Circle of Confusion

                            By WESLEY LONG

                        Illustrated by Williams

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                Astounding Science-Fiction, March 1944.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Pluto is a strange planet in many ways. Perhaps it may even be classed
as a "man-made" planet, since if it were not for man and his works,
Pluto might as well have never been. But Pluto was found abundant
in uranium, and then came man to change the ultra-frigidity of
Pluto's surface, and to endow Pluto with a breathable atmosphere by
transporting great shiploads of the frozen gases found on Umbriel. Then
man set up cities, and since the face of Pluto had never been scarred
by any kind of intelligent life, the planners had a free and open hand.

So uranium was mined near the region known on the Plutonian maps as
_The Styx Valley_, but which, with characteristic lack of foresight,
was across the Devil's Mountains from the River Styx. Across the
Devil's Range went the uranium to Mephisto, where it was smelted down
into pigs. It was then put on barges and floated down the River Styx
to Hell, which lies across the River Styx from Sharon; both cities
quartering on the Sulphur Sea.

It was loaded onto the ships of space at Hell, and then raced across
the void, sunward to the Inner System where it was used.

But the names are but locationally appropriate. Hell is no fuming,
torrid city. It is temperate with a perfect climate. Mephisto's only
claim to the nether regions was the dancing flames of her smelting
mills that danced on the night sky. The Devil's Range was a small ridge
of less than fifteen thousand feet and it was more than amply supplied
with passes and near-sea-level breaches.

And the cities at the mouth of the River Styx lived in cheerful
rivalry, their main source of jealousy being the lush produce that
came from the hinterland behind each. And the River Styx itself was a
garden-spot for yachting clubs; bathing beaches lined the mouth for
fifteen miles inward and they were clear-watered and pearly sanded.

Pluto had been a man-made paradise for a number of years, only because
Man, the Adaptable, found it economically expedient to make it so.

No, it was not done with mirrors.

It was done with a lens!

The sun should have been a piddling little disk of ineffective yellow.
Its warmth should have been negligible, just as it had been for a
million years before the coming of man. Pluto had been ordained to be
cold and forbidding, but it was not.

The sun was a huge, irregular disk of flaming yellow that had peculiar,
symmetrical streamers flowing off; twelve of the main ones and a
constantly opening and closing twenty-four minor streamers that flowed
outward from the duodecagonal pattern of Sol. These streamers rotated,
and looked for all the world like the pattern made by rotating two
gratings above one another.

Sol, from Pluto, was as big as a washtub, because of a series of
man-made stations in space halfway between Sol and Pluto. These
stations warped space by the maintenance of subelectronic charges that
produced a subetheric gradient which bent the usable radiations of
Sol into a focus. The fact that they were points in space instead of
mighty, million mile rings of metal to carry the space-warping charge
made the focus of Sol irregular instead of circular, but it served its
purpose and men grew used to the scintillating sun.

Certainly, it cost like the very devil, but uranium is not plentiful
anywhere else, and men found it economically sound--

       *       *       *       *       *

John McBride cocked his feet on his desk at Station 1, and began to
read his mail. At the fifth memo, he jumped, startled by what was on
the page before him, and his feet hit the floor with a resounding
crash. Angrily, he punched a buzzer, and a younger man entered.

"Yes sir?" he asked. "What's wrong, Mr. McBride?" he finished noting
McBride's startled expression.

"Tommy, take a 'gram and slam it out of here on the rush. Some fool
dame is going to try to fly through the lens!"

"Oh, no!"

"Yes! Can't get Terra on the phone, confound it, so fire a 'gram, but
quick! Tell her that the restrictions are still in force, and that we
aren't fooling! Also that it is illegal, dangerous, and foolhardy and
that we absolutely forbid her to try!"

"Yes sir!" answered Tommy and left immediately. The ticking of the
teletype machine in the outer office came faintly to John's ears, but
the knowledge of the message's departure did not ease the tension.

Ten minutes later an answer came back:

    HAVE RECEIVED PERMISSION FROM TRIPLANET COUNCIL TO FLY FROM TERRA
    TO PLUTO THROUGH AXIS OF LENS. PERMISSION GRANTED BECAUSE OF
    STATEMENT OF NO DANGER EXPRESSED BY DOCTOR HOLMANN OF THE
    DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRO-GRAVITIC PHENOMENA. SAVE YOUR ELECTRICITY,
    I LEFT TERRA ON TUESDAY MORNING!

                                                           SANDRA DRAKE

"Holy St. Peter!" exploded McBride. Tommy winced in sympathy,
because he knew what was coming. "Doc Holmann! My father studied
electro-gravitics under him. He was an old fuddy-duddy then. The old
drip owns that university, that's why he's still in the E. G. chair.
I'll bet you a hunk of the lens itself that the old goat doesn't even
know that we are now using magneto-gravitics in the front lens element.
That's the stinker!"

"Is it so dangerous?" asked Tommy. "If she uses the usual methods of
coming to Pluto, she'll be going well towards ten thousand miles per
second by the time she passes the front surface."

"That's the trouble," groaned McBride. "Like all other space crates,
her hull will be made of cupralum alloy, which is as paramagnetic as
alnico is diamagnetic. She'll hit that magneto-gravitic warp that
makes up the fore element, with that antimagnetic hull and it will be
like a pane of glass being struck by a minute pellet of steel. She'll
cause the collapse of the front element, and with the load-loss,
the electro-gravitic elements of the aft element will fall out of
alignment. Heaven only knows what'll happen. Well, we'll all know soon
enough!"

"How long?" asked Tommy.

