The Wailing Asteroid
Chapter 4
The public abruptly ceased to be interested in news of the signals.Rather, it suddenly wanted to stop thinking about them. The public wasscared. Throughout all human history, the most horrifying of all ideashas been the idea of something which was as intelligent as a man, butwasn't human. Evil spirits, ghosts, devils, werewolves, ghouls--allhave roused maddened terror wherever they were believed in. Becausethey were intelligent but not men.
Now, suddenly, the world seemed to realize that there was a _Something_out on a tiny frozen rock in space. It signaled plaintively toEarth. It had to be intelligent to be able to send a signal for twohundred seventy million miles. But it was not a man. Therefore it wasa monster. Therefore it was horrible. Therefore it was deadly andintolerable and scarey, and humans abruptly demanded not to hear anymore about it. Perhaps they thought that if they didn't think about it,it would go away.
Newspaper circulations dropped. News-magazine sales practicallyvanished. A flood of hysterical letters demanded that the broadcastingnetworks leave such revolting things off the air. And this reaction wasnot only in America. Violent anti-American feeling arose in Europe,which psychologists analyzed as resentment caused by the fact that theAmericans had answered the first broadcast. If they hadn't answered thefirst, there wouldn't have been a second. But also, even more violentanti-Russian feeling rose up, because the Russians had started a manoff to meddle with the monster who piped so pleadingly. This antipathyto space caused a minor political upset in the Kremlin itself, wherea man with a name ending in _ov_ was degraded to much lower officialrank and somebody with a name ending in _sky_ took his place. Thispartly calmed the Russian public but had little effect anywhere else.The world was frightened. It looked for a victim, or victims, for itsfear. Once upon a time, witches were burned to ease the terrors ofignorance, and plague-spreaders were executed in times of pestilenceto assure everybody that now the plague would cease since somebody hadbeen killed for spreading it.
Organizations came into being with the official and impassioned purposeof seeing that space research ceased immediately. Even more violentorganizations demanded the punishment of everybody who had everconsidered space travel a desirable thing. Congress cut some hundredsof millions from a guided-missile-space-exploration appropriation asa starter. A poor devil of a crackpot in Santa Monica, California,revealed what he said was a spaceship he'd built in his back yardto answer the signals from M-387. He intended to charge a quarteradmission to inspect it, using the money to complete the driveapparatus. The thing was built of plywood and could not conceivablylift off the ground, but a mob wrecked his house, burned the puerile"spaceship" and would have lynched its builder if they'd thought tolook in a cellar vegetable closet. Other crackpots who were moresensitive to public feelings announced the picking up of messagesaddressed to the distant Something. The messages, said this secondclass of crackpot, were reports from spies who had been landed on Earthfrom flying saucers during the past few decades. They did not explainhow they were able to translate them. A rush of flying-saucer sightingsfollowed inevitably--alleged to be landing-parties from M-387--and inPeoria, Illinois, a picnicking party sighted an unidentified flyingobject shaped like a soup spoon, the handle obviously being its tail.Experienced newspapermen anticipated reports of the sighting ofunidentified flying objects shaped like knives and forks as soon assomebody happened to think of it.
Sandy called a conference on the subject of security. She did not lookwell, nowadays. She worried. Other people thought about the messagesfrom space, but Sandy had to think of something more concrete. Sixmonths earlier, the construction going on within a plaster of Parismould would have been laughed at, tolerantly, and some hopeful peoplemight have been respectful about it. But now it was something utterlyintolerable to public opinion. Newspapers who'd lost circulation bytalking sanely about space travel now got it back by denouncing thepeople who'd answered the first broadcast. And naturally, with thewhole idea of outer space agitatedly disapproved, everybody connectedwith it was suspected of subversion.
"A reporter called up today," said Sandy. "He said he'd like to do afeature story on Burke Development's new research triumph--the newguided missile that flew thirty miles and froze everything around whereit landed. I said it fell out of an aeroplane and the last completedproject was for Interiors, Inc. Then he said that he'd been talking toone of Mr. Holmes' men and the man said something terrific was underway."
Burke looked uneasy. Holmes said uncomfortably, "There's no law againstwhat we're building, but somebody may introduce a bill in Congress anyday."
