“That’s correct,” Erickson agreed, sliding his big frame into a low-slung
chair. “You’ll do-for now. What the outcome?”
“Have a drink. Not,” he went on, “that this Scotch any good. I think Lance
has taken to watering it. I surrendered, horse and foot.”
“Lance wouldn’t do that-stick to that theory anti 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
“I did,” mourned Harper, “but, cripes, Gus, the chief is 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.”
Page 20
“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, “Israfell”
A large, black person appeared at his elbow. “Mistuh Erickson! Yes, sub!”
“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