‘Sirius IV got in first by a whisker, but it was a photo finish with Aldebaran II and all channels have been jammed ever since. Canopus, Vega, Rigel, Spica. Everybody, from Alsakan to Zabriska. We announced right off that we wouldn’t receive personal delegations—we had to almost throw a couple of pink-haired Chickladorians out bodily to make them believe we meant it—that our own evaluation of necessity, not priority of requisition, would govern. QX?’
‘Absolutely,’ Cloud agreed. ‘That’s the only way to handle it, I should think.’
‘So forget this psychic trauma … No, I don’t mean that,’ the Lensman corrected himself hastily. ‘You know what I mean. The will to live is the most important factor in any man’s recovery, and too many worlds need you too badly to have you quit now. Check?’
‘I suppose so,’ Cloud acquiesced, but somberly, ‘and I’ve got more will to live than I thought I had. I’ll keep on pecking away as long as I last.’
‘Then you’ll die of old age, Buster,’ the Lensman assured him. ‘We got full data. We know exactly how long it takes to go from fully inert to fully free. We know exactly what to do to your screens. Next time nothing will come through except light, and only as much of that as you like. You can wait as close to a
vortex as you please, for as long as is necessary to get exactly the conditions you want. You’ll be as safe as if you were in Klono’s hip pocket.’
‘Sure of that?’
‘Absolutely—or at least, as sure as we can be of anything that hasn’t happened yet. But your guardian angel here is eyeing her clock a bit pointedly, so I’d better do a flit before she tosses me out on my ear. Clear ether, Storm!’
‘Clear ether, chief!’
Thus ‘Storm’ Cloud, nucleonicist, became the most narrowly-specialized specialist in the long annals of science; became ‘Storm’ Cloud, the Vortex Blaster.
And that night Lensman Philip Strong, instead of sleeping, thought and thought and thought. What could he do—what could anybody do—if Cloud should get himself killed? Somebody would have to do something … but who? And what? Could—or could not—another Vortex Blaster be found? Or trained?
And next morning, early, he Lensed a thought.
‘Kinnison? Phil Strong. I’ve got a high-priority problem that will take a lot of work and a lot more weight than I carry. Are you free to listen for a few minutes?’
‘I’m free. Go ahead.’
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25
3: Cloud Loses an Ann
Tellurian Pharmaceutical, Inc., was Civilization’s oldest and most conservative drug house. ‘Hide-bound’ was the term most frequently used, not only by its younger employees, but also by its more progressive competitors. But, corporatively, Tellurian Pharmaceuticals, Inc., did not care. Its board of directors was limited by an iron-clad, if unwritten, law to men of seventy years or more; and against the inertia of that ruling body the impetuosity of the younger generation was exactly as efficacious as the dashing of ocean waves against an adamantine cliff—and in very much the same fashion.
Ocean waves do in time cut into even the hardest rock; and, every century or two, TPI did take forward step—after a hundred years of testing by others had proved conclusively that the ‘new’ idea conformed in every particular with the exalted standards of the Galactic Medical Association,
TPI’s plant upon the planet Deka (Dekanore III, on the charts) filled the valley of Clear Creek and the steep, high hills on its sides, from the mountain spring which was the creek’s source to its confluence with the Spokane River.
The valley floor was a riot of color, devoted as it was to the intensive cultivation of medicinal plants. Along both edges of the valley extended row after row of hydroponics sheds. Upon the mountains’ sides there were snake dens, lizard pens, and enclosures for many other species of fauna.
Nor was the surface all that was in use. The hills were hollow; honeycombed into hundreds of rooms in which, under precisely controlled environments of temperature, atmosphere, and radiation, were grown hundreds of widely-variant forms of life.
At the confluence of creek and river, just inside the city limits of Newspoke—originally New Spokane—there reared and sprawled the Company’s headquarters buildings; offices, processing and synthesizing plants, laboratories, and so on. In one of the laboratories, three levels below ground, two men faced each other. Works Manager Graves was tall and fat; Fenton V. Fairchild, M.D., Nu.D., F.C.R., Consultant in Radiation, was tall and thin.
