Speaker 1: The Sky Trap by Frank bell nap Long. This is
Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: Recording by Billy de shand The Sky Trap, a short
Speaker 1: story by Frank bell nap Long. Lawton enjoyed a good fight.
Speaker 1: He stood happily trading blows with Slashaway Tommy, his lean,
Speaker 1: fresh torso gleaming with sweat. He preferred to work the
Speaker 1: pugnacity out of himself slowly, to savor it as it ebbed.
Speaker 1: Better luck next time, slash Away, he said, and unlimbered
Speaker 1: a left hook that thudded against his opponent's jaw with
Speaker 1: such violence that the big hairy ape crumpled to the
Speaker 1: resin and rolled over on his back. Lawton brushed a
Speaker 1: lock of rust colored hair back from his brow and
Speaker 1: stared down at the limp figures lying on the descending
Speaker 1: stratoship's slightly tilted athletic deck. Good work, slash Away, he said.
Speaker 1: You're primitive and beetle browed, but you've got what it takes.
Speaker 1: Lawton flattered himself that he was the opposite of primitive
Speaker 1: high in the sky. He had predicted the weather for
Speaker 1: eight days running, with far more accuracy than he could
Speaker 1: have put into a punch. They'd flash his report all
Speaker 1: over Earth in a couple minutes now, from New York
Speaker 1: to London, to Singapore and back. In half an hour.
Speaker 1: He'd be donning street clothes and stepping out feeling darned good.
Speaker 1: He had fulfilled his weekly obligation to society by manipulating
Speaker 1: meteorological instruments for forty five minutes high in the warm
Speaker 1: upper stratosphere, and worked off his pugnacity by knocking down
Speaker 1: a professional gym slugger. He would have a full, glorious
Speaker 1: week now to work off all his other drives. The
Speaker 1: strataship's commander, Captain Forrester, had come up and was staring
Speaker 1: at him reproachfully, Dave, I don't hold with the reforming
Speaker 1: Johnnies who want to remake human nature from the ground up.
Speaker 1: But you've got to admit our generation knows how to
Speaker 1: keep things humming with a minimum of stress. We don't
Speaker 1: have world wars now because we work off our pugnacity
Speaker 1: by sailing into jim sluggers eight or ten times a week.
Speaker 1: And since our romantic emotions can be taken care of
Speaker 1: by tactile television, we're not at the mercy of every
Speaker 1: brainless bit of fluff's calculated ankle appeal. Lawton turned and
Speaker 1: regarded him quizzically. Don't you suppose I realized that you'd
Speaker 1: think I just blew in from Mars? All right, we
Speaker 1: have the outlets, the safety valves. They are supposed to
Speaker 1: keep us civilized, but you don't derive any benefit from them.
Speaker 1: The heck, I don't I exchange blows with slash Away
Speaker 1: every time I bored the perseus. And as for women, well,
Speaker 1: there's just one woman in the world for me, and
Speaker 1: I wouldn't exchange her for all the Turkish images in
Speaker 1: the tactyle broadcasts from Stamboul. Yes, I know, but you
Speaker 1: work off your primitive emotions with too much gusto. Even
Speaker 1: a cast iron Jim Slugger can bruise. That last blow
Speaker 1: was brutal. Just because slash Away gets thumped and fluoded
Speaker 1: all over by the medical staff twice a week doesn't
Speaker 1: mean he can take the stratuship lurched. Suddenly, the deck
Speaker 1: heaved up under Lawton's feet, hurling him against Captain Forrester
Speaker 1: and spinning both men around so that they seemed to
Speaker 1: be waltzing together across the ship. The still limp Jim
Speaker 1: Slugger slid forward, colliding with a corrugated metal bulkhead, and
Speaker 1: slashing back and forth like a wet mackerel. A full
Speaker 1: minute passed before Lawton could put a stop to that.
Speaker 1: Even while careening, he had been alive to slash Away's
Speaker 1: peril and had tried to leap to his aid, But
Speaker 1: the ship's steadily increasing gyrations had hurled him away from
Speaker 1: the skipper and against a massive vaulting horse, barking the
Speaker 1: flesh from his shins and spilling him with violence on
Speaker 1: to the deck. He crawled now toward the prone Jim
Speaker 1: Slugger on his hands and knees, his temples thudding. The
Speaker 1: gyrations ceased an instant before he reached Slashaway's side. With
Speaker 1: an effort, he lifted the big man up, propped him
Speaker 1: against the bulkhead, and shook him until his teeth rattled
Speaker 1: slash Away. He muttered, slash Away, old fellow. Slash Away
Speaker 1: opened his blurred eyes. Phew, he muttered, you sure socked
Speaker 1: me hard, sir. You went out like a light, explained
Speaker 1: Lawton gently, a minute before the ship lurched. The ship lurched, Sir,
Speaker 1: something's very wrong. Slash Away. The ship isn't moving. They're
Speaker 1: no vibrations. And slash Away, are you hurt? Your skull
Speaker 1: thumped against that bulkhead so hard. I was afraid. Nah,
Speaker 1: I'm okay. What do you mean the ship ain't moving?
