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Title: Redevelopment

Author: Wesley Long

Release Date: June 16, 2022 [eBook #68329]

Language: English

Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
             Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REDEVELOPMENT ***





                             Redevelopment

                            By WESLEY LONG

                        Illustrated by Williams

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Astounding Science-Fiction, November 1944.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


John McBride hung the phone on the hook and wiped his face. This
face-wiping was not the usual gesture of a man whose face is dirty, or
covered with perspiration. It was the dazed sort of gesture made by a
man who has just been subjected to a surprise, and since the wiping
tended to remove the awed look, replacing it with a slightly dazed
smile, the surprise must not have been too unpleasant.

He shook his head, as though to clear it, and then made his way through
Station 1 of the Plutonian Lens to the landing platform. Just inside
the gigantic lock, a medium-sized space-ship stood, and sitting on the
edge of the space lock, swinging her feet, was Sandra Drake.

"Hello," she said brightly.

"Hi," said John. This was entirely new. Sandra Drake was not usually
given to greeting men as anything but absolute imbeciles. "What brings
you out here? And how did you make it?"

"Oh," said Sandra lightly, "I remembered the charge on Station 1 and
brought along a charge-compensator. We hardly sparked when we lit."

One of the attendants said, in a low aside: "About three hundred
amperes! She'd call a major explosion a snap of the fingers! You could
hide an egg in the crater she made."

But Sandra was still talking. "John," she said in a voice that would
have caused Shylock to give her his last gold piece, "I want help."

"You need help? What can we do for you?"

"It's pretty big," warned Sandra. Her low contralto dared him to ask
what it was--and also dared him to deny it to her.

"Look, Drake, you did us a favor not too long ago. I think we owe you
one."

Sandra smiled uncertainly. "I was afraid that that little stunt was
only repaying you for the first meeting we had."

"Shucks," said McBride. "Anyone can make a mistake. Forget it."

"But being pilot for you on the _Haywire Queen_ did me a lot of good,
too, you know. I got my license back for that one. We both gained."

"I know. I'm glad we did. But what can you possibly want that is so big
that you're afraid to ask?"

"Well, and maybe it isn't too big, either. Steve is a friend of both of
us, isn't he? I'd do anything for Steve--and wouldn't you?"

"Yes. If any favors are owing, I think it is both of us to him."

"That's what I'm getting at. I need help--for Steve."

"You sure go a long way around to get it," grinned McBride. "Why didn't
you tell me that first instead of warning me about a favor?"

"It's pretty big. But look, John, Steve took the _Haywire Queen_ on a
run to Sirius more than six weeks ago. He took along enough stuff to
stay a week; he said he'd be back after one hundred and seventy hours
of stay at, on, or near Sirius. This was just a trial hop to try the
new drive you cooked up and a longer, better equipped expedition would
be made later."

"He did say something about it the last I saw him. He said he wasn't
particularly interested in exploring a new system. He'd leave that for
the explorers. He was interested in the drive and so on, and after he'd
paved the way for getting to the stars and had proven his drive, he'd
turn it over to those interested in colonization. But six weeks ago,
you say? Gosh, that's a long overstay, isn't it?"

"It is. I happen to know he didn't take more supplies than he needed.
So I'm worried about him."

"And where do I come in? You want me to go and help you look for him?"

Sandra smiled wanly. "Hardly. I'm sure Enid would enjoy that, too. No,
John, what I want is for you to hook up the stuff I've got in the _Lady
Luck_ to make me one of those drives you invented so that I can go
myself."

"You're taking a chance, you know."

"That's where the favor part comes in. I want to go and look for Steve
Hammond. I need your drive. And if you don't help me, I'll go out in
space and tinker with the junk until I get it. I was there when you
cooked it up, remember, and I have a good memory for details."

"But it's dangerous."

"Is it? 'Might be dangerous' is what you mean. And I've been taking
harebrained chances for a long time, now. Do I or don't I?"

McBride thought for a long time. "You get it," he said at last. "On one
condition. That you return in not less than one month. If you do not,
I'm going to take it upon myself to follow. So no matter what you find,
get back. Is that a promise?"

"It is."

"O.K., Sandra." McBride went to the wall of the big lock and spoke
over the communicator. "Tommy! Get Al and Westy and tell 'em to bring
their tools to the landing lock. We're going to juggle a few generators
around."

To Sandra, he said: "I hope you've got plenty of what it takes."

"I have," she said, sensing his meaning. "Matter of fact, I've got the
latest thing in alphatrons--two of 'em. And all the E-grav generators
we'll need are all tacked into what I think are the right places to
make this crate into a super-speed job. There are spares for all three
fields, and a couple of spare cupralum bars, too. Even part of the
wiring is done. I got just so far and then realized that I don't know
too much about gravitics. That's when I decided to come here for help."

"Good thing," said McBride. "You might have killed yourself."

Sandra didn't answer, and at that moment, McBride's men came with their
tools. Wordlessly, they nodded to Sandra and then followed McBride into
the _Lady Luck_.

       *       *       *       *       *

McBride wasted no time. "Al," he said, "you fit the mag-G for vertical
bi-lobar field to cover the nose of the crate with the top lobe, and
Westy, you see that the mech-G generator in the nose induces the proper
vectors in the cupralum bar. I'll get Hank and Jim to touch up the
wiring and safety devices. We'll have this crate back in space within
the hour!"

"Working a little fast, aren't you?" asked Sandra.

"No. I don't think so. You've got most of the main stuff in place. It's
merely a matter of running the alphatron lines correctly--remember,
Sandra, alphons are not electrons and even low-alphon lines require
smooth, round bends, otherwise they squirt off in a crackling alphonic
discharge that will eat the side out of a steel tank. You've done most
of the heavy work. It just requires touching up here and there: getting
the proper field-intensity out of the gravitic generators and adjusting
the output of the alphatrons. Then there is some tricky relay work with
the safety circuits: it wouldn't improve your beauty to suddenly find
yourself sitting in the pilot's chair at seven thousand gravities."

Sandra shuddered.

"Oh, and look, since you've got the compensator. You'll find a
static-charge meter handy, perhaps. If there are planets around Sirius,
who knows what their intrinsic charge is. We'll loan you one so that
you can make planet without making a corona at the same time. Rarefied
air makes pretty lights when it comes under a few trillion volts--and
being a cathode is no worse than being an anode when your voltage is
running up into a bushel of zeroes--either is equally disconcerting.
How do you intend to spot any planets?"

"I've got a pair of hemisphere lenses. I'll sail through the Sirian sky
at about forty thousand miles per second and expose for ten minutes.
The stars will still appear as spots, but anything close enough to be
planet-wise will make streaks unless it is dead ahead.

"In which case you'll see it personally," grinned McBride. "That's the
best stunt I've heard of yet to find planets."

"It isn't new. They used it to see if there were any planets outside
of Pluto several years ago, though they exposed for several hours while
running at ten or fifteen thousand. Steve has a pair of hemis with him,
too."

Al came trudging in with a roll of alphon cable over his shoulder and
dropped it on the floor. "She's in--my end, anyway."

"Running already?"

"On test power. Drake had the bi-lobar field almost on the ball. Westy
found about the same thing. I think another couple of days and Drake
wouldn't have needed help."

"I couldn't make it work," complained Sandra.

"Well, you missed a few minor points," said Al. "Never, never run
alphon lines anywhere near a relay rack. It induces crosscurrents
in the windings and either makes 'em more sensitive or almost dead,
depending on the polarity. It won't hurt AC relays, but they aren't
used too much on a space-ship, so it's best to play safe."

"I'll remember that, too," Sandra promised him.

"O.K."

       *       *       *       *       *

And so an hour passed, and another one added to it before the _Lady
Luck_ was fitted for super drive. It was finished, then, and Sandra
Drake was more than voluble in her thanks.

"Never mind the thanks," said McBride, "or we'll be into that original
wrangle as to who owes who what kind of a favor. Where we sit out here
in the lens, favors are not weighted and set down as an asset. Forget
it. G'wan out there and get Steve Hammond--and do not forget for one
minute I'm coming after you if you're gone more than thirty days. Seven
hundred and twenty hours! Get me?"

"Sure thing," said Drake. "And, John, you're pretty swell."

"Nuts!"

"All right, 'Nuts!' But some day I'm going to settle down and be a good
girl, and then you can believe me."

"That, I'll believe when I see it. Go on, Sandra, go out and get Steve."

"I'll get Steve," promised Sandra. "Oh, but definitely."

"Well, good luck."

"Thanks."

