Authentic Science Fiction, No. 23 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

- = ee Eee Se ea CHAPTER TWO Rainbow Bubbles on the Rocks (THE brow of the ridge lay some three or four hundred feet above us—a dark, frowning proclivity of rock, up which we toiled with the gravity gadgets set almost to maximum and chattering all the time in an attempt to take our minds off that persistent, irritating whistle. We had uncomfortable pre- sentiments about what might meet our eyes when we looked into the valley which undoubtedly lay beyond. “Confound these straps!” said Tubby. ‘“They’re cutting my legs in two.” “That’s the worst of having a lot of surplus fat to carry round,” said Hartnell, unsympathetically. “‘Now, if you were a straight, lithe figure of a man, like me—” Personally, I saved my breath for climbing, although there was something in Tubby’s complaint. Reactors are a stan- dard fitting in the Bergmann suits and undoubtedly a great help in places where gravitation is abnormally strong or where operators must climb. Light harness inside the suit fits round waist and thighs and a small control lever on the belt applies the power. They won’t lift a man into the air, of course, but they certainly take a weight off his feet. Not being an expert on such matters, I haven’t the faintest idea how reactors work, but Hartnell once told me the theory goes right back to the eighteenth century, when one of those clever old physicists—I believe his name was Isaac Newton— evolved certain natural laws. One of the laws was to the effect that “every action has an equa! and opposite reaction.” Therefore, said Hartnell—as nearly as I could follow—the downward drag of gravity must be balanced somewhere by an upward thrust, and if you could only lay hands (so to speak) on this upward thrust the effects of gravitation could be largely offset. He said it was like having two equal weights suspended on a rope over a pulley, so that it needed ay a touch of a finger to tip the balance whichever way you liked. Of course, the reactors weren’t nearly so efficient as that, but the “finger-tip touch’—applied by an yttrium power- THE SINGING SPHERES 13 pack—-made the thing practical for as long as thirty-six hours at a time before re-charging. And, admittedly, working at full throttle was inclined to make the harness chafe some- what, but I didn’t see what they could do about that. Eventually we paused, the last level of rock scarcely two feet above our heads. We looked at one another. “Well,” I said, “who’s going to do it?” “We're in it together,” said Hartnell. “We might as well do this together.” I wasn’t altogether displeased at the anti-climax that fol- lowed. Our three helmets rose slowly over the ridge and we saw stretching before us a wide, deserted basin of the in- evitable brown desert, enclosed by foothills on the farther side and with a dry valley outlet eastwards. The plain extended fully four miles—and nowhere was there sign of vegetation — or other life. Tubby drew a deep breath. “What now?” “You get your cameras busy on this delightful scene,” said Hartnell. “Otherwise you'll have something apart from lack of mileage to explain to the controllers.” He bit his lip and I knew he was thinking. “This confounded whistling—if we'd only got some sort of direction-finding gear—” “Do you get the impression that it’s louder since we came from behind the rocks?” “Well—I wondered. Didn’t like to say anything—” Eventually we decided to please our superiors with a few more figures ticked upon the pedometers, heading towards the outlet of this baked depression and feeling no small relief at being able to walk in more or less normal manner down- hill between boulders and rough stones. After half an hour, when we were all sweating copiously again, Hartnell said, “Let’s have another rest—” Tubby opened his mouth to say something, but thought - better of it and merely grunted. “My eyes are smarting a bit, too,” I said. “It’s this glare.” “Yes, I suppose so,” said Hartnell, absently. Obviously he bad something on his mind and we regarded him suspiciously. In silence we approached a big slab of rock, tilted on end, to find support for aching backs. From where I sat I could see right into the funnel-shaped exit from the plain as it dived down between precipitous, jagged cliffs. The light made some distant outcrop of coloured mineral shine like a tiny, "Eomicbooks:.com