Amazing Vignettes Read online

  “Oh, that,” he dismissed his dirtiness with a shrug. “I’m putting up the concrete shield around the pile.”

  “What?” I said in a shocked tone, but half laughing, “I thought you said you were shielding a pile.”

  “I did say that,” he replied. “Ever since the AEC released the dope on the basic pile, I’ve been working. And if I do say so myself, it’s coming along nicely.”

  I followed him into the workshop to find myself confronted with an impressive cubicle structure obviously housing a pile for atomic energy, and just as obviously impossible since U-235 or 238 couldn’t be had by any private citizen at all.

  “What do you think?” He asked a half hour later after he’d shown a completely equipped set-up which unquestionably was an atomic pile down to the graphite holes and the cadmium rods. “It’s really a beauty, isn’t it?”

  “Well,” I said, frankly making no effort to conceal my disbelief, “it’s an atomic pile all right, but just what do you plan to use for your neutron source—lead?” I laughed at my own feeble humorous attempt.

  He smiled. “You mean uranium? Oh, there are ways, my boy, there are ways. I’ll wager anything I have this apparatus in operation within a month.”

  “But what for?” I asked. “It seems pointless to make a pile. You can’t make a bomb from it—God knows why you’d want to anyway—and the government supplies all the radioactive tracers. Furthermore, you’re not that enthusiastic about research I don’t imagine. What’s the idea?”

  “I think I’ll make a bomb,” he said in a straight, lecturer-like manner. “I’d sure scare hell out of the neighbors, wouldn’t I?”

  “You’re joking,” I said. “In the first place, you couldn’t with this gadget. And in the second, you wouldn’t. My God! An atomic bomb in the cellar!”

  “You know,” he went on quite seriously, “owning an atomic bomb would certainly give one a sense of God-likeness., wouldn’t it? It’d be like having a city in the palm of your hand. It’d be a heady feeling!”

  I thought I saw a wild look come into his eyes.

  He came to the present at once. “No,” he said, “I’m making the pile because I’ve certain theories of my own. They may have a lot to do with fundamental science. You greatly underestimate my research ability, Wilson.”

  “I don’t at all,” I replied. “It’s just that it seems such an ominous thing to have a pile in one’s cellar.”

  When I left after a considerably more pleasant chat for the rest of the evening,

  I was thoroughly reassured. Brenner was quite serious about doing research, and he assured me he’d taken all the precautions. Actually, I wasn’t worried at all after my initial shock, because I knew no power on Earth could provide him with even a scrap of uranium.

  I forgot the entire matter.

  But you know the rest. Last night, one third of the city of Trenton vanished in the most tremendous atomic explosion the world has seen—Trenton, where Brenner played with his atomic pile . . .

  One Man’s Epitaph

  Charles Recour

  AN “AMAZING” VIGNETTE

  IN THE control room of the Tellus IV the Junior Executive Officer took one look at the panel of instruments before him. With a wild dive he reached for a phone.

  “Exec Two,” he barked into the phone, “Pile Four is fusing—will you come to the bridge at once, sir?”

  “Right!” The sleepy Captain’s voice changed into fear and Lowry could hear the rapid intake of breath and the muttered curse.

  “What’s up?” the Navigation Officer asked Lowry.

  “The Number Four Pile is fusing, Johnny—and the automatic cutouts aren’t throwing it out. We’ll be a torch in an hour!”

  The control door flung open and the half-dressed Captain Bainbridge tore in, shouting questions. One look at the control board was enough. He grabbed for the phone quickly and called engineering.

  “Where’s Blake?” he blasted into the speaker. “Get that fool up here—our tail section will be going up in radiation—” He stopped abruptly as the assistant’s voice said mildly, “Engineer Blake is in the air-lock with tools right now, sir.” Bainbridge turned toward the Junior Executive Officer. “Oh, my God!” he said dully, “Blake is going otherside!”

  “You mean he’s going behind the shield!” The Executive Officer’s eyes reflected the Captain’s fear.

  “Pick him up on the induction phone,” Bainbridge ordered.

