Heavy Planet (53 page)
Authors: Hal Clement
The two ninety-degree bends he had to make were not entirely a matter of strength. The metal was of semicircular cross section, about a quarter of an
inch in radius; Benj thought of it as heavy wire, while to the Mesklinites it was bar stock. The alloy was reasonably tough even at a hundred and seventy degrees Kelvin, so there was no risk of breaking it. Mesklinite strength was certainly equal to the task. What the two scientists lacked, which made the bending an operation instead of a procedure, was traction. The ice under them was fairly pure water with a modest percentage of ammonia, not so far below its melting point or removed from the ideal ice crystal structure as to have lost its slipperiness. The small area of the Mesklinite extremities caused them to dig in in normal walking, which combined with their low structure and multiplicity of legs, prevented slipping during ordinary walking around the frozen-in
Kwembly.
Now, however, Borndender and his assistant were trying to apply a strong sidewise force, and their twenty pounds of weight simply did not give enough dig for their claws. The metal refused to bend, and the long bodies lashed about on the ice with Newton’s Third Law in complete control of the situation. The sight was enough to make Benj chuckle in spite of his worry, a reaction which was shared by Seumas McDevitt, who had just come down from the weather lab.
inch in radius; Benj thought of it as heavy wire, while to the Mesklinites it was bar stock. The alloy was reasonably tough even at a hundred and seventy degrees Kelvin, so there was no risk of breaking it. Mesklinite strength was certainly equal to the task. What the two scientists lacked, which made the bending an operation instead of a procedure, was traction. The ice under them was fairly pure water with a modest percentage of ammonia, not so far below its melting point or removed from the ideal ice crystal structure as to have lost its slipperiness. The small area of the Mesklinite extremities caused them to dig in in normal walking, which combined with their low structure and multiplicity of legs, prevented slipping during ordinary walking around the frozen-in
Kwembly.
Now, however, Borndender and his assistant were trying to apply a strong sidewise force, and their twenty pounds of weight simply did not give enough dig for their claws. The metal refused to bend, and the long bodies lashed about on the ice with Newton’s Third Law in complete control of the situation. The sight was enough to make Benj chuckle in spite of his worry, a reaction which was shared by Seumas McDevitt, who had just come down from the weather lab.
Borndender finally solved his engineering problem by going back into the
Kwembly
and bringing out the drilling equipment. With this he sank half a dozen foot-deep holes in the ice. By standing lengths of drill-tower support rod in these he was able to provide anchorage for the Mesklinite muscles. The rod was finally changed from a hairpin to a caliper shape.
Kwembly
and bringing out the drilling equipment. With this he sank half a dozen foot-deep holes in the ice. By standing lengths of drill-tower support rod in these he was able to provide anchorage for the Mesklinite muscles. The rod was finally changed from a hairpin to a caliper shape.
Fitting the ends into the appropriate holes was comparatively easy after the filing was finished. It involved a modest lifting job to get the wire up to the two-inch height of the socket holes but this was no problem of strength or traction and was done in half a minute. With some hesitation, visible even to the human watchers, Borndender approached the controls of the power unit. The watchers were at least as tense; Dondragmer was not entirely sure that the operation was safe for his ship, having only the words of the human beings about this particular situation. Benj and McDevitt also had doubts about the efficacy of the jury-rigged heater.
Their doubts were speedily settled. The safety devices built into the unit acted properly as far as the machine’s own protection was concerned; they were not, however, capable of analyzing the exterior load in detail. They permitted the unit to deliver a current, not a voltage, up to a limit determined by the manual control setting. Borndender had of course set this at the lowest available value. The resistor lasted for several seconds, and might have held up indefinitely if the ends had not been off the ice.
For most of the length of the loop, all went well. A cloud of microscopic ice crystals began to rise the moment the power came on, as water boiled away from around the wire and froze again in the dense, frigid air. It hid the sight of the wire sinking into the surface ice, but no one doubted that this was happening.
The last foot or so at each end of the loop, however, was not protected by the high specific and latent heats of water. Those inches of metal showed no sign of the load they were carrying for perhaps three seconds; then they began to glow. The resistance of the wire naturally increased with its temperature, and in the effort to maintain constant current the power box applied more voltage. The additional heat developed was concentrated almost entirely in the already overheated sections. For a long moment a red, and then a white, glow illuminated the rising cloud, causing Dondragmer to retreat involuntarily to the other end of the bridge while Borndender and his companion flattened themselves against the ice.
The human watchers cried out, Benj wordlessly, McDevitt protestingly, “It can’t blow!” Their reactions were of course far too late to be meaningful. By the time the picture reached the station, one end of the wire loop had melted through and the unit had shut down automatically. Borndender, rather surprised to find himself alive, supplemented the automatic control with the manual one, and without taking time to report to the captain set about figuring what had happened.
