“I’m listening, pops, but nothing is coming through. But thanks much, anyway. I fee! a lot better, knowing I’m not
going to give birth to a monster. Or are you sure, really?”
“Of course I’m sure!” Adams snapped. testily” and Barbara led Deston aside.
“Have you got the slightest idea of what he was talking about?” she asked.
“Just the slightest, if any. Either that time is relative no, that’s so elementary he wouldn’t mention it. Maybe he’s
figured out a variable time of some kind or other. Anyway, you girls’ slowness in producing has given the old boy
a big lift, and I’m mighty glad of it.”
.,But aren’t you worried, sweetheart? Not even the least little bit?”
“Of course not”” and Deston very evidently meant just that.
“I am. I can’t help but be. Why aren’t you?” “Because Doc isn’t, and he knows his stuff, believe me. He can’t lie any
better than a three-year-old, and he’s sure that all four of you are just as safe as though you were in God’s lefthand
hip pocket.”
“Oh-that’s right. I never thought of it that way. So I don’t have anything to worry about, do IT’ She lifted her lips to
be kissed; and the kiss was long and sweet.
Time flew past until, one day a couple of weeks short of arrival, Adams rushed up to Deston and Jones. “I have it!”
he shouted, and began to spout a torrent of higher very much higher-mathematics.
“Hold it, Doc!” Deston held up an expostulatory hand. “I read you zero and ten. Can’t you delouse your signal?
Whittle the stuff down to our size?”
“W-e-l-l,” the scientist looked hurt, but did consent to forego the high math. “The discharge is catastrophic; in
energy equivalent something of the order of magnitude of ten thousand discharges of lightning. And, unfortunately.
I do not know what it is. It is virtually certain” however, that we will be able to dissipate it in successive decrements
by the use of long, thin leads extending downward toward a high point of the planet.”
“Wire” you mean? What kind?”
“The material is not important except in that it should have sufficient tensile strength to support as many miles as
possible of its own length.”
“We’ve got dozens of coils of hook-up wire,” Deston said. “but not too many miles and it’s soft stuff.” “Graham
wire!” Jones snapped his finger.
“Of course,” Deston agreed. “Hundreds of miles of it. Float the senser down on a Hotchkiss-”
“Tear-out.” Jones objected.
“Bailey it-spidered out to twenty or so big, flat feet. That’ll take metal, but we can cannibal the whole Middle
without weakening the structure.”
“Sure . . . surges-backlash. Remote it.” “Check. Remote everything to Baby Two, and “Would you mind delousing
your signal?” Adams asked” caustically.
“‘Scuse, please, Doc, A guy does talk better in his own lingo, doesn’t he? Well, Graham wire is one-point-three-
millimeter-diameter, ultra-high-tensile steel wire. Used for re-wrapping the Grahams, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. What are Grahams?”
“Why, they’re the intermediates between the Chaytors … OK, OK, they’re something like bottles, that have to stand
terrifically high pressures.”
“That’s what I want to know. Such wire will do very nicely. Note now that our bodies must be grounded very
thoroughly to the metal of the ship.”
“You’re so right. We’ll wrap the girls in silver-mesh underwear up to the eyeballs, and run leads as big as my wrist
to the frame.”
The approach was made, and the fourth planet out from that strange sun was selected as a ground. That planet was
not at a!! like Earth. It had little water, very little atmosphere, and very little vegetation. It was twice as massive as
Earth; its surface was rugged and jagged; one of its stupendous mountain ranges had sharp peaks more than forty
thousand feet high.
“There’s one thing more we must do,” Adams said. “I have barely begun to study this zeta field, and this one may
very well be unique-irreplaceable. We must, therefore” launch all the lifecraft-except Number Two, of course into
separate orbits around this sun, so that a properly stalled and properly-equipped expedition can study it.”
“Your proper expedition might get its pants burned off, too.”
“There is always that possibility; but I will insist on being assigned to the project. This information, young man, is
necessary.”
