Complete Venus Equilateral (1976) SSC

by George O. Smith

  “I think that we’ve spent the last thirty hours just catching up,” Walt explained. “Up to right now, we are going backward, so to speak; we’re on even terms now, and will be doing better from here on in.”

  “It’s the waiting that gets me down,” said Arden. “Oh, for something to do.”

  “Let’s eat,” suggested Walt. “I’m hungry, and now that I think of it, I haven’t eaten since we left the station. Arden, you are hereby elected to the post of galley chief. Get Jimmy from the dome if you need help.”

  “Help? What for?”

  “He can help you lift it out of the oven. Don must have a cast-iron stomach.”

  “That’s hearsay. “I’ll show you! As soon as I find the can opener, breakfast will be served.”

  “Make mine dinner,” said Chuck. “We’ve been awake all the time.”

  “O.K., we will have a combined meal, from grapefruit to ice cream. Those who want any or all parts may choose at will. And fellows, please let me know as soon as you get something tangible.”

  “That’s a promise,” said Walt. “Take it easy, and don’t worry. We’ll be catching up with them one of these days.”

  -

  “Hadley, how much coating have we got on those cathodes?” asked Don Channing.

  “Not too much. We had about twenty G hours to begin with. We went to a half G for twenty hours, and now we’re running on a quarter G, which would let us go for forty hours more.”

  “Well, look. If it should come to a choice between floor and signal gun, we’ll choose the gun. We’ve about eight hours left in the cathodes, and since everybody is now used to quarter G we might even slide it down to an eighth G, which would give us about sixteen hours.”

  “Your gun is still putting out?”

  “So far as I can tell. Six hours from now, we should know, I think, predicating my guess on whatever meager information they must have.”

  “We could save some juice by killing most of the lights in the ship.”

  “That’s a thought. Johannson, have one of your men run around and remove all lights that aren’t absolutely necessary. He can kill about three-quarters of them, I’m certain. That’ll save us a few kilowatt hours,” said Channing. “And another thing. I’m about to drop the power of our electron gun and run it continuously. If the boys are anywhere in the neighborhood, they’ll be needing continuous disturbance for direction finding. I’d say in another five hours that we should start continuous radiation.”

  “You know, Channing, if this thing works out all right, it will be a definite vote for pure, deductive reasoning,” Johannson replied.

  “I know. But the deductive reasoning is not too pure. It isn’t guesswork. There are two factors of known quality. One is that I know Walt Franks and the other is that he knows me. The rest is a simple matter of the boys on the station knowing space to the last inch, and applying the theory of probabilities to it. We’ll hear from them soon, or I’ll miss my guess. Just you wait.”

  “Yeah,” drawled Captain Johannson, “well wait!”

  -

  Chuck Thomas made another computation and said: “Well, Walt, we’ve been narrowing them down for quite a long time now. We’re getting closer and closer to them, according to the field intensity. I’ve just got a good idea of direction on that last five-minute shot. Have Franklen swivel us around on this course; pretty soon we’ll be right in the middle of their shots.”

  “We’re approaching them asymptotically,” Walt observed. “I wish I knew what our velocity was with respect to theirs. Something tells me that it would be much simpler if I knew.”

  “Walt,” asked Arden, “how close can you see a spaceship?”

  “You mean how far? Well, I don’t know that it has ever been tried and recorded. But we can figure it out easy enough by analogy. A period is about thirty thousandths of an inch in diameter, and visible from a distance of thirty inches. I mean visible with no doubt about its being there. That’s a thousand to one. Now, the Ariadne is about six hundred feet tall and about four hundred feet in its major diameter, so we can assume a little more than the four hundred feet—say five hundred feet average of circular area—follow me?”

  “Go on, you’re vague, but normal.”

  “Then at a thousand to one, that becomes five hundred thousand feet, and dividing by five thousand—round figures because it isn’t important enough to use that two hundred and eighty feet over the five thousand—gives us one thousand miles. We should be able to see the Ariadne from a distance of a thousand miles.”

