Man Who Sold the Moon / Orphans of the Sky (12 page)

King kept the pain in his eyes out of his voice. “Wait a minute, Cal—you’re not through here. Let’s forget about the vacation. I’m transferring you to the radiation laboratory. You belong in research anyhow; I’d never have spared you from it to stand watches if I hadn’t been short on number-one men.

“As for the constant psychological observation, I hate it as much as you do. I don’t suppose you know that they watch me about twice as hard as they watch you duty engineers.” Harper showed his surprise, but Silard nodded in sober confirmation. “But we have to have this supervision . . . Do you remember Manning? No, he was before your time. We didn’t have psychological observers then. Manning was able and brilliant. Furthermore, he was always cheerful; nothing seemed to bother him.

“I was glad to have him on the pile, for he was always alert, and never seemed nervous about working with it—in fact he grew more buoyant and cheerful the longer he stood control watches. I should have known that was a very bad sign, but I didn’t, and there was no observer to tell me so.

“His technician had to slug him one night . . . He found him dismounting the safety interlocks on the cadmium assembly. Poor old Manning never pulled out of it—he’s been violently insane ever since. After Manning cracked up, we worked out the present system of two qualified engineers and an observer for every watch. It seemed the only thing to do.”

“I suppose so, chief,” Harper mused, his face no longer sullen, but still unhappy. “It’s a hell of a situation just the same.”

“That’s putting it mildly.” He got up and put out his hand. “Cal, unless you’re dead set on leaving us, I’ll expect to see you at the radiation laboratory tomorrow. Another thing—I don’t often recommend this, but it might do you good to get drunk tonight.”

King had signed to Silard to remain after the young man left. Once the door was closed he turned back to the psychiatrist. “There goes another one—and one of the best. Doctor, what am I going to do?”

Silard pulled at his cheek. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “The hell of it is, Harper’s absolutely right. It does increase the strain on them to know that they are being watched . . . and yet they have to be watched. Your psychiatric staff isn’t doing too well, either. It makes us nervous to be around the Big Bomb . . . the more so because we don’t understand it. And it’s a strain on us to be hated and despised as we are. Scientific detachment is difficult under such conditions; I’m getting jumpy myself.”

King ceased pacing the floor and faced the doctor. “But there must be
some
solution—” he insisted.

Silard shook his head. “It’s beyond me, Superintendent. I see no solution from the standpoint of psychology.”

“No? Hmm—Doctor, who is the top man in your field?”

“Eh?”

“Who is the recognized number-one man in handling this sort of thing?”

“Why, that’s hard to say. Naturally, there isn’t any one leading psychiatrist in the world; we specialize too much. I know what you mean, though. You don’t want the best industrial temperament psychometrician; you want the best all-around man for psychoses, non-lesional and situational. That would be Lentz.”

“Go on.”

“Well—He covers the whole field of environment adjustment. He’s the man that correlated the theory of optimum tonicity with the relaxation technique that Korzybski had developed empirically. He actually worked under Korzybski himself, when he was a young student—it’s the only thing he’s vain about.”

“He did? Then he must be pretty old; Korzybski died in—What year did he die?”

“I started to stay that you must know his work in symbology—theory of abstraction and calculus of statement, all that sort of thing—because of its applications to engineering and mathematical physics.”

“That
Lentz—yes, of course. But I had never thought of him as a psychiatrist.”

“No, you wouldn’t, in your field. Nevertheless, we are inclined to credit him with having done as much to check and reduce the pandemic neuroses of the Crazy Years as any other man, and more than any man left alive.”

“Where is he?”

“Why, Chicago, I suppose. At the Institute.”

“Get him here.”

“Eh?”

“Get him down here. Get on that visiphone and locate him. Then have Steinke call the Port of Chicago, and hire a stratocar to stand by for him. I want to see him as soon as possible—before the day is out.” King sat up in his chair with the air of a man who is once more master of himself and the situation. His spirit knew that warming replenishment that comes only with reaching a decision. The harassed expression was gone.

Silard looked dumbfounded. “But, Superintendent,” he expostulated, “you can’t ring for Doctor Lentz as if he were a junior clerk. He’s—he’s
Lentz.”