Speaker 1: How could it stop? Lawton said, I don't know, slash Away,
Speaker 1: Helping the Jim's slugger to his feet, he stared apprehensively
Speaker 1: about him. Captain Forrester was kneeling on the resin, testing
Speaker 1: his hocks for sprains with splayed fingers, his features twitching
Speaker 1: hurt back, Sir, the commander shook his head. I don't
Speaker 1: think so, Dave. We are twenty thousand feet up, so
Speaker 1: how in hell could we be stationary in space? It's
Speaker 1: all yours, Skipper. I must say you're helpful. Forrester got
Speaker 1: painfully to his feet and limped toward the Athletic Compartment's
Speaker 1: single quartz port, A small circle of radiance on a
Speaker 1: level with his eyes. As the port sloped downward at
Speaker 1: an angle of nearly sixty degrees, all he could see
Speaker 1: was a diffuse glimmer until he wedged his brow in
Speaker 1: the observation visor and stared downward. Lawton heard him suck
Speaker 1: in his breath, sharply, Well, sir, they are thin, sirrus
Speaker 1: clouds directly beneath us. They're not moving. Lawton gasped the
Speaker 1: sense of being in an impossible situation, swellington nightmare proportions
Speaker 1: within him. What could have happened directly behind him, close
Speaker 1: to a bulkhead chronometer which was clicking out the seconds
Speaker 1: with unabashed regularity, was a mist see blue visiplate that
Speaker 1: merely had to be switched on to bring the pilots
Speaker 1: into view. The commander hobbled toward it and manipulated a riostat.
Speaker 1: The two pilots appeared side by side on the screen,
Speaker 1: sitting amidst the spidery network of dully gleaming pipelines and
Speaker 1: Nichrome humidification units. They had unbuttoned their high altitude coats
Speaker 1: and their stratosphere helmets were resting on their knees. The
Speaker 1: jabbo choughed candle light, which flooded the pilot room accentuated
Speaker 1: the haggardness of their features, which were a sickly cadaverous hue.
Speaker 1: The captain spoke directly into the visiplate. What's wrong with
Speaker 1: the ship, he demanded, Why aren't we descending, Dawson, you
Speaker 1: do the talking. One of the pilots leaned tensely forward
Speaker 1: his shoulders, jerking, We don't know, sir. The rotaries went
Speaker 1: dead when the ship started gyrating. We can't work the
Speaker 1: emergency torps, and the temperature is rising. But it defies
Speaker 1: all logic, Forester muttered, how could a ship weighing tons
Speaker 1: be suspended in the air like a balloon? It is stationary,
Speaker 1: but it is not buoyant. We seem in all respects
Speaker 1: to be frozen in The explanation may be simpler than
Speaker 1: you dream, Lawton said. When we found the key, the
Speaker 1: captain swung toward him. Could you find the key, Dave,
Speaker 1: I should like to try. It may be hidden somewhere
Speaker 1: on the ship, And then again it may not be.
Speaker 1: But I should like to go over the ship with
Speaker 1: a fine tooth comb, and then I should like to
Speaker 1: go over outside thoroughly. Suppose you make me an emergency
Speaker 1: mate and give me a carte blanche. Sir Lowton got
Speaker 1: his carte blanche for two hours He did nothing spectacular,
Speaker 1: but he went over every inch of the ship. He
Speaker 1: also lined up the crew and pumped them. The men
Speaker 1: were as completely in the dark as the pilots and
Speaker 1: the now completely recovered slash Away, who was following Lawton
Speaker 1: about like a doting seal. You are a right guy, sir.
Speaker 1: Another two or three cracks and my noggin would have
Speaker 1: split wide open. But not like an eggshell, slash Away.
Speaker 1: Pig iron develops fissures under terrific pounding, but your cranium
Speaker 1: seems to be more like tempered steel. Slash Away, you
Speaker 1: won't understand this. But I've got to talk to somebody,
Speaker 1: and the captain is too busy to listen. I went
Speaker 1: over the entire ship because I thought there might be
Speaker 1: a hidden source of buoyancy somewhere. It would take a
Speaker 1: lot of air bubbles to turn this ship into a balloon.
