Chapter Dive - The Small Gray World
Rip rejoined his Planeteers in the supply room and motioned for them to gather around him. "I know why Terra base sent us the fighting equipment," he announced. "They were afraid word of this thorium asteroid would leak out to Consops—and it has. A Connie cruiser blasted off from Marsport and headed this way."
He watched the faces of his men carefully, to see how they would take the news. They merely looked at each other and shrugged. Conflict with Consops was nothing new to them.
"The freighter that found the asteroid landed at Marsport, didn't it?" Koa asked. Getting a nod from Rip, he went on, "Then I know what probably happened. The two things spacemen can't do are breathe high vack and keep their mouths shut. Some of the crew blabbed about the asteroid, probably at the Space Club. That's where they hang out. The Connies hang out there, too. Result, we get a Connie cruiser after the asteroid."
"You hit it," Rip acknowledged.
Corporal Santos shrugged. "If the Connies try to take the asteroid away, they'll have a real warm time.[pg 063] We have ten racks of rockets, twenty-four to a rack. That's a lot of snapper-boats we can pick off if they try to make a landing."
The Planeteers stopped talking as the voice horn sounded. "Get it! We are going into no-weight. Prepare to stay in no-weight indefinitely. Rotation stops in two minutes."
Rip realized why the order was given. The Scorpius could not maneuver while in a gravity spin and O'Brine wanted to be free to take action if necessary.
The voice horn came on again. "Now get it again. The ship may maneuver suddenly. Prepare for acceleration or deceleration without warning. One minute to no-weight."
Rip gave quick orders. "Get lines around the equipment and prepare to haul it. I'll get landing boats assigned and we can load. Then prepare space packs. Lay out suits and bubbles. We want to be ready the moment we get the word."
Lines were taken from a locker and secured to the equipment. As the Planeteers worked, the ship's spinning slowed and stopped. They were in no-weight. Rip grabbed for a hand cord that hung from the wall and hauled himself out into the engine control room. The deputy commander was at his post, waiting tensely for orders. Rip thrust against a bulkhead with one foot and floated to his side. "I need two landing boats, sir," he requested. "One stays on the asteroid with us."
"Take numbers five and six. I'll assign a pilot to bring number five back to the ship after you've landed."
"Thank you." Rip would have been surprised at the deputy's quick assent if Commander O'Brine hadn't shown him that the spacemen were ready to do anything possible to aid the Planeteers. He went back to the supply room and told Koa which boats were to be used, instructed him to get the supplies aboard, then made his way to Commander O'Brine's office.
O'Brine was not in. Rip searched and found him in the astro-plot room, watching a 'scope. Green streaks called "blips" marked the panel, each one indicating an asteroid.
"All too small," O'Brine said. "We've only seen two large ones, and they were too large."
"Space is certainly full of junk," Rip commented. "At least this corner of it is full."
A junior space officer overheard him. "This is nothing. We're on the edge of the asteroid belt. Closer to the middle, there's so much stuff a ship has to crawl through it."
Rip wandered over to the main control desk. A senior space officer was seated before a simple panel on which there were only a dozen small levers, a visiphone, and a radar screen. The screen was circular, with numbers around the rim like those on an earth-clock. In the center of the screen was a tiny[pg 065] circle. The central circle represented the Scorpius. The rest of the screen was the area dead ahead. Rip watched and saw several blips on it that indicated asteroids. They were all small. He watched, interested, as the cruiser overtook them. Once, according to the screen, the cruiser passed under an asteroid with a clearance of only a few hundred feet.
"You didn't miss that one by much," Rip told the space officer.
"Don't have to miss by much," he retorted. "A few feet are as good as a mile in space. Our blast might kick them around a little, and maybe there's a little mutual mass attraction, but we don't worry about it."
He pointed to a blip that was just swimming into view, a sharp green point against the screen. "We do have to worry about that one." He selected a lever and pulled it toward him.
Rip felt sudden weight against his feet. The green point on the screen moved downward below center. The feeling of weight ceased. He knew what had happened, of course. Around the hull of the ship, set in evenly spaced lines, were a series of blast holes through which steam was fired. The steam was produced instantly by running water through the heat coils of the nuclear engine. By using groups or combinations of steam tubes, the control officer could move the ship in any direction or set it rolling, spin it end over end or whirl it in an eccentric pattern.