The space lock closed, and the men retreated inside of the Station's
air lock. The gigantic doors swung open, letting a huge puff of air out
into space. Then the _Lady Luck_ lifted gracefully for all of her tons
of mass, and wafted out through the opened door. It was a dead-center
passage, one that could be made only with a master pilot running the
board personally.

Then she was gone. Halfway around the lens she would have to go
before Sirius came into a safe line of flight. Sandra was taking no
more chances on contacting the surface of that mighty space-warp that
focused Sol on Pluto.

McBride wondered: _Has Sandra learned her lesson?_

       *       *       *       *       *

One week passed. One week, filled to the very brim with all of those
routine things that make life full of wonder--as to whether there
isn't something better in the hereafter. The sheer millions of miles
of gravitic-induced space-warp refracted Sol's light endlessly and
perfectly to make for Pluto a synthetic sun that sported a dozen
darting points. On Pluto, men lived and worked and pursued happiness,
and the valuable ore came up from the ground in the Styx Valley and
created the need for Pluto and the lens. Over Mephisto, the smelters
cast their glow against the sky, which the inhabitants of Hell always
called "The Eternal Fire." Across the River Styx from Hell, Sharon lay
like a city of marble by day and a string of pearls by night.

Nor was Hell, as seen from Sharon, any less beautiful. The twin cities
of Pluto, rivals in everything, fought as usual. And the bone of
contention for that particular week was a simple, age-old epithet. It
is a sorry fact that with the entire solar system running as it always
did, Sharon and Hell found it possible to make the headlines of all the
cities of the system by their arguments.

Sharon lost. Hell succeeded in bringing to mind the fact that Hell,
Pluto, was a fine place to be, and the poor citizens of Sharon were
forced into second consideration. But then, Sharon had not been a
running business for centuries.

_Go to Sharon!_ had no familiar ring.

But the Road to Hell was a broad highway.

McBride looked up as the door to his office opened, and his jaw fell
away down to here. He blinked. He looked again, and then jumped to his
feet. "She found you!" he said.

"Who found who?" asked Steve Hammond. "Has that dame--?"

"Drake? Yep. She came here and we fixed that drive for her. She's
changed, Steve. Even I can see it."

"So she was here?"

"You bet. Sandra has changed."

"Has she?"

"Why, Steve, she was actually worried about you. Near frantic."

"Was she?"

"She may have concealed it from you. After all, she's been a pretty
hard-boiled girl and the change is a little abrupt. She's probably
concealing her real feelings."

"Would she?"

"Probably. After all she's said about men in general, she's probably
fighting an internal battle. But she let it go right here."

"Did she?"

"Did she! Why, she tried to hook up the super drive herself, and
when it didn't work, she came here for help. I'd say she was really
interested in finding you. Going out of her way to help you, Steve, is
quite a difference from the Sandra as I know her."

"Do you?"

"Say! What is the matter with you? 'Has she?' 'Was she?' 'Would she?'
'Did she?' is that the best you can do?"

"Look, John, how long ago was that?"

"About a week or so."

"What did she do, exactly."

"She came here and told us that you've been a month or six weeks
overdue on that trip to Sirius. She wanted the drive fixed so that she
could go out and look for you. I offered to go along, but she said no.
So we fixed her drive and she took off like the devil was in her hair."

"Mac, you're a sucker!"

"Oh, now look--"

"So she's changed, has she? Full of remorse. Sputtering like a leaky
alphatron field because she was hamstrung without a drive. Her heart
was reeking with love for me, and she wanted, if she couldn't have me,
to go out into the deep, unknown void of interstellar space and die
where I had died, so we could be together in that last, long resting
place."

"What are--"

"So John, please, for the small help I was to you, and for the love of
Steve that lies within both of us, give me the drive so that I may go
forth and seek he whom I crave. I want so little, John, and Steve is
such a fine fellow--"

"Say! Have I been took?"

"The proper word is 'Taken' and the answer is in the affirmative."

"I'll be damned."

"You probably will," smiled Hammond. "Mac, all that dame wanted was to
be the first human being to set foot on another, extra-solarian planet!
She wanted to be known as the first person to ever seek another star."

"I take it that you haven't been further than a long stone's throw?"

"Shucks. I haven't even been out to the Los Angeles city limits."

"Darn her hide!"

"Yeah. I've been looking for her--and I'm as big a dope as you. I
wanted to offer her the chance to pilot the _Haywire Queen_ out there.
I couldn't find her in the inner system and so I was going to take a
squint at Pluto. I stopped off to ask if you'd care to take the run
with me."

"You know I would."

"Well, that takes care of both answers. Drake is on her way--shucks,
she's there already--and the second part is you--and you want to go."

"I'll ask Enid," said McBride. "Come on, we'll go right down and see
her now."

       *       *       *       *       *

Enid McBride smiled. "His asking me is a matter of form," she told
Hammond. "Naturally he'll go. I think it will be swell for him to go.
He needs a vacation anyway."

"But--"

"No buts. You'll go and like it. I wouldn't want you to miss anything
like this for the world."

"How about you?"

Enid smiled again. "I'm no pioneer type, John. You know that. I'd be
out of place--and what would John Junior do? Oh, we could leave him
with Anna, if I wanted to go, but somehow this is as far as I care to
get from home--my folk's home, I mean. It's funny how after seven years
a woman still speaks of her parents' home as her home in spite of the
fact that she has a home and family of her own."

"What'll you do?"

"I'm going to take this opportunity to go home--my parents' home, I
mean. You see, Steve, Dad and John talk different languages. Dad is a
metal broker on Pluto. The only reason why he tolerated John at all was
because John's lens kept Dad in business. Dad wouldn't know a cupralum
pig from an acceleration cushion, though he deals in a million tons
of the stuff every year. It's all on paper. On the other hand, John
wouldn't know how to sell the stuff, but he sure can make it do tricks.
So they sit and glare at one another and each one wonders how the other
makes a living. Dad's money is obvious, and John's success is equally
well-known, but how and why are lost on each other.

"So I keep 'em as far apart as I can."

"I get it," smiled Hammond. "Pretty bad, hey?"

Enid laughed, "This ring is pure iridium. Dad was horrified because
he first thought that iridium was radioactive like radium and that
I'd get burned or worse. Then he found out it wasn't--and offered to
buy a real, honest-to-goodness platinum ring if John couldn't afford
it. Then he discovered that iridium is so rare that they do not have
a market price per gram and that was all right, but he also confused
it with iodine, and worried about its chemical action on my hand. Poor
Dad still is not sure about it, so he has to inspect it every time he
sees it to ascertain whether or not it is turning green, or my finger
is falling off, or that it hasn't sublimed and disappeared. You can't
detect the wearing, so Dad then accuses John of either buying a new one
every time I come home or making me keep it in a safe while I'm here."

"Cupralum, to Enid's father, is something that he shunts around by
signing papers and which, if he shunts fast enough, will increase his
bank account, though if the other guy shunts faster, will cause him no
end of deficit. Space, to him, is something that you can't breathe, and
the stars are little bits of brightness that twinkle on a clear night.
Oh, we get along," smiled McBride. "After all, he's Grandpa now, and
John Junior is likely to get a slab of Cupralum. Preferred, for his
birthday. The kid'll prefer something he can chew on, I'll bet."

"So that's neither here nor there," said Enid. "You take your space
hop, and I'll take Little Johnny to Pluto to see his grandparents.
Frankly, Steve, I've been wondering just what excuse I could use to run
off alone for a month. This makes it perfect."

"We'll stop at Hell on the way back and pick you up," said McBride.

"Fine. How soon are you leaving?"

Hammond said: "Anytime he's ready. How soon can you cut loose from the
lens, John?"

"Give me an hour to get things cleaned up and I'll be on the beam."

"Right."

"I'll pack you a bag," said Enid. "Have any preferences?"

"Shirts, shoes, socks, and shaving kit, mostly."

"Want your dinner clothing?"

"Oh sure. And pack my swimming suit, too. Also my tennis racket, and
see that the golf bag has plenty of spare balls. Have Timmy wax the
skis and sharpen my skates, and I'll also take along the shotgun, a pup
tent, the oil stove, a fur coat, a quart of whiskey, six lemons, an
orange, a lime, and a bottle of Angostura. Might pack me a light lunch,
too."

"Don't bother, Enid. We've got most of that stuff with us," laughed
Hammond.

"All right," chuckled Enid. "He'll get one shirt and a bar of soap;
one pair of socks, and a bar of soap; and so on--with a bar of soap.
Well, keep 'em coasting, Steve, and see that he doesn't run off with
any red-headed witches."

