Januari 10, 2017
the sky trap by frank belknap long lawton enjoyed a good fight. he stood happilytrading blows with slashaway tommy, his lean-fleshed torso gleaming with sweat. he preferred towork the pugnacity out of himself slowly, to savor it as it ebbed. "better luck next time, slashaway," he said,and unlimbered a left hook that thudded against his opponent's jaw with such violence thatthe big, hairy ape crumpled to the resin and rolled over on his back. lawton brushed a lock of rust-colored hairback from his brow and stared down at the limp figure lying on the descending stratoship'sslightly tilted athletic deck.
"good work, slashaway," he said. "you're primitiveand beetle-browed, but you've got what it takes." lawton flattered himself that he was the oppositeof primitive. high in the sky he had predicted the weather for eight days running, with farmore accuracy than he could have put into a punch. they'd flash his report all over earth ina couple of minutes now. from new york to london to singapore and back. in half an hourhe'd be donning street clothes and stepping out feeling darned good. he had fulfilled his weekly obligation tosociety by manipulating meteorological instruments
for forty-five minutes, high in the warm,upper stratosphere and worked off his pugnacity by knocking down a professional gym slugger.he would have a full, glorious week now to work off all his other drives. the stratoship's commander, captain forrester,had come up, and was staring at him reproachfully. "dave, i don't hold with the reforming johnnieswho want to re-make human nature from the ground up. but you've got to admit our generationknows how to keep things humming with a minimum of stress. we don't have world wars now becausewe work off our pugnacity by sailing into gym sluggers eight or ten times a week. andsince our romantic emotions can be taken care of by tactile television we're not at themercy of every brainless bit of fluff's calculated
ankle appeal." lawton turned, and regarded him quizzically."don't you suppose i realize that? you'd think i just blew in from mars." "all right. we have the outlets, the safetyvalves. they are supposed to keep us civilized. but you don't derive any benefit from them." "the heck i don't. i exchange blows with slashawayevery time i board the perseus. and as for women—well, there's just one woman in theworld for me, and i wouldn't exchange her for all the turkish images in the tactilebroadcasts from stamboul." "yes, i know. but you work off your primitiveemotions with too much gusto. even a cast-iron
gym slugger can bruise. that last blow was—brutal.just because slashaway gets thumped and thudded all over by the medical staff twice a weekdoesn't mean he can take—" the stratoship lurched suddenly. the deckheaved up under lawton's feet, hurling him against captain forrester and spinning bothmen around so that they seemed to be waltzing together across the ship. the still limp gymslugger slid downward, colliding with a corrugated metal bulkhead and sloshing back and forthlike a wet mackerel. a full minute passed before lawton could puta stop to that. even while careening he had been alive to slashaway's peril, and had triedto leap to his aid. but the ship's steadily increasing gyrations had hurled him away fromthe skipper and against a massive vaulting
horse, barking the flesh from his shins andspilling him with violence onto the deck. he crawled now toward the prone gym sluggeron his hands and knees, his temples thudding. the gyrations ceased an instant before hereached slashaway's side. with an effort he lifted the big man up, propped him againstthe bulkhead and shook him until his teeth rattled. "slashaway," he muttered. "slashaway,old fellow." slashaway opened blurred eyes, "phew!" hemuttered. "you sure socked me hard, sir." "you went out like a light," explained lawtongently. "a minute before the ship lurched." "the ship lurched, sir?" "something's very wrong, slashaway. the shipisn't moving. there are no vibrations and—slashaway,
are you hurt? your skull thumped against thatbulkhead so hard i was afraid—" "naw, i'm okay. whatd'ya mean, the ship ain'tmoving? how could it stop?" lawton said. "i don't know, slashaway." helpingthe gym slugger to his feet he stared apprehensively about him. captain forrester was kneelingon the resin testing his hocks for sprains with splayed fingers, his features twitching. "hurt badly, sir?" the commander shook his head. "i don't thinkso. dave, we are twenty thousand feet up, so how in hell could we be stationary in space?" "it's all yours, skipper."
