Part 31
There was a faint crackling noise, and a pungent odor came. It increased without either of them noticing it because their senses were numbed. A curl of smoke wreathed Walt's chest and it rose above his face and got into his eyes. Walt coughed and tears came and the salty water dribbled down his cheeks, dropped to his suit, and froze.
"Something burning," he mumbled, looking around to see what it was.
"It's you!" cried Christine.
Walt looked down at his hip, where the tiny power tube was, and he saw it smoking. As he watched, flame burst from the inside and came through.
He shucked the suit just as it burst into open flames, and he watched it burn on the metal floor. He warmed himself against the flames, but they were too meager to really help, and five minutes later all that was left of the heated suit was a still-operating power tube and a tangled maze of red hot heater-resistance wire.
Walt shivered. Beneath the suit he wore the usual slacks and short-sleeved shirt, and it was pitifully inadequate. The dullness that had been assailing him for hours reasserted itself--strengthened by the exertion of removing the suit--and helped not at all by the scant warmth from the fire.
Walt reeled dizzily, his eyes half closed, beads of ice from the tears on his lashes gave the scene a dazzlingly sparkling tone that prevented him from seeing clearly.
He fell forward and his body twitched violently as his skin touched the viciously cold metal of the floor.
Christine hurled the covers back and with great effort she pulled and lifted Walt onto the couch. She covered him and then leaned down and kissed him with dry, cracked lips. As she stood up, she felt a spear of pain at her side.
Looking, she found her suit on fire as Walt's had been. As Christine fumbled with cold fingers at the fastenings, she realized that only the added warmth of the blankets had kept both suits from burning out at the same time. For they were duplicated models and were identical; therefore they would burn out at exactly the same temperature.
She shivered in her thin summer frock even though she stood with the flames licking at her sandals.
Then there were two useless tangles of wire on the floor, their red-hot wires struggling hopelessly against the monstrous quantity of cold.
Christine shuddered convulsively, and turned slowly to look at Walt. He was asleep already.
The sleep of frozen death.
Christine's eyes filled with tears which she brushed away quickly. She smiled faintly.
It seemed warmer under the blankets, or maybe it was warmer there beside him. His arm went around her instinctively though he slept and Christine pressed against him partly to gain what warmth there was from him and partly to give him what warmth there was in her.
It was warmer beneath the blankets.
Or, she thought just before the dizzying but welcome waves of black slumber crept over her, this is that feeling of warmth that goes before--
* * * * *
"Now that," said Arden with complimentary tones, "is something that duplicating can't buy."
She meant the twenty piece orchestra that filled the vast hall with music. It was a vast place, for it contained three thousand people, all talking or dancing. Joe presided over a bowl of punch that would have made Nero die of jealousy--it was platinum, fifteen feet in diameter and studded profusely with huge gold chasings and inlays, and positively alive with diamonds and emeralds. On the edge of the huge bowl hung Joe's original sign, and Joe handled a huge silver ladle to scoop the highly-charged punch into small gold cups.
Linna Johnson, she of the formerly be-jewelled class, proudly displayed a bit of hand-made jewelry and told everybody that Keg had made it for her. Barney Carroll was holding forth at great length to a group of women on the marvels and mysteries of digging in the Martian desert for traces of the Lost Martian Civilization, while his partner Jim was explaining to Chuck and Freddie Thomas just how they intended to let a matter-transmitter do their excavating for them. Wes Farrell was explaining the operation of the element-filter and heterodyne gadget that produced pure synthetic elements to a woman who nodded gayly and didn't understand a word he said but would rather be baffled by Farrell than be catered to by anyone else.
"It's quite a sight," agreed Don. "Never before."
Arden sighed. "And never again!"
"It's an occasion to remember," grinned Don. "Christmas Eve at Venus Equilateral! Here's Triplanet Films with their cameramen, and they tell me that the Interplanetary Network has called off all Christmas broadcasts at midnight, Terra mean time, to carry the sounds of revelry from Venus Equilateral as a Christmas celebration program."
