Where I Wasn't Going Part 10

He paused a moment, then flipped another intercom key.

"Mr. Blackhawk," he said.

The intercom warmed at the far end. "Yes sir?" Mike's voice was relaxed.

"Is there any way to turn off Hot Rod without the Security key?"

"Why sure, captain." Mike's voice held a grin. "I could pull the power switch."

"Pull it. Fast. Hot Rod's out of control."

Mike's hand flashed to a master switch controlling the power that fed Hot Rod, and blessing as he did it the fallacy of engineering that had required external power to power the mighty energy collector.

In the big balloon now happily following the wheel at the end of its tether, the still-undamaged power-off fail-safe went into operation.

The mirror surface behind each ruby rod rotated into its s.h.i.+elding position, dispersing the energy that the huge mirror directed towards the rods, back into s.p.a.ce.

Hot Rod was secure.

Mike received only one further communication from the captain.

"Mr. Blackhawk," he was asked over the intercom, "is there any way that you secure the Hot Rod power switch so that it cannot be turned on without my personal authorization?"

"Sure, captain, I can--"

The captain interrupted. "Mr. Blackhawk, I should prefer that you not tell me or anyone else aboard the method you will use; and that you make your method as difficult as possible to discover. This I shall leave," he added dryly, "to your rather ... fertile ... imagination.

"There is reason to believe that Project Hot Rod was turned on by a saboteur. Your method must be proof against him, and if he exists, he will not be stupid." The captain switched off.

Mike turned to the control panel, and after a few minutes thought busied himself for some time.

Then he headed for the bridge where Dr. Johnston, Chauvenseer, and the captain had dismissed the others and were utilizing every check that Dr. Johnston could dream up to a.s.sure themselves that Hot Rod was actually turned off and would remain secure at least for the duration of the flare; and trying as well to find out just what form the sabotage had taken.

Without interrupting the others, Mike seated himself at the subsidiary post at the computer's console on Bessie's right, and got her to brief him while he examined the close-up display of Hot Rod.

After a few minutes he reached over and increased the magnification to its maximum, showing only a small portion of the balloon, then moved the focus to display the control room entrance as well as part of the anchor tube and the cable between the two.

"I think I've found your saboteur, sir," he said.

The captain was at his side almost instantly. "Where is he?" he asked briefly.

"Not he, sir. It. And I'm not sure just where--but look. Hot Rod's cable is taut. There's thrust on the balloon. That probably means a puncture and escaping nitrogen.

"I think," he said, "that the saboteur may have been a meteor that punctured the balloon, and the nitrogen escaping through the hole it made is now producing enough thrust to keep that cable taut. Though,"

he added thoughtfully, "I don't see why the servos couldn't maintain the beam to Thule--though obviously, they couldn't."

"How dangerous is such a puncture?" asked the captain. "How seriously would Hot Rod be damaged? How soon must it be repaired?"

"The puncture itself shouldn't be too dangerous. Even if all the nitrogen's gone, the balloon's in a vacuum and won't collapse--and that's about the only serious effect a puncture would have. Just a moment. We'll estimate its size by the thrust it's giving the s.h.i.+p,"

he added, and turned to Bessie.

"Ask the Cow whether we're getting thrust on the s.h.i.+p; and if so, how much. Wait a minute," he added, "if you ask for thrust on the s.h.i.+p, she'll say there isn't any because Hot Rod would be pulling us, not pus.h.i.+ng. And if you ask her for the thrust on Hot Rod, she hasn't got any sensors out there.

"Hm-m-m. Ask her if we have added any off-orbit velocity; and if so how much."

The computer displayed the answer almost as soon as she received the question.

"Well," said Mike, "that's not too large a hole. Ask her how ... let's see ... how many pounds of thrust that velocity represents. That way we don't confuse her with whether it's push or pull."

The Cow displayed the answer, six hundred forty pounds of thrust.

"O.K.," said Mike. "Thanks." Then to the captain and the scientist and Security officer who were waiting beside him: "The puncture is obviously small enough to serve as a jet, rather than to have let the nitrogen out in one _whoosh_, since that would have given you far more than six hundred forty pounds of thrust. Therefore, it will probably be quite simple to patch the hole.

"Nitrogen is obviously escaping, but it wouldn't be worth a man's life to send him out into that flare-storm to patch it. We may even have enough nitrogen aboard to replace what we lose.

"The best I can figure," he said, "is that the meteor must have hit the orientation servos and thrown them off for a bit. We'll have to wait till after the flare to make more than an educated guess, though.

"We shouldn't be too far off-orbit by the time the flare's over, either, even with that jet constant. It'll take quite a bit of work, but we should be able to get her back into position with not too many hours of lost worktime.

"Except for Thule, I'd say we got off fairly light.

"Yes," he added grimly, "it looks like that's what your saboteur was.

Rather an effective saboteur, but you'll have a hard time putting him up against a firing wall."

Having satisfied himself as to existing conditions, Mike excused himself shortly and went back to the engineering quarters, but his mind was no longer on Is.h.i.+e's strange device. He glanced rapidly at the instruments regulating the power flow to the wheel, then stretched out comfortably on the acceleration couch and in minutes was asleep.

The captain, Dr. Johnston and Chauvenseer remained on the bridge another hour, convincing themselves that Mike's a.n.a.lysis was correct, and dictating a report to Earth, before the captain called in an aide to take over the bridge, and the three retired.

In the morgue, Dr. Y Chi Tung, who still slept peacefully as he had since the moment he reached his hammock, muttered quietly in his sleep, "Confusion--"

Mike snapped awake and glanced guiltily at the clock. Six hours had pa.s.sed.

A situation report from the Cow was the first thing on his agenda any time that he had been out of contact for any length of time, flare or not.

It was not his job to be in constant contact with the complete situation of the s.h.i.+p and its vast complexities; he was not the captain. Nor was it in the manuals that he should have access to the computer's huge memory banks and abilities other than through "channels"--i.e., Bessie. But the book definition of the information he needed for his job, and his own criteria, were somewhat different, and he had built on Earth and installed shortly after he came aboard, a subcontrol link which put him in direct contact with the placid-Cow.

His original intention in rigging the link had been to use the calculator for that occasional math problem which might be more quickly resolved with her help; but then the criteria of needed information, curiosity, or both, had got the better of him, and the secret panel hidden in the legitimate control panels of an engineer's console was actually quite a complete link, covering all of the Cow's multiple functions without interfering in any was with Bessie's control links, or revealing its existence. This linkage gave Mike the only direct access to the computer's store of information and abilities other than that of the operator at the control console.

And Mike's secret pride was the vocoder circuit with which he had terminated his link, originated because a teletype system similar to that used at the control console would have been too obvious; and his nimble fingers got all tangled up on a keyboard anyhow.

Bessie might speak to the Cow through the teletype link and switches of her control console, but only Mike had the distinction of being able to speak directly to the big computer, and get the complacent, somewhat mooing answers; and only Mike knew of the existence of the vocoder aboard.

It had taken some care to get used to the literal-minded conversation that resulted; but eventually Mike felt he had worked out a satisfactory communications ability with the overly obvious "cow."