Part 2

"We don't until the last ditch. But it is the most important, nevertheless. We wait until everything else has been disposed of and then make for the planet. Just outside of the atmosphere we heave 'em a rock or two and watch what happens."

"A slow moving rock?" grinned McBride.

"Doesn't really matter. If it is slow enough to keep from friction-incandescence, fine. But the eruption made by seetee contact is quite a bit different, spectroscopically. Also we can check the explosion with counters. The by-products of such a bit of eruption is full of nuclear radiations. Mere incandescence is just that and nothing more."

"Well, that's that. We can wait. What's next?"

"Radioactivity. How much and what kind? Atmosphere. How much and what kind? Et cetera. Also how much and what kind? Do we intend to land?"

"I don't know. After all, we came for the express purpose of trying out our drive on an interstellar basis, you know. It can be done with ease, neatness, and dispatch. Seems to me that a landing on one of those planets will have to be made attractive or we won't. We're equipped for all kinds of spacial research, power research, and so on. But we're not equipped for much planetary investigation, exploration, or diplomatically involved intrigue."

"Going to let Drake get away with being the only person making the first landing on an alien star system?"

"I don't give a care what happens to Drake. She can come busting in with the safety valve tied down if she wants to. Some day she'll learn that sticking that pretty little snoot of hers into strange places is a fine way to have it knocked right off of the front of her face. We're interested in technicalities, not in getting involved in a storybook adventure. Meanwhile, let's take it strictly on the easy side and investigate everything from the solar radiation from Sirius to the secondary radiation produced by Sirian radiation in the super-stratosphere."

* * * * *

Larry began to fiddle with the radio. There was nothing on the electronic radio at all, and Larry said: "Well, didn't expect it, really. No culture worthy of the name would be using radio in space. Too inefficient. And if they got off of their planets, they'd be using gravitics." He turned to the space radio, and covered the communication bands of the electrogravitic spectrum, switching from band to band quickly. Halfway across the third band, the panoramic tuner came to a definite stop and retraced itself minutely, vacillating a bit until the signal came in clear and clean.

"What happened to Drake?" asked Timkins. "Listen. Here she is."

The gravitic radio was calling: "--_Haywire Queen_. Calling _Haywire Queen_. This is Sandra Drake calling the _Haywire Queen_. This is an automatic transmission set for break-in. As soon as this call gets to you, answer please. The answer will register here and we will be able to make this two-way. This is Sandra Drake--"

"Uh-huh," said Hammond, turning down the gain to a reasonable level. "Larry, shoot her an answer."

Timkins snapped on the transmitter, tuned it to the same band, and said: "This is the _Haywire Queen_ calling Sandra Drake. _Haywire Queen_ answering Drake. Come in, Sandra Drake. Answer."

They listened to the automatic broadcast for some minutes, and then in the middle of a sentence--"This is Sandra Drake calling the _Haywire Queen_--" _Click._ "Hello, fellows. Got here finally, didn't you? Glad to have you come in. What's new?"

Hammond took the mike. "Hello, Sandra," he answered. "Nothing new. Where are you?"

"On planet number five. That is the one that I think is somewhere about five hundred million miles from Sirius. Know it?"

"We think so. It's dead ahead. Yeah, wait a minute. Larry has a directional bearing on you and it is the one we're approaching. That takes care of that."

"Well, come on in and I'll build you a cup of tea."

"You find everything all right?"

"Everything's perfect. Only thing, they would like to have someone here that knows all about the gravitics. They're not too sharp. Frankly, neither am I, so you're the guys who'll have to do it."

"You've been there quite a bit," said Hammond. "How's conditions?"

"Pretty good. Air is O.K., though slightly pungent in smell. The people are very much like humans, though they have their big differences which take them out of the human class."

"For instance?"

"Well, they are all covered with a funny kind of hair. It's a sort of half-hair, half-feathers kind of stuff. It's as soft as a baby's scalp and on a dog or something like that it would be beautiful. I'd like a coat made of it, frankly."

"I'll bet they appreciate your offer to wear one of 'em for a winter coat," said Hammond dryly. "You haven't changed a bit, have you, Drake?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Sandra. "After all, I was merely trying to explain the beauty of their skin."