"Yeah," said Arden, "and tomorrow I've got to go to church and explain to a class of Sunday Schoolsters how and why Santa Claus can make the haul across a hundred million miles of space in an open sleigh powered with a batch of reindeer."
"Some blowout," said Warren, coming up with his wife.
Hilda Warren smiled happily. "I don't think I've ever appreciated how many people really worked here," she said.
"Shucks," grinned Don, "I've been trying to get along by merely mumbling about half of the names myself. And if I may point it out, Hilda, you're standing under a hunk of mistletoe." And before she could say anything, Don had proceeded with great gusto to the amusement of Warren.
Arden shook her head. "The rascal has been standing there for a half hour because people are always coming up to tell him it's a fine party."
"Method in my madness," nodded Channing.
There was a faint tinkle of bells in the distance, and as people became aware of them, Keg Johnson tapped Don on the shoulder and said: "The fleet's in, Don. Here comes our professional Santa Claus. And the fleet is going to land and await midnight tomorrow night. The Johnson Spaceline is going to have the honor of hauling, bag, baggage, foot, horse, and marines to Terra. Everything ready?"
Don nodded absently. He listened to the sleigh bells for a moment and then said: "Everything of a personal nature is packed. The rest is worthless. How many men have you?"
"About two hundred."
"Then tell 'em to forget the packing and join in. After this mass, we won't even notice a couple of hundred more. But tell me is S. Claus going to drive that thing right in here?"
Keg nodded. "He's running on snow in the corridor, of course, but he's equipped with wheels for hard sledding."
The orchestra broke into Jingle Bells and a full dozen reindeer came prancing in through the large double doors. They came in a whirl of snow and a blast of icy air from the corridor, and they drew a very traditional Santa Claus behind them in the traditional sleigh laden with great bags.
Before the door was closed on the veritable blizzard in the hallway, several men came in hauling a great log which they placed on the monstrous fireplace at one end of the vast hall.
The only incongruity was the huge spit turned by a gear train from a motor run from a beam energy tube.
Santa Claus handed out a few gifts to those nearest and then mounted the orchestra platform. He held up his hands for silence.
"Before I perform my usual job of delivering gifts and remembrances," he said, "I want you to hear a word or two from your friend and mine--Don Channing!"
This brought a roar. And Channing went to the platform slowly.
"My friends," said Don Channing, "I've very little to say and I'm not going to take a lot of time in saying it. We've had a lot of hard work on Venus Equilateral and we've had a lot of fun. Venus Equilateral has been our home--and leaving our home tomorrow night will be as great a wrench as was the leaving of our original homes so many years ago to come to Venus Equilateral. It will for me. I shall darned well be homesick.
"Yet--this job is finished. And well done. Frankly," he grinned cheerfully, "we started out just covering the planet-to-planet job. We extended that to include planet-to-ship, and then when they added ship-to-planet, it automatically made it ship-to-ship. Well, we've got it all set now to make it anywhere-at-all without relay. People speak of Venus Equilateral and forget the Relay Station part of the name. A relay station is no darned good without something to relay--and you know, good people, I'm completely baffled as of now for a communications project. I can't conceive of a problem in communications that would be at all urgent. I--"
* * * * *
A loop of the maze of heater-wire from the fire-ruined suit twisted on the bare metal floor. The bare metal shorted part of the long loop and the remaining section grew hotter as a consequence. The expansion caused by heat made the tangle of wire writhe slowly, and two crossing lines touched, shortening the overheated loop still more.
It flared incandescent and blew like a fuse and showered the room with minute droplets of molten metal that landed on wall and floor solid, but yet warm.
A tiny stinging rain of them pelted Walt's face. This penetrated when few other things would have. Walt stirred coldly painful, and his eyes struggled against a slightly-frozen rim that tried to hold eyelash to cheek.
It took minutes for the idea to filter through his mind: _What woke me?_
He could not know that it had been his subconscious mind. To the trained electronic technician the arc-discharge of a shorted circuit has a special meaning where to the untrained it may be but an ambiguous "Splat!" The blowing of a fuse penetrates the subconscious and brings to that part of the brain a realization of the facts in the case just as a trained musician will wince when the third violin strikes a sour note in the midst of full orchestration.
