Read Ebook: Thunder in space by Del Rey Lester Finlay Virgil Illustrator

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Ebook has 202 lines and 16678 words, and 5 pages

Illustrator: Virgil Finlay

Release date: December 1, 2023

Original publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1962

THUNDER in SPACE

Illustrated by FINLAY

In the little formal garden in Geneva, the guards had withdrawn discreetly, out of sight and hearing of the two men who sat on a carved marble bench in the center of the enclosure.

The President of the United States was too old for the days of strained public and private meetings and the constant badgering of his advisers that had preceded this final, seemingly foredoomed effort. His hands trembled as he lifted them to light a cigarette. Only his voice still held its accustomed calm.

"Then it's stalemate, Feodor Stepanovich. I can make no more concessions without risking impeachment."

The dark, massive head of the Russian Premier nodded. "Nor can I, without committing political suicide." His English was better than the rural dialect of Russian he still retained. "Call it a double checkmate. Our predecessors sowed their seeds too deep for our spades. Or should I say, too high?"

The Premier muttered something from the ugliness of his childhood experiences, but the President only sighed unhappily, as if sorry that his own background gave him no such expressions.

A few minutes later, the leaders separated. As they moved across the garden, their escorts surrounded them, clearing the way toward the cars that would take them to the airport. Behind them, professional diplomats stopped puzzling over the delay and began spinning obfuscations to cynical reporters. The phrases had long since lost all meaning, but the traditions of propaganda had to be maintained.

In the UN, the Israeli delegate crumpled a news dispatch and began speaking without notes, demanding that space be inter-nationalized. It was the greatest speech of his career, and even the delegate from Egypt applauded. But national survival could not be trusted to the shaky impartiality of the UN. The resolution was vetoed by both the United States and Russia.

The Fourteenth Space Disarmament Conference was ended.

Jerry Blane should have been used to such conditions. He'd been one of the original space-struck men who'd helped to build it and then had been lucky enough to get a permanent assignment. Now he drifted in the weightless hub, watching the loading of a ship bound back for the home planet, wondering what hell's brew the boxes contained. The project that had usurped the cryogenic labs had involved its own crew of scientists, who were already on board the ship, taking their secret with them.

He shrugged, trying to dismiss the problem. The motion twitched him about, and he corrected automatically. His tall, thin body was accustomed to weightlessness.

The short, intense figure of General Devlin popped into the hub from the tube elevator ahead of the pilot, Edwards. In spite of the weightlessness, the station commandant managed to pull himself to rigid attention at sight of Blane. He scowled, but held out his hand with formal correctness.

"All right, Blane. You're in charge officially until I get back," he admitted grudgingly. He obviously resented the order that left a civilian in charge while he went down to testify for the station appropriations and receive new orders. "You'll find detailed notes on my desk. I suggest you follow them to the letter."

He grabbed a handhold and began pulling himself into the airlock to the ship without waiting for a reply.

Edwards had lingered. Now he also held out his hand. "Wish me luck, Jerry," he said. "I may need it."

Because of the contents of the boxes and the presence of Devlin, Edwards had been ordered to make his landing at Canaveral, under military security. Most space work was done from Johnston Island in the Pacific; the inadequate facilities at the Cape were supposed to be used only by smaller rockets. But lately the rules were shot in a lot of ways. Ever since the last meeting at Geneva, nothing seemed normal.

"You'll make out," Drake told him. "Our predictions give you perfect landing weather, at least."

"Yeah. Clear weather and thunder below." In the station slang, thunder stood for heavy trouble. The weather forecast didn't matter; there was always thunder below.

From the viewing ports, Earth filled almost the entire field of vision, like a giant opal set in black velvet. More than half was covered by bright cloud masses, but the rest showed swirls and patterns of blue water, green forest and reddish brown barren patches. Over everything lay the almost fluorescent blue of atmosphere, forming a brilliant violet halo at the horizon. It looked incredibly beautiful. So, Blane thought, does a Portuguese man-of-war--until one sees the slime underneath or touches the poisoned stings.

"Why can't they leave us alone?" Peal asked, as if reading Blane's mind. "Why can't they blow themselves up quietly without ruining our chances here?"

Blane chuckled bitterly. He'd been on vacation down there a month before, and Earth was fresher in his memory than it was to Peal. "They don't see it that way. To them, we're the danger, the biggest sword of Damocles ever invented. They look up and see us going overhead, loaded with enough megaton bombs to blast life off Earth. Every time we orbit over them, they see Armageddon right over their heads, waiting some fool's itching finger. They could risk the holocaust when everything was halfway around the world, but not when it's where they can look up and see it. Most of the thunder down there is caused by the chained lightning we're carrying up here."

