Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint (7 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Bounced!

Danny finished checking over the cases of food and straightened up with a long sigh. It was some weeks since they had gone flying off the earth, and he had found that you could get used to living in a spaceship—even one heading for the mystery of another planet.

As they drew closer and closer to Mars, each took turns watching the planet through the ship's telescope. The rest of each day was given over to the chores of keeping house, and the two boys spent a certain amount of time in instruction on operating the different instruments and in classes given by both the Professor and Dr. Grimes in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, and physics. The two men also spent a good deal of time trying to get the relay working again, but without success.

One of Danny's jobs was the daily check of the supplies so that they could plan which foods to ration. The problem of food had been made a little easier by the existence of the air-supply garden, where they raised Dr. Grimes's roses as well as green vegetables and some fruits.

Danny closed the door of the storeroom behind him. In the garden there was a steamy green smell. Professor Bullfinch was bending over some plants in a tank, looking very curious indeed because he now had quite a full beard.

“Ouch!” he exclaimed as Danny flew in. “I wish we could grow thornless roses.”

“Why don't you wear gloves?” Danny suggested.

“It's not my hands but my beard I'm talking about. It gets tangled in the thorns.” He straightened up. “I wish we'd brought a razor along. But then, I didn't plan so long a stay in the ship.”

Danny smiled wanly. “It sure is different from what I used to daydream. I used to make up stories about rocket flight and fighting enemies on other planets—and here we are, fighting roses and doing mathematics.”

The Professor looked shrewdly at him. “Something's troubling you, my boy,” he said. “What is it?”

Danny caught hold of a loop of rope; they had tied a number of them in various places to serve as handholds.

“Well, you know,” he said, stumbling a little over the words, “it's—it's my fault. The whole thing, I mean. Whenever I look at Joe, I can't help thinking—he never wanted to take a trip into space. I got him into this. And I can't get him out again.”

The Professor stroked his beard. “Hm. Yes, you did get him into this. And he's lucky to have you for a friend. So am I, as a matter of fact.”

Danny raised his head. “What? Why do you say that?”

“If it weren't for you, my boy, we might not have discovered the anti-gravity paint in the first place. Your hasty action which knocked over the beaker led to this.”

“Oh,” said Danny. “I never thought of that.”

“Well, it's so. I think you've learned your lesson. You must think ahead and plan carefully if you want to be a scientist. But on the other hand, there are times when a scientist must be prepared to jump into things—to take chances. It doesn't hurt to be a
little
headstrong. Sometimes a man like me needs a boy like you to push him into things.”

Danny's spirits rose for the first time in days. He looked with wide eyes into the Professor's smiling face.

“Yes,” he said. “I see. But—but what about Dr. Grimes? He doesn't want me to push him—”

“What about Dr. Grimes?” The rocket expert's stern face, looking even sterner for its iron-gray beard, appeared almost at their feet as he climbed the ladder. He hoisted himself up and clicked his magnetic shoes firmly to the deck.

“I heard what you said,” Grimes went on. “I have been meaning to say this for some time.” He paused, frowning, and Danny felt himself growing limp again with nervousness.

Then Grimes barked, “I am deeply grateful to you, young man, for giving me this opportunity to be one of the first men in space. It's certainly true that I would never have done this myself. But although it was a regrettable accident, I am glad of it!”

He cleared his throat. “As President of the International Rocket Society,” he said, “it gives me pleasure to make you an honorary life member of the Society.”

And with that he removed the little gold rocket pin from the lapel of his jacket, reached up to where Danny hung, and fastened it to the front of the boy's shirt.

Danny drew a long breath. “Gee! Thanks!” he said. “And Joe too?”

“Yes,” said Dr. Grimes, “Joe too.”

At that precise moment Joe, who was on watch and unaware of the honor he had just received, hailed them from his post at the telescope.

“Professor! Dr. Grimes! Come quick!”

The two scientists clambered down the ladder. When they were clear, Danny dove down headfirst.

Joe was clinging to a rope loop at the eyepiece of the telescope. “A message!” he was shouting. “A message from Mars!”

“The boy's gone mad!” said Dr. Grimes.

“Calm down, Joe,” the Professor said. “Tell us what you mean.”

“Well, I was watching that big green patch—you know. I saw a little flashing light. I didn't think anything about it until I saw that it was flashing regularly—on, off, on, off, like Morse code.”