  On the video they watched the tiny figure crawling slowly along the massive hulk of the ship toward the stem, past the red line that marked the limits of the radiation shield for the atomic engines. His suit was laden with the tools of his trade.

  “Blake!” Bainbridge spoke into the phone. “What the devil are you doing, man You’re in the heat now. Come back here while we figure some way to knock out Pile Four.”

  The calm voice of Blake came back: “Sorry, Captain, there’s no use fooling ourselves. I’ve got to cut out four with a torch and seal the valves. You know there’s no other way. The automatics are out, too. This is strictly an engineer’s job. I’m not going to talk any more Captain—my personal effects are in order—you know what to do. I’m going to flip into the jets when I’m through.”

  Captain Bainbridge turned white. He looked at Lowry. Then unashamedly, tears sprang into his eyes. “How can a man die so easily?” he asked half aloud. And yet he knew it had to be that way. Once Blake got into the region of the atomics without shielding, his body would become a neutron-riddled mass of radioactive matter. Death was a matter of hours away—and Blake wasn’t taking the long way out. He’d throw his glowing body into the jets when his job was finished. He was a spacial engineer and he was keeping to the traditions of his breed. Pile Four had to be knocked out or the ship would turn into a torch eventually as the focal point spread. Blake would coolly cut out the dangerously explosive mass—and then die.

  With bowed heads the officers watched the screen. They saw the tiny figure make its way into the service ports, ports intended for robot mechanisms on drydock service, not human beings. They saw the man enter the zone of hard radiation that even then was converting his body into a radioactive mass. They couldn’t see his manipulation of tools, but the panel instruments shortly recorded the dying-down of Pile Four. In a mere ten minutes the Job was done.

  Blake emerged from the number four service port. But it wasn’t the same Blake. Surrounding him was an aura of greenish radiation, a halo just suggesting its virulence. Already Blake was a dying man. He could come shipwards and die in the lock but why contaminate an airlock? Calmly he walked sternwards. Bainbridge tried to contact him over the phone. They could see him shake his head.

  He got near the jets and waved his hand like a Roman gladiator saluting—moratori salutamus—then he vanished into incandescence and the ravenous jets devoured his glowing body.

  Bainbridge, shaken and white-faced, turned to Lowry—“That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said softly.

  “Greater love . . .” Lowry started to say and left it unfinished. There was no need to finish. Blake had written his own epitaph—without fear . . . he did his duty . . .

  Devil on the Moon

  George Lasher

  AN “AMAZING” VIGNETTE!

  DANE BRADSHAW knelt awkwardly to examine the specimen. He switched off the electric torch and flipped on the small ultra-violet lamp. The mineral did not fluoresce. He switched the lamp back on and examined the walls of the cavern. It was a funny feeling to be twenty miles from your rocket, isolated in this peculiar Lunar cave and naturally out of radio contact with Hal. He tried to radio just to make sure. The Lunar terrain blanked it as effectively as Earth, even though it was of less dense pumice.

  He turned to stride the thirty feet to the cave’s opening. He stopped abruptly.

  Framed in the cavern’s mouth was something! For a bare instant the cold hand of fright seized at his spine, but he recovered himself and surveyed it calmly. And just as ca
lmly the thing seemed to hover there surveying him as well. It was roughly five feet in diameter effectively blocking his exit. It was nothing physical but appeared instead as a shimmering blue halo, translucent and radiant but with more ultra-violet than visible light. At its core was a denser pulling glow which winked at a regular rate. Dane got the impression of tremendous latent energies.

  Looking at the thing objectively, Dane tried to rationalize. I’m looking at something living, he told himself. This is a Selenite. There is a life-form on the Moon though we’ve never imagined anything like this! Evidently life doesn’t always take the carbonaceous form throughout the universe. That’s going to bust wide open some pet theories.

  What to do? He wanted to leave the cave. His oxygen was running out and he knew he’d have to move soon. He walked toward the creature. It made no move. He walked quite close to it. It remained still only the pulsing of its core showing its life.