"That would be reasonable under other circumstances. There's a time forthings to be discovered. They shouldn't be accomplished too soon. Butthe time for the ship out there is right now!" Burke said.
Pam raised her eyebrows. "Yes?"
"Those signals have to be checked up on," explained Burke. "It'snecessary now. But it could have been bad if our particular enterprisehad started, say, two years ago. Just think what would have happenedif atomic fission had been worked out in peacetime ten years beforeWorld War Two! Scientific discoveries were published then as a matterof course. Everybody'd have known how to make atom bombs. Hitler wouldhave had them, and so would Mussolini. How many of us would be alive?"
Sandy interrupted, "The reporter wants to do a feature story on whatBurke Development is making. I said you were working on a bomb shelterfor quantity production. He asked if the rocket you shot off throughthe construction-shed wall was part of it. I said there'd been norocket fired. He didn't believe me."
"Who would?" asked Holmes.
"Hmmmmm," said Burke. "Tell him to come look at what we're doing. Theship can pass for a bomb shelter. The wall-garden units make sense.I'm going to dig a big hole in the morning to test the drive-shaft in.It'll look like I intend to bury everything. A bomb shelter should beburied."
"You mean you'll let him inside?" demanded Sandy.
"Sure!" said Burke. "All inventors are expected to be idiots. A lot ofthem are. He'll think I'm making an impossibly expensive bomb shelter,much too costly for a private family to buy. It will be typical of theinventive mind as reporters think of it. Anyhow, everybody's alwayswilling to believe other people fools. That'll do the trick!"
Pam said blandly, "Sandy and I live in a boardinghouse, Joe. You don'task about such things, but an awfully nice man moved in a couple ofdays ago--right after that shaft got away and went flying thirty milesall by itself. The nice man has been trying to get acquainted."
Holmes growled, and looked both startled and angry when he realized it.
Pam added cheerfully, "Most evenings I've been busy, but I think I'lllet him take me to the movies. Just so I can make us all out to beidiots," she added.
"I'll make the hole big enough to be convincing," said Burke. "Sandy,you make inquiries for a rigger to lift and move the bomb shelter intoits hole when it's ready. If we seem about to bury it, nobody shouldsuspect us of ambitions they won't like."
"Why the hole, really?" asked Sandy.
"To put the shaft in," said Burke. "I've got to get it under control orit won't be anything more than a bomb shelter."
Keller, the instrument man, had listened with cheerful interest andwithout speaking a word. Now he made an indefinite noise and lookedinquiringly at Burke. Burke said, explanatorily, "The shaft seems tobe either on or off--either a magnet that doesn't quite magnetize, orsomething that's hell on wheels. It flew thirty miles without enoughpower supplied to it to make it quiver. That power came from somewhere.I think there's a clue in the fact that it froze everything aroundwhere it landed, in spite of traveling fast enough to heat up fromair-friction alone. I've got some ideas about it."
Keller nodded. Then he said urgently, "Broadcast?"
Burke frowned, and turned to Sandy. "That's part of the broadcast fromspace that changes--is it still changing?"
"Still changing," said Sandy.
"I didn't think to ask you to keep a check on that. Thanks for thinkingof it, Sandy. Ma
ybe someday I can make up to you for what you've beengoing through."
"I doubt it very much," said Sandy grimly. "I'll call the reporterback."
She waited for them to leave. When they'd gone, she moved purposefullytoward the telephone.
Pam said, "Did you hear that growl when I said I'd go to the movieswith somebody else? I'm having fun, Sandy!"
"I'm not," said Sandy.
"You're too efficient," the younger sister said candidly. "You'reindispensable. Burke couldn't begin to be able to put this thingthrough without you. And that's the trouble. You should be irresistibleinstead of essential."
"Not with Joe," said Sandy bitterly.
She picked up the telephone to call the newspaper. Pam looked very,very reflective.
There was a large deep pit close by the plaster mould when the reportercame next afternoon. A local rigger had come a little earlier andwas still there, estimating the cost for lifting up the contents ofthe mould and lowering it precisely in place to be buried as a bombshelter under test should be. It was a fortunate coincidence, becausethe reporter brought two other men who he said were civilian defenseofficials. They had come to comment on the quality of the bomb shelterunder development. It was not too convincing a statement.