“Certainly—that’s why I want him. But I’m not a neurotic clubwoman looking for sympathy, either. He’ll come. If necessary, turn on the heat from Washington. Have the White House call him. But get him here at once. Move!” King strode out of the office.

When Erickson came off watch he inquired around and found that Harper had left for town. Accordingly, he dispensed with dinner at the base, shifted into “drinkin’ clothes,” and allowed himself to be dispatched via tube to Paradise.

Paradise, Arizona, was a hard little boomtown, which owed its existence to the breeder plant. It was dedicated exclusively to the serious business of detaching the personnel of the plant from their inordinate salaries. In this worthy project they received much cooperation from the plant personnel themselves, each of whom was receiving from twice to ten times as much money each payday as he had ever received in any other job, and none of whom was certain of living long enough to justify saving for old age. Besides, the company carried a sinking fund in Manhattan for their dependents; why be stingy?

It was claimed, with some truth, that any entertainment or luxury obtainable in New York City could be purchased in Paradise. The local chamber of commerce had appropriated the slogan of Reno, Nevada, “Biggest Little City in the World.” The Reno boosters retaliated by claiming that, while any town that close to the atomic breeder plant undeniably brought thoughts of death and the hereafter, “Hell’s Gates” would be a more appropriate name.

Erickson started making the rounds. There were twenty-seven places licensed to sell liquor in the six blocks of the main street of Paradise. He expected to find Harper in one of them, and, knowing the man’s habits and tastes, he expected to find him in the first two or three he tried.

He was not mistaken. He found Harper sitting alone at a table in the rear of deLancey’s Sans Souci Bar. DeLancey’s was a favorite of both of them. There was an old-fashioned comfort about its chrome-plated bar and red leather furniture that appealed to them more than did the spectacular fittings of the up-to-the-minute places. DeLancey was conservative; he stuck to indirect lighting and soft music; his hostesses were required to be fully clothed, even in the evening.

The fifth of Scotch in front of Harper was about two-thirds full. Erickson shoved three fingers in front of Harper’s face and demanded, “Count!”

“Three,” announced Harper. “Sit down, Gus.”

“That’s correct,” Erickson agreed, sliding his big frame into a low-slung chair. “You’ll do—for now. What was the outcome?”

“Have a drink. Not,” he went on, “that this Scotch is any good. I think Lance has taken to watering it. I surrendered, horse and foot.”

“Lance wouldn’t do that—stick to that theory and you’ll sink in the sidewalk up to your knees. How come you capitulated? I thought you planned to beat ’em about the head and shoulders, at least.”

“I did,” mourned Harper, “but, cripes, Gus, the chief’s right. If a brain mechanic says you’re punchy, he has got to back him up, and take you off the watch list. The chief can’t afford to take a chance.”

“Yeah, the chief’s all right, but I can’t learn to love our dear psychiatrists. Tell you what—let’s find us one, and see if he can feel pain. I’ll hold him while you slug ’im.”

“Oh, forget it, Gus. Have a drink.”

“A pious thought—but not Scotch. I’m going to have a martini; we ought to eat pretty soon.”

“I’ll have one, too.”

“Do you good.” Erickson lifted his blond head and bellowed, “Israfel!”

A large, black person appeared at his elbow. “Mistuh Erickson! Yes, suh!”

“Izzy, fetch two martinis. Make mine with Italian.” He turned back to Harper. “What are you going to do now, Cal?”

“Radiation laboratory.”

“Well, that’s not so bad. I’d like to have a go at the matter of rocket fuels myself. I’ve got some ideas.”

Harper looked mildly amused. “You mean atomic fuel for interplanetary flight? That problem’s pretty well exhausted. No, son, the ionosphere is the ceiling until we think up something better than rockets. Of course, you
could
mount a pile in a ship, and figure out some jury rig to convert some of its output into push, but where does that get you? You would still have a terrible mass-ratio because of the shielding and I’m betting you couldn’t convert one percent into thrust. That’s disregarding the question of getting the company to lend you a power pile for anything that doesn’t pay dividends.”

Erickson looked balky. “I don’t concede that you’ve covered all the alternatives. What have we got? The early rocket boys went right ahead trying to build better rockets, serene in the belief that, by the time they could build rockets good enough to fly to the Moon, a fuel would be perfected that would do the trick. And they did build ships that were good enough—you could take any ship that makes the Antipodes run, and refit it for the Moon—
if
you had a fuel that was adequate. But they haven’t got it.

