Hal Clement - Answer

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ALVAN WREN, POISED beside a transparent port in the side of the service rocket, gazed out

with considerable interest. The object of his attention, hanging a few miles away and slowly drifting

closer, was not too imposing at first glance; merely a metal globe gleaming in the sun-light, the reflection

from its surface softened by a sec-ond, concentric, semitransparent envelope. At this dis-tance it did not

even look very large; there was no indication that more than seventy years of time and two hundred

million dollars in effort had already been ex-pended upon that inner globe, although it was still far from

completion. It had absorbed in that time, on an average, almost a quarter of the yearly income from a

gigantic research "sinking fund" set up by contributions from every institution of learning on Earth;

and—unlike most research projects so early in their careers—had already shown a sizable profit.

More detail began to show on both spheres, as the rocket eased closer. The outer envelope lost its

appear-ance of translucent haze and showed itself to be a silver lacework—a metallic mesh screen

surrounding the more solid core. Wren knew its purpose was to shield the del-icate circuits within from

interference when Sol spouted forth his streams of electrons; it was all he did know about the structure,

for Alvan Wren had a very poor grounding in the physical sciences. He was a psycholo-gist, with

enough letters after his name to shout down anyone who decried his intelligence, but the language of

volts and amperes, ergs and dynes was strange to him.

The pilot of the rocket was not acquainted with his passenger, and his remarks were not particularly

help-ful.

"We ought to make contact in about fifteen min-utes," he said. "We're not supposed to use rockets

close to the machine, and we have to brake down to safe con-tact speed at least twenty miles away.

That's why the final approach takes so long. They don't like anything they can't account for in the

neighborhood—and that goes for stray electrons and molecules, as well as atomic converters."

"What is their objection to rocket blasts, provided they're not fired directly at the station?" asked

Wren. "What influence could a jet of gas even one mile away possibly have on their machinery?"

"None, directly; but gases diffuse, and some of the elements in rocket fuel are easily ionized in

sunlight. The boys in there claim that the firing of a rocket blast five miles from the outer sphere will

disturb some of their circuits, when the molecules which happen to leak inside their screen are ionized

there. It sounds a little farfetched to me, but that's not my line. I do know that that machine is inoperative

nearly half the time from causes which are not precisely known, but which must be of the same order of

magnitude as the one I men-tioned. I'm careful of my jets around here, because they'd have my job if I

caused them trouble more than once; and the board would slap a 'lack of proficiency' on my dismissal

papers, so I'd have a nasty time finding a new one."

"If you make this trip regularly, I don't suppose you have much difficulty with this rather tricky glide."

"I'm used to it. I've been making this supply run every week for nearly three years, with special

flights be-tween times. This ship carries everything they need at the station, and also the bright boys from

home who have special problems to work, and don't believe the machine can handle them without their

personal pres-ence." The pilot looked sideways at Wren. "Most of those fellows were able to tell me

things I didn't know about the computer. You're the first sightseer I've ever carried. I didn't think the

universities encouraged them. Are you a journalist?"

Wren smiled. "I don't blame you for getting some such idea. I'll admit I don't know the first thing

about electronic computers; the station out here is only a name to me. But I have a problem. I don't

know whether it can be stated in terms that can be treated here or now; I know very little math; but I

decided to come out for a conference with the operators, to find out whether or not I could be helped."

He nodded at the great expanse of silver mesh that now filled almost the entire view area of the port.

"Aren't we getting pretty close?"

The pilot nodded silently and returned to his seat, curbing his curiosity for the time being. Actually,

there was little he could do during the "landing" since he was forbidden to use power; but he felt safer at

the controls while the coppery hull of his ship drifted into the resi-lient metal network of the static shield

and was seized by metal grapples—grapples operated by specially de-signed electric motors so

matched and paired that the inevitable magnetic, fields accompanying their operation were indetectable

at more than a few feet. The grapple cables tightened, and the swaying of the ship ceased gradually as its

kinetic energy was taken up by the resi-lient mesh. The pilot locked his controls, and rose with a grin.

"They tell me," he said, "that when the screen was first built, about forty years ago, some bright boy

de-cided that the supply rocket would have to be very care-fully insulated in order not to interfere with

the poten-tial equilibrium of the outer sphere; so they coated the hull of the ship that was being used then

with aluminum hydroxide, I think—something very thin, anyway, but a good insulator; and they made an

approach that way while a problem was being run." He grinned more broadly. "I don't know the exact

capacity of the con-denser thus formed, but there's an operator still out here whose favorite cuss word is

the name of that board member. They had to replace several thousand tubes, I guess. Now they look on

the supply ship as a necessary evil, and suspend operations while we come in and the accumulated

charge on the screen drains into our hull."

"How do I get in to the main part?" interrupted Wren, whose interest in historical anecdotes was not

of a high order.

"There's a hollow shaft opening outside the web not far from us. There will be men out in a few

moments to unload the ship, and they'll show you the way. You'll have to wear a spacesuit; I'll show you

how to get into it, if you'll come along." He led the way from the con-trol room to a smaller chamber

between it and the cargo compartments, and in a short time had the psychologist arrayed in one of the

bulky but flexible garments which men must wear to venture outside the metal bubbles which bear them

so far from their own element. The pilot donned one also, and then led the way through the main airlock.

Wren had become more or less used to weightlessness on the flight to the station, but its sudden

conjunction with so much open space unnerved him for a moment, and he clutched at the arm of the

figure drifting beside him. The pilot, understanding, steadied his companion, and after a moment they

were able to push themselves from the lip of the airlock toward the end of the metal tube whose mouth

was flush with the screen, and some thirty yards away from them. As they approached the opening, four

spacesuited men appeared in it, saw them, and waited to catch their flying forms. Wren found him-self

set "down" within reach of a heavy strand of silver cable, which he grasped in response to the gesture of

one of the men—their suit radios were not on the standard frequency, and as he learned later, were not

even turned on—while the pilot promptly leaped back across the gap to his ship and disappeared inside.

A moment later a large door aft of the airlock which he and Wren had used slid open, and the four

men of the station leaped for it. It was not an airlock; for con-venience of this particular station, the

supplies were packed in airtight containers and the storage holds were opened directly to the void for

unloading. The psychol-ogist watched with interest as one of the men came glid-ing back to the shaft

with the end of a rope in his gaunt-leted hands. He braced himself beside Wren and began pulling; and a

seemingly endless chain of sealed metal boxes began to trail from the open cargo door. The first of them

was accompanied by another of the men, who took the rope's end from the hands of the first and

dis-appeared down the shaft with it. After a brief pause, the procession of containers began to follow

him down the metal tube.

The whole unloading took less than a quarter of an hour. Wren rode the end of the chain down the

shaft with the rest of the men, and found himself eventually in a chamber large enough to accommodate

the whole cargo; a chamber that was evidently usable as an air-lock, for after sealing the door leading

from the outside, one of the men pressed a green button beside it, and within a few seconds the gradual

rise to audibility of a clanging bell betokened increased air pressure.

Wren removed his suit, with some assistance, as soon as he saw the others begin to do so; and as

soon as he was rid of it approached one of the unloading crew.

"Can you tell me," he asked, "how to locate Dr. Vainser? He should be expecting me; we have been

communicating for some time."

The man he had addressed looked down out of pale blue eyes from a height fully seven inches

greater than the psychologist's five feet nine.

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Hal Clement - Answer

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