Short Stories by Robert A. Heinlein Vol 2 Part 109

So he buckled down and learned the new system.

Charlie put on Hans' polarizing spectacles and looked around. He could see nothing. Light leaked around the guards of the spectacles and the gla.s.s in front of his eyes seemed opaque. He knew that he should be able to pick out the Sun, for he knew that the light from the sky, dispersed by the clouds of Venus, was polarized, made to wiggle up-and-down or sideways, instead of in all directions. He knew that these spectacles were supposed to blank out polarized light, let him see the Sun itself. But he could not see anything.

He turned slowly, blind behind the spectacles.

Hey, it was getting brighter! He swung his head back and forth, made sure he was not mistaken. "I got it!"

"False sun," Hans announced dispa.s.sionately.

"Huh?"

"You're a hundred and eighty degrees out of phase," Mr. Qu'an's voice announced. "You're looking at the reflection of the Sun. Never mind, other people have made that mistake. But it's not a mistake you can afford to make even once out in the bush.. . so keep trying*"

Charlie kept on turning-darn it, these specs fit so tight that he couldn't even see his feet! There it was again! Was it false sun? Or the Sun itself? How far had he turned?

He turned until he was dizzy, seeing brightness, then darkness, several times-and realized that one brightness was brighter than that which it alternated. Finally he stopped. "I'm looking at the Sun," he announced firmly.

"Okay," Hans admitted. "Jigger with it. Fine it down."

Charlie found that he could fiddle with screw settings on the sides of the spectacles and thereby kill the brightness almost completely. He did so, while swinging his head back and forth like a radar, trying to spot the smallest gleam that he could. "That's the best I can do."

"Hold still," Hans ordered. "Uncover your right eye. Mark me."

Charlie did as ordered, found himself staring with one eye down the sighter in front of the spectacles. Hans was thirty feet away, holding his Scout staff upright. "Don't move!" Hans cautioned. "Coach me on."

"Uh. . . come right a couple of feet."

"Here?"

"I think so. Let me check." He covered his right eye again, but found that his eye, dazzled by brighter light, could no longer pick up- the faint gleam he had marked. "That's the best I can do."

Hans stretched a string along the marked direction. "My turn. Note your time." He took the spectacles, quickly gave Charlie a direction, coached him into place. The twO lines differed by about ten degrees.

"Figure your hour angle," Hans said and looked at his watch.

The time was nine-thirty .. and the Sun moved fifteen degrees each hour. . . two and a half hours to noon; that's thirty-seven and a half degrees and each minute on the face of his watch was six degrees, so- Charlie was getting confused. He looked up, saw that Hans had placed his watch on the ground and was laying out base line. Hans' watch had a twenty-four hour face; he simply pointed the hour hand at the Sun and the XII spot then pointed along base line.

No mental arithmetic, no monkeying around- "Gosh, I wish I had a watch like that!"

"Don't need it," Hans answered without looking up.

"But it makes it so simple. You just-"

"Your watch is okay. Make yourself a twenty-fourhour dial out of cardboard." -

"That would work? Yeah, it would! I wish I had one now.,'

Hans fumbled in his duffel bag. "Uh, I made you one." He handed it over without looking up-a cardboard clock face, laid out for twenty-four hours.

Charlie was almost speechless. "Gee! Nixie, look at that! Say, flans, I don't know how to thank you."

~*Don~t want you and Nixie getting lost," Hans answered gruffly.

Charlie took it, aimed nine-thirty along his line, marked - noon and restretched the string to match. Base line, according to his sighting, differed by ten degrees from that of Hans. In the meantime, two patrol leaders had stretched a line at right angles to base line, along where the troop was spread out. One of them moved down the line, checking angles with a protractor. Mr. Qu'an followed, checked Charlie's layout himself. "About nine degrees off," he told Charlie. "Not bad for a first try."