"i must say you're helpful." forrester got painfully to his feet and limpedtoward the athletic compartment's single quartz port—a small circle of radiance on a levelwith his eyes. as the port sloped downward at an angle of nearly sixty degrees all hecould see was a diffuse glimmer until he wedged his brow in the observation visor and stareddownward. lawton heard him suck in his breath sharply."well, sir?" "there are thin cirrus clouds directly beneathus. they're not moving." lawton gasped, the sense of being in an impossiblesituation swelling to nightmare proportions within him. what could have happened?
directly behind him, close to a bulkhead chronometer,which was clicking out the seconds with unabashed regularity, was a misty blue visiplate thatmerely had to be switched on to bring the pilots into view. the commander hobbled toward it, and manipulateda rheostat. the two pilots appeared side by side on the screen, sitting amidst a spiderynetwork of dully gleaming pipe lines and nichrome humidification units. they had unbuttonedtheir high-altitude coats and their stratosphere helmets were resting on their knees. the jablochoffcandle light which flooded the pilot room accentuated the haggardness of their features,which were a sickly cadaverous hue. the captain spoke directly into the visiplate."what's wrong with the ship?" he demanded.
"why aren't we descending? dawson, you dothe talking!" one of the pilots leaned tensely forward,his shoulders jerking. "we don't know, sir. the rotaries went dead when the ship startedgyrating. we can't work the emergency torps and the temperature is rising." "but—it defies all logic," forrester muttered."how could a metal ship weighing tons be suspended in the air like a balloon? it is stationary,but it is not buoyant. we seem in all respects to be frozen in." "the explanation may be simpler than you dream,"lawton said. "when we've found the key." the captain swung toward him. "could you findthe key, dave?"
"i should like to try. it may be hidden somewhereon the ship, and then again, it may not be. but i should like to go over the ship witha fine-tooth comb, and then i should like to go over outside, thoroughly. suppose youmake me an emergency mate and give me a carte blanche, sir." lawton got his carte blanche. for two hourshe did nothing spectacular, but he went over every inch of the ship. he also lined up thecrew and pumped them. the men were as completely in the dark as the pilots and the now completelyrecovered slashaway, who was following lawton about like a doting seal. "you're a right guy, sir. another two or threecracks and my noggin would've split wide open."
"but not like an eggshell, slashaway. pigiron develops fissures under terrific pounding but your cranium seems to be more like temperedsteel. slashaway, you won't understand this, but i've got to talk to somebody and the captainis too busy to listen. "i went over the entire ship because i thoughtthere might be a hidden source of buoyancy somewhere. it would take a lot of air bubblesto turn this ship into a balloon, but there are large vacuum chambers under the multipleseries condensers in the engine room which conceivably could have sucked in a heliumleakage from the carbon pile valves. and there are bulkhead porosities which could have clogged." "yeah," muttered slashaway, scratching hishead. "i see what you mean, sir."
"it was no soap. there's nothing inside theship that could possibly keep us up. therefore there must be something outside that isn'tair. we know there is air outside. we've stuck our heads out and sniffed it. and we've foundout a curious thing. "along with the oxygen there is water vapor,but it isn't h2o. it's ho. a molecular arrangement like that occurs in the upper solar atmosphere,but nowhere on earth. and there's a thin sprinkling of hydrocarbon molecules out there too. hydrocarbonappears ordinarily as methane gas, but out there it rings up as ch. methane is ch4. andthere are also scandium oxide molecules making unfamiliar faces at us. and oxide of boron—withan equational limp." "gee," muttered slashaway. "we're up againstit, eh?"