"If we see any, I'll bring 'em back for me," laughed Steve. "See you
later."

McBride was not as abrupt as he sounded. His business clean-up
consisted of dictating a letter, putting all things in the hands of
his chief assistant. The rest of the time he spent with Enid, saying
good-by. Whatever transpired, whatever they discussed, whatever plans
they made--and they must have talked of many things and made many
plans, for in spite of the familiarity of running all over the solar
system, this was a big step, indeed, since for the first time in
history, man and wife would be light-years apart--they did it well
enough in private so that their parting was simple and quick.

John kissed Enid adequately, and said: "Stay healthy."

Enid laughed and said: "Stay whole!"

And then McBride was in the _Haywire Queen_ and the air lock was
cracked. The big ship lifted gently and zipped out of the lock with a
casual disregard for distances. Unlike Drake's precision take-off, the
_Haywire Queen_ went through the open door with the air of wanting to
leave quickly because there were better things to do than worry about
hitting the center plus or minus an inch.

Enid pointed out the Dog Star to John McBride, Junior. "That's where
your daddy is going," she told him. Junior McBride was more interested
in the teething bone that he had clamped between toothless gums, than
he was in the stellar regions.

He knew his daddy would be back.

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Haywire Queen_ approached and passed the speed of light from the
hard side, and her terrific velocity dropped down to a figure that was
expressible in miles per second without running out of zeroes. Below,
and thirty degrees from the axis of the ship, Sirius and the Dark
Companion beckoned from less than a thousand million miles. The lower
dome of the ship sported the faces of the men, who were laying on their
stomachs, looking down at the splendor of the first binary ever seen
by man. Hammond mentioned it, as a matter of fact.

"How about Drake?" asked McBride.

"We're still the first _men_," returned Hammond.

"Wouldn't Drake howl to hear you say that," laughed McBride. "She's
been suffering under the fact that every time she did anything new,
she had to qualify it by saying: 'The first woman--' Well, she's got
something this time."

"Think it'll satisfy her?"

"Not until someone proves definitely that Thomas Edison, Franklin
Roosevelt, William Shakespeare, George Washington, Richard the First,
Julius Caesar, and Jack Frost were all women."

"Well, let's get the hemis working. We'll never know whether Sirius has
planets until we do. I'd hate to sit in the _Queen_ and go through all
the growing pains of looking for planets by observation."

"Yeah, that would take years. What's our velocity, Larry?"

Timkins looked at the velocimeter; squinted through the instrument
quickly, adjusting the thumb-screw; and then said: "Thirty-four
thousand and dropping at one hundred feet per second, per second, per
second."

"We can get good pix of anything close enough to the primary to support
life--also big enough, too--in about thirty minutes exposure," said
Hammond. "We'll take two shots in each direction, since I've got six
hemispherical cameras. That'll give us complete overlapping coverage
and double protection against dust streaks. Let's go. Also cut the
drive by half."

For thirty minutes the ship plunged on through the Sirian system at the
double deceleration. Then for fifteen minutes, the entire personnel
was in the darkroom, waiting for the first glimmer of the plates.
And at the time that the plates were finished, the velocity of the
_Haywire Queen_ had dropped from thirty thousand-odd miles per second
to velocities normally used in mere interplanetary travel.

The super drive was cut and the ship coasted under standard drive at
thirty feet per second, per second, acceleration, and the men hung
the plates up in the darkroom and began to inspect them for telltale
streaks.

"Here's one," said McBride. "About four hundred million miles from
Sirius."

"And another," offered Larry, plying dividers and log tables, "about
three thousand million."

"Got another," offered Hammond, "but it's doubtful as a possible
landing place. Almost ten thousand million mites from the primary. Bet
it's colder than a pawn-broker's heart."

"Couple more on my plate," said McBride. He went to the formerly empty
solar map and added the discoveries according to scale. "But that one
at four hundred million is my best bet."

"Sounds reasonable," agreed Hammond. "Sirius would support humanoid
life at that distance. Let's concentrate on it."

"Good. It's in fine position to be concentrated on. Let's see, now,
what should we be looking out for?"

"Might be seetee matter," suggested Larry.

"Good. How do we find out?"

"We don't until the last ditch. But it is the most important,
nevertheless. We wait until everything else has been disposed of and
then make for the planet. Just outside of the atmosphere we heave 'em a
rock or two and watch what happens."

"A slow moving rock?" grinned McBride.

"Doesn't really matter. If it is slow enough to keep from
friction-incandescence, fine. But the eruption made by seetee contact
is quite a bit different, spectroscopically. Also we can check the
explosion with counters. The by-products of such a bit of eruption is
full of nuclear radiations. Mere incandescence is just that and nothing
more."

"Well, that's that. We can wait. What's next?"

"Radioactivity. How much and what kind? Atmosphere. How much and what
kind? Et cetera. Also how much and what kind? Do we intend to land?"

"I don't know. After all, we came for the express purpose of trying out
our drive on an interstellar basis, you know. It can be done with ease,
neatness, and dispatch. Seems to me that a landing on one of those
planets will have to be made attractive or we won't. We're equipped
for all kinds of spacial research, power research, and so on. But
we're not equipped for much planetary investigation, exploration, or
diplomatically involved intrigue."

"Going to let Drake get away with being the only person making the
first landing on an alien star system?"

"I don't give a care what happens to Drake. She can come busting in
with the safety valve tied down if she wants to. Some day she'll
learn that sticking that pretty little snoot of hers into strange
places is a fine way to have it knocked right off of the front of her
face. We're interested in technicalities, not in getting involved
in a storybook adventure. Meanwhile, let's take it strictly on the
easy side and investigate everything from the solar radiation from
Sirius to the secondary radiation produced by Sirian radiation in the
super-stratosphere."

       *       *       *       *       *

Larry began to fiddle with the radio. There was nothing on the
electronic radio at all, and Larry said: "Well, didn't expect it,
really. No culture worthy of the name would be using radio in space.
Too inefficient. And if they got off of their planets, they'd be using
gravitics." He turned to the space radio, and covered the communication
bands of the electrogravitic spectrum, switching from band to band
quickly. Halfway across the third band, the panoramic tuner came to a
definite stop and retraced itself minutely, vacillating a bit until
the signal came in clear and clean.

"What happened to Drake?" asked Timkins. "Listen. Here she is."

The gravitic radio was calling: "--_Haywire Queen_. Calling _Haywire
Queen_. This is Sandra Drake calling the _Haywire Queen_. This is an
automatic transmission set for break-in. As soon as this call gets to
you, answer please. The answer will register here and we will be able
to make this two-way. This is Sandra Drake--"

"Uh-huh," said Hammond, turning down the gain to a reasonable level.
"Larry, shoot her an answer."

Timkins snapped on the transmitter, tuned it to the same band, and
said: "This is the _Haywire Queen_ calling Sandra Drake. _Haywire
Queen_ answering Drake. Come in, Sandra Drake. Answer."

They listened to the automatic broadcast for some minutes, and then in
the middle of a sentence--"This is Sandra Drake calling the _Haywire
Queen_--" _Click._ "Hello, fellows. Got here finally, didn't you? Glad
to have you come in. What's new?"

Hammond took the mike. "Hello, Sandra," he answered. "Nothing new.
Where are you?"

"On planet number five. That is the one that I think is somewhere about
five hundred million miles from Sirius. Know it?"

"We think so. It's dead ahead. Yeah, wait a minute. Larry has a
directional bearing on you and it is the one we're approaching. That
takes care of that."

"Well, come on in and I'll build you a cup of tea."

"You find everything all right?"

"Everything's perfect. Only thing, they would like to have someone here
that knows all about the gravitics. They're not too sharp. Frankly,
neither am I, so you're the guys who'll have to do it."

"You've been there quite a bit," said Hammond. "How's conditions?"

"Pretty good. Air is O.K., though slightly pungent in smell. The people
are very much like humans, though they have their big differences which
take them out of the human class."

"For instance?"

"Well, they are all covered with a funny kind of hair. It's a sort of
half-hair, half-feathers kind of stuff. It's as soft as a baby's scalp
and on a dog or something like that it would be beautiful. I'd like a
coat made of it, frankly."

"I'll bet they appreciate your offer to wear one of 'em for a winter
coat," said Hammond dryly. "You haven't changed a bit, have you, Drake?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Sandra. "After all, I was merely trying
to explain the beauty of their skin."

"You gave yourself away," said Steve Hammond. "Like as usual, Sandra
Drake thinks of everything in accordance with how it will couple to
her, or her name, or her reputation."

