Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  “No!” Major Winship snapped.

  WITH the drum of calking compound inside, both Capt. Lawler and Lt. Chandler retreated to the bunks. Capt. Wilkins maneuvered the mixing attachment. “I feel crowded,” he said.

  “Cozy’s the word.”

  “Watch it! Watch it! You almost hit me in the face plate with that!”

  “Sorry.”

  At length the mixer was in operation in the drum.

  “Works perfectly,” said Capt. Wilkins proudly.

  “Now what, Skip? The instructions aren’t in English.”

  “You’re supposed to dump the bucket of stuff in. Then clean the area thoroughly around the leak.”

  “With what?” asked Major Winship.

  “Sandpaper, I guess.”

  “With sandpaper?” Major Winship said, emptying the bucket of fluid into the drum.

  “We don’t have any sandpaper.”

  “It’s been a long day,” Capt. Wilkins said.

  “Mix it thoroughly,” Lt. Chandler mused. “I guess that means let it mix for about ten minutes or so. Then you apply it. It sets for service in just a little bit, Finogenov said. An hour or so, maybe.”

  “I hope this doesn’t set on exposure to air.”

  “No,” Capt. Lawler said. “It sets by some kind of chemical action. General Finogenov wasn’t sure of the English name for it. Some kind of plastic.”

  “Let’s come back to how we’re going to clean around the leak,” Major Winship said.

  “Say, I—” interrupted Capt. Wilkins. There was a trace of concern in his voice. “This is a hell of a time for this to occur to me. I just wasn’t thinking, before. You don’t suppose it’s a room-temperature-curing epoxy resin, do you?”

  “Larry,” said Major Winship, “I wouldn’t know a room-temperature-curing epoxy resin from—”

  “Hey!” exclaimed Capt. Wilkins. “The mixer’s stopped.” He bent forward and touched the drum. He jerked back. “Ye Gods! that’s hot! And it’s harder than a rock! It is an epoxy! Let’s get out of here.”

  “Huh?”

  “Out! Out!”

  Major Winship, Lt. Chandler, and Capt. Lawler, recognizing the sense of urgency, simultaneously glanced at the drum. It was glowing cherry red.

  “Let’s go!” Capt. Wilkins said.

  He and the Major reached the airlock at the same time and became temporarily engaged with each other. Movement was somewhat ungainly in the space suits under the best of conditions, and now, with the necessity for speed, was doubly so. The other two crashed into them from behind, and they spewed forth from the dome in a tangle of arms and legs.

  At the table, they separated, two going to the left, two to the right. The table remained untouched.

  When they halted, Capt. Wilkins said, “Get to one side, it may go off like shrapnel.” They obeyed.

  “What—what—what?” Capt. Lawler stuttered.

  They were still separated, two on one side of the airlock, two on the other.

  “I’m going to try to look,” Capt. Wilkins said. “Let me go.” He lumbered directly away from the dome for a distance of about fifteen feet, then turned and positioned himself, some five feet behind the table, on a line of sight with the airlock.

  “I can see it,” he said. “It’s getting redder. It’s . . . it’s . . . melting, yes. Melting down at the bottom a little. Now it’s falling over to one side and laying on the air tank. The air tank is getting red, too. I’m afraid . . .it’s weakening it . . . Redder. Oh, oh.”

  “What?” said Capt. Lawler.

  “Watch out! There. There!” Capt. Wilkins leaped from his position. He was still floating toward the ground when there was an incredibly bright flare from inside the dome, and a great, silent tongue of flame lashed through the airlock and rolled across the lunar surface. The table was sent tumbling. The flame was gone almost instantly.

  “There went the air,” Capt. Lawler commented.

  “We got T-Trouble,” said Lt. Chandler.

  IV

  DURING the fifteen-minute wait before they dared venture back, Capt. Wilkins, interrupted once by what appeared to be a moderately mild after-shock from the previous moonquake, explained the phenomena they had just observed.

  “A room-temperature-curing epoxy liberates heat during its curing reaction. And the hotter it is when you mix it, the faster it reacts. The drum had been absorbing heat out here for several hours much faster than it could radiate it away. It may have been forty or fifty degrees C when we stirred in the curing agent.

