The Final Encyclopedia

by Gordon R. Dickson

  John raised his torch to the wall, with its muzzle less than hand's length from the rock. A slim, golden pencil of visible light that was the guide for the cutting beam, which could not be seen, reached out and into the face of the stope before him—and a wave of heat that was like a body blow struck Hal, even through the protection of his suit, as the rock was vaporized in an incredibly thin section by the moving, invisible beam.

  As he had grown more expert at mucking-out, there had been more and more occasions when Hal had been caught up with his own work and could simply stand for a moment and watch the torchers; and he had come to the conclusion that their work must be very easy compared to his own. In fact, he had puzzled over why it made sense to have two teams working alternate periods, when it would have seemed to have been more practical to simply work a single crew of six or seven men straight through the shift. He now discovered one reason why. The sudden heat blow from the outburst of hot gases from the vaporized rock was breathtaking, even inside the protective suit; and his first experience of it now explained why the torchers worked in spurts, cutting for a few minutes, then pausing, then cutting again.

  It was some moments before he could manage to observe two more new things. One was the fact that John seemed to be cutting in a peculiar pattern that moved his torch about strangely on the face of rock before him, as if the areas to be cut were marked in some complicated sequence; and the other was that he shut his torch off each time before beginning to cut a new chunk. He had barely absorbed these facts when John stopped working abruptly; and simply stood, a mechanical-looking figure in his suit, facing the wall. Hal stared at him, not understanding, then became aware that the hiss and crackle of the torches to his right were also giving way to silence. He looked and saw that all the others of the current crew had stopped cutting, except the miner at the far end of the face. Then that man also shut his torch off.

  Hal's glove twitched upward to knock back his helmet and give himself some air as he had seen the current crew do so many times. Then he realized that no one else had yet touched their helmets. He checked his movement and stood, gasping in the closed suit, watching John until John reached up and lifted back his own helmet. Hal imitated him and, looking around, taking deep breaths, saw the other torchers opening up as well.

  For a few seconds, he breathed air that was only warm; then he saw John putting his helmet back on and followed suit. The torches took up their hiss and crackle again; and once more Hal watched and sweated under the momentary heat-blows before another helmetless break came. It seemed to last only seconds before they were buttoned up and at work again.

  Before it came to be time for the other crew to replace them at the rock wall, Hal was soaked in sweat and as enervated as if he had worked a full half-shift at mucking-out, although he had done nothing but watch. But, as he became more accustomed to the heat-blows and the noise, his observation of the way the work went had been improving. He saw that a chunk would be carved out, wherever possible, by undercutting a projecting piece of rock; and then taking out as many other chunks as possible by cutting vertically down to the horizontal undercut. Where there was no way of undercutting, the torcher made slanting cuts into the face of the rock, until these intersected behind the chunk.

  At the first touch of the cutting beam, there would be an explosion of gases from the vaporized rock; and for a moment the seeing was, not exactly foggy, but distorted; as if he was looking at the rock wall through the updrafts of heated gas and air. In the moment following the heat blow and the distortion, the view of the rock became solid again; but for a few seconds after that a sort of silver mist seemed to cling to the face of the rock, before vanishing.

  It was not until the second time the crew including John and Hal attacked the wall that Hal put the sight of the silver mist together with the pattern of the torchers in knocking back their helmets. It was never until that haze had completely gone that any of them cracked their suits open. Hal's mind, galloping ahead with that observation, deduced that the silver mist must be condensation of some of the gasified rock, boiled out upon the surface of the face and chilled there by the liquified gas coolant projected around the cutting beam from its reservoir in the heavy body of the torch. Until the mist evaporated, there would be danger of some of the vaporized material being still in gas form, in the atmosphere before the stope wall.

  As work wore on, Hal began to pick up more understanding of the pattern in which John was cutting into the rock face. The pattern seemed to be designed to keep him cutting always at the greatest possible distance from where the man on his right was cutting on his own section. Looking down along the face, Hal saw that the same patterning seemed to be at work to keep the others of the crew cutting at as close to maximum distance from each other as possible.

  The lunch break finally came. John sat down to eat with his back to the tunnel wall beside Hal.

  "Well," he said, tearing into a sandwich with his teeth, "how about it? You ready to try it?"

  Hal nodded.

  "If you think I can."

  "Good," said John. "At least, you're not so all-fired sure you can just stand up there and do it. Now, I'll tell you what. Pay no attention to how fast the others are cutting. You cut only when I tell you to, and where I tell you to. Got that?"

  "Yes," said Hal.

  "All right." John finished his sandwich and got back to his feet. "Let's go, crew!"

  He, Hal and the others returned to the face. Davies, who had taken over the mucking-out temporarily while Hal tried out with the torch, winked at Hal as Hal passed. Hal took the wink for encouragement and felt warmed by it.

  At the face, guided by John's voice and pointing finger, Hal slowly began to choose and excavate pieces of the rock. He did not do well, in his own estimation. He found himself taking a dozen cuts to loosen a piece of rock that John might have taken out in three. But, gradually, as he worked, he began to get a little more efficient and economical in the use of the torch, although the patterns in which John directed his work remained beyond him.

