Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 82: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

threw the switch on it and then turned back to his companions. The next necessity was light. Together, the men kindled torches and planted them strategically around the room. The light was flickering and uneven, but it would have to do. Even at that, it hurt their eyes; Collins doubted that they could have stood much more. He looked around the engine room, and his doubts returned. The main plutonium pile, together with its water reactant, was of course invisible behind its graphalloy Shielding. If the trouble proved to be not at the surface, but deep within the pile itself, Collins knew that the situation was probably hopeless. But he felt a strange exhilaration none the less. Here, at last, was a straight problem in technology: a problem too difficult for his limited means, perhaps, but still a problem he could sink his teeth into. Collins eyed the shielding, and the dials and switches with a feeling akin to awe—not superstitiouS awe, nor unreasoning wonder, but simply a healthy respect for a Supreme accomplishment of his people. This was the power that had lifted the Vikinglong ago from the bonds of Earth, carried her beyond Pluto and into interstellar soace. And this was the power that had been silent for more than a century. Had the power failed the men, or had the men failed the power? It was no mere rhetorical problem. Upon its solution hinged the fate of Earth’s first emissary to the stars. The men set to work with a will. Collins, Echols, Renaldo, and Webb, the cream of the ship’s scientists now that the Captain was gone, went at their job with the cool precision of men who Nave studied and planned for many lonely years for just such an eventuality. Owens stood alone, watching, making no sound, with his face beginning to swell painfully from the blows he had received. The chamber was quiet, but filled with a tense, electric anticipation that was a tangible thing. CORniclooo SS (SO)