Two days later Mike the Angel was at his making that m. r. gabriel, power design would while he was gone. Serge Paulvitch, his designer, almost everything.
Paulvitch had once said, “Mike, the of for a first-class is that a second-class doesn’t have a chance.”
“You start your own firm,” Mike had said levelly. “I’ll you, Serge; you know that.”
Serge Paulvitch had looked astonished. “Me? You think I’m crazy? Right now, I’m a second-class for a first-class outfit. You think I want to be a second-class for a second-class outfit? Not on your life!”
Paulvitch easily the for a weeks.
Helen’s came on the phone. “There’s a Captain Sir Henry Quill on the phone, Mr. Gabriel. Do you wish to speak to him?”
“Black Bart?” said Mike. “I wonder what he wants.”
“Bart?” She looked puzzled. “He said his name was Henry.”
Mike grinned. “He always his name: Captain Sir Henry Quill, Bart.. And since he’s the old this of the Pleiades, the ‘Black’ part just comes naturally. I under him seven years ago. Put him on.”
In a second the of Captain Quill was on the screen.
He was as as an egg. What little he did have left was off every morning. He more than up for his of growth, however, by his great, shaggy, brows, black as and to ridges. Any other man would have been proud to wear them as mustaches.
“What can I do for you, Captain?” Mike asked, using the proper of voice for the businessman.
“You can go out and a new uniform,” Quill growled. “Your old one isn’t any more.”
Well, not growled. If he’d had the voice for it, it would have been a growl, but the he come to a was an Irish with of gravel. He five-eight, and his red and gold Space Service with spit-and-polish luster. With his cap off, his looked as though it, too, had been polished.
Mike looked at him thoughtfully. “I see. So you’re the tub, eh?” he said at last.
“That’s right,” said the captain. “And don’t go me a of questions. I’ve got no more idea of what the thing’s about than you—maybe not as much. I you designed her power plant...?”
He let it hang. If not a leading question, it was a statement.
Mike his head. “I don’t know anything, Captain. Honestly I don’t.”
If Space Service had allowed it, Captain Sir Henry Quill, Bart., would have a mustache. And if he’d had such a mustache, he would have it then. As it was, he just out air, and nothing whuffled.
“You and I are the only ones in the dark, then,” he said. “The of the is being from Chilblains Base. Pete Jeffers is First Officer, in case you’re wondering.”
“Oh, great,” Mike the Angel said with a moan. “That means we’ll be going in cold on an ship.”
Like Birnam Wood on Dunsinane, Quill’s moved upward. “Don’t you trust your own designing?”
“As much as you do,” said Mike the Angel. “Probably more.”
Quill nodded. “We’ll have to make the best of it. We’ll through somehow. Are you all to go?”
“No,” Mike admitted, “but I don’t see that I can do a thing about that.”
“Nor do I,” said Captain Quill. “Be at Chilblains Base in twenty-four hours. Arrangements will be at the Long Island Base for your to Antarctica. And”—he paused and his deeper—“you’d best used to calling me ‘sir’ again.”
“Yessir, Sir Henry, sir.”
“Thank you, Mister Gabriel,” Quill, the circuit.
“Selah,” said Mike the Angel.
Chilblains Base, Antarctica, was directly over the South Magnetic Pole—at least, as closely as that often spot be for any length of time. It is in the long if an moves with, not to, the magnetic “lines of force” of a planet’s field. Taking off “across the grain” can be done, but the power is much greater. Taking off “with the grain” is enough.
An doesn’t much where it or sets down, since its method of isn’t trying to work against the of space itself. For that reason, an is in space and there, using for and its passengers. It’s by far.
The Computer Corporation of Earth had also been of when it its Number One Research Station near Chilblains Base, although the was not aware at the time just how much money it was going to save them.