Dr. Grimes snorted. “That would mean,” he said, “that a thinking being was signaling to us. Anyone who has read my book on Mars knows that's impossible.”

“I read it,” the Professor said mildly. “Hm—”

Danny meanwhile had been looking into the telescope. He said, “I don't see any light, Joe. Where is it?”

“Aha! You see?” Dr. Grimes was triumphant. “It was probably a reflection from the polar icecap.”

“But regular flashes—” the Professor began.

“Nonsense! The boy's head is full of science-fiction novels,” said Grimes.

Danny was once more peering through the telescope. Since they had come close to Mars—they were within seven thousand miles by now—he never tired of the exciting view. Even without the telescope, through the view port, they could see the vast greenish-red curve with the bright white patch of snow near the bottom and great areas of green that were possibly plants. The telescope showed the shadows of low, rolling mountain ranges and wide, irregular dark lines that might have been deep gorges twenty times larger than the Grand Canyon. Now and then across the red-brown spaces that were deserts he could see yellow dust clouds or sand storms whirling. He and Joe had watched in fascination; another planet, another world, strange beyond measure, and yet so like their own familiar earth in some ways. Many times they had discussed the question of life on Mars and what it might be like.

Suddenly he squinted more attentively into the eyepiece. Yes—there it was! A tiny blink of light, no brighter than a match in the middle of the Sahara Desert—once again, and yet again!

“Professor!” he gasped. “Look! I see it!”

Professor Bullfinch took a step forward. Then he said, “Let Dr. Grimes look. He is the most unbiased of us.”

Dr. Grimes pursed his lips and went to the telescope. While they stood breathless, he looked into it.

“I don't see a thing,” he said at last.

“Let me see,” the Professor said.

He took off his glasses and polished them carefully. He put his hands on his knees and bent forward. He put his eye to the eyepiece.

“Well?” said Grimes impatiently.

“Do you see it?” Danny cried.

“Amazing,” said the Professor.

Joe was biting his fingernails. “What is it?” Danny fairly screamed.

“Eh? Why, an eclipse,” the Professor replied. “Very interesting indeed. The moon has passed between the surface of the planet and ourselves. I can't see the planet at all.”

“The moon!” Joe said in surprise. “I thought you showed us Mars's moon this morning about seven thousand miles back.”

“That was Deimos,” said the Professor. “Mars has two moons. This one which is between Mars and ourselves is called Phobos. We'll have to wait ten or fifteen minutes to see the surface again. By then perhaps it'll be somewhat clearer.”

Dr. Grimes glanced at the control panel. “I'm afraid not,” he said.

“No? Why?”

Dr. Grimes pointed to one of the dials. “We have bounced!”

“Bounced?”

“Exactly. We had come to within 7,075 miles. Just now, as I looked, the needle began rising again. We are now at 7,089 miles and rapidly getting farther away.”

Professor Bullfinch took his lower lip between thumb and forefinger. “Hm. Then our antigravity paint actually causes us to be bounced away from an object's mass?”

“Just so. The approach of Phobos gave us a little additional push, as it were.”

“Too bad,” said the Professor. “I had hoped to come closer to Mars.”

Dr. Grimes bent over the course plotter. “We are heading into outer space again,” he said.

The Professor sighed. “Now we'll have to wait for our next trip to find out if you're right, Grimes. About life on Mars, I mean.”

Dr. Grimes slowly shook his head. “We're bouncing further away from the sun,” said he. “There may not be another trip for us.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

One More Chance

Red, sandy Mars had faded behind them. The spaceship crossed the path of giant Jupiter and flew toward the sixth planet—Saturn. Its bright disk, surrounded by the broad band of its rings, loomed larger in the view port every day. They could see streaks of yellow and tan on its liquid surface, boiling clouds of gases, and an enormous dark stripe that was the shadow cast by its rings.

The Professor and Dr. Grimes were busy hour after hour, calculating their probable course if they should bounce away again.

“There's not much doubt that we'll bounce,” Professor Bullfinch said. “The question is: which way?”

“Why is that so important?” Danny wanted to know.

