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Title: F.O.B. Venus
Author: Nelson S. Bond
Illustrator: Robert Fuqua
Release date: June 27, 2024 [eBook #73925]
Language: English
Original publication: Chicago, IL: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1939
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK F.O.B. VENUS ***
F-O-B-VENUS
By NELSON S. BOND
Lancelot Biggs was perhaps the worst second
mate Captain Hanson had ever shipped, and
he was convinced of it when he ruined their
cargo. But how dumb a man is, may
sometimes be a matter of opinion.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic Adventures November 1939.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Something had gone a little haywire with my bug, and I had just
repaired it and was CQ-ing on the 20 band when the door opened and
Captain Hanson walked in.
Naturally, I was surprised. We were only four hours out of the Venus
H-layer, and I hadn't expected any visitors; least of all the skipper.
But he plunked himself down in the best chair and said, "Sparks, look
at me! What do you see?"
That gave me a jolt. Even the best of them make the old dipsy-doo once
in a while, but I never thought I'd live to see the day when Captain
Hanson went space nutty. He'd been with the Corporation, man and boy,
for more than thirty years now, and had never spent a day in dry-dock.
I reached behind me cautiously and said in as soothing a voice as I
could muster, "Why, I see a very nice man, Captain. Now, just you sit
quiet for a minute. I've got to--"
"Stop bein' a damned fool, Sparks!" said the skipper wearily, "An'
put down that monkey-wrench! I'm not slippin' my gravs--yet. I'm just
askin' you a simple question. What do you see?"
I said, "Is it facts you're after, Cap, or am I allowed poetic license?
If it's facts, I see a swell, slightly gray-haired guy in his middle
fifties who's been through the mill, knows space like a book, and--"
"Wrong!" said Hanson. "Sparks, all radiomen are dumb. I guess that's
why they're radiomen. What you see before you is a broken man. A man
sadly buffeted by Fate and the dread clutch of circumstances. Not to
mention meddlesome vice-presidents."
This time I got it.
"Biggs?" I said.
"Yes, Sparks. Biggs. Now tell me, man to man, what did I ever do to
deserve Biggs?"
He had me there. Being the skipper of the _Saturn_ is not what I'd call
an easy job under the best of conditions. The _Saturn_ is the oldest
space-lugger still doing active duty on Corporation runs. She was built
'way back there before the turn of the century. For the past ten or
twelve years, she had been on freight service, having been judged unfit
for passenger duty by the SSCB--Space Safety Control Board.
To make matters worse, while we were taking on cargo at Sun City
spaceport, the skipper had been called into the company offices. When
he came out again, he had this Biggs in tow.
Biggs was tall. Biggs was lanky and gangly and all the other adjectives
you can think of that mean a guy's Adam's-apple sticks out. He was
overflowing at the mouth with a great big grin, and he was as dumb as
they make 'em. He had his Third Mate's papers, and was entitled to be
known as "Mister" Biggs--the "Mister" being a nice camouflage for his
real name, Lancelot.
But--Biggs was the nephew of crusty old Prendergast Biggs, first
vice-president of the Corporation. So there was nothing the skipper
could do but gulp and say, "Very good!" when they assigned Biggs to the
_Saturn_.
There was nothing to prevent him from hoping Biggs would stumble over
his suitcases and bust his scrawny neck--but Biggs didn't do it. He was
awkward enough to stumble, but lucky enough to fall on a cushion if he
did!
I said gently, "What's he up to now, Captain?"
"What isn't he up to?" groaned the skipper. "First, he said he could
handle the gravs when we broke out of Venus' clutch. So--"
"Oh!" I said, "_He_ did that, did he?"
"Stop rubbin' your head an' feelin' sorry for yourself," said Hanson.
"You got off lucky. Chief Garrity is nursin' two black eyes. One of the
wipers has a busted arm. Everybody on the ship went floatin' off to the
ceiling, same as you did."
"Anything else?" I asked.