"You gave yourself away," said Steve Hammond. "Like as usual, Sandra Drake thinks of everything in accordance with how it will couple to her, or her name, or her reputation."

"Now, you're being hard," complained Sandra. "Give me a break, Steve. You shouldn't take issue with me for a statement of that kind. After all, it was just a sort of slip of the tongue. I'm not really thinking of skinning one of them for my coat."

"If I were you," put in McBride, "I'd think hard of one other thing that might be closer to home. D'jever think that you are in no position to do any skin collecting? The odds are agin' it. But, Sister Drake, those birds are! You might enhance the beauty of one of their females some day. How would the pelt of Sandra Drake look on the living room floor, nine light-years from Terra? Take it clean and easy, Drake, or you might not get back to Terra with that satiny, soft, practically flawless hide of yours intact."

"What do you mean, 'practically flawless'?" snapped Sandra.

"Well," drawled McBride, "I've never seen all of it."

"Why don't you give me the benefit of the doubt?"

"I wouldn't give you any benefit of any doubt," McBride told her. "You're probably concealing something."

"Why--" the radio broke down into a series of liquid, spluttering sounds as Sandra strove to keep that throaty contralto from sounding like a fishmonger's.

"Whistle," chuckled Timkins. "Then count ten. Then let's get back to the problem of the Sirians."

"Take it, Sandra," laughed Hammond. "We were only kidding you. Or--can't you take it?"

The spluttering died, and then that throaty laugh came back again. It was slightly forced and they knew it. The chances are that Sandra knew they knew it, but she didn't want to give them any more reason for laughter at her expense. Then she spoke, directly and honestly, both factors due to the fact that she was sure of herself and now could afford to laugh at them.

"Well, stop worrying about Sandra's hide," she told them. "This gang down here are fine people except that they can't talk Terran. They'll do anything for me that I can make them understand. That's the trouble--getting them to understand. But that's coming. I'm teaching them to speak Terran. That should fix things up fine."

"Why not learn to speak Sirian?" asked McBride.

"Why? Let them do the work. Learning a new language is not Drake's idea of a year's fun."

"O.K., sister," grinned Hammond, winking at McBride. "But you'll find out that there is something to those old adages. I'm thinking of the one that begins: 'When in Rome, et cetera.' Those old boys used to dust off some old saws, but there is a lot of meat on them."

"And contradictions. No, fellows, Sandra doesn't like talking in something that sounds like a phonograph record played backwards. Besides, these fellows have a pretty sharp capacity for understanding. I've been here for a week or so, and already they can understand a lot of what I say. Frankly, better than I could."

"Play it your way, then," said McBride. "But look, you say they're nice guys?"

"Sure. When I landed, they gave me the old send-off. I was taken to the royal house and given the prize suite. I'm given everything, as I said before. They look upon me as the guy who'll give their world the benefit of the Terran and Solarian scientific achievements. That's not true, of course. It'll be fellows like yourselves who really understand it. But nevertheless, I'm the harbinger of spring. I'm the guy who pointed the way for the rest of Sol's children."

"The Moses in the bulrushes?"

"Sort of like. I'm just lucky, and I know it. If I'd come second, they wouldn't pay any attention to me at all. But since I came first and now that I'm talking to my friends, they will obviously think that I'm calling for them to come and help them ... their world's name is Telfu, by the way ... Telfans out of their scientific rut. They have the glimmerings of the gravitic spectra, but it's like the difference between the Leyden Jar and the electron microscope. It'd take a hundred years before they got off of Telfu if we hadn't got here first."

"If they're really O.K.," said McBride, "we'll help."

"Thanks," said Sandra simply. "That'll be for me, too, you know."

"Yes?"

"Sure. They'll thank me for coming first, even though they know I'm not the bright guy with the answers under my skull. I've got a good thing here, and I know all of you well enough to know that you won't spoil it."

"No?"

"Sure you won't. After all, there isn't one of you that would care a rap for what they have to offer in the way of historic gain. The old moola, sure; and there's plenty of it to be had for all of us. You'll go down in their histories as the geniuses that gave them a boot in the tail worth a hundred years of solid research. I, and I'm sure you'll permit me, will ride in on the tail of your coat."