"Now, you're being hard," complained Sandra. "Give me a break, Steve.
You shouldn't take issue with me for a statement of that kind. After
all, it was just a sort of slip of the tongue. I'm not really thinking
of skinning one of them for my coat."

"If I were you," put in McBride, "I'd think hard of one other thing
that might be closer to home. D'jever think that you are in no position
to do any skin collecting? The odds are agin' it. But, Sister Drake,
those birds are! You might enhance the beauty of one of their females
some day. How would the pelt of Sandra Drake look on the living room
floor, nine light-years from Terra? Take it clean and easy, Drake, or
you might not get back to Terra with that satiny, soft, practically
flawless hide of yours intact."

"What do you mean, 'practically flawless'?" snapped Sandra.

"Well," drawled McBride, "I've never seen all of it."

"Why don't you give me the benefit of the doubt?"

"I wouldn't give you any benefit of any doubt," McBride told her.
"You're probably concealing something."

"Why--" the radio broke down into a series of liquid, spluttering
sounds as Sandra strove to keep that throaty contralto from sounding
like a fishmonger's.

"Whistle," chuckled Timkins. "Then count ten. Then let's get back to
the problem of the Sirians."

"Take it, Sandra," laughed Hammond. "We were only kidding you.
Or--can't you take it?"

The spluttering died, and then that throaty laugh came back again. It
was slightly forced and they knew it. The chances are that Sandra knew
they knew it, but she didn't want to give them any more reason for
laughter at her expense. Then she spoke, directly and honestly, both
factors due to the fact that she was sure of herself and now could
afford to laugh at them.

"Well, stop worrying about Sandra's hide," she told them. "This
gang down here are fine people except that they can't talk Terran.
They'll do anything for me that I can make them understand. That's the
trouble--getting them to understand. But that's coming. I'm teaching
them to speak Terran. That should fix things up fine."

"Why not learn to speak Sirian?" asked McBride.

"Why? Let them do the work. Learning a new language is not Drake's idea
of a year's fun."

"O.K., sister," grinned Hammond, winking at McBride. "But you'll find
out that there is something to those old adages. I'm thinking of the
one that begins: 'When in Rome, et cetera.' Those old boys used to dust
off some old saws, but there is a lot of meat on them."

"And contradictions. No, fellows, Sandra doesn't like talking in
something that sounds like a phonograph record played backwards.
Besides, these fellows have a pretty sharp capacity for understanding.
I've been here for a week or so, and already they can understand a lot
of what I say. Frankly, better than I could."

"Play it your way, then," said McBride. "But look, you say they're nice
guys?"

"Sure. When I landed, they gave me the old send-off. I was taken to
the royal house and given the prize suite. I'm given everything, as I
said before. They look upon me as the guy who'll give their world the
benefit of the Terran and Solarian scientific achievements. That's not
true, of course. It'll be fellows like yourselves who really understand
it. But nevertheless, I'm the harbinger of spring. I'm the guy who
pointed the way for the rest of Sol's children."

"The Moses in the bulrushes?"

"Sort of like. I'm just lucky, and I know it. If I'd come second, they
wouldn't pay any attention to me at all. But since I came first and
now that I'm talking to my friends, they will obviously think that
I'm calling for them to come and help them ... their world's name is
Telfu, by the way ... Telfans out of their scientific rut. They have
the glimmerings of the gravitic spectra, but it's like the difference
between the Leyden Jar and the electron microscope. It'd take a hundred
years before they got off of Telfu if we hadn't got here first."

"If they're really O.K.," said McBride, "we'll help."

"Thanks," said Sandra simply. "That'll be for me, too, you know."

"Yes?"

"Sure. They'll thank me for coming first, even though they know I'm not
the bright guy with the answers under my skull. I've got a good thing
here, and I know all of you well enough to know that you won't spoil
it."

"No?"

"Sure you won't. After all, there isn't one of you that would care a
rap for what they have to offer in the way of historic gain. The old
moola, sure; and there's plenty of it to be had for all of us. You'll
go down in their histories as the geniuses that gave them a boot in the
tail worth a hundred years of solid research. I, and I'm sure you'll
permit me, will ride in on the tail of your coat."

"O.K. Well, we'll come in. But not for long this time. After all,
we're interested in tinkering with the new drive, not making diplomatic
overtures to a bunch of aliens. We'll leave the latter for the Solarian
Government."

"How soon'll you be landing?"

"Not too sudden," said Hammond. "We're going to make a few space-checks
first. We're getting cautious in our old age."

"Shucks," said Sandra disparagingly, "there's nothing to it at all."

"Well, could be, but we'll run this show our way. There is no objection
to your leaving?"

"No. Definitely not. They'd be sorry to see me go, but it is personal
affection and the possibility for their ultimate gain that makes it so.
They wouldn't dare detain me even though they might consider it. To my
knowledge, they haven't even considered it."

"Why wouldn't they dare?" asked McBride.

"Afraid. After all, they know that both of us came from a star nine
light-years away. They haven't even got the primary drive, let alone
the third-derivative drive. Any untoward move to a Solarian would bring
the devil himself down about their ears and they know it."

"I suppose so. We could drop plenty of stuff on 'em with a half dozen
space cans. And a couple of monolobar mechano-gravitics would scramble
up the works of any fleet of stratosphere planes they could send
against us. Never gave the gravitic armament much thought, but it could
be done. O.K., Sandra, as soon as we sniff the air and check our gas
and water, we'll be in."

"I'm going back to bed, then," said Sandra. "Slip me another call
before you land and I'll have the village band out to meet you. That's
a promise."

       *       *       *       *       *

Steve Hammond turned to McBride after Sandra had clicked her
transmitter off, and said: "No use checking for seetee matter, is
there? Seems to me that Drake would have found it out the hard way."

"No, we can skip the seetee. But Drake may not worry about
radioactivity but we will. We'll check for it; I'd like for John Jr.
to have a brother or sister some day--with the proper amount of arms,
legs, fingers, toes, ears, eyes, noses--"

"What's the proper amount of noses for a son?" asked Hammond.

"One," grinned McBride.

"A kid with two noses could smell a lot," observed Timkins.

"_Phew!_" said McBride holding his nose. "That was fierce. Man the
counter and check the region for hot stuff, Larry. Looks like the
landing of LaDrake saves us a lot of work. The physical properties
of ... Telfu ... seem to be all right. So we'll go to work on the
electrical properties, the nuclear properties, and also see if there's
anything running around loose in the gravitics other than the inherent
mechanogravitic property of matter."

Larry Timkins set up a series of plungers on the control board and
locked the pre-set operations into the autopilot. "This," he said,
"will hang us on a logarithmic spiral approaching Telfu. While we're
roaming around the planet, we'll check the hot-properties of the
neighborhood. Any comment?"

"Nope. Give 'em the works."

Timkins drove the coupler button home and the _Haywire Queen_ swung
gently to follow the pre-determined course.

"You know, Steve, there's a cod-liver-oil smell about this, somewhere."

"So? What's fishy?"

"The old tub isn't behaving like a lady."

"What do you mean?"

"There's a big drop in efficiency compared to when we left the
Plutonian Lens."

"How much?"

"Not too much. But it's getting progressively worse."

"Y'don't suppose we've hit upon some saturation factor in the secondary
drive?"

"I'm not saying. What do we know about it? What does it work on?"

"Glibly speaking, it works on the inherent qualities of space. We
wrap ourselves up in a space-warp of sorts, and then shoot out
a couple of hooks that catch on to the gravitic-propagational
continuum that permits the planetary masses to exert Newton's Law of
Universal Gravitation. It has been called 'sub-ether' but that is like
multiplying with unreal numbers. After all, the 'ether' has never been
defined, isolated, explained, or held in one hand. If the prime 'ether'
has never been satisfactorily established, we shouldn't go on building
our houses on a foundation that doesn't have any sound basis."

"Both electronic and gravitic spectra must rely upon something for
propagation," objected McBride. "For lack of taking it apart, brick by
brick, and feeling each stone, let's continue to call them 'ether' and
'sub-ether.'"

"O.K., sport. But to get back to the drive. Have we got a saturation
point? Or some sort of gravitic fatigue? Either of these would be
indicated by a gradual decrease in efficiency."

"Larry, set up a sigma recorder and let's see if we can check the curve
of inefficiency. It's getting worse, you say?"

"Apparently. I didn't notice it before. But it is quite apparent now.
Must be non-linear, because if this falling-off had been linear, I
would have noticed it long before this. An increasing curve would not
be noticeable until a sufficient interval had been passed for it to
become evident. Yeah, I'll slap a sigma recorder on him and see what
makes."