"Well, she left Terra Tuesday morning. She didn't say what time, but
there's little sense in finding out right now. That hop would take
sixty-eight hours at a standard 5-G from Sol. Say sixty-something,
and let's see, this is about Thursday evening--Greenwich Time, but
that screwball might give zonal time and have taken off from Hawaii
or Sevastopol as the fancy hit her. I'd say sit tight and expect
anything from attar of roses to total extinction within the next couple
of hours. Also get on the lens network and tell the gang to oil up
their trouble-wagons. Everything from spacesuits to hand generators.
Oh Peter! I'm going to quit this ding-busted job and take up truck
farming!"

"Ever hear of Sandra Drake before?" asked Tommy.

"Yeah, she's one of those fool females that isn't content with being
equal to any man--she's got to prove she's better! And she doesn't care
how many people she hurts doing it. If Sandra Drake gets through the
lens to Pluto, she'll get her ears toasted right."

"O.K., John. I'll get on the lens network and warn the boys to prepare
for trouble."

       *       *       *       *       *

Messages began to fly around the periphery of the great lens, and
the station attendants swore and began to collect tools that would
be necessary to make any conceivable repairs. Small flitters were
powered and made ready, and everything that carried manual controls was
inspected and cleaned for action.

But Sandra Drake did not wait for the completion of the preparatory
work. It was three hours after the first message flew around the lens
that Sandra's ship, the _Lady Luck_, came roaring out of space and slid
its nose into the magneto-gravitic warp of the front surface.

The _Lady Luck_ came to a stop within five thousand miles, which was
remarkable, since she was hitting almost eight thousand miles per
second. If it were not for the fact that space itself was warped behind
the front surface, the _Lady Luck_ and Sandra Drake might both have
been reduced to a flaming mass; but no one really knows what goes on
behind the surface of a magneto-gravitic warp, and the laws that rule
mass, velocity, and inertia must operate under a new principle. Sandra
Drake, the ship no longer capable of any but minor operation, limped
aimlessly, and Sandra, semiconscious did not direct the _Lady Luck_.

In the twelve stations that made up the periphery of the fore element,
the electrical equipment went crazy. Fuses blew, and circuit breakers
crashed open. The magneto-gravitic warp collapsed, and the power
regulation of the generating equipment could not hold the power to a
safe level. Excesses went into the operating equipment and raised the
operating levels to overload values. Relays welded shut; relay coils
blew. Switches arced across their open contacts, and closed switches
took the overload until their contact points melted: the melting stub
ends made sputtering arcs of copper-green hue until the gap was too
wide. The pungent smell of burning insulation filled the stations,
and the personnel covered themselves with the space-suit helmets and
breathed canned air.

The careful positioning of the stations that held the warp of the
collapsed fore element was lost as the tractor-pressor beam system
took the unleashed overload current. The regular duodecagon pattern
warped into a space pattern as the alignment lost not only its
regularity of distance-between-stations, but its perfection of flatness.

Then as the raging current was stopped by open circuits, burned
or broken, the internal damage stopped also. The stations that
held the magneto-gravitic warp began to drift aimlessly, pulled at
cross-purposes by the undirected tractor-pressor system.

The electro-gravitic warp of the second element thickened as the
fore surface moved into the space formerly occupied by the fractured
lens. The effect was similar to that of restraining a spring and then
releasing it. The rear element went into a damped cycle of expansion
and contraction, alternately shortening and lengthening the focal
length. The series of stations that held the rear element were shaken
in long, sickening swells as the electro-gravitic warp oscillated back
and forth along the axis of the lens.

Here, in the stations that held this warp, there was no danger from
electrical failure. But the long swells of back and forth movement
shook the mechanical equipment until the bearings of rotating
machinery began to rattle. An occasional relay would snap shut for the
briefest of instants and make instantaneous circuits that caused minor
imperfections of the lens.

The cycle damped to zero in ten minutes, and then the men in the
second element stations surveyed their bruises and began to pick up
the mess; from every cabinet, from every bench, from every shelf,
tools, supplies, and instruments had been thrown. They lay in profusion
throughout the stations and must be replaced before the men could make
a move toward repair.

       *       *       *       *       *

On Pluto, all was serene. Light that had passed through the distorted
lens had not reached the far planet yet, and so they did not know.

Men toiled in the uranium mines in the Styx Valley and men fought
the low passes of the Devil's Range to bring the ore to Mephisto,
and in Mephisto, children were just getting out of school. Women
were shopping, and chatting with their friends and haggling with the
shopkeepers over the prices and quality of their proposed dinners.
Two hundred miles down the River Styx, at the twin cities of Hell
and Sharon, men and women lolled in the warm river and played on the
perfect miles of beach. The Sulphur Sea, which was as misnamed as
any of the other places on Pluto, was dotted with the white sails of
pleasure craft, and the occasional white wake of a power speedboat.

A foursome on the fifth green at the Tantalus Country Club was arguing
about a handicap, since one of their number was ten strokes better than
the rest. A big league baseball game was in progress at Imps Park in
Hell, and the home team was beating the Red Devils by a score of 9 to
8. It cannot be recorded that Satan was pitching, though that would
have been a nice touch. The pitcher's name was a staid and simple Jones.

And there were the sordid sides, too. Three men and a woman had been
hit by automobiles during the course of the afternoon between the twin
cities. A burglar had plied his trade to the tune of thirty-three
hundred dollars from Faust's Playhouse, and was later apprehended
trying to make a getaway along the Road to Hell, which connected the
twin cities and was always spoken of as being named "The Road To Hell"
because it permitted the citizens of either city to go across the
bridge to the opposite side. The planned name of Bifrost Bridge now
appeared only on maps and formal writings since the informal name was
by far the more popular.

