Triplanetary by E. E. Smith (ebook reader macos TXT) 📖

oedema—uh-uh! I am watching, Doctor, and learning!"

Another interlude, and another. Another. And others. Until finally, orders were given which Kinnison did not hear at all.

"Adrenalin! Massage! Massage hell out of him!"

Kinnison again came to—partially to, rather—anguished in every fiber of his being. Somebody was sticking barbed arrows into every square inch of his skin; somebody else was pounding and mauling him all over, taking particular pains to pummel and to wrench at all the places where he hurt the worst. He yelled at the top of his voice; yelled and swore bitterly: "QUIT IT!" being the expurgated gist of his luridly profane protests. He did not make nearly as much noise as he supposed, but he made enough.

"Thank God!" Kinnison heard a lighter, softer voice. Surprised, he stopped swearing and tried to stare. He couldn't see very well, either, but he was pretty sure that there was a middle-aged woman there. There was, and her eyes were not dry. "He is going to live, after all!"

As the days passed, he began really to sleep, naturally and deeply.

He grew hungrier and hungrier, and they would not give him enough to eat. He was by turns sullen, angry, and morose.

In short, he was convalescent.

For Captain Ralph K. Kinnison, THE WAR was over.

CHAPTER 5

1941

Chubby, brownette Eunice Kinnison sat in a rocker, reading the Sunday papers and listening to her radio. Her husband Ralph lay sprawled upon the davenport, smoking a cigarette and reading the current issue of EXTRAORDINARY STORIES against an unheard background of music. Mentally, he was far from Tellus, flitting in his super-dreadnaught through parsec after parsec of vacuous space.

The music broke off without warning and there blared out an announcement which yanked Ralph Kinnison back to Earth with a violence almost physical. He jumped up, jammed his hands into his pockets.

"Pearl Harbor!" he blurted. "How in.... How could they have let them get that far?"

"But Frank!" the woman gasped. She had not worried much about her husband; but Frank, her son.... "He'll have to go...." Her voice died away.

"Not a chance in the world." Kinnison did not speak to soothe, but as though from sure knowledge. "Designing Engineer for Lockwood? He'll want to, all right, but anyone who was ever even exposed to a course in aeronautical engineering will sit this war out."

"But they say it can't last very long. It can't, can it?"

"I'll say it can. Loose talk. Five years minimum is my guess—not that my guess is any better than anybody else's."

He prowled around the room. His somber expression did not lighten.

"I knew it," the woman said at length. "You, too—even after the last one.... You haven't said anything, so I thought, perhaps...."

"I know I didn't. There was always the chance that we wouldn't get drawn into it. If you say so, though, I'll stay home."

"Am I apt to? I let you go when you were really in danger...."

"What do you mean by that crack?" he interrupted.

"Regulations. One year too old—Thank Heaven!"

"So what? They'll need technical experts, bad. They'll make exceptions."

"Possibly. Desk jobs. Desk officers don't get killed in action—or even wounded. Why, perhaps, with the children all grown up and married, we won't even have to be separated."

"Another angle—financial."

"Pooh! Who cares about that? Besides, for a man out of a job...."

"From you, I'll let that one pass. Thanks, Eunie—you're an ace. I'll shoot 'em a wire."

The telegram was sent. The Kinnisons waited. And waited. Until, about the middle of January, beautifully-phrased and beautifully-mimeographed letters began to arrive.

"The War Department recognizes the value of your previous military experience and appreciates your willingness once again to take up arms in defense of the country ... Veteran Officer's Questionnaire ... please fill out completely ... Form 191A ... Form 170 in duplicate ... Form 315.... Impossible to forecast the extent to which the War Department may ultimately utilize the services which you and thousands of others have so generously offered ... Form ... Form.... Not to be construed as meaning that you have been permanently rejected ... Form ... Advise you that while at the present time the War Department is unable to use you...."

"Wouldn't that fry you to a crisp?" Kinnison demanded. "What in hell have they got in their heads—sawdust? They think that because I'm fifty one years old I've got one foot in the grave—I'll bet four dollars that I'm in better shape than that cursed Major General and his whole damned staff!"

"I don't doubt it, dear." Eunice's smile was, however, mostly of relief. "But here's an ad—it's been running for a week."

"CHEMICAL ENGINEERS ... shell loading plant ... within seventy-five miles of Townville ... over five years experience ... organic chemistry ... technology ... explosives...."

"They want you," Eunice declared, soberly.

"Well, I'm a Ph.D. in Organic. I've had more than five years experience in both organic chemistry and technology. If I don't know something about explosives I did a smart job of fooling Dean Montrose, back at Gosh Whatta University. I'll write 'em a letter."

He wrote. He filled out a form. The telephone rang.

"Kinnison speaking ... yes ... Dr. Sumner? Oh, yes, Chief Chemist.... That's it—one year over age, so I thought.... Oh, that's a minor matter. We won't starve. If you can't pay a hundred and fifty I'll come for a hundred, or seventy five, or fifty.... That's all right, too. I'm well enough known in my own field so that a title of Junior Chemical Engineer wouldn't hurt me a bit ... O.K., I'll see you about one o'clock ... Stoner and Black, Inc., Operators, Entwhistle Ordnance Plant, Entwhistle, Missikota.... What! Well, maybe I could, at that.... Goodbye."

He turned to his wife. "You know what? They want me to come down right away and go to work. Hot Dog! Am I glad that I told that louse Hendricks exactly where he could stick that job of mine!"

"He must have known that you wouldn't sign a straight-salary contract after getting a share of the profits so long. Maybe he believed what you always say just before or just after kicking somebody's teeth down their throats; that you're so meek and mild—a regular Milquetoast. Do you really think that they'll want you back, after the war?" It was clear that Eunice was somewhat concerned concerning Kinnison's joblessness; but Kinnison was not.