"O.K. Well, we'll come in. But not for long this time. After all, we're interested in tinkering with the new drive, not making diplomatic overtures to a bunch of aliens. We'll leave the latter for the Solarian Government."

"How soon'll you be landing?"

"Not too sudden," said Hammond. "We're going to make a few space-checks first. We're getting cautious in our old age."

"Shucks," said Sandra disparagingly, "there's nothing to it at all."

"Well, could be, but we'll run this show our way. There is no objection to your leaving?"

"No. Definitely not. They'd be sorry to see me go, but it is personal affection and the possibility for their ultimate gain that makes it so. They wouldn't dare detain me even though they might consider it. To my knowledge, they haven't even considered it."

"Why wouldn't they dare?" asked McBride.

"Afraid. After all, they know that both of us came from a star nine light-years away. They haven't even got the primary drive, let alone the third-derivative drive. Any untoward move to a Solarian would bring the devil himself down about their ears and they know it."

"I suppose so. We could drop plenty of stuff on 'em with a half dozen space cans. And a couple of monolobar mechano-gravitics would scramble up the works of any fleet of stratosphere planes they could send against us. Never gave the gravitic armament much thought, but it could be done. O.K., Sandra, as soon as we sniff the air and check our gas and water, we'll be in."

"I'm going back to bed, then," said Sandra. "Slip me another call before you land and I'll have the village band out to meet you. That's a promise."

* * * * *

Steve Hammond turned to McBride after Sandra had clicked her transmitter off, and said: "No use checking for seetee matter, is there? Seems to me that Drake would have found it out the hard way."

"No, we can skip the seetee. But Drake may not worry about radioactivity but we will. We'll check for it; I'd like for John Jr. to have a brother or sister some day--with the proper amount of arms, legs, fingers, toes, ears, eyes, noses--"

"What's the proper amount of noses for a son?" asked Hammond.

"One," grinned McBride.

"A kid with two noses could smell a lot," observed Timkins.

"_Phew!_" said McBride holding his nose. "That was fierce. Man the counter and check the region for hot stuff, Larry. Looks like the landing of LaDrake saves us a lot of work. The physical properties of ... Telfu ... seem to be all right. So we'll go to work on the electrical properties, the nuclear properties, and also see if there's anything running around loose in the gravitics other than the inherent mechanogravitic property of matter."

Larry Timkins set up a series of plungers on the control board and locked the pre-set operations into the autopilot. "This," he said, "will hang us on a logarithmic spiral approaching Telfu. While we're roaming around the planet, we'll check the hot-properties of the neighborhood. Any comment?"

"Nope. Give 'em the works."

Timkins drove the coupler button home and the _Haywire Queen_ swung gently to follow the pre-determined course.

"You know, Steve, there's a cod-liver-oil smell about this, somewhere."

"So? What's fishy?"

"The old tub isn't behaving like a lady."

"What do you mean?"

"There's a big drop in efficiency compared to when we left the Plutonian Lens."

"How much?"

"Not too much. But it's getting progressively worse."

"Y'don't suppose we've hit upon some saturation factor in the secondary drive?"

"I'm not saying. What do we know about it? What does it work on?"

"Glibly speaking, it works on the inherent qualities of space. We wrap ourselves up in a space-warp of sorts, and then shoot out a couple of hooks that catch on to the gravitic-propagational continuum that permits the planetary masses to exert Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. It has been called 'sub-ether' but that is like multiplying with unreal numbers. After all, the 'ether' has never been defined, isolated, explained, or held in one hand. If the prime 'ether' has never been satisfactorily established, we shouldn't go on building our houses on a foundation that doesn't have any sound basis."

"Both electronic and gravitic spectra must rely upon something for propagation," objected McBride. "For lack of taking it apart, brick by brick, and feeling each stone, let's continue to call them 'ether' and 'sub-ether.'"

"O.K., sport. But to get back to the drive. Have we got a saturation point? Or some sort of gravitic fatigue? Either of these would be indicated by a gradual decrease in efficiency."

"Larry, set up a sigma recorder and let's see if we can check the curve of inefficiency. It's getting worse, you say?"