Then without warning, the scintillating sun went out, and left Pluto
once more the God of Darkness. It came on again, as the rear element
extended and shortened the focal length once more to a degree slightly
less than the length of the complex lens. It oscillated, and it
wavered, and it danced from spot to spot on Pluto. Where it touched
with perfect focus, it seared the ground and sent up huge gouts of
flame and tortured earth as the whole output of the sun bore down
upon a small circle. It hit the Sulphur Sea, and sent great steaming
clouds of vapor floating across the twin cities. It cut a sear across
the center of Bifrost Bridge, and cut the famed bridge in the middle
of the span. Bifrost broke and fell into the River Styx--and like the
famed tale of Ragnarok, the falling of Bifrost Bridge preceded a period
of terror.

The dancing spot of pure solar hell settled down, and with the
characteristic perversity of uncontrolled things, it came to a perfect
focal point of some six hundred feet in diameter, under which spot
everything went molten.

Without waiting for any further information, the astronomers at the
Pluto Observatory made rapid and precise calculations, and issued
orders to the effect that all people must evacuate along the expected
trail of destruction.

It was their quick work that stopped the casualty list short.

And Pluto, writhing in one tiny spot from terrific heat, began to cool
everywhere else. Men looked at one another in fear as the cooling
breezes began to sweep across the face of Pluto.

The production of uranium stopped, as did everything but the overworked
communications system.

       *       *       *       *       *

John McBride glared at the telephone. "They should know by now," he
snapped, "that we can't take time to use the phone with all of this
devilment going on."

Tommy handed him a spacegram. "Someone knows," he said cryptically.

McBride tore the 'gram open. "Oh, great ache! Tommy, pass the word on
the lens network. Tell 'em to cut the electro-gravitic warp, too.
The thing is focused right on the middle of Pluto and is cutting a
six-hundred-foot swath across the face of Pluto like an oxy-atomic
torch cuts butter."

"Can't we refocus it?" asked Tommy anxiously.

"Not without moving the stations. Or playing hob with the
warp-generators. Either way would take a week to adjust. Tell Adkins to
pull the big switch and hope for the best. Oh yes! Tell every mother's
son not to tinker with the P-T network. When we get this mess cleaned
up, we're going to need the placement again and there's little sense
in letting the stations run free. Thank the Lord the warp will tend to
align them again, once it goes on, or we'd have a six-month's space
surveying job to do."

The lens-network phone rang, and McBride answered.

"John? This is Fuller on 9. We just found Carlson under the alphatron.
He's knocked colder than last week's wash and he's got a bad alpha
burn."

"Better get him into an interstation flitter and bring him over. Or is
Doc Caldwell there?"

"No, he isn't!"

"Bring him over anyway. I'll broadcast a call for the doc."

"What'll we do without him?" asked Fuller in a helpless tone.

"What'll you do with him in an unconscious condition?" asked McBride
unsympathetically. "Before Carlson can do anything, we've got to bring
him into the open. Besides, we won't be ready for Carlson until we get
the mess cleared up."

"O.K.," said Fuller in an abashed tone. He hung up, and McBride snapped
the button that sent a loud-speaker call through the entire system.

"Is Doc Caldwell within hearing? Call McBride."

Automatic tapes took up the call and repeated it at intervals until the
doctor heard and put in a call to McBride.

"Yes, John?"

"Doc, where are you?"

"Station 27."

"What's doing?"

"Few minor cuts and a fractured skull."

"What does that mean in time?"

"Half hour."

"Then take it, and then get to 1 as soon as you can. Carlson needs
attention."

"Right-o!"

McBride called Station 9 again. "Fuller? Look, Bob, how's 9?"

"Not good," said Fuller glumly. "Only one thing outbalances the rest.
The alphatron went up with the rest of the stuff or Carlson would have
been burned to a crisp by now. That means we'll have to run over to 1
and get a new alphatron."

"Can you repair it?"

"Nope. The field coils are melted right down into a copper ring and the
insulation, which was vaporized, is now deposited all over the walls
of the station in about two hundred atomic thicknesses. The latter
is the worst, I think. That means that every single relay contact
in the place has got to be gone over with trichloroethylene and a
five-hundred-point file."

"O.K., Bob. Send Tiny Hanson over with Carlson and we'll send him back
with the alphatron. Need anything else?"

"Might send something that'll either precipitate or absorb the smell of
insulation. The whole joint stinks."

"Cheer up," said McBride. "Think of how it would stink if we were using
rubber like the old boys did. That, Bob, would really make your eyes
water! No, I haven't anything here that you haven't there. It'll go
away as the atmosphere clarifier takes up the impurities. Better keep
a close watch on the filter screens, though, or you'll get the system
fouled and the atmosphere will not be cleared."

"O.K. We're about to start right now. Tiny will be over in just as long
as it takes to go around the lens."

"Wait a minute! Cut across, Bob. After all, the lens is down, and we
needn't worry about crossing direct."

       *       *       *       *       *

The phone rang again. McBride picked it up and bellowed: "Hello!"

"Dr. McBride? This is Charles Holloway."

McBride swallowed. Holloway was the planet governor at Pluto. "Yes?" he
said in a quieter tone.

"You are aware that Pluto is without his artificial sun?"

"We are also aware that the lens system is without power for some
stations, without space-warping equipment for others, and without
personnel for still others. There may even be a few in which any
combination of the three vital factors in mathematical permutation may
be applied. If you're looking for encouragement, grasp this straw:
We're working like a pack of fools to re-instate the lens. And if
you care for my advice, I'd suggest that you issue orders that the
lens-to-planet telephone be restricted to calls made from Station 1. We
might need something in a tearing hurry."