"Probably. That's the gossip. And I'll come back—when hell freezes over." His square jaw tightened. "I've heard of outfits stupid enough to let their technical brains go because they could sell—for a while—anything they produced, but I didn't know that I was working for one. Maybe I'm not exactly a Timid Soul, but you'll have to admit that I never kicked anybody's teeth out unless they tried to kick mine out first."

Entwhistle Ordnance Plant covered twenty-odd square miles of more or less level land. Ninety-nine percent of its area was "Inside the fence." Most of the buildings within that restricted area, while in reality enormous, were dwarfed by the vast spaces separating them; for safety-distances are not small when TNT and tetryl by the ton are involved. Those structures were built of concrete, steel, glass, transite, and tile.

"Outside the Fence" was different. This was the Administration Area. Its buildings were tremendous wooden barracks, relatively close together, packed with the executive, clerical, and professional personnel appropriate to an organization employing over twenty thousand men and women.

Well inside the fence, but a safety-distance short of the One Line—Loading Line Number One—was a long, low building, quite inadequately named the Chemical Laboratory. "Inadequately" in that the Chief Chemist, a highly capable—if more than a little cantankerous—Explosives Engineer, had already gathered into his Chemical Section most of Development, most of Engineering, and all of Physics, Weights and Measures, and Weather.

One room of the Chemical Laboratory—in the corner most distant from Administration—was separated from the rest of the building by a sixteen-inch wall of concrete and steel extending from foundation to roof without a door, window, or other opening. This was the laboratory of the Chemical Engineers, the boys who played with explosives high and low; any explosion occurring therein could not affect the Chemical Laboratory proper or its personnel.

Entwhistle's main roads were paved; but in February of 1942, such minor items as sidewalks existed only on the blue-prints. Entwhistle's soil contained much clay, and at that time the mud was approximately six inches deep. Hence, since there were neither inside doors nor sidewalks, it was only natural that the technologists did not visit at all frequently the polished-tile cleanliness of the Laboratory. It was also natural enough for the far larger group to refer to the segregated ones as exiles and outcasts; and that some witty chemist applied to that isolated place the name "Siberia."

The name stuck. More, the Engineers seized it and acclaimed it. They were Siberians, and proud of it, and Siberians they remained; long after Entwhistle's mud turned into dust. And within the year the Siberians were to become well and favorably known in every ordnance plant in the country, to many high executives who had no idea of how the name originated.

Kinnison became a Siberian as enthusiastically as the youngest man there. The term "youngest" is used in its exact sense, for not one of them was a recent graduate. Each had had at least five years of responsible experience, and "Cappy" Sumner kept on building. He hired extravagantly and fired ruthlessly—to the minds of some, senselessly. But he knew what he was doing. He knew explosives, and he knew men. He was not liked, but he was respected. His building was good.

Being one of the only two "old" men there—and the other did not stay long—Kinnison, as a Junior Chemical Engineer, was not at first accepted without reserve. Apparently he did not notice that fact, but went quietly about his assigned duties. He was meticulously careful with, but very evidently not in any fear of, the materials with which he worked. He pelleted and tested tracer, igniter, and incendiary compositions; he took his turn at burning out rejects. Whenever asked, he went out on the lines with any one of them.

His experimental tetryls always "miked" to size, his TNT melt-pours—introductory to loading forty-millimeter on the Three Line—came out solid, free from checks and cavitations. It became evident to those young but keen minds that he, alone of them all, was on familiar ground. They began to discuss their problems with him. Out of his years of technological experience, and by bringing everyone present into the discussion, he either helped them directly or helped them to help themselves. His stature grew.

Black-haired, black-eyed "Tug" Tugwell, two hundred pounds of ex-football-player in charge of tracer on the Seven Line, called him "Uncle" Ralph, and the habit spread. And in a couple of weeks—at about the same time that "Injun" Abernathy was slightly injured by being blown through a door by a minor explosion of his igniter on the Eight line—he was promoted to full Chemical Engineer; a promotion which went unnoticed, since it involved only changes in title and salary.

Three weeks later, however, he was made Senior Chemical Engineer, in charge of Melt-Pour. At this there was a celebration, led by "Blondie" Wanacek, a sulphuric-acid expert handling tetryl on the Two. Kinnison searched minutely for signs of jealousy or antagonism, but could find none. He went blithely to work on the Six line, where they wanted to start pouring twenty-pound fragmentation bombs, ably assisted by Tug and by two new men. One of these was "Doc" or "Bart" Barton, who, the grapevine said, had been hired by Cappy to be his Assistant. His motto, like that of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, was to run and find out, and he did so with glee and abandon. He was a good egg. So was the other newcomer, "Charley" Charlevoix, a prematurely gray paint-and-lacquer expert who had also made the Siberian grade.

A few months later, Sumner called Kinnison into the office. The latter went, wondering what the old hard-shell was going to cry about now; for to be called into that office meant only one thing—censure.

"Kinnison, I like your work," the Chief Chemist began, gruffly, and Kinnison's mouth almost dropped open. "Anybody who ever got a Ph.D. under Montrose would have to know explosives, and the F.B.I. report on you showed that you had brains, ability, and guts. But none of that explains how you can get along so well with those damned Siberians. I want to make you Assistant Chief and put you in charge of Siberia. Formally, I mean—actually, you have been for months."

"Why, no ... I didn't.... Besides, how about Barton? He's too good a man to kick in the teeth that way."

"Admitted." This did surprise Kinnison. He had never thought that the irascible and tempestuous Chief would ever confess to a mistake. This was a Cappy he had never known. "I discussed it with him yesterday. He's a damned good man—but it's decidedly questionable whether he has