  As the shift wore toward its end the heat seemed to sap the strength out of him; it became enormous effort just to lift the torch and concentrate on the cuts John indicated he was to make. His cuts became clumsier; and, for the first time, he began to realize the danger of losing precise control of the torch, which, waved around carelessly in its on mode, could slice through suits, human flesh and bone with a great deal more ease than it could through rock—and the rock offered it no problem.

  Through the window of his helmet as he continued cutting, he was aware of John watching him closely. John must know that exhaustion was making him uncertain; and at any minute now the team leader would be taking the torch away from him. Something in Hal surged in rebellion. At the next chance he had to knock back his helmet he deliberately drew a deep breath and let it out in slow, controlled fashion as he had been taught, both by Malachi and by Walter… and his mind smoothed out.

  He had been letting himself become frantic because he could feel his strength dwindling. That was not the way he had been taught to handle situations like this. There were techniques for operating on only a remaining portion of his strength.

  The answer was to concentrate what strength remained on what was essential, and close out his attention on anything unnecessary. It was something like controlled tunnel vision, making the most of what was available over the smallest possible area. Having breathed himself back into self-control, he closed up his suit, addressed the rock face again and let his mind spiral inward, his vision close in… until all he saw was the rock before his torch and John's directing hands, until all he heard was John's voice.

  The heat became distant and unimportant. The fatigue ceased to exist except as an abstract phenomenon. The stope, the mine itself, the very fact that he was underground, became things unimportant and apart. Even the relief periods were brief, unimportant moments before he was back at the face of rock again. The real universe was restricted to that rock face, the to
rch, and the directions of John.

  His grip on the torch steadied. His cuts regained their precision and certainty. In this smaller universe, his present strength and attention was enough and to spare to get the job done. He worked…

  Suddenly, they had all stopped and put back their helmets; and they were not starting again. John and the other torchers were turning away from the rock face. Baffled, Hal opened up his perceptions; and staggered physically as the larger world came back into existence about him, a bone-weariness exploding all through him.

  He was conscious of John catching his arm and holding him up, guiding him back from the ledge and down the ramp cut the day before to the level below. His legs were wobbly and the torch he had unthinkingly carried back from the rock face—when he should have left it there for the next day's first crew—seemed to weigh several tons. He laid it against the face of the rise in which the ramp was cut; then, overwhelmed, slid down into a sitting position himself with his back to the rise.

  Everybody was gathering around him. In the crowd, strangely, were Tonina and Will Nanne, who had left them hours ago.

  "Well," said Will's harsh voice. "He did it. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself."

  "All right," said John, looking down at Hal. "I suppose you'll do. I hope you understand the whole team's going to have to carry you and lose production until you learn enough to do a fair shift of work?"

  "Oh, leave him alone!" said Tonina. "Can't you let him be now that he's won the job?"

  "I have?" Hal said, foggily.

  "Well, you still got to throw a port party for the team," said Davies.

  Escorted back to the skip by them all with Tonina on one side of him and John on the other, acting as bumpers to bounce him back on course when he staggered out of the direct line of march, Hal felt a sense of triumph beginning to rise within him and a deep feeling of affection for those around him. He was one of them at last. They were like family, and he felt for each of them as if each was a brother or a sister.

  "Port party tonight," said an unfamiliar voice in the crowded skip. Evidently the whole mining camp had been in on the plans for his trial as a torcher.

  "Wait until you make leader, if you ever do," said Tonina in his ear. "Then you have to get the whole crowd of underground workers at the mine drunk."

  As they had left the rock face, Hal had felt that he had hardly the strength left to do anything but fall on his bed and sleep the clock around. But once back in the bunkhouse, showered and dressed for Port, he found himself coming back to life. In the end, as they boarded the subway in a group—the team, Tonina, and Will Nanne, who was evidently entitled to share in the party because of having been one of the actors in the traditional drama in which Hal had been offered his chance to try out as a torcher—Hal found himself feeling as well as ever, except for a slight sensation as if he had lost so much weight he might float off the ground, with any encouragement at all.

  Chapter Eleven

  Hal, himself, had not been back to the main Coby spaceport since he had come in to this world; but he had come to know that nearly all the miners headed there in their off-time, particularly on the day and a half off they had between their six and a half day work weeks. The six and a half days came about because every three working days there were twelve extra hours off between work periods in which the slag-loaders did general cleanup and maintenance or other administrative work was carried on down in the mine. Every third week the extra half day of weekend holiday was cancelled out as each shift made a move forward of that many hours into a new work-time slot.

  He had been puzzled that the shifts should need to change at all on this world where there was no sun and no natural day or nighttime hours. But he came to learn that a number of the miners had living partners or other personal arrangements in Port, where for administrative purposes day and night were strictly set and held. Certainly, everyone else but he seemed to know their way around Port when their group got there, heading off in one specific direction by unanimous agreement.