"Meanwhile, let's get busy with the detectors."

The counters clicked for a few minutes, and McBride finally reported
that Telfu was no higher than Terra in radioactivity. Hammond
established the intrinsic electronic charge on Telfu as being only a
few million volts negative with respect to Terra.

"Not enough to worry about," he said. "The first touch with the
stratosphere layers will take care of that without a glimmer. Wouldn't
dare without an atmosphere, but we have plenty of air to cushion the
charge and let it leak off in the upper layers where it is ionized by
Sirius' radiations. What's with the gravitics?"

"Bit of something in the electrogravitic. Can't place it. Not enough to
worry about."

"What is it like?"

"Well, it is not E-grav radiation. It's a sort of dip, or valley, in
the radiation-pattern of this part of space. A place where the normal
density of E-grav is less."

"How much?"

"You tell me. The free-running gravitons are never high enough to do
more than flicker the finest instrument. The threshold is way, way,
way, way down in the mud. So here's a place where we have less."

"Sort of like having nothing and wanting to share it with someone?"

"Not much better. Oh well, a lack of free E-grav energy surely isn't
anything to write home about. Might be a factor of the Sirian Double.
After all, who knows what kind of effect that little, dark-red,
dense-as-hell devil will do to gravitic threshold levels."

"So it's a safe bet--"

Timkins came running in, waving a sheet of cross-ruled paper. "Hell's
bells," he yelled. "We're it! Our drive is approaching zero efficiency
as the third power of--"

       *       *       *       *       *

Above, in the working innards of the _Haywire Queen_, great circuit
breakers crashed open. Smaller switches added to the din as they
clicked open, one after the other. Pilot lights on the polished black
panel began to glow an angry red and alarm bells created such a din
that speech became almost impossible.

The drive went off.

And the men and their portable equipment left the solid floor and began
to float aimlessly across the room in midair.

Hammond clutched wildly at a spectrograph, and caught it.

"Catch!" he yelled at McBride, hurling the heavy instrument at John.

McBride folded himself over the instrument with a grunt of escaping
breath. The act did two things. It sent Hammond across the room to
the emergency panel in one direction and McBride went in the opposite
direction to the navigator's calculating machine. McBride caught the
navigator's table at the same time that Hammond caught the emergency
panel.

Steve fought with the emergency panel and succeeded in setting up about
eleven feet per second deceleration. McBride lowered the spectrograph
to the table and seated himself in the chair.

"Woah, Nellie," grunted McBride as the alarm bells ceased. "Where do we
go from here and how fast?"

"I dunno, but we're leaving both Sirius and Sol at a terrific velocity
and a deceleration of eleven feet per. From a mental calculation of
the fundamental drive at this velocity, I'd say it would take about
fourteen years to get down to a stop."

"What happened to the emergency relays?"

"They worked," said Steve dryly. "Yeah, they worked. But the
inefficiency extends to the fundamental drive, too, it seems. I'm
beginning to think that this is not inherent."

"That's a quick decision."

"Sure. But the prime drive is O.K. The meters say so. It's just
inefficient as the devil which is not true of a good drive. Holy smoke!
We're getting efficient again!"

Timkins picked himself off of the floor painfully. "Uh-huh," he
grunted. "Also, we're leaving Telfu behind at a fierce rate. Can you
keep that eleven feet prime acceleration for a bit?"

"We're going to."

"I'm going to dash madly upstairs and hang the sigma recorder on again.
Something is slippery here."

"What's our velocity at the present time?" asked McBride.

"Up in the fifteen thousand miles per second," answered Hammond.

"Hm-m-m. Then at what point with respect to Telfu did the drive go
out?"

"About a million and a half miles, roughly."

"A minute and forty seconds from spot to conjunction," mused McBride.
"If, little playmate, we can pet power again after one more minute and
thirty seconds-odd, we'll feel more or less sure that it is Telfu and
not us. Larry!" he yelled. "Any sign of upswing?"

"Yup," said Larry. "Sure thing!"

"Set the super drive up on test power with automatics to turn it on as
soon as the overload point is passed," said McBride. "We won't blow any
fuses with test power."

       *       *       *       *       *

Hammond hit the test buttons and then settled down to wait. Then the
drive cut in again, and they all slid down in their chairs.

McBride grinned. "They must not like us."

"Something must not," laughed Hammond shakily.

"Telfu?" asked Timkins entering with the last sigma curve.

"What does it say?"

"We passed through a negative peak. We hit a new low in efficiency at
conjunction with Telfu."

"How much?"

"Less than a half percent."

"Jeepers. That is a new low in gravitics. Can we think our way out of
this one?"

"Why?"

"As much as I dislike seeing Drake, I'd not force her to live on an
alien planet. I'd feel better at marooning her for a couple of years if
I knew we could go in and get her."

McBride laughed. "Got to have the last laugh, hey?"

"Meaning?"

"Marooning her wouldn't be half so much fun if it is impossible to get
her out. Marooning her when we have the means to get her out puts it
strictly in our own lap. Right?"

"I suppose so. We could laugh at her honestly then."

"She's strictly a stinker," agreed McBride. "I get that cod-liver-oil
smell now. All that soft soap and palaver she was handing out about
our being the boys with the brains. We were the guys who would
be responsible for lifting a struggling civilization up from the
primordial slime by our brain and our genius. Baloney!"

"I get it," growled Hammond. "She's stuck. God knows how she
landed--probably emergency and shot her load of battery juice. Anyway,
she could land under emergency battery, but taking off is a megawatt of
another color, battery-wise. They aren't equipped to make a take-off.
Idea being the old one--don't start if you can't stop."

"She's a bright girl in her own stinking way," said McBride. "She's
been around this gang long enough to know that if a way is possible,
we'll think of it. Oh, sure, that's a brag but we've done pretty well
so far. So inveigle us into the same trap she's in and then ride out
with us. She'd roast in the brimstone of the nether regions before
she'd wail for help honestly. But if we get stuck with her she's got
two outs. One, we may be able to think our way out. Two, at least we
are Terrans like she is."

"Meaning?" asked Hammond darkly.

"Frankly, Sandra Drake is an awful lot of woman, and she knows it.
She'd make a plaster saint turn to whistle at her if she turned on the
old charm. And with no competition, we'd be fighting one another for
the privilege of polishing her shoes."

"Fine future."

"No thanks."

"I'll have a bit of that, too. Well, how can we slip her the old
triple-cross?"

"Steve, you'd throw a woman to the lions?"

"With that woman, I'd hate to do it. The S.P.C.A, would haul me in
to court for subjecting poor, dumb, defenseless lions to cruelty and
inhuman tortures. You're darned right I'd heave her into the drink. But
I want to do it in such a way that Sandra Drake will know that it was
far from purely coincidental."

"O.K., Steve. We're with you. Larry, throw the _Haywire Queen_ into an
orbit around Telfu just outside of the danger zone and slap another
recorder on the drive. Make it a high velocity orbit, powered all the
way. We should be able to circle Telfu in about fifteen minutes with
the super drive. Check?"

"Sure. Here we go."

"Meanwhile, Steve, we'll check a few items on the drive itself. I'm
beginning to suspect a huge and celestial soak-up of gravitic power in
the region of Telfu."

"We can set up the small, experimental drive-model complete with power
recorders, spring balances, and torque measuring devices and work on
that."

"Swell. That's the ticket. Let's go."

Hammond hauled the model from the cabinet and plugged in a complex
cable from the master control panel. He juggled the dials until the
gadget started to work, and then they began to check the efficiency of
the device.

McBride muttered: "Power generating equipment is running O.K."

"Yeah," agreed Hammond. "Everything's on the beam from the explosion
chamber to the inverted alphatron. We've got plenty of potential power
handy. Larry, zoop in close and check the power equipment on a pure,
resistive load."

"You mean shut off the drive and coast through the zero region with no
drive and with the gravitron running at full output on resistance load?"

"Right. This fishy smell has a rare odor. I think we're on the trail of
it."

"O.K., Steve. Can you wait about three minutes? The first encirclement
of Telfu will be over then and we'll have our first experimental curve."

"We'll wait."

       *       *       *       *       *

The sigma curve was completed, and Larry circled far out and made a
fast run toward the planet, in a course similar to the one they used on
their first try.

Meanwhile, Hammond looked at the curve and grinned.

McBride looked over his shoulder and grinned, too.

