Subspace Explorers Part 6

"Ah. Conserve' is right. Pete has a very fine Italian hand indeed. I'm going to like this. Not money at all, but power."

"Not exactly-or rather, we want power back of us. We want to explore subs.p.a.ce and deep s.p.a.ce in ways and to depths that have never even been thought of before. There must be thousands of things not only undiscovered, but not even imagined yet. Barbara and I want to go out after some of them; and, since n.o.body can have any idea whatever of what we may run into, it is clear that the highly special s.h.i.+p may turn out to be the smallest part of what we'll need. So we'll want the full backing of the biggest private organization it is possible to build. A firm big enough and strong enough to operate on a scale-now possible only to governments-one able and willing to handle anything we may stir up. Our present thought is that when MetEnge gets big enough we will offer it a fifty-fifty share of the expedition, build the s.h.i.+p, and take off. As I said, there's nothing clear about it."

"It's clear enough for me to like it. You'd be surprised at the way the first part of the program ties in with stuff I've been working on for a long time. As for the other- untrammeled research into the completely unknown you realize, of course, that if MetEnge partic.i.p.ates fifty-fifty, DesDes will be on a non-retainer basis all the time you are out and will have to split fifty-fifty."

"But there isn't going to be anything the least bit commercial about it!" Barbara protested.

"You're wrong there, young lady. Research always has paid off big, in hard dollars. So I'll buy the package." Maynard got up and shook hands with them both. "I'll take this stuff along. WarnOil's legal department is acting for you, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"In the morning we'll send them a check for one dollar, with a firm binder, by special messenger and start things rolling."

"Oh, you don't think it's silly, then?" Barbara asked. "I was awfully afraid you'd think this last part of it was." "Far from it. I'm sure it will be immensely profitable." "In that case we have some more news for you." Both Destons were smiling happily. "We also found a deposit of native copper and copper ores big enough and solid enough for full automation."

"Copper!" Maynard yelled, jumping out of his chair. "Why the h.e.l.l didn't you bring that up first?"

"When would this other thing have been settled if we had?"

"You've got a point there. Where is it?" "Belmark. Strulsa Three, you know."

"Belmark! We prospected Belmark-it's colonized-fairly well along. We didn't find any more copper there than anywhere else."

"It'd be impossible to find by any usual method, and it's over five hundred miles from the nearest town. Our finding it was a... not an accident, but a byproduct while we were training for uranium. If we'd known then what we know now I'd've found you a big one, but we weren't interested in copper."

'How big is this one?"

"It'll smelt something over a hundred million tons of metal. It'll tide you over, but I don't know about amortizing the plant."

"We can cut the price in half and still amortize in months... but amortization cuts no ice here... let's see, production of primary copper runs about six million tons... but if we cut the price to the bone, G.o.d knows what the sales potential is..."

Maynard immersed himself in thought, then went on, "Definitely. That's the way to do it. Hit 'em hard. Really slug 'em... that is, if... how sure are you, Carl, that you can find us another big deposit? Within, say, a year?"

Deston's mind flashed back over the comparatively few copper surveys he had made. "Copper isn't too scarce and it tends to aggregate. I'll guarantee to find you one at least three times that big within thirty days."

"Good! Let's cut the chatter, then. I can use your com?" "Of course," Barbara said; but Maynard's question had been purely a matter of form. He was already punching his call.

"Miss Champion," Maynard said, when his FirSec's face showed on the screen. "I hope you don't have any engagements for tonight."

"I have a date, but it's with Don, so he'll understand perfectly when I break it." She did not ask any questions; she merely raised her perfectly-sculptured black eyebrows.

"I want him, too, so bring him downtown as soon as you can. And please get hold of Quisenberry and Felton and tell them to get to the office jet-propelled. That's all for now."

"I'll get right at it, Mr. Maynard."

Maynard punched off and turned to Deston. "I almost forgot-what are you charging for this?"

"Nothing. Free gratis for nothing." "Huh?"

"We have no claim on it. n.o.body has. It's never even been surveyed; so call it DesDes's contribution toward knocking Burley Hoadman and his UCM off of the Christmas tree."

"You've got the dope on it here in your office?"

"Yes." Deston went to his desk and brought back a briefcase. "Here's everything necessary."

"Thanks immensely. We'll own it shortly. As for your royalties, we've been accused of claim-stealing, but we usually pay discoverers' royalties and we'll be glad to on this one. Brother, will we be glad to! So Phelps will-no, he'd take it for nothing, the skinflint, and lick his chops. I'll have Don Smith take care of it tonight. And now that that's settled," Maynard smiled as he had not smiled in weeks, "about that trip of yours. I envy you. If we were twenty five years younger I'd talk my wife into going along with you. I'd better call her; and I'd like to have her meet both of you."

