The Planet Mappers, E. Everett Evans [cheapest way to read ebooks .TXT] 📗

see. Have to take lots of recordings and pictures, you know."

"Are you sure you understand all that has to be done?" His mother's voice was anxious.

"Sure, Mom. It tells all about it on the papers the Colonial Board furnished. All we have to do is follow their instructions. You coming, Jak?"

"Right with you." His brother hastily drank the rest of his coffee and rose, wiping his mouth. "Be sure you strap down at the signal, Mother, if you aren't coming with us."

She flashed him a smile. "I will. Meanwhile, I'll clear the table—if I have time?" She looked questioningly at Jon.

"Sure, it'll take ten—fifteen minutes to get ready, and I'll give you a couple of one-minute warnings."

When all was ready, Jak strapped himself down in the co-pilot's seat, the book of instructions in his hand. Jon touched the stud of the buzzer, waited a full minute then punched two buzzes. Then he nodded at his brother.

"Close fuel dump valves," Jak said, referring to the manual.

"Valves closed."

"Switch on fuel pumps."

"Pumps on."

"Switch on generators."

"Gens on."

"Open all oil valves."

"Oil open."

"Check heaters."

"Heaters on."

"Check refrigerators."

"Frigs on."

"Fire tube one and balance."

Jon snapped a switch. A dull rumbling began and the ship seemed to strain as the first tube started functioning, although at minimum strength. He carefully watched a dial to see that it was working smoothly.

Finally, "Tube one firing."

In like manner tubes four, two and then three were started and tested, and finally reported firing evenly. The ship seemed more than ever straining, as though anxious to get into the air and into free space—but remained on the ground.

"Up landing props."

Jon touched another stud, and they could feel the motor lifting the landing props into their slots in the hull.

"Take off."

The roar deepened as Jon increased the amounts of fuel being fed into the tubes. The ship lifted effortlessly, easily, into the air.

"Check acceleration pressure."

"Normal to speed."

"Check altimeter."

"One thousand seven hundred."

"Level off."

A moment of maneuvering, then Jon reported, "Ship level at twenty-four hundred, traveling parallel to ground surface."

"Check rocket balance."

"All tubes on balance."

"Switch on auto-pilot."

"Auto on, but keeping ready to switch back to manual if necessary."

Jak loosened his straps and went to look out of the port, but Jon kept his gaze fastened on the lookout plate before him, his hands resting lightly on the controls, although they were not connected now.

Beneath them the land was sliding by, as the ship cruised at the slow speed, for it, of just under a thousand miles an hour. The boys saw the same sort of jungle forests, the same occasional clearings. From time to time the glint of water revealed rivers or lakes, the latter seldom more than a mile or so in width or length.

After nearly an hour, they were flying above a huge plain, covered with some sort of grass or grain. They had been above this for some minutes when Jon uttered an exclamation and Jak came up quickly to see what his brother had spotted in the magnifier-screen.

"Look down there, Owl," the younger brother was excited. "Thousands of cattle!"

"Whew! Most like those old buffalo-herds we read the old pioneers saw on the western plains of Noramer. Hey, those things are tripeds, too, like the big one we shot, and the rabbits."

"Yes, I see. Must be the usual thing here. But those down there are smaller, like cows. Wonder if they're good to eat, or give milk?"

"Don't know, but we sure want to report this."

He took several pictures with the recording camera, then made notations in the data book. The two continued watching until the tremendous herd was out of sight behind them, and they were flying once more above a great forest. They had gone almost two thousand miles when they saw ahead and downward the beginnings of what was either an ocean or a great sea. As they drew closer, they still could not see its further shore.

"I don't remember this from before, do you?" Jon looked perplexed.

"Yes, I think this must be the one we saw part of from the north—that is, I assume it was north, as we were near the icecap. But I didn't realize it was so...."

"Hey, look down there! That proves I was right." Jon pointed triumphantly toward his visiplate. "See those high-water marks along the shore? That means this moon is big enough to cause tides, same as Luna does to Terra."

"What good, really, are tides?"

"Why," superciliously, "they're one of the most useful things God has given man. They ... they...." Jon stopped, flushed, then laughed. "Darned if I know what they're good for. Of course, if they're high enough, men can make tide-motors and produce power, but now that we've got atomics, we don't need those."

"I suppose we should record them, though." Jak was tactful enough not to laugh.

"Yes, write it down."

They were over an hour passing above this ocean, and had begun to wonder if it was greater in extent than Terra's Pacific. But finally they made out in the distance the dim blueness of the farther shore.

"That's some ocean all right. Shows there's lots of water here on Two."

"With those heavy rains there'd almost have to be. This'll be of special interest to colonists—means not only plenty of water, but if that stream was any example, there'll be lots of fish down there to start a big food industry later."

About two hundred miles past the eastern shore of the ocean, they saw the blue of mountains in the decreasing distance. Soon Jon had to rise higher and higher to clear them safely. Some of the individual peaks seemed to be nearly five miles high, and one or two of them, almost at the range of visibility, the boys estimated to be even taller.

"Probably lots of metals here," Jon commented. "I'll swing back and over them again, and let 'Annie' get to work."

"Yes, this list says to report on metallic ores. Say, doesn't it seem funny to you that there are no people on a world as capable as this of supporting life? Wonder why?"