Hammond slapped the curve down on a drawing board and began to plot
efficiency against a polar co-ordinate. The curve was roughly circular,
but exhibited a tendency towards a cardioid. McBride played with the
figures for a minute, and as he opened his mouth to say something, the
_Haywire Queen_ gave that sickening lurch and changed abruptly from
super drive to the emergencies.

"Darn!" said McBride. "This everlasting acceleration changing business
is going to make a nervous wreck of me yet."

"Also physical if it is taken in too large doses," grinned Steve. "The
human anatomy can accept velocity without limit--well, up to the point
where the ultimate velocity is reached. We've gone a goodly hunk of
stuff over the speed of light."

"That's questionable."

"We came over from Terra in a lot less time than light. That'll be
arriving nine years from now."

"Uh-huh. But don't forget we wrapped ourselves in a space-warp and ran
the space-warp. I think that we can safely assume that the warp is
another space and that we were not traveling better than the speed of
light with respect to our own space."

"Whoof! What a theory! Drag that one past again, slow enough so I can
climb aboard."

"You got it," laughed McBride. "And if it smells, you fling out a
better one for us to shoot holes in."

"O.K. But to get back to velocity, the human anatomy can stand
velocity without limit. Period. Argue if you like, Mac, but that's my
statement. No one has ever been able to prove that velocity alone is
harmful to man, beast, bird, or fish!"

"I'm as silent as the tomb."

"Acceleration can be adapted to--in meagre doses. A man can stand up
under 4-G. On his tummy, lying down, 8- or 9-G isn't too hard on him.
Dunk him up to the breathing-vents in a good grade of oxidized hydrogen
and 15-G is possible without too much harm."

"Yes. O Learned Scholar."

"But, students," said Hammond standing up and taking a bow. He was
interrupted by the resumption of the super drive which, being set at
ninety feet per second per second apparent instead of eleven feet,
caught him off balance and almost dropped him on the end of his nose.

"What I was saying," laughed McBride, "was the effect that rates of
change of acceleration have upon the anatomy."

"As I demonstrated," grinned Hammond from the floor, "it is changes in
acceleration that cause havoc. It causes jerks--"

"To sit on the floor," chuckled McBride. "Get up. Stop playing on the
floor, Steve, and take a squint at this curve. Plotting an exponential
factor for the ordinates of the graph, using Telfu for the center, we
find a locus of equal power-soak-up out here--which I estimate to be a
little more than two hundred thousand miles!"

"Ah, the wonders of analyst," said Hammond. "With a defunct drive and
a wild idea, Jawn McBride hauls a satellite out of the sky and plants
it--Here!"

"What do you think?"

"Who am I to argue with people who understand the mysteries of A to the
Xth power equals zero, divided by the date of the month times the ace
of spades, equals eleven o'clock. All joking aside, Mac, it looks right
to my uninitiated mind."

"Does, hey?"

"Sure. That means that said moonlet--I say moonlet because our pix
show that Telfu hasn't anything worthy of the name of a full, honest
moon--must be high in cupralum."

"Sort of hard to believe."

"Yeah, but not impossible. It's quite believable that the right alloys
should be found _au naturel_, so to speak. There's nothing tricky about
cupralum. Mix it together and smelt it down--_voila_!--cupralum. A
totally useless and good-for-nothing alloy prior to the discovery of
the gravitic spectrum."

"Must be fairly large," suggested Timkins.

"Sure--according to man-made standards. Celestially, it might be a mere
scrap of dirt. A sub-sub-sub-microscopic bit of cosmic dust less than a
hundred miles in diameter."

"Ugh," grunted Larry. "You make man and his works sort of
insignificant."

"We are. Do the planets care what we do on their miles-thick hides? Do
the suns care that we wonder at them? Does the cosmos give a rap that
we chase from planet to planet and from sun to sun?"

"You make it sound as though they are capable of thinking."

"If they did, we wouldn't know about it; and they wouldn't know we
existed. Proportionally, man is smaller than the filterable virus. So
we have a slab of cupralum, which is--according to Mac--Here! That's
fine. It blankets Telfu like a complete shroud, as far as the good old
gravitics go."

Larry Timkins looked up from a page of scrawled equations. "A slab of
cupralum a hundred miles in diameter, rotating in the mechanogravitic
field thrown out by Sirius would certainly soak up every bit of power.
Must be a slick tie-in. The gravitron puts our O.K. on a resistive
load. Hooked to the drive, everything goes _phhht_."

"Sure. That's part of the trouble. It's the drive, coupled with the
general gravitic interference cut up by Soaky."

"Soaky?"

"I have hung a name on the satellite. Heretofore it has been nameless.
We have named it _Soaky_."

       *       *       *       *       *

"There is a slight discrepancy between this cardioid and the calculated
curve," said McBride. "Obviously, the cusp would be on a line between
Telfu and Soaky, projected from the satellite through the planet to the
far side. We orbited around the planet and were closer to Soaky on the
side he was on--"

"Is that syllogistic reasoning?" asked Hammond. "Or sheer conjecture?
How about shadow?"

"This is quite a wide effect."

"Any shading of Soaky's sphere of influence would tend to deepen the
cusp like that. That cardioid is such a curve; there's no reason to
doubt that Telfu would tend to shade the field."

"Larry. Can you calculate the field absorption of a standard model
planet with the above figures?"

"The attenuation?"

"Yes."

"Sure. It'd help if I knew the chemical components, mass, physical
constants, electrical properties, gravitic properties, and nuclear
emanations. How close do you want it?"

"Plus or minus twenty percent."

"I can give that to you without calculating," said Timkins. "Telfu is
similar to Terra within twenty percent. Terra's attenuation amounts
to twenty-nine percent; in other words, the attenuation due to the
presence of Terra in the light-line between source and measuring device
is twenty-nine percent greater than it would be if Terra were not there
and the spacial attenuation only cut the strength."

"Thirty percent, roughly, because it's easier to figure," said McBride.
He made calculations, set them down linearly as to the magnitudes, and
then transferred the vectors to the curve.

"That's one large bit closer," he said. "We'll better that, some day.
But for now, playmates, I've had my Idea-for-the-Week. Let's cut us
another caper around Telfu at right angles to this curve. One side will
pass the peak and the opposite side will cut the cusp. Same distance,
same speed, same everything. Follow?"

"At some distance."

"I believe that we will find a place where the cusp really comes down
closer to Telfu," said McBride. "How much drive inefficiency can we
tolerate and still lift?"

"From Telfu? Not enough to keep the breakers from blowing. And don't
say wire 'em shut. They're right on the ragged edge now, on account
of we know what we're doing and do not want to blow circuit breakers
during experiments unless they are really in trouble. But the
gravitron-cupralum driving equipment is not our only ace in the bucket.
The emergency batteries, though inefficient, can still put us down
and get us off. Providing, of course, that your map there gives us a
chance."

"Not knowing the orbital constants of Soaky; the plane of Soaky's
ecliptic: the rotational features of Telfu, we are taking chances. One
rotation of Telfu might be plenty safe if we hit it on the nose. Two
might put us out here and then we'd have to go through seven years of
astronomical investigations before we found the place where that cusp
came in again--and we'd probably have to wait anything from sixteen
to nine thousand years before Soaky passed overhead again. The latter
might get boring. But we can take a chance on one day, plus whatever
angular movement Soaky makes with Telfu as center."

"Think Soaky's ecliptic is fairly close to Telfu's equator?"

"Within twenty or thirty degrees. I'm assuming the old theory of the
Planitesimal Hypothesis. Sling out your molten stuff, let it condense,
and you'll find everything rotating in the same direction in about the
same plane. Might be clockwise or counter-clockwise, but only one way
per solar system. One moon in all of the junk that goes around Sol is
contrariwise--and they think that was a captured wanderer. The greatest
obliquity is somewhere near forty degrees, most of the large planets
being less than ten, I think."

"Celestially, I believe it may be impossible for a satellite to hold
an orbit whose plane is vertical to the planet's orbit. I've never
given it any thought, but it sounds dangerous to the satellite. Also,
Sirius' tidal drag would tend to bring all the planets' axes into
vertical line, too."

"Oh the devil. I want to land. If waiting overnight is dangerous, we'll
slide in there and out again inside of an hour. But, darn it, I want to
plant my number eleven EE's on that planet. Anyone agree?"

