Part 10

There was a long, long pause while he adjusted the nose of the ship with micrometric accuracy to an exact, particular spot and made sure that it stayed there. The ship had drifted a good mile from the Platform when he stabbed home the rocket-firing button.

As usual, the instantly following sensation was that of a roof falling in on one and several other roofs falling in on top of it. The Venus ship accelerated for seventy-eight seconds, its nose pointed sunward. McCauley'd set the rocket timer for that length of firing.

When the rockets died, he floated weightless in a ship which had no weight. His head tried to split wide open and let his aching brains run out. His hands were puffy and swollen. His eyes felt as if they were on fire. Beside him, Randy groaned and then growled.

"Doggone the man who invented rockets," said Randy painfully.

"See how Bramwell's doing," grunted McCauley. "I've got to see how we made out."

His headache went slowly away as he checked the ship's line of motion against Earth, growing small behind him, and Venus and the sun ahead. It was reasonably satisfactory. He checked the ship's velocity by the inertia computer and by a tight-beam query back to Earth. His query went back on microwave with a beautifully accurate piezocrystal regulating his frequency. His speed could be determined by the Doppler effect. Both the inertia computer and the Doppler reading indicated that his velocity would need a slight boost later. A time and duration of rocket firing would be computed. So far, though, so good.

"We'd better set up housekeeping," said McCauley. "How's Bramwell?"

"Pulse and respiration okay," reported Randy. "But I bet he busts a button when he wakes up."

McCauley eased out of his acceleration chair. He ached in every bone and muscle from the effects of the two successive take-offs. But he cast an accustomed eye about the ship. It was not a big ship, and Bramwell's stipulated soundproof cabin took up a large part of it. It was, actually, not much more than an oversized moonship. But there were features to be arranged that the short-voyage ships from Earth to moon did not bother with.

McCauley floated over to the packed-up air system. In a space voyage up to a week in length, it is as economical of weight to carry air as to purify it. But the Venus shoot would last much, much longer than a week. So McCauley unpacked the air system. The vegetation had been padded lest it be bruised or broken in the take-offs. He set up the unit and started the hydroponic pump. Randy adjusted the drinkables unit. McCauley set out meals to thaw, in readiness for dinner. Randy put the sanitary facilities and the waste-disposal unit in operation. In effect, the ship had had to be decommissioned as a livable vessel while it was being flung out from Earth as a projectile. Now, in far space and going even farther, the two men transformed it into one of those specialized environments that supply men in emptiness with everything they require except day, night, weight, up, down, normal sounds, and a feeling of belonging where they are.

One homey touch appeared before the recommissioning of the ship was complete. McCauley opened a very small box and took from it an infinitesimal yellow object that stirred as he handled it. It was a tiny canary which had been stowed in the equivalent of a canary-sized acceleration chair. Now it struggled desperately in his hand.

"You'll do, Mr. Perkins," said McCauley. "You're all right!"

He put the panting little creature--Mr. Perkins--into a cage hardly larger than itself. It let out a bewildered chirp when he released it. It struggled wildly, in panic because there was no up or down. McCauley captured it and put its groping claws against the perch. They gripped it. He set up a curiously intricate device inside the cage.

"He'll do," he said in satisfaction. "And it looks as if his food-and-water system is going to work, even in no-gravity. That was a job to design!"

He checked two larger devices with extreme care. One was the flare-particle counter, designed to make an audible click for every hundred, every thousand, or every ten-thousand flare-particle penetrations registered. McCauley set it for hundreds. It clicked every three or four seconds, which was a high concentration but still within the tolerance limit. The other device was the oxygen-supply flutter valve. The plants in the air system would absorb carbon dioxide from the air as the men's breaths produced it, and release oxygen to replace it. But it was not quite a hundred per cent replacement. From time to time more oxygen had to be added from storage tanks to keep the air volume constant and the oxygen percentage right. The flutter valve took care of all this. It made a curiously irritable, buzzing sound when it worked.

