its best, it is somewhat less than sudden.

Not that Eisberg is a really _mean_ planet; Jupiter, Saturn, Ura.n.u.s, or Neptune can kill a man faster and with less pain. No, Eisberg isn't mean--it's torturous. A man without clothes, placed suddenly on the surface of Eisberg--_anywhere_ on the surface--would die. But the trouble is that he'd live long enough for it to hurt.

Man can survive, all right, but it takes equipment and intelligence to do it.

When the interstellar s.h.i.+p _Brainchild_ blew a tube--just one tube--of the external field that fought the s.h.i.+p's ma.s.s against the s.p.a.ce-strain of the planet's gravitational field, the s.h.i.+p went off orbit. The tube blew when she was some ninety miles above the surface. She dropped too fast, jerked up, dropped again.

When the engines compensated for the lost tube, the descent was more leisurely, and the s.h.i.+p settled gently--well, not exactly _gently_--on the surface of Eisberg.

Captain Quill's voice came over the intercom.

"We are nearly a hundred miles from the base, Mister Gabriel. Any excuse?"

"No excuse, sir," said Mike the Angel.

20

If you ignite a jet of oxygen-nitrogen in an atmosphere of hydrogen-methane, you get a flame that doesn't differ much from the flame from a hydrogen-methane jet in an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. A flame doesn't particularly care which way the electrons jump, just so long as they jump.

All of which was due to give Mike the Angel more headaches than he already had, which was 100 per cent too many.

Three days after the _Brainchild_ landed, the scout group arrived from the base that had been built on Eisberg to take care of Snook.u.ms. The leader, a heavy-set engineer named Treadmore, who had unkempt brownish hair and a sad look in his eyes, informed Captain Quill that there was a great deal of work to be done. And his countenance became even sadder.

Mike, who had, perforce, been called in to take part in the conference, listened in silence while the engineer talked.

The officers' wardroom, of which Mike the Angel was becoming heartily sick, seemed like a tomb which echoed and re-echoed the lugubrious voice of Engineer Treadmore.

"We were warned, of course," he said, in a normally dismal tone, "that it would be extremely difficult to set down the s.h.i.+p which carried Snook.u.ms, and that we could expect the final base to be anywhere from ten to thirty miles from the original, temporary base." He looked round at everyone, giving the impression of a collie which had just been kicked by Albert Payson Terhune.

"We understand, naturally, that you could not help landing so far from our original base," he said, giving them absolution with faint d.a.m.ns, "but it will entail a great deal of extra labor. A hundred and nine miles is a great distance to carry equipment, and, actually, the distance is a great deal more, considering the configuration of the terrain. The...."

The upshot of the whole thing was that only part of the crew could possibly be spared to go home on the _Fireball_, which was...o...b..ting high above the atmosphere. And, since there was no point in sending a small load home at extra expense when the _Fireball_ could wait for the others, it meant that n.o.body could go home at all for four more weeks.

The extra help was needed to get the new base established.

It was obviously impossible to try to move the _Brainchild_ a hundred miles. With nothing to power her but the Translation drive, she was as helpless as a submarine on the Sahara. Especially now that her drive was shot.

The Eisberg base had to be built around Snook.u.ms, who was, after all, the only reason for the base's existence. And, too, the power plant of the _Brainchild_ had been destined to be the source of power for the permanent base.

It wasn't too bad, really. A little extra time, but not much.

The advance base, commanded by Treadmore, was fairly well equipped. For transportation, they had one jet-powered aircraft, a couple of 'copters, and fifteen ground-crawlers with fat tires, plus all kinds of powered construction machinery. All of them were fueled with liquid HNO_{3}, which makes a pretty good fuel in an atmosphere that is predominantly methane. Like the gasoline-air engines of a century before, they were spark-started reciprocating engines, except for the turbine-powered aircraft.

The only trouble with the whole project was that the materials had to be toted across a hundred miles of exceedingly hostile territory.

Treadmore, looking like a tortured bloodhound, said: "But we'll make it, won't we?"