"Anyone who doesn't like the idea may get out and walk," said Hammond.
"Hold your hat, fellows. Here we go again--"

       *       *       *       *       *

Sandra Drake reached out of her luxurious bed and pulled a cord. She
did it in a languorous move, like a lithe and lazy cat. She did it with
a sort of God-given right to do so, and her expression was one of deep
self-delight. Whatever she got from Telfu, they owed to Sandra Drake--

Her second pull on the call-cord was more of an impertinent yank. Her
self-delight changed to exasperation that they should keep her waiting.
Yet she would forgive them, for they were ignorant, in forgiving them
her grace would be more evident. They would love her the more for
forgiving them their sins of omission--

Sandra's third pull caused the collapse of the call-bell box, and the
cord fell, landing in long, graceful loops over her outstretched arm.

Sandra rolled out of bed and threw the cord across the room, where it
draped itself about the throat of a marble nude of a Telfan woman. It
could not have been placed there with more delicacy; adding just the
right touch of decoration to the nude. The center of the cord depended
across the chest of the statue in a graceful loop, the bottom of which
crossed just above the upper pair of breasts. The ends of the cord
passed once more about the throat in opposite directions, and the ends
crossed the looped center to dangle between the lower breasts.

The decorative touch did not strike a responsive chord in Sandra Drake.
She wanted rip-roaring action, not interior decoration. So she stamped
over and jerked the cord from the statue and tried to rend it in her
hands. She was not strong enough to do the cord any damage but she did
succeed in breaking a one-inch fingernail.

She stormed and stamped, and said a few things that are better
mentioned in the abstract, including references to the statue's maker
and his family for several generations coming and going. To Sandra's
Terran-minded ideas of beauty, the statue was an abomination in spite
of its perfection of workmanship. It was not merely un-Terran and
therefore strange, it was almost-but-not-quite human, and therefore
downright repulsive, and Sandra said so in unladylike language.
That the same reactions, in reverse, applied in the Telfan-Sandra
relationship was not yet clear to her. Her language sounded more
adapted to caisson workers, space-ship builders, or mule skinners than
it did the luxury of her present abode.

Then at long and exasperating last, the door opened gingerly and a
serving woman entered.

"Well!" exploded Sandra. "Where have you been?"

The woman said something clear and articulate, which meant she was very
sorry but which meant nothing to Drake. That made Drake boil merrily.

"Can't you speak Terran?" stormed Sandra.

The woman came into the room, followed by another.

"Who are you?" shouted Sandra. "Where's that other one--I can hardly
tell you apart."

The first Telfan woman turned to her friend and said: "She's throwing
another fit."

"She wants the Lady Thani. Thani is the only one who can speak much of
her language."

"If I were Thani, I'd slip a thumb into each eye and pry."

"I wouldn't waste my time on that," returned the second woman. "I'd
just make away with her and forget about it. I wouldn't care to have my
sleep disturbed by blood, screams, and torture."

Sandra huffed up tall. "Will you two creatures stop gabbling at one
another and get me Thani. Where is that creature?"

"Yes, she wants Thani. I heard her mention her name."

"If Thani isn't here, get me Tet'h. Or Gormal. Or Elyon."

"How can we tell her that Thani, Tet'h, Gormal, and Elyon went to meet
the other Terrans?"

Sandra heard the names and the word _Terrans_. "Did they run off and
leave me here?" she yelled.

They shook their heads.

"Go ... yes?" asked Sandra.

"Go ... yes!" answered Delya.

"I want to go, too."

"I ... go ... no," said Delya.

"Not you, me."

"You ... no?"

"Me ... yes."

"Me ... yes!" agreed Delya.

Sandra put both palms against her cheeks and gave vent to a yell of
sheer frustration. Then she calmed once more. "Did every one of you
that knows a word of Terran go?"

"Tonla, I think she's asking about Thani and the rest."

"But how can we tell her?"

"Do we want to? If all are like her--this Terra must be a bad, bad
place indeed. And she is but a female. What must the males be?"

       *       *       *       *       *

At this point it must be recorded that the first Interstellar incident
was averted by Sandra Drake's refusal to work in learning the Telfan
language. Drake's possible actions if she had been able to understand
Delya's remark might have led to the First Interplanetary War. Amicable
relations resulted from Sandra Drake's ignorance.

"After all," said Tonla, "they went because there isn't much of her
language between all of them. All together they may be able to converse
with the Terrans."

"And Elyon says that she is quite uninformed as to the technicalities
of this device which will not work on Telfu. She inferred that these
others know much about it. They are the ones to contact if Telfu is to
gain. Why shouldn't they all go?"

"Had I the right, I'd have sent them," said Tonla. "We'd better get out
of here before this woman gets violent. I think she's about to start
throwing things."

"She should throw a fit," sneered Delya. "Only the very beautiful can
behave in that arrogant manner."

"Or the very rich."

"Name it the very desirable. Thani is very desirable, and yet she does
not raise hob with Tet'h. And Thani is not only beautiful, but she is
wealthy, too."

"And Tet'h is not without his own desirability," smiled Tonla. "Nor his
wealth. Beauty walks in the arms of grace. She has neither."

"Let's get out. And let us hope that all Terrans are not as nasty as
this one."

"I fear, though. If I were a Terran, I'd never have come to get her,"
said Tonla. "Unless she and they are well met."

"Perhaps they are afraid of the bad impression she'll make if they
leave her here."

"You hope for that?"

"No race could be that bad."

Sandra mustered enough coherency to ask another question. "How can I
get to my friends?"

Much negation.

"Can't anyone understand me?"

More gestures of complete misunderstanding.

"Get out!" yelled Sandra, and then as they started to leave, Sandra
exploded again. The slamming of the door coincided with the first
eruption, but the molten lava and hot ashes fell on an empty room.

"If she'd bothered to learn one word of Telfan, they'd have taken her,"
said Delya. "But they couldn't weigh down that little flier with one
more--especially one who could be of no use to them. They'll return for
her later."

"Too bad we can't put postage on her and mail her back to this Terra of
hers."

"She'd come back stamped: 'Mail not wanted!'"

Sandra swore a few blood-curdlers and won her point by making an
impression on the marble statue with the hard, sharp corner of a heavy
metal box that stood on the table beside her bed. Then she ripped
out of her pajamas and dressed quickly. She ran from her room and
confronted the first man she met.

"Where are they?" she snapped.

He shook his head and pointed down the hall.

Drake followed the pointing finger to a large room. She stamped in,
obviously interrupting some sort of governmental meeting.

"I want to go to my friends," she said imperiously.

The man at the head of the table shook his head sadly.

"I must go to them! Or," she asked superciliously, "are they coming
here?"

More shaking of the patriarchal head.

"Can't you understand, either?" she stormed.

A shrug of the shoulder and a shake of the head gave Sandra to
understand that she was speaking in an alien language to them.

"Crano!" she snapped. She didn't know its meaning, but it was the only
Telfan word she knew, and she did know that it was a term signifying
that the receiver of the epithet was slightly less than educated.

The elderly man went white. Two of the younger men arose, came forward,
took Sandra Drake by the arms--one to each--and removed her from the
chamber. They were not gentle, and on any inhabited planet employing
the use of the Terran vernacular, she had been "Bounced!"

And Sandra knew it.

And then there came a bit of understanding. It hit hard. And in the
brief minutes that Sandra looked facts in the face before she took to
demanding impossible things once more, she realized that she had backed
into her own trap. She had been demanding. She had chosen to teach
those who met her the Terran language instead of learning Telfan. Now
those who understood any bit of Terran had gone to meet the _Haywire
Queen_, leaving her among those who could not understand her at all.
She could not communicate her desires to any of them.

She could not even tell them of the desire that they wanted to hear:
That she wanted to leave.

The whole city would have broken a blood vessel to get her out.

But they didn't talk the same language.

The _Haywire Queen_ came down in a screaming, wild landing. She rifled
down out of the sky, careening. She slanted for a half mile, and
then squared away and came plummeting down vertically. Inside, the
accelerometer was making wild gyrations as Timkins fought the controls.

The whistling of the big ship's passage through the air slid down the
audible scale as the velocity dropped. The ship slowed, and came to a
perfect landing--

Twelve feet above the surface!

Like a slug of lead, the _Haywire Queen_ poised for the barest instant,
and then dropped the intervening distance. The landing plates sank into
the soft soil of Telfu for several feet and the plates groaned, a rivet
or two squeaked, and some welded joints disagreed. But spaceships are
rigid structures, made for hard usage and considerable stresses and
strains. It weathered the hard landing, though the angle was slightly
cocked due to the unevenness of the turf's hardness. The _Haywire
Queen_ was still space-worthy.

"Rotten pilot," muttered Hammond.

"Terrible," agreed McBride.