"Apparently. I didn't notice it before. But it is quite apparent now. Must be non-linear, because if this falling-off had been linear, I would have noticed it long before this. An increasing curve would not be noticeable until a sufficient interval had been passed for it to become evident. Yeah, I'll slap a sigma recorder on him and see what makes."

"Meanwhile, let's get busy with the detectors."

The counters clicked for a few minutes, and McBride finally reported that Telfu was no higher than Terra in radioactivity. Hammond established the intrinsic electronic charge on Telfu as being only a few million volts negative with respect to Terra.

"Not enough to worry about," he said. "The first touch with the stratosphere layers will take care of that without a glimmer. Wouldn't dare without an atmosphere, but we have plenty of air to cushion the charge and let it leak off in the upper layers where it is ionized by Sirius' radiations. What's with the gravitics?"

"Bit of something in the electrogravitic. Can't place it. Not enough to worry about."

"What is it like?"

"Well, it is not E-grav radiation. It's a sort of dip, or valley, in the radiation-pattern of this part of space. A place where the normal density of E-grav is less."

"How much?"

"You tell me. The free-running gravitons are never high enough to do more than flicker the finest instrument. The threshold is way, way, way, way down in the mud. So here's a place where we have less."

"Sort of like having nothing and wanting to share it with someone?"

"Not much better. Oh well, a lack of free E-grav energy surely isn't anything to write home about. Might be a factor of the Sirian Double. After all, who knows what kind of effect that little, dark-red, dense-as-hell devil will do to gravitic threshold levels."

"So it's a safe bet--"

Timkins came running in, waving a sheet of cross-ruled paper. "Hell's bells," he yelled. "We're it! Our drive is approaching zero efficiency as the third power of--"

* * * * *

Above, in the working innards of the _Haywire Queen_, great circuit breakers crashed open. Smaller switches added to the din as they clicked open, one after the other. Pilot lights on the polished black panel began to glow an angry red and alarm bells created such a din that speech became almost impossible.

The drive went off.

And the men and their portable equipment left the solid floor and began to float aimlessly across the room in midair.

Hammond clutched wildly at a spectrograph, and caught it.

"Catch!" he yelled at McBride, hurling the heavy instrument at John.

McBride folded himself over the instrument with a grunt of escaping breath. The act did two things. It sent Hammond across the room to the emergency panel in one direction and McBride went in the opposite direction to the navigator's calculating machine. McBride caught the navigator's table at the same time that Hammond caught the emergency panel.

Steve fought with the emergency panel and succeeded in setting up about eleven feet per second deceleration. McBride lowered the spectrograph to the table and seated himself in the chair.

"Woah, Nellie," grunted McBride as the alarm bells ceased. "Where do we go from here and how fast?"

"I dunno, but we're leaving both Sirius and Sol at a terrific velocity and a deceleration of eleven feet per. From a mental calculation of the fundamental drive at this velocity, I'd say it would take about fourteen years to get down to a stop."

"What happened to the emergency relays?"

"They worked," said Steve dryly. "Yeah, they worked. But the inefficiency extends to the fundamental drive, too, it seems. I'm beginning to think that this is not inherent."

"That's a quick decision."

"Sure. But the prime drive is O.K. The meters say so. It's just inefficient as the devil which is not true of a good drive. Holy smoke! We're getting efficient again!"

Timkins picked himself off of the floor painfully. "Uh-huh," he grunted. "Also, we're leaving Telfu behind at a fierce rate. Can you keep that eleven feet prime acceleration for a bit?"

"We're going to."

"I'm going to dash madly upstairs and hang the sigma recorder on again. Something is slippery here."

"What's our velocity at the present time?" asked McBride.

"Up in the fifteen thousand miles per second," answered Hammond.

"Hm-m-m. Then at what point with respect to Telfu did the drive go out?"

"About a million and a half miles, roughly."

"A minute and forty seconds from spot to conjunction," mused McBride. "If, little playmate, we can pet power again after one more minute and thirty seconds-odd, we'll feel more or less sure that it is Telfu and not us. Larry!" he yelled. "Any sign of upswing?"

