George O. Smith

“ The beam was resisted fiercely. Infiltrations of ionization tore at the central component, stripping and trying to beat it down.
But man triumphed over nature! The megawatt of energy that came in a tight beam from the building at Northern Landing emerged from the Heaviside Layer as a weak, piffling signal. It wavered and it crackled. It wanted desperately to lie down and sleep. Its directional qualities were impaired, and it wabbled badly. It arrived at the relay station tired and worn. ”

“ Make that any normal gyration and I'll buy it."
"Then why don't we disperse the beam to two or three thousand miles and do away with diversity transmission?" asked Burbank triumphantly.
"Ever heard of fading?" asked Channing with a grin. "Your signal comes and goes. Not gyration, it just gets weaker. It fails for want of something to eat, I guess, and takes off after a wandering cosmic ray. At any rate, there are many times per minute that one beam will be right on the nose and yet so weak that our strippers cannot clean it enough to make it usable. Then the diversity system comes in handy. ”

“ He troubled Joe for a bottle of the best and took to his apartment in disappointment. By eight o'clock in the evening, Don Channing was asleep with all of his clothing on. The bed rolled and refused to stay on an even keel, but Channing found a necktie and tied himself securely in the bed and died off in a beautiful, boiled cloud. ”

“ You understand their reasoning, of course," said Burbank.
"Not exactly."
"Well, it is like this. They know that a scientist is not usually a man to consider the cost of experimentation. They build thousand-ton cyclotrons to convert a penny's worth of lead into one and one-tenth cents' worth of lead and gold. And they use three hundred dollars' worth of power and a million-dollar machine to do it with.
"They feel that a man with training like that will not know the real meaning of the phrase, 'cutting expenses.' A new broom sweeps clean, Dr. Channing. ”

“ It was Walt Franks and Joe.
It was Arden that proposed the toast. "Here's to a closed corporation," she said. They drank on that.
She went over beside Don and took his arm. "You see?" she said, looking up into his eyes. "We aren't the same. Things have changed since Burbank came, and went. Haven't they?"
"They have," laughed Channing. "And now that you are my secretary, it is no longer proper for you to shine up to me like that. People will talk."
"What's he raving about?" asked Joe.
Channing answered. "It is considered bad taste for a secretary to make passes at her boss. ”

“ Puny man, setting his will against the monstrous void. Puny man, dependent upon atmosphere. "Nature abhors a vacuum," once said Torrecelli. What braggadocio! If Nature abhorred a vacuum, why did she make so much of it?
Arden Westland entered the apartment without knocking. "I'd give my right arm up to here for a cigarette," she said, marking above the elbow with the edge of her other hand.
"Na-hah," said Channing. "Can't burn oxygen."
"I know. I'm tired, I'm cold, and I'm ill. Anything you can do for a lady?"
"Not as much as I'd like to do," said Channing. "I can't help much. ”

“ Hell, even Canalopolis has an occasional rainstorm!"
"Return to your laboratory," said Burbank coldly. "And let me run the station. Why should we spend useless money to pamper people? I don't care if Canalopolis does have an occasional storm, we are not on Mars, we are in Venus Equilateral. You tend to your end of the business and I'll do as I deem fitting for the station!"
Channing mentally threw up his hands and literally stalked out of the office. Here was a close-knit organization being shot full of holes by a screwball. ”

“ The stars shine forever in a sky that holds a molten ball. Sol flares endlessly in an absolutely black, star-studded sky. There is no moon. The air is always soft and warm and unchanging.
And at the moment that Channing was finding out why Arden resigned, a little man of Northern Venus handed a message to the operator in the International Hotel in Detroit, Michigan. It went out on the land wires to Hawaii; to Luna; to Venus Equilateral; to the rotating relay stations that circle Venus five hundred miles above the planet; down through the raging heaviside layer to Northern Landing ”