Speaker 1: But there are large vacuum chambers under the multiple series
Speaker 1: condensers in the engine room which conceivably could have sucked
Speaker 1: in a helium leakage from the carbon pile valves. And
Speaker 1: there are bulkhead porocytes which could have been clogged. Yeah,
Speaker 1: muttered slash Away, scratching his head. I see what you mean, sir.
Speaker 1: It was no soap. There's nothing inside the ship that
Speaker 1: could possibly keep us up. Therefore, there must be something
Speaker 1: outside that isn't air. We know there is air outside.
Speaker 1: We've stuck our heads out and sniffed it, and we've
Speaker 1: found out a curious thing. Along with the eye oxygen.
Speaker 1: There is water vapor, but it isn't H two. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's H O. A molecular arrangement like that occurs in
Speaker 1: the upper solar atmosphere, but nowhere on Earth. And there's
Speaker 1: a thin sprinkling of hydrocarbon molecules out there too. Hydrocarbon
Speaker 1: appears ordinarily as methane gas, but out there it rings
Speaker 1: up as ch Methane is H four. And there are
Speaker 1: also scandium oxide molecules making unfamiliar faces at us. An
Speaker 1: oxide of boron with an equational limp G muttered slashway,
Speaker 1: we're up against it, eh. Lawton was squatting on his
Speaker 1: hands beside an emergency shoot opening on the back of
Speaker 1: the Penguin's weather observatory. He was letting down a spliced
Speaker 1: beryllium plumb line. His gaze riveted on the slowly turning
Speaker 1: horizontal drum of a windlass, which contained more than two
Speaker 1: hundred feet of gleaming metal cordage. Suddenly, as he stared,
Speaker 1: the drum stopped revolving. Lawton stiffened, a startled exp expression
Speaker 1: coming onto his face. He had been playing a hunch
Speaker 1: that had seemed as insane rationally considered as his wild
Speaker 1: idea about the bulkhead porocytes. For a moment, he was stunned,
Speaker 1: unable to believe that he had struck pay dirt. The
Speaker 1: winch indicator stood at one hundred and three feet, giving
Speaker 1: him a rich, fruity yield of startlement. One hundred feet below,
Speaker 1: the plummet rested on something solid that sustained it in space.
Speaker 1: Scarcely breathing, Lawton leaned over the windless and stared downward.
Speaker 1: There was nothing visible beneath the ship and the fleecy
Speaker 1: clouds far below, except a tiny black dot resting on
Speaker 1: vacancy in a thin beryllium plumb line, ascending like an
Speaker 1: interrogation point from the dot to the chute opening. You
Speaker 1: see something down there, slash away, asked Lawton moved back
Speaker 1: from the windlass, his brain whirling slash away. There's a
Speaker 1: solid surface directly beneath us, But it's completely invisible. You
Speaker 1: mean it's like a frozen cloud, Sir, No, slash Away.
Speaker 1: It doesn't shimmer or deflect light. Congealed water vapor would
Speaker 1: sink instantly to earth. You think it's all around us,
Speaker 1: Sir Lawton stared at Slashaway, aghast in his crude fumblings,
Speaker 1: the Jim's slugger had ripped a hidden fear right out
Speaker 1: of his subconsciousness into the light. I dunno slash away,
Speaker 1: he muttered, I'll get at that next. A half hour later,
Speaker 1: Lawton sat behind the Captain's desk in the control room,
Speaker 1: his face drained of all color. He kept his gaze
Speaker 1: averted as he talked. A man who succeeds too well
Speaker 1: with an unpleasant task may develop a subconscious sense of guilt. Sir,
Speaker 1: We're suspended inside a hollow sphere which resembles a huge
Speaker 1: floating soap bubble. Before we ripped through it, it must
Speaker 1: have had a plastic surface. But now the tear has
Speaker 1: apparently healed over, and the shell all around us is
Speaker 1: as resistant as steel. We're completely bottled up, Sir. I
Speaker 1: shot rocketly in all directions to make certain the expression
Speaker 1: on Forrester's face sold mere amazement down the river. He
Speaker 1: could not have looked more startled if the nearer planets
Speaker 1: had yielded their secrets chillingly and a super race had
Speaker 1: appeared suddenly on Earth. Good God, Dave. Do you suppose
Speaker 1: something has happened to space? Lawton raised his eyes with
Speaker 1: a shudder. Not necessarily, sir, something has happened to us.
Speaker 1: We're floating through the sky in a huge, invisible bubble
Speaker 1: of some sort, but we don't know whether it has
Speaker 1: anything to do with space. It may be a meteorological phenomenon.
Speaker 1: You say we're floating. We're floating slowly westward. The clouds
Speaker 1: beneath us have been receding for fifteen or twenty minutes now, Phew,
Speaker 1: muttered Forester. That means we've got to he broke off abruptly.