The ship went on. Ahead and off to the right lay the steady, last-quarter crescent of Venus. Above and below and on every hand there were stars. Nobody on Earth ever sees the stars as they appear in space. At the bottom of Earth's atmosphere, the keenest eye can see no more than three thousand stars at any one time. Out here one could count as many in a circle no larger than the sun's disk. They shone in innumerable colors. The Milky Way was not a filmy mist across the heavens, but a ribbon of jewels set in pure light; Earth was a glamorous blue-green gem with white spots at its top and bottom, and the moon was a shining smaller circle.

Randy looked outside, as McCauley did. Then Randy yawned, to hide the awe that every man feels when he looks upon the immensity that men impertinently intend to conquer.

"Well, now," said Randy. "We're well started and maybe a bit of a nap is sensible. Anyhow, Bramwell's sleeping sweetly. Should I loose him?"

"Wait till he wakes," said McCauley. "Things feel pretty good," he added.

Randy was silent, and they savored the feel of the ship together. It was strictly a feeling for technically-minded men. There were innumerable instruments, and all of them registered well within the limits of what it was proper for such instruments to read. The ship was on course, floating in immensity. It had ample reserves of fuel. It had left the Space Platform with all its take-off-from-Earth fuel replaced. Besides, having been launched from the Platform at the proper instant, it had the Platform's orbital speed converted to sunward velocity and reinforced by blasts from the new first-stage booster which was not yet fully expended. The replaced second-stage had not been touched, and there was a third stage in reserve. The air system was functioning. The oxygen flutter valve made a consoling noise toward the ship's stern. It sounded like a staccato Bronx cheer. There was plenty of oxygen stored under tremendous pressure. There were resources of food. And there was all the equipment that Bramwell could possibly need for the development and replacement of the ship's present Bramwell-Faraday screen, so that men could stay in space and go farther and farther from home.

It was while they felt the fine contentment of men with a job to do and the material for doing it that Bramwell awoke. At the beginning he was starkly bewildered. He remembered drinking his glass of orange juice the night before. But he remembered nothing more until he found himself trussed up in an acceleration chair, in no-weight, in space, in the one situation he'd been unable to nerve himself to face.

When he realized what had happened to him, he went into blind, screaming, fighting hysterics.

* * * * *

They were three days on their way when McCauley said patiently:

"I've told you. You can use the communicator back to Earth and protest that you were kidnaped. You can arrange for us to be arrested when we return. But we can't turn back. It isn't possible. I wouldn't if I could. Anyhow you're not nearly as scared as you were. You can think straight, now, certainly! And you can see how ridiculous you'll look if you become known as the man who had to be shanghaied for a space trip because he'd neither the nerve to go nor the intestinal fortitude to admit the fact and let another man try to do his work. If you want to be known as a complete ass, you can. But do you?--Do you want to be known as an utter ass?"

Bramwell glared at him. Nobody can stay panicked for days on end. If a man had had a Damoclean sword hanging over his head for days, he'd wind up accustomed to it. He wouldn't like it, but he couldn't stay scared. Fear is an emergency mechanism to increase the pulse rate and release adrenalin and tone the muscles for combat or flight. It is inherently a limited response. It has a maximum duration.

And Bramwell was now past the limit of the time a man can stay hysterically terrified. He didn't like space. He didn't like no-weight. But most devastatingly and bitterly--now that he was no longer terrified--he was ashamed. McCauley and Randy had seen him in babbling, incoherent frenzy. His dignity was utterly gone. And he hated Randy and McCauley poisonously because they'd seen what he would not admit to himself--that he was afraid. It was humiliation to face them. It was an intolerable rasping-raw of his vanity to be in their presence. They knew he'd been afraid and that he'd bluffed to hide it. They'd seen him crack up when he found himself in space. He was shamed beyond endurance. Therefore he raged, and therefore he hated them irreconcilably.

