Big Pill by Raymond Z. Gallun (best electronic book reader .txt) 📖

move had been meant to provide a real disaster, with many deaths! Prove the Big Pill a failure. Make sure that it would be banned for good by the Safe Products Approval Board. Put the stamp of crime on Doc Kramer, the gentle little scientist who had been murdered! And on him, Bert Kraskow. And where was the rat, Lauren? On his way to the colonized moons of Jupiter, or even Mars, yelling and accusing by radio all along the line?

As consciousness faded further, Bert stopped thinking unpleasant things. His mind drifted into Doc Kramer's dream—of the changes which would make the near-dead worlds of space really habitable and homelike, fit for human colonists. It was a beautiful, lost vision.

He was out cold, then, for several Earth-days, and only dimly aware for many days afterward. He knew that he was in the ship's sick-bay, and that Lawler and other men were there, too. He heard their voices, and his own, without remembering what was said. Alice often came to see him. Often he heard roaring, watery sounds, as of vast rains.

Gradually he came out of the dream-like period, learning of what had happened. Until the time when he walked from the sick-bay, unsteadily, but on the mend.

Alice, at his elbow, spoke: "It was like Doc Kramer planned, Bert, solving the hardest problem."

He knew what this meant. Transmutation, or any atomic process, must involve the generation of much radioactivity that can destroy life. In the Big Pill, the problem was to make all the atoms break, and rearrange their components into new elements as cleanly and sharply as possible, so that residual atomic instability—radioactivity, that is—would not linger for years, but would disappear quickly.

"Titan's new atmosphere is clean and breathable, now, Bert," Alice went on. "And likewise the radioactive poisons that made you and Lawler and the others very ill disappeared quickly from your bodies. However, two colonists were beyond saving."

Lawler was with the Kraskows. They went out of the ship without the cumbersome protection of spacesuits. A Space Patrolman hovered like a worried hawk, watching Bert, but the latter seemed not to mind.

Far above, replacing the hard stars and blackness of space, common to the firmaments of all dead and near-dead worlds, were great fleecy clouds and blue sky. The atmosphere, because of Titan's low gravity, was highly expanded and hence thin, but rich in oxygen. The breeze smelled cool and fresh. Overhead was a second sun, seemingly much larger in diameter than the distant central orb of the solar system. It crept with visible motion across the sky. It was the molten globe of what had been the Prometheus and its cargo, locked in its sub-lunar orbit around Titan. But it was calculated to provide sufficient warmth and light to a small world such as this, for ten Earth-years, without renewal.

Colonists were clearing away the wreckage of the now useless airdomes, and putting their cottages in order. But they still looked around in awe at the miracles that ended their space-nostalgia, making them feel truly at home here. Down in the valley there was even a great lake of rainwater from condensed steam—one of the end-products of the process that had gone on in the rocks of the great crater on the other side of Titan. That process had died to a sleepy smoking, now; but all over this moon of Saturn there were many lakes.

Big Lawler chuckled gleefully, the sound rumbling deep in his chest. "Rejuvenation of burnt-out spheres on a really progressive basis," he growled. "No obsolete, jury-rigged junk! Expensive? Sure! But we can pay for it! Out there are Saturn's metal-rich Rings!"

Bert was thinking that the same trick could be used on any world with enough gravity to hold down a respectable atmosphere. Half-dead Mars. Jupiter's four biggest moons. Some of the other satellites of Saturn. Mercury.

"The one thing that burns me is that my brother, Nick, and Doc Kramer, and those two colonists, had to die!" Bert grated. "Poor Doc. He was rich from the atomic engines he invented. And I knew long ago that, by his will, all his stock is to be put in trust for the welfare of spacemen and colonists. Should we feel glad or humble?"

Lawler's grin had become a snarl. "Damn Trenton Lauren!" he said.

Alice didn't exactly smile. "I should have told you before this," she offered seriously, "but death always upsets me. By radio report from a scouting Patrol boat an hour ago, Lauren and his stooges were found, smashed and burned in the crash of their craft a hundred miles from camp. Their half-repaired spaceboat killed them."

Bert and Lawler exchanged glances. Their anger faded.

"What's new from the Safe Products Approval Board, Allie?" Lawler asked at last. "You seem to find things out fast."

"Nothing new," she answered. "The latest messages are much the same as those from a while ago. Guarded enthusiasm, and the statement that an okay for the Kramer Methods must be withheld pending complete and prompt investigation. Can't blame them. Caution is important."

"Maybe, if you played your cards right, you could become the new president of the Prometheus outfit, Bert," Lawler kidded.

But the possibility was certainly there. Bert was proud of what he'd done. Prometheus owed him plenty. Still, looking across camp past cottages and shops to the red mud of the once-dry, frigid hills, and down to the blue lake in the valley, reflecting sky and clouds, he knew that his heart was here in this crescendoing colonial scene. Somewhere a circle-saw screamed. From the metals-shop came the clanging of a mechanical hammer. These were sounds of a great future here.

"Nuts, pal," Bert chuckled to Lawler. "I'll leave the official pencil-pushing to the lab experts. The building and progress are here. You and Allie and I will all be back on Titan very soon."

These three began to be aware that a crowd of still befuddled but happy colonists were gathering around them. Another Space Patrol man approached, and said very officially:

"Mr. and Mrs. Kraskow, and Mr. Lawler: Our large ship leaves for Earth in five hours. Be ready to blast off. As you are aware, certain still valid charges were lodged against you by Trenton Lauren. You used dangerous equipment, not yet legally approved. As you are also aware, you must go to answer these charges. Sorry. But we of the Patrol know the score. In the face of your success I'm sure that this is mere red tape."

Bert scowled until he saw the cop's sly grin.

"Worried?" Alice asked him, smiling. She was pretty. She had courage. She had everything.

"Worried?" Bert echoed. In general he approved the S.P.A.B. "How can we lose on this last gamble with all the cards stacked in our favor. We even win a needed short vacation on Earth!"

"What are you two gonna bring back for me?" an old man, grimed from the forges, demanded, grinning. It was old Stan Kraskow, who had buried his younger son in the camp cemetery.

"Hiyuh, Dad!" Bert greeted happily. "What'll we bring him, Allie?"

"Wildbirds, Pop," Alice answered, her eyes twinkling. "You always liked wildbirds. No world is complete without them."

Bert noticed that the gardens of the camp, planted weeks ago under airdomes that were now being cleared away, were now showing a faint green. The beginning of a new and verdant Titan.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Big Pill, by Raymond Zinke Gallun