  “Then at four thousand miles per second we’ll be in and through and out of visual range in a half-second?”

  “Oh, no. They’re rambling on a quite similar course at an unknown but high velocity. Our velocity with respect to theirs is what will determine how long they’re within visual range.”

  “Hey, Walt,” came the voice of Chuck Thomas. “The intensity of Don’s beam has been cut to about one-quarter and is now continuous. Does that mean anything?”

  “Might mean trouble for them. Either they’re running out of soup and mean for us to hurry up, or they assume we’re close enough to obviate the need for high power. We’d better assume they want haste, and act accordingly. How’re the boys on the radio detectors coming along?”

  “Fine. They’ve taken over the direction finding and claim that we are right on their tail.”

  “Anything in the sights, Jimmy?”

  “Not yet. But the electroscope boys claim that quarter power or not, the input is terrific.”

  “Take a rest, Jimmy. We won’t be there for a while yet. No use burning your eyes out trying to see ‘em. There’ll be time enough for you to do your share after we get ‘em close enough to see with the naked eye. What do the beam scanners say?”

  “Shucks,” answered the man on the scanners, “they’re still radiating. How are we going to fix ‘em on a reflected wave when they’re more powerful on their own hook? The whole plate is glaring white. And, incidentally, so is the celestial globe in the meteor spotter. I’ve had to cut that or we’d never be able to hold this course. Anything like a meteor that comes in our way now will not register, and—”

  The Relay Girl lurched sickeningly. All over the ship, things rattled and fell to the floors. Men grabbed at the closest solid object, and then the Relay Girl straightened out once more.

  “Whoosh!” said Franks. “That was a big one!”

  “Big one?” called Jimmy. “That, my friend, was none other than the Ariadne!”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “Sure,” Jimmy chuckled. “I saw ‘em. I can still see ‘em!”

  “Franklen, hang on at about seven G and follow Jimmy’s orders. Chuck, see if you can get anything cogent out of your gadget. Holy green fire, with a cubic million million million megaparsecs in which to run, we have to be so good that we run right into our quarry. Who says that radio direction finding is not a precise science? Who says that we couldn’t catch—”

  “Walt, they’re losing fast.”

  “O.K., Jimmy, can you give me any idea as to their velocity with respect to ours?”

  “How long is she?”

  “Six hundred feet.”

  Jimmy was silent for some seconds. “They’re out of sight again, but I make it about four to seven hundred miles per second.”

  “At seven G we should match that seven hundred in about four hours.”

  “And then go on decelerating so that they’ll catch up?”

  “No,” said Walt. “I used the max figures and we can assume they aren’t going that fast, quite. At the end of four hours, we’ll turnover and wait until they heave in sight again, and then we’ll do some more oscillating. We can match their velocity inside of ten hours, or Franklen will get fired.”

  “If I don’t,” promised Franklen, “I’ll quit. You can’t fire me!”

  “We should be able to contact them by radio,” Walt said.

  “We are!” called the radio man. “It’s Ch
anning. He says: ‘Fancy meeting you here.’ Any answer?”

  “Just say, ‘Dr. Channing, I presume?’ “

  Channing’s voice came out of the ship’s announcer system as the radio man made the necessary connections. It said: “Right—but what kept you so long?”

  “Our boss was away,” replied Walt. “And we can’t do a thing without him.”

  “Some boss. Some crew of wild men. Can’t go off on a fishing trip without having my bunch chasing all over the Solar System.”

  “What’s wrong with a little sight-seeing tour? We didn’t mean any harm. And speaking of harm, how are you and the rest of that bunch getting along?”

  “We’re O.K. What do you plan after we finally get close enough together to throw stones across?”

  “We’ve got a whole hold full of spare batteries and a double set of replacement cathodes. There is a shipload of gravanol aboard, too. You’ll need that and so will we. By the time we finish this jaunt, we’ll have been about as far out as anybody ever gets.”