"I shall issue such orders," promised Holloway. "I have also been
informed by the astrophysicists that Pluto will lose about two degrees
per hour until the lens is re-instated. There is still a lot of very
cold material down in the interior of the planet, they say, and it will
tend to draw heat from the surface. You know how the heat gradient is
from midnight to noon."

"I understand," said McBride. "But we're not sitting around
contemplating the temperature on Pluto, or calculating how soon it will
be before you can go ice skating on the River Styx. Good-by!"

John's sense of humor asserted itself, and he picked up a cryptic
little card that said: "Do Not Disturb" and hung it over the telephone.
He picked up the other phone, and called Station 6.

The telephone rang endlessly at the other end, and McBride cursed.
After ten minutes of solid ringing, McBride hung up in futility.
"Tommy," he yelled, and a young man came running. "Tommy," he said,
"get the number two flitter hot. You and I are going to go over to 6!"

Tommy left, and McBride called Station 8. The answer was prompt. "Look,
Jimmy, 6 doesn't answer. You send a couple of your men over--not your
best, but a couple that you can spare. I'm going to call 4 and get Jud
to send a couple of his assistant specialists over, too. I'll be over
myself as soon as I can get there; but it will be a long haul for me.
It's near the full diameter of the lens, and twenty-two million miles
is no stone's throw."

"O.K.," said Jimmy Allen. "Too bad about this charge business or you
could call 5 and 7."

"I know. It's bad enough that I have to change charge to get from 1 to
6, but I'll have enough time to do it, coming from here. Are you on?"

"Sure. We're not in too bad a shape. Mostly ruined wiring and welded
relays. The alphatron is still in fine shape, and the space-warp
generator can still do a job. As soon as we get cooking again, I'd
suggest a replacement, but the darned thing will hold up fine for a few
weeks until we have time and a breathing spell."

"O.K., on the way!"

"Right, boss!"

McBride's next call was to 4. "Jud," he said.

"Jud's nursing a set of busted arms," came the disconsolate answer.
"This is Pete Jackson."

"How bad is Jud?"

"Conscious, and madder than the devil. He can't even hold the phone,
you know, and so I'm acting as his mouthpiece."

"How's the station?"

"Mostly a mess of secondary damage, but it is pretty widespread.
Everything in the place caught hell, including the typewriter in the
office, which fell off the desk. Got a space-warp generator?"

"Yup, but can you repair yours?"

"I think so."

"Then take a stab at it. I've only got three replacements, and there
may be more than that blown out completely. All the results aren't in
yet."

"O.K., and we'll make repair right up to the point where we need the
generator anyway, whether we can repair ours or not. Then if we need
it, all we have to do is to hand it in and hook it up."

"Fine, Pete. Now look, 6 doesn't answer. Send Timkins out there with
Joyce. Must be pretty bad."

"O.K., boss. We're on our way."

       *       *       *       *       *

At Tommy's call, McBride went to the big air lock and the flitter took
off for 6. As they went, McBride operated the generator that reversed
their charge so that they could land on 6 without difficulty. Halfway
across the lens, the telephone in the flitter rang, and McBride dropped
the generator controls and picked up the instrument. "John," came the
voice, "this is Hastings, on 10. A space-ship just came limping into
the station, falling free. We slung out a line and caught it. We cut
her open and found the dame that was the cause of all this. What shall
I do now?"

"My better instincts say to slug her. The stuff I was taught at my
mother's knee says to spare the violence. Keep her there until I get
finished at 6."

"She insists on going to the main office."

"Y'might let her," said McBride thoughtfully, his voice slightly sour
with distaste.

"Gosh, boss, you can't do that."

"I know. Well, she can't get out of the lock without your assistance.
Unless I'm mistaken, all of you are far too busy to bother with a
headstrong female."

The phone was silent for a few seconds, and the sounds of a light
scuffle came over the line. Then a cool contralto came.

"I'm Sandra Drake," it said with a world of impertinence. "No man is
going to tell me where I can't go!"

"Sister," snapped McBride, "you keep that up and we'll jolly well tell
you where you _can_ go!" McBride hung up and redoubled his efforts
on the charge-reversal generator. "Women," he snarled, twisting the
generator controls as though he had the Drake woman by the throat.

Ten minutes before they landed at 6, McBride picked up the phone and
called 1. He spoke to his apartment. "Hello Enid," he said.

"John! What's all the shouting about?"

"La Drake tried to run her crate through the lens. She broke it."

"Who's la Drake?"

"Some dame. Look, Enid, what do you do to handle a headstrong female?
Besides giving her enough rope to commit self-destruction?"

"What's her purpose in life?" asked Enid McBride.

"Proving that men are inferior animals."

"I won't answer that one," chuckled McBride's wife. "Look, John, where
is this man-killer?"

"At 10."

"That's negative, isn't it?"

"Bright woman, yes," laughed McBride.

"Well, I'm no space-warp expert. How would I know?"

"Look, dear," said McBride patiently, "you divide them by two, as I've
said before a million times, and if they come out with nothing left
over, they're negative."

"But we're on 1--and you can't even divide one by two--"

"I know. One's positive anyway, Enid. Look, kiddo, leave things like
screwdrivers and volt-meters and calipers to me and you continue with
the can opener as your only tool. What are we going to do to Drake?"

"You stop on your way back and pick her up. I'll take care of Drake.
What did you say her first name was?"

"I didn't, but it's Sandra."

"Oh! You mean Sandra Drake, the novelist-adventuress?"

"I mean Sandra Drake, the she space-barnacle on the hull of progress."

"Oh, I've heard of her. And, John, I'll take care of her!"

"O.K., Enid. I'll see you when I get there."