"Why, we'd be delighted to meet her!" Barbara exclaimed.

Mrs. Maynard proved to be a willowy, strong-featured, gracious woman with whom the years had dealt very lightly. She was as glad to meet the Destons, about whom she had heard so much, as they were to meet her. And so on.

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Maynard," Barbara said, finally, "that we had to keep your husband so..."

"Think nothing of it," Maynard interrupted, briskly. "Just one of those things. If you'd like to come downtown to the office, Floss, I'll take you out to dinner sometime during the evening."

"I would like to, Upton, thanks. I'll be down in an hour or so."

The Destons escorted Maynard up to the roof and to his waiting aircar; and after it had taken off: "What do you suppose he meant by that just one of those things' crack?" Deston asked.

"Why, he was on a com, silly, so he was afraid to say anything! Even that he was going to work all night!" Barbara explained, excitedly. "That's how big he knows it is!" and the two went enthusiastically into each other's arms.

Chapter 7 PROJECT ENGINEER BYRD.

Miss Champion was as efficient as she was ornamental, and all of GalMet's top people were on call every minute of every day on the calendar. Therefore she and Executive Vice-President Eldon Smith and Project Engineers Quisenberry and Felton got to GalMet's main office almost as soon as Maynard himself did. When the two engineers came in Maynard looked at them with the well-known expression of the canary-containing cat.

"Good evening, gentlemen," he said, with a wide and cryptic grin. "I trust that your hearts are in good shape? And your nerves? That you are both sufficiently well integrated to withstand the shock of your trouble-making young lives?"

"Try us," Quisenberry said. He was a black-haired, black-eyed, deeply-tanned man, a little past thirty, who had worked himself up the hard way; clear up from the lowest low of a copper mine. He looked-if not exactly sullen, at least as though he was very sure that what he had been doing on his own was vastly more important than any piffling, niggling conference with THE BIG BOSS. "I'll live through it, I'm sure."

"Okay. Each of you take a table; you'll need lots of room. Quisenberry, here's everything you'll need on a deposit of copper. Felton, ditto, uranium. I want preliminary roughouts of those projects as fast as you can get them. Very rough: plus-or-minus twenty five percent will be close enough. Now, Don and Miss Champion, what well have to do tonight is rough out a -full operational on copper in the light of information that has just come to hand."

After what may have been an hour Mrs. Maynard came in and Quisenberry came up for air. His table was littered with hand-books, machine-tapes of various kinds, graphs, charts, and wadded-up scratch-paper; much of which had overflowed onto the floor.

"But this is incredible, sir." It was the first time either engineer had called Maynard "sir" in over a year. "Of course I can't say that it's absolutely impossible for any such deposit as this to occur, but..." Quisenberry paused.

Maynard grinned again, but pleasantly, this time. "Do you think I'd have all that stuff faked up and then come down here and work all night myself just to put you two through the wringer?"

"Put that way, of course not... but..." Quisenberry paused again and Felton, who had stopped work and was listening with both ears, came in with: "Quizz said it, Mr. Maynard, and mine's ten to the fourth as hard to swallow as his. I can't make myself believe that there's that much uranium in one place anywhere in the universe."

"I know exactly how you feel," Maynard a.s.sured them. "I was flabbergasted myself. You may take it as a fact, however, that all that data is accurate to within the appropriate limits of error. I myself am so convinced of its reliability that I am going to give you two men all the authorization you'll need and full authority to build and to operate fully-automated plants. Satisfactory? That's what you've been getting ready for all this time, isn't it?" "Yes, sir!" Quisenberry said, and: You said it, sir!" Felton agreed.

At seven fifty five Maynard asked the group at large, "Everybody ready to eat? I'll call Beardsley's."

Neither engineer would leave his job; so, after Miss Champion had ordered up two one-gallon hot-pots of coffee and a good spread of smorgasbord, the two couples went to Beardsley's for dinner-a dinner that lasted for an- hour and a half and cost Maynard exactly forty dollars (including tip). Then a GalMet aircar took Mrs.

Maynard home and another one took the other three back to the office.

Along toward morning Quisenberry stood up, stretched, looked with distaste at his umpteenth cup of coffee, and said, "I've made some a.s.sumptions, boss, that I'd better check with you before I give you the bad news. Okay?" "Okay."

"Rush all possible. That means twenty fours hours a day, Sat.u.r.days, Sundays, and holidays. All the personnel that can work efficiently, all the time. Crash priorities on material, which means no time for compet.i.tive bidding, so we'll have to pay top prices and bonuses. Check to here?"

