Planets of Adventure [сборник]

He stopped, appalled at his own presumption in suggesting that he could substitute for a Senior Officer even as a message-boy, and even for his convenience or safety. He began to stammer:

"I m-mean, sir, n-not that I'm capable of it—"

"Stop stammering," grunted Bordman. "There aren't two separate problems. There's one which is the compound of the two. I'm staying at Headquarters to try something on the ship-fuel side, and Werner will specialize on the rest of the island since he hasn't come up with anything but shifting people to the icepack. And the situation isn't hopeless! If there's an earthquake or a storm, of course, we'll be wiped out. But short of one of those calamities, we can save part of the island. I don't know how much, but some. You make those measurements. If you're doubtful, get a Headquarters man to duplicate them. Then give me both sets."

"Y-yes, sir," said young Barnes.

"And," said Bordman, "never try to push your ranking officer into a safe place, even if you're willing to take his risk. Would you like it if a man under you tried to put you in a safe place while he took the chance that was yours?"

"N-no, sir!" admitted the very junior lieutenant. "But—"

"Make those measurements!" snapped Bordman.

The boat came into the dock. Bordman got out and went to Sandringham's office.

Sandringham was in the act of listening to somebody in the phone-screen, who apparently was on the thin edge of hysteria. The brown dog was sprawled asleep on the rug.

When the man in the vision-screen panted to a stop, Sandringham said calmly:

"I am assured that before the soil of the island is too far gone, measures now in preparation will be applied to good effect. A Senior Survey Officer is now preparing remedial measures. He is—ah—a specialist in problems of exactly this nature."

"But we can't wait!" panted the civilian fiercely. "I'll proclaim a planetary emergency! We'll take over the reserve area by force! We have to—"

"If you try," Sandringham told him grimly, "I'll mount paralysis-guns to stop you." He said with icy precision: "I urged the planetary government to go easy on this irrigation. You yourself denounced me in the Planetary Council for trying to interfere in civilian affairs. Now you want to interfere in Survey affairs! I resent it as much as you did, and with much better reason."

"Murderer!" panted the civilian. "Murderer!"

Sandringham snapped off the phone-screen. He swung his chair and nodded to Bordman.

"That was the planetary president," he said.

Bordman sat, down. The brown dog blinked his eyes open and then got up and shook himself.

"I'm holding off those idiots," said the Sector Chief in suppressed fury. "I daren't tell him it's more dangerous here than outside! If or when that fuel blows—do you realize that the falling of a single tree-limb might set off an explosion in the Reserve-area here that would— But you do know."

"Yes," admitted Bordman.

He did know. Some hundreds of tons of ship-fuel going off would destroy this entire end of the island. And almost certainly the concussion would produce violent movement of the rest of the island's surface. But he was uncomfortable about putting forward his own ideas. He was not a good salesman. He suspected his own opinions until he had proved them with painstaking care, for fear of having them adopted on his past record rather than because they were sound. And then, too, this plan involved junior ranks being informed about the proposal. If they accepted a dubious plan on high authority, and the plan miscarried, it made them share in the mistake. Which hurt their self-confidence. Young Barnes, now, would undoubtedly obey any order and accept any hint blindly, and Bordman honestly did not know why. But as a matter of the training of junior ranks—

"About the work to be done," said Bordman, "I imagine the seawater freshening plants have closed down?"

"They have!" said Sandringham. "They insisted on piling them up over my protests. Now if anybody proposed operating one, they'd scream to high Heaven!"

"What was done with the minerals taken out of the seawater?" Bordman asked.

"You know how the fresheners work," said Sandringham. "They pump seawater in at one end, and at the other one pipe yields fresh water, and the other heavy brine. They dump the heavy brine back overboard and the fresh water's pumped up and distributed through the irrigation systems."

"It's too bad some of the salts weren't stored," said Bordman. "Could a freshener be started up again?"

Sandringham stared. Then he said:

"Oh, the civilians would love that! No! If any man started up a water-freshener, the civilians would kill him and smash it!"

"But I think we'll need one. We'll want to irrigate some of the Reserve area."

"My God! What for?" demanded Sandringham. He paused. "No! Don't tell me! Let me try to work it out."