already referred to, it probably does not do the same thing for more than an instant at a time.
That there is little actual combustion is certain; that is” except for the forced combination of nitrogen, argon,
xenon, and krypton with oxygen. There is, however, consumption: plenty of consumption. And what that incredibly
intense bombardment impinges up is . . . is altered. Profoundly and obscurely altered, so that the atmosphere
emitted from the crater is quite definitely no longer air as we know it. It may be corrosive, it may be poisonous in
one or another of a hundred fashions, it may be merely new and different; but it is no longer the air which we
human beings are used to breathing. And it is this fact, rather than the destruction of the planet itself, which would
end the possibility of life upon Earth’s surface.
It is difficult indeed to describe the appearance of a loose atomic vortex to those who have never seen one; and,
fortunately, most people never have. And practically all of its frightful radiation lies in those octaves of the
spectrum which are invisible to the human eye. Suffice it to say, then, that it had an average effective surface
temperature of about fifteen thousand degrees absolute-two and one-half times as hot as the sun of Tellus-and that
it was radiating every frequency possible to that incomprehensible temperature, and let it go at that.
And Neal Cloud, scurrying in his flitter through that murky, radiation-riddled atmosphere, setting up equations
from the readings of his various meters and gauges and solving those equations almost instantaneously in his
mathematical-prodigy’s mind, sat appalled. For the activity level was, and even in its lowest dips remained, far
above the level he had selected. His skin began to prickle and burn. His eyes began to smart and to ache. He knew
what those symptoms meant; even the flitter’s powerful screens were not stopping all the radiation; even his
suit-screens and his special goggles were not stopping what leaked through. But he wouldn’t quit yet; the activity
might-probably wouldtake a nose-dive any instant. If it did, he’d have to be ready. On the other hand, it might blow
up at any instant, too.
There were two schools of mathematical thought upon that point. One held that the vortex, without any essential
change in its physical condition or nature, would keep on growing bigger. Indefinitely, until, uniting with the other
vortices of the planet, it had converted the entire mass of the world into energy.
The second school, of which the aforementioned Carlowitz was the loudest voice, taught that at a certain stage of
development the internal energy of the vortex would become so great that generation-radiation equilibrium could
not be maintained. This would, of course, result in an explosion; the nature and consequences of which this Car-
lowitz was wont to dwell upon in ghoulishly mathematical glee. Neither school, however, could prove its point-or,
rather, each school proved its point, by means of unimpeachable mathematics-and each hated and derided the other,
loudly and heatedly.
And now Cloud, as he studied through his almost opaque defenses that indescribably ravening fireball, that
esuriently rapacious monstrosity which might very well have come from the deepest pit of the hottest hell of
mythology, felt strongly inclined to agree with Carlowitz. It didn’t seem possible that anything could get any worse
than that without exploding. And such an explosion, he felt sure, would certainly blow everything for miles around
into the smitheriest kind of smithereens.
The activity of the vortex stayed high” way too high. The tiny control room of the Hitter grew hotter and hotter. His
skin burned and his eyes ached worse. He touched a communicator stud and spoke.
“Phil? Better get me three more bombs. Like these” except up around. . . .”
“I don’t check you. If you do that, it’s apt to drop to a minimum and stay there,” the Lensman reminded him. “It’s
completely unpredictable, you know.”
“It may, at that . . . so I’ll have to forget the five per cent margin and hit on the nose or not at all. Order me up two
more, then-one at half of what I’ve got here, the other double it”” and he reeled off the figures for the charge and
the casing of the explosive. “You might break out a jar of burn-dressing, too. Some fairly hot stuff is leaking
through.”
“We’ll do that. Come down, fast!”
Cloud landed. He stripped to the skin and the observer smeared his every square inch of epidermis with the thick”
gooey stuff that was not only a highly efficient screen against radiation, but also a sovereign remedy for new
radiation burns. He exchanged his goggles for a thicker, darker, heavier pair. The two bombs arrived and were
substituted for two of the original load.
“I thought of something while I was up there,” Cloud informed the observers then. “Twenty kilograms of duodec is
nobody’s firecracker, but it may be the !east of what’s going to go off. Have you got any idea of what’s going to
become of the energy inside that vortex when I blow it out?”
“Can’t say that I have.” The Lensman frowned in thought. “No data.”
“Neither have I. But I’d say that you better go back to the new station-the one you were going to move to if it kept
on getting worse.”
“But the instruments . . :’ the Lensman was thinking” not of the instruments themselves, which were valueless in
comparison with life, but of the records those instruments would make. Those records were priceless.
“I’ll have everything on the tapes in the flitter,” Cloud reminded.
“But suppose. . . .”
“That the flitter stops one, too–or doesn’t stop it, rather? In that case, your back station won’t be there, either, so it
won’t make any difference.” How mistaken Cloud was!
“QX,” the Chief decided. “We’ll leave when you do just in case.”
Again in air, Cloud found that the activity, while still high, was not too high” but that it was fluctuating too rapidly.
He could not get even five seconds of trustworthy prediction, to say nothing of ten. So he waited, as close as he
dared remain to that horrible center of disintegration.
The flitter hung poised in air, motionless, upon softly hissing under-jets. Cloud knew to a fraction his height above
the ground. He knew to a fraction his distance from the vortex. He knew with equal certainty the density of the
atmosphere and the exact velocity and direction of the wind. Hence, since he could also read closely enough the
momentary variations in the cyclonic storms within the crater, he could compute very easily the course and
velocity necessary to land the bomb in the exact center of the vortex at any given instant of time. The hard part the
thing that no one had as yet succeeded in doing-was to predict, for a time far enough ahead to be of any use” a
usably close approximation to the vortex’s quantitative activity. For, as has been said, he had to over-blast, rather
than under-, if he could not hit it “on the nose:” to underblast would scatter it all over the state.
Therefore Cloud concentrated upon the dials and gauges before him; concentrated with every fiber of his being and
every cell of his brain.
Suddenly, almost imperceptibly, the Sigma curve gave signs of flattening out. In that instant Cloud’s mind pounced.
Simultaneous equations: nine of them, involving nine unknowns. An integration in four dimensions. No
matter-Cloud did not solve them laboriously, one factor at a time. Without knowing how he had arrived at it, he
knew the answer; just as the Posenian or the Rigellian is able to perceive every separate component particle of an
opaque, three-dimensional solid, but without being able to explain to anyone how his sense of perception works. It
just is, that’s all.
Anyway, by virtue of whatever sense or ability it is which makes a mathematical prodigy what he is, Cloud knew
that in exactly eight and three-tenth seconds from that observed instant the activity of the vortex would be
slightly-but not too far-under the coefficient of his heaviest bomb. Another flick of his mental trigger and he knew
the exact velocity he would require. His hand swept over the studs, his right foot tramped down, hard, upon the
firing lever; and, even as the quivering flitter shot forward under eight Tellurian gravities of acceleration” he knew
to the thousandth of a second how long he would have to hold that acceleration to attain that velocity. While not
really long-in seconds-it was much too long for comfort. It took him much closer to the vortex than he wanted to
be; in fact, it took him right out over the crater itself.
But he stuck to the calculated course, and at the precisely correct instant he cut his drive and released his largest
bomb. Then, so rapidly that it was one blur of speed, he again kicked on his eight G’s of drive and started to whirl