[Title here] by Time Probe (epub)

Author:Time Probe (epub)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

Orloff did not quite feel normal again until he had seated himself in the overstuffed chair in Dr. Edward Prosser’s private office. With a sigh of utter relaxation, he propped his monocle under his eyebrow.

“Would Dr. Prosser mind if I smoked in here, while we’re waiting?” he asked.

“Go ahead, “ replied Birnam, carelessly. “My own idea would be to drag Prosser away from whatever he’s fooling with just now, but he’s a queer chap. We’ll get more out of him if we wait until he’s ready for us.” He withdrew a gnarled stick of greenish tobacco from its case, and bit off the edge viciously.

Orloff smiled through the smoke of his own cigarette, “I don’t mind waiting. I still have something to say. You see, for the moment, Mr. Secretary, you gave me the jitters, but, after all, granted that the Jovians intend mischief once they get at us, it remains a fact, “ and here he spaced his words emphatically, “that they can’t get at us.”

“A bomb without a fuse, hey?”

“Exactly! It’s simplicity itself, and not really worth discussing. You will admit, I suppose, that under no circumstances call the Jovians get away from Jupiter.”

“Under no circumstances?” There was a quizzical tinge in Birnam’s slow reply. “Shall we analyze that?”

He stared hard at the purple flame of his cigar. “It’s an old trite saying that the Jovians can’t leave Jupiter. The fact has been highly publicized by the sensation mongers of Earth and Ganymede and a great deal of sentiment has been driveled about the unfortunate intelligences who are irrevocably surface-bound, and must forever stare into the Universe without, watching, watching, wondering, and never attaining.

“But, after all, what holds the Jovians to their planet? Two factors! That’s all! The first is the immense gravity field of the planet. Two and a half Earth normal.”

Orloff nodded. “Pretty bad!” he agreed.

“And Jupiter’s gravitational potential is even worse, for because of its greater diameter the intensity of its gravitational field decreases with distance only one tenth as rapidly as Earth’s field does. It’s a terrible problem-but it’s been solved.”

“Hey?” Orloff straightened.

“They’ve got atomic power. Gravity-even Jupiter’s-means nothing once you’ve put unstable atomic nuclei to work for you.”

Orloff crushed his cigarette to extinction with a nervous gesture. “But their atmosphere—”

“Yes, that’s what’s stopping them. They’re living at the bottom of a three-thousand-mile-deep ocean of it, where the hydrogen of which it is composed is collapsed by sheer pressure to something approaching the density of solid hydrogen. It stays a gas because the temperature of Jupiter is above the critical point of hydrogen, but you just try to figure out the pressure that can make hydrogen gas half as heavy as water. You’ll be surprised at the number of zeros you’ll have to put down.

“No spaceship of metal or of any kind of matter can stand that pressure. No Terrestrial spaceship can land on Jupiter without smashing like an eggshell, and no Jovian spaceship can leave Jupiter without exploding like a soap bubble. That problem has not yet been solved, but it will be some day.

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