The Ranger Boys in Space Read online

  Other books by Hal Clement

  NEEDLE ICEWORLD

  MISSION OF GRAVITY

  THE RANGER BOYS IN SPACE

  L C. PAGE & COMPANY

  Copyright ©1956

  by L. C. Page & Company (Incorporated)

  published simultaneously in Great Britain

  All rights Reserved.

  First Impression July 1956

  PRINTED BY THE COLONIAL PRESS INC.

  CLINTON, MASSACHUSETTS U.S.A.

  Table of Contents

  1 THE CRIPPLE

  2 THE FAILURE

  3 THE WIRE

  4 THE SPY

  5 PETER TALKS FAST

  6 NIAGARA

  7 TUMBLE

  8 UNCLE JIM TALKS STRAIGHT

  9 THE PROBLEM OF TUMBLE

  10 THE POLARIS

  11 THE LONG FALL

  12 TUMBLE TEACHES

  13 TUMBLE LEARNS

  14 TUMBLE LOSES PATIENCE

  15 BULL'S-EYE—ALMOST

  16 LONG WALK

  17 OPERATION SICK BAY

  18 THREE RANGERS

  19 PETER THINKS

  20 PETER ACTS

  21 MOUNTAINS OF LIGHT

  22 NO EXIT

  23 SIGN IN THE DUST

  24 RED DARKNESS

  25 FOUR RANGERS

  1

  THE CRIPPLE

  "PETE! On the double!"

  The boy behind the wheel of the ancient car leaned out as he called, as though to make his voice travel farther. He didn't really need to; not only were his lungs powerful enough for any demand likely to be put on them, but the car itself had nothing to interfere with his call. It had once been a convertible, but the top had been removed long before the machine came into Bart Ranger's possession. He claimed that it was the oldest powered vehicle still on any American road, and none of his friends ever argued the point.

  Sometimes an unsuspecting garageman, listening to the nearly silent motor, claimed that Bart was cheating and had put an old body on a modern chassis, but the mechanic was wrong. The motor's condition was the result of many hours of work on the part of Bart, his younger brother, and Peter Ashburn.

  "Come on, Pete! He'll be taking a taxi if we don't get going!"

  "Keep your shoes on!" The voice floated from an upstairs window of the house, and the occupants of the car relaxed. Peter appeared at the door a moment later and walked toward them. Neither Bart nor his brother expected him to run; Peter Ashburn very seldom hurried on dry land, insisting that he needed his energy for swimming. He got into the car and Bart immediately swung out of the drive, turned right, and found his place in the Washington-bound traffic. Rhode Island Avenue was not too crowded yet, but he knew what it would be like farther in.

  The other two paid little attention to the driving problem. They were looking forward to meeting Jim Bowen, who had been gone for several months this time.

  "It's too bad that Uncle Jim can't get home a little oftener, when he's only as far away as Niagara," remarked Dart (he had been named for his uncle, but only his schoolteachers ever remembered that fact).

  "Are you trying to sound innocent just because we're in public?" asked Peter. "You know as well as I do what he's been doing, and why he's really been a lot farther off than Niagara most of the time. Do you think there's someone in the back seat listening in?"

  Dart admitted that it was probably safe, but added, "You know Uncle Jim said to keep quiet about this business. He said he'd told us because he trusted us, and if he'll let you in on something like that when you're not even his nephew, I should think you'd be pretty careful about talking."

  "You're right," admitted Peter, "but you know as well as I do that I haven't said a word where anyone could hear us. Who was it only a couple of weeks ago who was wishing out loud that he could go along with his Uncle Jim? It was you, and you were doing it in my yard, where there was a lot better chance of being heard than there is here."

  "Why argue about it?" Bart cut in without taking his eyes from the road. "Uncle Jim knows he can trust us; we all know there was no one listening that day in your yard because there was no place within earshot where anyone could have hidden, and we've all wished out loud at different times that we could be with him. Pete's asking at school why there wasn't any course being given in astronomy, for that matter.... "

  ".... would have been a giveaway if everybody didn't know I was a bookworm anyway," finished Peter. "Better change the subject or you'll be right into the argument with Dart and me."

  "All right. How long do you think Uncle Jim will be home this time?"

  "Not long, unless things have changed." Dart's remark was made in a gloomy tone.

  "Maybe they have." Bart sounded more cheerful. 'Remember, before he went he said, 'This time ought to clear things up.' "

  "You mean they might get up and stay up this time?" asked Peter. "Why would that let him out? I should think that that would be the time he'd really get to work; he's a geographer, not an engineer."

  "I only know what he said. Anyway, if they've really finished the job, maybe he'll be able to tell us a good deal more. Besides, we're older than when we first heard about it, and maybe we'd stand a chance to get in on it ourselves."

  "I don't know about that, Dart," remarked Peter. "With Bart and me only sixteen and you a year younger, I'm afraid there aren't very many people who are going to assume we can do a man's job at anything."

  "But when it's something no one has done before— maybe we could talk our way in." Peter shook his head doubtfully, and even Dart would have admitted without much pressure that his remark was more wish than hope.

