Rockets in Ursa Major (2 page)

`This is Sir John Fielding. One of the original designers of the DSP 15 which is coming in to land at Mildenhall.'

`He may be, but you've got no clearance from Mildenhall.' The officer shrugged his shoulders. 'No luck, gentlemen.'

'I suggest you call Colonel Ganges at Mildenhall before you ground us, officer,' said Sir John in a cold even voice. `And for God's sake, hurry!'

`Colonel Ganges. Eh! We'll see,' said the officer, trying to be sure of himself, but not quite knowing what to do. `Get a Colonel Ganges at Mildenhall, will you?" he said to one of his men.

Sir John sat silently simmering, ready to explode.

`That's typical of Ganges,' Sir John said suddenly. 'He's so good at cutting red tape he's forgotten his own security arrangements and barred the only men who can help him.' Sir John smiled and leaned out of the window. He was about to say something when one of the policemen called.

`Colonel Ganges, sir.'

`Colonel Ganges. This is Sergeant Richards, Cambridge City Police. I've got a Sir John Fielding, a ...'

His sentence was cut short. 'But Colonel . . He tried to get a word in edgeways. Finally he handed the radio mike back. 'I must apologize, Sir John,' said the man.

`Quite all right, officer. Quite all right. It's not your fault.'

'Thank you, sir. We'll escort you to the space drome.' `Good,' Sir John said briskly, and off we went.

Now, with top priority, we went at a breath-taking speed.

A mile or two before we reached the space drome I could see a monumental amount of activity. Our police escort started to hedge-hop, so down I went and followed them. Obviously all the official flight paths had gone to the military. Suddenly the police put down on the ground and I followed suit.

`It's absolute bedlam farther in,' the officer said, coming up to Sir John's window. 'Is there anything we can do?'

`Yes, just see that we get to Colonel Ganges as quickly as possible,' Sir John said, closing the file and climbing out.

We started hurrying across the field.

`There it is,' Sir John suddenly said, pointing to a shining needle sitting on the landing pad about a quarter of a mile away. It looked very small and thin in comparison with the large military ships dotted around the space drome. We stood in silence for a moment or two. I could feel Sir John's excitement. It was thirty years since he had last seen this ship, and it had been given up for lost by nearly everyone. Then he set off at a cracking pace across the acres of concrete. I almost had to run to keep up until he halted at the military cordon.

`Sir John Fielding and party,' said Sir John.

`Just one moment,' said the M.P. `Sarge,' the M.P. yelled over his shoulder. 'A Sir John Fielding and party.'

The sergeant came over. 'Sir John,' he said, looking down a long list. 'Yes, here we are.'

`Dr Richard Warboys,' Sir John said, pointing at me.

`Dr Warboys, yes,' said the sergeant, ticking his list, and beckoning us through without looking up.

Near the rocket stood Ganges and some medics.

`Ah, Sir John,' said Ganges, uneasily. 'Sorry about the nonsense with the police. My stupid secretary. Silly fellow.'

`Damn your security and your filing system,' Sir John said, but without much heat. One of the medics came over.

`I'd like to get those men out as soon as possible, Sir John,' he said.

`I understand,' said Sir John quietly. 'Just give me a few minutes, a few minutes.'

`Can't see it matters to a few hours. Been frozen for donkey's years,' said Ganges in his usual bluff, tactless way.

`Of course it matters, Colonel,' said the doctor angrily. `If we don't get in there very soon, those men are as good as dead. The shock of landing on hard frozen living material can be extremely severe.' The doctor was very agitated. Ganges on the other hand looked amazed at the doctor's outburst.

`Matter of urgency,' said Ganges, a little bleakly. 'Knew Tubby Fanshawe well. At school together.'

Fanshawe,' said the doctor in surprise.

`Chief Pilot, doctor,' said Ganges, pointing a large porky finger at the ship. 'In there. Great spin bowler. Leg breaks and googlies.' Ganges then screwed himself up into a distorted version of a spin bowler's action. I had to smile, but I knew this fooling was Ganges' way of hiding his true feelings.