"No telling. Pop says lots of Earthlike planets don't have any inhabitants capable of any sort of civilization. But that means more ready-made worlds for Terrans to colonize."

Jon made their ship circle above the mountains while the boys took readings with the spectro-analyzer. Then they started on again. After almost another hour, when they were over one of the few desert places they had seen, Jon suddenly leaned forward with a little intake of breath that his brother noticed.

"What's up?"

"Not sure. But listen to 'Annie' click. From the reading, I think there must be some of that metal Pop was so positive about, down there somewhere."

"The stuff for a new fuel?"

"Yes. We don't know it'd be any good as fuel, but its atomic weight seems to be so high Pop was all excited when the spectrogram of this sun showed it. He said he felt sure we'd find it on at least one of these planets."

"It'll take a lot of time to locate it exactly, won't it?"

"Not too much, with the new gadgets they have for locating metal ores." Jon tried not to sound impatient with his brother's ignorance. "We've got one that lets us cruise around in the air and spot it fairly close, then land and find the exact place quite easily."

"What sort of gadget?"

Jon shrugged. "Don't know exactly how they work, but I can use one. Something like a spectroscope that works without first having to heat the metals into gas. Plus something like those old Geiger counters they used to trace radioactives. Plus some other ideas the technies put into them. It tells about them in one of our reelbooks there. You go get ours—I think it's in Bin 14, in the storeroom. Looks like a small black suitcase with carrying straps. Meanwhile, I'll get ready to set us down."

"I'll hurry so's to be back to read the routine for you."

While his brother was gone, Jon activated the bow retarders—after snapping off the stern tubes. Then he sent the ship into a curve that would bring them back nearer the place where he wanted to land. But only part of his mind was doing that—the rest was wondering why there had to be so much fuss and detail in landing and taking-off with a ship. Why couldn't it be fixed so one man could navigate and pilot without all this bother? It ought not to be too difficult....

Jak was soon back with the recorder, and Jon showed him how to read it. Soon they located what seemed to be the center of that strange disturbance, and with Jak's help, Jon set the ship down on the sand, fairly close to where they thought that hoped-for metal or its ore might be found.

When the two boys went into the living room, they told their mother what they had landed for, and that they were going out to look for the source of this excitement.

"Is it really necessary?" she asked anxiously. "Mr. C. didn't say anything to me about any such thing. Haven't we got fuel enough to get home on?"

"Sure, Mom," Jon hastened to explain. "But Pop thought this new stuff would be a lot more powerful than the fuel we're using. Said it ought to give us far greater cruising range with lots less storage space. If we found something of the sort, it would be a great contribution to space travel."

"That's right," Jak added, "and if we do find such a thing here, miners will soon be flocking after it, and that'll mean beaucoup credits for us."

"Well," doubtfully, "I guess you know best. Your father seems to be growing better, and lets me feed him, even though he hasn't ever seemed to regain full consciousness. If you are sure this is what he'd do if awake, I suppose it is what you should do."

"Looks like a funny place for ore," Jon said as the two boys left the ship and started at a fast pace in the direction "Annie" had pointed out as the center of activity. "I'd have expected it to be in the mountains, not in a desert like this."

"Yes, I was wondering about that." The elder brother shook his head slowly. "But you can tell there's something here. What is it we're really looking for? Oh, I know it's metal or ore of some kind," he added hurriedly as he saw Jon start a retort. "What I mean is, is it ore or natural nuggets, and is it radioactive, or what?"

Jon grinned as he trotted along. "Don't really know much more than you. I know how to detect it, and I'll know it if we find it. But to tell ahead of time, I haven't the minnow of an idea."

They had actually gone less than a quarter of a mile when the heat of the sun, reflected from the hot, white, desert sand, became almost unbearable. Finally Jak stopped, wiping the pouring perspiration from his face and neck. "We can't take much of this. Better go back and get our suits."

"Yes, guess you're right." Jon was also working his handkerchief overtime. "The refrigs in them will keep us cooler, even if they're harder to walk in."

"And the suit-goggles will protect us better from the actinic rays of this sun," Jak said. "We're so close—only sixty-five or seventy millions, you said?—that the solar rays are lots stronger than those we get back on Terra, even in the deserts."

"Sure, those jungle trees protected us before, so we didn't notice them."

Their mother heard them as they returned and came to see what the trouble was. When they explained, as they were putting on their suits, she again warned them to be careful.

Then she added, somewhat hastily, "It's just a mother's instinct to keep warning her children to be careful. I know you boys always are—the fact that you came back rather than take chances shows this. Please don't feel badly that I keep nagging at you."

"Heck, Mom, we know you aren't nagging." Jon hugged her. "If you ever quit warning us, that's when we'd really get worried."

Their suits on and the refrigerators working, the pair began retracing their steps. Jon led the way, since he was carrying the detector. They went in a decreasing spiral to locate the center, then made a beeline for that spot.

But after almost a mile the signal seemed to grow weaker, and they stopped for a conference.

"Must have passed it," Jon said over his suit-radio as his puzzled eyes studied the meters on the finder.

"Try going back thirty or forty yards to the right, then back toward the left," Jak suggested.

Soon Jon shouted and started off in a new direction, but more slowly, and Jak ran quarteringly toward him.

Inside half a mile Jon lost the beam again, and once more they quartered to find it. In narrower