‘Everything set, Graves?’ t
‘Yes. Twelve hours, you said.’
‘For the full cycle. Seven to the point of maximum yield.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Here are the seeds. Trenconian broadleaf. For the present you will have to take my word for it that they did not come from Trenco. These are standard hydroponics tanks, size one. The formula of the nutrient solution, while complex and highly critical, contains nothing either rare or unduly expensive. I plant the seed, thus, in each of the two tanks. I cover each tank with a plastic hood, transparent to the frequencies to be used. I cover both with a larger hood—so. I align the projectors—thus. We will now put on armor, as the radiation is severe and the atmosphere, of which there may be leakage when the pollenating blast is turned on, is more than slightly toxic. I then admit Trenconian atmosphere from this cylinder …’
‘Synthetic or imported?’ Graves interrupted.
‘Imported. Synthesis is possible, but prohibitively expensive and difficult. Importation in tankers is simple and comparatively cheap. I now energize the projectors. Growth has begun.’
In the glare of blue-green radiance the atmosphere inside the hoods, the very ether, warped and writhed. In spite of the distortion of vision, however, it could be seen that growth was taking place, and at an astounding rate. In a few minutes the seeds had sprouted; in an hour the thick, broad, purplish-green leaves were inches long. In seven hours each tank was full of a lushly luxuriant tangle of foliage.
‘This is the point of maximum yield,’ Fairchild remarked, as he shut off the projectors. ‘We will now process one tank, if you like.’
‘Certainly I like. How else could I know it’s the clear quill?’
‘By the looks,’ came the scientist’s dry rejoinder. ‘Pick your tank.’
One tank was removed. The leaves were processed. The full cycle of growth of the remaining tank was completed. Graves himself harvested the seeds, and himself carried them away.
Six days, six samples, six generations of seed, and the eminently skeptical Graves was convinced.
‘You’ve got something there, Doc,’ he admitted then. ‘We can really go to town on that. Now, how about notes, or stuff from your old place, or people who may have smelled a rat?’
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27
Tm perfectly clean. None of my boys know anything important, and none ever will. I assemble all apparatus myself, from standard pans, and disassemble it myself. I’ve been around, Graves.’
‘Well, we can’t be too sure.’ The fat man’s eyes were piercing and cold. ‘Leakers don’t live very long. We don’t want you to die, at least not until we get in production here.’
‘Nor then, if you know when you’re well off,’ the scientist countered, cynically. ‘I’m a fellow of the College of Radiation, and it took me five years to learn this technique. None of your hatchetmen could ever learn it. Remember that, my friend.’
‘So?’
‘So don’t get off on the wrong foot and don’t get any funny ideas. I know how to run things like this and I’ve got the manpower and equipment to do it. If I come in I’m running it, not you. Take it or leave it.’
The fat man pondered for minutes, then decided. ‘I’ll take it. You’re in, Doc. You can have a cave—two hundred seventeen is empty—and we’ll go up and get things started right now.’
Less than a year later, the same two men sat in Graves’ office. They waited while a red light upon a peculiarly complicated deskboard faded through pink into pure white.
‘All clear. This way, Doc.’ Graves pushed a yellow button on his desk and a section of blank wall slid aside.
In the elevator thus revealed the two men went down to a sub-basement. Along a dimly-lit corridor, through an elaborately locked steel door, and into a steel-lined room. Four inert bodies lay upon the floor.
Graves thrust a key into an orifice and a plate swung open, revealing a chute into which the bodies were dumped. The two retraced their steps to the manager’s office.
‘Well, that’s all we can feed to the disintegrator,’ Fairchild lit an Alsakanite cigarette and exhaled appreciatively.
‘Why? Going soft on us?’
‘No. The ice is getting too thin.’
‘Whaddya mean, “thin”?’ Graves demanded. ‘The Patrol inspectors are ours—all that count. Our records are fixed. Everything’s on the green.’
‘That’s what you think,’ the scientist sneered. ‘You’re supposed to be smart. Are you? Our accident rate is up three