Ries quickly opened the camera, removed the exposed part of the film in its take-up cartridge and replaced and re-threaded another, checked the mounting for several seconds, and the job was done. The trip back was like that out, except for the complication that their landing spot was not in sunlight and control was harder. Five minutes after getting their rope around the pole at the tunnel mouth, they were in the ship. There was no speed limit inside the comet.
Once they were inside the air lock, Ries' prophecy was promptly fulfilled. Someone called for pictures before his suit had been off for two minutes. Pawlak watched his friend's blood pressure start up, and after a moment's calculation decided that intervention was in order — Grumpy couldn't be allowed too many fights.
“Go develop the stuff,” he said. “I'll calm this idiot down.”
For a moment it looked as though Ries would rather do his own arguing; then he relaxed, and vanished toward the instrument shop. Pawlak homed on the voice of the complaining astrophysicist, and in the three minutes it took Ries to process the film managed to make the fellow feel properly apologetic. This state of affairs lasted for about ten seconds after the film was delivered.
A group of six or seven scientists were waiting eagerly and had it in a projector almost instantly. For a few seconds after the run started there was silence; then a babble of expostulating voices arose. The general theme seemed to be, “Where's that instrument maker?”
Ries had not gone far, and when he appeared did not seem surprised. He didn't wait to be asked any questions, but took advantage of the instant silence which greeted his entrance.
“Didn't get your flare, did you? I didn't think so. That camera has a half-degree field, and the sun is over two degrees wide seen from here…"
“We know that!” Sacco and two or three others spoke almost together. “But the camera was supposed to scan the whole sun automatically whenever it was turned on from here, and keep doing it until we turned it off!”
“I know. And it didn't scan. I thought it hadn't when I was getting the film…"
“How could you tell? Why didn't you fix it? Or did you? What was wrong, anyway? Why didn't you set it up right in the first place?”
“I could tell that there hadn't been enough film exposed for the time it was supposed to be on. As for fixing it out there, or even finding out what was wrong — don't sound any more idiotic than you can help. It'll have to be brought into the shop. I can't promise how long it'll take to fix it until I know what's wrong.”
The expostulation rose almost to a roar at this last remark. The commander, who alone of the group had been silent until now, made a gesture which stilled the others.
“I know it's hard to promise, but please remember one thing,” he said. “We're twenty million miles from the sun; we'll be at perihelion in sixty-seven hours. If we pass it without that camera, we'll be missing our principal means of correlating any new observations with the old ones. I don't say that without the camera we might as well not be here, but…"
“I know it,” growled Ries. “All right. I knew we should have laid down a walk cable between here and the blasted thing when we first set it up, but with people talking about time and shortage of anchoring pins and all that tripe—''
“I think that last was one of your own points,” interjected the commander. “However, we have better things to do than fix blame. Tell us what help you need in getting the camera back to the ship.”
An hour later, the device came in through the air lock. Its mass had demanded a slight modification in travel technique; if the chain had broken during a “swing” the rockets would not have been able to return men and camera both to the comet, in all likelihood. Instead of swinging, therefore, the workers had pulled straight along the chain, building up speed until they reached its anchorage and then slowing down on the other side by applying friction to the chain as it unwound behind them. An extra man with a line at the tunnel mouth had simplified the stopping problem on the return trip with the camera.
Four hours later still, Ries had taken the camera completely apart and put it together again, and was in a position to say that there had been nothing wrong with it. He was not happy about this discovery, and the scientists who heard his report were less so. They were rather abusive about it; and that, of course, detonated the instrument man's temper.
“All right, you tell me what's wrong!” he snapped at last. “I can say flatly that nothing is broken or out of adjustment, and it works perfectly in here. Any genius who's about to tell me that in here isn't out there can save his breath. I know it, and I know that the next thing to do is take it back out and see if it still works. That's what I'm doing, if I can spare the time from listening to your helpful comments.” He departed abruptly, donned his suit, and went outside with the instrument but without Pawlak. He had no intention of returning to the original camera site, and needed no help. The tunnel mouth was “outside” enough, he felt.
It took several more hours to prove that he was right. At first, the trouble refused to show itself. The camera tracked beautifully over any sized square of sky that Ries chose to set into its control. Then after half an hour or more, the size of the square began to grow smaller no matter what he did with the controls. Eventually it reached zero. This led him into its interior, as well as he could penetrate it in a spacesuit, but no information was forthcoming. Then, just to be tantalizing, the thing started to work again. On its own, as far as Ries could tell. He was some time longer in figuring out why.
Eventually he came storming back into the ship, fulminating against anyone who had had anything to do either with designing or selecting the device. He was a little happier, since the trouble was demonstrably not his own fault, but not much. He made this very clear to the waiting group as soon as his helmet was off.
“I don't know what genius indulged his yen for subminiaturization,” he began, “but he carried it too far. I suppose using a balanced resistance circuit in a control is sensible enough; it'll work at regular temperatures, and it'll work at comet temperatures. The trouble is it won't work unless the different segments are near the same temperature; otherwise the resistors can't possibly balance. When I first took the thing outside, it worked fine; it was at ship's temperature. Then it began to leak heat into the comet, and went crazy. Later on, with the whole thing cooled down to comet temperature, it worked again. Nice design!”
“But it had been outside for days before…" began someone, and stopped as he realized what had happened. Ries pounced on him just the same.
“Sure — outside in the sunlight. Picking up radiant heat on one side, doing its best to get to equilibrium at a couple of hundred degrees. Conducting heat out into the ice four or five hundred degrees colder on the other side. Nice, uniform — aach!”
“Can't a substitute control be devised?” cut in the commander mildly. “That's your field, after all. Surely you can put something together…"
“Oh, sure. In a minute. We're just loaded with spare parts and gear; rockets always are. While I'm at it I'll try to make the thing wristwatch size so it will fit in the available space— all we need is a research lab's machine shop. I'll do what I can, but you won't like it. Neither will I.” He stormed out to his own shop.
“I'll buy his last remark, anyway,” muttered someone. Agreement was general but not too loud.
At fifteen million miles from the sun, with another meter or so boiled off the comet's sunlit surface, Ries emerged with his makeshift. He was plainly in need of sleep, and in even worse temper than usual. He had only one question to ask before getting into his suit.