  He made some meaningless gestures with his arms. The creature ignored them. He picked up a small chunk of loose pumice and very gently arced at the Thing’s base. It moved back a little, then quickly forward.

  I’m afraid to touch it, he thought. Suppose it’s dangerous—and it looks like it might be. What then? Hal couldn’t get to me in time if anything happened. He flipped another piece of pumice toward the Selenite. It struck the web of electric fire and vanished in a coruscant flame, literally vaporized.

  Then it moved slowly toward Bane, menace in its slow approach; Dane sensed its purpose. This was enmity!

  Frantically he looked for a weapon. He’d taken no hand-gun. There was no life on the Moon it said here. And a hand-gun wouldn’t have served against this nonentity. As the Thing moved slowly toward him, his mind raced madly. With lightning-like speed he unwound the coil of thin wire rope from his waist. Snaking it into loose folds, he prepared to throw it—it was just a hunch.

  He flung it straight at the lambent creature. When it struck, a shower of vaporized metal sprayed through the air and the creature’s energies discharged. The wire, some of it touching the ground, contacted the Selenite—and not only the metal disappeared. In an instant the Thing had vanished.

  Dane dashed for the entrance. Rapidly he spoke into the phone of the transmitter. “Hal!” he said, “I’ve just short-circuited me a Selenite! There are living, electrical creatures on the Moon! Brother I’m returning right away to the ship.”

  “Are you all right, Dane?” Hal asked. “There was a blast of static that nearly knocked the receiver dead. Get back here in a hurry.”

  “I really short-circuited him—or it—right smack to the ground. He fried like a burnt out fuse . . .!”

  No Man is Ever Alone!

  Milton Matthew

  AN “AMAZING” VIGNETTE

  GERRY LOOKED at the thermocouples’ readings—they were climbing steadily.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the stern bulkhead. In his imagination he could see the metal start to glow a dull red. He licked his upper lip. Already he was sweating. Was it that hot now?

  He knew this was it. Spacemen live in constant dread of the thought. It is an ever-recurring dream which haunts their waking and sleeping minds. Gerry felt it near now. He’d have to abandon ship. When the ‘dynes go out, there’s nothing left to do, for that radioactive fire chews its way forward rapidly, converting the vessel into an atomic bomb. It happens rarely but it happens.

  Gerry began to react automatically. He shoved the switches of the transmitter to “automatic” and let them pour out his varying fix, minute after minute. You could only hope that the monitors would catch and that they’d get a rescue boat to you.

  He climbed into the bulky space-suit, checked its water and air liquid concentrates. The power pack was up and the short range transceiver was operating. Reluctantly he locked his helmet. This was the final step. This might be his tomb or it might be his hope. He could last for seventy-two hours—there was enough air for that—then blotto!

  He glanced once more at the thermocouples. They were reading higher. He’d have to move—and fast. He stepped into the airlock and let himself through. Clinging to his suit were numerous chemical flares and a pulse-sounder. It would be a little easier for any potential rescuer to spot him if they got within range. He opened the airlock door without cycling the air and the little escaping puff blew him free of the ship.

  With a small pulse from a hand rocket he checked his velocity and let the ship recede rapidly from him. As it moved away he saw the angry red glare of its stern, now radiating wildly into the visible, and the atomic “combustion” ran away with it. He watched the receding pinpoint of light. He knew what would happen shortly. The twenty minute margin wasn’t too much.

  Abruptly, where the spot of rapidly swirling light had been, a miniature nova flared as the critical temperature and mass of radioactives was reached. The miniature atomic bomb went off in a violent glare of light and died in a fraction of a second.

  Gerry stared hopelessly about him. He was moving as if in a dream. What do I feel, he thought? How can I tell myself—and believe it—that I’m floating forty million miles from Terra, alone in empty space, resting my hopes on a puny radio signal, which even if picked up, can’t get a rescuer to me in time? Despair seized him. For a wild instant he thought of placing a rocket against his helmet and firing. Then it passed. He’d see it through. Maybe, as a last resort . . .