lawton was squatting on his hams beside anemergency 'chute opening on the deck of the penguin's weather observatory. he was lettingdown a spliced beryllium plumb line, his gaze riveted on the slowly turning horizontal drumof a windlass which contained more than two hundred feet of gleaming metal cordage. suddenly as he stared the drum stopped revolving.lawton stiffened, a startled expression coming into his face. he had been playing a hunchthat had seemed as insane, rationally considered, as his wild idea about the bulkhead porosities.for a moment he was stunned, unable to believe that he had struck pay dirt. the winch indicatorstood at one hundred and three feet, giving him a rich, fruity yield of startlement.
one hundred feet below him the plummet restedon something solid that sustained it in space. scarcely breathing, lawton leaned over thewindlass and stared downward. there was nothing visible between the ship and the fleecy cloudsfar below except a tiny black dot resting on vacancy and a thin beryllium plumb lineascending like an interrogation point from the dot to the 'chute opening. "you see something down there?" slashawayasked. lawton moved back from the windlass, his brainwhirling. "slashaway there's a solid surface directly beneath us, but it's completely invisible." "you mean it's like a frozen cloud, sir?"
"no, slashaway. it doesn't shimmer, or deflectlight. congealed water vapor would sink instantly to earth." "you think it's all around us, sir?" lawton stared at slashaway aghast. in hiscrude fumblings the gym slugger had ripped a hidden fear right out of his subconsciousnessinto the light. "i don't know, slashaway," he muttered. "i'llget at that next." a half hour later lawton sat beside the captain'sdesk in the control room, his face drained of all color. he kept his gaze averted ashe talked. a man who succeeds too well with an unpleasant task may develop a subconscioussense of guilt.
"sir, we're suspended inside a hollow spherewhich resembles a huge, floating soap bubble. before we ripped through it it must have hada plastic surface. but now the tear has apparently healed over, and the shell all around us isas resistant as steel. we're completely bottled up, sir. i shot rocket leads in all directionsto make certain." the expression on forrester's face sold mereamazement down the river. he could not have looked more startled if the nearer planetshad yielded their secrets chillingly, and a super-race had appeared suddenly on earth. "good god, dave. do you suppose somethinghas happened to space?" lawton raised his eyes with a shudder. "notnecessarily, sir. something has happened to
us. we're floating through the sky in a huge,invisible bubble of some sort, but we don't know whether it has anything to do with space.it may be a meteorological phenomenon." "you say we're floating?" "we're floating slowly westward. the cloudsbeneath us have been receding for fifteen or twenty minutes now." "phew!" muttered forrester. "that means we'vegot to—" he broke off abruptly. the perseus' radiooperator was standing in the doorway, distress and indecision in his gaze. "our receptionis extremely sporadic, sir," he announced. "we can pick up a few of the stronger broadcasts,but our emergency signals haven't been answered."
"keep trying," forrester ordered. "aye, aye, sir." the captain turned to lawton. "suppose wecall it a bubble. why are we suspended like this, immovably? your rocket leads shot up,and the plumb line dropped one hundred feet. why should the ship itself remain stationary?" lawton said: "the bubble must possess sufficientinternal equilibrium to keep a big, heavy body suspended at its core. in other words,we must be suspended at the hub of converging energy lines." "you mean we're surrounded by an electromagneticfield?"
lawton frowned. "not necessarily, sir. i'msimply pointing out that there must be an energy tug of some sort involved. otherwisethe ship would be resting on the inner surface of the bubble." forrester nodded grimly. "we should be thankful,i suppose, that we can move about inside the ship. dave, do you think a man could descendto the inner surface?" "i've no doubt that a man could, sir. shalli let myself down?" "absolutely not. damn it, dave, i need yourenergies inside the ship. i could wish for a less impulsive first officer, but a manin my predicament can't be choosy." "then what are your orders, sir?"
