Atom Drive Part 1

Atom Drive.

by Charles Louis Fontenay.

_It was a race between the tortoise and the hare. But this hare was using some dirty tricks to make sure the ending would be different...._

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Ill.u.s.trated by Ed Emsh_]

The two s.p.a.ceship crews were friendly enemies, sitting across the table from each other for their last meal before blastoff. Outside the ports, the sky was nothing but light-streaked blackness, punctured periodically by Earth glare, for s.p.a.ce Station 2 whirled swiftly on its axis, creating an artificial gravity.

"Jonner, I figured you the last man ever to desert the rockets for a hot-rod tow-job," chided Rus...o...b..at, captain of the Mars Corporation's gleaming new freighter, _Marsward XVIII_. Baat was fat and red-faced, and one of the shrewdest s.p.a.ce captains in the business.

Jonner Jons, at the other end of the table, inclined his grizzled head and smiled.

"Times change, Russo," he answered quietly. "Even the Mars Corporation can't stop that."

"Is it true that you're pulling five thousand tons of cargo, Captain?"

asked one of the crewmen of the _Marsward XVIII_.

"Something like that," agreed Jonner, and his smile broadened. "And I have only about twice the fuel supply you carry for a 100-ton payload."

The communicator above them squawked and blared:

"Captain Jons and Captain Baat of Martian compet.i.tion run, please report to control for final briefing."

"I knew it!" grumbled Baat, getting heavily and reluctantly to his feet.

"I haven't gotten to finish a meal on this blasted merry-go-round yet."

In the s.p.a.ce station's control section, Commander Ortega of the s.p.a.ce Control Commission, an ascetic officer in plain blues, looked them up and down severely.

"As you know, gentlemen," he said, "blastoff time is 0600. Tonnage of cargo, fuel and empty vessels cannot be a factor, under the law. The Mars Corporation will retain its exclusive franchise to the Earth-Mars run, unless the ship sponsored by the Atom-Star Company returns to Earth with full cargo at least twenty hours ahead of the ship sponsored by the Mars Corporation. Cargo must be unloaded at Mars and new cargo taken on.

I do not consider the twenty-hour bias in favor of the Mars Corporation a fair one," said Ortega severely, turning his gaze to Baat, "but the s.p.a.ce Control Commission does not make the laws. It enforces them.

Docking and loading facilities will be available to both of you on an equal basis at Phobos and Marsport. Good luck."

He shook hands with both of them.

"Saturn, I'm glad to get out of there!" exclaimed Baat, mopping his brow as they left the control section. "Every time I take a step, I feel like I'm falling on my face."

"It's because the control section's so close to the center," replied Jonner. "The station's spinning to maintain artificial gravity, and your feet are away from the center. As long as you're standing upright, the pull is straight up and down to you, but actually your feet are moving faster than your head, in a larger orbit. When you try to move, as in normal gravity, your body swings out of that line of pull and you nearly fall. The best corrective, I've found, is to lean backward slightly when you start to walk."

As the two s.p.a.ce captains walked back toward the wardroom together, Baat said:

"Jonner, I hear the Mars Corporation offered you the _Marsward XVIII_ for this run first, and you turned them down. Why? You piloted the _Marsward V_ and the _Wayward Lady_ for Marscorp when those upstarts in the Argentine were trying to crack the Earth-Mars run. This Atom-Star couldn't have enough money to buy you away from Marscorp."

"No, Marscorp offered me more," said Jonner, soberly now. "But this atomic drive is the future of s.p.a.ce travel, Russo. Marscorp has it, but they're sitting on it because they've got their fingers in hydrazine interests here, and the atom drive will make hydrazine useless for s.p.a.ce fuel. Unless I can break the franchise for Atom-Star, it may be a hundred years before we switch to the atom drive in s.p.a.ce."

"What the h.e.l.l difference does that make to you?" asked Baat bluntly.

"Hydrazine's expensive," replied Jonner. "Reaction ma.s.s isn't, and you use less of it. I was born on Mars, Russo. Mars is my home, and I want to see my people get the supplies they need from Earth at a reasonable transport cost, not pay through the nose for every packet of vegetable seed."

They reached the wardroom door.

"Too bad I have to degrav my old chief," said Baat, chuckling. "But I'm a rocket man, myself, and I say to h.e.l.l with your hot-rod atom drive.

I'm sorry you got deflected into this run, Jonner; you'll never break Marscorp's...o...b..t."

The _Marsward XVIII_ was a huge vessel, the biggest the Mars Corporation ever had put into s.p.a.ce. It was a collection of spheres and cylinders, joined together by a network of steel ties. Nearly 90% of its weight was fuel, for the one-way trip to Mars.

Its compet.i.tor, the _Radiant Hope_, riding ten miles away in orbit around the Earth, was the strangest looking vessel ever to get clearance from a s.p.a.ce station. It looked like a tug towing a barge. The tug was the atomic power plant. Two miles behind, attached by a thin cable, was the pa.s.senger compartment and cargo.

On the control deck of the _Radiant Hope_, Jonner gripped a microphone and shouted profane instructions at the pilot of a squat ground-to-s.p.a.ce rocket twenty miles away. T'an Li Cho, the ship's engineer, was peering out the port at the speck of light toward which Jonner was directing his wrath, while Qoqol, the Martian astrogator, worked at his charts on the other side of the deck.

"I thought all cargo was aboard, Jonner," said T'an.

"It is," said Jonner, laying the mike aside. "That G-boat isn't hauling cargo. It's going with us. I'm not taking any chances on Marscorp refusing to ferry our cargo back and forth at Mars."

"Is plotted, Jonner," boomed Qoqol, turning his head to peer at them with huge eyes through the spidery tangle of his thin, double-jointed arms and legs. He reached an eight-foot arm across the deck and handed Jonner his figures. Jonner gave them to T'an.

"Figure out power for that one, T'an," ordered Jonner, and took his seat in the cushioned control chair.

T'an pulled a slide rule from his tunic pocket, but his black almond eyes rested quizzically on Jonner.

"It's four hours before blastoff," he reminded.

"I've cleared power for this with s.p.a.ce Control," replied Jonner. "That planet-loving G-boat jockey missed orbit. We'll have to swing out a little and go to him."

On a conventional s.p.a.ce craft, the order for acceleration would have sent the engineer to the engine deck to watch his gauges and report by intercom. But the _Radiant Hope_'s "engine deck" was the atomic tug two miles ahead, which T'an, in heavy armor, would enter only in emergencies. He calculated for a moment, then called softly to Jonner:

"Pile One, in ten."

"In ten," confirmed Jonner, pulling a lever on the calibrated gauge of the radio control.

"Pile Two, in fifteen."

"In fifteen."

"Check. I'll have the length of burst figured for you in a jiffy."

A faint glow appeared around the atomic tug far ahead, and there was the faintest shiver in the ship. But after a moment, Qoqol said in a puzzled tone:

"No Gs, Jonner. Engine not work?"

"Sure, she's working," said Jonner with a grin. "You'll never get any more G than we've got now, Qoqol, all the way to Mars. Our maximum acceleration will be 1/3,000th-G."

"One three-thousandth?" exclaimed T'an, shaken out of his Oriental calm.

"Jonner, the _Marsward_ will blast away at one or two Gs. How do you expect to beat that at 1/3,000th?"