McCauley went on as patiently as before:

"You can do your work now, and it will never be known that you had to be forced to it like a scared little boy. Or you can not do it, and it won't get done, and the history books will say that men once started for the stars but had to come home because Doctor Bramwell's pride prevented him from working on the problem he was the only man who could solve."

Randy, watching, nodded to himself. McCauley was doing a good job of argument. That last "only man who could" was flattery, and Bramwell ought to respond to it.

"I shall charge," said Bramwell spitefully, "that you two prevented me from doing my work by imposing impossible working conditions on me!"

"Name possible ones," said McCauley patiently, "and you'll get them if they're available."

The canary, Mr. Perkins, chirped from its cage. The bird was upside down in relation to Bramwell, but it seemed to have adjusted admirably to the conditions of space travel.

"The soundproofed room," said Bramwell triumphantly, "is ridiculously small. I need more space. But above all I need quiet! I need to be isolated from the society of fools and from noises I cannot endure!"

Mr. Perkins chirped again. The canary was still bewildered, but at least it could see now, and it'd found out how to get at its food and water, and it felt quite cheerful.

"... And you might start," rasped Bramwell, "by strangling that blasted canary! I abominate canaries!"

"Things are looking up, Ed," Randy said cheerfully. "There can't be anything very much wrong with a man who hates dogs, children, and canary birds!"

But McCauley had begun thoughtfully to examine the layout of the interior of the ship.

* * * * *

They were two weeks on the way toward Venus. The flare-particle counter clicked every second and a half. The sun's disk, ahead, was appreciably larger and Venus was a thinner crescent than before. Earth was a small object, though still larger than Venus, and the moon was very small indeed. At this distance the Space Platform was, of course, invisible. But the changes inside the ship were more marked than those outside.

The interior of the ship was now divided into two parts. McCauley and Randy had pulled down the small cubicle made of soundproofing material that had been built for Bramwell to work in. They had used the same material to wall off a full half of the ship. There was a door in the wall, and part of the air-freshening system operated through sound baffles so that the air in the walled-off space was changed, quite silently, with the same regularity as the air in the forward end of the ship, where McCauley and Randy did their work.

But McCauley was vaguely disturbed. It had developed gradually, but he did not feel right. Even though he could not become physically exhausted in a total absence of gravity, he felt dull and weary. There were measurements of flare-particle frequency to be recorded, both from outside the ship where the Bramwell-Faraday screen did not operate, and from inside where it did. The figures were curiously difficult to copy. But there was no reason for him to feel weak and stupid. The air system worked perfectly. The food was adequate. The ship moved steadily, silently, perfectly on its way at a certain number of miles per second, which was increasing a trifle because of the sun's gravitational field. Everything seemed perfect. But he didn't feel right. Randy was not himself, either. And Mr. Perkins sang only half-heartedly.

The canary began, now, what started out to be a beautifully executed trill, but which died away after half a dozen tremolos.

"Mr. Perkins isn't in good voice today. What's troubling him?" Randy spoke with a certain effort.

McCauley concentrated on the report he was filling out. He shook his head and looked again; he was startled.

"Look here!" he said sharply. "We had the screen on when we left the Platform. It kept out the radiation when we went through the Van Allen belt. But now we're nearer the sun. Stuff's coming through the screen! It's been coming through for days! And we haven't noticed it! What's the matter with us?"

"I wouldn't know," said Randy listlessly.

"We're not on the ball," said McCauley. "We've got to do something about this!"

He rose from his chair. It took but the slightest of effort, and he floated free. He reached out his hand to the wall and directed the motion of his whole body. He approached the soundproof barrier that now divided the ship into two separate parts. He caught a handhold on the door and knocked.

Minutes later the door opened. There was no gravity, so Bramwell did not stand in the opening. He floated there, scowling. He and McCauley faced each other, very much like swimmers, except that they swam in air.

"Radiation's coming through the screen," said McCauley. "It shouldn't. Not this early, anyhow. Shouldn't something be done? I'm ordered to consult you about all adjustments of the screen."