  Before any more could be said on the. subject a whine sounded above and behind the car. Peter and Dart looked up.

  "Is that the plane?" asked Bart. Peter shook his head.

  "No. Wrong course, wrong kind, and too early. This one's in a turn—must have come from the south and be cutting around to land on the southwest strip. We'll make it all right." Bart nodded and glanced upward to make sure as the sound of turbines drew ahead of them.

  For some minutes there was silence while the car hummed deeper into the town. All the boys were thinking about James Bowen, the "Uncle Jim" of the Rangers. He was a widely known man; he had accompanied exploring expeditions to Antarctica and the Amazon Valley, and was one of the few to have reached the summits of both Everest and K2 on foot. He had taken over the guardianship of Bart and Dart when their parents had been killed ten years before. His nephews had grown up with the hope of going with him on his regular work when they were old enough.

  Peter also thought of him as "Uncle Jim," though he himself was not related either to Bowen or to the Ranger boys. He had met them three years before when his own guardians had moved to Washington, and a friendship had grown up between them, though Peter Ashburn was very different from the brothers. He was Bart's age, but that was all. The Rangers were athletes, Dart's chief ambition being to beat Bart consistently at any sport he could manage. He came closest in tennis and track—his nickname did not come entirely from its resemblance to his brother's—but never quite made the grade. Peter, on the other hand, cared little for any sport except swimming, and, as he had said, had something of a reputation as a bookworm. His friends could slightly understand his liking physics and chemistry, but his claim to enjoy mathematics was viewed with some suspicion.

  In spite of this difference, he got on remarkably well with the brothers. Peter never tried to account for it; he liked Bart, Dart, and their uncle, and all three liked him. He was as eager as the Rangers to reach the airport in time, and was relieved when the car swung out onto the lower deck of the Fourteenth Street bridge, two minutes from the airport parking space, with no sign of the airli
ner from the northwest.

  They crossed the river, swung off onto the ramp feeding the airport, left the car, and were climbing to the concourse when Dart saw the incoming liner. It was just a speck in the clear sky, but none of them had any doubt of its identity.

  By the time they had reached the rail overlooking the unloading ramp, the big machine was close enough for details to be seen. It was coming straight in, its landing gear already down, the six turbines which drove its huge propellers throttled back so that they could barely be heard. The boys watched closely as it eased downward; they all knew something of flying from their schoolwork, though they had never handled planes themselves.

  It was hard to tell just when the already spinning wheels touched the runway, but the fact that they had done so was heralded by the sudden rise in the sound of the turbines as the pilots reversed pitch to slow the great aircraft down. It rolled majestically past, a quarter of a mile from the concourse, still losing speed; in another half mile it had come to a halt and swung clear of the runway. Slowly it ambled back, reminding Bart of a rather fussy, well-dressed old man picking his way through a crowd of boys with snowballs as it passed the other planes parked along the ramp. It came as close as possible to the concourse, turned around so that one wing tip passed only a dozen yards from the boys, halted, and let its great propellers swing to a stop. Three doors along the fuselage opened out and down to form ramps, and the passengers began to stream toward the terminal buildings.

  Peter took his attention from the heat-blur around the jet exhausts as Bart called his name.

  "Pete! You take the forward door; I'll handle the middle one and Dart the tail. Yell if you see Uncle Jim." Ashburn nodded and tried to obey, but it was no easy job. All the doors were wide enough to let several people out abreast, and the liner must have had over two hundred passengers to discharge. It was a local, terminating at Washington, so no one would be staying aboard. He strained his eyes until the stream of people thinned to a trickle and finally ceased; then he looked at the other doors. The rear cabin seemed also to have emptied, but a few people were still emerging from the center one. After a few moments this flow ceased also, and the boys looked blankly at each other for a moment.

  "He must have been in the front," Dart said at length. "I suppose Pete was watching the exhausts cool, or something like that."

  "I was watching the door," Ashburn replied. "I'm as sure he didn't come out mine as you are about yours. Could he have been up in the cockpit?"

  "Illegal, even for Uncle Jim," remarked Bart. "No, we must have missed him. He'll probably be picking up luggage down below; if we don't catch him there, we can have him paged—if he doesn't beat us to it." He turned away from the railing.

  Peter was the last to leave; it was he who took a final look at the great plane behind them and saw something which made him stop in his tracks, stare, and then call to the others with all the power of his lungs.

  "Bart! Dart! Here, quick!" The others whirled and leaped back to his side.

  The airliner had not quite emptied itself. The compartment just back of the cockpit was served by a small elevator, used to carry aboard such items as test apparatus or food, and this had started down. It had been hidden at first by one of the landing-gear doors, but now the boys could see what it carried.

  There were three people on the small platform. One was either the pilot or some other airline employee, judging by his uniform, and another a tall, dark-haired man dressed in clothes that seemed designed for hard work. Both these people were giving their attention to the third man, who was seated between them in a wheel chair.

  It was not possible to tell at first glance what was wrong with him. He was not covered by a blanket, but in spite of this there was no sign of casts, bandages, or any other of the usual reasons why a man may not be able to walk on his own feet. His face looked thin, though he was a little too far away for the boys to be sure. At this distance he closely resembled the workman standing by his wheel chair.