  At that temperature, a pound mass will normally kick over in five or ten minutes. But here, the only way it can lose the reaction heat is by the slow process of radiation. And that means as the heat builds up, the epoxy goes faster and faster, building up even more heat. And furthermore, we’re not talking about a pound, which can maybe get up to 250 C. in air. We’re talking about 500 pounds, liberating five hundred times as much heat as one pound, and getting God knows how hot—”

  “I sure wish you’d have told me this a little bit earlier,” Major Winship said. “I certainly wish you’d told me.”

  Capt. Wilkins said, “Honest, it never occurred to me Finogenov would be dumb enough to tell us to mix a whole drum of epoxy.”

  Major Winship began to curse mechanically.

  “I don’t think he did it deliberately, Charlie. I really don’t,” Captain Lawler said. “I don’t think he knew any better. Maybe he was showing off by giving us a whole drum. Hell, I know he was showing off. But something like that could kill somebody, and I don’t think he’d go that far.”

  “Think it’s safe, yet?” Major Winship asked. He was perspiring freely again. “I need some thermal protection. What’ll we do? You know damned well. We’ll have to go live with them.

  Arid that sticks in my craw, gentlemen. That—sticks—in my—craw.”

  “There’s nothing for it,” Capt. Wilkins said helpfully.

  “Let me go in and survey the damage,” Lt. Chandler said.

  “That’s my job,” Major Winship said. “I’ve got to go in anyway.” He lumbered through the airlock and stepped into the total darkness through the razor-edge curtain.

  “I see it glowing, still,” he said. “It’s almost as bad in here as out there, now. I guess it’s okay. Come on. Let’s bumble around finding the air bottles for the suits and get over there before I’m a boiled lobster. Not only is my reefer out, so’s my light.”

  “Coming.”

  An air of urgency began to accumulate.

  “What are we going to do with him? It’s a half-hour run over there.”

  “Think you can make it, Charlie?”

  “I’m damned well hot.”

  “Charlie, come out here. In the car. Skip, you get the bottles. You drive.”

  Major Winship came out. “Lay down in back,” Capt. Wilkins said. “Les, you lay down beside him. I’ll lay on top of him. I think we can shield him pretty good that way.”

  “That’s good thinking,” Capt. Lawler said from inside.

  The operation was not easily executed. Lt. Chandler got in first, and then Major Winship squeezed beside him. “Careful, there,” he said as Capt. Wilkins came aboard.

  Capt. Wilkins’s foot rolled off one of Major Winship’s thighs.

  “Watch it!”

  “I am.”

  “Oops!”

  “Ufff! I felt that. Ugh. Thank God for the way these are built.”

  “How’s that?” Capt. Wilkins asked.

  “I guess . . . It’s okay, I guess.”

  “Cooler?”

  “It’s too soon to tell. Man, I’ll bet we look silly.”

  Capt. Lawler came out with the bottles and studied his companions for a moment.

  “See if we can get up and over a little more, Les.”

  “This okay?”

  “Better. How’s it feel, Charlie?”

  “Okay.”-

  Cant. Lawler deposited the air bottles. “Everyone got enough air?”<
br />
  “I guess we’re all okay,” Capt. Wilkins said;

  “Don’t we look silly?” Major Winship asked plaintively. “I can’t possibly describe my emotions at this minute.”

  “You look all right,” Capt. Lawler said. “Still hot?” Major Winship grunted. He said nothing.

  “I’ll get there as fast as I can.”

  AFTER about ten minutes jarring across the lunar surface, Major Winship said, “I’m not appreciably cooler; but then I’m not appreciably hotter, either.”

  “Shut up, Charlie. You’re a thirty-year man,” Lt. Chandler said.

  “Old soldiers never die, they just become desiccated.”

  “I’d like a beer,” Major W in ship said. “A cold, frosty, foamy beer. Big collar. Gimme a beer, a little shaker of salt—”

  “Finogenov’s probably got eight or ten cases.”

  “For once, I hope you’re right. Try to bounce a little easier, Larry.”