  “Yeah? Got any precise figures? We’ve been running on a guess and a hope. I make it about seven hundred million.”

  “Make it eight and a half. At six G you’ll cover another hundred and fifty million miles before you stop. Take it twenty-two hours at six G—and then another twenty-two at six. That should put you right back here—but going the other way at the same velocity. But wait, you’ve been coasting. Mark off that last twenty-two hours and make it like this: you’ll be one thousand million miles from Sol when you come to a stop at the end of the first twenty-two hours at six G. That hangs you out beyond the orbit of Saturn by a couple of hundred million. Make it back forty-four hours at six G, turnover and continue. By that time we’ll all be in so close that we can make any planet at will—preferably you to Terra and we’ll head for Venus Equilateral. You’ll come aboard us? No need for you to land with the rest.”

  “I can have the scooter sent out from Terra,” said Channing. “How’s Arden?”

  “I’m fine, you big runabout. Wait until I get you!”

  “Why, Arden, I thought you might be glad to see me.”

  “Glad to see you?”

  “But Arden—”

  “Don’t you ‘But Arden’ me, you big gadabout. Glad to see you! Boy, any man that makes me chase him all over the Solar System! You just wait. As soon as I get ahold of you, Don Channing, I’m going to—to bust out and bawl like a kid! Hurry up, willya?”

  “I’ll be right over,” said Don soberly.

  And, strangely enough, Don did not deviate.

  -

  Interlude

  Four and a half thousand years ago, Sargon of Akkad held court on the plains of Assyria by torchlight. Above his head there shone the myriad of stars, placed there to increase his power and glory.

  But on one of the stars above, called Mars, were people who knew a mighty civilization and a vast world of science. They flew above the thin air of Mars and they hurled power by energy beam across the face of the planet.

  Then they—died. They died, and they left but broken fragments of their once-mighty civilization buried in the shifting, dusty sands of Mars. Long centuries afterward, man crossed space to find these fragments and wonder.

  How or why they died is a matter of conjecture. It is known that iron is the most stable of all known atomic structures besides helium. It is also known that the surface of Mars has its characteristic reddish hue because of the preponderance of iron compounds there. From the few remaining artifacts. It is known that Mars exceeded the present Terran science, which includes atomic power. The inference is that Mars died completely in the horror of atomic war.

  This is but reasoning. The facts that are of interest include the finding of a gigantic vacuum tube fastened to a shattered steel tower in the sands between Canalopsis and Lincoln Head, Mars.

  The original finders, Martian archaeologists Baler and Carroll, were versed enough in electronics to make tests. They discovered many interesting facts about this tube before they sold it to Terran Electric for a monumental sum of money. Their reasons for selling the thing were simple. They preferred digging in the sands of Mars to plunging into the depths of a highly technical manufacturing business, and the money was more than adequate.

  Don Channing’s main objection was that Carroll and Baler did not consult Venus Equilateral before they disposed of their find.

  That made it necessary for Venus Equilateral to acquire a tube for their research by dealing with Terran Electric, which in this case was similar to obtaining a ton of uranium ore from Oak Ridge back in the year 1945. Often, of course, the shortest distance home is …

  -

  The Long Way

  Don Channing stood back and admired his latest acquisition with all of the fervency of a high school girl inspecting her first party dress. It was so apparent, this affection between man and gadget, that the workmen who were now carrying off the remnants of the packing case did so from the far side of the bench so that they would not come between the Director of Communications and the object of his affection.

  So intent was Channing to the adoration of the object that he did not hear the door open, nor the click of high heels against the plastic flooring. He was completely unaware of his surroundings until Arden said: “Don, what on earth is that?”

  “Ain’t she a beaut,” breathed Channing.

  “Jilted for a jimcrack,” Arden groaned. “Tell me, my quondam husband, what is it?”

