The Scarlet Lake Mystery Part 7

Dr. Gould saw that he was staring with interest at the activity in the shed and grinned sympathetically. "Ever see a big rocket before?"

"Only in pictures," Rick replied.

"Well, you'll see plenty of them before we're through here."

Rick hesitated. "Sir, is it okay to ask what this is all about?"

"Sure it's okay. We have three projects underway at present. In the shed on the left is Orion, which is a two-stage rocket for deep penetration into the exosphere. It's about ready to shoot. In the shed on the right is Cetus, a sounding rocket for ionospheric measurements."

Dr. Gould paused. "If you don't get me, speak up and I'll scoop you the answers. Roger so far?"

Rick nodded. "I'm with you." He understood from the scientist's explanation that Orion was to travel far into the exosphere, actually beyond the atmosphere, while Cetus was a smaller, single-stage rocket for research in the ionosphere, the ionized layer of atmosphere just beyond the stratosphere. The projects, he realized, were named for constellations.

"In this shed we have Pegasus."

"Pegasus was a winged horse," Rick commented, "And aren't those airfoils on that rocket section near the back of the shed? Is that the connection?"

Dr. Gould chuckled. "Sharp-oh! Those are indeed airfoils. Wings for Pegasus. Now make with the reason, if you can."

Rick pondered. He knew rockets achieved stability through fins, or steerable motors, and that wings were no help. Furthermore, there wasn't enough air for wings to be of use beyond the atmosphere where the big rockets traveled. He could see no reason for wings, and said so.

"You're not looking far enough ahead," Dr. Gould said severely. "Put on your s.p.a.ceman's helmet. Connect up and think. You're on s.p.a.ce Platform Number One and you want to come home to Terra. What are the wings for?"

Light dawned. Rick's chin dropped on his chest and stayed there. Finally he gasped, "You mean the wings are to turn the upper section into a glider in order to land it again?"

Dr. Gould put a hand on his shoulder and nodded gravely. "Ole Gee-Gee is pleased with you. You have demonstrated something between the ears besides strawberry Jello. You have just described the objective of Project Pegasus. We intend to shoot the beast into s.p.a.ce and bring the top stage home again by drone control."

The scientist grew serious. "It's not an easy thing, young Brant. No one has yet succeeded in getting a big rocket down in one piece. If we can do it, we'll be one step through the biggest barrier to manned s.p.a.ce flight.

"You will work on wiring in the drone control section. Just remember that every touch of your soldering iron is critical. Take no chances at all; everything must be perfect. Do your job and do it well, and someday you'll be able to say that you made the big horse's wings work when it really counted. Now come on, and I'll introduce you to d.i.c.k Earle and you can get started."

d.i.c.k Earle turned out to be a bigger and darker copy of Gee-Gee. He had the same crew cut and mustache, but his hair was jet black.

Rick also met Dr. Carleton Bond, a tall, slender man of advanced years who was a consultant on drone controls, and Frank Miller, a studious, rather curt young man who was an electronics design engineer.

He began to make some order out of the organization. Gee-Gee Gould was electronics chief for all three projects. d.i.c.k Earle was electronics chief for Pegasus, under Gould, and there were also electronics chiefs for Orion and Cetus. Similarly, the projects had air-frame departments, propulsion departments, instrumentation departments, and administrative departments.

Each project also had a technical director, who was a sort of co-ordinator, trouble shooter, and general expert. The technical directors reported to Dr. John Gordon, on loan from Spindrift, who had the t.i.tle of Senior Project Engineer.

Later, Rick explained it to Scotty. "Each project has its own staff, but there's a top staff that is responsible for all projects. I'm making a little sense out of it, but people keep showing up that I can't fit into the organization."

"They're probably support people," Scotty explained. "Seems the base is divided into two groups; the scientific gang and the support gang. I'm in support, in the vehicle maintenance section. Lomac runs the whole support group. Besides transportation, there's the tracking and monitoring gang--that's what Big Mac and Pancho are in--the machine-shop gang, and all the housekeeping facilities like the fire department, the security force, housing and feeding, and so on."

