The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology Part 74

Yeah, six months to do nothing but sit and wait and watch for the blowup that might come, to tell him he was the last o his kind. Six months with nothing but a squeaking burble for conversation, except for the radar news.

He flipped it on again with an impatient slap of his hand, then reached to cut it off. But words were already coming out: ". . . Foundation will dedicate a plaque today to young Dave Mannen, the little man with more courage than most big men can hold. Andrew Buller, backer of the ill-fated Mars Rocket, will be on hand to pay tribute--" Dave kicked the slush off with his foot. They would bother with plaques at a time like this, when all he'd ever wanted was the right number of marks on United States currency. He snapped at the dials, twisting them, and grabbed for the automatic key as more circuits coupled in.

"Tell Andrew Buller and the whole Foundation to go--" n.o.body'd hear his Morse at this late stage, but at least it felt good. He tried it again, this time with some Anglo-Saxon adjectives thrown in.

Queekle came over to investigate the new sounds, and squeaked doubtfully.

Dave dropped the key.

"Just human nonsense, Queekle. We also kick chairs when we b.u.mp into--"

"Mannen!" The radar barked it out at him. "Thank G.o.d, you got your radar fixed. This is Buller--been waiting here a week and more now. Never did believe all that folderol about it being impossible for it to be the radar at fault. oOf, your message still coming in and I'm getting the typescript.

Good thing there's no FCC out there. Know just how you feel, though.

Darned fools here. Always said they should have another rocket ready.

Look, if your set is bad, don't waste it, just tell me how long you can hold out, and by Harry, we'll get another s.h.i.+p built and up there. How are you, what--" He went on, his words piling up on each other as Dave went through a mixture of reactions that shouldn't have fitted any human situation. But he knew better than to build up hope. Even six months wasn't long enough--took time to finish and test a rocket--more than he had. Air was fine, but men needed food, as well.

He hit the key again. "Two weeks' air in tanks. Staying with Martian farmer of doubtful intelligence, but his air too thin, pumps no good."

The last he let fade out, ending with an abrupt cut-off of power.

There was no sense in their sending out fools in half-built s.h.i.+ps to try to rescue him. He wasn't a kid in an airplane, crying at the mess he was in, and he didn't intend to act like one. That farmer business would give them enough to chew on; they had their money's worth, and that was that.

He wasn't quite prepared for the news that came over the radar later-particularly for the things he'd been quoted as saying. For the first time it occurred to him that the other pilot, sailing off beyond Mars to die, might have said things a little different from the clicks of Morse they had broadcast. Dave tried to figure the original version of "Don't give up the s.h.i.+p" as a sailor might give it, and chuckled.

And at least the speculation over their official version of his Martian farmer helped to kill the boredom. In another week at the most, there'd be an end to that, too, and he'd be back out of the news. Then there'd be more long days and nights to fill somehow, before his time ran out. But for the moment, he could enjoy the antics of nearly three billion people who got more excited over one man in trouble on Mars than they would have out of half the population starving to death.

He set the radar back on the Foundation wave length, but there was nothing there; Buller had finally run down, and not yet got his breath back.

Finally, he turned back to the general broadcast on the Lunar signal.

It was remarkable how Man's progress had leaped ahead by decades, along with his pomposity, just because an insignificant midget was still alive on Mars. They couldn't have discovered a prettier set of half-truths about anybody than they had from the crumbs of facts he hadn't even known existed concerning his life.

Then he sobered. That was the man on the street's reaction. But the diplomats, like the tides, waited on no man. And his life made no difference to a lithium bomb. He was still going through a counter-reaction when Queekle insisted it was bedtime and persuaded him to leave the radar.

After all, not a single thing had been accomplished by his fool message.

But he snapped back to the messages as a new voice came on: "And here's a late flash from the United Nations headquarters. Russia has just volunteered the use of a completed rockets.h.i.+p for the rescue of David Mannen on Mars, and we've accepted the offer. The Russian delegation is still being cheered on the floor! Here are the details we now have.

This will be a one-way trip, radar guided by a new bomb control method--no, here's more news! It will be guided by radar and an automatic searching head that will put it down within a mile of Mannen's s.h.i.+p. Unmanned, it can take tremendous acceleration, and reach Mannen before another week is out!