Charlie felt crestfallen. He knew that he and Hans could not both be right but he had had a small hope that his answer was nearer the correct one. "Uh. . . which way am I wrong?" -

"Left-demi. Look at Hans'-he's dead on . . . as usual." The Scoutmaster raised his voice. "All right, gang! Bush formation, route march. Flamers out, right and left. Rusty on point, Bill on drag-shake it up!"

"Heel, Nixie."

The road cut straight through the jungle. The clearing had been flamed back wider than the road so that the jungle did not arch over it. The column kept -to the middle where the ground was packed by vehicles running to and from outlying plantations. The flamers on the flanks, both of them Explorer Scouts, walked close to the walls of green and occasionally used their flame guns to cut back some new encroachment of vine or tree or gra.s.s. Each time they did so, they kept moving and a scavenger gang moved out, tossed the debris back into the living forest, and quickly rejoined the column. It was everybody's business to keep the roads open; the colony depended on roads more than Ancient Rome had depended on theirs.

Presently it began to rain. No one paid attention; rain was as normal as ice in Greenland. Rain was welcome; it washed off ever-present sweat and gave an illusion of coolness.-

Presently Point (Rusty Dunlop) stopped, sighted back at Drag, and shouted, "Right demi fifteen degrees!"

Drag answered, "Check!" Point continued around the slight bend in the road. They had left Borealis heading "south" of course, since no other direction was possible, but that particular south was base thirty-two degrees right demi, to which was now added fifteen degrees clockwise.

It was Point's duty to set trail, keep lookout ahead, and announce his estimate of every change in direction. It was Drag's business to have eyes in the back of his head (since even here the jungle was - not without power to strike), keep count of his paces, and keep written record of all course changes and the number of paces between each-dead reckoning navigation marked down in a waterproof notebook strapped to his wrist. He was picked for his reliability and the evenness of his strides.

A dozen other boys were doing the same things, imitating both Point and Drag, and recording everything, paces, times, and course changes, in preparation for Pathfinder merit badges. Each time the troop stopped, each would again establish base direction and record it. Later, after the hike, they would attempt to map where they-had been, using only their notes.

It was just practice, since the road was surveyed and mapped, but practice that could determine later whether they lived, or died miserably in the jungle. Mr. Qu'an had no intention of taking the troop, including tenderfoot town boys not yet twenty Venus years old, into unexplored jungle. But older boys, seasoned explorer Scouts did go into trackless bush; some were already marking out land they would claim and try to conquer. On their ability to proceed by dead reckoning through bush and swamp and return to where they had started depended both their lives and their future livelihoods.

Mr. Qu'an dropped back, fell in beside Charlie. "Counting paces?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where's your notebook?"

"Uh, it was getting soggy in the rain, so I put it away. I'm keeping track in my head."

"That's a fine way to wind up at South Pole. Next time, bring a waterproof one."

Charlie didn't answer. He had wanted one, as he had wanted a polarizing sighter and many other things. But the Vaughn family was still scratching for a toehold; luxuries had to wait.

Mr. Qu'an looked at Charlie. "If convenient, that is," he went on gently. "Right now I don't want you to count paces anyhow."

"Sir?"

"You can't learn everything at once, and today you can't get lost. I want you to soak up junglecraft. Hans. you two move to the flank. Give Charlie a chance to see what we're pa.s.sing through. Lecture him about it. and for goodness' sake try to say more than two words at a time!"

"Yes, sir."

"And-" The Scoutmaster got no further; he was hailed by the boss of the scavenger gang. "Mr. Qu'an! Squint's got a screwbug!"

The man said something bitter under his breath, started to run. The two boys followed. The scavengers had been moving a large branch, freshly flamed down. Now they were cl.u.s.tered around one boy, who wa~ gripping his forearm. Mr. Qu' an burst into the group, grabbed the kid by that arm without saying a word, and examined it. - He s.h.i.+fted his grip so that the skin was drawn tight at one spot, reached for his belt and drew a knife--dug the point into skin, and, as if he were cutting a bad spot out of an apple, excised a small chunk of flesh. Squint screwed up his face and tears came into his eyes, but he did not cry out.