When they left, Burke was not happy. They knew too much about thematerials and equipment he'd ordered. One man had let slip the factthat he knew about the very expensive computer Burke had bought. Itcould have no conceivable use in a bomb shelter. Both men painstakinglyleft it to Burke to mention the thirty-mile flight of a bronze objectwhich arrived coated with frost of such utter frigidity that itappeared to be liquid-air snow instead of water-ice. Burke did notmention it. He was excessively uneasy when the reporter's car took themaway.
He went into the office. Pam was in the midst of a fit of the giggles.
"One of them," she explained, "is the nice man who moved into theboardinghouse. He wants to take me to the movies. Did you notice thatthey came when it ought to be my lunchtime? He asked when I went tolunch ..."
Holmes came in. He scowled.
"One of my men says that one of those characters has been buying himdrinks and asking questions about what we're doing."
Burke scowled too.
"We can let your men go home in three days more."
"I'm going to start loading up," Holmes announced abruptly. "You don'tknow how to stow stuff. You're not a yachtsman."
"I haven't got the shaft under control yet," said Burke.
"You'll get it," grunted Holmes.
He went out. Pam giggled again.
"He doesn't want me to go to the movies with the nice man fromSecurity," she told Burke. "But I think I'd better. I'll let him ply mewith popcorn and innocently let slip that Sandy and I know you've beenwarned that bomb shelters won't find a mass market unless they sell forless than the price of an extra bathroom. But if you want to go brokewe don't care."
"Give me three days more," said Burke harassedly.
"Well try," said Sandy suddenly. "Pam can fix up a double date with oneof her friend's friends and we'll both work on them."
Burke frowned absorbedly and went out. Sandy looked indignant. Hehadn't protested.
Burke got Holmes' four workmen out of the ship and had them help himroll the bronze shaft to the pit and let it down onto a cradle oftimbers. Now if it moved it would have to penetrate solid earth.
The most trivial of computations showed that when the bronze shaft hadflown thirty miles, it hadn't done it on the energy of a condensershorted through its coils. The energy had come from somewhere else.Burke had an idea where it was.
Presently he verified it. The cores and windings he'd adapted from atransparent hand-weapon seen in an often-repeated dream--those coresand windings did not make electromagnets. They made something forwhich there was not yet a name. When current flows through a standardelectromagnet, the poles of its atoms are more or less aligned. Theytend to point in a single direction. But in this arrangement of wiresand iron no magnetism resulted, yet, the random motion of the atoms intheir framework of crystal structure was co?rdinated. In any objectabove absolute zero all the atoms and their constituent electrons andnuclei move constantly in all directions. In such a core as Burke hadformed and repeated along the shaft's length, they all tried to movein one direction at the same time. Simultaneously, a terrific surge ofcurrent appeared in the coils. A high-speed poleward velocity developedin all the substance of the shaft. It was the heat-energy containedin the metal, all turned instantly into kinetic energy. And when itsheat-energy was transformed to something else, the shaft got cold.
Once this fact was understood, control was easy. A single variableinductance in series with the windings handled everything. In a certainsense, the gadget was a magnet with negative--minus--self-inductance.When a plus inductance in series made the self-inductance zero,neither plus nor minus, the immensely powerful device became docile.A small current produced a mild thrust, affecting only part of therandom heat-motion of atoms and molecules. A stronger current produceda greater one. The resemblance to an electromagnet remained. Butthe total inductance must stay close to zero or utterly violent andexplosive forward thrust would develop, and it was calculable only inthousands of gravities.
Burke had worked for three weeks to make the thing, but he developed acontrol system for it in something under four hours.
That same night they got the bronze shaft into the ship. It fittedperfectly into the place left for it. Burke knew now exactly what hewas doing. He set up his controls. He was able to produce so minute athrust that the lath-and-plaster mould merely creaked and swayed. Buthe knew that he could make the whole mass surge unstoppably from itsplace.
