Chapter 5: Up the Rope of Space

Burl’s visit home was a curious interlude. Actually, he had been away only a few weeks, since the summer vacation had begun, yet this single day had an air about it different from that of any other homecoming. He found himself continually looking at things in a more inquisitive, more thoughtful manner.

That which had been commonplace was suddenly something valuable, a sight to be treasured. For he had realized, as he sat in the fast plane transporting him home, that the Earth was itself a planet among planets, and that this might possibly prove to be his last visit to the town where he had been born. He had pondered, as he had gazed out of the ship’s windows, just what it could mean to depart from this world and travel among the uncharted reaches of empty and hostile space ... to set foot upon planets where no human foot had ever touched and to meet unguessable perils.

So his home, his mother, his friends, the street on which he lived, took on a novel air. He studied them while enjoying a quiet day at home. He watched the cars in the street, so amusingly compact and small, each designed in the fleeting style of the year. The cars of a dozen years ago had been designed for length and size, but the trend had been the opposite for a decade now. The cars grew smaller and their lines weirder as the manufacturers strove to compete.

What other planet could boast of such simultaneously astonishing ingenuity and wondrous tomfoolery?

He looked at the people going about their business, the other boys of his age intent on their summer jobs and summer fun, and wondered if he would ever be able to join them again without the cares of a world on his shoulders?

People were unaware of the crisis that hung over the solar system. There had been news of the dimming of the Sun, but the meaning behind it had been carefully screened, and the expedition was a top secret. It availed the world nothing to panic about this matter. Now the odd weather quirks had been forgotten, and the main subjects on people’s tongues were the baseball scores and the latest telemovies.

When Burl kissed his mother and father good-by, it was with a sense that he was also kissing good-by to his youth, and entering upon a new period of the most desperate responsibility.

This mood lingered with him back at the base, although his companions of the trip to come seemingly did not share it. On the last day, quarters had been assigned in the Magellan, and the men moved their belongings to their tight bunks in the heart of the ship. Clyde had his way, and he and Burl shared a double-decker chamber.

There was a hustle and bustle in the valley. The supplies seemed unending, and Burl wondered why the variety. “For once, we’ve got lifting power to spare,” was Russ’s comment. “Nobody knows what we’re going to need on the various planets, so Lockhart is simply piling aboard everything he can think of. You’d be amazed at the space we have for storage. And Caton says that the more we stick in there, the better the shielding is against the radiation belt surrounding Earth--and probably the other planets as well.”

“I thought we were already well protected,” said Burl. “With the atomic generators, we had to be shielded anyway. Haven’t we lead lining all around our inner sphere quarters?”

Russell Clyde nodded. “Oh, sure, but the more the merrier.”

He and Burl were already in their quarters, stowing their clothes. “We leave in an hour,” said Burl. “Are we going to the launching base at Boothia, where the manned rockets go up?”

Clyde shook his head. “Lockhart talked it over with us yesterday, and we decided to take off from right here.” By “us,” Burl knew the operational group was meant, which consisted of the colonel, the two astronomers, Caton as head of the engineering section, and Haines, “To tell the truth, nobody knows how easily this ship will handle. We’re shielded well enough so that a short passage through the radiation belt three hundred miles up and for the next fifteen hundred miles shouldn’t have any effect on us at all. The rockets, which can’t be shielded because of the weight limitations, have to go up at Boothia because there, at the North Magnetic Pole, there’s a hole in the radiation.”

Boothia Peninsula was a barren spot far up in the Arctic Zone on Canada’s frozen eastern coast. On it was constructed the world’s major space port--a lonely outpost from which rockets departed for the equally lonely Moon bases. Burl had read about it and had looked forward to seeing it, but realized that the flight of the Magellan marked still another change in the fast-altering history of the conquest of space.

The hour passed quickly. The little valley was cleared of visitors. The crew was called to take-off posts--Lockhart at the controls, Clyde and Oberfield at the charts, Detmar watching the energy output. The rest of the crew had been strapped into their bunks. By special request, Burl was observing in the control room, seated in a half-reclining position like the others, in a well-padded chair, strapped tight.

Haines had remarked as he had supervised the strapping-in, “Nobody knows whether this is going to be necessary. But we’re taking no chances.” He’d gone to his quarters and done the same thing.

Lockhart watched the registering of the dials in front of him, waiting for the load to build up. There was a muffled whine from overhead as the generators built up current. Detmar called out a cryptic number every few seconds and the colonel checked it. The two astronomers were idle, watching their viewers. They’d made their calculations long before.