If you a of oxygen-nitrogen in an of hydrogen-methane, you a that doesn’t differ much from the from a hydrogen-methane in an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. A doesn’t particularly which way the jump, just so long as they jump.
All of which was to give Mike the Angel more than he already had, which was 100 too many.
Three days after the Brainchild landed, the group from the that had been on Eisberg to take of Snookums. The leader, a heavy-set named Treadmore, who had and a sad look in his eyes, Captain Quill that there was a great of work to be done. And his sadder.
Mike, who had, perforce, been called in to take part in the conference, in while the talked.
The officers’ wardroom, of which Mike the Angel was sick, like a which and re-echoed the voice of Engineer Treadmore.
“We were warned, of course,” he said, in a tone, “that it would be difficult to set the ship which Snookums, and that we the final to be from ten to thirty miles from the original, temporary base.” He looked at everyone, the of a which had just been by Albert Payson Terhune.
“We understand, naturally, that you not help landing so from our original base,” he said, them with damns, “but it will a great of labor. A hundred and nine miles is a great to equipment, and, actually, the is a great more, the of the terrain. The....”
The of the whole thing was that only part of the possibly be to go home on the Fireball, which was high above the atmosphere. And, since there was no point in sending a small home at when the Fireball wait for the others, it meant that nobody go home at all for four more weeks. The help was needed to the new established.
It was to try to move the Brainchild a hundred miles. With nothing to power her but the Translation drive, she was as as a on the Sahara. Especially now that her drive was shot.
The Eisberg had to be around Snookums, who was, after all, the only for the base’s existence. And, too, the power plant of the Brainchild had been to be the of power for the permanent base.
It wasn’t too bad, really. A little time, but not much.
The base, by Treadmore, was well equipped. For transportation, they had one jet-powered aircraft, a of ’copters, and fifteen ground-crawlers with tires, plus all of machinery. All of them were with liquid HNO3, which makes a good fuel in an that is methane. Like the gasoline-air of a century before, they were spark-started engines, for the turbine-powered aircraft.
The only trouble with the whole project was that the materials had to be across a hundred miles of territory.
Treadmore, looking like a bloodhound, said: “But we’ll make it, won’t we?”
Everyone dismally.
Mike the Angel had a job he didn’t like. He was to the power plant of the Brainchild from a driver into a generator. The job itself wasn’t tedious; in principle, it was to taking the engine out of an and it to a power plant for an electric generator. In fact, it was simpler, in theory, since the of the Brainchild were already for to the ship, and to power and Snookums’ brain, which was no in itself.
But Michael Raphael Gabriel, of one of the foremost—if not the foremost—power design in the Galaxy, did not like something. To the Brainchild’s plant from a drive to an electric power plant to him to be on the same order as using a to power a flashlight. A waste.
To make worse, the small of in the got sometimes. It itself into places where neither the the get. Someone once called the “cockroach element,” since, like that insect, the of H2 can themselves into places where they are not only unwelcome, but shouldn’t be able to go. At red heat, the little can themselves through the of and steel.
Granted, the temperature of Eisberg is a long way from red hot, but normal still won’t keep out hydrogen. Add to that the that and are colorless, odorless, and tasteless, and you have the of an situation.
The only that no one died is the Space Service is what it is.
Unlike the land, sea, and air of Earth, the Space Service not have a long history of other beings. There has been a space war, and, the way stand, there is no of one in the future.
But the Space Service fight, in its own way. It the of space and the of planets, using machines, intelligence, knowledge, and as its weapons. Some have been lost; others have been won. And the is still going on. It is an war, one which has no victory in sight.
It is, as as we can tell, the only in history in which Mankind is as the aggressor.
It is not a war; neither space other have Man. Man has space “simply it is there.” It is of a different sort, true, but it is a war.
The Space Service was used to the of it on Eisberg. It was prepared to men, but more prepared to save them.