"orders? do i have to order you to think?is working something out for yourself such a strain? we're drifting straight toward theatlantic ocean. what do you propose to do about that?" "i expect i'll have to do my best, sir." lawton's "best" conflicted dynamically withthe captain's orders. ten minutes later he was descending, hand over hand, on a swayingemergency ladder. "tough-fibered davie goes down to look around,"he grumbled. he was conscious that he was flirting withdanger. the air outside was breathable, but would the diffuse, unorthodox gases injurehis lungs? he didn't know, couldn't be sure.
but he had to admit that he felt all rightso far. he was seventy feet below the ship and not at all dizzy. when he looked downhe could see the purple domed summits of mountains between gaps in the fleecy cloud blanket. he couldn't see the atlantic ocean—yet.he descended the last thirty feet with mounting confidence. at the end of the ladder he bracedhimself and let go. he fell about six feet, landing on his rumpon a spongy surface that bounced him back and forth. he was vaguely incredulous whenhe found himself sitting in the sky staring through his spread legs at clouds and mountains. he took a deep breath. it struck him thatthe sensation of falling could be present
without movement downward through space. hewas beginning to experience such a sensation. his stomach twisted and his brain spun. he was suddenly sorry he had tried this. itwas so damnably unnerving he was afraid of losing all emotional control. he stared up,his eyes squinting against the sun. far above him the gleaming, wedge-shaped bulk of theperseus loomed colossally, blocking out a fifth of the sky. lowering his right hand he ran his fingersover the invisible surface beneath him. the surface felt rubbery, moist. he got swayingly to his feet and made a perilousattempt to walk through the sky. beneath his
feet the mysterious surface crackled, andlittle sparks flew up about his legs. abruptly he sat down again, his face ashen. from the emergency 'chute opening far abovea massive head appeared. "you all right, sir," slashaway called, his voice vibrant with concern. "well, i—" "you'd better come right up, sir. captain'sorders." "all right," lawton shouted. "let the ladderdown another ten feet." lawton ascended rapidly, resentment smoulderingwithin him. what right had the skipper to interfere? he had passed the buck, hadn'the?
lawton got another bad jolt the instant heemerged through the 'chute opening. captain forrester was leaning against a parachuterack gasping for breath, his face a livid hue. slashaway looked equally bad. his jaw muscleswere twitching and he was tugging at the collar of his gym suit. forrester gasped: "dave, i tried to move theship. i didn't know you were outside." "good god, you didn't know—" "the rotaries backfired and used up all theoxygen in the engine room. worse, there's been a carbonic oxide seepage. the air iscontaminated throughout the ship. we'll have
to open the ventilation valves immediately.i've been waiting to see if—if you could breathe down there. you're all right, aren'tyou? the air is breathable?" lawton's face was dark with fury. "i was anexperimental rat in the sky, eh?" "look, dave, we're all in danger. don't standthere glaring at me. naturally i waited. i have my crew to think of." "well, think of them. get those valves openbefore we all have convulsions." a half hour later charcoal gas was minglingwith oxygen outside the ship, and the crew was breathing it in again gratefully. thinlydispersed, and mixed with oxygen it seemed all right. but lawton had misgivings. no matterhow attenuated a lethal gas is it is never
entirely harmless. to make matters worse,they were over the atlantic ocean. far beneath them was an emerald turbulence,half obscured by eastward moving cloud masses. the bubble was holding, but the morale ofthe crew was beginning to sag. lawton paced the control room. deep withinhim unsuspected energies surged. "we'll last until the oxygen is breathed up," he exclaimed."we'll have four or five days, at most. but we seem to be traveling faster than an oceanliner. with luck, we'll be in europe before we become carbon dioxide breathers." "will that help matters, dave?" said the captainwearily. "if we can blast our way out, it will."
