“Ha! I feel cooler already,” Jimmy Turner was jubilant. “Boy, it worked like a charm. You know, if they could adjust this Deflection field to all radiation strengths, we would have perfected invisibility. It would make a convenient war weapon.” He lit a cigarette and leaned back luxuriously.
“But meanwhile we’re flying blind,” Roy insisted.
Jimmy grinned patronizingly, “You needn’t worry about that, Dishface. I’ve taken care of everything. We’re in an orbit about the sun. In two weeks, we’ll be on the opposite side and then I’ll let the rockets blast and out of this band we go, zooming towards Venus.” He was very self-satisfied indeed.
“Just leave it to Jimmy ‘Brains’ Turner. I’ll have us through in two months, instead of the regulation six. You’re with United’s ace pilot, now.”
Roy laughed nastily. “To listen to you, you’d think you did all the work. All you’re doing is to run the ship on the course I’ve plotted. You’re the mechanic; I’m the brains.”
“Oh, is that so? Any damn pilot-school rookie can plot a course. It takes a man to navigate one.”
“Well, that’s your opinion. Who’s paid more, though, the navigator or the course-plotter?”
Jimmy gulped on that one and Roy stalked triumphantly out of the pilot room. Unmindful of all this, the Helios blasted on.
For two days, all was serene; then, on the third day. Jimmy inspected the thermometer, scratched his head and looked worried. Roy entered, watched the proceedings and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Is anything wrong?” He bent over and read the height of the thin, red column. “Just 100 degrees. That’s nothing to look like a sick goat over. From your expression, I thought something had gone wrong with the Deflection Field and that it was rising again,” he turned away with an ostentatious yawn.
“Oh, shut up, you senseless ape,” Jimmy’s foot lifted in a half-hearted attempt at a kick. “I’d feel a lot better if the temperature were rising. This Deflection Field is working a lot too good for my liking.”
“Huh! What do you mean?”
“I’ll explain, and if you listen carefully you may understand me. This ship is built like a vacuum bottle. It gains heat only with the greatest of difficulty and loses it likewise.” He paused and let his words sink in. “At ordinary temperatures this ship is not supposed to lose more than two degrees a day if no outside sources of heat are supplied. Perhaps at the temperature at which we were, the loss might amount to five degrees a day. Do you get me?”
Roy’s mouth was open wide and Jimmy continued. “Now this blasted ship has lost fifty degrees in less than three days.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“There it is.” Jimmy pointed ironically. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. It’s that damn Field. It acts as a repulsive agent towards electromagnetic radiations and somehow is hastening the loss of heat of our ship.”
Roy sank into thought and did some rapid mental calculations. “If what you say is true,” he said at length, “we’ll hit freezing point in five days and then spend a week in what amounts to winter weather.”
“That’s right. Even allowing for the decrease in heat-loss as the temperature is lowered, we’ll probably end up with the mercury anywhere between thirty and forty below.”
Roy gulped unhappily. “And at twenty million miles away from the sun!”
“That isn’t the worst,” Jimmy pointed out. “This ship, like all others used for travel within the orbit of Mars, has no heating system. With the sun shining like fury and no way to lose heat except by ineffectual radiation, Mars and Venus space-ships have always specialized in cooling systems. We, for instance, have a very efficient refrigeration device.”
“We’re in a devil of a fix, then. The same applies to our space suits.”
In spite of the still roasting temperature, the two were beginning to experience a few anticipatory chills.
“Say, I’m not going to stand this,” Roy burst out. “I vote we get out of here right now and head for Earth. They can’t expect more of us.”
“Go ahead! You’re the pilot. Can you plot a course at this distance from the sun and guarantee that we won’t fall into the sun?”
“Hell! I hadn’t thought of that.”
The two were at their wits’ end. Communication via radio had been impossible ever since they had passed Mercury’s orbit. The sun was at sunspot maximum and static had drowned out all attempts.
So they settled down to wait.
The next few days were taken up entirely with thermometer watching, with a few minutes taken out here and there when one of the two happened to think of an unused malediction to hurl at the head of Mr. Frank McCutcheon. Eating and sleeping were indulged in, but not enjoyed.
And meanwhile, the Helios , entirely unconcerned in the plight of its occupants, blasted on.
As Roy had predicted, the temperature passed the red line marked “Freezing” towards the end of their seventh day in the Deflection Belt. The two were remarkably unhappy when this happened even though they had expected it.
Jimmy had drawn off about a hundred gallons of water from the tank. With this he had filled almost every vessel on board.
“It might,” he pointed out, “save the pipes from bursting when the water freezes. And if they do, as is probable, it is just as well that we supply ourselves with plenty of available water. We have to stay here another week, you know.”
And on the next day, the eighth, the water froze. There were the buckets, overflowing with ice, standing chill and bluecold. The two gazed at them forlornly. Jimmy broke one open.
“Frozen solid,” he said bleakly and wrapped another sheet about himself.
It was hard to think of anything but the increasing cold now. Roy and Jimmy had requisitioned every sheet and blanket on the ship, after having put on three or four shirts and a like number of pairs of pants.
They kept in bed for as long as they were able, and when forced to move out, they huddled near the small oil-burner for warmth. Even this doubtful pleasure was soon denied them, for, as Jimmy remarked, “the oil supply is extremely limited and we will need the burner to thaw out the water and food.”
Tempers were short and clashes frequent, but the common misery kept them from actually jumping on each other’s throats. It was on the tenth day, however, that the two, united by a common hatred, suddenly became friends.
The temperature was hovering down near the zero point, making up its mind to descend into the minus regions. Jimmy was huddled in a corner thinking of the times back in New York when he had complained of the August heat and wondered how he could have done so. Roy, meanwhile, had manipulated numb fingers long enough to calculate that they would have to endure the coldness for exactly 6354 minutes more.
He regarded the figures with distaste and read them off to Jimmy. The latter Scowled and grunted, ”The way I feel, I’m not going to last 54 minutes, let alone 6354.” Then, impatiently, “I wish you could manage to think of some way of getting us out of this.”
“If we weren’t so near the sun,” suggested Roy, “we might start the rear blasts and hurry us up.”
“Yes, and if we landed in the sun, we’d be nice and warm. You’re a big help!”
“Well, you’re the one that calls himself ‘Brains’ Turner. You think of something. The way you talk, you’d think all this was my fault.”
“It certainly is, you donkey in human clothing! My better judgment told me all along not to go on this fool trip. When McCutcheon proposed it, I refused pointblank. I know better.” Jimmy was very bitter. “So what happened? Like the fool you are, you accept and rush in where sensible men fear to tread. And then, of course. I naturally had to tag along.
“Why, do you know what I should have done,” Jimmy’s voice ascended the scale, “I should have let you go alone and freeze and then sat down by a roaring fire all by myself and gloated. That is, if I had known what was going to happen.”
A hurt and surprised look appeared on Roy’s face. “Is that so? So that’s how it is! Well, all I can say is that you certainly have a genius for twisting facts, if for nothing else. The fact of the matter is that you were unutterably stupid enough to accept and I the poor fellow raked in by the force of circumstances.”