United Technical Foundation is even now trying to contact Mannen through a hookup to the big government high-frequency labs where a new type of receiver--" It was almost eight minutes before Buller's voice came in, evidently while the man was still getting Dave's hurried message off the tape. "Mannen, you're coming in fine. O.K., those refractories--they'll be on the way to Moscow in six hours, some new type the scientists here worked out after you left. We'll send two sets this time to be sure, but they test almost twenty times as good as the others. We're still in contact with Moscow, and some details are still being worked on, but we're equipping their s.h.i.+p with the same type of refractories. Most of the other supplies will come straight from them--" Dave nodded. And there'd be a lot of things he'd need--he'd see to that.

Things that would be supplied straight from them. Right now, everything was milk and honey, and all nations were being the fool pilots rescuing the kid in the plane, suddenly bowled over by interplanetary success. But they'd need plenty later on to keep their diplomats busy--something to wrangle over and blow off steam that would be vented on important things, otherwise.

Well, the planets wouldn't be important to any nation for a long time, but they were spectacular enough. And just how was a planet claimed, if the man who landed was taken off in a s.h.i.+p that was a mixture of the work of two countries?

Maybe his theories were all wet, but there was no harm in the gamble.

And even if the worst happened, all this might hold off the trouble long enough for colonies. Mars was still a stinking world, but it could support life if it had to.

"Queekle," he said slowly, "you're going to be the first Martian amba.s.sador to Earth. But first, how about a little side trip to Venus on the way back, instead of going direct? That ought to drive them crazy, and tangle up their interplanetary rights a little more. Well?

On to Venus, or direct home to Earth?"

"Queeklrle," the Martian creature answered. It wasn't too clear, but it was obviously a lot more like a two-syllable word.

Dave nodded. "Right! Venus."

The sky was still filled with the nasty little stars he'd seen the first night on Mars, but he grinned now as he looked up, before reaching for the key again. He wouldn't have to laugh at big men, after all. He could look up at the sky and laugh at every star in it.

It shouldn't be long before those snickering stars had a surprise coming to them.

First Published: 1950

METEOR

by William T. Powers

TOBIAS HENDERSON, MASTER OF THE BRITISH FREIGHTER, BRONSON, was relaxing at tea. The Callisto-Mars run was long and dull, but Tobias knew how to be comfortable. In fact, getting comfortable was the one thing at which Tobias was better than average.

He had to be. Freight and Martian sauces had combined their effects to make him the third largest item on the Bronson, and one might have debated the advantage held by the computer-detector.

For reasons other than jealousy, Tobias hated the computer. The main drive might flatten him somewhat on take-off and landing, but the computer had been known to s.n.a.t.c.h the Bronson from under its master's feet, causing him to misname countless safety-engineers, just to avoid some pebble. Today, as usual, Tobias squinted at the computer before he injected his cream into the tea bag. Promptly, a red light popped on.

"Coward!" Tobias muttered. "It won't come within a hundred miles!"

The red light went out. Tobias creased his face in brief triumph, then pulled the stopper out of the tea bag and inserted a straw, an uncivilized process made necessary by free-flight. The red light popped on again. Hopefully, Tobias ignored it.

Something clicked rapidly in the bulkhead where the monster was hidden; Tobias sighed and braced himself for the recoil of the blasters.

Unfortunately, a grip on the desk was not enough to save him. The Bronson shuddered sideways, skittering out of its...o...b..t to let something too big to blast go by. Tobias, unable to express himself, oscillated to a stop in his triple harness and glared in black silence at the globules of tea quivering off the bulkheads. After a suitable pause, the computer went ahem and slid a card out where Tobias could see it.

The lettering was red.

The meteor was out of sight of the Bronson in a few seconds, plunging on toward the orbit of Mars, aimed a little above the Orion nebula.

This , i 11, was a fast meteor from outside the system, nearly zero Kelvin, six miles across. One fiat side might have been a plain at one time; the other surfaces were harsh and jagged, signs of a cataclysm. The sun lit an exposed stratum, picking out the fossil of an ancient tree.

Thirty miles a second the meteor traveled. In twenty-four hours, it would have gone the twenty-five hundred kilomiles separating it from the orbit of Mars. The intersection point was no more than a thousand miles from the place where Mars' advancing limb would be tomorrow.