"_Everything_ else!" snorted Hanson. "While we were all scramblin'
around in midair, Biggs made a grab for the hand-controls. He got the
manual deflector by mistake. Todd has just finished shapin' the course
revision. We're point-oh-seven degrees off course now; almost three
hundred thousand miles! We've got to up revs and waste fuel to get
back, or we'll report in to Earth a day late. And you know what _that_
means!"
Sure, I knew what that meant. Cap on the carpet before the Board; the
rest of us sitting around chewing our fingernails, wondering whether
they'd yank the _Saturn_ off the Venus run.
"Well, what are you going to do about him?" I asked.
"What can I do?"
"There's always the airlock," I suggested. "Nobody would ever blame
you."
"This ain't no time to be funny, Sparks!" complained the skipper.
"This is a serious problem. We've got a valuable cargo of _mekel_-root
and _clab_-beans to take into New York. But if that guy messes up our
flight any more--"
He shook his head dolefully. I scratched mine. Then I got a brilliant
idea.
"Cargo!" I said. "There's your answer, Captain!"
"I'm listenin'," said Hanson.
"Put Biggs in charge of the cargo. That way he'll be down in the hold
throughout the trip. He won't be up in the control turret to bother
you. And there's nothing he can do down there that'll hurt anybody."
"But that's the supercargo's job," frowned the skipper. "Biggs knows
that."
"Sure. But Harkness will play along with you. Tell him to let on he's
sick. Give him a vacation for this trip. He deserves it, anyway. Then
it's logical enough to put Biggs on special duty below."
The skipper grinned.
"Sparks, I take it back what I said about radiomen. I think you got
somethin' there!"
"Then you'll do it?"
"Immediately," said Hanson, rising, "if not sooner!"
* * * * *
So that was that. That night my relief came on duty, and I went down to
the mess hall to eat whatever I could stomach of Slops' slumgullion.
First person I met up with was Mr. Lancelot Biggs himself.
"Hello, Sparks," he said.
"Hello, yourself," I answered. "What are you doing at this mess?
Thought you ate at the skipper's hour?"
"I did until now," he grinned. "Harkness was taken ill this afternoon,
and the Skipper put me on emergency duty in his place."
"Is that so?" I said, looking as surprised as possible. "Well, that's
quite a job. Lot of responsibility, you know. That cargo's valuable."
I had to grin at the way his lean face sobered.
"I realize that, Sparks. I'm devoting a lot of thought to the job,
too. You know, I'm a bit of an experimenter, and it seems to me--"
One of the mess boys brought on my chow then, and I didn't listen to
the rest of his chatter. Which was a sad mistake. If I had listened, I
would have been able to warn Captain Hanson that trouble was on the way.
I think it was about the third day out that I began to smell those
smells. Yes, I know it was the third day, because I'd just contacted
Joe Marlowe on Lunar Three, giving him declination and cruising speed
of the _Saturn_. I thought it was funny, but guessed it would go away.
It didn't. It got worse. Finally, on the fifth day, I decided to do
something.
There's nothing like meeting trouble halfway. I was just on my way from
the radio room to the control turret when I bumped smack into Captain
Hanson. It was a head on collision, but the Skipper's "Oof!" took
longer than mine, so I got to talk first.
"Listen here!" I yelled, "I've had about as much of this rickety old
tub as I'm going to stand. If you can't put a stop to those stinks
Slops makes in the galley--"
Hanson gave me a look that would wilt lettuce.
"I don't want no trouble with you, Sparks!" was his comeback. "I
been smellin' those smells, too. That's what I was aimin' to ask
_you_ about. Have you been foolin' around with some of them chemical
experiments of your'n?"
"I have not," I informed him loftily. "And besides, while chemicals may
stink sometimes, they don't ever give out a smell like the butt of an
overripe cabbage. Except perhaps some of the sulphur compounds." Then I
stared at him. "I'm not kidding. I think those smells are coming up out
of the galley."
The skipper groaned softly.