"Check and okay."

"Plant capacity. a.s.suming that you want to cut the price down to somewhere between eleven and twelve cents..."

"You're right on the beam, Quizz. Nearer eleven, I think."

"Extrapolating on that basis, my guessometer says that we'll have to be producing at the rate of fifteen million tons by the end of the first year. That's a mighty big plant, boss. That's one supreme h.e.l.l of a big plant." "I know. I like those figures very much."

"You won't like these next ones, I'm afraid. On this rush-and-bonus basis it'll take pretty close to twenty five megabucks in the first couple of months, and the total-well, it's a very rough guess at this point. All I'm sure of is the order of magnitude, but the total to first pour will probably run somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy five megabucks."

"Thanks. That's close enough for now. just so we don't get caught short of cash in the till."

"But listen-sir-Phelps will have a litter of lizards!" "He'll be amenable to reason when he finds out that we are entering a completely new era in metals. Felton, how about you?"

Felton-a brawny youth with butch-cut straw-colored hair and blue eyes-could not answer immediately because his mouth was full of shrimp a la Creole. He swallowed hastily, then said: "Since this will have to be a crash-pri job, too, everything Quizz said will apply. Add high radiation to all that, and a hostile dead planet clear out to h.e.l.langone beyond anywhere, and the tab gets no smaller fast. My best guesstimate as of now is that the total will crowd a hundred megabucks."

"Fair enough. Thanks a..."

"One thing first," Felton interrupted. "Are you sure enough of this-this super-bonanza-for me to roust Ba.s.sler out right now? Tell him to cut out all this ten-cent petty-larceny rock-scratching we're doing now, break out all the armor we've got and order more, and start-but quick-ja.s.sacking some of that high-grade out of there and hauling it-to Galmetia?"

"An excellent idea. Splendid! If I'd thought of it I would have suggested it hours ago. Go ahead."

Felton did so and Maynard went on, "Since you fellows made these estimates in hours instead of weeks I'll give you plenty of leeway. Miss Champion, please issue two preliminary authorizations: Quisenberry, seventy five megabucks; Felton, a hundred."

Preliminaries! Not maxes! Staring at each other as though they could not believe their ears, the two engineers shook hands solemnly with each other, and then with all three of the others. Then they poured themselves two more cups of strong black coffee and went back to work.

Work went on until half past five. Then, since each would have to be on the job by nine o'clock, Maynard broke it up so that each could get three hours' sleep. All top-echelon private offices were equipped for that. Night work was an essential part of such man-killing jobs as theirs; a part that envious underlings knew nothing about. It had happened before and it would happen again. And again and again.

This entire episode was just another one of those things.

A couple of months later, Miss Champion showed Deston into Maynard's office. The tyc.o.o.n, although showing the effects of too little sleep, was in very fine fettle indeed.

"Good morning, chief," Deston said. "We're about ready to cut gravs. How are the projects corning along?" "Fine! Quizz is really rolling it, and no leaks. And we cut the price of uranium another half a buck yesterday." "Nice going. Are you sure we can stay out a few months? I'll locate enough copper while we're gone, of course, to last you for a thousand years."

"Positive. We'll drop the price of copper to where Hoadman will think he's been hit by a pile-driver."

"So solly... and the effect on all industry of cheap and plentiful copper-added to your widely-advertised fact that in a few months everybody can buy all the uranium they want for less than thirty cents per pound -will take the curse off of the public image GalMet will get when you smash UCM flat?"

"Not quite all of it, perhaps, but it will certainly help." "That's for sure. Okay; what do you want firstest and mostest of, now that copper and uranium are out of the way?"

"I wish I could tell you." Maynard's fingers drummed quietly on his desk. "You thought it would be simple? It isn't. It's all fouled up in the personnel situation I told you I'd tell you about. We have six good people-d.a.m.ned good people-each of whom wants a planetary project so pa.s.sionately that if I stack the deck in favor of any one of them, all the others will blast me to a cinder and run, not walk, to the nearest exit."

Deston did not say anything and after a moment the older man went on, "Platinum and iridium, of course. Osmium, tungsten..."

"Tungsten isn't too scarce, is it?"

"For the possible demand, very much so. I'd like to sell it for fifteen cents a pound. Beryllium, tantalum, t.i.tanium, thorium, cerium-and, for the grand climax to end all climaxes-rhenium."

"Huh? I don't think I've ever heard rhenium even mentioned since my freshman chemistry."