  “Russians don’t drink beer,” Lt. Chandler said.

  “You sure?”

  “Vodka,” Capt. Lawler grunted.

  “They drink champagne, you idiots,” Capt. Wilkins said.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” Major Winship said. “Champagne is okay by me. if it’s just cold.”

  “Finogenov will have a few hundred pounds of ice.”

  “Cut it out,” Major Winship said.

  “Boy, you wait till we get you back to Earth. When it comes time to reup, I’m going to be there. I’m going to remind you of this one.”

  “You’re a thirty-year man, too, Les,” Major Winship said.

  “Not me,” Lt. Chandler said. “I’ve had it, dad. I’m going to sell my life story to the movies and spend the rest of my life eating popcorn and watching what an idiot I was. A man can get hurt up here.”

  “So you want to be a civilian?”

  “You’re damned right I do,” Lt. Chandler said.

  “We’re about there,” Capt. Lawler cut in. “You still okay, Charlie?”

  “Fine.”

  “Here’s the little ridge, then. Hold on, we’re taking the angle up. You riding okay, Charlie?”

  “Fine, Skip.”

  After a moment, Capt. Lawler said, “I see the base now. The top. Hey!” He slammed on the brakes. “Oh, no! Those . . . those fools! Those idiots.”

  “What’s wrong?” Major Winship demanded. “Skip—what’s wrong?”

  “The second little dome is down. It wasn’t that way a couple of hours ago. And they’ve block-and-tackled a drum of calking compound up on the main dome.”

  “We’ve got to stop them!” Major Winship cried. “Skip! Skip!”

  “Charlie, there’s nothing we can do. The drum’s just starting to turn red.”

  There was silence for a while.

  “It’s melting through, now. There it goes. Down through the dome. Out of sight.” After a moment, Capt. Lawler continued. “Funny how things fall so slowly under this low gravity. It floated through their dome just like a feather. You should have seen it.”

  Eventually, Lt. Chandler said, “Boys, this is my last hitch.”

  There was more silence.

  Capt. Wilkins mused, “I guess they didn’t have a little scale either.”

  Someone was breathing loudly. At length, Major Winship said reflectively, “Why do you suppose they would try to calk it from the outside?”

  Again silence. Major Winship asked the question. “Okay. Let’s have it. How’s the other little dome?”

  “Other one? Oh, sorry,” Capt. Lawler said. “It looks all right.”

  “It better be all right,” Lt. Chandler said.

  IN the end, the eleven of them were crowded into the one remaining operational structure of the four available on the moon at sunrise.

  For perhaps the tenth time, General Finogenov offered his apologies. He and Major Winship were huddled side by side in a corner. They were drinking vodka.

  “Plenty of everything,” General Finogenov said. “Don’t concern yourself, Major. Air, food, water, we have more than enough for a prolonged siege.”

  “Accidents will happen.”

  “Exactly,” said General Finogenov, pouring more vodka for himself. “Glad you understand.” He put the empty bottle down. “We will have another one next week. In the meantime—I very much regret the inconvenience. Plenty of food, water, air, though. Pinov! Pinov! Vodka!”

  Pinov answered in Russian. General Finogenov frowned. “Dear, dear,” he said. “I’m afraid this must be our last one, Major. You see, while we have plenty of everything else, we are, you see . . . The truth of the matter is, we didn’t foresee visitors. Unfortunately, we have no more vodka.”

  “No more vodka,” said General Finogenov. He stared morosely into the inky distance. “Major Winship, I have a confession. Oh, that second one was a beauty. You didn’t feel it?”

  “Our leak sprang on the first one. The second was quite mild, we thought.”

  “We were right on the fault line,” General Finogenov said. “As you Americans say, it was a beauty. I have a confession. One must admit one’s mistakes.”

  “Yes?”

  “We used much too large a bomb,” he said.

  “I’m with you,” Lt. Chandler chimed in from somewhere out of the darkness. “But when do you think you’re going to get the lights fixed?”

  TOO MANY EGGS

  Everybody likes fried eggs for breakfast—but would a chicken?