"Trouble. Nothin' but trouble. It ain't enough I'm supposed to shuttle
this barge between Earth an' Mars. Now I got smells to worry about,
too. Well, come on! Let's look!"
We went down to the galley. Slops was stirring something in a bowl. I
took one look and shuddered. Tapioca--again. And don't tell me you're
not supposed to stir tapioca. I know it. Tell Slops.
Then the skipper loosed his blast.
"Okay, Slops," he snarled. "We give up. Where'd you hide it?"
Slops looked puzzled.
"Hide what? I didn't hide nothin'. What is this, a game?"
"Sure," I chinned in. "It's called Sniff-the-Atmosphere. You play it by
pressing your thumb and forefinger to your nostrils. Then you try to
guess what died."
"Quiet, Sparks!" roared the skipper. Then, to the cook, "Well, Slops?"
Slops shrugged.
"I ain't done nothin'," he protested. "I ain't hid nothin', and I ain't
smelled nothin'. Now I got a meal on the fire. Go 'way and leave me
alone."
The skipper looked at me, and I stared back at him. Both of us
realized the same thing at the same time. Slops wasn't lying. The smell
_wasn't_ as bad here as it had been updeck.
Hanson scratched his head. He said, suspiciously, "Sparks, are you sure
you ain't been mixin' chemicals?"
"I'll swear it," I told him, "on a pile of logbooks. That smell came
from--Hey! What else beside the galley lies beneath my room and the
control turret?"
"I'm a cook," said Slops, still stirring the tapioca, "not a blueprint.
Don't ask me."
"Shut up!" snapped Captain Hanson. "He ain't askin' you. Let's
see, Sparks. There's the storage closet ... the reservoir ... the
refrigeration tanks, and the--" His eyes widened suddenly; fearfully.
"Sparks!" he husked.
"Yes?"
"The vegetable hold!"
* * * * *
Man, that was it! The minute he said it, I knew. The vegetable
hold--and Biggs in charge!
We hightailed it for the nearest ramp. The minute we turned down the
corridor the smell got worse. Hanson blasted down the aisle like a
rogue asteroid, with me trailing along behind. We hit the door; rammed
it open--
Biggs was in there. The darned fool was standing in there dressed in a
bulger, calmly spraying the bins of _mekel_-root and _clab_ with a hose!
He turned as we entered and his eyes lighted behind the quartzite. His
audiophone clacked pleasantly.
"Hello!" he said. "Is there anything wrong?"
"Anything wrong!" bellowed Captain Hanson. "He asks if there's anything
wrong! That--that suit! And that hose--" The skipper's face was turning
purple. "And this _heat_!"
"I turned off the refrigerating unit," clacked Biggs pleasantly. "You
see, I had a theory that since the climate of Venus is warm and moist,
it would be better for the cargo if I attempted to simulate its normal
conditions of growth. So I--"
"And the suit?" roared Hanson. "Why the bulger?"
Biggs moved his hands deprecatingly.
"Why, possible infection, you know. I didn't want to expose the
vegetables to any organisms--"
"Infect ... moisture ... heat...." Captain Hanson gave up. He buried
his face in his hands. "Tell him, Sparks! Tell him what he's doing!"
I said, "Listen, Biggs--your theory is no good. _Clab_ and _mekel_ have
to be kept in a cool, dry atmosphere or they rot. As a matter of fact,
they _are_ rotten! That's why the captain and I came down here--to
investigate the smell. If you weren't wearing a bulger you'd notice it
yourself."
"Smell?" said Biggs. "Why, now, come to think of it, I have noticed a
curious odor about the ship from time to time. But I thought it was
rats!"
Rats! On a space ship! Imagine!
That was the last straw for Hanson. He'd been trying, and trying hard.
But now he exploded.
"Biggs!" he roared, "You've ruined this cargo! Now you're relieved from
your command! But before you report to your quarters, I want every bit
of this mess cleaned up. And I mean every last bit, understand? Junk
it! Clear it out!"
Biggs faltered, "B-but, Captain, I only tried to--"
"You heard me!"