Holmes sent his workmen home. Sandy and Pam went to the movies withtwo very nice men who pumped them deftly of all sorts of erroneousinformation about Burke and Holmes and Keller and what they were about.The nice men did not believe that information, but they did believethat Sandy and Pam believed it. For themselves, the combination ofan object made by Burke which flew thirty miles plus the presence ofHolmes, who built plastic yachts, and the arrival of Keller to adjustinstruments of which they had a complete list--these things could notbe overlooked. But they did feel sorry for two nice and not over-brightgirls who might be involved in very serious trouble.
Holmes and Burke installed directional controls, wiring, recordinginstruments, etc. Stores and water and oxygen, for emergency use only,went into the lath-and-plaster construction. Holmes took a hammer andchisel and painstakingly cracked the mould so that the top half couldbe lifted off, leaving the bottom half exposed to the open air and sky.
Then the broadcast from space cut off. It had been coming continuouslyfor something like five weeks; one sharp, monotonous note every twoseconds, with a longer, fluting broadcast every seventy-nine minutes.Now a third, new message began. It was yet another grouping of themusical tones, with a much longer interval of specific cracklingsounds.
Keller had adjusted every instrument and zestfully retested them overand over. Burke asked him to see if the third space message comparedin any way with the second. Keller put them through a hook-up ofinstruments, beaming to himself, and the answer began to appear.
Newspapers burst into new headlines. "_Ultimatum from Space_" theythundered. "_Threats from Alien Space Travelers._" And as theypresented the situation it seemed believable that the third messagefrom the void was a threat.
The first had been a call, requiring an answer. When the answer wentout from Earth, a second message replaced the call. It contained notonly flute tones which might be considered to represent words, butcracklings which might be the equivalent of numbers. The continuousbeepings between repetitions of the second message were plainly adirectional signal to be followed to the message source.
In this context, the newspapers furiously asserted that the thirdmessage was a threat. The first had been merely a summons, the secondhad been a command to repair to the signaling entities, and the thirdwas a stern reiteration of the c
ommand, reinforced by threats.
The human race does not take kindly to threats, especially whenit feels helpless. In the United States, there was such explosiveresentment as to require spread-eagle oratory by all public figures.The President declared that every space missile in store had beenfitted with atomic-fusion warheads and that any alien spacecraft whichappeared in American skies would be shot down immediately. Congressreported out of committee a bill for rocket weapons which was stalledfor six days because every senator and representative wanted to make aspeech in its favor. It was the largest appropriation bill ever passedby Congress, which less than five weeks before had cut two hundredmillions out of a guided-missile-space-exploration budget.
And in Europe there was frenzy.
For Burke and Holmes and Sandy and Pam and the smiling, inarticulateKeller, the matter was deadly serious. Fury such as the public feltconstituted a witch-hunt in itself. Suspicious private personsoverwhelmed the FBI and the Space Agency with information aboutcharacters they were sure were giving military secrets to thespace travelers on M-387. There were reports of aliens skulkingabout American cities wearing luxuriant whiskers and dark glassesto conceal their non-human features. Artists, hermits, and mereamateur beard-growers found it wise to shave, and spirit mediums,fortunetellers and, in the South, herb doctors reaped harvests by thesale of ominous predictions and infallible advice on how to escapeannihilation from space.
And Burke Development, Inc., was building something that neitherCivilian Defense nor the FBI believed was a bomb shelter.
The three days Burke had needed passed. A fourth. He and Holmespractically abandoned sleep to get everything finished inside theplaster mould. Keller happily completed his graphs and took them toBurke. They showed that the cracklings, which presumably meant numbers,had been expanded. What they said was now told on a new scale. If thenumbers had meant months or years, they now meant days and hours. Ifthey had meant millions of miles, they now meant thousands or hundreds.
Burke was struggling with these implications when there was a tappingat the air-lock, through which all entry and egress from the ship tookplace. Holmes opened the inner door. Sandy and Pam crawled through thelock which lay on its side instead of upright. Sandy looked at Burke.
Pam said amiably, "We figured the job was about finished and we wantedto see it. How do you fasten this door?"
Holmes showed her. The vessel that had been built inside the moulddid not seem as large as the outside structure promised. It lookedqueer, too, because everything lay on its side. There were twocompartments with a ladder between, but the ladder lay on the floor.The wall-gardens looked healthy under the fluorescent lamps which keptthe grass and vegetation flourishing. There were instrument dialseverywhere.