He was vaguely dissatisfied with himself for asking. He should not have to ask anyone for instructions. He was ordered to in this case, but decisions were his job.

"Turn it up!" said Bramwell peevishly. Then he seemed to notice that he had not been actively unpleasant. He moved quickly to correct the omission. "How many times," he demanded furiously, "have I told you not to disturb me! Noise upsets me! Leave me alone! Isn't it enough that I have to share the ship with clods, without having you bang on my door?" He glared around the forward part of the ship. Mr. Perkins sang again, a half-hearted attempt at a warble. "Noise! Noise! Noise!" rasped Bramwell.

He pulled the door shut. McCauley floated lethargically to the screen unit and made an adjustment.

Nothing important apparently happened, but something ceased to happen so often. The sharp, slightly irregular clicking of the particle counter seemed to stop. It was a full five seconds before it clicked again, six before it clicked a second time, and five before it clicked a third.

"I wish," said McCauley lethargically, "that I'd been a little more on the job. Why didn't we notice the radiation count going up, Randy?"

"Bramwell complains if we touch the side of the ship because it makes noises inside his sanctum," Randy answered. "Maybe we've been trying not to think for fear the noise would disturb him."

McCauley considered the comment carefully, which was itself an indication that he was not up to par.

"No," he said slowly, "it's not that. But we don't feel right. Maybe we'd better take our temperatures. It would be ghastly if we were getting sick! Bramwell couldn't feed himself, let alone get the ship around Venus!"

With some effort he found a clinical thermometer. But they did not have any fever. In fact, their temperatures were considerably lower than the 98.6° F. which is considered the norm for men in good health.

* * * * *

They were two weeks and five days on their way. McCauley shook his head to clear his mind. He reread what he had just written in the ship's log, vaguely puzzled because it did not seem to make sense. With enormous effort he checked each word and found that he had left one out here and another one there. With great determination he put them in. Somewhere in his mind there was a feeling that he needed to do something very urgently, but he could not think what it was.

"Randy," he said, and something in his brain noted that his voice was plaintive, "I can't seem to think straight! There's something I ought to do! What is it?"

Randy shook his head. He floated in the straps of his acceleration chair; not that the chair was needed, but because it held him still so that there was no possible chance of his striking against the unmuffled wall of the ship and so sending a solid-conduction sound back to Bramwell.

"I don't know," said Randy flatly. "I don't feel too bright myself."

The soundproof door of the after compartment opened. Bramwell came out. Somehow he looked pathetic and frustrated, but he essayed rage.

"I have to have silence!" he cried ferociously. "You are making noises! I cannot think! And I must think! I have to have silence!"

McCauley said numbly:

"I'm sitting here, and Randy's in his chair. There's no noise."

"There is noise, or why can't I think? You are doing something to keep me from thinking!... That canary! It has been singing! That's it! You must wring its neck so I can think!"

"No," said McCauley, "it hasn't been singing. It hasn't sung for a long time. It did, but it doesn't any more. Why?"

"Something is the matter!" insisted Bramwell desperately. "I'm stupid! I'm as stupid as you! And I must use my brains!"

"You've got everything we can give you," said McCauley without particular emphasis. "We can't seem to do our work right either."

"There is some new condition we do not know about," Bramwell said, in a sort of puny panic. "There is something in space which is working to destroy us! Here! Send this message back to Earth!" McCauley took the slip of paper on which words were written in an erratic, spidery hand. "But _I_ think you are making noises!"

Bramwell pulled himself back into his soundproof half of the ship. The door closed behind him, but not quite in time to cut off the beginning of an agitated whimpering sound.

McCauley pushed the beam-on button. He should have checked the time, Earth time, to see if Canaveral were on the side of Earth from which it could pick up the beamed message from space. It wasn't, but he didn't think to check. He read, in a monotone, the message Bramwell had written out:

_I feel the purpose impossible probable effect similar to X-rays with this is vital to further but I have no instruments._

_Bramwell._

He was vaguely puzzled but he read it faithfully. Then, without checking for reception, he turned off the transmitter. He went back to the painful task of trying to make the ship's log entry at which he'd been working for a long time. He assured himself that though the message did not mean anything to him, they'd understand it back on Earth.