  How puny are words to describe the vastness of interplanetary space to a single man set in its frame. Simply nothing—the most absolute nothingness, the absence of everything, the existence of not a thing—surrounded him. He was another chunk of matter floating in the Solar System and separated from every other chunk of matter by unthinkable distances measured in hundreds of thousands and millions of miles. He was the nadir, the zero, the depth.

  Time passed slowly for Gerry. The minutes crawled—contrary to his expectations. The receivers made no sound. Only the rustle of his body against the interior fabric of the metal suit was audible.

  These are the last sounds, he thought. These are—

  Like the ending of a bad dream, the headphones crackled. Gerry’s numbed mind refused to think. The words came at him.

  “—We’ve caught your coordinates and spotted he flare. This is the Uantippe—O.M. Fire a flare or give us a pulse if you’re alive. Fire a flare . . .”

  The message crackled on and on and Gerry reacted logically. An incredible sensation of relief swept him as he touched off a couple of rockets. No man is really alone, he thought, no man is alone . . .

  Out of the Darkness . . .

  Charles Recour

  AN “AMAZING” VIGNETTE

  IT WAS ABOUT twelve-thirty when the first alert sounded and the shrill keening of the siren was like an icy finger stuck against your skin.

  I shook Marie roughly. “Wake up, honey,” I said. “It’s starting!”

  She awoke, startled, the sleepiness going rapidly from her eyes. She caught the whining roar of the sirens. No explanations were needed. “John,” she put her arms around me and I held her close, “no matter what happens, I love you,” she said.

  “Of course, Marie—we’re together—that’s what matters. Come on now, we’ve got to get dressed.”

  In minutes we were dressed and heading for the cellar. I had converted the basement to an air-raid shelter after the fashion of so many of the advisory pamphlets. There were first aid items, clothing, tools, canned food, bottled water, portable radio, writing materials—and even a Geiger counter though I didn’t know of what practical use the latter would be.

  Marie flipped on the radio. The speaker whispered into life.

  “. . . twenty minutes ago,” the announcer was saying, “radar intercepted large numbers of jets flying at extreme altitudes. After receiving no reply to attempted contacts, our interceptor-fighters and guided missiles are engaged with the enemy. We have already achieved some success, the Defense Command reports, but warns us that a bombing is inevitable. Ladies and Gentlem
en, it is expected momentarily. Wherever you are, either head for the nearest shelter or crouch down behind protective walls. Interceptor Command does not know whether hydrogen or atomics will be used. We’re in for a pasting but we can stick it through if panic doesn’t grasp us. Remain where you are! Do not go out on the streets nor try to drive anywhere. Remain tuned to this station. We will keep you informed of all activities. Remember, from now on we are under martial law.” The station was silent for a time. Marie snuggled against me. My lips were in her hair.

  “We don’t really have to worry, dear,” I said, “but the poor devils in the industrial areas will really get it. Thank God the deep-shelters have been built.”

  “People must be pouring into them like mad,” Marie said. “It’s better going underground than frying in the trap.”

  “Chicago’s going to look a lot different if they hit us,” I said apropos of nothing.

  Just then the ground trembled—once, twice, three times. I knew that the sky outside was brilliant from that flare, but naturally I had no desire to peer out. What was doubly eerie about this kind of bombing was that there was no sound of planes or motors. The jets, both attackers and defenders were so high overhead.

  The radio started: “. . . the city has been struck by three bombs—atomic—it is too early to report on effects, but we are certain that the loss of life is relatively low—

  Do not leave your homes P The announcer’s voice sounded a bit of unintentional humor—“Chicago,” he said ironically, “will look different in daylight!”

  The radio droned on with orders and government edicts. News flashes of other bombing came through, too, but fortunately no tactical surprise had been achieved. The Sovs had hurt us, but not irreparably.

  “I though t it would be more dramatic than this,” Marie said.

  “Wait until daylight,” I replied. “Then you’ll see what really happened.” On the skyline, after a cautious peek through a window we could see the brilliant light of a blazing fire.