American Science Fiction #41 — page 9: what you’re looking at

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

jeaie He had -no word on Pilon. Bet down.‘ the::man~ who »senti: out ~-Chetzisky's~ letters. The man ‘was ‘a _ retired school-teacher, an old friend had given a number of letters and telegrams to be sent out according pe a prescribed schedule. That was ‘as far as the school- teacher's par- . ticipation went. - The next few days I acted like a == caged lion, my eyes cocked fear- = fully on- the calendar, something to happen. My nights sy sleepless. It was nerve wrack- ing to stand by and watch time run out on the world. And on myself. At first, my stomach simply turned _. without relish from “food; -soon, it was turning sick at the sight of it. SPECIAL delivery came from 4 Armstrong Monday night. It was a ieletype he had torn right off the -_ JDENTIFICATION MADE AS - HECTOR PILON. AGED 34. - DOCTORATE IN GEOLOGY, COLUMBIA U, SPECIALIST IN “= RADIOACTIVE ORES. MEMBER _ OF COMMISSION NOW CHECK- ING URANIUM DEPOSITS IN CONGO. WAS PRESENT IN Sate = DURING PERIOD QUER- There was a hastily written post- “Will arrange passport, plane =< "passage, etc., for “you. Draw some money from bank for ‘€xpenses. = Acmstrong.” Ss My heart pounded. The Congo! : The site of the world’s richest urani- um “deposits, it would be just the ~ natural workshop for Chetzisky. out a pattern, this fellow Pilon dis- =: covered or heard of a new ore find in, say, the jungle area east of the ES famous” Katanga district, and told f ay. about it. ~- O€£ course, I.admitted to myself, there was the problem of how. the Ss Doctor could get equipment into the eS =e unnoticed. But maybe the aa- ce had succeeded, however, in track- ef the physicist, to whom Chetzisky waiting for ing to an end. Perhaps, I mused, trying to reason eo STOPWATCH ON THE + ‘WORLD — so -swer_lay in ‘what Ghetzisky- had ‘said to Chasliagten; maybe there was 110 “equipmént?> problem)» Who couid' ‘tell ébuti thatoChetzisky ‘may ‘have found a simplified method of handling aad working radioactive ores? He had told Chaslington our present methods were utterly outmoded, hadn’t he? It took Armstrong nearly a week to arrange for my trip to the Bel- gian Congo. .He sent cables to Belgian: officials at Leopoldville and to George Disney, chief of the com- mission with which Pilon was work- ing, inviting their cooperation. In this way he hoped that the prestige of his title and name. would lend a semi-official tone to my mission, Meanwhile, Nevil Oxford phoned me twice, inquiring about our search for Chefzisky, His voice betrayed his uneasiness. Z On the morning of my deparhine from Idlewild the New York Times, as if given confirmation to our con- jectures, carried a ‘front page story ‘announcing a new uranium deposit in the Katanga area. Two university scientists who assayed — samples stated the ore was among the high- est grade yet discdvered. Yield about three kilograms per ton. As 1 boarded the Constellation I was confident that the chase was com- I was feverish with a sense of an approaching climax. For a long time I sat in quiet, opti- mistic thought, staring out the win- Soe port at a- blue monotone of SKY After lunch served by a stately blonde stewardess, the _Englishman across the aisle struck up a conver- sation with me. He knew Africa very well, having served there many years for the Unilever enterprises, He tried to teach me Swahili in one easy lesson, a sort of Esperanto devised by. the Arab slave-traders and the lingua franca throughout Africa. J was interested, but a poor student. When I finally crawled inte my berth at day’s end, it was to dream of. tangled jungles of African « cedar and- wild rubber trees, with limbs festooned with great, wrist-thick vines aad sinkey? scolding from the ; comicdnools.con