It wasn't an original idea. The panic on Earth had been increasing since the building of the Russian station. Now panic bred false moves, and errors bred more panic. Sooner or later, that panic could get out of hand and bring about the very ruin they feared.

"Besides," he added, "there's the expense of keeping us up here. They think the billions needed to maintain us are pauperizing them."

"We're paying three to one on every cent we get! Even forgetting the work in astronomy, bio-chemistry, cryogenics and high-vacuum research, our weather predictions are worth billions a year in crop returns."

"That's what comes of putting scientific tools under government control," Peal grumbled. "The stations should have been private enterprises from the beginning."

Peal followed Blane through the side door into the little office of Devlin. The General was something of a martinet, but his discipline extended to himself. Everything was in order, and the list of instructions lay in a folder in the center of the desk. Blane glanced at it, then at the basket of communications from Earth. He grimaced, and passed some of the flimsies over to Peal. "There's more evidence, if you want to prove the profit we could show."

There were requests for projects to be done here, complaints--often angry--at projects already okayed but delayed by high-priority military research. There were applications from names already famous below. Five foundations were demanding that the lunar ships be rushed to completion.

The intercom came to life with a rasping parody of the voice of Devlin's secretary. "Mr. Blane, Captain Manners insists on seeing you. He's been waiting nearly an hour."

"Send him in," Blane ordered. The red-headed young captain had been assigned here only six months ago, but Blane had met him often enough to like him.

Almost at once, the connecting office door opened and Manners shoved in. He was obviously angry, but his voice didn't show it. "Thanks for seeing me, Blane. I'd just about decided you wouldn't." He slapped a piece of film down on the desk. "Here. Look at that!"

The film was slightly darkened. Blane turned it over, recognizing it as one of the strips worn by the men who worked in the bomb section to warn of any accidental exposure to radiation. But it was well under any dangerous level of exposure. He passed it to Peal, who studied it in curiosity.

"That's in five hours of routine work in the bomb bay," Manners said. "Routine work! And I checked the films before issuing them, so I know they weren't pre-exposed." He pulled out a sheet of paper covered with figures and dropped it on the desk. "The radiation's up in there again. Check it yourself if you won't accept my readings."

Peal had grabbed up the figures which listed the radiation count in various sections of the bomb bay. They meant nothing to Blane, but the scientist tensed visibly as he studied them.

"I gather you showed your figures to Devlin," Blane said. "What did he say about them?"

Bitterness washed over Manners' face. "He told me to forget it, that readings were higher here than what I'd learned handling warheads below because we got so many cosmic rays. Three months ago, they were a lot higher, and he said there was an increase in cosmic radiation. But he okayed my getting the air pumped out of the bay so nothing hot would be sucked into the rest of the station. Last month, the figures went up to about half what they are now, and he mumbled something about a cosmic ray storm. I haven't been able to see him since then."

"There's no such thing as a cosmic ray storm," Peal said flatly. "Why wasn't this reported to me? It's partly in my province."

"General Devlin ordered me not to discuss it with anyone!"

"Thunder?" Blane asked the scientist.

"If it keeps doubling every month, it's disaster! The thin walls here are no protection from radiation. Even now, we'd better evacuate the bio labs beside the bay. Captain Manners, we'll have to check you on this. I'm not exactly doubting your word, but these results are impossible according to anything I know." He swung to Blane. "I think you'd better come, too, Jerry. This may be something for the authorities, and you carry the weight here now."

It was a lousy beginning to his temporary command, Blane thought. But seeing Peal's face, he simply nodded and followed the other two out into the hall. They were heading toward the bomb section when a shout went up from some of the men watching the viewing screens.

Blane swore to himself, but turned back.

Scarfield had taken over from his subordinate and began picking out details with a moving spot of light. "Rocket--see its shadow? And there--there--there. Jerry, they've got every ship they own assembled together. And it looks as if they've been running supplies to them all. Something big's due."

"Attack?" Blane asked. One of the jobs of the station was to spot any clustering of military rockets that might presage a ground-based attack.

Scarfield shock his head. "Not a chance. Those are space rockets, not war missiles. This is like the massed flight they sent up about two years ago, remember? We never did figure out why they had to take the whole fleet out. But with what's going on below, this must mean something important. Think we should alert HQ?"

They obviously should, as soon as they were over one of their own stations. The rule was clear on that--when in doubt, shout! But meantime, they'd have to watch while still in view.

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