"Look, you two grinning apes. I missed Telfu by exactly one hundred and
forty-four inches. Twelve feet in 2,630,000,000,000,000,000 feet. Well
within the experimental error, I think."

"Twelve feet in nine light-years isn't bad," said McBride. "Some day,
Larry, you can bend that mathematical mechanism you use instead of a
brain into calculating whether the landing effect would have been worse
at _plus_ twelve feet instead of minus."

"A mere matter of kinetic energy dissipated--"

"Yeah, we know. Well, you didn't kill us," laughed Hammond. "So let's
go out and take a look at the wonders of the Telfan scenery."

"Take a quick look," said McBride. "Here come some Telfans to take a
look at some Terran science."

"Wonder how they got here so quick," asked Timkins of no one in
particular.

"Ask 'em."

Timkins stepped out of the space lock and smiled at the Telfans. "Ave,
Canis Majoris," he said in a deep voice.

"Lousy Latin," snorted McBride.

"That's where they live."

"Do they know that?"

The foremost Telfan, who was Tet'h, stepped forward and smiled.
"You ... Terrans?"

"Yes."

He pointed to the ship. "_'Aywire Queen?_"

"Yes."

Tet'h smiled once more and offered his hand.

"Universal gesture?" asked Hammond.

"No. Drake must have taught them that."

"Drake?" asked Tet'h. "You like?"

"Extremely doubtful," said Hammond. He was misunderstood. McBride said
nothing but that pinching of the nose between thumb and forefinger
conveyed the idea excellently.

"Telfans ... no like Drake."

"No?"

"No. Tall. Ugly-bald." Tet'h indicated his own luxurious pelt and
then became confused as he realized that the Terrans were of the
same, "Ugly-bald" complexion. He covered his face with both hands and
muttered something that sounded apologetic and humble.

"Forget it," laughed McBride. "We ... like Telfans."

"Not like Drake," said Tet'h.

"Thanks," said Hammond honestly.

"How know ... here?" asked Timkins.

"You here?" asked Tet'h pointing to the ship and the surrounding
landscape.

"Aren't we?" grinned Timkins.

"Save the fine rhetoric for later when they get the point of double
talk," suggested Hammond.

       *       *       *       *       *

Tet'h led them to the plane and Gormal and Elyon lifted a large case
out. Tet'h opened it and handed McBride a little instrument. It was a
cabinetless job, every part exposed.

"Holy spinach," he said. "A mechanogravitic detector."

Hammond got a small mechanical planetarium showing Telfu and a minute
sphere. Tet'h pulled a roller-map out of the base and indicated Telfu
and the sphere. The map was a fairly accurate contour map of the
blanketed region's contour.

Tet'h signified the cusp and then pointed to the position of Soaky.
Below the cusp, Tet'h indicated the planet and then pointed to the
ground.

"Here," he said.

McBride and Hammond tangled in an effort to shake Tet'h's hand. The
Telfan looked proud.

"Many years," he said haltingly. "Work," indicating the detector. He
made assembly motions. He pulled a book of mathematical identities
from a pocket and said: "Found ... here." Then he made vast motions
indicating a large construction. "Many years ... try like hell ... no
work." He indicated the small satellite. "He make stop."

"Bright lads," grinned Hammond. "Their civilization was ready to
discover the gravitic spectra. They did. They found it in math. They
tried it and it didn't click too well. They discovered why. Never
having anything of any great power operating, they never got to the
point where they could build anything big enough to get off of Telfu.
Just plain stuck. Well, fellers, if that moonlet is cupralum, I can see
a lot of birds mining it."

"How're they going to land on it? Nothing gravitic will be worth a hoot
that close."

"Lift 'em off the dead spot by battery-powered gravitics. Inefficient
as hell. Get into space and then use rockets to land on that moonlet.
Mine it. Load it full of detonite and blast."

"A hundred-mile moonlet?"

"They've got a nine-thousand-mile planet here to support it. They
can't power their machinery with gravitrons, but electronics is an art
worth remembering. One of the earlier atomic gadgets would do plenty."

"Might bore a large hole in it and pack in a mile of Atomite,"
suggested McBride. "I'd hate to support that, though."

"Better get some seetee meteors and pelt it by remote control," said
Hammond. "Well, we can cover that later." To Tet'h he said: "You come
in?"

Tet'h and Thani held a quick conference. "She come, too?" he asked.

"All of you."

"No. They stay. We go Terra."

"Terra!" exploded Hammond.

"Much to learn--both of us. You and I. You learn Telfan. We learn
Terran. Better talk. This ... lousy."

"Easy to see Sandra's delicate hand in this language lesson," grinned
Timkins.

"Better call that wild woman. Tell her we're going to take off in one
hour and ten minutes because if we don't, we'll be as stuck as she is
and we don't like that. As long as we have a bit of Telfu to take back
with us in the shape of Tet'h and his woman Thani, we needn't stick
around. I'll feel better about getting off on this rotation anyway.
G'wan, we'll listen to you make the excuses, Larry."

"My turn to poke her on the pretty little schnozzola?"

"You won that by that three times something to the minus umpty-umpth
power percentage of landing error. Twelve feet in what?"

"2,630,000,000,000,000,000 feet."

"Was that the same he said before?" asked McBride with a smile. "Or was
he working that old gag about our not remembering?"

"I don't remember either."

"So, you win," said McBride to Larry Timkins.

       *       *       *       *       *

Timkins called, and Sandra Drake's slightly hysterical voice replied.

"How you doing?" asked Larry.

"Where are you?"

"I don't know."

"Don't know?" said Sandra. Her voice went up in a crescendo and hit "G"
above High "C" on the last note.

"No," said Larry. "Chicago, Venuland, Canalport, and Sharon are my best
landmarks and they're all equally distant and in the same direction
from here."

"Go to hell."

"That's across the River Styx from Sharon, on Pluto," said Timkins.
"And that expression is making the Sharonites unhappy because people
have been going there for thousands of years. Sharon hasn't the
popularity."

"But look, Larry, I want to go along."

"Can you get here in one hour and eleven minutes. That's the absolute
deadline until we can get to Terra and cook up a drive that's detuned
enough from the cupralum-absorption region to permit us to tinker off
and on around here."

"Where are you? How can I get there if you don't know where you are?"

"Ask someone."

Sandra's language became something that the communications commission
has legislated against.

"Can you come here and get me?"

"We'll be doing fine if we get off with our skin," said Larry. "We
definitely have not enough power to go roaming all over Telfu. We're on
the one spot that will allow us to leave under the emergencies. An hour
and thirty minutes from now that spot will be somewhere else. We'll
wait an hour and ten and take off on the edge of the spot."

"Won't they come back and get me?"

"Wait a minute." Then he turned to Tet'h. "Could you send them back for
Drake?"

"Yes," answered Tet'h. "Better not, though. She bad ... but lazy. Teach
Terran so not ... learn Telfan."

"Sandra? No dice. That's it, toots. Take it or leave it."

"Look, Larry, isn't there something you can do?"

"I doubt it. Give you a tip, though. Next time you poke someone else's
nose into a mess remember that he who laughs last isn't always too
dumb to catch on quick. At the next sound, it will be exactly three
people making with deep belly laughs. So long, until we meet again--in
about six months! In-you, we're at these Telfan co-ordicidentally, if
you should find someone who would like to get rid of nates: South
Longitude.... Hey, Tet'h, how do you pronounce these figures?"

Tet'h caught his meaning and said: "Me tell."

He addressed the microphone, and spoke in Telfan. "There," he finished,
"is where ... are!"

Timkins added: "So now you can get here all right."

He closed the mike as the speaker started to make little animal sounds.
"Fellows," said Larry. "She's mad!"

"Crazy mad or angry mad?"

"Boiling mad."

"She'll be hard-boiled by the time she gets through stewing in her own
juice," grinned Hammond. "Let's get some sky, fellows. O.K. ... we go?"
he asked Tet'h.

"We go," said Tet'h cheerfully.

There was a quick conference between the two men who were to stay and
Tet'h. Then the air-lock door was closed, and Timkins started to set up
the controls.

Up in the emergency room, the batteries started to fume and fret as the
terrible overload hit them. The _Haywire Queen_ lifted uncertainly,
gained a little speed, and then took off into the cloudless sky at an
acceleration that varied continuously between nine to twenty feet per
second per second per second under the super drive.

Not too long after, the gravitron-cupralum drive took over, and the
_Haywire Queen_ pointed her dome upwards at tiny Sol, blinking there in
the sky between the constellations Aquila and Ophiuchus.


                               THE END.

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