Speaker 1: The Perseus's radio operator was standing in the doorway, distress
Speaker 1: and indecision in his gaze. Our reception is extremely sporadic, sir,
Speaker 1: he announce. We can pick up a few of the
Speaker 1: stronger broadcasts, but our emergency signals haven't been answered. Keep trying,
Speaker 1: Forester ordered, Ay, ay, sir. The captain moved to Lawton
Speaker 1: suppose we call it a bubble. Why are we suspended
Speaker 1: like this immovably? Your rocket leads shot up and the
Speaker 1: plumb line dropped one hundred feet. Why should the ship
Speaker 1: itself remain stationary? Lawton said. The bubble must possess sufficient
Speaker 1: internal equilibrium to keep a big, heavy body suspended at
Speaker 1: its core. In other words, we must be suspended at
Speaker 1: the hub of converging energy lines. You mean we're surrounded
Speaker 1: by an electromagnetic field, Lawton frowned. Not necessarily, sir, I'm
Speaker 1: simply pointing out that there must be an energy tug
Speaker 1: of some sort involved, Otherwise the ship would be resting
Speaker 1: on the inner surface of the bubble. Forrester nodded grimly.
Speaker 1: We should be thankful. I suppose that we can move
Speaker 1: about inside the ship. Dave? Do you think a man
Speaker 1: could descend to the inner surface. I've no doubt that
Speaker 1: a man could, Sir. Shall I let myself down? Absolutely not?
Speaker 1: Damn it, Dave. I need your energies inside the ship.
Speaker 1: I could wish for a less impulsive first officer, but
Speaker 1: a man in my predicament can't be choosy. Then what
Speaker 1: are your orders, sir? Orders? Do I have to order
Speaker 1: you to think is working something out for yourself such
Speaker 1: a strain. We're drifting straight toward the Atlantic Ocean. What
Speaker 1: do you propose to do about that? I expect he'll
Speaker 1: have to do my best. Sir Lawton's best conflicted dynamically
Speaker 1: with the captain's orders. Ten minutes later, he was descending
Speaker 1: hand over hand on a swaying emergency ladder. Tough fibered.
Speaker 1: Davy goes down to look around, he grumbled. He was
Speaker 1: conscious that he was flirting with danger. The air outside
Speaker 1: was breathable, but would the diffuse unorthodox gases injure his lungs.
Speaker 1: He didn't know, couldn't be sure, but he had to
Speaker 1: admit that he felt all right ight so far, he
Speaker 1: was seventy feet below the ship and not at all dizzy.
Speaker 1: When he looked down, he could see the purple domed
Speaker 1: summits of mountains between gaps in the fleecy cloud blanket.
Speaker 1: He couldn't see the Atlantic Ocean. Yet, he descended the
Speaker 1: last thirty feet with mounting confidence. At the end of
Speaker 1: the ladder, he braced himself and let go. He fell
Speaker 1: about six feet, landing on his rump on a spongy
Speaker 1: surface that bounced him back and forth. He was vaguely
Speaker 1: incredulous when he found himself sitting in the sky, staring
Speaker 1: through his spread legs at mountains and clouds. He took
Speaker 1: a deep breath. It struck him that the sensation of
Speaker 1: falling could be present without movement downward through space. He
Speaker 1: was beginning to experience such a sensation. His stomach twisted
Speaker 1: and his brain spun. He was suddenly sorry he had
Speaker 1: tried this. It was so damnably unnerving. He was afraid
Speaker 1: of losing all emotional control. He stared at his eyes,
Speaker 1: squinting against the sun. Far above him, the gleaming, wedge
Speaker 1: shaped bulk of the perseiesst loomed colossally, blocking out a
Speaker 1: fifth of the sky. Lowering his right hand, he ran
Speaker 1: his fingers over the invisible surface beneath him. The surface
Speaker 1: felt rubbery, moist. He got swayingly to his feet and
Speaker 1: made a perilous attempt to walk through the sky. Beneath
Speaker 1: his feet, the mysterious surface crackled, the little sparks flew
Speaker 1: up about his legs. Abruptly, he sat down again, his
Speaker 1: face ashen from the emergency shoot opening. Far above, a
Speaker 1: massive head appeared You all right, Sir, Slashaway called, his voice,
Speaker 1: vibrant with concern. Well, I you'd better come right up,
Speaker 1: sir Captain's orders. All right, Lawton shouted. Let the ladder
Speaker 1: down another ten feet. Lawton ascended rapidly, resentment smoldering within him.