“ Channing found the men in the beam-control room worried and ill at ease. The fine co-ordination that made them expert in their line was ebbing. The nervous work, that made it necessary to run the men in ten-minute shifts with a half hour of rest in between, demanded perfect motor control, excellent perception, and a fine power of reasoning. The barely perceptible lack of oxygen at this high level was taking its toll already. ”

“ Channing shook Burbank's shoulder. He slapped the man's face. Eyes opened; accusing eyes, rendered mute by a very sore jaw, tongue, and throat.
"Now listen," snapped Channing. "Listen to every word! Mosaic directors are useless. Have you any reason why? It is because of the lag. At planetary distances, light takes an appreciable time to reach your planet. The beam wabbles, swerves out of line because of intervening factors; varying magnetic fields, even the bending of light due to gravitational fields will make the beam swerve microscopically. ”

“ At the center of the dome, there was a sighting 'scope. It kept Polaris on a marked circle, keeping the station exactly even with the Terrestrial North. About the periphery of the dome, looking out across space, the beam control operators were sitting, each with a hundred-foot parabolic reflector below his position, outside the dome, and under the rim of the transparent bowl. These reflectors shot the interworld signals across space in tight beams, and the men, half the time anticipating the vagaries of space-warp, kept them centered on the proper, shining speck in that field of stars. ”

“ Channing told Joe.
"Make it three," chimed in Arden. "I've got to work for him, too!"
"Is that so bad?" asked Channing. "All you've got to do is to listen carefully and do as you're told. We have to answer to the bird, too."
"Yeah," said Arden, "but you fellows don't have to listen to a dopey guy ask foolish questions all day. It's driving me silly."
"What I'd like to know," murmured Franks, "is what is the idea of pulling me off the job? Nuts, I've been on Beam Control for years. I've got the finest crew of men anywhere. They can actually foresee a shift and compensate for it, I think. ”

“ But it is still not proper for a secretary to—"
"You can't call me a secretary in that tone of voice," snapped Arden. "I quit! I resign! I refuse to be secretary to a man like you!"
Channing looked helplessly at Franks.
Walt looked at Arden, saw what was in her eyes, and told Channing: "See if you can wriggle out of what comes next!" He took Joe by the arm and said: "Joe, now that the ban is off, may I buy you a drink?"
And Joe answered: "It is a beautiful night out, isn't it?"
It is always a beautiful night on Venus Equilateral. ”

“ But, Burbank, a microscopic discrepancy is all that is needed to bust things wide open. You've got to have experienced men to operate the beam controls. Men who can think. Men who can, from experience, reason that this fluctuation will not last, but will swing back in a few seconds, or that this type of swerving will increase in magnitude for a half-hour, maintain the status, and then return, pass through zero and find the same level on the minus side.
"Since light and centimeter waves are not exactly alike in performance, a field that will swerve one may not affect the other. ”

“ We are a selected group and well prepared to take care of our morality. Any man or woman going offside would be heaved out quick. Why, after years of personal freedom, do we find ourselves under the authority of a veritable dictatorship?"
Francis Burbank was not touched. "I'll trouble you to keep to your own laboratory," he told Channing. "Perhaps your own laxity in matters of this sort is the reason why the Commission preferred someone better prepared. You speak of many things. There will be more to come. ”

“ The gyroscopes and the beam finders, the storerooms, the air plants, the hydroponic farms, and all other things that needed little or no gravity for well-being.
This was the Venus Equilateral Relay Station, sixty degrees ahead of the planet Venus, on Venus' orbit. Often closer to Terra than Venus, the relay station offered a perfect place to relay messages through whenever Mars or Terra were on the other side of the Sun. It was seldom idle, for it was seldom that both Mars and Terra were in such position that direct communication between the three planets was possible. ”

