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Authors: Operation: Outer Space
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than eighteen
inches in diameter. He said flatly:
"I'm all ready."
The hand and arm of a space-suited figure lifted, for attention.
Dabney's voice came worriedly from the headphones of every suit:
"I wish it understood," he said in some agitation, "that this first
attempted application of my discovery is made with my consent, but that
I am not aware of the mechanical details. As a scientist, my work has
been in pure science. I have worked for the advancement of human
knowledge, but the technological applications of my discovery are not
mine. Still—if this device does not work, I will take time from my more
important researches to inquire into what part of my discovery has been
inadequately understood and applied. It may be that present technology
is not qualified to apply my discovery—"
Jones said without emotion—but Cochrane could imagine his poker-faced
expression inside his helmet:
"That's right. I consulted Mr. Dabney about the principles, but the
apparatus is my doing, I take the responsibility for that!"
Then Cochrane added with pleasant irony:
"Since all this is recorded, Mr. Dabney can enlarge upon his disinterest
later. Right now, we can go ahead. Mr. Dabney disavows us unless we are
successful. Let us let it go at that." Then he said: "The observatory's
set to track?"
A muffled voice said boredly, by short-wave from the observatory up on
the crater's rim:
"
We're ready. Visual and records, and we've got the timers set to clock
the auto-beacon signals as they come in.
"
The voice was not enthusiastic. Cochrane had had to put up his own money
to have the nearside lunar observatory put a low-power telescope to
watch the rocket's flight. In theory, this distress-rocket should make a
twenty-mile streak of relatively long-burning red sparks. A tiny
auto-beacon in its nose was set to send microwave signals at ten-second
intervals. On the face of it, it had looked like a rather futile
performance.
"Let's go," said Cochrane.
He noted with surprise that his mouth was suddenly dry. This affair was
out of all reason. A producer of television shows should not be the
person to discover in an abstruse scientific development the way to
reach the stars. A neurotic son-in-law of an advertising tycoon should
not be the instrument by which the discovery should come about. A
psychiatrist should not be the means of associating Jones—a very junior
physicist with no money—and Cochrane and the things Cochrane was
prepared to bring about if only this unlikely-looking gadget worked.
"Jones," said Cochrane with a little difficulty, "let's follow an
ancient tradition. Let Babs christen the enterprise by throwing the
switch."
Jones pointed there in the shadow of the crater-wall, and Babs moved to
the switch he indicated. She said absorbedly:
"Five, four, three, two, one—"
She threw the switch. There was a spout of lurid red flame.
The rocket vanished.
It vanished. It did not rise, visibly. It simply went away from where it
was, with all the abruptness of a light going out. There was a flurry of
the most brilliant imaginable carmine flame. That light remained. But
the rocket did not so much rise as disappear.
Cochrane jerked his head up. He was close to the line of the rocket's
ascent. He could see a trail of red sparks which stretched to
invisibility. It was an extraordinarily thin line. The separate flecks
of crimson light which comprised it were distant in space. They were so
far from each other that the signal-rocket was a complete failure as a
device making a streak of light that should be visible.
The muffled voice in the helmet-phones said blankly:
"
Hey! What'd you do to that rocket?
"
The others did not move. They seemed stunned. The vanishing of the
rocket was no way for a rocket to act. In all expectation, it should
have soared skyward with a reasonable velocity, and should have
accelerated rather more swiftly from the moon's surface than it would
have done from Earth. But it should have remained
inches in diameter. He said flatly:
"I'm all ready."
The hand and arm of a space-suited figure lifted, for attention.
Dabney's voice came worriedly from the headphones of every suit:
"I wish it understood," he said in some agitation, "that this first
attempted application of my discovery is made with my consent, but that
I am not aware of the mechanical details. As a scientist, my work has
been in pure science. I have worked for the advancement of human
knowledge, but the technological applications of my discovery are not
mine. Still—if this device does not work, I will take time from my more
important researches to inquire into what part of my discovery has been
inadequately understood and applied. It may be that present technology
is not qualified to apply my discovery—"
Jones said without emotion—but Cochrane could imagine his poker-faced
expression inside his helmet:
"That's right. I consulted Mr. Dabney about the principles, but the
apparatus is my doing, I take the responsibility for that!"
Then Cochrane added with pleasant irony:
"Since all this is recorded, Mr. Dabney can enlarge upon his disinterest
later. Right now, we can go ahead. Mr. Dabney disavows us unless we are
successful. Let us let it go at that." Then he said: "The observatory's
set to track?"
A muffled voice said boredly, by short-wave from the observatory up on
the crater's rim:
"
We're ready. Visual and records, and we've got the timers set to clock
the auto-beacon signals as they come in.
"
The voice was not enthusiastic. Cochrane had had to put up his own money
to have the nearside lunar observatory put a low-power telescope to
watch the rocket's flight. In theory, this distress-rocket should make a
twenty-mile streak of relatively long-burning red sparks. A tiny
auto-beacon in its nose was set to send microwave signals at ten-second
intervals. On the face of it, it had looked like a rather futile
performance.
"Let's go," said Cochrane.
He noted with surprise that his mouth was suddenly dry. This affair was
out of all reason. A producer of television shows should not be the
person to discover in an abstruse scientific development the way to
reach the stars. A neurotic son-in-law of an advertising tycoon should
not be the instrument by which the discovery should come about. A
psychiatrist should not be the means of associating Jones—a very junior
physicist with no money—and Cochrane and the things Cochrane was
prepared to bring about if only this unlikely-looking gadget worked.
"Jones," said Cochrane with a little difficulty, "let's follow an
ancient tradition. Let Babs christen the enterprise by throwing the
switch."
Jones pointed there in the shadow of the crater-wall, and Babs moved to
the switch he indicated. She said absorbedly:
"Five, four, three, two, one—"
She threw the switch. There was a spout of lurid red flame.
The rocket vanished.
It vanished. It did not rise, visibly. It simply went away from where it
was, with all the abruptness of a light going out. There was a flurry of
the most brilliant imaginable carmine flame. That light remained. But
the rocket did not so much rise as disappear.
Cochrane jerked his head up. He was close to the line of the rocket's
ascent. He could see a trail of red sparks which stretched to
invisibility. It was an extraordinarily thin line. The separate flecks
of crimson light which comprised it were distant in space. They were so
far from each other that the signal-rocket was a complete failure as a
device making a streak of light that should be visible.
The muffled voice in the helmet-phones said blankly:
"
Hey! What'd you do to that rocket?
"
The others did not move. They seemed stunned. The vanishing of the
rocket was no way for a rocket to act. In all expectation, it should
have soared skyward with a reasonable velocity, and should have
accelerated rather more swiftly from the moon's surface than it would
have done from Earth. But it should have remained
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