This did not take him long; he was an orderly thinker, and had absorbed a great deal more alien knowledge than had the helmsmen, still hoping for rescue a few yards away. He understood the theory and construction of the power units about as well as a high school student understands the theory and construction of a television set; he could not have built one himself, but he could make a reasonable deduction as to the cause of a gross malfunction. He was more of a chemist than a physicist, as far as specific training went.
While the human beings watched in surprise and Dondragmer in some uneasiness, the two scientists repeated the bending operation until what was left of the resistor was once again usable. With the drilling equipment they made a pit large enough to hold the power box at the end of the deep groove boiled in the ice by the first few seconds of power. They set the box in the hole, connected the ends once more, and covered everything with chips of ice removed in the digging, leaving only the controls exposed. Then Borndender switched on the power again, this time retreating much more hastily than before.
The white cloud reappeared at once, but this time grew and spread. It enveloped the near side of the
Kwembly,
including the bridge, blocking the view for Dondragmer and the communicator lens. Illuminated by the outside flood lamps, it caught the attention of the crew, now nearing the edge of the valley, and of Stakendee and his men miles to the west. This time the entire length of the wire was submerged in melted ice, which bubbled away from around it as hot vapor, condensed to liquid a fraction of a millimeter away, evaporated again much less violently from the surface of the widening pool, and again condensed, this time to ice, in the air above. The steaming pool, some three quarters of the
Kwembly
’s length and originally some six feet in width, began
to sink below the surrounding ice, its contents borne away as ice dust by the gentle wind faster than they were replenished by melting.
Kwembly,
including the bridge, blocking the view for Dondragmer and the communicator lens. Illuminated by the outside flood lamps, it caught the attention of the crew, now nearing the edge of the valley, and of Stakendee and his men miles to the west. This time the entire length of the wire was submerged in melted ice, which bubbled away from around it as hot vapor, condensed to liquid a fraction of a millimeter away, evaporated again much less violently from the surface of the widening pool, and again condensed, this time to ice, in the air above. The steaming pool, some three quarters of the
Kwembly
’s length and originally some six feet in width, began
to sink below the surrounding ice, its contents borne away as ice dust by the gentle wind faster than they were replenished by melting.
One side of it reached the cruiser, and Dondragmer, catching a glimpse of it through a momentary break in the swirling fog, suddenly had a frightening thought. He donned his air suit hurriedly and rushed to the inner door of the main lock. Here he hesitated; with the suit’s protection he could not tell by feel whether the ship was heating dangerously, and there were no internal thermometers except in the lab. For a moment he thought of getting one; then he decided that the time needed might be risky, and opened the upper safety valves in the outer lock, which were handled by pull-cords from inside reaching down through the liquid trap. He did not know whether the heat from outside would last long enough to boil ammonia in the lock itself—the
Kwemhly
’s hull was well insulated, and leakage would be slow, but he had no desire to have boiling ammonia confined aboard his command. It was an example of a little knowledge causing superfluous worry; the temperature needed to bring ammonia’s vapor pressure anywhere near the ambient values would have made an explosion the least of any Mesklinite’s concerns. However, no real harm was done by opening the valves, and the captain felt better as a result of the action. He returned hastily to the bridge to see what was going on.
Kwemhly
’s hull was well insulated, and leakage would be slow, but he had no desire to have boiling ammonia confined aboard his command. It was an example of a little knowledge causing superfluous worry; the temperature needed to bring ammonia’s vapor pressure anywhere near the ambient values would have made an explosion the least of any Mesklinite’s concerns. However, no real harm was done by opening the valves, and the captain felt better as a result of the action. He returned hastily to the bridge to see what was going on.
A gentle breeze from the west was providing occasional glimpses as it swept the ice fog aside and he could see that the level of the molten pool was lower. Its area had increased greatly, but as the minutes passed he decided that some limit had been reached. His two men were visible at times, crawling here and there trying to find a good viewpoint. They finally settled down almost under the bridge, with the breeze behind them.
For some time the liquid level seemed to reach a steady state, though none of the watchers could understand why. Later they decided that the spreading pool had melted its way into the still-liquid reservoir under the
Kwembly,
which took fully fifteen minutes to evaporate. By the end of that time, cobbles from the river bottom began to show their tops above the simmering water, and the problem of turning the power unit off before another length of wire was destroyed suddenly occurred to Dondragmer.
Kwembly,
which took fully fifteen minutes to evaporate. By the end of that time, cobbles from the river bottom began to show their tops above the simmering water, and the problem of turning the power unit off before another length of wire was destroyed suddenly occurred to Dondragmer.