Phil Brownyard dropped a penny in the You-Vu-It just in time to see a screenful of little bright spots fade to a shot of an announcer.

"There you have it, folks. Danvers came up from the sixth quad at well over three miles per second, just in time to avert a scoring play by Syverson and Phelps. His s.h.i.+p snagged the Mark into free territory, but he couldn't turn fast enough to keep in-bounds. That, of course, ended the period. Now a word from--" Phil reached out for a switch, but the commercial droned on. Frustrated, he grumbled and pushed his dessert away. He had a grudge against the game of Ten-Mark that included its sponsors. The pilots who played had a rugged, exciting life, full of pretty girls, big money, and sudden death. Two years were all a man could stand of the screaming accelerations and close shaves, but those two years--! Phil shoved his chair back and headed for the elevators. Pus.h.i.+ng his way to the expresses, he glimpsed Fred Holland from Computing coming around the comer; he stood in the doorway of the car until Fred caught up.

"Hi, Phil!" Fred grinned. "Have a cigar!"

"Boy?"

"Yep." Fred grabbed for the handrail as the car shot up the shaft.

"Twenty minutes ago. Aggie just vised me and everything's all right."

"Tell Aggie Claire will be over tonight to help out."

"Thanks. She could use some help. Well ... so long. Wait, your cigar!" Fred thrust a couple at Phil and hopped out the door. The car lifted swiftly and Phil pushed the buzzer.

"Six-forty." The operator snapped as the door whipped open. Phil stepped out, ducking a little as a monorail messenger-car rushed by overhead. He pushed through the door marked Safety, waving h.e.l.lo to Doris, and went into the office.

Run, run, run, he thought. Am I glad I'm not in Public relations! The swivel chair was big and soft, so he relaxed and pulled out a cigar.

Behind him, monstrous New York City stretched. The six hundred fortieth story of the Government Building overlooked the city from half a mile above the top pa.s.senger levels; sixty miles from Phil's window the lights of the North Highway glowed steadily.

Ten thousand square miles, eighteen million people, a vast system of conveyors, highways, terminals; a billion dollars worth of trade every day.

New York City, 2055.

The periphery was lined with homes that spewed hordes of commuters every eight hours. Past neat factories and a few local airports the subways sped, the crowded tunnels boring into the deepening pile of the city. Above them mounted in higher and higher tiers interlocking roadways, flat, sinuous conveyer-housings, office buildings and freight terminals climbing over each other. The hum of the city deepened to a growl, grew to a rumble, swelled into thunder; the sound drifted up past the levels, picking up the zum of tires and the crowd-babble. The sound filtered around steel and stone and hung among the upthrust skysc.r.a.pers, fading at last into the dark upper air.

On the tip of every spire were thick-limbed UHF arrays pouring out power to the stars. The million kilowatt beams swept steadily through the sky, balancing on the rotating earth, hurling their messages through the system of planets.

Back through the Heaviside Layer, feeble signals returned, to be gathered and sorted by the city's robot brains.

In a corner of the government computing room, a silent coder came to life.

A card hopped into one of its racks, and the machine buzzed briefly.

The card, punched and stamped, slid quickly into the works of the nearest idle router.

Plate voltage flashed briefly, and the monster decided to send the card to Safety. Along a hidden wall the card sped, up one floor and into another router that punched it twice and sent it to Spatial Debris.

At the first sign of life from the next stage, a signal was shot down five stories to Computing, where the termination of phase one was recorded on microfilm.

Phase two began. Electronic fingers probed the card and withdrew. A rudimentary brain thought a moment, and a little set of thumbs descended to press the card, embossing on it the co-ordinates of an orbit. The card jumped ahead ten inches and a metal stamp jolted it.

A pneumatic tube flipped open and the last machine capsuled the card, which now bore one red edge and the admonition, "DANGER." The card whistled up five stories and thumped to a stop by Phil's left elbow.

Phil looked indecisively at the ash on his cigar, then flipped it off and ground out the stub. He reached for the capsule, tingled a bit when he saw the red edge.

A print-send writer stood to the left of the desk; Phil inserted the card and the machine began to clatter. A strip of tape inched out.

"Meteor. A-2 to B-s. 27-32 mps. det. 2994663.6033. Coord.

