lined up automatically once the
juice went on.
Here it was different. A gouge had to be plowed along the
planetoid's surface and into it the cable had to be laid. If it were not lined
up within a few minutes of arc of the calculated direction, a torque would be
applied to the entire planetoid, with consequent loss of energy, none of which
could be spared. The gouges then had to be redriven, the cables shifted and
iced into the new positions.
The men plodded wearily through the routine.
And then the word reached them: "All hands to the
jets!"
Scavengers could not be said to be the type that took kindly
to discipline. It was a grumbling, growling, muttering group that set about
disassembling the jets of the ships that yet remained intact, carrying them to
the tail end of the planetoid, grubbing them into position, and stringing the
leads along the surface.
It was almost twenty-four hours before one of them looked
into the sky and said, "Holy jeepers!" followed by something less
printable.
His neighbor looked and said, "I'll be damned!"
Once they noticed, all did. It became the most astonishing
fact in the Universe.
"Look at the Shadow!"
It was spreading across the sky like an infected wound. Men
looked at it, found it had doubled its size, wondered why they hadn't noticed
that sooner.
Work came to a virtual halt. They besieged Ted Long.
He said, "We can't leave. We don't have the fuel to see
us back to Mars and we don't have the equipment to capture another planetoid.
So we've got to stay. Now the Shadow is creeping in on us because our blasting
has thrown us out of orbit. We've got to change that by continuing the
blasting. Since we can't blast the front end any more without endangering the
ship we're building, let's try another way."
They went back to work on the jets with a furious energy
that received impetus every half hour when the Shadow rose again over the
horizon, bigger and more menacing than before.
Long had no assurance that it would work. Even if the jets
would respond to the distant controls, even if the supply of water, which
depended upon a storage chamber opening directly into the icy body of the
planetoid, with built-in heat projectors steaming the propulsive fluid directly
into the driving cells, were adequate, there was still no certainty that the
body of the planetoid without a magnetic cable sheathing would hold together
under the enormously disruptive stresses.
"Ready!" came the signal in Long's receiver.
Long called, "Ready!" and depressed the contact.
The vibration grew about him. The star field in the
visiplate trembled.
In the rearview, there was a distant gleaming spume of
swiftly moving ice crystals.
"It's blowing!" was the cry.
It kept on blowing. Long dared not stop. For six hours, it
blew, hissing, bubbling, steaming into space; the body of the planetoid
converted to vapor and hurled away.
The Shadow came closer until men did nothing but stare at
the mountain in the sky, surpassing Saturn itself in spectacularity. Its every
groove and valley was a plain scar upon its face. But when it passed through
the planetoid's orbit, it crossed more than half a mile behind its then
position.
The steam jet ceased.
Long bent in his seat and covered his eyes. He hadn't eaten
in two days. He could eat now, though. Not another planetoid was close enough
to interrupt them, even if it began an approach that very moment.
Back on the planetoid's surface, Swenson said, "All the
time I watched that damned rock coming down, I kept saying to myself, 'This
can't happen. We can't let it happen.'"
"Hell," said Rioz, "we were all nervous. Did
you see Jim Davis? He was green. I was a little jumpy myself."
"That's not it. It wasn't just—dying, you know. I was
thinking— I know it's funny, but I can't help it—I was thinking that Dora warned
me I'd get myself killed, she'll never let me hear the last of it. Isn't that a
crummy sort of attitude at a time like that?"
"Listen," said Rioz, "you wanted
juice went on.
Here it was different. A gouge had to be plowed along the
planetoid's surface and into it the cable had to be laid. If it were not lined
up within a few minutes of arc of the calculated direction, a torque would be
applied to the entire planetoid, with consequent loss of energy, none of which
could be spared. The gouges then had to be redriven, the cables shifted and
iced into the new positions.
The men plodded wearily through the routine.
And then the word reached them: "All hands to the
jets!"
Scavengers could not be said to be the type that took kindly
to discipline. It was a grumbling, growling, muttering group that set about
disassembling the jets of the ships that yet remained intact, carrying them to
the tail end of the planetoid, grubbing them into position, and stringing the
leads along the surface.
It was almost twenty-four hours before one of them looked
into the sky and said, "Holy jeepers!" followed by something less
printable.
His neighbor looked and said, "I'll be damned!"
Once they noticed, all did. It became the most astonishing
fact in the Universe.
"Look at the Shadow!"
It was spreading across the sky like an infected wound. Men
looked at it, found it had doubled its size, wondered why they hadn't noticed
that sooner.
Work came to a virtual halt. They besieged Ted Long.
He said, "We can't leave. We don't have the fuel to see
us back to Mars and we don't have the equipment to capture another planetoid.
So we've got to stay. Now the Shadow is creeping in on us because our blasting
has thrown us out of orbit. We've got to change that by continuing the
blasting. Since we can't blast the front end any more without endangering the
ship we're building, let's try another way."
They went back to work on the jets with a furious energy
that received impetus every half hour when the Shadow rose again over the
horizon, bigger and more menacing than before.
Long had no assurance that it would work. Even if the jets
would respond to the distant controls, even if the supply of water, which
depended upon a storage chamber opening directly into the icy body of the
planetoid, with built-in heat projectors steaming the propulsive fluid directly
into the driving cells, were adequate, there was still no certainty that the
body of the planetoid without a magnetic cable sheathing would hold together
under the enormously disruptive stresses.
"Ready!" came the signal in Long's receiver.
Long called, "Ready!" and depressed the contact.
The vibration grew about him. The star field in the
visiplate trembled.
In the rearview, there was a distant gleaming spume of
swiftly moving ice crystals.
"It's blowing!" was the cry.
It kept on blowing. Long dared not stop. For six hours, it
blew, hissing, bubbling, steaming into space; the body of the planetoid
converted to vapor and hurled away.
The Shadow came closer until men did nothing but stare at
the mountain in the sky, surpassing Saturn itself in spectacularity. Its every
groove and valley was a plain scar upon its face. But when it passed through
the planetoid's orbit, it crossed more than half a mile behind its then
position.
The steam jet ceased.
Long bent in his seat and covered his eyes. He hadn't eaten
in two days. He could eat now, though. Not another planetoid was close enough
to interrupt them, even if it began an approach that very moment.
Back on the planetoid's surface, Swenson said, "All the
time I watched that damned rock coming down, I kept saying to myself, 'This
can't happen. We can't let it happen.'"
"Hell," said Rioz, "we were all nervous. Did
you see Jim Davis? He was green. I was a little jumpy myself."
"That's not it. It wasn't just—dying, you know. I was
thinking— I know it's funny, but I can't help it—I was thinking that Dora warned
me I'd get myself killed, she'll never let me hear the last of it. Isn't that a
crummy sort of attitude at a time like that?"
"Listen," said Rioz, "you wanted
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