The Secret of Saturn’s Rings (14 page)

That was not the problem. If Bruce leaped now, he would eventually fall into the next ring. But the question was: when? With all the strength he could muster, he would probably still take many, many days to fall across that gap—even though great Saturn would actually be drawing him also, speeding him slowly toward it. In that time, his air would foul, his suit’s heat be lost beyond the power of his small belt battery to restore it, he would starve.

He had to cross the belt fast, at space-ship speeds. He had to speed up to be able to come alongside the particles of that ring, which were moving a good deal faster than the ones he stood on, whose speed was now his own. He had to aim himself to hit the one spot in that vast ring where his father waited, to hit it without delay, in a matter of hours, as few'' as possible.

His father had told him of a way. No man in all the history of space travel so far had ever needed to try it. But now Bruce poised himself. Ready, he said to himself. Set, his mind ordered, and then, Go!

He braced himself, grasped the long cylinder from his boat firmly, and hurled himself upward and outward into the gap between the rings, into the empty space that separated them. Astronomers back on Earth had named this gap. It was known to them as Cassini’s Divide, after the ancient astronomer who had first detected it. And now Bruce was moving into this Divide alone, moving across it.

He was a lone figure, a strange one to try to cross such a distance. A bulky, airtight, electrically warmed coverall was his space suit, fitting him like a loose pair of jumpers. On his feet small metal soles provided magnetic attraction when needed. A pack on his back housed his tiny atomic-activated battery, which supplied the current for his suit, the power for his radio. Twin tubes forming part of the pack supplied his oxygen, fitting into a marvelous little purifier drawing in and revitalizing the air steadily. Despite this device, the power of the suit’s air supply was strictly limited, in a day or so the amount of poisonous elements in his air would be more than could be removed, then suffocation would set in.

On his head a glassine, metallically reinforced helmet allowed him vision in all directions. A visor on the front could be opened if necessary when there was air pressure on the outside. A small but powerful portable atom-radio made up a flat pack attached to the suit’s chest, and its phones were built into the helmet. The wide pockets of his suit were bulging with the fragments he had taken from the ring-moonlets. A container on his belt held the fuel distributor and a sack of sandwiches. A huge canteen swung from another part of his belt.

But it was the cylinder which now dominated the picture. Bruce was astraddle it, and the cylinder head was down. As he moved away from the ring edge, outward into the void, heading on toward the bulk of Saturn, Bruce manipulated the valves on this cylinder. As he turned one, he felt a vibration in his finger tips, and a sudden thrust to his body. He felt as if something were dragging him forward, felt the cylinder seem to struggle in his hands as if trying to escape.

The cylinder contained inert gas, under great pressure. This was used in the rocket jets to dampen the inner effects of the blast and to occupy the fuel tank space left empty by the exhaustion of fuel. The gas was not fuel itself, but it was necessary to the safe and practical application of the atomic explosive fluid used.

But a rocket operates on a very simple principle, and even a flow of gas from a cylinder or a balloon can move the object it is escaping from if the weight is low enough. As a small boy, Bruce had seen toy balloons whiz around a room when they sprang a leak and the gas whizzed out of the side. In effect, this cylinder, packed with tremendous quantities of gas under great pressure, was such a balloon, tremendously more powerful.

Bruce had no weight. The release of the gas from the cylinder, forced out through a tiny nozzle, created a genuine rocket effect, no different in any way from the principle used in the space ships. This cylinder’s thrust held to Bruce’s body, directed by Bruce, made the boy a miniature space ship in fact, if not in outward appearance.

He directed his motion toward the point in the ring from whence his father’s voice came. Or rather toward a point ahead of it, knowing that by the time he reached that point, there his father’s ring-particle would be. The constant thrust of the cylinder, as its gas drove through it, created a steady acceleration. A fast one, ever faster. If the gas held out, Bruce should be able to cross that Divide at a speed almost equal to that which his little rocket boat could have given him.