“ Arden gasped. She fled from the office.
"Burbank, what did you think an air plant was?" snapped Channing.
"Why, isn't it some sort of purifying machinery?" asked the wondering Director.
"What better purifying machine is there than a plot of grass?" shouted Channing. "Weeds, grass, flowers, trees, alfalfa, wheat, or anything that grows and uses chlorophyll. We breathe oxygen, exhale CO2. Plants inhale CO2 and exude oxygen. An air plant means just that. It is a specialized type of Martian sawgrass that is more efficient than anything else in the system for inhaling dead air and revitalizing it. ”

“ Our microcosmic world is getting a shot in the arm in a few hours that will reset the balance."
"I don't see why we didn't prepare for this emergency," said Arden.
"This station is well balanced. There are enough people here and enough space to make a little world of our own. We can establish a balance that is pretty darned close to perfect. The imperfections are taken care of by influxes of supplies from the system. Until Burbank upset the balance, we could go on forever, utilizing natural purification of air and water. ”

“ The coupling machine worked furiously. It accepted the tapes from seventy operators as fast as they could write them. It selected the messages as they entered the machine, placing a mechanical preference upon whichever message happened to be ahead of the others on the moving tapes. The master tape moved continuously at eleven hundred words per minute, taking teletype messages from everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere of Venus to any of the other planets in the Solar System. It was a busy machine, for even at eleven hundred words per minute, it often got hours behind. ”

“ The energy to operate Venus Equilateral is supplied with the photoelectric collectors—sun power, if you please. Why should we burden ourselves with a lot of cubic feet of supplies that would take up room necessary to maintain our balance? We are not in bad shape. We'll live, though we'll all be a bunch of tired, irritable people who yawn in one another's faces. ”

“ Your two channels come in to a common detector. Automatic volume control voltage comes from the single detector and is applied to all channels. This voltage is proper for the strongest channel, but is too high for the ones receiving the weaker signal, blocking them by rendering them insensitive. When the strong channel fades and the weak channel rises, the detector follows down until the two signal channels are equal and then it rises with the stronger channel."
"I see," said Burbank. "Has anything been done about fading?"
"It is like the weather, according to Mark Twain," smiled Channing. ”

“ The people here may go home to their own planets to find that the smell of fresh, spring air is more desirable than a climate that never varies from the personal optimum. I wonder, occasionally, if it might not be possible to instigate some sort of cold snap or a rainy season just for the purpose of bringing to the members of Venus Equilateral some of the surprises that are to be found in Chicago or New York. ”

“ Collect all the oxygen you can in containers. This is the business! It has priority! Anything, no matter how valuable, must be scrapped if it can facilitate the gathering of oxygen. God knows, there isn't by half enough—not even a tenth. But try, anyway."
Channing headed out of the chemistry laboratory and into the electronics lab. "Jimmy," he shouted. "Get a couple of stone jars and get an electrolysis outfit running. Fling the hydrogen out of a convenient outlet into space and collect the oxygen. ”

“ Venus Equilateral has been seared by fire. We'll be tougher and less tolerant of outsiders. If we were a closed corporation before, we'll be tighter than a vacuum-packed coffee can afterwards. And the first bird that cracks us will get hissed at. ”

“ A cylinder dropped out of the tube, and Joe opened it and handed the inclosed paper to Franks.
He read:
Walt: I'm sending this to you at Joe's because I know that is where you are and I think that you should get this real quick.
Helen S.
Walt smiled wearily and said: "A good secretary is a thing of beauty. A thing of beauty is admired and is a joy forever. Helen is both. She is a jewel."
"Yeah, we know. What does the letter say?"
"It is another communique from our doting boss. He is removing from my control the odd three hundred men I've got working on Beam Control. ”

“ Channing operated a heavy door. They went in through rooms full of machinery and into rooms stacked to the center with boxes; stacked from the wall to the center and then packed with springs. Near the axis of the cylinder, things weighed so little that packing was necessary to keep them from bouncing around.
"I feel giddy," said Arden.
"High in oxygen," said he. "The CO2 drops to the bottom, being heavier. Then, too, the air is thinner up here because centrifugal force swings the whole out to the rim. ”