But they didn't. It didn't get back to Earth. The Venus ship had been pointed very accurately so that the parabolic reflector for the tight beam to Earth was perfectly aligned. But Bramwell had protested the faint, faint hum of the gyros which kept the ship pointed correctly. McCauley had turned them off. He'd meant to re-align the ship for each period of communication, but his mind was confused and he forgot.

Earth had received no message from the Venus ship for six days past. There was consternation in the Space Service.

It wouldn't have lessened any had Bramwell's message been picked up. He'd meant to say that he felt that achievement of the Venus ship's purpose was impossible because of something which doomed the men in it. He thought it probable that some previously unnoticed effect of radiation, perhaps similar to X-rays, was destroying their capacity to think. This effect should be studied. It was vital to further space exploration. But he had no instruments that could detect it.

* * * * *

They were three weeks out from Earth. The Bramwell-Faraday screen was turned up to full strength, and still the radiation counter clicked and clicked. It now indicated a higher frequency of radiation-particle penetration than was experienced in any of the Van Allen bands around Earth. Bramwell was a pitiable figure. Enough of his mental capacity remained to inform him of his intellectual degeneration. Now and again he popped into the forward part of the ship, trying to catch McCauley or Randy at some activity that was stealing his brain power away. When he failed to do so, he reacted with rages that would have been alarming except that he had not the energy for anything more than words.

McCauley struggled against a massive indifference. One part of his mind stood aside and knew that the occupants of the ship were doomed, but he could not care. Mr. Perkins no longer moved about its cage. Its feathers fluffed, the bird might be dead on its perch. McCauley tried painstakingly to write up the ship's log, but what he wrote was confused, meaningless. Even his handwriting grew steadily more illegible.

Then, at three weeks and one day, the leak alarms rang stridently. They made a frightful clamor all over the ship. The few compartment doors closed tightly.

"Leak," muttered McCauley to himself. "Prob'ly meteorite. Got to get in suit and fix leak...."

Fighting an overwhelming lethargy, he floated toward the space suit rack, missed it by yards, doggedly made his way back to it, and numbly began to get into a suit. Randy worked at the same task. He stopped to rest.

"Randy," said McCauley protestingly. "Get in suit! Leak!"

He himself was incredibly feeble. Had there been weight in the ship, he could not have lifted his helmet to his head. He settled it over his shoulders, but his fingers failed to turn the thumbnuts tight. Even so, there was the familiar feel of air blowing across his face.

Strength came to him. Not instantly, but with the first breaths of air from the suit tank his head seemed to clear a little. After more breaths, his hands moved assuredly. He began to realize the change in himself and gulped down deep lungfuls of the dry, curiously flat-smelling stored air.

Randy hadn't finished getting into his suit; he seemed to have gone to sleep. But when McCauley approached him in the space suit, Randy's eyes turned toward him incuriously.

McCauley thrust him into the space suit and clamped down the helmet. Randy suddenly stared.

"Something's been wrong with the ship's air!" snapped McCauley, feeling more like himself every second. "It's no good! Breathe deep, Randy! Breathe deep!"

Randy obeyed. His eyes cleared.

"Bramwell!" snapped McCauley. "Get him in a suit! He hasn't sense enough to do it himself!"

He flung himself at the control board. The leak was....

But there was no leak. The leak alarm had rung, but every pressure indicator in every part of the ship showed the same figure. It was.... McCauley gazed incredulously at the dials. The ship's interior pressure was 12.8 pounds to the square inch as against a normal 14.7. The difference was enough to set off the leak alarm, but a thinning of the air like this was not enough to cause the stupidity, the lethargy, the confused and helpless thinking which McCauley--marveling--realized had appeared during the past three weeks.