Part 120 (2/2)

”So what happened to the sc.r.a.p iron?” asked Jonnie.

”I thought it would fall through the gas and go on down and hit the surface of Tolnep. It didn't. It fell all right, but it just went to the center of the gas cloud and it's still there. Want to see a picture of it?”

”Just don't fire into that cloud and bring any of that stuff back here on recoil!” said Jonnie.

”Oh, I won't,” promised Angus. ”But what I believe is, once that ultimate bomb converted everything to gas, it went null. It doesn't have anything to work on and the reaction isn't self-starting again once it's complete. The metal trace says that it's all very low-order gases now. Hydrogen.”

”Then the ultimate bomb brings about low-order fission,” said Jonnie. ”It stimulates a split of the atoms of heavier metals. I'm no expert, but that's what it seems you're describing.”

”Anyway,” said Angus, ”all I'm trying to tell you is that the ma.s.s of the moon didn't change so far as gravitic influence is concerned. In that coldness, the resulting gas has kind of gone liquid and the moon is a sort of bubble with a much bigger diameter. I think you could fly through it.”

”Great,” said Jonnie. ”Don't.”

Angus finished up his noodles. ”I just thought you'd like to know that destroying that moon won't upset our coordinate tables. A s.h.i.+ft of ma.s.s could throw every coordinate out eventually.”

”Ah,” said Jonnie. ”You do do have a point! That was clever of you.” have a point! That was clever of you.”

Angus thought so, too.

But news from other areas was not so encouraging. It was not that anything bad was adding up. It was just the nonexistence of news so far as the fate of Chrissie and the people in Scotland was concerned, and the fate of his people in the Russian base.

They had found the Chief of Clanfearghus outside, very close to death, and after emergency transfusions had rushed him up to the old underground hospital in Aberdeen. There was not much hope.

They had drilled holes through rubble that blocked the tunnels and they hoped they had gotten air hoses into the shelters. There were rumors they had heard voices, but there had been no mine radios in those shelter areas to begin with and you couldn't tell much while trying to shout down an air hose, pumps running and all.

The city was just towers of smoke, as was Castle Rock.

They were having a terrible time trying to open the approach tunnels, working around the clock.

The Russian-base news was not much better. They had put the surface coal fires out but the mine was burning underground, and they did not know whether it was reaching the actual levels of the base. The huge doors were so warped they could not be opened even with burning torches, and they were now driving in a brand-new entrance to bypa.s.s them, a drift through solid rock, working over ground that was still burning under them down deep. The ventilator shafts were too tortuous and too barred with armor and filter to be of any use.

To add to the tension in Kariba, the original small gray man, Dries Gloton, had vanished. The one antiaircraft gunner on duty said that the man had simply come out about dawn, ordered a new set of signal lights and radio beacon signals near where his s.h.i.+p was parked, and sailed off, wham, into the sky, and they couldn't even track where he had gone to. The lights were out there now, two reds flas.h.i.+ng, and the radio beacon was telling all s.h.i.+ps to stay clear from a conference area.

Lord Voraz, when asked, had shrugged and said it probably came under the heading of prerogatives of a branch manager and was probably bank business, and he had gone on eating the perpetual bites-between-meals the cook served him up. He was no help.

But what gave Jonnie a shock in those two days was the sudden arrival of Captain RoG.o.deter Snowl.

The conference had called him in as a witness and they didn't tell Jonnie and didn't tell the antiaircraft gunner.

The first Jonnie knew of it was the antiaircraft gun going off.

Lord Dom came rolling into operations like a liquid jelly fish, roaring and rumbling to cease fire!

Jonnie got the gunner to quit. Fortunately, it had been at very extreme range and Angus had not been using the rig. But RoG.o.deter Snowl, omitting to ask permission to land a small launchcraft, almost got himself shot down.

”He's been called as a witness!” shouted Lord Dom. ”Don't you know there's a trial going on?”

Trial or no trial, Jonnie stuck a Smith and Wesson with thermit bullets in his belt and plugs in his ears and went out to personally con the launchcraft down with a hand radio and make sure the Tolnep remained blind to their defenselessness.

Suppressing an urge to shoot RoG.o.deter on sight, he limited himself to confiscating his vision filter, making sure the Tolnep had no spare, and personally escorting him to the conference room. He left the Tolnep there but told them that when they were through with him, they better call ops to escort him out because RoG.o.deter was going to be stone blind all the time he was around Kariba.

About five hours later they did call him again and he collected RoG.o.deter and guided him out to the launchcraft. But before he gave him back the filter faceplate, he had Chief Chong-won smear the inside of the launchcraft dome with black water ink. Whether RoG.o.deter complained or not that he would have to wipe holes in it somehow to find his...o...b..ting s.h.i.+p was unknown to Jonnie: he still had his earplugs in.

Jonnie gave RoG.o.deter back the filter for his eyes, and from the look of his mouth, the Tolnep, staring at him, said ”You!”

So Jonnie said, ”Me. And just as a personal goodbye, the next time I see you on this planet's surface, you won't like it at all. So get the h.e.l.l out of here!” And slammed the canopy down on him.

When the launchcraft was gone, Jonnie took the earplugs out and found that the single antiaircraft gunner had been begging him for ten minutes for permission to ”accidentally” shoot the s.h.i.+p down. Jonnie sympathized with him. He felt the same way himself.

And still not a whisper from Stormalong. And not a bit of sense from Luxembourg.

No word of Chrissie. No word of his village people. No word of his friends.

It was a horrible two days.

Inaction, he was finding, was a far, far heavier load than the whirlwind existence to which he was accustomed. He was nearing a breaking point of apprehension for the people and planet he had fought so long to save.

At eight that night, it didn't make things any better to be stopped by Lord Voraz who offered him a job at fifty thousand credits a year to come to the Gredides System and make teleportation consoles for the bank for the rest of his life. Jonnie had to walk away quickly to keep from becoming violent.

A very horrible two days!

Chapter 2.

Things began to change the following day.

Jonnie had spent the night in ops and was sprawled over a table when Lord Dom came in to wake him.

”In two hours,” said Lord Dom, ”the trial findings will be read and voted upon.”

”I'm not a member of the government,” said Jonnie.

”We know that,” said Lord Dom. ”But you are personally concerned and should be present. Reparations will also be announced. So be there!”

Ah, reparations. A sudden surge of hope. Would they be enough to cover this debt to the Galactic Bank? Or at least enough to make arrangements or first payments or something?

Tinny had had as good a night's sleep as one could get in a chair, there was very little traffic, and so Jonnie asked Chong-won to stand in for him and went to get dressed.

Mr. Tsung was wearing a little round black-satin pillbox cap with a blue b.u.t.ton on the top of it and had not ceased grinning since he had recovered his rank. He bowed and got a bath wheeled in on a mine cart and generally worked to get Jonnie dressed and fed.

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