An army engineer appeared out of a large radio hover truck, walked over to us, saluted smartly and said: `I'm afraid we can't do anything, Doc.'

`Colonel Ganges, this is quite intolerable. I can't be responsible for the lives of those men in there,' the doctor said.

`Dick,' Sir John said quickly. 'I've got it now.'

`What's that, Sir John?' said Ganges.

`We're just going to open the doors,' Sir John said, making his way over to the radio truck.

As I walked to the truck, I heard Ganges say: 'Doors need opening. Boffins. Amazin' fellas!' He followed us to the truck and looked in at the engineers and myself. `Would you like help?'

`I think we'll make it,' I said, understanding how he felt.

Sir John nodded his agreement. Ganges still poked his head over Sir John's shoulder hesitantly and would probably have persisted but someone told him television reporters had got through the military cordon and he was off like a shot. God help them, I thought.

`First,' said Sir John's voice bringing me back to the problem in hand. 'I want a carrier at 174 megacycles. Then pulse it at 1 KC. pulse length 5 micro-seconds.'

`Carrier at 174 megacycles,' I said, moving a small dial.

Pulse 1 KC. length 5 micro-seconds.' I changed over to another circuit. A pulse came and settled down, allowing me to set the pulse length at 5 micro-seconds.

`All right,' I said to an engineer standing close by. `Just check everything for me.'

The man ran through the check list.

`Secondly,' Sir John said when the engineer signaled that everything was satisfactory, 'I want a separate transmission on 39.37 megacycles frequency modulated, amplitude 5 decibels below the first transmission.'

`Frequency modulation,' I blurted aloud. Sir John looked a bit irritated.

`We've still to key in the final numerical combination. This is done on the frequency modulation.'

I would have queried this type of operation, but there were more important things to do. 'Have you a key?' I asked one of the engineers.

`No, but we'll fix one up in a moment or two, sir,' said the poor engineer, who was obviously terrified of making a mistake.

`Check frequency,' I said, turning back to the dials in front of me.

`O.K.,' came the reply.

`Amplitude ratio?'

`O.K.'

`Key plugged in?'

`All ready, sir.'

`Right, Sir John. What's the code number?' I said, trying to emulate his steadiness. More than thirty years had elapsed since the crew in the rocket had left the earth, now we were on the threshold of seeing and hearing what they had seen and done.

`137131929,' said Sir John in triumph.

`What system?' I asked.

`Old fashioned Morse.'

`137131929 in old fashioned Morse,' I said to the engineer. He looked aghast for a moment and then went to work. I tried to look encouraging.

The engineer worked on. I could see beads of sweat on his forehead. My hands felt damp, as I listened to the sound of the digits being keyed in.

1 . . . 3 . . . 7 . . . 1 . . . 3 . . . 1 . . . 9 . . . 2 . . . 9.

Then silence. It was almost agony waiting. Everyone must have been thinking the same thought. What happens if the systems jammed or something was damaged after such a long flight? We waited.

Then, as we held our breath, there was a satisfying click and deep rumble. I went to the door of the truck and stood with Sir John watching. The large doors up on the ship slowly began to open. We had succeeded. I felt Sir John relax. The strain for him must have been quite enormous; for even I felt drained of physical energy.

Two of the ground staff climbed on board a lift and drove it over to the side of the ship. For a moment or two they remained at the bottom, and then they pressed the button and went up. They vanished inside. Soon one of them returned to the doors of the rocket and signaled.

The medics were the first to the lift, with Ganges, Sir John and myself a long way behind.

`Remember Tubby Fanshawe scoring a cracking good 50 -- school cricket, if you know what I mean. Now frozen solid. Damn' amazing!' said Ganges, waiting impatiently for the lift to return.

The lift came down slowly. As we went up I realized how small this ship really was. The main doors, which were very near the top of the craft, would only come about half-way up one of the machines standing close by.