270.665-160332 x 103 --710.4 Dir.Cos. 0.000355,-0 554639 29 358 mps The rough equation of an hyperbolic orbit followed. Phil went to the lucite plan-map of the minor planets and began to plot points. Four points fed into the Curvator sufficed; an arm descended over the chart and began to trace a heavy black line, jogging at equal-time intervals.

The tip of the arm approached the orbit of Mars, intersecting it just as the red spot designating Mars moved into its path. The Curvator, having reached the limit of its accuracy, stopped and flashed an orange light that meant "possible collision."

That meant that the meteor would miss the planet by no more than eight thousand miles, if at all. Phil was by now totally alert. The probable ma.s.s of the meteor was twelve billion tons, its velocity thirty miles per second. Only the heaviest of equipment would be capable of breaking it up and diverting the pieces into the sun. Were it to strike Mars, it would pick up another three miles per second before it hit, then it would release the equivalent of five billion kilowatt-hours of energy in a fraction of a second. A large piece of Martian vicinity could be vaporized.

Another card called Phil back to his desk; he gave it a quick glance and filed it. Now there was work to be done; Mars had to be warned, although New Pitt undoubtedly had received the report.

A quick call to Computing set Fred Holland to work on the exact orbit, and Phil turned to the chart again. The markers on the orbit showed that about twenty-two hours remained--New Pitt, on Mars, would pick up the meteor in roughly an hour. Phil sent a copy of the orbit out to Doris, with instructions to get it on the emergency circuit to Mars.

The preliminaries over, Phil sat behind his desk and began to have his customary regrets. Whenever a big rock struck the s.p.a.ce lanes, Phil wondered what he was doing here. Whenever the rock was really big, the chief of SD slashed the arteries of the Solar System with efficiency and finality. The advent of robot freighters had made the job easier, but still each day's ban cost somebody millions. Phil bit his lip and lit another cigar. The responsibility of his office was not to save millions, but to save lives.

The minute hand crept forward, timing the flight of his message. In just seventeen minutes from the time Phil gave Doris the message, acknowledgment arrived. Doris brought in the s.p.a.cegram personally.

496 William T. Powers "Mr. Brownyard--" She hesitated at the door.

"Good, they didn't waste any time." Phil reached out and Doris came up to him with the message.

"Mr. Brownyard, can I ask something?"

Phil looked up blankly from the s.p.a.cegram. "Huh? Oh, sure. What?"

"Well ... my boy friend is on the North America. I wondered if you could tell me--" She stopped. It was strictly against the rules to give any advance information.

Phil hesitated. The s.p.a.cegram said that the route outbound from Mars had been changed, and nothing more.

"I'd like to help," he said, "but I'm afraid we don't know the situation yet about the Earth-Mars route. Don't worry, though. We don't miss on these big ones."

Twenty-one hours later, he was staring at another s.p.a.cegram, remembering his comforting words of the day before. The heading was EMERGENcY; the s.p.a.cegram was direct from the Stag Head detector station.

METEOR 842M2055 OUT OF CONTACT. EAST STATION INOPERATIVE, STAG HEAD STATION HORIZONED. LAST ACCURATE ORBITPhil dropped the s.p.a.cegram and looked back at the chart on the desk. The red line of the meteor's...o...b..t made a shallow curve that missed the planet by a scant eighty miles. Arcing outward from Mars, the line was dotted.

From there on, it was guesswork. Atmospheric drag and the proximity of Deimos combined to make the uncertainty in the orbit dangerous.

Phil buzzed Fred Holland and reached for the standard route-cancellation form. Forcing all misgivings out of his mind, he printed carefully the necessary information and orders.

The Earth-Mars route had to be cut. From now until SD said all clear, no s.h.i.+p would run in these lanes, or anywhere within a spreading truncated cone that represented the danger volume. No s.h.i.+p would move between Earth and Mars except by the long expensive detour out of the ecliptic. Phil sent the form out to Doris, glad to get it out of sight. As an afterthought, he buzzed her.

"You don't need to worry about your boy friend. He's taking the long way around."

"Thanks a lot, Mr. Brownyard. I guess I won't get his wire for a couple of days, then." She let him break the connection.

Phil paid no attention to her last words for a moment; then the implication sank in. "A couple of days--?" That could mean the North America was nearing the danger volume. He began to check.

"Terran Lines? Spatial Debris calling. Message number, July 3357-563.