"How do you decide which tubes to use?" Rip asked.
"Depends on what's happening. If we were ducking missiles from an enemy, I'd get orders from the commander. But to duck asteroids, there's no problem. I go over them by firing the steam tubes along the bottom of the ship. That way, you feel the acceleration on your feet. If I fired the top tubes the ship would drop out from under those who were standing. They'd all end up on the ceiling."
Rip watched for a while longer, then wandered back to Commander O'Brine. He was getting anxious. At first, the task of capturing an asteroid and moving it back to earth had been rather unreal, like some of the problems he had worked out while training on the space platform. Now he was no longer calm about it. He had faith in the Terra base Planeteer specialists, but they couldn't figure everything out for him. Most of the problems of getting the asteroid back to earth would have to be solved by Lieutenant Richard Ingalls Peter Foster.
A junior space officer suddenly called, "Sir, I have a reading at two seventy degrees, twenty-three degrees eight minutes high."
Commander O'Brine jumped up so fast that the action shot him to the ceiling. He kicked down again and leaned over the officer's 'scope. Rip got there by pulling himself right across the top of the chart table.
The green point of light on the 'scope was bigger[pg 067] than any other he had seen.
"It's about the right size," O'Brine said. There was excitement in his voice. "Correct course. Let's take a look at it."
All hands gripped something with which to steady themselves as the cruiser spun swiftly onto the new course. The control officer called, "I have it centered, sir. We'll reach it in about an hour at this speed."
"Jack it up," O'Brine ordered. "Heave some neutrons into it. Double speed, then decelerate to reach it in thirty minutes."
The control officer issued orders to the engine control room. In a moment acceleration plucked at them. O'Brine motioned to Rip. "Come on, Foster. Let's see what Analysis makes of this rock."
Rip followed the commander to the deck below where the technical analysts were located. His heart was pounding a little faster than usual, and not from acceleration, either. He found himself wetting his lips frequently and thought, "Get hold of it, boy. You got nothing to worry about but high vacuum."
He didn't really believe it. There would be plenty to worry about. Like detonating nuclear bombs and trying to figure their blast reaction. Like figuring out the course that would take them closest to the sun without pulling them into it. Like a thousand things—all of them up to him.
The chief analyst greeted them. "We got the orders[pg 068] to change course, Commander. That gave us the location of the asteroid. We're already working on it."
"Anything yet?"
"No, sir. We'll have the albedo measurement in a few minutes. It will take longer to figure the mass."
The asteroid's efficiency in reflecting sunlight was its albedo. The efficiency depended on the material of which it was made. The albedo of pure metallic thorium was known. If the asteroid's albedo matched it, that would be one piece of evidence.
In the same way, the mass of thorium was known. The measurements of the asteroid were being taken. They would be compared with a chunk of thorium of the same size. If it worked out, that would be evidence enough.
Commander O'Brine motioned to chairs. "Might as well sit down while we're waiting, Foster." He took one of the chairs and looked closely at Rip. Suddenly he grinned. "I thought Planeteers never got nervous."
"Who's nervous?" Rip retorted, then answered his own question truthfully. "I am. You're right, sir. The closer we get, the more scared I get."
"That's a good sign," O'Brine replied. "It means you'll be careful. Got any real doubts about the job?"
Rip thought it over and didn't think so. "Not any real ones. I think we can do it. But I'm nervous just the same. Great Cosmos, Commander! This is[pg 069] my first assignment, and they give me a whole world to myself and tell me to bring it home. Maybe it isn't a very big world, but that doesn't change things much."
O'Brine chuckled. "I never expected to get an admission like that from a Planeteer."
"And I," Rip retorted, "never expected to make one like that to a spaceman."
The chief analyst returned, a sheet of computations in his hand. "Report, sir. The albedo measurement is correct. Looks like this may be the one."
"How long before we get the measurements and comparisons?"
"Ten minutes, perhaps."
Rip spoke up. "Sir, there's some data I'll need."
"What, Lieutenant?" The chief analyst pulled a notebook from his pocket.
"I'll need all possible data on the asteroid's speed, orbit, and physical measurements. I have to figure a new orbit and what it will take to blast the mass into it."
"We'll get those. The orbit will not be exact, of course. We have only two reference points. But I think we'll come pretty close."
O'Brine nodded. "Do what you can, Chief. And when Foster gets down to doing his calculations, have your men run them through the electronic computer for him."