The original had been power costs. A unit has to be at all times in a of liquid at a temperature of four-point-two absolute. It is much easier—and much cheaper—to keep thousand of at that temperature if the temperature is at two hundred thirty-three than if it is up around two hundred ninety or three hundred. That may not like much percentagewise, but it comes out to a saving in the long run.
But, power or no, when C.C. of E. that Snookums either had to be moved or destroyed, it was pleased that it had Prime Station near Chilblains Base. Since a great of also, of necessity, upon Earth Government, the government was, to say it modestly, pleased. There was as it was.
The at Chilblains Base—so named by a American man in the century—was nothing to about. Thousands of square miles of ice that has had nothing to do but around for twenty years is not at all after the minutes unless one is by the of cold death.
Mike the Angel was not so obsessed. To him, the area Chilblains Base was just so much white hell, and his analysis was perfectly correct. Mike that it had been January, in the Antarctic, so there would have been at least a little sunshine. Mike the Angel did not particularly having to visit the South Pole in midwinter.
The that had Mike the Angel from Long Island Base settled itself into the snow-covered landing stage of Chilblains Base, the into steam as it did so. The steam, away by the winds, moved all of thirty yards it ice again.
Mike the Angel was not in the best of moods. Having to all of his into Serge Paulvitch’s hands on twenty-four hours’ notice was irritating. He Paulvitch the job, but it wasn’t to him to make him take over so suddenly.
In addition, Mike did not like the way the whole Branchell was being handled. It and hurried, and, worse, it was too and melodramatic.
“Of all the times to have to come to Antarctica,” he as the door of the opened, “why did I have to July?”
The pilot, a man in his early twenties, said smugly: “July is bad, but January isn’t good—just not so worse.”
Mike the Angel glowered. “Sonny, I was a here when you were learning arithmetic. It hasn’t since, or winter.”
“Sorry, sir,” said the pilot stiffly.
“So am I,” said Mike the Angel cryptically. “Thanks for the ride.”
He pushed open the door, his closer around him, and off across the walk, through the of the wind.
He didn’t have to walk—a hundred yards or so—but it was a good thing that the walk was protected and well the of Chilblains Base of being out on the Wastelands. Here there were lights, and the Hotbed of the walk the ice into a rain. On the Wastelands, the and the wind-driven would have him ten paces.
He across a of air that up from a narrow in the and himself in the main of Chilblains Base.
The entrance looked like the entrance to a theater—a big metal and plastic opening, like a room open on one side, with only that of air to protect it from the outside. The lights and the small doors leading into the added to the that this was a theater, not a base.
But the man who was near one of the doors was not by a long as an usher. He a sergeant’s on his Space Service parka, which him to the nose, and he came over to Mike the Angel and said: “Commander Gabriel?”
Mike the Angel as he from his hands, then in his pocket for his newly printed ID card.
He it to the sergeant, who looked it over, at Mike’s face, and saluted. As Mike returned the the said: “Okay, sir; you can go on in. The security office is past the door, on your right.”
Mike the Angel his best not to look surprised. “Security office? Is there a on or something? What Chilblains need with a security office?”
The shrugged. “Don’t ask me, Commander; I just away here. Maybe Lieutenant Nariaki something, but I sure don’t.”
“Thanks, Sergeant.”
Mike the Angel inside, through two and weather-stripped doors, one right after another, like the air lock on a spaceship. Once the of the corridor, he his electroparka, off the power, and pushed the with its faceplate.
Down the hall, Mike see an office marked security officer in small without capitals. He walked toward it. There was another at the door who had to see Mike’s ID card Mike was allowed in.
Lieutenant Tokugawa Nariaki was an average-sized, sleepy-looking with a cut and a expression.
He looked up from his as Mike came in, and a to spread itself across his face. “If you are Commander Gabriel,” he said softly, “watch yourself. I may you out of relief.”
“Restrain yourself, then,” said Mike the Angel, “because I’m Gabriel.”
Nariaki’s genuine. “So! Good! The phone has been at me every hour for the past five hours. Captain Sir Henry Quill wants you.”
