“Jameson suggests that we screen the world’s population for people with phenomenally high Rhine potential; let them make first contact with the bridges. Sounds like a good idea.
“So we don’t want you to touch them, not if you can help it. . . . You know that the Groombridge Effect is blocked by certain dielectrics-ceramic quasi-metals, for instance. We’ve built extensions, waldos, for your suits, made entirely of these ceramics. Hopefully, this is what you’ll be using to pick up the bridges.”
“Nobody told us about that,” Jeeves said.
“We weren’t sure we’d have them made in time. Krupp’s been working night and day. We do have them now, though; that’s why I called this meeting. You and your team are going to go train with them today.
“Team B, Ubico, you’re free to go, unless there are questions.” There were none. “Team A, questions?” None. He stood up. “Well, then. Go on down to the ready room and get suited up. There’s a floater on pad C that’ll take you out to a place on the Colorado River; it has the extension waldos and the nets you’ll be using. Do it right and you’re free until the eleventh.”
The apparatus worked well. The two nets were semi-rigid, articulated so as to conform precisely to the river bottom. It took two people to operate a net, one on each bank. The nets would block off a section of river several kilometers long, and then slowly be brought together. They would trap any floating or swimming object more than a centimeter wide.
In the Colorado they wound up with a swarm of thousands of confused fish. They tested their retrieval waldos by picking a few of the best trout. It took a half hour to get three fish, but trout are faster and slipperier than the Groombridge bridge. Then they rolled up the nets and had a picnic.
GROOMBRIDGE 1618 MISSION,
11 OCTOBER 2051
A TEAM
PERSONNEL:
1. TAMER 5 TANIA JEEVES. FEMALE, 31. 9TH MISSION. SUPERVISOR.
2. TAMER 3 GUSTAV HASENFEL. MALE, 26. 6TH MISSION.
3. TAMER 2 (PROB) JACQUE LEFAVRE. MALE, 26. 3RD MISSION.
4. TAMER 1 VIVIAN HERRICK. FEMALE, 24. 2ND MISSION.
5. TAMER 1 CAROL WACHAL. FEMALE, 24. 2ND MISSION.
EQUIPMENT:
5 GPEM MODULES W/GROOMBRIDGE 1618 MOD
1 PERSONNEL RECORDER
1 HOMING FLOATER W/GROOMBRIDGE 1618 MOD (SECOND SHOT)
2 SERVO NETS (THIRD SHOT)
1 MASS SPECTROGRAPH, WESTINGHOUSE MOD 17 (FOURTH SHOT)
1 COLLECTING TANK (FOURTH SHOT)
POWER REQUIREMENT:
3 SHOTS 17.89688370924 SU, TUNING
@ LOCAL TIME
10:24:38.37677BDK399057
10:32:29.66498BDK399059
10:36:46.00983BDK399060
1 SHOT 17.89688370930 SU, TUNING
@ LOCAL TIME
10:42:05.83997BDK399062
MISSION PRIORITY 1.
FUNDING #733092 PSYCH 40%
#483776 EXOB 20
#000101 PR 20
#000100 GENEX 20
They came out of the LMT near Groombridge’s southern pole. The floater that followed eight minutes later had been modified to approach and then hover nearby, awaiting Tania’s command (to prevent the kind of accident that had left them grounded on the first mission).
They got aboard the floater and homed in on the two nets. That, and taking the nets to the river where they’d found the first bridge, totaled over three hours’ flying time. They unloaded and Tania asked for a volunteer.
“The collecting tank and the MS are a couple of hundred kilometers away. Who wants to go get them?” Silence. “Less than a two-hour job.”
“We should have arranged for B Team to pick them up,” Gus said. “It’s really their job.”
“Too late to change things now,” Jacque said. “Let’s draw straws.”
Tania had everyone pick a number between one and a hundred. Carol lost.
The other four immediately set up the nets, isolating a kilometer-long stretch of the river. The intent was to surprise a number of the creatures, not allowing one to warn the others away.
Of course, there was always the chance that there had been only one bridge on the planet, and it had sought them out. If so, they would spend forty-seven days in fruitless wading.
Jacque thought they would probably catch dozens, maybe hundreds, on each sweep. Spend most of the seven weeks playing with the mass spectrometer.
The actual results fell somewhere in between. When Carol came back with the floater, they were just about through with the first sweep. It was quite a contrast to their practice session: no activity, just a coalescing mat of floating weed. The nets joined at the bottom and they hauled them in.