  “Huh?” asked Don, coming to life once more.

  “In plain, unvarnished words of one cylinder, what is that … that that?”

  “Oh, you mean the transmission tube?”

  “How do you do?” said Arden to the big tube. “Funny looking thing, not like any transmitting tube I‘ve ever seen before.”

  “Not a transmitting tube,” exclaimed Channing. “It is one of those power transmission tubes that Baler and Carroll found on the Martian desert.”

  “I presume that is why the etch says: MADE BY TERRAN ELECTRIC, CHICAGO?

  Channing laughed. “Not the one found—there was only one found. This is a carbon copy. They are going to revolutionize the transmission of power with them.”

  “Funny-looking gadget.”

  “Not so funny. Just alien.”

  “Know anything about it?”

  “Not too much. I’ve got Barney Carroll coming out here and a couple of guys from Terran Electric. I’m going to strain myself to keep from tinkering with the thing until they get here.”

  “Can’t you go ahead? It’s not like you to wait.”

  “I know,” said Channing. “But the Terran Electric boys have sewed up the rights of this dingus so tight that it’s squeaking. Seems to be some objection to working on them in the absence of their men.”

  “Why?”

  “Probably because Terran Electric knows a good thing when they see it. Barney’s latest ‘gram said that they, were very reluctant to lend this tube to us. Legally they couldn’t refuse, but they know darned well that we’re not going to run power in here from Terra—or anywhere else. They know we want it for experimentation, and they feel that it is their tube and that if any experimentation is going to take place, they’re going to do it.”

  The workmen returned with two smaller cases; one each they placed on benches to either side of the big tube. They knocked the boxes apart and there emerged two smaller editions of the center tube—and even Arden could see that these two were quite like the forward half and the latter half, respectively, of the larger tube.

  “Did you buy ‘em out?” she asked.

  “No,” said Don simply. “This merely makes a complete circuit.”

  “Explain that one, please.”

  “Sure. This one on the left is the input-terminal tube which they call the power end. The good old DC goes in across these big terminals. It emerges from the big end, here, and bats across in a beam of intangible something-or-other until it gets to the relay tube, where it is once more toss
ed across to the load-end tube. The power is taken from these terminals on the back end of the load-end tube and is then suitable for running motors, refrigerators, and so on. The total line loss is slightly more than the old-fashioned transmission line. The cathode-dynode requires replacement about once a year. The advantages over high-tension wires are many; in spite of the slightly higher line losses, they are replacing long-lines everywhere.

  “When they’re properly aligned, they will arch right over a mountain of solid iron without attenuation. It takes one tower every hundred and seventy miles, and the only restriction on tower height is that the tube must be above ground by ten to one the distance that could be flashed over under high-intensity ultraviolet light.”

  “That isn’t clear to me.”

  “Well, high-tension juice will flash over better under ultraviolet illumination. The tube must be high enough to exceed this distance by ten to one at the operating voltage of the stuff down the line. The boys in the Palanortis jungles say they’re a godsend, since there are a lot of places where the high-tension towers would be impossible since the Palanortis whitewood grows about a thousand feet tall.”

  “You’d cut a lot of wood to ream a path through from Northern Landing to the power station on the Boiling River,” said Arden.

  “Yeah,” Don drawled, “and towers a couple of hundred miles apart are better than two thousand feet. Yeah, these things are the nuts for getting power shipped across country.”

  “Couldn’t we squirt it out from Terra?” asked Arden. “That would take the curse off of our operating expenses.”

  “It sure would,” agreed Channing heartily. “But think of the trouble in aligning a beam of that distance. I don’t know—there’s this two-hundred-miles’ restriction, you know. They don’t transmit worth a hoot over that distance, and it would be utterly impossible to maintain stations in space a couple of hundred miles apart, even from Venus, from which we maintain a fairly close tolerance. We might try a hooting big one, but the trouble is that misalignment of the things result in terrible effects.”