the captain's sagging body jackknifed erect."blast our way out? what do you mean, dave?" "i've clamped expulsor disks on the cosmicray absorbers and trained them downward. a thin stream of accidental neutrons directedagainst the bottom of the bubble may disrupt its energies—wear it thin. it's a long gamble,but worth taking. we're staking nothing, remember?" forrester sputtered: "nothing but our lives!if you blast a hole in the bubble you'll destroy its energy balance. did that occur to you?inside a lopsided bubble we may careen dangerously or fall into the sea before we can get therotaries started." "i thought of that. the pilots are standingby to start the rotaries the instant we lurch. if we succeed in making a rent in the bubblewe'll break out the helicoptic vanes and descend
vertically. the rotaries won't backfire again.i've had their burnt-out cylinder heads replaced." an agitated voice came from the visiplateon the captain's desk: "tuning in, sir." lawton stopped pacing abruptly. he swung aboutand grasped the desk edge with both hands, his head touching forrester's as the two menstared down at the horizontal face of petty officer james caldwell. caldwell wasn't more than twenty-two or three,but the screen's opalescence silvered his hair and misted the outlines of his jaw, givinghim an aspect of senility. "well, young man," forrester growled. "whatis it? what do you want?" the irritation in the captain's voice seemedto increase caldwell's agitation. lawton had
to say: "all right, lad, let's have it," beforethe information which he had seemed bursting to impart could be wrenched out of him. it came in erratic spurts. "the bubble isall blooming, sir. all around inside there are big yellow and purple growths. it startedup above, and—and spread around. first there was just a clouding over of the sky, sir,and then—stalks shot out." for a moment lawton felt as though all sanityhad been squeezed from his brain. twice he started to ask a question and thought betterof it. pumpings were superfluous when he could confirmcaldwell's statement in half a minute for himself. if caldwell had cracked up—
caldwell hadn't cracked. when lawton walkedto the quartz port and stared down all the blood drained from his face. the vegetation was luxuriant, and unearthly.floating in the sky were serpentine tendrils as thick as a man's wrist, purplish flowersand ropy fungus growths. they twisted and writhed and shot out in all directions, creatinga tangle immediately beneath him and curving up toward the ship amidst a welter of seedpods. he could see the seeds dropping—droppingfrom pods which reminded him of the darkly horned skate egg sheaths which he had collectedin his boyhood from sea beaches at ebb tide. it was the unwholesomeness of the vegetationwhich chiefly unnerved him. it looked dank,
malarial. there were decaying patches on thefungus growths and a miasmal mist was descending from it toward the ship. the control room was completely still whenhe turned from the quartz port to meet forrester's startled gaze. "dave, what does it mean?" the question burstexplosively from the captain's lips. "it means—life has appeared and evolvedand grown rotten ripe inside the bubble, sir. all in the space of an hour or so." "but that's—impossible." lawton shook his head. "it isn't at all, sir.we've had it drummed into us that evolution
proceeds at a snailish pace, but what proofhave we that it can't mutate with lightning-like rapidity? i've told you there are gases outsidewe can't even make in a chemical laboratory, molecular arrangements that are alien to earth." "but plants derive nourishment from the soil,"interpolated forrester. "i know. but if there are alien gases in theair the surface of the bubble must be reeking with unheard of chemicals. there may be compoundsinside the bubble which have so sped up organic processes that a hundred million year cycleof mutations has been telescoped into an hour." lawton was pacing the floor again. "it wouldbe simpler to assume that seeds of existing plants became somehow caught up and imprisonedin the bubble. but the plants around us never
existed on earth. i'm no botanist, but i knowwhat the congo has on tap, and the great rain forests of the amazon." "dave, if the growth continues it will fillthe bubble. it will choke off all our air." "don't you suppose i realize that? we've gotto destroy that growth before it destroys us." it was pitiful to watch the crew's moralesag. the miasmal taint of the ominously proliferating vegetation was soon pervading the ship, spreadingdemoralization everywhere. it was particularly awful straight down. abovea ropy tangle of livid vines and creepers a kingly stench weed towered, purplish andbloated and weighted down with seed pods.