"'By."

       *       *       *       *       *

Six was as silent as the proverbial tomb. They breached the lock from
the outside and went in slowly, to find the station a shambles. Fred
Atlock, the superintendent of 6, they found after some search. He was
unconscious, suffering from superficial shock, and he had a four-inch
cut on his shoulder which was slowly seeping blood from a large clot.
Dan Wilkins, the only other man on that station, they discovered in the
generator room, clinging speechlessly to the output terminals of the
alphatronic power supply. McBride cut the switch, which was one of the
few that hadn't welded shut, and the generator stopped immediately,
permitting Wilkins to free himself. "Great Lord," he gasped. "I've been
sitting there for nine years!"

"By actual count, it's been one hour and twenty-three minutes," McBride
told him. "How do you feel?"

"O.K.," said Wilkins in a matter-of-fact tone, and with a slight
eye-brow-raising look of surprise on his face that anyone should ask.
"After all, anything under twelve hundred alphons merely paralyzes all
of the voluntary muscles. The involuntary muscles are as good as gold
up to that figure. I just feel a little stiff, like I'd been sitting in
one position for an hour and better--which I have. I did everything
but explode when that phone rang, but I couldn't will myself loose.
When you're across one of those things, you can't even wink an eye at
will, but must wait until the involuntary nervous system winks it for
you. And, funny thing, you can't even stop your own breath; you just go
on breathing automatically, since that's what the involuntary system
demands."

"O.K. Where's the gang from 4 and 8?"

"I dunno. Are they coming?"

"Coming? I thought they were here by now."

McBride found the telephone and called 8. "Jimmy? Where is that gang
you were going to send to 6?"

"Sorry, Mac," answered Jimmy. "They were needed here to do a heavy job,
and so I kept them for a bit. They're on their way now."

"O.K., as long as they're on their way."

McBride's call to 4 was less productive. "Pete? Where is your crowd for
6?"

"Can't send more than one," returned Pete. "Still want him?"

"Why didn't you contact me?"

"Line was busy."

"O.K., send one man. The gang at 6 was indisposed, that's all, and Dan
can work now. Fred is going to be out of commission for the duration,
but he can still direct as soon as we get him patched."

To Wilkins, he said: "Dan, we're going to trot. There'll be help out
here soon. Tommy and I are needed on 10."

The flitter took off again and began to cross the lens for 10.

Allison, at 2, called and said: "McBride? Good news. Two and 3 are
ready for service."

"Swell," said McBride. "Now look, call the stations and ask who needs
help. You and Fellowes go out and assist."

"Right."

McBride hung up the phone, and it rang almost immediately.

"Mac? This is Caldwell."

"Yes, Doc?"

"Look, Carlson is in bad shape."

"Can you jack him up? Not now, but say in three hours?"

"Probably, but not more than a few minutes. He'd be better in
twenty-four hours."

"Gad, Doc, Pluto'll be forty-eight degrees colder in that time! Knock
forty-eight degrees off of the temperature on any planet, and you'll
probably knock the whole thing for a loop. Better patch him up, Doc,
because he's one of the mainsprings that'll be needed when we're about
to restore the lens."

"O.K.--and say, John, you don't mind my making a hospital out of your
lab?"

"Go ahead. How's the casualty situation?"

"Nothing fatal. Mostly an assortment of cuts, bruises, fractures, and
shock. I've been checking the stations, and we've been calling all bad
injuries in here for treatment. Takes a little longer, but I can keep
my eye on more men if they come than I could if I went traveling. Never
can tell what'll happen."

"Have you contacted the after stations? They got a shaking up, but
I don't believe that it was anything compared to the fore element
stations."

"No, most of the trouble in the back was due to being hit by slowly
moving objects of high inertia. They're mostly annoyed, back there.
The front system got it, though, what with flying spots of molten
metal, electrical discharges that convulsed muscles, and burns from
the alphatrons when they went load-free. A few of the boys got hurt
when the mechano-gravitic generators collected the full load of the
power sources and let them have anything from 10 to 15-G until the
gravity-switches cut out. That did more than haul the men to the floor;
it also hauled a lot of what would have been light stuff down on top of
them at weights from ten to fifteen times normal. That's what hurt the
most of them."

"What fell, mostly?"

"Light fixtures, and ceiling equipment. The busbar hangers on 7 gave
way and dropped a bus line on one fellow, breaking both legs. Eleven's
mechano-gravitic generator misfocused and hauled everything slaunchwise
into a corner of every room. The men picked themselves out of a pile of
material; everything from loose generators to odds and ends of wire.
The latter didn't hurt, but the heavy machinery did."

"Fine business, Doc. Keep 'em patched!"

"That's my business," said Caldwell. McBride could hear him muttering
as the doctor hung up.

       *       *       *       *       *

McBride's flitter landed at 10, and inside of the lock, he was met by a
picturesque red-headed woman of extreme beauty. There was green fire in
her eyes, and her anger possibly made her more beautiful. McBride took
everything from her expensively-shod feet to her exquisitely coiffed
hair in one sweeping glance and decided immediately that it was a shame
that a woman like Sandra Drake should have been a stinker.

"Mr. McBride, I assume?" she said in that contralto voice.

"Dr. McBride," he corrected, standing upon his dignity for the first
time in seven years.

"Doctor?" said Sandra scornfully. "Doctor of what?"

"Doctor of Philosophy, major in sublevel energies including the
gravitic spectrums; electro, magnetic, and mechanical. Master of
Mathematics, Bachelor of Arts, and Doctor of Language and Literature
Honorary. Is that sufficient weight to gain me a modicum of respect?"

"I have no respect for someone who stands in my way!"