The boys' roommates turned out to be a security officer named Hank Leeming and one of the janitors, an elderly man of Mexican descent named Maximilian Rodriguez.

On the second day of work Rick met another interesting character, although a nonhuman one, and got an additional duty imposed on him.

He was at work installing a tiny servomotor in the drone control unit when something landed on his head and gripped his hair firmly.

Instinctively he started to swing at it, but Dr. Bond's voice stopped him in time.

"Easy, Rick! He won't hurt you."

Rick reached up carefully and his hands met fur. He lifted the little creature down and stared at it, his lips slowly parting in a grin. It was a tiny monkey no larger than a squirrel, with soft brown fur and tufted ears. The little animal pulled free, jumped onto Rick's shoulder and kissed him ecstatically, making happy chirrupy noises.

"What on earth is a monkey doing here?"

Dr. Bond smiled. "Prince Machiavelli is more than a monkey," he replied.

"Actually, he is a true marmoset of the genus _Callithrix_. He is also a genuine s.p.a.cemonk."

"A what?"

The elderly scientist smiled. "s.p.a.cemonk. The simian equivalent of s.p.a.ceman. The Prince has been into s.p.a.ce twice now. Fortunately, the nose section was parachuted down intact both times, so he survived.

Other s.p.a.cemonks have been less fortunate. He will be our surrogate for Project Pegasus."

Rick stared at the little creature with increased interest. The marmoset was to subst.i.tute, then, for human occupants of the big rocket. His life would depend on their ability to get the winged nose section down in one piece. He stroked the tiny s.p.a.cemonk gently, and got a contented series of chirps in response.

d.i.c.k Earle walked in and smiled as the monkey snuggled down happily in Rick's cupped hands. "Looks as if you've made a friend, Rick. Good. In addition to your other duties you can take over as the monk's keeper. He won't be any trouble. Sometimes I think he has better manners than some of the staff." Earle turned and walked out again.

Rick stared after him. "What was that last crack about?"

Dr. Bond smiled. "d.i.c.k has his problems. I won't gossip, but you'll soon see what I mean."

The elderly consultant's prediction came true in short order. The next day, Rick ran headlong into an unwarranted and particularly nasty dressing down at the hands of Frank Miller. Rick, annoyed with himself for having done a rather poor job of connecting up the servomotor, was busily ripping it out when Miller came over to see what he was doing.

Without waiting for an explanation, the design engineer launched into a tirade. Rick's face slowly reddened and his temper grew frayed. It was so completely unjust that he was on the verge of swinging at the engineer when d.i.c.k Earle walked in.

Earle asked crisply, "What's this all about?"

Miller turned on him. "You're supposed to be in charge here, but you let sloppy work like this go on! What good does it do for me to design circuits if--"

Earle cut him off. "Shut up, Frank. Rick, what's your story?"

Rick clenched his hands. "I installed this servo, and didn't do a clean job of it. It was pretty sloppy. So I pulled it out to do it over again.

I won't settle for anything less than perfect work. But he came along and jumped on me without letting me explain what I was doing."

Earle nodded. "All right. Go ahead with your work. Frank, you are not this boy's supervisor. Let him alone."

Miller glared at the electronics chief, then turned on his heel and stalked out of the shop. Earle watched him go, his pleasant face sober.

"I'm sorry, Rick. Frank is like that, and I don't know why. I suspect he has troubles of some sort and takes it out on us. Try to overlook it, because he's an extremely competent engineer. We'd have great trouble replacing him."

Rick nodded. "Yes, sir."

The work progressed smoothly. Rick finished the part he was working on and was a.s.signed another. He met other members of the project, including Phil Sherman and Charlie Ka.s.sick who, like himself, were technicians at work on wiring and a.s.sembly. He met Cliff Damon, chief of the instrumentation section, who showed him the intricate devices used to track the big rockets and to record just about everything that went on inside them.

It was pleasant and exciting, and only the incident with Frank Miller marred the contentment Rick felt at being a part of Pegasus. Then, near the end of his first week on the job, Miller dropped in and watched Rick at work for a moment. The boy tensed, but said nothing beyond a civil good morning.

Miller cleared his throat. "Brant, I want to apologize."

Rick looked up in surprise.