Speaker 1: What right had the skipper to interfere? He had passed
Speaker 1: the buck, hadn't he? Lawton got another bad jolt in
Speaker 1: thant he emerged through the chute opening. Captain Forrester was
Speaker 1: leaning against a parachute rack, gasping for breath, his face
Speaker 1: a livid hue. Slashaway looked equally bad. His jaw muscles
Speaker 1: were twitching, and he was tugging at the collar of
Speaker 1: his gym suit. Forrester gasped, Dave, I tried to move
Speaker 1: the ship. I didn't know you were outside. Good God,
Speaker 1: you didn't know. The rotaries backfired and used up all
Speaker 1: the oxygen in the engine room. Worse, there's been a
Speaker 1: carbonic oxide seepage. The air is contaminated throughout the ship.
Speaker 1: We'll have to open the ventilation valves immediately. I've been
Speaker 1: waiting to see if if you could breathe down there.
Speaker 1: You're all right, aren't you? The air is breathable. Lawton's
Speaker 1: face was dark with fury. I was an experimental rat
Speaker 1: in the sky. Eh, look, Dave, we're all in danger.
Speaker 1: Don't stand there glaring at me. Naturally, I waited. I
Speaker 1: have my crew to think of, well, think of them.
Speaker 1: Get those valves open before we all have convulsions. A
Speaker 1: half hour later, charcoal gas was mingling with oxygen outside
Speaker 1: the ship, and the crew was breathing it in again, gratefully,
Speaker 1: thinly dispersed and mixed with oxygen. It seemed all right,
Speaker 1: but Lawton had misgivings. No matter how attenuated a lethal
Speaker 1: gas is, it is never entirely harmless. To make matters worse,
Speaker 1: they were over the Atlantic Ocean. Far beneath them was
Speaker 1: an emerald turbulence, half obscured by eastward moving cloud masses.
Speaker 1: The bubble was holding, but the morale of the crew
Speaker 1: was beginning to sag. Lawton paced the control room. Deep
Speaker 1: within him, unsuspected energies surged. We'll last until the oxygen
Speaker 1: is breathed up, he exclaimed. We'll have four or five
Speaker 1: days at most, but we seem to be traveling faster
Speaker 1: than an ocean liner. With luck, we'll be in Europe
Speaker 1: before we become carbon dioxide breathers. Will that help matters, Dave,
Speaker 1: said the captain, warily. If we can blast our way out,
Speaker 1: it will the captain's sagging body jackknife direct blast our
Speaker 1: way out? What do you mean, Dave? I've clamped expulsor
Speaker 1: disks on the cosmic ray absorbers and train them downward.
Speaker 1: A thin stream of accidental neutrons directed against the bottom
Speaker 1: of the bubble may disrupt its energies. Wear it thin.
Speaker 1: It's a long gamble, but worth taking. We're staking nothing.
Speaker 1: Remember Forester sputtered nothing but our lives. If you blast
Speaker 1: a hole in the bubble, you'll destroy its energy balance.
Speaker 1: Did that occur to you? Inside a lopsided bubble, we
Speaker 1: may careen dangerously or fall into the sea before we
Speaker 1: can get the rotaries started. I thought of that. The
Speaker 1: pilots are standing by to start the rotaries the instant
Speaker 1: we lurch. If we succeed in making a rent in
Speaker 1: the bubble, we'll break out the helicoptic veines and descend vertically.
Speaker 1: The rotaries won't backfire again. I've had their burnt out
Speaker 1: cylinder heads replaced. An agitated voice came from the visit
Speaker 1: plate on the captain's desk, tuning in, Sir, Lawton stopped
Speaker 1: pacing abruptly. He swung about and grasped the desk edge
Speaker 1: with both hands, his head touching foresters as the two
Speaker 1: men stared down at the horizontal face of Petty Officer
Speaker 1: James Caldwell. Caldwell wasn't more than twenty two or three,
Speaker 1: but the screen's opalescence silvered his hair and misted the
Speaker 1: outlines of his jaw, giving him an aspect of sinility. Well,
Speaker 1: young man, forester growled, what is it? What do you want?
Speaker 1: The irritation in the Captain's voice seemed to increase Caldwell's agitation.
Speaker 1: Lawton had to say, all right, lad, let's have it.
Speaker 1: Before the information, which he had seemed bursting to impart,
Speaker 1: could be wrenched out of him. It came in erratic spurts.
Speaker 1: The bubble is all blooming, sir, all around inside their
Speaker 1: big yellow and purple grass. It started up above and
Speaker 1: and spread around. First there was just a clouding over
Speaker 1: the sky, sir, and then stocks shot out. For a moment,
Speaker 1: Lawton felt as though all sanity had been squeezed from
Speaker 1: his brain twice, he started to ask a question and
Speaker 1: thought better of it. Pumpings were superfluous. When he could
Speaker 1: confirm Caldwell's statement in half a minute for himself. If
Speaker 1: Caldwell had cracked up, Caldwell hadn't cracked. When Lawton walked
Speaker 1: to the quartz port and stared down, all the blood
Speaker 1: drained from his face. The vegetation was luxuriant and unearthly.