"I see that. Nor anything, either. Do you know what stopped you?"

"No, but--"

"Your precious Dr. Holmann is an old goat who is still living in the
past. But even he should have known that you can't ram a space-ship
made of cupralum alloy through a magneto-gravitic space warp.
Permalloy, or alnico, or anything diamagnetic will zip through such
a warp and pick up velocity on the way--probably enough in this case
to crush you flat against the bottom of your ship. But a paramagnetic
alloy such as cupralum has about as much penetrative power as a
forty-five caliber slug of wet soap against tungsten-carballoy. But
at your velocity, not only did you stop in something short of nothing
flat--God knows what your deceleration added up to--but you fractured
the space warp, too."

"A man will do anything to prove his point," snapped Sandra. "And I
have no doubt that you would do anything, too. What did you use on the
_Lady Luck_?"

"Nothing."

"I don't believe you."

"I don't give a care! You want to go to Station 1? Then come along!"

"You lead in your ship, I'll drive the _Lady Luck_," said Sandra.

"Not on your life. You're going to leave the _Lady Luck_ right here."

"I don't see why--or do you intend to steal my ship?"

McBride gritted his teeth. "Look, beautiful and senseless. This is
Station 10. It is electronegative. One is electropositive. You haven't
got a charge-reversal generator in that crate of yours, because I know
darned well that the only place where they have 'em is right here in
the lens itself. It's the only place they're needed. Now, Miss Drake,
the lens is twenty-two million miles in diameter. It is that size
because a disk of that diameter subtends the same arc as the sun does
when viewed from Terra. Since the lens is situated halfway between Sol
and Pluto, the magnification amounts to the projection of the sun on
Pluto equal to the sun on Terra. Or don't you understand the simpler
mathematics of optical systems?

"Now, out across six and a half million miles of space, from here, are
Stations 9 and 1, both electropositive. It so happens, Miss Sandra
Drake, that _if the density of matter in space were as high as the
atmosphere of Terra at twenty thousand feet, the difference in charge
between Station 9 and this one, 10, would be high enough to cause an
ionization discharge_! Now put that in that jade cigarette holder and
choke on it! Can you possibly--is that microscopic mind of yours large
enough--conceive of the effect upon contact? Sister, you'd not only be
electrocuted, but you'd light up the sky with the electronic explosion
to a degree that would make some Sirian astronomer think that there was
a supernova right in his back yard. Now quit acting like the spoiled
brat you are, and come along."

"Nice, high-sounding, technical words," sniffed the red-headed girl. "I
presume that you have such a thing in that little can of yours? I mean
something that will change the charge on it while in flight?"

"I wouldn't have survived the first crossing if I hadn't," snapped
McBride.

"And pray tell, how do you detect the change in the electronic charge
from within?"

"The electronic charge is so great that a heavy active atom such as
bromine will, under the positive charge, lose enough of the outer ring
electrons as to inhibit the formation of the more complex atoms, while
under the negative charge there will be such an excess of electrons
that a heavy element of the zero group, such as xenon, will actually
be forced to accept an additional planetary electron and will then
combine with some of the more active elements. So when xenon bromide
forms, we know we're highly electronegative, while the chemical
dissolution of tetrachlorodibromomethane indicates a hellishly high
positive charge. When we approach the station, we use a little gadget
known as an electrostatic gradient indicator which is useful over short
distances, and with which we adjust our charge-difference to a sane
value. Pluto and the solar system in general can thank their stars that
the carbon-chain molecules that go into the human system are stable
enough to resist dissolution. We are able to maintain the lens on less
than enough charge to kill us all, though the boys in the odd-numbered
stations report a lower metabolism than those in the even numbered
ones."

McBride paused. "And if you're worried about that space-warp-wrecked
can of yours, I'll be more than glad to give you a receipt for it.
Coming? I've got to go."

Sandra Drake was still skeptical, but she followed in spite of it.

John McBride was met at the space lock of Station 1 by one of the
lesser casualties from 3, Douglas Whitlock. McBride said: "How's the
arm, Doug?"

"Broken, but on the mend. Doc will put a stader on it in a couple of
days and I'll be able to use it again."

"How's 3?"

"Not too bad. But, brother, there's a million miles of loose wire
floating around the place. Tonk and Harry are rewinding the alphatron
leader-coils which developed a shorted turn down near the core."

"How are they doing that?" asked McBride.

"It was tricky, all right. And this'll slay you. They're using the
nine-inch lathe!"

"Huh?" McBride was thunder-struck.

"Well, as Tonky said, it was an emergency. So they used the acetylene
torch to cut the lathe bed off right before the headstock. They moved
the rest of the bed back about twelve feet and welded it to one wall
of the room. Now, there's room to get that big core in the lathe. The
lathe is ruined, of course, or rather the bed is, but the alphatron
will be ticking them off in another couple of hours." Whitlock looked
at the girl and asked McBride: "Where did you find her?"

"This," said McBride, "is Miss Sandra Drake."

"Oh yes," said Whitlock brightly, "Drake, the human cannon ball ... or
is it screwball?"

"And what happened to you?" asked Sandra caustically. "Did you step
into an open port in the dark?"

"Frankly, I was hit by a falling busbar--"

"Probably the real cause of this whole failure."

There was fire and blood in Whitlock's eye as he looked at Sandra
Drake. Actual bloodshed was averted by a very scant margin when Enid
McBride entered and stepped before Sandra, cutting off any attempt of
Whitlock's to advance upon the red-headed female with intent to inflict
damage.

