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Read Ebook: Trouble on Tycho by Bond Nelson S Walker Illustrator
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Ebook has 174 lines and 8575 words, and 4 pages
TROUBLE ON TYCHO
Isobar and his squeeze-pipes were the bane of the Moon Station's existence. But there came the day when his comrades found that the worth of a man lies sometimes in his nuisance value.
The audiophone buzzed thrice--one long, followed by two shorts--and Isobar Jones pressed the stud activating its glowing scanner-disc.
"Hummm?" he said absent-mindedly.
The selenoplate glowed faintly, and the image of the Dome Commander appeared.
"Report ready, Jones?"
"Send it up," interrupted Colonel Eagan, "as soon as you can. Sparks is making Terra contact now. That is all."
"That ain't all!" declared Isobar indignantly. "How about my bag--?"
This done, he drew a clean sheet of paper out of his desk drawer, frowned thoughtfully at the tabulated results of his observations, and began writing.
The audiophone rasped again. Isobar jabbed the stud and answered without looking.
"O.Q.," he said wearily. "O.Q. I told you it would be ready in a couple o' minutes. Keep your pants on!"
"I--er--I beg your pardon, Isobar?" queried a mild voice.
Isobar started. His sallow cheeks achieved a sickly salmon hue. He blinked nervously.
The Dome Commander's niece giggled.
"That's all right, Isobar. I just called to ask you about the weather in Oceania Sector 4B next week. I've got a swimming date at Waikiki, but I won't make the shuttle unless the weather's going to be nice."
"It is," promised Isobar. "It'll be swell all weekend, Miss Sally. Fine sunshiny weather. You can go."
"That's wonderful. Thanks so much, Isobar."
"Don't mention it, ma'am," said Isobar, and returned to his work.
South America. Africa. Asia. Pan-Europa. Swiftly he outlined the meteorological prospects for each sector. He enjoyed this part of his job. As he wrote forecasts for each area, in his mind's eye he saw himself enjoying such pastimes as each geographical division's terrain rendered possible.
"Six solid months! Six sad, dreary months!" thought Isobar, "Locked up in an airtight Dome like--like a goldfish in a glass bowl!" Sunlight? Oh, sure! But filtered through ultraviolet wave-traps so it could not burn, it left the skin pale and lustreless and clammy as the belly of a toad. Fresh air? Pooh! Nothing but that everlasting sickening, scented, reoxygenated stuff gushing from atmo-conditioning units.
Excitement? Adventure? The romance he had been led to expect when he signed on for frontier service? Bah! Only a weary, monotonous, routine existence.
"A pain!" declared Isobar Jones. "That's what it is; a pain in the stummick. Not even allowed to--Yeah?"
It was Sparks, audioing from the Dome's transmission turret. He said, "Hyah, Jonesy! How comes with the report?"
"Done," said Isobar. "I was just gettin' the sheets together for you."
Isobar bridled.
"I don't know what you're talkin' about."
"Oh, no? Well, I'm talking about that squawk-filled doodlesack of yours, sonny boy. Don't bring that bag-full of noise up here with you."
Isobar said defiantly, "It ain't a doodlesack. It's a bagpipe. And I guess I can play it if I want to--"
"Yeah? What?"
"Well, it's Roberts and Brown--"
"What about 'em?"
"They've gone Outside to make foundation repairs."
"Lucky stiffs!" commented Isobar ruefully.
"Lucky, no. Stiffs, maybe--if they should meet any Grannies. Well, scoot along. I'm on the ether in four point sixteen minutes."
"Be right up," promised Isobar, and, sheets in hand, he ambled from his cloistered cell toward the central section of the Dome.
He didn't leave Sparks' turret after the sheets were delivered. Instead, he hung around, fidgeting so obtrusively that Riley finally turned to him in sheer exasperation.
"Sweet snakes of Saturn, Jonesy, what's the trouble? Bugs in your britches?"
Isobar said, "H-huh? Oh, you mean--Oh, thanks, no! I just thought mebbe you wouldn't mind if I--well--er--"
"I get it!" Sparks grinned. "Want to play peekaboo while the contact's open, eh? Well, O.Q. Watch the birdie!"
He twisted dials, adjusted verniers, fingered a host of incomprehensible keys. Current hummed and howled. Then a plate before him cleared, and the voice of the Earth operator came in, enunciating with painstaking clarity:
"Earth answering Luna. Earth answering Luna's call. Can you hear me, Luna? Can you hear--?"
"I can not only hear you," snorted Riley, "I can see you and smell you, as well. Stop hamming it, stupid! You're lousing up the earth!"
The now-visible face of the Earth radioman drew into a grimace of displeasure.
"Ask him," whispered Isobar eagerly. "Sparks, don't forget to ask him!"
Riley motioned for silence, but nodded. He finished the weather report, entered the Dome Commander's log upon the Home Office records, and dictated a short entry from the Luna Biological Commission. Then:
"That is all," he concluded.
"O.Q.," verified the other radioman. Isobar writhed anxiously, prodded Riley's shoulder.
"Ask him, Sparks! Go on ask him!"
"Oh, cut jets, will you?" snapped Sparks. The Terra operator looked startled.
"How's that? I didn't say a word--"
"Don't be a dope," said Sparks, "you dope! I wasn't talking to you. I'm entertaining a visitor, a refugee from a cuckoo clock. Look, do me a favor, chum? Can you twist your mike around so it's pointing out a window?"
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