The skipper wheeled, fiery with wrath, and strode to the doorway. I
hurried after him. I whispered in his ear, "Take it easy, Captain. He's
the vice-president's nephew. Maybe you ought to go slow!"
"Slow?" groaned the skipper. "A fifty thousand dollar cargo ruined--and
you tell me to go slow? I'll see that idiotic son-of-a-space-wrangler
fryin' in chaos. I'll blast him out of space if I'm blacklisted for it!"
I said nothing more. What was there to say? Fifty thousand bucks worth
of cargo rotting in the hold. The Board would love that!
* * * * *
That was all until the next morning. The next morning I was on the
bridge when Captain Hanson had a visitor. Garrity, the Chief Engineer.
Garrity _never_ came to the bridge. So I knew, the minute I saw him,
that something was vitally wrong.
It was. Garrity's first words made that clear. He glared at the skipper
accusingly from eyes that were still faintly purpled.
"Captain Hanson," he exploded. "Would you be so kind as to tell me
where I can find my Forenzi jars?"
Hanson said, "Forenzi jars? What are you talking about, Chief?"
"You'll be knowing what a Forenzi jar is, no doubt?" said Garrity
caustically. "'Tis a lead container for battery solution. Yesterday
there were thirty of them in the storeroom. Today there are only a half
dozen left!"
Hanson said pettishly, "Now, Chief, be kind enough to conduct your own
search for the jars. I don't know anything about them. If you can't
watch your own equipment, don't complain to _me_ about it!"
"I'm complaining to you, sir," said the Chief, "for the verra simple
reason that 'twas one of your men who removed them from the locker.
Your third mate, Mister Biggs!"
"Biggs!" said Hanson. "Biggs!" His face reddened. He walked to the
intercommunication unit, jabbed the button that connected with Biggs'
quarters. "Mr. Biggs?" he yelped, "Chief Garrity is up here in the
turret asking about twenty-four lead containers that disappeared
strangely from his equipment locker. Do you know anything about--"
The diaphragm clacked an answer. Hanson started. His eyes bulged. He
yelled, "What?"
Again some metallic buzzing. This time Hanson didn't try to answer. He
tottered away from the 'phone.
"G-Garrity," he faltered, "will you be needin' the Forenzis before we
make port?"
"Well, 'tis not exactly _vital_--" admitted Garrity.
"But--why?"
Hanson made a weak gesture.
"Because they're--out there!"
"What?" I said. "Outside the ship? How come? Why?"
Hanson's eyes were haunted.
"Biggs," he said in a hollow voice, "thought they were garbage cans! He
used them to dispose of the rotten cargo!"
* * * * *
Well, there wasn't any danger of the Forenzis getting lost, anyway.
But do you know I even had to point _that_ out to Mr. Biggs? Yes. That
night I got a personal message for him, and I took it down to his
cabin. Being confined to quarters, he was lonely. He looked so abject
that I felt sorry for him, and lingered to talk for a while.
"I guess you think I'm a frightful dummy, Sparks," he said ruefully.
"And I know Captain Hanson thinks so. But--this is my first flight, you
know. And nobody ever told me what to use for garbage pails--"
"Look, Biggs," I told him, "there's no _need_ for garbage pails in
space. You can't just dump things out the airlock and expect to get rid
of them."
"But Captain Hanson said to junk the spoiled vegetables."
"Junk. Not dump! They should have been thrown into the incinerator.
You see, anything tossed out of the _Saturn_ in free space just
follows along with the ship." I grinned. "I'd hate to be one of the
spaceport attendants on Earth when the _Saturn_ comes in surrounded by
twenty-four lead satellites full of garbage."
He picked me up on that one quick as a flash.
"But--but they won't be with us when we land, Sparks. As soon as we hit
Earth's atmosphere, the friction will destroy the Forenzis and their
contents."
I whistled softly.
"By golly, you're right. I clean forgot about that, and Hanson was so
sore, he forgot it, too. That means we have to get those containers
back into the ship before we hit the tropo, or we're going to lose a
couple hundred bucks worth of equipment."
