Spacehounds of IPC by E. E. Smith (e books for reading .TXT) 📖

were to attempt the long voyage back to their own distant planet.

It took some little time to convince Doctor Penfield that there had been projected into the empty air of his little sanctum an absolutely invisible and impalpable structure of pure force capable of receiving and transmitting voice and vision. Once convinced of the reality of the phenomenon, however, the speaker beside Brandon's communicator screen fairly rattled under the fervor of his greeting, so great was his pleasure at the arrival of the expedition of relief and in knowing that King and Breckenridge, whom they had, of course, given up for dead, were aboard the Interplanetary vessel.

Penfield reported that the work upon the great rocket-ship was progressing satisfactorily, although slowly, since it was so much larger than any vessel theretofore constructed by the Callistonians. Newton, in turn, informed the autocrat of the stranded Terrestrials as to the status quo of the rescuing party.

"Of course, because of the hexan blockade, you cannot take us off until they have been wiped out, which will be several months at best," the surgeon said, slowly, and a shadow came over his face as he spoke. "Well, what can't be cured...."

"Trouble with the personnel?" King broke in sharply.

"Personnel, yes; but not trouble in the sense you mean—we have had none of that. It is only that there are four more of us now than there were...."

"Huh? How come?" demanded Brandon, in astonishment.

"Four babies have been born to us here so far, and several more are coming. They are the ones I'm worried about. Most normal adults can stand it here without any serious effects, but this thin atmosphere and weak gravity are certain to result in abnormal development of children. However, there may be another way out of it. Are you using normal acceleration, or have you Martians aboard?"

"Both," replied Brandon. "We are carrying two inhabitants of Mars, but Alcantro and Fedanzo are not ordinary Martians. They have been in constant training ever since we left Tellus, and now they can stand as high an acceleration as a weak Tellurian. We're riding at normal."

"Good! As you already know, there has been no communication of late between here and Callisto. It had already been decided, however, that one more voyage must be risked, in order to bring back material which is most urgently needed. Since the vessel will leave here light and is large enough to carry about thirty passengers on a short trip with some crowding, the Council will probably approve of having it carry some of our passengers out to the Sirius—especially now, since a vessel must visit you, anyway, to get Captain Czuv and the specifications of the new armament. All these things can be done with one vessel in one trip."

"That sounds fine!" boomed King. "It will give me a chance to get back there where I belong, too. Whom are you sending out?"

"The seven couples who either have babies already or who will have them in the next few months; and some of our young who aren't standing the gaff any too well. You won't be in the red very deeply on the deal, either—while two or three of the passengers I am sending you will certainly be a nuisance; anybody could use, anywhere, such men as Commander Sanderson and Lieut..."

"Sanderson!" interrupted King. "Why, he wasn't—when did he get married?"

"The day after we arrived here," replied the surgeon. "His fiancee was aboard the Arcturus, and when they found out how long we would have to be here, they very sensibly decided not to wait."

"Were there any others?" demanded Nadia, who, standing between Stevens and her father, had been an interested listener.

"Plenty of them! Fourteen of our young women passengers have married here upon Europa. A few married fellow-passengers, but most of them picked out officers of the Arcturus. You'll find your staff made up pretty largely of benedicts now, King! We've been here a year, you know, and time will tell! Young Commander Sanderson's a fine baby—he'll be a credit to the IPC some day, if we can get him aboard the Sirius, where he can get a good start. We could give our babies normal air pressure here by building special rooms, but we cannot give them the normal acceleration necessary to develop their muscles properly."

"Well, we'd better snap over to Callisto and take this up with the Council," Brandon put in. "I don't imagine that there will be any objections, so you might as well get your ship gassed up and loaded—we'll be back here with the okay in about a minute and a half."

With Brandon at the controls and with Czuv at the communicator plate, the projection flashed toward distant Callisto and the group melted away, each man going about his interrupted task.

"Daddy, take us somewhere—I want to talk to you," Nadia spoke to her father, and the director led her and Stevens to his own room.

"All x, daughter; out with it!" and he bent upon her a quizzical glance, under which a fiery blush burned from her throat to her forehead.

"Dad, I've been thinking a lot since you rescued us, and what we've just heard has given me the nerve to say it. Steve, of course, wouldn't dare suggest such a thing until we're safely back on Earth, so I will." Her deep brown eyes held his steadily. "All those girls got married—why, some of them have babies already—and Steve and I have waited for each other so long, daddy! And none of them love each other the way we do. Do they, Steve?"

"I don't see how they could, sir; and that goes straight across the panel," and he bore unflinchingly the piercing gaze of the older man as his right arm encircled the girl and held her close.

"Well, why not?" A sudden smile transformed Newton's stern visage. "There are three chaplains with the police—a Methodist minister, a Catholic priest, and a Jewish rabbi. Also, we have on board two full-fledged I-P captains, either of whom is authorized to tie matrimonial knots. The means are not lacking—if you're both sure of yourselves?" and all levity disappeared as he studied the two young faces.

"Yes, you are sure," he continued after a moment "just as her mother and I were—and are. It is too bad that she cannot be here with you, but it may be a long time before we can return to Tellus, and you have indeed waited long."

