But it may be that the first blast of the storm has hit Mercury with the speed of light, no last-minute
warning at all, and the station's eyes are knocked out and its voice is swallowed up.in enormously more powerful radiation.
The officer-of-the-watch in the control room can't be sure and he dare not take a chance. The instant he loses Hermes Station he slaps a switch that starts a big clock with just a second hand. When that clock has ticked off a certain number of seconds-and Hermes Station is still silent-the general alarm sounds. The exact number of seconds depends on where the ship is, how far from the Sun, how much longer it will take the first blast to reach the ship after it has already hit Hermes Station.
Now here is where a captain bites his nails and gets gray hair and earns his high pay....ecause he has to decide how many seconds to set that clock for. Actually, if the first and worst blast is at the speed of light, he hasn't any warning time at all because the break in the radio signal from Hermes and that first wave front from the Sun will reach him at the same instant. Or, if the angle is unfavorable, perhaps it is his own radio reception that has been clobbered, and Hermes Station is still trying to reach him with a last-moment warning. He doesn't know.
But he does know that if he sounds the alarm and chases everybody to shelter every time the radio fades for a few seconds, he will get people so worn out and disgusted from his crying "Wolfi" that when the trouble really comes they may not move fast enough.
He knows, too, that the outer hull of his ship will stop almost anything in the electromagnetic spectrum. Among photons (and nothing else travels at speed-oflight) only the hardest X-radiation will get through to, passenger country and not much of that. But traveling along behind, falling just a little behind each second, is the really dangerous stuff-big particles, little particles, middle-sized particles, all the debris of nuclear
explosion. This stuff is moving very fast but not quite at speed-of-light. He has to get his people safe before it hits.
Captain Darling picked a delay of twenty-five seconds, for where we were and what he expected from the weather reports. I asked him how he picked it and he just grinned without looking happy and said, "I asked my grandfather's ghost."
Five times while I was in the control room the officer of the watch started that clock ... and five times contact with Hermes Station was picked up again before time ran out and the switch was opened.
The sixth time the seconds trickled away while all of us held our breaths ... and contact with Hermes wasn't picked up again and the alarm sounded like the wakeful trump of doom.
The Captain looked stony-faced and turned to duck down the hatch into the radiation shelter. I didn't move, because I expected to be allowed to remain in the control room. Strictly speaking, the control room is part of the radiation shelter, since it is just above it and is enclosed by the same layers of cascade shielding.
(It's amazing how many people think that a captain controls his ship by peering out a port as if he were driving a sand wagon. But he doesn't, of course. The control room is inside, where he can watch things much more accurately and conveniently by displays and instruments. The only viewport in the Tricorn is one at the top end of the main axis, to allow passengers to look out at the stars. But we have never been headed so that the mass of the ship would protect that sightseeing room from solar radiation, so it has been locked off this whole trip.)
I knew I was safe where I was, so I hung back, intending to take advantage of being "teacher's pet"- for I certainly didn't want to spend hours or days
stretched out on a shelf with gabbling and maybe hysterical women crowding me on both sides~
I should have known. The Captain hesitated a split second as he started down the hatch and snapped, "Come along, Miss Fries."
I came. He always calls me "Poddy"-and his voice had spank in it.
Third-class passengers were already pouring in, since they have the shortest distance to go, and crew members were mustering them into their billets. The crew has been on emergency routine ever since we first were warned by Hermes Station, with their usual one watch in three replaced by four hours on and four hours off. Part of the crew had been staying dressed in radiation armor (which must be very uncomfortable) and simply hanging around passenger country. They can't take that heavy armor off for any reason at all until their reliefs show up, dressed also in armor. These crewmen are the "chasers" who bet their lives that they can check every passenger space, root out stragglers, and still reach the shelter fast enough not to accumulate radiation poisoning. They are all volunteers and the chasers on duty when the alarm sounds get a big bonus and the other half of them who were lucky enough not to be on duty get a little bonus.
The, Chief Officer is in charge of the first section of chasers and the Purser is in charge of the second- but they don't get any bonus even though the one on duty when the alarm sounds is by tradition and law the last man to enter the safety of the shelter. This hardly seems fair ... but it is considered their honor as well as their duty.
Other crewmen take turns in the radiation shelter and are equipped with mustering lists and billeting diagrams.
Naturally, service has been pret'ty skimpy of late, with so many of the crew pulled off their regular
duties in order to do just one thing and do it fast at the first jangle of the alarm. Most of these emergencyduty assignments have to be made from the stewards and clerks; engineers and communicators and such usually can't be spared. So staterooms may not be made up until late afternoon-unless you make your own bed and tidy your room yourself, as I had been doing-and serving meals takes about twice as long as usual, and lounge service is almost non-existent.
But of course the passengers realize the necessity for this temporary mild austerity and are grateful because it is all done for safety.
You think so? My dear, if you believe that, you will believe anything. You haven't Seen Life until you've seen a rich, elderly Earthman deprived of something he feels is his rightful due, because he figures he paid for it in the price of his ticket. I saw one man, perhaps as old as Uncle Tom and certainly old enough to know better, almost have a stroke. He turned purple, really purple and gibbered-all because the bar steward didn't show up on the bounce to fetch him a new deck of playing cards.
The bar steward was in armor at the time and couldn't leave his assigned area, and the lounge steward was trying to be three places at once and answer stateroom rings as well. This didn't mean anything to our jolly shipmate; he was threatening to sue the Line and all its directors, when his speech became incoherent.
Not everybody is that way, of course. Mrs. Grew, fat as she is, has been making her own bed and she is never impatient. Some others who are ordinarily inclined to demand lots of service have lately been making a cheerful best of things.
But some of them act like children with tantrums- which isn't pretty in children and is even uglier in grandparents.
The instant I followed the Captain into the radiation shelter I discovered just hçw efficient Tricorn service can be when it really matters. I was snatched- snatched like a ball, right out of the air-and passed from hand to hand. Of course I don't weigh much at one-tenth gravity, all there is at the main axis; but it is rather breath-taking. Some more hands shoved me into my billet, already stretched out, as casually and impersonally as a housewife stows clean laundry, and a voice called out, "Fries, Podkayne!" and another voice answered, "Check."