  COXE, an unusually phlegmatic citizen, came to buy the new refrigerator in the usual fashion. He was looking for a bargain. It was the latest model, fresh from the new production line in Los Angeles, and was marked down considerably below standard. The freezing compartment held 245 lbs. of meat.

  “How come so cheap?” Coxe wanted to know.

  “Frankly,” the salesman said, “I asked myself that. Usually there’s a dent in them or something, when they have that factory tag on them. But I checked it over and T can’t find anything wrong with it.

  However, she goes as is.”

  “At that price,” Coxe said, “I’ll take it.”

  It arrived, refinished in a copper color to his specifications, the following Tuesday. It was plugged in and operated perfectly. He checked it out by freezing ice cubes.

  Wednesday evening, when he opened the door to chill some beer, there was a package in the freezing compartment. He took out the package.

  It was some sort of plastic and appeared to contain fish eggs.

  Coxe had not seen fresh fish eggs, considered by some a delicacy, for a number of years.

  He chilled the beer and fried the eggs.

  Both tasted about right.

  The following Friday, his girl friend came over to fix dinner for him, and when she looked in the freezing compartment, she said, “What’s this?”

  “Fish eggs,” Coxe said. “How many of them?”

  “Two packages.”

  “We’ll fry them up for breakfast,” he said.

  Saturday morning, there were three packages of eggs in the refrigerator.

  “Where do they come from?” his girl friend wanted to know.

  “They just appear. I ate some and they’re very good.”

  She was reluctant, but he talked her into preparing a package.

  She agreed they were very good.

  “What are you going to do about it?” she asked.

  “I don’t think there’s anything to do about it,” he said. “I like fish eggs.”

  On Sunday, the package they had eaten Saturday had been replaced. They were coming in at a steady rate of one a day. Coxe cooked a package for breakfast and took the other two to his parents.

  By Tuesday, he was getting tired of the eggs, and by the end of the week, he had four more packages. He succeeded in giving two packages to the neighbors.

  At the end of another week, he had eight packages.

  He explained to his girl friend. She suggested they visit all their friends, leaving a package with
each of them.

  At the end of another two weeks, this method for disposing of the eggs had worn thin. They finally managed to give the last two packages to the landlady.

  At the end of still another week, there were seven more packages. Otherwise, the refrigerator was a good buy.

  Coxe calculated that, at the present rate, had he left the packages in the compartment, it would have been filled by the end of the month. He felt that once that point was reached, the eggs would stop coming. Should this prove to be incorrect, he was prepared to arrange for some method of commercial distribution for the product.

  On schedule, the eggs stopped coming.

  He waited two days. No more came. It was over.

  He ate the last package.

  THE refrigerator worked perfectly, and, he began to stock it with things freezers are conventionally stocked with.

  It was almost two weeks after the last package had appeared, early one Sunday morning, when the doorbell rang.

  At the door was a small, nondescript man with a vaguely—and really indefinably—unpleasant aspect. His head was bandaged.

  “Mr. Coxe?” he asked.

  “That’s me.”

  “May I come in?”

  “Come on.”

  The man seated himself. “Something terrible has happened,” he said. “A horrible mistake has been made.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. You look as if you were in an accident.”

  “I was. I’ve been in the . . . hospital . . . for nearly two months. But to come to the point, Mr. Coxe. I’ve come about the refrigerator you recently purchased. It was a special refrigerator that was erroneously shipped out of the plant as a second. When I didn’t come in, it got shipped out and sold.”

  “Good refrigerator,” Coxe said.

  “Perhaps you’ve noticed . . . ah . . . something unusual about it?”

  “It runs okay. For a while there were a bunch of packages of fish eggs in it.”

  “Fish eggs!” the little man cried in horror. After he had recovered sufficiently, he asked, “You do, of course you do, I’m sure you still have all the . . . little packages?”

  “Oh, no,” said Coxe.

  “NO? Oh, my God. What did you do with them, Mr. Coxe?”

  “Ate them.”

  “You . . . ate . . . them? Ate—? No. You didn’t. Not all of them. You couldn’t have done that, Mr. Coxe. Please tell me that you could not have done that.”