Instinctively, Walt's trained brain considered the source. Ponderously slow, he turned painful head to look on the floor at the remains of the ruined suits. As he watched, the still writhing metal shorted again and a loop glowed brightly, then died as the additional heat expanded it away from its short circuit.
Walt wondered about the time.
He found his left arm trapped beneath Christine and he turned from one side to the other and he considered her dully. She slept, and was as still and stiff as death itself.
Walt released his arm, and the motion beneath the blankets pumped viciously cold air under the covers and chilled his already stiff body. He looked at his watch; it was nine hours since he'd awakened Christine before.
Walt felt no pain, really. He wanted desperately to snuggle down under the covers once more and return to oblivion, where it was warmer and pleasant. But there was something--
Something--
Taking his nerve in his teeth, Walt forced his brain to clear. Christine--didn't deserve this.
Yet if he got out from beneath those covers he would most certainly freeze in a matter of minutes. Yet he must--do--something.
He considered the tubes and their tangles of wire through puffed, half-closed eyes. He thought he was moving with lightning-rapidity when he leaped out of the bed but his motion was insufferably slow. He dropped on his knees beside the tubes and with his bare hands he fumbled for the hot wires. They seared his fingers and sent pungent curls of smoke up to torture his nose, but his fingers felt no pain and his olfactory sense did not register the nauseous odor of burning flesh.
He found the switch and turned off the tiny tubes.
He collected loop after loop and shorted them close to the terminals of the two tubes. A hundred feet of wire looped back and forth in a one-inch span across the terminal lugs would produce a mighty overload. It made a bulky bundle of wire the very mass of which would prevent it from heating to incandescence and blowing out in a shower of droplets.
One chance in a million!
Just one!
Walt snapped the switches on.
For to the trained technician, a blown fuse is not an ill. It is a symptom of an ill, and no trained technician ever replaced a blown fuse without attempting to find out why and where the overload occurred.
Walt crept painfully back to bed and huddled under the blankets against Christine.
"Kiddo," he said in a dry-cracked voice, "I did what I could! Honest."
The oblivion of cold claimed Walt again....
* * * * *
"--there is but one unhappy note in this scene of revelry," continued Don Channing a bit soberly. "We're sorry that Walt Franks took this opportunity of rushing off to get matrimonially involved with Christine Baler. He didn't know this was imminent, of course, otherwise he'd have been here. We all love Walt and he'll be unhappy that he missed the blowout here. Fact is, fellers, I'd give eight years off of the end of my life to get any kind of word from Walt--"
An alarm clamored in the hallway and Wes Farrell jumped a foot. He headed for the door, but Channing stopped him with a gesture.
"Friend Farrell forgets that we no longer care," laughed Channing. "That was the main fuse in the solar-energy tubes blowing out and we won't be needing them any more. It is sort of pleasant to know that a fuse blew--a thing that was formerly master and we the slave--and that we don't have to give a hoot whether it blew or not. Let it blow, Wes. We don't need power any more!
"So I suggest that we all have a quick one on Walt Franks wishing him health and happiness for the rest of his life with Christine nee Baler, even though the big bum did cheat us out of the privilege of kissing his bride.
"And now, I'm going to step aside and let Santa Claus take over."
There was a thunderous roar of applause, and Channing rejoined Arden and the rest of them, who had sort of gravitated together.
"Merry Christmas," he grinned at them.
Keg Johnson nodded. "Merry Christmas--and on to Terra for your Happy New Year!"
They raised their glasses, and it was Wes Farrell who said: "To Walt--and may he be as happy as we are!"
Arden chuckled. "We used to sing a song about 'Walt's Faults' but there's one thing, Walt would have replaced that fuse even though we didn't need it. The old string-saver!"
A messenger came up and tapped Don on the shoulder. Channing turned with an apologetic smile to his guests and said: "I get more damned interruptions. They tell me that someone is knocking on the spacelock door. If anyone here knows any prayers, let 'em make with a short one. Pray this--whoever it is--knows something about Walt."