Biggs said meekly, "I--I'll be glad to go out and reclaim them, Sparks.
Can you fix it up with the skipper?"
"I'll try," I told him.
So the next day I told Hanson about it. The Captain yanked his lower
lip thoughtfully and agreed.
"Let him do it. That's better than giving him a free ride to Earth. And
maybe he'll slip into the rocket blasts?"
I passed the order on to Biggs; then went back to the radio room.
Joe Marlowe was calling me from Lunar Three. And what he had to say
drove all other thoughts from my mind. His message came right from
Corporation headquarters.
"Please report," it said, "exact amount and probable value of cargo.
Must have immediate reply."
I shot through an O.K. and passed the message up to the skipper. Then,
my curiosity aroused, I contacted Joe on our private conversation band
and asked him how come and why. He answered cautiously.
"Stock market taking nosedive in New York, Bert," he told me. "Corp.
bonds fading. Need this cargo badly."
Boy, there was bad news! It was a private message, but I figured the
Old Man ought to know it. So when he came in I passed it along. He
stared at me.
"Hell's bells, Sparks! Then in that case, I can't send _this_!"
"This" was the message he had intended to relay: It said, succinctly,
"Cargo ruined. Value zero."
"If you do," I told him, "we'll all be studying the want ads as soon
as we hit port. Stock markets are screwy. This can't be a bad panic,
or a fifty thousand buck cargo wouldn't be that important. But if the
Corporation's under suspicion, and they learn the _Saturn's_ cargo is
worthless--"
"What will we do then?"
"Stall," I suggested. "Maybe by the time we get in, the situation will
be cleared up."
So we framed a message that wouldn't upset the apple cart too soon. It
said, "Value of cargo estimated at Sun City spaceport as $50,000." And
_that_ was true enough....
* * * * *
Biggs, with his unerring faculty for selecting the wrong moment, chose
this time to come bouncing into my radio room. He had taken off his
_quartzite_ headpiece, but he was still wearing his bulger, and its
deflated folds hung around him like the poorly draped carcass of a
Venusian mammoth.
He said, "Hey, Sparks, have you got a book on energy and radiation?"
"Help yourself," I said, pointing to my bookcase. "Why, what's the
sudden excitement?"
"I've been thinking," he began, "that maybe--"
Captain Hanson let out a blat like an angry lion.
"Mister Biggs! I thought you were reclaiming those Forenzi jars?"
"Yes, sir. I was. I mean--I am. But--"
"Never mind the 'buts'! Get back to work!"
"Y-yes, sir!" Biggs saluted meekly; tossed me a grateful glance.
"Thanks, Sparks. I've got an idea, and if I'm right--"
"Get out, Biggs!" roared the skipper.
"Yes, sir." Biggs backed out hastily. He was thumbing the pages as he
disappeared. Hanson yanked his lower lip angrily.
"The Corporation goes busted. The _Saturn_ goes under the hammer. We're
all out of jobs. And that--that insane young whippersnapper wants to
play school!"
"He seemed mighty excited about something," I said.
"He'll be worse than that," promised the skipper, "if he doesn't get
those jars back on board."
All this, to get Biblical about it, took place on the seventh day.
The _Saturn_ is a ten-day freighter. So we had three more days of
headaches before us till we slipped into New York spaceport.
They were three days of headaches, too. The skipper and I spent most
of our time hanging over the radio, watching the progress of the stock
market slump in New York. We hoped the situation would ease up so that
our coming in with a zero cargo wouldn't make any difference--but no
such luck. Somehow the rumor had gotten around that the _Saturn's_
cargo would not be of sufficient value to keep the Corporation in the
blue. And the Wall Street wolves were closing in, getting ready to snap
if the rumor were true.
In the meantime, our stupid friend, Biggs, was taking a hell of a long
time to reclaim those Forenzis. It's really not a hard job, you know.