"Not too many people have, but right now I'm as full of information as the dog that sniffed at the third rail. It's so rare that no mineral of it is known; it exists only as a trace of impurity in a very few minerals. Strangely enough, practically only in molybdenite."

"Just a minute. Deston went to a book-case, took out a hand-book, and flipped pages. "Um... um... mm. Dwimanganese. Not usually a.s.sociated with manganese. Maybe it occurs in molybdenite as the sulphide-ReS2 and/or Re2S7-commercial source, flue dust from the roasting of Arizona molybdenite..."

"Right. We own the outfit. That's why we own it. It produces a few tons a year of Cottrell dust, which yields just about enough rhenium to irritate one eyeball. Production cost, five dollars and seventeen cents per gram."

"But what's it good for? Contact points... cat ma.s.s... heavy duty igniters, it says here. Deston tapped the page with his forefinger. "No tonnage outlet there.

"What would you think of an alloy that had a yield point-not ultimate tensile, mind you, but yield-of well over a million pounds, and yet an elongation of better than five percent?"

Deston whistled. "I would have said it was a pure pipe dream. What else is in it?"

Mostly tungsten. A lot of tantalum. Rhenium around ten percent. The research isn't done yet, but they're far enough along to know that they'll have something utterly fantastic. The problem, Byrd tells me, is to determine the optimum formula and environment for the growth and matting of single crystals of metal-tungsten 'whiskers', you know-you know about them."

"A little, of course, but not too much. I'm a 'troncist'."

"I know. Well, they're playing around now with soakpit times and temperatures and fractional percentages of this and that. The curve is still rising."

"So you'll need tungsten and tantalum, too, by the gigaton, since that's a thing that the Law of Diminis.h.i.+ng Returns would apply to exactly."

"I didn't think I'd have to plot you a graph. So now, apart from the personnel problem, what do you think?" Before replying, Deston studied the handbook for minutes. Then: "The three atomic numbers are in order; seventy three, four, and five. But in the Earth's crust rhenium runs less than one part in billions. So if there is any big ma.s.s of it anywhere the others are apt to be there too, and a h.e.l.l of a lot more of 'em."

"All the better, even from a project standpoint. Two prime sources of anything are a lot better than one."

"I didn't mean that. All that stuff is terrifically heavy, and it's got to be close enough to the surface to get at. I simply can't visualize what kind of a planet could possibly have what we want. It won't be Tellus-Type, that's for d.a.m.n certain sure."

"I couldn't care less about that. We can set up automation on anything that isn't hotter than dull red." "Okay. That brings us back, then, to personnel. This Byrd-has he got what it takes to run such a weirdie as this rhenium thing will almost have to be?"

"Definitely, but Doctor Ceeily Byrd isn't a man. Very much the opposite, which is exactly what is thickening the soup. If we could get hold of as little as one megaton of rhenium, so as to add this new alloy leybyrdite to cheap uranium and copper, it would make MetEnge such a public benefactor that it'd be a case of 'the King can do no wrong'. But if I deal one card from the bottom of the deck to 'Curly' Byrd all h.e.l.l will be out for noon."

"That sounds like something more than ordinary s.e.x antagonism."

"It is. Much more. She not only uses weapons men don't have-and she's got 'em, believe me-but she brags about it. She's a carrot-topped, freckle-faced, shanty irish wick, with the shape men drool about and itching to use it-with a megavac for a brain and an ice-cube for a heart. She's half cobra, half black widow, half b.i.t.c.h, and one hundred percent h.e.l.l-cat on wheels."

"She must be quite a gal, to add up to two hundred and fifty percent."

"She adds up to all that. So do the others. I would have fired her a year ago-she hadn't been on the job three weeks before she started making pa.s.ses at me-but I haven't been able to find anyone else nearly as good as she is."

"That's a mighty tough signal to read."

"It's a unique situation. I've been gathering those people for over two years, getting ready to expand, and we haven't found anything big enough to expand into. I had eight of them. They were hard enough to handle before I gave Felton and Quisenberry their projects, but ever since then the other six have been d.a.m.n near impossible. Each has tremendous ability and drive; each is as good as either Felton or Quisenberry and knows it. All working at about ten percent load; with nowhere in the galaxy to go to do any better. Frustrated-tense-sore as boils and touchy as fulminate-knives out, not only for each other, but also for Smith and me. Four men and two women. Purdom hasn't got any s.e.x-appeal at all; Byrd oozes it at every pore. So I tell you rhenium first and the s.e.x-pot is first out. So the other five know she got it by sleeping with me, and she-the G.o.d d.a.m.ned b.i.t.c.h!-grins like the Chesire cat and rubs it in that she has got what it takes to land the big ones."