Enid McBride was three or four years older than the other woman,
and it must be reluctantly admitted that she was not the four-alarm
all-out beauty that was capable of matching looks with Sandra. On
the other--and most important--hand, Enid had the ability to make
men and women like her; in her less boisterous way, Enid's charm and
personality made itself felt even before she spoke to Sandra.

"You're needed," she told Sandra quietly.

"For what?" asked the Drake girl, and her cool contralto sounded
scratchy in contrast.

"We've a number of hurt men here and we need help. You're elected."

"I've never helped a man in my life."

"You are getting no younger," said Enid with a short laugh. "I'd say it
was about time you started."

"Oh men!"

Enid looked at McBride, and with that almost telepathy that seems to
exist between husband and wife, John understood that he was to leave
this to Enid. He thought with a smile: Enid's smaller, but I'll bet she
packs a better wallop! Then he motioned to Whitlock, and they left as
Enid said: "You're a complete washout, my dear, and your not knowing
that makes you even more complete. Why don't you get smart?"

"Are you trying to tell me how to manage my life?"

"It's time someone did. Obviously you aren't capable of managing it."

"I do all right."

"Nuts. If this is a sample of your brilliance, I say, 'bring back the
good old days!' Look, Sandra, what are you trying to prove?"

"That I'm as good as any man."

"Spinach. Ask any man and he'll probably admit it. What you're trying
to prove is that you're better than all men, isn't that it?"

"Well--"

"And since you are superior to men, no doubt you'd prefer legal
protection for them--marriage laws designed to assist and protect the
weaker and inferior male; labor restrictions so that grasping women may
not take advantage of them; protection so that avaricious women will
not be able to take advantage of his lesser experience?"

"Why that's ridiculous!"

"Is it? A few hundred years ago, men set up such laws to protect women
because they realized that there were among their own sex, men who
would think nothing of taking advantage of an unwary woman. As soon
as the women decided that they were equals, men reluctantly removed
that protection. Now, Sandra, if you are equal or superior to men, you
should be civic-minded enough to want to protect the weaker."

"Bah! You talk like a man!"

"Nonsense. I'd scream like a stuck pig if any man decided that I
couldn't take care of myself. But I have enough sense to realize that
all of the courtesies that men offer me are tokens of their affection
and not gestures toward someone who cannot get in out of the rain
without help. As for the weak, what would you say to a man who slugged
a woman and then ran off and left her to suffer?"

"He's a rat!"

"How about the dame who does the same to a man?"

"That's--"

"Be careful, Sandra Drake. The girl I'm speaking of is you!"

"Well--" Sandra let the sentence die in midstream.

"Think it over, lady wrestler. And when you make up your mind, come on
in and help."

Enid left Sandra standing in the room. She went to the improvised
hospital and began to work. Her touch was gentle, but within her, Enid
burned. To Enid, Sandra Drake was as representative of the female sex
as poison ivy is representative of the plant family.

       *       *       *       *       *

John McBride faced the men in his office. "Give it to me in rotation,"
he said. "Starting with Station 1."

"We're down to the ruined relays and a few hundred feet of burned
cable. A half hour with help."

"Two is running O.K. on test power. She can stand a little sprucing,
but that can wait."

"Three is ready for test power, or will be within the next ten minutes
or so."

"Four will be O.K. as soon as we get the space-warp generator tuned. We
managed to repair the input circuits."

"Five is running on test power."

"Six is ditto."

"Seven is still cleaning up some of the mess, but can go on test power
as soon as the time is ripe."

"Eight is O.K. except for some burned cable and some messiness. We
never were in really bad shape."

"We're still cleaning relay contacts with files. Take another hour at
least, and we've got so much help that the boys on the upper panels
are standing on the shoulders of the men working on the lower panels.
Also, they're so close together that they need a hortator to beat time
so their elbows won't clash. That's how we stand on 9."

"Ten's in shape for test."

"Eleven needs a new alphatron, which is being hooked into place right
now."

"Twelve is ready to go on test, according to Ben, who called just
before you came."

McBride smiled wearily. "That's the fore element," he said. "They tell
me that the rear element is all ready and waiting. So all we need now
is Carlson. Give orders to have the propulsion operators start aligning
their stations. And get me Doc Caldwell."

The phone rang and McBride picked it up. "This is Doc," said the man on
the other end. "Look, Mac, can you come over to my office?"

"Sure," answered McBride. To the men in the room, he said: "Fight it
out among you. Give help to any station that still needs it. We're
going back in service as soon as we can--in an hour, I'd estimate.
That's if Carlson is capable of handling his end."

McBride went to Doc's office. Caldwell smiled bleakly. "He's conscious.
He insists on talking to you."

"Is he O.K.?"

"He's weak, but he'll be all right for a few minutes."

"Look, Doc, I don't want to kill anybody by making him work when he's
likely to keel over, but we need Carlson if we ever needed any man.
Darn it, why are there so very few men with supersensitive balance?"

"It's hereditary, and the human race is still mongrel by its own law,"
said Doc with a smile. "By which I mean that it is illegal to marry
your own brother--or sister."

McBride laughed, and then went in to see Carlson.

"Carl," said McBride, "how do you feel?"

"Wobbly."

"How wobbly?"

"Not too bad. How're things?"

"We've been running around like waltzing mice for the past few hours,
but we'll be ready for business in a few hours."

"I'll be needed."

"In an hour."

"I'll be up."

"He'll be up," said Doc. "How long will he be needed?"

"Perhaps an hour."

"He won't be up that long."

"What can we do?"

"Get everything ready. If he can hold out, or if you can set things
so that the warp can be established in a shorter time, we're in. You
couldn't hold a partial warp for any length of time?"

"Not a chance. It's one of those yes or no things. You can't stand
still while building a space warp. You must either build up or let
fall."

