Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

solid form partially hid Lentz.

“Wait a minute. You say that everything is ready to install the pile in the

ship? You’re sure?”

“Positive. The big ship has already flown with our fuel-longer and faster

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than she will have to fly to reach station in her orbit; I was in it-out in space,

Chief! We’re all set, six ways from zero.”

King stared at the dumping switch, mounted behind glass at the top of the

instrument board. “There’s fuel enough,” he said softly, as if he were alone and

speaking only to himself, “there’s been fuel enough for weeks.”

He walked swiftly over to the switch, smashed the glass with his fist, and

pulled it.

The room rumbled and shivered as tons of molten, massive metal, heavier than

gold, coursed down channels, struck against baffles, split into a dozen dozen

streams, and plunged to rest in leaden receivers-to rest, safe and harmless, until

it should be reassembled far out in space.

AFTERWORD

December 1979, exactly 40 years after I researched BLOWUPS HAPPEN (Dec.

’39): I had some doubt about republishing this because of the current ignorant fear

of fission power, recently enhanced by the harmless flap at Three Mile Island. When

I wrote this, there was not a full gram of purified U-235 on this planet, and no one

knew its hazards in detail, most especially the mass and geometry and speed of

assembly necessary to make “blowups happen.” But we now know from long experience

and endless tests that the “tons” used in this story could never be assembled-no

explosion, melt-down possible, melt-down being the worst that can happen at a power

plant; to cause U-235 to explode is very difficult and requires very different

design. Yes, radiation is hazardous

BUT- RADIATION EXPOSURE

Half a mile from Three-Mile plant

during the flap 83 millirems

At the power plant 1,100 millirems

During heart catheterization for

angiogram 45,000 millirems

– which I underwent 18 months ago. I feel fine.

R.A.H.

FOREWORD

I had always planned to quit the writing business as soon as that mortgage

was paid off. I had never had any literary ambitions, no training for it, no

interest in it- backed into it by accident and stuck with it to pay off debt, I

being always firmly resolved to quit the silly bus iness once I had my chart squared

away.

At a meeting of the Mai~ana Literary Society-an amorphous disorganization

having as its avowed purpose “to permit young writers to talk out their stories to

each other in order to get them off their minds and thereby save themselves the

trouble of writing them down”-at a gathering of this noble group I was expounding my

determination to retire from writing once my bills were paid-in a few weeks, during

1940, if the tripe continued to sell.

William A. P. White (“Anthony Boucher”) gave me a sour look. “Do you know

any retired writers?”

“How could I? All the writers I’ve ever met are in this room.

“Irrelevant. You know retired school teachers, retired naval officers,

retired policemen, retired farmers. Why don’t you know at least one retired writer?”

“What are you driving at?”

“Robert, there are no retired writers. There are writers who have stopped

selling. . . but they have not stopped writing.

I pooh-poohed Bill’s remarks-possibly what he said applied to writers in

general. . . but I wasn’t really a writer; I was just a chap who needed money and

happened to discover that pulp writing offered an easy way to grab some without

stealing and without honest work. (“Honest work”-a euphemism for underpaid bodily

exertion, done standing up or on your knees, often in bad weather or other nasty

circumstances, and frequently involving shovels, picks, hoes, assembly lines,

tractors, and unsympathetic supervisors. It has never appealed to me.

Sitting at a typewriter in a nice warm room, with no boss, cannot possibly be

described as “honest work.”)

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BLOWUPS HAPPEN sold and I gave a mortgageburning party. But I did not quit

writing at once (24 Feb 1940) because, while I had the Old Man of the Sea (that

damned mortgage) off my back, there were still some other items. I needed a new car;