Don left the party and went along the cold, snow-filled corridor to his office. As one of the few remaining places where operations were in full tilt, Channing's office was where any visitor would be conducted. Once the business was finished, Channing could hurl the guest into the middle of the big party, but the party was no place to try to conduct business in the first place.
So with heels on desk, a glass of Scotch from his favorite file drawer, Don Channing idled and waited for the visitor.
The knock came and Channing said "Come in!"
Two policemen--The Terran Police--entered quietly and stood aside as the third man entered cautiously.
Channing's feet came off the desk and hit the floor with a crash.
"The spectre at the feast," snorted Channing. "Of all the people I know, I least expected you--and wanted to see you least. I hope it is a mutual affection, Kingman."
"Don't be godlike, Channing," said Kingman coldly. "You may think you're running things all your way, but some people object to being made a rubber stamp."
"Look, Kingman, get whatever is on that little mind of yours damn well off it so I can continue as I was."
"Channing, I have here papers of disenfranchisement."
"In--deed?"
"Right."
Channing smiled.
"Don't be so damned superior," snapped Mark Kingman.
"Tell me, Markus, just why this disenchantment takes place?"
"Venus Equilateral suspended operations on Twenty December," said Kingman. "Without notice nor permission nor explanation. Since the relay-beams of Venus Equilateral have carried nothing for a period beyond that permitted for suspension of operations by the Interplanetary Communications Commission, they have seen fit to revoke your license."
"Well! And after all I've done," said Channing.
"You see--you think you can get away with anything. Doubtless this ultra-frigid condition was the cause of failure?"
"Possibly. And then again, maybe someone wanted to make ice cream."
"Don't be flippant. You'll find that these papers are final and complete. You'll not be able to talk your way out of it."
"Tell me, O Learned Legal Light, who is going to run Venus Equilateral when I am far away?"
"Some time ago Terran Electric applied for a franchise and took an option pending failure at Venus Equilateral. This failure has taken place and Terran Electric now controls--
"I gather that you've been forced to put Terran Electric up as bail for the license?"
Kingman flushed.
"Find that Terran Electric wasn't worth much?" jeered Channing.
"Sufficient," said Kingman.
"Did it ever occur to you that maybe Venus Equilateral wasn't worth much either?" asked Channing.
"I'll make it work for me. And I'll also report that one of your wild experiments got loose and nearly froze the station out completely. I still say that if you'd stopped toying around with everything that came along, Venus Equilateral would still be a running corporation."
"I daresay you're right. But the devil finds work for idle hands, you know. So just what is the future holding?"
"Channing, your attitude is entirely frivolous and unconvinced that I mean business. To convince you, I'm going to give you twelve hours to relinquish the station and be on your way from here!"
"May I point out that this is Christmas?"
"I've investigated that," returned Kingman. "I find that Christmas is a completely Terran date and is therefore legal for any and all legal action on any planet or place removed from the interplanetary boundary of the planet Terra. That, Channing, has been established to be the Channing Layer."
"And how about the personnel? Must they get the hell off too?" asked Channing loftily.
"You and your managerial cohorts must leave. Those upon whom the continued service of communications depend are requested to remain--under new management."
"You're taking on a big bite," grinned Channing. "I trust you can chew it."
"I need no help from the likes of you."
"Good. And now that you've had your say I'll return to my own affairs. Make yourself at home; you'll not be bothered here."
Kingman nodded slowly. He'd expected a battle, and he believed that Channing did not think it true. Channing would find damn well out once he appeared before the Interplanetary Communications Commission.
In the meantime, of course, he might as well remain in the office. There was an apartment next door, and it was comfortable.
He did not notice that every very personal thing had been removed from Channing's office. Frankly, Kingman did not care. He had everything his own way.
The senior officer spoke, "You need us any more, Mr. Kingman?"
"No," replied the new owner of Venus Equilateral.
"Then we'll return to duty on Terra," said the officer.