The Professor pointed to a chart of the solar system. “To put it in its simplest terms, if we bounce this way, we'll head toward the earth again. That will give us one more chance to get that switch working and get home. If we bounce that way, we'll fly out still farther from the sun. We won't cross the paths of any other planets. Eventually, since there will be nothing to stop us or bounce us back again, we'll be so far away that we'll freeze to death.”

The next few days were full of tension. All four of them went about their work quietly. No one could think of anything but “Which way? Which way?” And always Saturn came closer and closer.

There came the moment at last, with all of them clustered around the pilot's table. Saturn was so huge that, although they were a hundred thousand miles from it, it filled the entire port. They could see swirling masses of pink on its yellow-orange surface, which, the Professor said, was less dense than water for all its size.

Nervous sweat beaded the foreheads of the two scientists as they sat in their shirt sleeves hunched over the table. They checked the readings of various dials and jotted down equations on the pads before them.

Dr. Grimes threw down his pencil. “We're slowing. We are reaching the crucial point—the ‘bounce zone.' ”

Everyone looked at the distance indicator, which in a few moments might signal life or death.

Danny, hardly knowing he was doing so, began counting as their speed diminished, reading the figures in thousands of miles per hour from the dial: “Ten, nine, eight, seven—”

Joe closed his eyes as if bracing himself for a shock.

“Six, five, four, three—”

The Professor gripped the edge of the table.

“—two, one, zero!”

There was a second of dreadful silence.

Slowly the needle on the dial began to rise again.

The Professor said huskily, “Here we go.”

He bent over the automatic course plotter, which was clucking like a hen. He began adjusting the knobs on the front which fed data into it.

Dr. Grimes and the Professor stared at the tape which emerged. Then they looked at each other. With a groan Dr. Grimes turned away. The Professor sighed and slowly lowered himself into the pilot's seat.

Joe said, “I knew it, I knew it. The wrong way—huh?”

The Professor nodded.

Danny clung to a loop of rope, speechless. All he could think of at this awful moment was the mockery of his old daydreams. He had played spaceship with such a light heart. And here he was, millions of miles from home, heading with his companions into the vast emptiness of space, with nothing ahead but death from the bitter cold.

He looked at the view port. Saturn's giant disk grew visibly smaller as he watched. Never had the planet seemed so alien and strange, and yet he thought to himself, “That may be the last familiar thing I'll ever see.”

Then he blinked. Was it his imagination? The thick quartz glass of the port was glowing red.

He rubbed his eyes. The glare increased until the port shone like a dozen sunsets.

Danny came to his senses. “Fire!” he yelled.

Every head jerked up.

“The ship's on fire! We're melting!” he babbled.

The Professor looked at the port and sprang to his feet.

“What in heaven—” he began.

“We're not on fire, nor are we melting,” Grimes put in. “It's a reflection. Something is approaching us from the side.”

He snapped on the TV camera. One of the screens lit up.

Both Danny and Joe yelped involuntarily. A blazing ball of gas almost filled the screen.

“A comet!” the Professor exclaimed.

“And we are near its path,” Dr. Grimes added.

“Wh-wh-what'll happen if it hits us?” asked Joe.

“That depends,” said the Professor. “A comet's head is mainly chunks of meteoric material which give off flaming gas. Its tail is composed of gas and dust particles as well. If the head should pass within a hundred miles of us, we might be boiled alive. If the tail alone comes near—well, I don't know—”

Danny said, “Shouldn't we close the shutters?”

“By all means. The light might blind us.”

Danny touched the control, and the steel shutters closed tight over the port. Even so, the light from the TV screen was dazzling.

“Close your eyes,” the Professor commanded.

They did so. Even through closed lids the glare penetrated, although the comet was thousands of miles away. Faintly they could hear a hissing, crackling sound like a distant forest fire.

Then slowly the glare died. Hardly daring to believe that the danger had passed, they looked up again. The screen was dark once more, save for a pale luminosity like shining dust.

In a trembling voice Dr. Grimes said, “We must have passed close to the edge of the tail—perhaps within two thousand miles.”

From the automatic course plotter there came a sudden steady clicking, as if the machine, in relief at their narrow escape, were chuckling happily.

“Something's wrong,” said Danny.

The Professor stared at the tape. Then he looked round at the others with a radiant smile. “No!” he chortled. “Something's right!”

“What?” said Grimes.

“Yes. The comet has changed our course. We have one more chance to fix that relay. We're heading back toward the earth!”