"Yup," said Larry. "Sure thing!"

"Set the super drive up on test power with automatics to turn it on as soon as the overload point is passed," said McBride. "We won't blow any fuses with test power."

* * * * *

Hammond hit the test buttons and then settled down to wait. Then the drive cut in again, and they all slid down in their chairs.

McBride grinned. "They must not like us."

"Something must not," laughed Hammond shakily.

"Telfu?" asked Timkins entering with the last sigma curve.

"What does it say?"

"We passed through a negative peak. We hit a new low in efficiency at conjunction with Telfu."

"How much?"

"Less than a half percent."

"Jeepers. That is a new low in gravitics. Can we think our way out of this one?"

"Why?"

"As much as I dislike seeing Drake, I'd not force her to live on an alien planet. I'd feel better at marooning her for a couple of years if I knew we could go in and get her."

McBride laughed. "Got to have the last laugh, hey?"

"Meaning?"

"Marooning her wouldn't be half so much fun if it is impossible to get her out. Marooning her when we have the means to get her out puts it strictly in our own lap. Right?"

"I suppose so. We could laugh at her honestly then."

"She's strictly a stinker," agreed McBride. "I get that cod-liver-oil smell now. All that soft soap and palaver she was handing out about our being the boys with the brains. We were the guys who would be responsible for lifting a struggling civilization up from the primordial slime by our brain and our genius. Baloney!"

"I get it," growled Hammond. "She's stuck. God knows how she landed--probably emergency and shot her load of battery juice. Anyway, she could land under emergency battery, but taking off is a megawatt of another color, battery-wise. They aren't equipped to make a take-off. Idea being the old one--don't start if you can't stop."

"She's a bright girl in her own stinking way," said McBride. "She's been around this gang long enough to know that if a way is possible, we'll think of it. Oh, sure, that's a brag but we've done pretty well so far. So inveigle us into the same trap she's in and then ride out with us. She'd roast in the brimstone of the nether regions before she'd wail for help honestly. But if we get stuck with her she's got two outs. One, we may be able to think our way out. Two, at least we are Terrans like she is."

"Meaning?" asked Hammond darkly.

"Frankly, Sandra Drake is an awful lot of woman, and she knows it. She'd make a plaster saint turn to whistle at her if she turned on the old charm. And with no competition, we'd be fighting one another for the privilege of polishing her shoes."

"Fine future."

"No thanks."

"I'll have a bit of that, too. Well, how can we slip her the old triple-cross?"

"Steve, you'd throw a woman to the lions?"

"With that woman, I'd hate to do it. The S.P.C.A, would haul me in to court for subjecting poor, dumb, defenseless lions to cruelty and inhuman tortures. You're darned right I'd heave her into the drink. But I want to do it in such a way that Sandra Drake will know that it was far from purely coincidental."

"O.K., Steve. We're with you. Larry, throw the _Haywire Queen_ into an orbit around Telfu just outside of the danger zone and slap another recorder on the drive. Make it a high velocity orbit, powered all the way. We should be able to circle Telfu in about fifteen minutes with the super drive. Check?"

"Sure. Here we go."

"Meanwhile, Steve, we'll check a few items on the drive itself. I'm beginning to suspect a huge and celestial soak-up of gravitic power in the region of Telfu."

"We can set up the small, experimental drive-model complete with power recorders, spring balances, and torque measuring devices and work on that."

"Swell. That's the ticket. Let's go."

Hammond hauled the model from the cabinet and plugged in a complex cable from the master control panel. He juggled the dials until the gadget started to work, and then they began to check the efficiency of the device.

McBride muttered: "Power generating equipment is running O.K."

"Yeah," agreed Hammond. "Everything's on the beam from the explosion chamber to the inverted alphatron. We've got plenty of potential power handy. Larry, zoop in close and check the power equipment on a pure, resistive load."

"You mean shut off the drive and coast through the zero region with no drive and with the gravitron running at full output on resistance load?"

"Right. This fishy smell has a rare odor. I think we're on the trail of it."

"O.K., Steve. Can you wait about three minutes? The first encirclement of Telfu will be over then and we'll have our first experimental curve."

"We'll wait."

* * * * *