Sandy went to Burke's side.
"We're all but done," said Burke tiredly, "and Keller's just aboutproved what the signals are."
"Can we go with you?" asked Sandy.
"Of course not," said Burke. "The first message was a distress call. Ithad to be. Only in a distress call would somebody go into details soany listener would know it was important. It called for help and saidwho needed it, and why, and where."
Pam turned to Holmes. "Can that air-lock be opened from outside?"
It couldn't. Not when it was fastened, as now.
"Somebody answered that call from Earth," said Burke heavily, "and thesecond message told more about what was wrong. The clickings, we think,are numbers that told how long help could be waited for, or somethingon that order. And then there was a beacon signal meant to lead whoeverwas coming to help to that place."
Keller smiled pleasantly at Pam. He made an electrical connection andzestfully checked the result.
"Now there's a third message," said Burke. "Time's running out forwhoever needs whatever help is called for. The clickings that seemto be numbers have changed. The--what you might call the scale ofreportage--is new. They're telling us just how long they can wait orjust how bad their situation is. They're saying that time is runningout and they're saying, 'Hurry!'"
There was a thumping sound. Only Sandy and Pam looked unsurprised.Burke stared.
Sandy said firmly, "That's the police, Joe. We've been going to themovies with people who want to talk about you. Yesterday one of themconfided to us that you were dangerous, and since he told us to getaway from the office, we did. There might be shooting. He tipped us alittle while ago."
Burke swore. There were other thumpings. Louder ones. They were on theair-lock door.
"If you try to put us out," said Sandy calmly, "you'll have to openthat door and they'll try to fight their way in--and then where'll yoube?"
Keller turned from the checking of the last instrument He looked at theothers with excited eyes. He waited.
"I don't know what they can arrest you for," said Sandy, "and maybethey don't either, unless it's unauthorized artillery practice. But youcan't put us out! And you know darn well that unless you do somethingthey'll chop their way in!"
Burke said, "Dammit, they're not going to stop me from finding out ifthis thing works!"
He squirmed in a chair which had its base firmly fastened to a wall andbegan to punch buttons.
"Hold fast!" he said angrily. "At least we'll see...."
There were loud snapping sounds. There were creakings. The roomstirred. It turned in a completely unbelievable fashion. Violentcrashings sounded outside. Abruptly, a small television screen beforeBurke acquired an image. It was of the outside world reeling wildly.Holmes seized a hand-hold and grabbed Pam. He kept her from fallingas a side wall became the floor, and what had been the floor became aside wall, with the ceiling another. It seemed that all the cosmoschanged, though only walls and floors changed places.
Suddenly everything seemed normal but new. The surface underfoot wascovered with a rubber mat. The hydroponic wall-garden sections werenow vertical. Burke sat upright, and something over his head rotated ahalf-turn and was still. But it became coated with frost.
More crashes. More small television screens acquired images. Theyshowed the office of Burke Development, Inc., against a tiltedlandscape. The landscape leveled. Another showed the construction shed.One showed cloud formations, very bright and distinct. And two othersshowed a small, armed, formidable body of men instinctively backingaway from the outside television lens.
"So far," said Burke, "it works. Now--"
There was a sensation as of a rapidly rising elevator. Such a sensationusually lasts for part of a second. This kept on. One of the sixtelevision screens suddenly showed a view of Burke Development fromstraight overhead. The buildings and men and the four-acre enclosuredwindled rapidly. They were very tiny indeed and nearly all of the townwas in the camera's field of vision when a vague whiteness, a cloud,moved in between.
"The devil!" said Burke. "Now they'll alert fighter planes and rocketinstallations and decide that we're either traitors or aliens indisguise and better be shot down. I think we simply have to go on!"
Keller made gestures, his eyes bright. Burke looked worried.
"It shouldn't take more than ten minutes to get a Nike aloft and afterus. We must have been picked up by radar already.... We'll head north.We have to, anyhow."
But he was wrong about the ten minutes. It was fifteen before a rocketcame into view, pouring out enormous masses of drive-fumes. It flungitself toward the ship.