it seemed sentient, somehow. it was growingso fast that the evil odor which poured from it could be correlated with the increase oftension inside the ship. from that particular plant, minute by slow minute, there surgeda continuously mounting offensiveness, like nothing lawton had ever smelt before. the bubble had become a blooming horror sailingslowly westward above the storm-tossed atlantic. and all the chemical agents which lawton sprayedthrough the ventilation valves failed to impede the growth or destroy a single seed pod. it was difficult to kill plant life with chemicalswhich were not harmful to man. lawton took dangerous risks, increasing the unwholesomenessof their rapidly dwindling air supply by spraying
out a thin diffusion of problematically poisonousacids. it was no sale. the growths increased by leapsand bounds, as though determined to show their resentment of the measures taken against themby marshalling all their forces in a demoralizing plantkrieg. thwarted, desperate, lawton played his lastcard. he sent five members of the crew, equipped with blow guns. they returned screaming. lawtonhad to fortify himself with a double whiskey soda before he could face the look of reproachin their eyes long enough to get all of the prickles out of them. from then on pandemonium reigned. blue funkseized the petty officers while some of the
crew ran amuck. one member of the engine watchattacked four of his companions with a wrench; another went into the ship's kitchen and slashedhimself with a paring knife. the assistant engineer leapt through a 'chute opening, afteravowing that he preferred impalement to suffocation. he was impaled. it was horrible. looking downlawton could see his twisted body dangling on a crimson-stippled thornlike growth fortyfeet in height. slashaway was standing at his elbow in thatwaterloo moment, his rough-hewn features twitching. "i can't stand it, sir. it's driving me squirrelly." "i know, slashaway. there's something worsethan marijuana weed down there." slashaway swallowed hard. "that poor guy downthere did the wise thing."
lawton husked: "stamp on that idea, slashaway—killit. we're stronger than he was. there isn't an ounce of weakness in us. we've got whatit takes." "a guy can stand just so much." "bosh. there's no limit to what a man canstand." from the visiplate behind them came an urgentvoice: "radio room tuning in, sir." lawton swung about. on the flickering screenthe foggy outlines of a face appeared and coalesced into sharpness. the perseus radio operator was breathlesswith excitement. "our reception is improving, sir. european short waves are coming in strong.the static is terrific, but we're getting
every station on the continent, and most ofthe american stations." lawton's eyes narrowed to exultant slits.he spat on the deck, a slow tremor shaking him. "slashaway, did you hear that? we've doneit. we've won against hell and high water." "we done what, sir?" "the bubble, you ape—it must be wearingthin. hell's bells, do you have to stand there gaping like a moronic ninepin? i tell you,we've got it licked." "i can't stand it, sir. i'm going nuts." "no you're not. you're slugging the thinginside you that wants to quit. slashaway,
i'm going to give the crew a first-class peptalk. there'll be no stampeding while i'm in command here." he turned to the radio operator. "tune inthe control room. tell the captain i want every member of the crew lined up on thisscreen immediately." the face in the visiplate paled. "i can'tdo that, sir. ship's regulations—" lawton transfixed the operator with an iratestare. "the captain told you to report directly to me, didn't he?" "yes sir, but—" "if you don't want to be cashiered, snap intoit."
"yes—yessir." the captain's startled face preceded the duty-mustervisiview by a full minute, seeming to project outward from the screen. the veins on hisneck were thick blue cords. "dave," he croaked. "are you out of your mind?what good will talking do now?" "are the men lined up?" lawton rapped, impatiently. forrester nodded. "they're all in the engineroom, dave." "good. block them in." the captain's face receded, and a scene oftragic horror filled the opalescent visiplate. the men were not standing at attention atall. they were slumping against the perseus'
central charging plant in attitudes of abjectdespair. madness burned in the eyes of three or fourof them. others had torn open their shirts, and raked their flesh with their nails. pettyofficer caldwell was standing as straight as a totem pole, clenching and unclenchinghis hands. the second assistant engineer was sticking out his tongue. his face was deadpan,which made what was obviously a terror reflex look like an idiot's grimace. lawton moistened his lips. "men, listen tome. there is some sort of plant outside that is giving off deliriant fumes. a few of usseem to be immune to it. "i'm not immune, but i'm fighting it, andall of you boys can fight it too. i want you
to fight it to the top of your courage. youcan fight anything when you know that just around the corner is freedom from a beastlinessthat deserves to be licked—even if it's only a plant. "men, we're blasting our way free. the bubble'swearing thin. any minute now the plants beneath us may fall with a soggy plop into the atlanticocean. "i want every man jack aboard this ship tostand at his post and obey orders. right this minute you look like something the cat draggedin. but most men who cover themselves with glory start off looking even worse than youdo." he smiled wryly.