Amazing, I thought to myself, as we passed in through the doors, no airlock, and there would be no gravitational field inside the ship as we had today. The passage from the opening led straight into the cabin, the only cabin, which was used for everything, and in one half of the cabin was the freezer. A sort of cylinder-shaped cubicle with a large deep-freeze-type door. I left everyone to get on with opening it up and had a quick look round the rest of the cabin. A long console seemed to house most of the equipment. A museum-piece computer punch card machine, hand stabilizing equipment for adjusting the flight of the ship. It was a remarkable feat, to go out to Ursa Major with a small ship like this. Even my lab in Cambridge was better equipped, I thought, picking up a small drill.

`There's something seriously wrong,' I suddenly heard the doctor saying.

`What?' Sir John asked anxiously.

`The temperature is much too high.'

I went over to where the doctor and his medics stood. Ganges followed me over.

`Look at this, Sir John,' said the doctor, indicating the temperature gauge.

`What does the freezer normally operate at?' asked Sir John, tapping the instrument like a barometer on the wall.

`Nowadays we'd operate at about minus 50° centigrade.

I don't know precisely what the practice was thirty years ago, but it couldn't have been much different,' said the doctor, thoughtfully.

Sir John studied the dial. "This gauge shows a temperature of about zero,' he said.

`Exactly, it's at thawing temperature.'

Curiosity got the better of me and I looked over a number of shoulders at the dial. It did indeed show a temperature of zero. 'Perhaps the automatic defrosters have worked,' I said.

`We can soon check on that,' said Sir John, moving, file in hand, over to the main control panel. 'You're right, Dick. That's what has happened,' he said, making his way back to the group.

We all stood in silence.

`I'm afraid the men's fate is pretty clear,' the doctor said; after a minute.

`Dead,' said Sir John quietly.

`I'm afraid so. Otherwise they'd have woken up by now. I'll have a look inside.' He started to open the large freezer door.

`This isn't my line of country. If you don't mind, I'll withdraw.'

`That would be best, Sir John. It won't be a pleasant job.'

Sir John and I moved away, followed by Ganges, who looked desperately glum. One could feel what he was thinking. It is never pleasant to learn that an old school pal has died. The medics were having a job to get the door open. A morbid thought crossed my mind. How long had the freezing chamber been thawed?

Sir John gently placed his Thermos on the control desk. He looked spent.

After much effort the heavy door swung open and the doctor went in. There was a moment's quiet and then he suddenly reappeared at the door. 'Hey. Just a minute, come and have a look in here.'

Ganges was the first across, followed closely by Sir John. I was a little hesitant, but followed them in, curiosity getting the better of me again. It reminded me of a mortuary in a hospital. Bleak, bare and cold, even though the temperature was above freezing. We went to the point where the crew should be in their containers.

`Great heavens, it's empty!' Sir John said, lifting one of the lids.

I opened another one and it was also empty; in fact so were they all.

`I don't understand,' I said. 'How could the ship have been started back to earth without a crew?'

`An interesting question,' Ganges said, squeezing his way out of the freezer. 'There must be a log-book somewhere.

Sir John moved to a cabinet near the entrance and pulled open the drawers. 'That's very strange.'

`Nothing at all,' said Ganges, coming back to the middle of the cabin.

`This is ridiculous. The cabinet should be full of ship's data like this,' Sir John said, waving the files he was carrying.

The problem of a ship with no crew and no papers was staggering. We all stood for a moment looking about not quite knowing what to do.

I moved round the cabin. Looking for what, I wasn't sure. I pressed the button on a tape manual deck. Nothing but high level static. Turning it off, I wondered how long it would take to sift through the information on the computer.

`Anything on the tape?' Sir John said, joining me. `Nothing, just static.'

Sir John frowned, deep in thought. I felt at a loss.

`What would the crew be doing with a drill like this?' I asked Sir John, holding up the tool I had been playing with earlier.

`It looks like part of the doctor's equipment,' Sir John said.

`They carried a doctor with them?' said Ganges. `Oh, yes. The drill looks like a dentist's drill.' `So it can cut through fairly hard material?'

`I suppose so, but what are you driving at?'

Taking the drill from Sir John, I showed him the cutting edge. 'I thought it might have been used to cut a message on the metal.' I started moving my hands over all metal surfaces. The others did the same.

It took me about five minutes to find it. The maddening thing was that the engraving was right under where I'd found the instrument.