“He would,” Mike said. “How do I to him?”
“You don’t just yet,” said Nariaki, a long, bony, hand. “There are a which our guests have to go through.”
“Such as?”
“Such as and patterns,” said Lieutenant Nariaki.
Mike his to Heaven in appeal, then looked at the lieutenant. “Lieutenant, what is going on here? There hasn’t been a security officer in the Space Service for thirty years or more. What am I of? Spying for the and beings of Diomega Orionis IX?”
Nariaki’s again. “For all I know, you are. Who what’s going on around here?” He got up from his and Mike the Angel over to the machine. “Put your hands in here, Commander ... that’s it.”
He pushed a button, and, while the machine hummed, he said: “Mine is an position, I’ll admit. I don’t like it any more than you do. Next thing, they’ll put me to work chain-mail or make me of a company of musketeers. Or maybe they’ll send me to the 18th Outer Mongolian Yak Artillery.”
Mike looked at him with eyes. “Lieutenant, do you actually that you don’t know what’s going on here, or are you just up?”
Nariaki looked at Mike, and for the time, his took on the blank, look of the “placid Orient.” He paused for long seconds, then said:
“Some of both, Commander. But don’t let it worry you. I you that the next hour you’ll know more about Project Brainchild than I’ve been able to out in two years.... Now put your in here and keep your open. When you can see the spot, focus on it and tell me.”
Mike the Angel put his in the for the photos. The soft around his face, and he was looking into blackness. He his on the circle and waited for his to to the darkness.
The Security Officer’s voice continued. “All I do is make sure that no person comes into Chilblains Base. Other than that, I have nothing but personal and little of information, neither of which am I at to discuss.”
Mike’s had to the point that he see the in the center of the circle, like a visible star. “Shoot,” he said.
There was a of light. Mike his out of the opening and away the after-images.
Lieutenant Nariaki was the fresh with the set he had had on file. “Well,” he said, “you have Commander Gabriel’s hands, anyway. If you have his eyes, I’ll have to that the of the to him, too.”
“How about my soul?” Mike asked dryly.
“Not my province, Commander,” Nariaki said as he the out of the machine. “Maybe one of the would know.”
“If this of thing is going on all over Chilblains,” said Mike the Angel, “I the Office of Chaplains is doing a in TS cards.”
The put the in the comparator, took a good look, and nodded. “You’re you,” he said. “Give me your ID card.”
Mike it over, and Nariaki it through a which a seal in the upper left-hand of the card. The his name across the seal and the card to Mike.
“That’s it,” he said. “You can—”
He was by the of the phone.
“Just a second, Commander,” he said as he the phone switch.
Mike was out of range of the TV pickup, and he couldn’t see the on the screen, but the voice was so easy to that he didn’t need to see the man.
“Hasn’t that yet, Lieutenant? Where is Commander Gabriel?”
Mike that Black Bart had already on the landing of the latest rocket; the question was rhetorical.
Mike grinned. “Tell the old tyrant,” he said firmly, “that I’ll be along as soon as the Security Officer is through with me.”
Nariaki’s didn’t change. “You’re through now, Commander, and—”
“Tell that Apollo to it over here fast!” said Quill sharply. “I’ll give him a lesson in tyranny.”
There was a as the off.
Nariaki looked at Mike the Angel and his slowly. “Either you’re your way toward a court-martial or else you know where Black Bart has the buried.”
“I should,” said Mike cryptically. “I helped him it. How do I to His Despotic Majesty’s realm?”
Nariaki considered. “It’ll take you five or six minutes. Take the to Stage Twelve. Go up the to the surface and take the to the left. That’ll take you to the for that stage. It’s an open like the one at the landing field, so you’ll have to put your on. Go the stairs on the other side, and you’ll be in Area K. One of the will tell you where to go from there. Of course, you go by tube, but it would take longer of the by-pass.”
“Good enough. I’ll take the cut. See you. And thanks.”