"i guess that's all. i've never had to makea speech in my life, and i'd hate like hell to start now." it was petty officer caldwell who startedthe chant. he started it, and the men took it up until it was coming from all of themin a full-throated roar. i'm a tough, true-hearted skyman, carelessand all that, d'ye see? never at fate a railer, what is time or tide to me?all must die when fate shall will it, i can never die but once, i'm a tough, true-heartedskyman; he who fears death is a dunce. lawton squared his shoulders. with a crewlike that nothing could stop him! ah, his energies were surging high. the deliriantweed held no terrors for him now. they were
stout-hearted lads and he'd go to hell withthem cheerfully, if need be. it wasn't easy to wait. the next half hourwas filled with a steadily mounting tension as lawton moved like a young tornado aboutthe ship, issuing orders and seeing that each man was at his post. "steady, jimmy. the way to fight a deliriantis to keep your mind on a set task. keep sweating, lad." "harry, that winch needs tightening. we can'tafford to miss a trick." "yeah, it will come suddenly. we've got toget the rotaries started the instant the bottom drops out."
he was with the captain and slashaway in thecontrol room when it came. there was a sudden, grinding jolt, and the captain's desk startedmoving toward the quartz port, carrying lawton with it. "holy jiminy cricket," exclaimed slashaway. the deck tilted sharply; then righted itself.a sudden gush of clear, cold air came through the ventilation valves as the triple rotariesstarted up with a roar. lawton and the captain reached the quartzport simultaneously. shoulder to shoulder they stood staring down at the storm-tossedatlantic, electrified by what they saw. floating on the waves far beneath them wasan undulating mass of vegetation, its surface
flecked with glinting foam. as it rose andfell in waning sunlight a tainted seepage spread about it, defiling the clean surfaceof the sea. but it wasn't the floating mass which drewa gasp from forrester, and caused lawton's scalp to prickle. crawling slowly across thatsargasso-like island of noxious vegetation was a huge, elongated shape which bore a nauseousresemblance to a mottled garden slug. forrester was trembling visibly when he turnedfrom the quartz port. "god, dave, that would have been the laststraw. animal life. dave, i—i can't realize we're actually out of it." "we're out, all right," lawton said, hoarsely."just in time, too. skipper, you'd better
issue grog all around. the men will be needingit. i'm taking mine straight. you've accused me of being primitive. wait till you see mean hour from now." dr. stephen halday stood in the door of hisappalachian mountain laboratory staring out into the pine-scented dusk, a worried expressionon his bland, small-featured face. it had happened again. a portion of his experimenthad soared skyward, in a very loose group of highly energized wavicles. he wonderedif it wouldn't form a sort of sub-electronic macrocosm high in the stratosphere, alteringeven the air and dust particles which had spurted up with it, its uncharged atomic particlescombining with hydrogen and creating new molecular arrangements.
if such were the case there would be eightof them now. his bubbles, floating through the sky. they couldn't possibly harm anything—wayup there in the stratosphere. but he felt a little uneasy about it all the same. he'dhave to be more careful in the future, he told himself. much more careful. he didn'twant the controllers to turn back the clock of civilization a century by stopping allatom-smashing experiments.
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