expectantly.
"You don't believe what, Fred?" he asked.
The physicist leaned over and tapped the papers in Peterson's hands."We've subjected that crazy stuff to every source and kind of high andlow energy radiation we can produce here and that means just abouteverything short of triggering an H-device on it. We fired alphas,gammas, betas, the works, in wide dispersion, concentrated beam andjust plain exposure.
"Not so much as one neutron of any of them went beyond the glasssurrounding that forsaken slop.
"They curved around it, Floyd. They curved around it."
The physicist leaned his head on the desk. "Nothing should react likethat," he sobbed. He struggled for composure as Peterson stared dazedlyat the test sheets.
"That's not the whole story," the physicist continued. He walked toPeterson's side and extracted the two all-white sheets.
"This," he said brokenly, "represents a sheet of photographic paperdipped in that crud and then allowed to dry before being bombarded withradiation. And this," he waved the other sheet, "is a piece of photopaper in the center of a panel protected by another sheet of ordinarytyping paper coated with that stuff."
Peterson looked up at him. "A radiation-proof liquid," he said in awedtones.
The other man nodded dumbly.
"Eight years of university," the physicist whispered to himself. "Sixyears in summer schools. Four fellowships. Ten years in research.
"All shot to hell," he screamed, "by a stinking, hayburning cow."
Peterson patted him gently on the shoulder. "It's all right, Fred.Don't take it so hard. It could be worse."
"How?" he asked hollowly. "Have this stuff milked from a kangaroo?"
* * * * *
Back in his office, Peterson waved off a dozen calls while he gaveorders for fresh quantities of the blue milk to be rushed to theArgonne laboratories for further radiation tests and confirmation ofthe Nevada results. He ordered a test set up for the brown fluid forthe following morning and then took a call from the AEC commissioner.
"Yes, John," he said, "we've got something."
Operation Milkmaid was in full swing!
The following morning observers again clustered about the monitoringroom as Peterson prepared to duplicate the tests, using a sample of theMelody's brownish milk.
There was the same involuntary remote cringing as the first drop of eggfell towards the beaker, but this time, Peterson forced himself towatch. Again the gentle plop was heard through the amplifiers andnothing more. A similar clouding spread through the already murky fluidand when the entire contents of one egg had been added, the beaker tookon a solid, brown and totally opaque appearance. The scientists watchedthe glass container for several minutes, anticipating another possibledelayed blast.
When nothing occurred, Peterson nodded to an assistant at an adjoiningconsole. The aide worked a series of levers and a remotely-controlledmechanical arm came into view on the screen. The claw of the armdescended over the beaker and clasping it gently, bounced it lightly onthe cement bunker floor. The only sound was the muffled thunk of theglass container against the concrete.
The assistant wiggled his controls gently and the beaker jiggled backand forth, a few inches off the floor.
Peterson, who had been watching closely, called out. "Do that again."
The operator jostled the controls. "Look at that," Peterson exclaimed."That stuff's hardened."
A quick movement confirmed this and then Peterson ordered the beakerraised five feet from the floor and slowly tipped. Over the containerwent as the claw rotated in its socket. The glass had turned almost180 deg. towards the floor when the entire mass of solidified glob slidout.
The watchers caught their breath as it fell to the hard floor. The globhit the floor, bounced up a couple of inches, fell back, bounced againand then quivered to a stop. What was soon to be known as Melody'sMighty Material had been born.
The testing started. But there was a difference. By the time the brownchunk had been removed from the bunker it had solidified to the pointthat nothing would break or cut it. The surface yielded slightly to theheaviest cutting edge of a power saw and then sprang back, unmarked. Adiamond drill spun ineffectually.
So the entire block started making the rounds of the various labs. Itwas with downright jubilation that radiation labs reported noproperties of resistance for the stuff. One after the other, the testproved nothing until the physical properties unit came up with an idea.
"You can't cut it, break it or tear it," the technician told Peterson,as he hefted the chunk of lightweight enigma. "You can't burn it, shootholes in it, or so much as mark the surface with any known acid. Thisstuff's tougher than steel and about fifty times lighter."
"O.K.," Peterson asked, "so what good is it?"
"You can mold it when you mix it," the technician said significantly.
"Hey, you're right," Peterson jumped up excitedly. "Why, a spacer castout of this stuff and coated with Sally's paint would be light enoughand shielded enough to work on regular missile fuels."
* * * * *
Working under crash priorities, the nation's three leading plasticsplants turned out three, lightweight, molded, one-man space vehiclesfrom the government-supplied Melody's Mix. A double coating of Sally'sPaint then covered the hulls and a single stage liquid fuel rocketengine was hooked to the less-than-one-ton engineless hull.
Twenty-eight days after the milk first appeared, on a warm Augustevening, the first vehicle stood on the pads at Cape Canaveral,illuminated by towers of lights. Fuel crews had finished loading thetanks which would be jettisoned along with the engine at burn-out.Inside the rocket, Major Quartermain lounged uncomfortably and crampedin the take-off sling for a short but telling trip through the VanAllen radiation fields and back to Earth.
The take-off sling rested inside an escape capsule since the use ofchemical fuel brought back many of the old uncertainties of launchings.On the return trip, Quartermain would eject at sixty thousand feet andpull the capsule's huge parachute for a slow drop to the surface of theAtlantic where a recovery fleet was standing by. The light rocket hullwould pop a separate chute and also drift down for recovery andanalysis.
Inside the ship, Quartermain sniffed the air and curled his nose."Let's get this thing on the road," he spoke into his throat mike."Some of that Florida air must have seeped in here."
"Four minutes to final countdown," blockhouse control replied. "Turn onyour blowers for a second."
Outside the ship, the fuel crews cleared their equipment away from thepad. The same ripe, heavy odor hung in the warm night air.
At 8:02 p.m., twenty-eight days after the new milks made their firstappearance, Major Quartermain blasted off in a perfect launching.
At 8:03 p.m., the two other Melody Mix hulls standing on nearby pads,began to melt.
At 8:04 p.m., the still-roaring engine fell from the back end ofQuartermain's rocket in a flaming arc back towards Earth. Fifteenseconds later, he hurtled his escape capsule out of the collapsingrocket hull. The parachute opened and the daring astronaut driftedtowards the sea.
Simultaneously, in a dozen labs around the nation, blocks and molds ofMelody's Mix made from that first batch of milk, collapsed into pilesof putrid goo. Every day thereafter, newer blocks of the mix reachedthe twenty-eight-day limit and similarly broke down into malodrousblobs.
* * * * *
It was a month before the stinking, gooey mess that flowed over thelaunching pads at the Cape was cleaned up by crews wearing respiratorsand filter masks. It took considerably longer to get the nation's threetop plastics firms back in operation as the fetid flow of unfinishedrocket parts wrecked machinery and drove personnel from the area.
The glob that had been Quartermain's vehicle fell slowly back to Earth,disintegrating every minute until it reached the consistency of thingruel. At this point, it was caught by a jet air stream and carried i
na miasmic cloud halfway around the world until it finally floated downto coat the Russian city of Urmsk in a veil of vile odor. The UnitedStates disclaimed any knowledge of the cloud.
* * * * *
"LAS VEGAS, NEV., May 8 (AP)--The Atomic Energy Commission today announced it has squeezed the last drop from Operation Milkmaid."
"After a year of futile experimentation has failed to get anything more than good, Grade A milk from the world's two most famous cows, the AEC says it has closed down its field laboratory at the Circle T ranch."
"Dr. Floyd Peterson, who has been in charge of the attempt to again reproduce Sally's Milk, told newsmen that the famed Guernsey and