“And why not? Because we let ’em down, that’s why. Because they’re still depending on molecular energy, on chemical reactions, with atomic power sitting right here in our laps. It’s not their fault—old D.D. Harriman had Rockets Consolidated underwrite the whole first issue of Antarctic Pitchblende, and took a big slice of it himself, in the expectation that we would produce something usable in the way of a concentrated rocket fuel. Did we do it? Like hell! The company went hog wild for immediate commercial exploitation, and there’s no atomic rocket fuel yet.”

“But you haven’t stated it properly,” Harper objected. “There are just two forms of atomic power available, radioactivity and atomic disintegration. The first is too slow; the energy is there, but you can’t wait years for it to come out—not in a rocket ship. The second we can only manage in a large power plant. There you are—stymied.”

“We haven’t really tried,” Erickson answered. “The power is there; we ought to give ’em a decent fuel.”

“What would you call a ‘decent fuel’?”

Erickson ticked it off. “A small enough critical mass so that all, or almost all, the energy could be taken up as heat by the reaction mass—I’d like the reaction mass to be ordinary water. Shielding that would have to be no more than a lead and cadmium jacket. And the whole thing controllable to a fine point.”

Harper laughed. “Ask for angel’s wings and be done with it. You couldn’t store such fuel in a rocket; it would set itself off before it reached the jet chamber.”

Erickson’s Scandinavian stubbornness was just gathering for another try at the argument when the waiter arrived with the drinks. He set them down with a triumphant flourish. “There you are, suh!”

“Want to roll for them, Izzy?” Harper inquired.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

The Negro produced a leather dice cup and Harper rolled. He selected his combinations with care and managed to get four aces and a jack in three rolls. Israfel took the cup. He rolled in the grand manner with a backwards twist to his wrist. His score finished at five kings, and he courteously accepted the price of six drinks. Harper stirred the engraved cubes with his forefinger.

“Izzy,” he asked, “are these the same dice I rolled with?”

“Why, Mistuh Harper!” The black’s expression was pained.

“Skip it,” Harper conceded. “I should know better than to gamble with you. I haven’t won a roll from you in six weeks. What did you start to say, Gus?”

“I was just going to say that there ought to be a better way to get energy out of—”

But they were joined again, this time by something very seductive in an evening gown that appeared to have been sprayed on her lush figure. She was young, perhaps nineteen or twenty. “You boys lonely?” she asked as she flowed into a chair.

“Nice of you to ask, but we’re not,” Erickson denied with patient politeness. He jerked a thumb at a solitary figure seated across the room. “Go talk to Hannigan; he’s not busy.”

She followed his gesture with her eyes, and answered with faint scorn, “Him? He’s no use. He’s been like that for three weeks—hasn’t spoken to a soul. If you ask me, I’d say that he was cracking up.”

“That so?” he observed noncommittally. “Here—” He fished out a five-dollar bill and handed it to her. “Buy yourself a drink. Maybe we’ll look you up later.”

“Thanks, boys.” The money disappeared under her clothing, and she stood up. “Just ask for Edith.”

“Hannigan does look bad,” Harper considered, noting the brooding stare and apathetic attitude, “and he has been awfully stand-offish lately, for him. Do you suppose we’re obliged to report him?”

“Don’t let it worry you,” advised Erickson, “there’s a spotter on the job now. Look.” Harper followed his companion’s eyes and recognized Dr. Mott of the psychological staff. He was leaning against the far end of the bar and nursing a tall glass, which gave him protective coloration. But his stance was such that his field of vision included not only Hannigan, but Erickson and Harper as well.

“Yeah, and he’s studying us as well,” Harper added. “Damn it to hell, why does it make my back hair rise just to lay eyes on one of them?”

The question was rhetorical, Erickson ignored it. “Let’s get out of here,” he suggested, “and have dinner somewhere else.”

“O.K.”

DeLancey himself waited on them as they left. “Going so soon, gentlemen?” he asked, in a voice that implied that their departure would leave him no reason to stay open. “Beautiful lobster thermidor tonight. If you do not like it, you need not pay.” He smiled brightly.