"If you could use something less than perfect, supersensitive balance,
I could buck him up with a bit of dope and he'd last longer."

"Why not stand by with the needle? Or could you give him something
that will wear off in a half hour and sort of increase that balance as
the time passes--giving him the buck-up at the first and saving that
strength for later?"

"Might work, but I sort of hate to take finely-cut chances like that,"
said Caldwell. "We'll try it!"

       *       *       *       *       *

The last report was in, and all stations were ready and operating on
test power. McBride spoke into the broadcast communicator, so that the
superintendents of all stations could hear him simultaneously.

"Rear element, fore stations, set up primary warp."

Generators whined up the musical scale in the twelve stations that
circled the junction between the fore and aft elements. Slowly and
ponderously, the stations began to fall into a true plane, and as they
began to align, the electro-gravitic generators began to work more
efficiently.

Before the warp had started to form, McBride called: "Rear element,
rear stations, set up secondary warp!"

The rearmost twelve began to fling their power across the circle, and
the space between the two regular polygons began to take lenticular
shape. As it formed, it thickened, and the massiveness of the space
between the warps set the stations more firmly in place. They
oscillated gently back and forth, in a damped cycle and would be
moving in gentler and smaller excursions for days before they came to
total rest.

"Fore ring, set up magneto-gravitic warp!"

The heavy alphatrons began to fill the space between the fore
stations with alpha particles. Circling in ever-decreasing spirals,
the particles set up a super-powerful magnetic field parallel to the
axis of the lens. As they reached the center of the lens, the alpha
particles lost velocity and with their lost speed, they also lost their
effect. They died out, and to all effects, disappeared.

The space between the electro-gravitic warp and the magneto-gravitic
warp decreased as the fore warp thickened, and then with a sickening
swell on the part of the stations themselves, the center of the fore
warp touched the center of the aft warp.

Cohesion took place, and the fore warp, not completely formed, snapped
back against the electro-gravitic warp, drawing the fore stations
back a few miles with it. Their mass made them pass the point of
balance, and then the overly-convex surface exerted pressure against
the stations, and they moved forward into damped oscillation. The
oscillation continued for four long, slow swings, and then McBride
decided that they were stable enough for continued action.

"Doc," he yelled. "Get Carlson, take the surface flitter, and keep an
eye on him while he keeps an eye on the lens!"

Out across the fore surface of the magneto-gravitic warp went the
surface flitter. Out across the firm surface of warped space went the
flitter, running on the way of magnetic power where pseudo-gravity was
made at will. It ran across the lens to the center, and Carlson seated
himself in a stiff chair and put his head against a niche in the hard
back. Before his mouth a microphone was placed, and every bit of motion
was stopped in the flitter. Even the doctor sat quiet in order that he
would not disturb Carlson's perfect balance.

"We're thick on the 5 edge," he said, and McBride turned and spoke to
Station 5.

"Decrease alphatron output," he said.

"Now about one quarter that amount on 6."

The adjustments were made, and Carlson's perfect balance told him
whether or not the optical axis of the lens was correct by its pull
upon the semicircular canals of his inner ear. A half hour passed,
during which the power output of the various stations were adjusted,
and after each adjustment, there was a period of waiting as the new
output demanded a new positioning of the station to meet the curve of
the lens. Then Carlson said, in a tired voice: "Mac, they're O.K., I
think. Circle 'em!"

"How's he, Doc?" asked McBride.

"O.K., but weak. He'll last another fifteen minutes."

"Make him rest for that time. We'll need him then."

McBride gave the signal, and the three rings began to rotate; the
fore and aft rings going clockwise and the center ring moving in the
opposite direction.

Then, fifteen minutes later, when the rings had gained their orbital
velocity, Carlson resumed his post.

For ten minutes he sat stiffly in the chair, his eyes closed and his
every nerve straining to catch imperfections in the thickness of the
gravitic warps. He was the key to success, and he had no equal. For the
strength of the pseudo-gravities and the power of the magnetic field
that coupled with the fore element prevented any of the more intricate
machinery from functioning. Only man, whose nervous system was not
interrupted by magnetic fields, and whose chemistry and physical
attributes were not overly disturbed by electronic charges, could have
established the correction of the lens.

Carlson and Dr. Caldwell sat out in the center of a magneto-gravitic
field that would have destroyed the finest of balance-mechanism, and
above an electro-gravitic field that would have prevented the operation
of an instrument sensitive enough to detect imperfections in gravitic
alignment.

Always there would be men with Carlson's gift of super-perfect balance,
and they would find their life work in maintaining the life-giving
lenticular warp in space.

Carlson slumped wearily in his chair and smiled tiredly. "O.K.," he
said. Caldwell started the crude drive and the surface flitter started
to cross the lens to Station 1.

       *       *       *       *       *

On Pluto, the first sign of renewed life was a flash of light in the
sky. It started as an expanding pinpoint and burst out over a quarter
of the sky before it diminished to a safe value. The scintillating
fingers that darted from the twelve-scalloped sun were still. Then,
as the magneto-gravitic warp was established, the color of the sun
changed slightly, as the compounded lens removed harmful radiations
by controlled chromatic aberration. The size of pseudo-sol expanded
and contracted, and then settled down to a familiar size. The long
fingers of light, that were leakages through the interstices between
the stations, began to change as the stations took up their orbital
movement. Then the streamers began to spread outward from the sun,
detaching themselves as they reached maximum length and dying as their
inner ends crept out to meet the far extension of the streamer. Between
them, other streamers started to grow.

The pattern became familiar, and the men and women of Pluto ceased to
look at the wonder of their returned sun.

Then they returned to their everyday lives.


                               THE END.