He knew now that there was no danger of the power unit’s blowing up; however, several inches of the wire had already melted away, and there was going to be trouble restoring the refrigerator to service. This situation should not be allowed to get any worse, which it would if more metal were lost. Now, as the water level reached the cobbles and the wire ceased to follow the melting ice downward, the captain suddenly wondered whether he could get out to the controls fast enough to prevent the sort of shut-off which had occurred before. He wasted no time mentally blasting the scientists for not attaching a cord to the appropriate controls; he hadn’t thought of it in time either.
He donned his suit again and went out through the bridge lock. Here the curve of the hull hid the pool from view, and he began to make his way down
the holdfasts as rapidly as he could in the poor visibility. As he went, he hooted urgently to Borndender, “Don’t let the wire melt again! Turn off the power!”
the holdfasts as rapidly as he could in the poor visibility. As he went, he hooted urgently to Borndender, “Don’t let the wire melt again! Turn off the power!”
An answering but wordless hoot told him that he had been heard, but no other information came through the white blankness. He continued to grope his way downward, finally reaching the bottom of the hull curve. Below him, separated from his level by the thickness of the mattress and two thirds the height of the trucks, was the gently steaming surface of the water. It was not, of course, actively boiling at this pressure; but it was hot even by human standards and the captain had no illusions about the ability of an air suit to protect him from it. It occurred to him, rather late, that there was an excellent chance that he had just cooked his two missing helmsmen to death. This was only a passing thought; there was work to be done.
The power box lay well aft of his present position, but the nearest surface on which he could walk had to be forward. Either way there was going to be trouble reaching the unit, now presumably surrounded by hot water; but if jumping were going to be necessary, the hull holdfasts were about the poorest possible takeoff point. Dondragmer went forward.
This brought him into clear air almost at once, and he saw that his two men were gone. Presumably they had started around the far side of the pool in the hope of carrying out his order. The captain continued forward, and in another yard or two found it possible to descend to solid ice. He did so, and hastened on what he hoped was the trail of his men.
He had to slow down almost at once, however, as his course brought him back into the ice fog. He was too close to the edge of the pool to take chances. As he went he called repeatedly, and was reassured to hear each hoot answered by another. His men had not yet fallen in.
He caught up with them almost under the cruiser’s stern, having walked entirely around the part of the pool not bounded by the hull. None of them had accomplished anything; the power unit was not only out of reach but out of sight. Jumping would have been utter lunacy, even if Mesklinites normally tended to think of such a thing. Borndender and his assistant had not, and the idea had only occurred to Dondragmer because of his unusual experiences in Mesklin’s low-gravity equatorial zone so long ago.
But there could not be much more time. Looking over the edge of the ice, the three could catch glimpses of the rounded tops of the rocks, separated by water surfaces which narrowed as they watched. The wire must be practically out of water by now; chance alone would not have let it settle between the stones to a point much lower than their average height, and the protecting water was already there. The captain had been weighing the various risks for minutes; without further hesitation, and without issuing any orders, he slipped over the edge and dropped two feet to the top of one of the boulders.
It was the energy equivalent of an eight-story fall on Earth, and even the Mesklinite was jolted. However, he retained his self-command. A single hoot
told those above that he had survived without serious injury, and warned them against following in case pride might have furnished an impulse which intelligence certainly would not. The captain, with that order issued, relegated the scientists to the back of his mind and concentrated on the next step.
told those above that he had survived without serious injury, and warned them against following in case pride might have furnished an impulse which intelligence certainly would not. The captain, with that order issued, relegated the scientists to the back of his mind and concentrated on the next step.
The nearest rock with enough exposed area to accommodate him was two feet, well over a body length, away, but it was at least visible. Better still, a closer one only slightly off the line to it exposed a square inch or so of its surface. Two seconds after analyzing this situation, Dondragmer was two feet closer to the power box and looking for another stopping point. The lone square inch of the stepping stone had been touched by perhaps a dozen feet as the red-and-black length of his body had ricocheted from it to the second rock.
The next stage was more difficult. It was harder to be sure which way to go, since the hull which had furnished orientation was now barely visible; also, there were no more large surfaces as close as the one from which he had come. He hesitated, looking and planning; before he reached a decision the question was resolved for him. The grumbling sound which had gone on for so many minutes as water exploded into steam against the hot wire and almost instantly collapsed again under Dhrawn’s atmospheric pressure abruptly ceased, and Dondragmer knew that he was too late to save the metal. He relaxed immediately and waited where he was while the water cooled, the evaporation slowed, and the fog of ice crystals cleared away. He himself grew uncomfortably warm, and was more than once tempted to return the way he had come; but the two-foot climb up an ice overhang with hot water at its foot, which would form part of the journey, made the temptation easy to resist. He waited.
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