Onward he floated, the cylinder vibrating in his hands, the radio squealing, his father’s voice becoming ever clearer in his ears. Before him the huge hemisphere of Saturn loomed; he seemed slowly falling toward it. Behind him the inner edge of the outer ring was rapidly drawing away, its surface flattening out, glistening. Above him he could see the face of one of Saturn’s moons, mottled in white and gray, as the sunlight was reflected from its barren valleys and mountains. On all sides, beyond Saturn, there glowed the millions of brilliant pin points that were the stars beyond the solar system, the unimaginably distant suns.

It would be hours, Bruce knew, before he could reach his destination, in spite of his now terrific speed. He clutched the cylinder, stared ahead, listened to the sound of his father’s voice amid the humming of his radio.

Dr. Rhodes had set himself a hard task by using his voice as a guide beam. He had to keep talking for hours, without knowing whether Bruce was hearing him, without being able to get a reply. At first, it had seemed to Bruce he was reading out of an astronomical manual, for Bruce caught snatches of talk about distances and measurements and galactic weights. Then, after a time, Bruce’s father evidently exhausted this topic and began to talk about his trip. Bruce missed the opening of this in a long burst of static, but picked up the thread of his father’s voice along about the time that he was coming down for his first entry into the rings. Bruce heard:

"I noticed that my reception was becoming worse and worse and wondering whether my ship’s radio was going on the blink. There was constant static, and a steady loud humming. I found I could no longer make out what was being said to me from our base at Mimas. By this time, I was nearly into the ring, and the moonlets that made it up were already visible. As I came nearer, the static grew completely unbearable, and I reluctantly found myself compelled to shut off the radio entirely. I realized that this might cause some anxiety back at the ship, but it was quite useless to continue. I hoped that Garcia would realize that this static was because of the closeness of the rings, because I knew now that they were radioactive.”

Bruce nodded. Somehow none of them had thought of that, all had apparently assumed there had been an accident. His father went on to tell of his first landings on the ring-particles, discoveries and experiences much like Bruce’s. He had not had the good luck to spot evidence of artificial construction, though. Nonetheless Dr. Rhodes had seen enough to support his theory that the rings had been caused by an atomic explosion.

“I decided that the material on the inner rings might have been closer to the heart of the original exploding satellite, because of their greater speed. I therefore took my boat out of the first ring and went on to the second. I realize now that I should have tried to communicate with you on Mimas then, but I was far too excited about my discoveries to think about radio.”

Dr. Rhodes went on to detail his entry into the second ring inward, his exploration of a couple of moonlets there. His voice went on:

“I now went on to a third moonlet directly at the edge of the ring. I had noticed its odd sheen, unusual since this ring’s particles are otherwise considerably darker than those on the first ring. The moonlet was solid rock, but oddly polished along one side. Time and other particles had pounded it, yet it had not lost its curious appearance—it appeared to have been deliberately smoothed out.

“I brought my ship down, and clamped it tight. When I got out, I discovered that my imagination had not deceived me. The moonlet was as smooth as marble, far harder, and definitely the product of artificial work. You can imagine my extreme excitement. This moonlet was a chunk of some lost city, of some civilization that had grown and died suddenly, long before there were men on Earth! I went along the marble. It seemed to me to have once been a floor somewhere, perhaps on a city square, but probably on some hilltop, for the moonlet was shaped like a cone.

“Then, imagine my further surprise, when I saw that there was a metal disk set deep in the center of the marble flooring. It was below the level of the rest of the stone, and that I suppose was why it had survived the battering which it would have received over the ages. I got at that disk, and found that it still bore the signs of ornamentation, of some kind of carving. I tested it, then realized that it rang hollow and that it covered an air pocket beneath it!”

Bruce listened, fascinated. He was about halfway now, apparently hanging in emptiness, with the edges of the rings on either side appearing like the thin milled edges of coins. He went on listening to his father.