All he had to do was slip out through the airlock, throw a grapple
around each jar, and bring it in.
But he seemed to be as awkward at this as at every other job he had
ever attempted. On an off-period, I went down to watch him once. I
found he'd thrown grapples around the jars, but had not brought a
single one into the airlock yet.
[Illustration: Biggs was in a frightful mess, trying to throw grapples
around the jars.]
I told him, "You'd better get a wiggle on, Biggs. We hit the tropo
tomorrow. If those things get into the atmosphere, you'll be able to
_pour_ them into the airlock."
"I know," he said abstractedly, "but I'm not quite ready to--Sparks,
according to that book you lent me, cosmic rays go down to 1/100,000
Ângstrom units."
"That's right," I told him.
"That means they are more than ten times as intense as gamma rays."
"Right again. Why? What's the pay-off?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out," he said strangely. He finished
tying a loop around one of the jars; pushed himself free and toward the
airlock.
"You want me to help you drag 'em in now?" I asked.
"No thanks, Sparks. I think we'll leave them out till tomorrow," he
said.
"But Captain Hanson--" I began.
"Tomorrow."
"After all, I'm just a radioman," I shrugged. "It's your funeral," I
said.
* * * * *
He got them inside the next day. I saw them lying in the corridor
beside the airlock, covered with a strip of tarpaulin. And he got them
in just in time, too, for about an hour later we hit the Heaviside
layer.
We set out our Ampie and eased through all right. From there on, it
was just an easy coast to Earth. We threw out our lug-sails--the
retractable metal fins which give "space luggers" their name--and put
on the power brakes. In a couple of hours we were settling into our
hangar off New York spaceport.
I closed out my key and locked the radio room. There was nothing more
I could do now. So I went up to the control turret and found Captain
Hanson gnawing the fingernail of his index finger down to the second
joint.
"Well, Captain?" I said.
"Any late news, Sparks?" he demanded anxiously.
I shook my head.
"Only bad news. The Board's sending over their appraisers immediately."
He said wearily, "Well, we did our best. If it hadn't been for that
crazy Biggs, we'd still have our cargo. But as it is--"
"I wonder if International Stratoplanes need any radio operators?" I
said gloomily.
We were grounded now. As we walked down the corridor the motors went
off, and I could hear the hiss of the airlock opening. We reached the
port just as the committee entered. Doc Challenger was there, and Col.
Brophy, and old Prendergast Biggs himself. I knew, then, that things
were in a bad state, or all the big bugs would not have come out.
Challenger stepped forward, beaming.
"Happy landing, Captain!" he chortled. "I need not tell you how glad we
are you came in safely. We've been experiencing bad times in New York,
sir, bad times! But everything's all right now."
Hanson said, "Yes, sir. But I've got something to tell you, sir--"
"Later, Captain, later! First we must take up this cargo question.
Approximately $50,000 worth of _mekel_ and _clab_--is that right? We
have our appraisers here. If your estimate is right, the Corporation
will weather this--er--mild storm."
Hanson coughed nervously. He hedged.
"Well, now, you see--about that there cargo--"
You never saw three faces lose their smiles so suddenly. There was
stony silence for a minute. Then Col. Brophy said in a deep voice,
"Captain Hanson, there's nothing _wrong_ in your estimate of the
cargo's value, is there?"
"No, sir. I mean the _estimate_ was right, but--"
* * * * *
IT was right here that young Lancelot Biggs interrupted.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," he said, "but I don't quite understand. Is it
important that we land a cargo of _clab_ and _mekel_?"
Captain Hanson whirled on him.
"Biggs!" he snapped sternly. Then he turned to old Prendergast Biggs.
"Sir," he said, "I've delayed telling this as long as possible. But now
I must tell you. This precious nephew of yours--"
The old man smiled fatuously.
"Yes, yes, Captain Hanson. A fine lad, isn't he? What was it you were
starting to say, Lancelot?"
I grabbed Hanson's arm. I thought he was going to blow his tubes and
hit somebody right then and there. But before he got a chance, Lancelot
Biggs was talking again. To the Captain.
