Plague Ship by Harry Harrison

Author:Harry Harrison [Harrison, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jerry eBooks
Published: 2019-07-13T21:00:00+00:00

9

IN THE SILENCE that followed this shocking announcement, the rapping on the control room door sounded unnaturally loud. An air tenders mate came in and saluted, throwing a quick glance around at the silent men. He handed a slip of paper to Don.

“I thought I had better bring these readings directly to you, sir. I just ran the test a few minutes ago.”

Don stirred himself, it took an effort to think of other problems after what they had just heard. He took the slip and looked, uncomprehending, at the piece of paper.

“I’m sorry, could you tell me what these figures mean?”

The air tender pointed to the row of numbers on the right, and to the last one which was circled in red.

“These are the percentages of oxygen concentration in the air. You’ll notice they have been going down steadily. These are the figures taken every five hours, since the accident. The change has been slow, but there is now an abrupt drop, here in the last number. I think the radiation from the solar storm knocked out a lot of phytoplankton.

That, in addition to what we lost with the water, is putting us below equivalency.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, simply, sir, the people in the ship are turning oxygen into carbon dioxide faster than the plants can replace the oxygen. We’re running out of breathable air.”

Don shook himself. There were too many problems at once.

“How long before it reaches the danger level?” he asked.

“Days at least, I’m not sure. But something should be done now . . .”

“Not at the present moment. I’ll be down to air control as soon as I can. Who is in charge?”

The crewman, he could not have been over twenty years old, looked uncomfortable. “Well, Lieutenant Hong is dead, so I guess that leaves me.”

“What’s your name?”

“Hansen, Air Tenders Mate 3rd Class Hansen.”

“All right, Hansen, you are now acting air control officer. Do your work well because we all depend upon you.”

“Yes, sir,” Hansen said, squaring his back and saluting.

He’ll do the job, Don thought, watching the man leave. Then memory of the message from Mars returned, and with it a feeling of sick depression. He turned to Kurikka.

“What is this reaction mass that Mars Central is so worried about?” he asked. “I hate to act stupid, but medical studies leave little time for reading about anything else. I thought this ship was powered by atomic engines?”

“It is, sir, but we still need reaction mass. A rocket moves not by pushing against anything, but by throwing something away. Whatever is thrown away is called reaction mass. In chemical rockets it is burning gas. The gas goes in one direction, the rocket goes in the other. The more you throw away, the more reaction you get and the faster you go. You also get more reaction by throwing something away faster. That is what we do. Our reaction mass is made up of finely divided particles of silicon. It’s made from steel plant slag, vaporized in a vacuum, so the particles are microscopic.

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