“After a couple hours of work I was able to bore a hole through the metal lid with my hand atom-torch. I worked slowly because I did not want to disturb anything underneath that lid. I was finally able to pry it open, for it turned out to be on hinges, whose grips had long ago turned into dust.

“Inside that marble fronted ring-particle was a tomb. It was a tomb that must have come out of the ancient past of that Saturnian moon race. I imagine it must have carried the same relation to their final civilization as, say, ancient Egypt does to our own. We men of science do not leave such grand tombs behind us any more. We build no pyramids for dead kings, and we do not store the treasures of our culture there for their imagined revival in some pagan after-world. Perhaps that is a mistake, from the viewpoint of future archeology, because of what I was now seeing.

“There are treasures in this moonlet, treasures beyond conception. There is a carved stone box here, which must once have held the individual who had died there. That body has long since vanished into dust and air. I found nothing. The shape of these lost intelligent creatures is still a mystery. The box was of a curious size, it would never have fitted a human body. I cannot quite imagine what sort of an odd shape it would have fitted, for it bulged at the wrong places.

“I found tools and metal ornaments, tarnished, but preserved wherever they were made of metal. I found hints of dust where wood or cloth things may have been, bits of metal that may have been buttons. The walls are covered with inlaid gold inscriptions, in some alphabet I cannot begin to decipher. Unfortunately I can find no pictures, no symbols that made any sense to me. But I am sure that trained students of these things could piece together a remarkable story.”

Bruce was slowly nearing the edge of the inner ring. He directed the flow of his cylinder’s jet always in the direction from which his father’s voice came the strongest.

“When I returned to my ship, I had a number of things to bring back. I loaded, and decided to rig an atomic buzzer here so that we could locate the particle again. When I tried to start my engine, I discovered the ship would not work. I tried again and again. Finally I opened up the rear, and found that somehow a tiny meteor, no larger than a pebble, had shot through the boat while I had been inside the tomb. It had put a hole through my fuel distributor, wrecked it, but left everything else intact.

“So I was waiting here, hoping that someone would come from Mimas. I am glad it was you, Bruce, although it was a dangerous tiling to do. If you can reach me, soon I hope, we will be able to get away and return. I have enough fuel, but my air is low, and I have not eaten in ten hours.”

Bruce gritted his teeth. He was nearing the edge of the inner ring. He saw that his speed was still not quite that of the moving particles, which he could now detect. He increased the flow, twisted his body so that the cylinder moved and now he was speeding up, moving alongside the ring.

In a short while he was running up close to the edge of the inner ring. He could see the moonlets, close-packed, one upon another rolling through the heavens in their unending tight parade. For the most part they did seem darker than those he had noticed before.

He listened as his fathers voice grew louder, despite the increase of the humming and static as he was getting nearer to the moonlets. He moved along, faster than the particles, straining his eyes to find one which would be brighter than the rest. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but fortunately this particular needle was calling out to him.

On and on he moved, his eyes wearying of the constant strain. Now and again he imagined he would see some brighter body among those visible at the edge, but each time as he neared it he realized that the radio voice was coming from beyond it.

He glanced down at his cylinder of gas, and suddenly realized that it was getting low, that the dial which registered its internal pressure was nearing the zero mark. He knew he had only a few more minutes left to him.

Now he thought he saw another little moonlet, different in texture from the others. He moved again toward it, angling inward. And then he noticed a tiny spot against its shining surface, the tiny bullet shape of a rocket boat. And as he rushed toward it, he saw a tiny man-figure standing next to it, waving his hand.

There was a strange change in Bruce’s body pressure. He seemed suddenly held back. He looked down. The gas had stopped. The cylinder was empty.

Bruce was still moving. In space there was nothing to stop him; but he had calculated on the continued extra drive of the cylinder to bring him to the surface of the moonlet. Now that that power had died, he saw that he would drift past, miss the surface by several feet—but that would be enough. There was nothing for him to push on, no way he could see to bring him that extra distance or to alter his direction of free float.