  "Where are we going?" he asked John.

  "The Grotto," said John. They were walking together in the back of the crowd; and now John took Hal by the elbow and slowed him down until they had fallen several meters behind everyone else. Even Tonina, seeing John holding Hal's arm, had gone on ahead. "… You've got the credit for this, haven't you?"

  "Yes," said Hal.

  "All right," said John. "If you find yourself getting in too deep, remember I can advance you what you need to make up the difference. You'll have to pay me back as soon as possible, though, or I'll take it out of your profit share, some every week until it's paid back."

  "No, I've really got all the funds I'd need," Hal said.

  "All right."

  John let go of him and moved back up into the crowd ahead. Hal, stretching his own legs to catch up also, felt a twinge of guilt. John, in spite of handling Hal's papers, obviously did not know that Hal had brought in with him probably more in the way of a credit balance than a team leader in the mines could earn in twenty years in the mines—and a good chunk of that amount was in interstellar credits.

  Remembering his credit balance started Hal on a new train of thought. The Others were unlikely to trace him here; but that did not mean that they could not, or would not. He might one day have to run for it again; and if he did, it would not help if they had located his funds under his own name and tied them up so that he could not use them to get away. What he needed was interstellar credit hidden away, untraceable to any official eye, but quickly available to him in an emergency. He filed the thought to be acted on as soon as possible.

  Meanwhile they had reached their destination; they all poured through an arched entrance in the frontage wall of one of the Port blocks of construction. Above the arch the name GROTTO floated in blue flames.

  Within, it was so dark that at first he could see nothing and stumbled as he went forward, before he realized he was walking on some soft surface. As his vision adjusted, he saw that this was a thick carpet of something looking very much like grass and that the illusion overhead was of a night sky with the moon hidden behind clouds.

  He followed the others forward, and passed with them through a light curtain into a scene of bright moonlight, seeming so brilliant after the short period of near-darkness that he was startled. The illusion of a moon shone down on the appearance of a tiny bay on the shore of a tropical sea, with actual tables and chair floats intermingled with rocks or ground features that also gave sitting or table space. A surf spoke gently on the sandy beach before them all. Soft, spice-perfumed air blew around them; and a full moon surrounded by innumerable stars was overhead in a now-cloudless sky.

  The place had evidently been alerted to their coming, for while there were other patrons, a large section of the beach shore with its seating and serving arrangements was empty. Into this area, the team poured and settled itself. A thin, blond man in his mid-forties, perhaps, got up from one of the tables where he was sitting with one of the other customers and came over to the table to which Hal had been steered, and at which he had been joined by John, Tonina and Will Nanne.

  "You're the host, I take it?" he said, smiling at Hal. His teeth were white and even, but he was one of those individuals who actually do better not to smile.

  "That's right," said Hal.

  "Could I have your credit number?"

  Hal passed over his identity card. The other touched it to his wrist monitor, took it away and glanced at the dial of the monitor, then handed it back.

  "Enjoy yourselves," he said. He smiled at Hal again and went away. About Hal, drinks and other consumables ordered by the rest of them were rising to the tops of the table surfaces.

  Hal looked at the others at his table. Tonina had some tall yellow drink in a narrow goblet. Will Nanne and John had steins of what appeared to be—and smelled like—beer. Hal spelled out beer on the tabletop waiter, picked the same name brand that John and Will had ordered, and got a glass
just like theirs.

  "That'll do for me," said John. "The next one's with Will."

  Hal stared at him.

  "You got to have one drink with everyone else here before you settle down to your own drinking," said John, a little grimly. "That's the way it's done."

  "Oh," said Hal. It did not require any effort to do the sum in his head. Twelve crew members meant twelve drinks. Will Nanne made that figure thirteen, and if they expected him to drink with Tonina as well, that would make fourteen. He felt uneasy for a moment.

  However, there was no acceptable alternative. He put aside his uneasiness, lifted his glass of beer and drank. It was a lightly carbonated brew that did not seem too strong, and it went down easier than he had expected.

  "You'd better slow down," said Tonina. "At that speed you won't make it to the third table."

  His head felt perfectly clear, and his always-hungry stomach did not feel at all overfilled by the one beer. But she undoubtedly knew what she was talking about. He drank the beer with Will Nanne more slowly. After all, no one had said anything about a time limit in which he had to do all this. Will's beer also went down comfortably. Hal decided he rather liked beer. The only time he had tasted it before was when he had been six years old at a picnic at which Malachi had been drinking some; and at that time he had decided it was bitter, unattractive stuff. But there was a lot of food value in beer, he remembered now. Perhaps that was what made it taste better to him in these, his years of greater appetite.

  He looked from his second empty glass to Tonina.

  "Why don't you save me for last?" she said.

  "All right," said Hal. He was feeling somewhat carefree. "Which table do I take first?"

  "Doesn't matter," said Will. "Take the first one you come to."

  Hal got up and, on second thought, chose first a table of three team members, one of which was Davies.