Speaker 1: Floating in the sky were serpentine tendrils as thick as
Speaker 1: a man's wrist, purplish flowers, and ropy fungus growths. They
Speaker 1: twisted and writhed and shot out in all directions, creating
Speaker 1: a tangle immediately beneath him and curving up toward the ship.
Speaker 1: Amidst the welter of seed pods. He could see the
Speaker 1: seeds dropping dropping from pods, which reminded him of the
Speaker 1: darkly horned skate egg sheaths which he had collected in
Speaker 1: his boy head from sea beaches at Ebb Tide. It
Speaker 1: was the unwholesomeness of the vegetation which chiefly unnerved him.
Speaker 1: It looked dank, malarial. There were decaying patches on the
Speaker 1: fungus growths, and a miasmal mist was descending from it
Speaker 1: toward the ship. The control room was completely still when
Speaker 1: he turned from the quartz port to meet Forester's startled gaze. Dave,
Speaker 1: what does it mean? The question burst explosively from the
Speaker 1: Captain's lips. It means life has appeared and evolved and
Speaker 1: grown rotten ripe inside the bubble, sir, all in the
Speaker 1: space of an hour or so. But that's impossible, Lawton
Speaker 1: shook his head. It isn't at all, sir. We've hadn't
Speaker 1: drowned into us that evolution proceeds at a snailish pace.
Speaker 1: But what proof have we that it can't mutate with
Speaker 1: lightning like rapidity. I've told you there are gases outside
Speaker 1: we can't even make in a chemical laboratory, molecular arrangements
Speaker 1: that are alien to Earth. But plants derive nourishment from
Speaker 1: the soil interpolated Forester, I know. But if there are
Speaker 1: alien gases in the air, the surface of the bubble
Speaker 1: must be reeking with unheard of chemicals. There may be
Speaker 1: compounds inside the bubble which have so sped up organic
Speaker 1: processes that a hundred million years cycle of mutations has
Speaker 1: been telescoped into an hour. Lawton was pacing the floor again.
Speaker 1: It would be simpler to assume that seeds of existing
Speaker 1: plants became somehow caught up and imprisoned in the bubble.
Speaker 1: But the plants around us never existed on Earth. I'm
Speaker 1: no botanist, but I know what the Congo has untapped
Speaker 1: and the great rainforests of the Amazon dave. If the
Speaker 1: growth continues, it will fill the bubble. It will choke
Speaker 1: off all our air. Don't you suppose I realize that
Speaker 1: we've got to destroy that growth before it destroys us.
Speaker 1: It was pitiful to watch the crewis mora al sag.
Speaker 1: The miasmal taint of the ominously proliferating vegetation was soon
Speaker 1: pervading the ship, spreading demoralization everywhere. It was particularly awful
Speaker 1: straight down above a ropey tangle of livid vines and creepers,
Speaker 1: a kingly stench weed towered purplition, bloated and weighing down
Speaker 1: with seed pods. It seemed sentient. Somehow. It was growing
Speaker 1: so fast that the evil odour which poured from it
Speaker 1: could be correlated with the increase of tension inside the ship.
Speaker 1: From that particular plant. Minute by slow minute, there surged
Speaker 1: a continuously mounting offensiveness like nothing Lawton had ever smelt before.
Speaker 1: The bubble had become a blooming horror, sailing slowly westward
Speaker 1: above the storm tossed Atlantic, and all the chemical agents
Speaker 1: which Lawton sprayed through the ventilation valves failed to impede
Speaker 1: the growth or destroy a single seed pod. It was
Speaker 1: difficult to kill plant life with chemicals which were not
Speaker 1: harmful to man. Lawton took dangerous risks, increasing the unwholesomeness
Speaker 1: of their rapidly dwindling air supply by spraying out a
Speaker 1: thin diffusion of problematically poisonous acids. It was no sale.
Speaker 1: The growths increased by leaps and bounds, as though determined
Speaker 1: to show their resentment of the measures taken against them
Speaker 1: by marshaling all their forces in a demoralizing plant creek thwarted. Desperate,
Speaker 1: Lawton played his last card. He sent five members of
Speaker 1: the crew equipped with blow guns. They returned screaming. Lawton
Speaker 1: had to fortify himself with a double whiskey soda before
Speaker 1: he could face the look of reproach in their eyes
Speaker 1: long enough to get all the prickles out of them.