"Oh thanks, Daddy, you're just a perfectly wonderful old darling!" Nadia exclaimed, as she threw her arms rapturously around his neck. "And this isn't a warship at all—you know perfectly well that it's a research laboratory, and that as soon as the Navy gets here, you won't let it fight a bit more, because such scientists can't be allowed to risk themselves! And also, you're forgetting that whole flock of women and babies that are coming out here just as fast as they can get themselves ready. So get going, daddy old dear, and let's do things! Steve's a Quaker and we're Presbyterians, so none of the chaplains will do at all. Besides, I promised Captain King ages ago that he could marry me, so go get him and we'll do it now. Bill can be my bridesmaid, you'll give me away, and Steve can have the other two of his Big Three for best men. I'm off to hunt up the flimsiest, fussiest white dress I can find in my trunks. Let's go!"

"Mr. Newton." Stevens spoke thoughtfully as Nadia darted away. "You said something about her mother, I didn't want to say anything to raise false hopes while she was here, but I've got an idea. Let's meet in Brandon's room instead of here. We can send code to Tellus easily enough on our ultrawave, and we may be able to fake up something on vision."

A few minutes later the Big Three were in Brandon's private study; staring intently into a screen of ground glass upon which played flickering, flashing lights, while the black-haired physicist manipulated micrometer dials in infinitesimal arcs.

"Once more, Mac," Brandon directed. "Pretty nearly had them that time. We're stretching this projector about six hundred percent, but we've got to make this connection. Can't you give me just a little more voltage on those secondaries?"

"I can not!" the voice of the first assistant snapped from the speaker. "I'm overloading now so badly that some of my plates are getting hot—if I hold this voltage much longer, the whole secondary bank of tubes is going out. All x—you're on zero!"

"All x!" Flashing and waning, the lights upon the screen formed fleeting, shifting, nebulous images of a relay station upon distant Earth; but the utmost power of the transmitting fields could neither steady the image nor hold it.

"Back off, Mac," Brandon instructed. "I'm afraid we can't hold 'em direct—no use blowing a bank of tubes. We'll try relaying through Mars—we can hold them there, I think. It will muss up reception some, but it will probably be better than direct, at that. Point oh five three six ... all x—shoot!"

Brandon's relay station upon Mars was finally raised and held, and a corps of keenly interested engineers there made short work of the Earth-Mars linkage. Soon the screen glowed with the picture of the transmitter-room of the Terrestrial station, and while the three men were waiting for Mrs. Newton to be called to her own television set, the door behind them opened. Nadia and her escorts entered the room—but Stevens' eyes saw only the entrancing vision of loveliness that was his bride. Dressed in a clinging white gown of shimmering silk, her hair a golden blond corona, sweetly curved lips slightly parted and wide eyes eloquent, she paused momentarily as Stevens came to his feet and stared at her, his very heart in his eyes.

"You never saw me in a dress before—do you like me, Steve?"

"Like you! You're beautiful!" and gray eyes and brown, deep with wonder and with love, met and held as, unheeding the presence of their friends, they went into each other's arms in a coalescence as inevitable and as final as Fate itself.

"Hi, Nadia old dear!" and "Daughter, from what I can see of my son-in-law, I believe that he may do," came together from the speaker. Nadia tore herself from Stevens' embrace, to see upon the lambent screen the happily smiling faces of her mother and sister.

"Mother! Claire! Oh, you three wonder-workers!" She addressed simultaneously the distant Terrestrials and the scientists at her side, while broken exclamations, punctuated by ominous, crackling snaps, came from the laboring amplifier.

"Sorry to interrupt," MacDonald's voice broke in, "but you'll have to hurry it up. Alcantro and Fedanzo are doing their best, but every plate in my secondary bank's red hot, and you could fry an egg on any one of my transformers. Even my primary tubes are running hot. She won't hold together five minutes longer!"

Captain King opened his book, and in that small steel room, unadorned save for stack upon stack of bookcases, the brief but solemn ceremony joining two young lives was read—its solemnity only intensified by its unique accompaniment. For from Brandon at the primary controls, through the power-room of the Sirius and the relay-station upon Mars, to the immense Interplanetary transmitter upon Earth, the greatest radio and television engineers of two planets were fighting overdriven equipment, trying to hold an almost impossible connection, in order that Nadia Newton's mother and sister might be present at her wedding, hundreds of millions of miles distant in space!

"I pronounce you man and wife. Whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder." The sacred old ritual ended and Captain King picked up the bride in his great arms as though she were a baby, kissed her vigorously, and set her down in front of the transmitter. In the midst of the joyous confusion that ensued a tearing, rattling crash came from the speaker and the screen went blank.

"There!" lamented MacDonald from the power room. "I knew they'd blow! There goes my whole secondary bank—eight perfectly good ten-nineteens all shot to...."

"That's too bad, but it couldn't be helped; they went for a good cause," interrupted Brandon. "I'll come down and help clean up the mess."

Leaving the bridal party, he made his way rapidly to the power room, where he found MacDonald and the two Martians inspecting the smoking remains of what had been the secondary bank of their powerful ultra-transmitter. Spare parts in abundance were on hand, and it was not long until the damaged section was apparently as good as new.

"Now to try her out," Brandon announced. "We want to give her a good workout, but there's no use trying the I-P stations any more—they're altogether too hard to handle at this range. Czuv said something about an unknown race of monstrosities at the south pole of Jupiter—let's try it on them for a while."

He flung the