Everyone nodded dismally.

Mike the Angel had a job he emphatically didn't like. He was supposed to convert the power plant of the _Brainchild_ from a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p driver into a stationary generator. The conversion job itself wasn't tedious; in principle, it was similar to taking the engine out of an automobile and converting it to a power plant for an electric generator. In fact, it was somewhat simpler, in theory, since the engines of the _Brainchild_ were already equipped for heavy drainage to run the electrical systems aboard s.h.i.+p, and to power and refrigerate Snook.u.ms' gigantic brain, which was no mean task in itself.

But Michael Raphael Gabriel, head of one of the foremost--if not _the_ foremost--power design corporations in the known Galaxy, did not like degrading something. To convert the _Brainchild's_ plant from a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p drive to an electric power plant seemed to him to be on the same order as using a turboelectric generator to power a flashlight. A waste.

To make things worse, the small percentage of hydrogen in the atmosphere got sneaky sometimes. It could insinuate itself into places where neither the methane nor the ammonia could get. Someone once called hydrogen the "c.o.c.kroach element," since, like that antediluvian insect, the molecules of H_{2} can insidiously infiltrate themselves into places where they are not only unwelcome, but shouldn't even be able to go. At red heat, the little molecules can squeeze themselves through the crystalline interstices of quartz and steel.

Granted, the temperature of Eisberg is a long way from red hot, but normal sealing still won't keep out hydrogen. Add to that the fact that hydrogen and methane are both colorless, odorless, and tasteless, and you have the beginnings of an explosive situation.

The only reason that no one died is because the s.p.a.ce Service is what it is.

Unlike the land, sea, and air forces of Earth, the s.p.a.ce Service does not have a long history of fighting other human beings. There has never been a s.p.a.ce war, and, the way things stand, there is no likelihood of one in the foreseeable future.

But the s.p.a.ce Service _does_ fight, in its own way. It fights the airlessness of s.p.a.ce and the unfriendly atmospheres of exotic planets, using machines, intelligence, knowledge, and human courage as its weapons. Some battles have been lost; others have been won. And the war is still going on. It is an unending war, one which has no victory in sight.

It is, as far as we can tell, the only war in human history in which Mankind is fully justified as the invading aggressor.

It is not a defensive war; neither s.p.a.ce nor other planets have attacked Man. Man has invaded s.p.a.ce "simply because it is there." It is war of a different sort, true, but it is nonetheless a war.

The s.p.a.ce Service was used to the kind of battle it waged on Eisberg. It was prepared to lose men, but even more prepared to save them.

21

Mike the Angel stepped into the cargo air lock of the _Brainchild_, stood morosely in the center of the cubicle, and watched the outer door close. Eight other men, clad, like himself, in regulation s.p.a.ce Service s.p.a.cesuits, also looked wearily at the closing door.

Chief Multhaus, one of the eight, turned his head to look at Mike the Angel. "I wish that thing would close as fast as my eyes are going to in about fifteen minutes, Commander." His voice rumbled deeply in Mike's earphones.

"Yeah," said Mike, too tired to make decent conversation.

Eight hours--all of them spent tearing down the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p and making it a part of the new base--had not been exactly exhilarating to any of them.

The door closed, and the pumps began to work. The men were wearing s.p.a.ce Service Suit Three. For every environment, for every conceivable emergency, a suit had been built--if, of course, a suit _could_ be built for it. n.o.body had yet built a suit for walking about in the middle of a sun, but, then, n.o.body had ever volunteered to try anything like that.

They were all called "s.p.a.cesuits" because most of them could be worn in the vacuum of s.p.a.ce, but most of them weren't designed for that type of work. Suit One--a light, easily manipulated, almost skin-tight covering, was the real s.p.a.cesuit. It was perfect for work in interstellar s.p.a.ce, where there was a microscopic amount of radiation incident to the suit, no air, and almost nil gravity. For exterior repairs on the outside of a s.h.i.+p in free fall a long way from any star, s.p.a.cesuit One was the proper garb.