Rip thanked them both, then stood up. "Sir, I'm[pg 070] going back to my men. I want to be sure everything is ready. If there's a Connie cruiser headed this way, we don't want to lose any time."
"Good idea. I think we'll dump you on the asteroid, Foster, and then blast off. Not too far, of course. Just enough to lead the Connie away from you if its screen picks us up."
That sounded good to Rip. "We'll be ready when you are, sir."
The chief analyst took less than the estimated ten minutes for his next set of figures. Commander O'Brine called personally while Rip was still searching for the right landing boat ports. The voice horn bellowed, "Get it! Lieutenant Foster. The mass measurements are correct. This is your asteroid. Estimated twelve minutes before we reach it. Your data will be ready by the time you get back here. Show an exhaust!"
Rip found Koa and the men and asked the sergeant-major for a report.
"We're ready, sir," Koa told him. "We can get out in three minutes. It will take us that long to get into space gear. Your stuff is laid out, sir."
"Get me the books and charts from the supplies," Rip directed. "Have Santos bring them to the chief analyst. I'm going back and figure our course. No use doing it the hard way on the asteroid when I can do it in a few minutes here with the ship's computer."
He turned and hurried back, hauling himself along by handholds. The ship had stopped acceleration and was at no-weight again. As he neared the analysis section it went into deceleration, but the pressure was not too bad. He made his way against it easily.
The chief analyst was waiting for him. "We have everything you need, Lieutenant, except the orbital stuff. We'll do the best we can on that and have a good estimate in a few minutes. Meanwhile, you can mark up your figures. Incidentally, what power are you going to use to move the asteroid?"
"Nuclear explosions," Rip said, and saw the chief's eyes pop. He added, "With conventional chemical fuel for corrections."
He felt rising excitement. The whole ship seemed to have come to life. There was excited tension in the computer room when he went in with the chief. Spacemen, all mathematicians, were waiting for him. As the chief led him to a table, they gathered around him.
Rip took command. "Here's what we're after. I need to plot an orbit that will get us out of the asteroid belt without any collisions, take us as close to the sun as possible without having it capture us, and land us in space about ten thousand miles from earth. From then on I'll throw the asteroid into a braking ellipse around the earth and I'll be able to make any small corrections necessary."
He spread out a solar system chart and marked in the positions of the planets as of that moment, using the daily almanac. Then he put down the position of the asteroid, taking it from the paper the chief analyst handed him.
"Will you make assignments, Chief?"
The chief shook his head. "Make them yourself, Lieutenant. We're at your service."
Rip felt a little ashamed of some of the unkind things he had said about spacemen. "Thank you." He pointed to a spaceman. "Will you calculate the inertia of the asteroid, please?" The spaceman hurried off.
"First thing to do is plot the orbit as though there were no other bodies in the system," Rip said. "Where's Santos?"
"Here, sir." The corporal had come in unnoticed with Rip's reference books.
Rip had plotted orbits before, but never one for actual use. His palms were wet as he laid it out, using prepared tables. When he had finished he pointed to a spaceman. "That's it. Will you translate it into analogue figures for the computer, please?" He assigned to others the task of figuring out the effect Mercury, the sun, and earth would have on the orbit, using an assumed speed for the asteroid.
To the chief analyst he gave the job of putting all the data together in proper form for feeding to the electronic brain.
It would have taken all spacemen present about ten days to complete the job by regular methods, but the electronic computer produced the answer in three minutes.
"Thanks a million, Chief," Rip said. "I'll be calling on you again before this is over." He tucked the sheets into his pocket.
"Any time, Lieutenant. We'll keep rechecking the figures as we go along. If there are any corrections, we'll send them to you. That will give you a check on your own figures."
"Don't worry," Rip assured him. "We'll have plenty of corrections."
Deceleration had been dropping steadily. It ceased altogether, leaving them weightless. O'Brine's voice came over the speaker. "Get it! Valve crews take stations at landing boats five and six. The Planeteers will depart in five minutes. Lieutenant Foster will report to central control if he cannot be ready in that time."
Santos grinned at Rip. "Here we go, Lieutenant."
Rip's heart would have dropped into his shoes if there had been any gravity. Only a little excitement showed on his face, though. He waved his thanks at the analysts and grinned back at Santos.
"Show an exhaust, Corporal. High vack is waiting!"