Channing went back to the party and spent ten minutes telling his friends what had happened. Then he forgot about it and joined in the merrymaking, which was growing more boisterous and uninhibited by the moment. It was in the wee small hours of the clock--though not necessarily the night, for there is no such thing on Venus Equilateral--when the party broke up and people bundled up and braved the howling blizzard that raged up and down the halls.
Home to warmth and cheer--and bed.
* * * * *
Arden sat up in bed and looked sleepily around the dark bedroom. "Don," she asked with some concern, "you're not sick?"
"Nope," he replied.
Arden pursed her lips. She snapped the light on and saw that Don was half-dressed.
"What gives?" she demanded, slipping out of bed and reaching for a robe.
"Frankly--"
"You've been stewing over that blown-out fuse."
He nodded sheepishly.
"I knew it. Why?"
"Those tubes have been running on a maintenance load for days. They shouldn't blow out."
"Critter of habit, aren't you?" grinned Arden.
Don nodded. "A consuming curiosity, I guess."
Arden smiled as she continued to climb into her clothing. "You're not the only one in this family that has a lump of curiosity," she told him.
"But it's--"
"Don," said his wife seriously, "rules is rules and electricity and energy are things I'm none too clear on. But I do know my husband. And when he gets up out of a warm bed in the middle of the night to go roaming through a frozen world, it's urgent. And since the man in question has been married to me for a number of years, getting up out of a warm bed and going out into snow and ice means that the urgency-angle is directed at whatever lies at the other end. I want to go see--and I'm going to!"
Channing nodded absently. "Probably a wild-goose chase," he said. "Ready?"
Arden nodded. "Lead on, curious one."
Channing blinked when he saw the light in the room where the solar intake tubes were. He hastened forward to find Wes Farrell making some complex measurements and juggling a large page of equations. Farrell looked up and grinned sheepishly.
"Couldn't sleep," he explained. "Wanted to do just one more job, I guess."
Channing nodded silently.
Arden said: "Don't kid anybody. Both of you want to know why a fuse should blow on a dead line."
Farrell grinned and Channing nodded again. "I--" started Channing, but turned as the door opened.
"Thought we'd find you here," said Barney Carroll. Jim Baler added: "We got to arguing as to how and why a fuse should blow on an empty line and decided to ask you."
Arden squinted at Jim. "Did it ever occur to you that we might have been in bed?"
Barney grinned. "I figured if we were awake from wondering about it, so would you-all. So--"
Jim interrupted. "So what have you found?"
Channing shook his head. "Ask Wes," he said. "He got here first and was measuring the deflecting electrode voltages when I arrived. I note that he has a hunk of copper busbar across the main fuse terminals."
Wes smiled sheepishly. "Had to," he said. "Short was really shorted!"
"So what have you found?"
Farrell pointed to a place on a chart of the station. "About here."
"Spinach," said Channing, "there isn't anything there!"
Farrell handed the figures to Don. "That's where the short circuit load is coming from," he said.
"Up there," said Channing, "I'll bet it is hitting close to seventy or eighty degrees below zero. A supercold condition--"
He paused and shook his head. "The tube room reached absolute zero some time ago," he said, "and there's no heavy drain to that position."
"Well?" demanded Arden, yawning. "Do we wait until tomorrow morning or go up there now?"
Channing thought for a moment. "We're due to leave in the morning," he said. "Yet I think that the question of why anything up in an empty section of Venus Equilateral should be blowing fuses would belabor us all of our lives if we didn't make this last screwball search. Let's go. Wes, get your portable sun-finder, huh?"
"His what?" demanded Arden.
"Figger of speech, sweet. We mean a small portable relay tube that we can stick in series with this gawd-awful drain and use for a direction finder. I have no intention of trying to scour every storeroom in that area for that which I don't really believe is there."
The main deterrent to swift action was the bitter, bitter cold that stabbed at their faces and hands which were not enclosed in the electrically heated suite--of which each one of them wore three against this ultraviolent chill.
"There should be a door here," objected Don, reading a blueprint from the large roll he carried under his arm. "Fact is, this series of rooms seems to have been sealed off entirely though the blueprint calls for a door, about here!"