Speaker 1: From then on, pandemonium rained blue funk seeds. The petty
Speaker 1: officers while some of the crew ran amook. One member
Speaker 1: of the engine watch attacked four of his companions with
Speaker 1: a wrench. Another went into the ship's kitchen and slashed
Speaker 1: himself with a paring knife. The assistant engineer leaped through
Speaker 1: a chute opening after avowing, and he preferred impalement to suffocation.
Speaker 1: He was impaled. It was horrible. Looking down, Lawdon could
Speaker 1: see his twisted body dangling on a crimson stippled thornlike
Speaker 1: growth forty feet in height. Slash Away was standing at
Speaker 1: his elbow in that waterloo moment, his rough hewn features twitching.
Speaker 1: I can't stand it, sir. It's driving me squarely. I know,
Speaker 1: slash Away, there's something worse than marijuana weed down there.
Speaker 1: Slash Away swallowed hard. That poor guy down there did
Speaker 1: the wise thing. Lawdon husked. Stamp on that idea slash
Speaker 1: Away kill it worse stronger than he was. There isn't
Speaker 1: an ounce of weakness in us. We've got what it takes.
Speaker 1: A guy can stand just so much bosh. There's no
Speaker 1: limits of what a man can stand. From the visit
Speaker 1: plate behind them came an urgent voice, radio room tuning in.
Speaker 1: Sir Lawton swung about on the flickering screen. The foggy
Speaker 1: outlines of a face appeared and coalesced into sharpness. The
Speaker 1: Perseus radio operator was breathless with excitement. Our reception is improving, sir.
Speaker 1: European short waves are coming in strong. The static is terrific.
Speaker 1: But we're getting every station on the continent and most
Speaker 1: of the American stations. Lawton's eyes narrowed to exultant slits.
Speaker 1: He spat on the deck, a slow tremor shaking him.
Speaker 1: Slash away. Did you hear that We've done it? We've
Speaker 1: won against hell and high water. We done what, sir?
Speaker 1: The bubble you ape it must be wearing thin Hell's bells.
Speaker 1: Do you have to stand there gaping like a moronic
Speaker 1: nine pin? I tell you we've got it licked. I
Speaker 1: can't stand it, sir. I'm going nuts. No you're not.
Speaker 1: You're slugging the thing inside you that wants to quit.
Speaker 1: Slash away. I'm going to give the crew a first
Speaker 1: class pep talk. There'll be no stampeding while I'm in
Speaker 1: command here. He turned to the radio operator. Tune in
Speaker 1: the control room. Tell the captain, I want every member
Speaker 1: of the crew lined up on this screen. Immediately. The
Speaker 1: face in the visiplate paled, I can't do that, sir,
Speaker 1: ship's regulation. Lawton transfixed the operator with an irate stare.
Speaker 1: The captain told you to report directly to me, didn't he, Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: But if you don't want to be cashiered, snap into it. Yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 1: The captain's startled face preceded the duty muster visive you
Speaker 1: by a full minute, seeming to project outward from the screen.
Speaker 1: The veins on his neck were thick blue cords. Dave,
Speaker 1: he croaked, Are you out of your mind? What good
Speaker 1: will talking do? Now? Are the men lined up? Lawton
Speaker 1: rapped impatiently Forrester nodded, They're all on the engine room.
Speaker 1: Dave Good block them in. The Captain's face reseated, and
Speaker 1: a scene of tragic horror filled the opalescent visiplate. The
Speaker 1: men were not standing in attention at all. They were
Speaker 1: slumping against the Perseus's central charging plant in attitudes of
Speaker 1: abject despair. Madness burned in the eyes of three or
Speaker 1: four of them. Others had torn open their shirts and
Speaker 1: raked their flesh with their nails. Petty Officer Caldwell was
Speaker 1: standing as straight as its totem pole, clenching and unclenching
Speaker 1: his hands. The second assistant engineer was sticking out his tongue.
Speaker 1: His face was deadpan, which made what was obviously a
Speaker 1: terror reflex look like an idiot's grimace. Lawton moistened his lips. Men,
Speaker 1: listen to me. There is some sort of plant outside
Speaker 1: that is giving off delirient fumes. A few of us
Speaker 1: seemed to be immune to it. I'm not immune, but
Speaker 1: I'm fighting it, and all of you boys can fight
Speaker 1: it too. Want you to fight it to the top
Speaker 1: of your courage. You can fight anything when you know
Speaker 1: that just around the corner is freedom from a beastliness
Speaker 1: that deserves to be licked, even if it's only a plant. Men,
Speaker 1: we're blasting our way free the bubbles wearing thin. Any
Speaker 1: minute now, the plants beneath us may fall with a
Speaker 1: soggy PLoP into the Atlantic Ocean. I want every man
Speaker 1: jack aboard this ship to stand at his post and
Speaker 1: obey orders. Write this minute. You look like something the
Speaker 1: cat dragged in. But most men who cover themselves with
Speaker 1: glory start off looking even worse than you do. He
Speaker 1: smiled wryly. I guess that's all. I've never had to
Speaker 1: make a speech in my life, and I'd hate like
Speaker 1: hell to start now. It was petty Officer Caldwell who
Speaker 1: started the chant. He started it, and the men took
Speaker 1: it up until it was coming from all of them
Speaker 1: in a full throated roar. I'm a tough, true hearted skyman,
Speaker 1: careless an all that, d'ye see? Never at a fate
Speaker 1: a race? What is time or tide? To me? All
Speaker 1: must die when fate shall will it. I can never
Speaker 1: die but once. I'm a tough, true hearted sky man.