"Captain Hanson," he said seriously, "I wish you'd told me this
before. I didn't realize that our cargo was so important--"
Then he turned to the committee.
"I hope you will not be surprised to learn, gentlemen, that our cargo
is not vegetable. At the last minute, Captain Hanson decided to make a
change--"
Hanson's face turned white. He squawked, "What! Are you trying to shift
the blame to--"
Biggs' voice drowned out his protest.
"--and so, gentlemen, we have placed the cargo right here for your
inspection. Look!" With a swift motion he tore the tarpaulin off the
Forenzi jars. I looked--and gulped! They were the same jars, all right.
Only different! They were no longer a dull, whitish metal. They were a
glinting copper color! Biggs patted one of them affectionately.
"Ask your appraisers to estimate the value of these, gentlemen. I think
they'll find their value to be approximately a quarter of a million
dollars. These are--_pure gold_!"
It's a good thing I was holding on to Captain Hanson's arm. For just as
the committee was exclaiming, "Excellent! Excellent trading, Captain
Hanson!" the skipper's nerves gave out. He collapsed like a punctured
bulger. I remember shouting, "Water! Water, somebody!" Then I passed
out, too!
* * * * *
Afterward, the three of us were alone in the turret. And Hanson was
asking, "But _how_, Biggs? I don't get it at all? How in blazes did it
happen?"
Biggs blushed and looked uncomfortable.
"Why, it's pretty obvious when you come to analyze it, Captain. I can't
understand how it is that no one ever discovered it before, in twenty
years of space travel. But perhaps it's because ships and bulgers are
made of _permalloy_ instead of lead. Or it may be that some enzyme
secreted by the rotten vegetables acted as a catalyst. Lab workers will
have to study that."
"You're still not telling us what happened."
"Don't you know? It was transmutation, induced in the lead Forenzi jars
by the action of cosmic rays."[1]
[Footnote 1: Lead has an atomic weight of 207 plus, and its atomic
number is 82. This atomic number corresponds to its net positive
nuclear charge. Gold on the other hand, has an atomic weight of 197,
with an atomic number of 79.
The loss of two alpha particles and the loss of a single beta particle
in a molecule of lead, causes that molecule to become an isotopal
molecule of gold, with an atomic number 79, and the atomic weight of
199. For all practical commercial purposes, this is the same as true
gold.--Author.]
Captain Hanson said in an awed tone. "Exposure to cosmic rays done
that?"
"Yes. Artificial transmutations were caused 'way back in the early
20th Century through bombardment with gamma rays. And cosmic rays are
more than ten times as short as gammas.
"I began to suspect something strange was happening to the Forenzi
jars when I first went out to gather them in. Their color had changed
slightly, and their exterior was rather more granular. That's why I
came in to borrow Spark's book on radiation. What I saw convinced me
that the lead was being transmuted; was then in the _mesolead_ stage;
approximately an isotope of thallium.
"I decided to wait and see if the transmutation would continue--"
Hanson wiped his hand across his forehead.
"Suppose there'd been more time? An' suppose'n the transmutation had
gone on a step farther? What then?"
"Well, now, there's an interesting question. The next element down the
ladder is platinum.[2] It's quite possible that--"
[Footnote 2: Platinum has a weight of 195 plus, and a net Positive
nuclear charge of 78.--Author.]
"Wait a minute," interrupted the skipper. "Did you say _platinum_?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Nothin'. That is, nothin' much."
The skipper rose and strode to the intercommunicating phone.
"Ross?" he yelled. "Listen--I want you to get this crate ready to roll
again. We're takin' off for Venus first thing in the mornin'. An', hey,
Ross! Send to the warehouse for about five--no, make it six--dozen
Forenzi jars. Yeah, Forenzi jars, I said.
"And Ross--get the biggest ones they got! The Corporation ain't found
it out yet, but we're goin' into the transmutin' business. And Mister
Biggs comes aboard as First Mate!"
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