“OK, Doc,” and it was done; and in a few days the Procyon hung motionless, a good five hundred miles high,
directly above the highest, sharpest mountain peak they had been able to find.
The Bailey boom, with its spider-web-like network of grounding cables and with a large pulley at its end, extended
two hundred feet straight out from the side of the ship. A twenty-five-mile coil of Graham wire was mounted on
the remote-controlled Hotchkiss reel. The end of the wire was run out over the pulley; a fifteen-pound weight, to
act both as a “senser” and to keep the wire from fouling” was attached; and a few hundred feet of wire were run out.
Then, in Lifecraft Two-as far away from the “business district” as they could get-the human bodies were grounded
and Deston started the reel. The wire ran out and ran-and ran-and ran. The full twenty-five miles were paid out, and
still nothing happened. Then, very slowly, Deston let the big ship move straight downward. Until, finally, it
happened.
There was a blast beside which the most terrific flash of lightning ever seen on Earth would have seemed like a
firecracker. In what was almost a vacuum though she was, the whole immense mass of the Procyon was hurled
upward like the cork out of a champagne bottle. And as for what it felt like-since the five who experienced it could
never describe it, even to each other, it is obviously indescribable by or to anyone else. As Bernice said long
afterward, when she was being pressed by a newsman: “Just tell ’em it was the living end,” and that is as good a
description as any.
The girls were unwrapped from their silver-mesh cocoons and, after a minute or so of semi-hysterics, were as
good as new. Then Deston stared into the ‘scope and gulped. Without saying a word he waved a hand and the others
looked. It seemed as though the entire tip of the mountain was gone; had become a seething, flaming volcano on a
world that had known no vulcanism for hundreds of thousands of years.
“And what”” said Deston finally, “do you suppose happened to the other side of the ship?”
The boom, of course. was gone. So were all twenty of the grounding cables which, each the size of a man’s arm, had
fanned out in all directions to anchorages welded solidly to the vessel’s skin and frame. The anchorages, too, were
gone; and tons upon tons of high-alloy steel plating and structural members for many feet around where each
anchorage had been. Steel had run like water; had been blown away in gusts of vapor.
“Shall I try the radio now, Doc?” Deston asked.
“By no means. This first blast would, of course, be the worst, but there will be several more, of decreasing vio-
lence.”
There were. The second, while it volatilized the boom and its grounding network, merely fused portions of the an-
chorages. The third took only the boom itself; the fourth took only the dangling miles of wire. At the sixth trial
nothing-apparently-happened; whereupon the wire was drawn in and a two-hundred pound mass of steel was
lowered until it was in firm and quiescent contact with the solid rock of the planet.
“Now you may try your radio,” Adams said.
Deston flipped a switch and spoke, quietly but clearly” into a microphone. “Procyon One to Control Six. Flight
Eight Four Nine. Subspace Radio Test Ninety-Five-I think. How do you read me, Control Six?”
The reply was highly unorthodox. It was a wild yell, followed by words not directed at Deston at all. “Captain
Reamer! Captain French! Captain Holloway! ANYBODY! It’s the Procyon! The PROCYON, that was lost a year
ago! Unless some fool is playing a dumb joke.”
“It’s no joke-I hope.” Another voice, crisp and authoritative, came in; growing louder as its source approached the
distant pickup. “Or somebody will rot in jail for a hundred years.”
“Procyon One to Control Six,” Deston said again. His voice was not quite steady this time; both girls were crying
openly and joyfully. “How do you read me” Frenchy old horse?”
“It is Procyon One-the Runt himself- Hi, Babe!” the new voice roared, then quieted to normal volume. “I read you
eight and one. Survivors.?”
“Five. Second Officer Jones, our wives, and Dr. Andrew Adams, a Fellow of the College of Advanced Study. He’s
solely responsible for our being here, so-”
“Skip that for now. In a lifecraft? No, after this long” it must be the ship. Not navigable, of course?”
“Not in subspace, and only so-so in normal. The Chaytors are OK, but the whole Top is spun out and the rest of her