Speaker 1: Who fears death is a dunce. Lawton squared his shoulders
Speaker 1: with a crew like that. Nothing could stop him. Ah.
Speaker 1: His energies were surging high. The delirient weed held no
Speaker 1: terrors for him. Now they were start outed lads, and
Speaker 1: he'd go to hell with them cheerfully if need be.
Speaker 1: It wasn't easy to wait. The next half hour was
Speaker 1: filled with a steadily mounting tension, as Lawton moved like
Speaker 1: a young tornado about the ship, issuing orders and seeing
Speaker 1: that each man was at his post. Steady, Jimmy, the
Speaker 1: way to fight a delirient is to keep your mind
Speaker 1: on a set task. Keep sweating, lad, Harry, that winch
Speaker 1: needs tightening. We can't afford to miss a trick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll come suddenly. We've got to get the rotary start
Speaker 1: of the instant the bottom drops out. He was with
Speaker 1: the Captain and slash Away in the control room when
Speaker 1: it came. There was a sudden grinding jolt, and the
Speaker 1: Captain's desk started moving toward the quartz port, carrying Lawton
Speaker 1: with it. Holy Jimminy Cricket, exclaimed slash Away. The deck
Speaker 1: tilted sharply, then righted itself. A sudden gush of clear,
Speaker 1: cold air came through the ventilation valves as the triple
Speaker 1: rotary started up with a roar. Lawton and the Captain
Speaker 1: reached the quartz port simultaneously, shoulder to shoulder. They stood
Speaker 1: staring down at the storm tossed Atlantic, electrified by what
Speaker 1: they saw. Floating on the waves. Far beneath them was
Speaker 1: an undulating mass of vegetation, Its surface flecked with glinting foam.
Speaker 1: As it rose and fell in waning sunlight, A tainted
Speaker 1: seepage spread about it, defiling the clean surface of the sea.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't the floating mass, which drew a gasp
Speaker 1: from Forester and caused Lawton's scalp to prickle. Crawling slowly
Speaker 1: across that Sargasso like island of noxious vegetation was a huge,
Speaker 1: elongated shape which bore a nauseous resemblance to a mottled
Speaker 1: garden slug. Forrester was trembling visibly when he turned from
Speaker 1: the quartz port. God, Dave, that would have been the
Speaker 1: last straw animal life, Dave. I I can't realize we're
Speaker 1: actually out of it. We're out, all right, Lawton said hoarsely.
Speaker 1: Just in time, too, Skipper. You'd better issue grog all
Speaker 1: around then men will be needing it. I'm taking mine straight.
Speaker 1: You've accused me of being primitive. Wait till you see
Speaker 1: me an hour from now. Doctor Stephen Halday stood in
Speaker 1: the door of his Appalachian Mountain laboratory, staring out into
Speaker 1: the pine scented dusk, a worried expression on his bland,
Speaker 1: small featured face. It had happened again. A portion of
Speaker 1: his experiment had soared skyward in a very loose group
Speaker 1: of highly energized wavecles. He wondered if it wouldn't form
Speaker 1: a sort of sub electronic macrocosm high in the stratosphere,
Speaker 1: altering even the air and dusk particles which had spurted
Speaker 1: up with it, its uncharged atomic particles, combining with oxygen
Speaker 1: and creating new molecular arrangements. If such were the case,
Speaker 1: there would be eight of them now, his bubbles floating
Speaker 1: through the sky. They couldn't possibly harm anything way up
Speaker 1: there in the stratosphere, but he felt a little uneasy
Speaker 1: about it all the same. He'd have to be far
Speaker 1: more careful in the future, he told himself, much more careful.
Speaker 1: He didn't want the controllers to turn back the clock
Speaker 1: of civilization a century by stopping all atom smashing experiments
Speaker 1: and of the sky trap recorded by Billy bushand Saint Louis, Missouri,