  For just a moment the eyes of the boys rested on the man in work clothes, whose build and coloration were not too different from those of James Bowen; then, almost simultaneously, they realized their error. In spite of the loss of weight, the anxious expression which was now visible, and the evident helplessness, the man in the wheel chair was Uncle Jim.

  2

  THE FAILURE

  IT WAS fortunate that most of the other people had already left the concourse, for the boys broke all records and several regulations going down the stairs. At the bottom they turned toward the ramp without slackening their pace. A guard at one of the gates started to intercept them, then seemed to realize the situation; he stepped back out of the way, and the boys went by scarcely noticing him.

  The elevator had reached the ground and the chair was being wheeled toward the gate when the boys reached it—Peter well behind the others, by this time.

  "Uncle Jim! What happened? Was there an accident? Did it—?" The last question of Bart's was interrupted by a sharp nudge from his younger brother.

  James Bowen looked up, and tried to smile. It took an effort that-the boys could see easily, and which

  shocked and startled them almost as much as had the original sight of their uncle in a wheel chair. The expression underlying that forced smile was one they would have called fear, had it been on anyone else's face, but none of them could imagine James Bowen's being afraid. He was thin, as they had already seen— fully twenty-five pounds lighter than when he had left them, and Peter noticed that his hands were gripping the arms of the chair so hard that the knuckles were white. He did not release that grip even to shake hands, and Peter wondered.

  "Hello, boys." Bowen's voice was nearly normal, at least. "It's good to see you again. No, it's not exactly an accident; it's something we were a little afraid of all along. I'm........ "

  "Then you're sick?" Dart cut in. "Will it last long? Was it radiation, maybe?" Bart returned the nudge, to silence him.

  "No, not radiation. I'll tell you all about it when we get home."

  "Then you can come home? You're not hospitalized?"

  "No, Pete. I'll be with you very shortly."

  "But we have the car here; aren't you coming with us? If you don't need to go to a hospital, what else is keeping you?"

  "Well—you still have the same car?"

  "Of course."

  "Then I think I'll go in the ambulance I see they have waiting. It's nothing to do with your driving; I'll explain that, too, when we get home. You go along; I'll meet you there."

  Bart looked with troubled eyes at his uncle for a long moment; then without another word he turned and went back toward the parking lot. The other boys followed silently, and the old car was humming back across the Potomac before anyone spoke. When the ambulance passed them there, Peter, usually the quietest of the trio, said, "Step on it, Bart." Bart would normally have made some answer designed to "keep the bookworm from getting above himself," but this time he simply nodded, and by some trick did manage to keep the ambulance in sight most of the way home.

  He pulled into the drive behind it while Uncle Jim was still being helped up the front steps. The boys watched, not daring to help until they had some idea of^hat was wrong. Bowen seemed strong enough, but he had to feel carefully for each step with his foot before he put weight on it, and although it was obvious that he could see, the men on each side seemed to be guiding him. The boys followed the group through the door and waited silently while the wheel chair was brought in and the patient settled in it. Mrs. Lynn, the housekeeper, for once was too shocked to speak.

  "Thanks, Doctor." Bowen addressed these words to the man in work clothes, rather to the boys' surprise. The doctor nodded.

  "All right, Mr. Bowen. As you know, we can't tell just how long this will last; I'm staying in town and will call at least once a day. If any change should occur when I'm not here, please call. You know about keeping a running report on your condition."

  "Right. I'll do that as well
as I can myself, and the boys here will supplement my observations from outside."

  "You're going to tell them the story?"

  "All of it." The doctor shrugged.

  "That's your affair, and of course you know them better than I do." Bowen hastily presented the boys to Dr. Kellner, who acknowledged the introduction, remarked that he had better check in at Reed, and left. The boys scarcely noticed his departure, except for the fact that they were now alone with Bowen; without waiting for an invitation they settled down in various parts of the room to hear what he had to say.

  "I'm sorry that I came back this way, boys; it must have been quite a jolt to you. The whole thing is a long story, and I don't quite know where to start.

  "You know what we were doing. People have been arguing for years about whether it was worth while to spend the time and money getting a rocket out of the atmosphere and into a permanent path around the earth. Time and time again the engineers came up with plans: always very, very complicated and very, very expensive, and somehow the project never really got under way—whichever service happened to be concerned at the time couldn't get the money needed. Then, as I told you, something happened which cut down the complication and the risk to almost nothing. I couldn't tell you what it was at the time, since it was completely secret. I did tell you that we had the satellite project under way, that the station was being built, and that we hoped to get it up before long.

  "It was, and is. Three weeks ago it was launched, and is now circling the earth between three and four thousand miles up."

  "Then you've succeeded!" Dart leaped to his feet. "You've been in space!" He sobered down a little. "I suppose all this is still secret, though."

  James Bowen was silent for a long moment.

  "It will be no secret after tonight," he said at last, "and it's no success, from our point of view."

  "What?"

  "We have failed. I can tell you more now, since, as I said, the news is being released anyway.