Planets of Adventure [сборник]

Sandringham glanced at young Barnes, who flushed hotly at being noticed.

"I'm sure you have good reasons, sir," he said, embarrassed.

"I have several," said the Sector Chief dryly. "For one thing, so long as we refuse to let them in, they're reassured. They can't imagine we'd let them drown. But if we invited them in they'd panic and fight to get in first. There'd be a full-scale slaughter right there! They'd be sure disaster was only minutes off. Which it would be!"

He paused and glanced from one to the other of the senior officers.

"When I sent for you," he said, "I meant you, Bordman, to take care of the possible sliding. I meant for Werner, here, to do the public-relations job of scaring the civilians just enough to make them let it be done. It's not so simple, now!"

He drew a deep breath.

"It's pure chance that this is a Sector Headquarters. Or else it's Providence. We'll find that out later! But ten days ago it was discovered that an instrument had gone wrong over in the ship-fuel storage area. It didn't register when a tank leaked. And a tank did leak. You know ship fuel is harmless when it's refrigerated. You know what it's like when it's not. Dissolved in soil-moisture, it's not only catalyzed to explosive condition, but it's a hell of a corrosive, and it's eaten holes in some other tanks—and can you imagine trying to do anything about that?"

Bordman felt a sensation of incredulous shock. Werner wrung his hands.

"If I could only find the man who made that faulty tank!" he said thickly. "He's killed all of us! Unless we get to solid ground in the Arctic!"

The Sector Chief said:

"That's why I won't let them in, Bordman. Our storage tanks go down to bedrock. The leaked fuel—warmed up, now—is seeping along bedrock and eating at other tanks, besides being absorbed generally by the soil and dissolving in the groundwater. We've pulled all personnel out of all the area it could have seeped down to."

Bordman felt slightly cold at the back of his neck.

"I suspect," he said, "that they came out on tip-toe, holding their breaths, and they were careful not to drop anything or scrape their chairs when they got up to leave. I would have! Anything could set it off. But it is bound to go anyhow! Of course! Now I see why we couldn't make a rocket-landing!"

The chilly feeling seemed to spread as he realized more fully. When ship-fuel is refrigerated during its manufacture, it is about as safe a substance as can be imagined, so long as it is kept refrigerated. It is an energy-chemical compound, of atoms bound together with forced-violence linkages. But enormous amounts of energy are required to force valences upon reluctant atoms. When ship-fuel warms up, or is catalyzed, it goes on one step beyond the process of its manufacture. It goes on to the modification the refrigeration prevented. It changes its molecular configuration. What was stable because it was cold becomes something which is hysterically unstable because of its structure. The touch of a feather can detonate it. A shout can set it off. It is, indeed, burned only molecule by molecule in a ship's engines, being catalyzed to the unstable state while cold at the very spot where it is to detonate. And since the energy yielded by detonation is that of the forced bonds, the energy-content of ship-fuel is much greater than a merely chemical compound can contain. Ship-fuel contains a measurable fraction of the power of atomic explosive. But it is much more practical for use on board ship.

The point now was, of course, that—leaked into the ground and warmed—practically any vibratory motion would detonate the fuel. Even dissolved, it can detonate because it is not a chemical but an energy-release action.

"A good, drumming, heavy rain," said Sandringham, "which falls on this end of the island, will undoubtedly set off some hundreds of tons of leaked ship-fuel. And that ought to scatter and catalyze and detonate the rest. The explosion should be equivalent to at least a megaton fusion bomb." He paused, and added with irony. "Pretty situation, isn't it? If the civilians hadn't irrigated, we could evacuate Headquarters and let it blow, as it will anyhow. If the fuel hadn't leaked, we could let in the civilians until the island's soil decides what it's going to do. Either would be a nasty situation, but the combination . . ."

Werner said shrilly:

"Evacuation to the Arctic is the only possible answer! Some people can be saved! Some! I'll take a boat and equipment and go on ahead and get some sort of refuge ready—"

There was dead silence. The brown dog who had followed Bordman from the outer terrace now yawned loudly. Bordman reached over and absent-mindedly scratched his ears. Young Barnes swallowed.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said. "What's the weather forecast?"

"Continued fair," said Sandringham, pleasantly. "That's why I had Bordman and Werner come down. Three heads are better than one. I've gambled their lives on their brains."

Bordman continued to scratch the brown dog's ears. Werner licked his lips. Young Barnes looked from one to another of them. Then he looked back at the Sector Chief.