Part 3 (1/2)
”And we need to use heat-coils to thaw the ground, Johnny,” Rose said.
”And to keep the place warm. And to bring nitrogen gas up out of the soil. The few cylinders of the compressed stuff that we've got won't be enough to make a start. And the carbon dioxide....”
So John Endlich had to try to repair that main battery. He thought, after a while, that he might succeed--in time. But then Rose opened the airlock, and the kids came in to bother him. With all the triumph of a favorite puppy dragging an over-ripe bone into the house, Bubs bore a crooked piece of a black substance, hard as wood and more gruesome than a dried and moldy monkey-pelt.
”A tentacle!” Evelyn shrilled. ”We were up to those old buildings! We found the people! What's left of them! And lots of stuff. We saw one of their cars! And there was lots more. Dad--you gotta come and see!...”
Hara.s.sed as he was, John Endlich yielded--because he had a hunch, an idea of a possibility. So he went with his children. He pa.s.sed through a garden, where a pool had been, and where the blackened remains of plants still projected from beds of dried soil set in odd stone-work. He pa.s.sed into chambers far too low for comfortable human habitation. And what did he know of the uses of most of what he saw there? The niches in the stone walls? The slanting, ramplike object of blackened wood, beside which three weird corpses lay? The glazed plaque on the wall, which could have been a religious emblem, a calendar of some kind, a decoration, or something beyond human imagining? Yeah--leave such stuff for Cousin Ernest, the school teacher--if he ever got here.
In the cylindrical stone shed nearby, John Endlich had a look at the car--low slung, three-wheeled, a tiller, no seats. Just a flat platform.
All he could figure out about the motor was that steam seemed the link between atomic energy and mechanical motion.
Beyond the car was what might be a small tractor. And a lot of odd tools. But the thing which interested him most was the pattern of copper ribbons, insulated with a heavy glaze, similar to that which he had seen traversing walls and ceiling in the first building he had entered. Here, as before, they connected with queer apparatus which might be stoves and non-rotary motors, for all he knew. And also with the globes overhead.
The suggestiveness of all this was plain. And now, at the far end of that cylindrical shed, John Endlich found the square, black-enamelled case, where all of those copper ribbons came together.
It was sealed, and apparently self-contained. Nothing could have damaged it very much, in the frigid stillness of millions of years. Its secrets were hidden within it. But they could not be too unfamiliar. And its presence was logical. A small, compact power unit. Nervously, he turned a little wheel. A faint vibration was transmitted to his gloved hand.
And the globe in the ceiling began to glow.
He shut the thing off again. But how long did it take him to run back to his sagging creation of clear plastic, while the kids howled gleefully around him, and return with the end of a long cable, and pliers? How long did it take him to disconnect all of the glazed copper ribbons, and subst.i.tute the wires of the cable--attaching them to queer terminal-posts? No--not long.
The power was not as great as that which his own large atomic battery would have supplied. But it proved sufficient. And the current was direct--as it was supposed to be. The electrolysis apparatus bubbled vigorously. Slowly the tentlike roof began to rise, under the beginnings of a tiny gas-pressure.
”That does it, Pops!” Bubs shrilled.
”Yeah--maybe so,” John Endlich agreed almost optimistically. He felt really tender toward his kids, just then. They'd really helped him, for once.
Yes--almost he was hopeful. Until he glanced at the rapidly declining sun. An all-night vigil. No. Probably worse. Oh Lord--how long could he last like this? Even if he managed to keep Neely and Company at bay?
Night after night.... All that he had accomplished seemed useless. He just had so much more that could be wrecked--pushed over with a harsh laugh, as if it really was something funny.
John Endlich's flesh crawled. And in his thinking, now, he went a little against his own determinations. Probably because, in the present state of his disgust, he needed a drink--bad.
”Nuts!” he growled lugubriously. ”If I'd only been a little more sociable.... That was where the trouble started. I might have got broke, but I would've made friends. They think I'm snooty.”
Rose's jaw hardened, as if she took his regrets as an accusation that she had led him along the straight and narrow path, which--by an exasperating s.h.i.+ft in philosophical principle--now seemed the shortest route to destruction. But he felt very sorry for her, too; and he didn't believe that what he had just said was entirely the truth.
So he added: ”I don't mean it, Honey. I'm just griping.”
She softened. ”You've got to eat, Johnny,” she said. ”You haven't eaten all day. And tonight you've got to sleep. I'll keep watch. Maybe it'll be all right....”
Well, anyway it was nice to know that his wife was like that.
Yeah--gentle, and fairminded. After they had all eaten supper, he tried hard to keep awake. Fear helped him to do so more than ever. Their tent was now covered by the rising plastic roof--but beyond the clear substance, he could still watch for starlight to be stopped by prowling forms, out there at the jagged rim of Vesta. It was h.e.l.l to feel your skin puckering, and yet to have exhaustion pus.h.i.+ng your eyelids down inexorably....
Somewhere he lost the hold on himself. And he dreamed that Alf Neely and he were fighting with their fists. And he was being beaten to a pulp.
But he was wis.h.i.+ng desperately that he could win. Then they could have a drink, and maybe be friends. But he knew hopelessly that things weren't quite that simple, either.
He awoke to blink at blazing suns.h.i.+ne. Then his whole body became clammy with perspiration, as he thought of his lapse from responsibility; glancing over, he saw that Rose was sleeping as soundly as the kids. His wide eyes searched for the disaster that he knew he'd find....