The Planet Mappers by E. Everett Evans (books for new readers .TXT) 📕

they came into the bunkroom. "How's the job coming?"

"Just fine, Pop."

"We have the townsite all laid out, and now we're checking to make sure the lines are straight," Jak told him.

He frowned a bit. "How did you manage it? Neither of you is a surveyor. Or have you learned how to do that, too?"

"I think I've figured out the theodolite well enough to tell if our lines are straight, and that's what we're using now," Jon continued. "I can't measure distances with it, though."

Jak explained more in detail how they had measured the blocks and street widths, and rechecked them all.

"I can't see why it won't pass," their father said when they finished. "Probably no one will ever check it, unless they actually use the site when the colonists come. It shows we were landed here long enough to do the work, and that's the important thing. What about the rest of the mapping?"

"I'll go get the papers." Jon ran out, to return in a few minutes with the book of reports, and the rolls of film and prints they had made on all the planets and satellites. "You can check these as you feel up to it, Pop, and anything that looks wrong we can go back and re-check or do over."

Mr. Carver riffled quickly through the pages, and saw that each question had been answered; each measurement given an answer—though whether correct or not, of course, he could not know. All the information required had been supplied, at least.

He gave the boys his old-time grin, even as he was shaking his head in wonder. "You chaps certainly have done a job. Looks like I'll have to take the backseat from now...."

"No!" The two boys were shocked by that.

"Not on your life, Pop! We maybe did fairly well, but we need you, just the same."

"I'll say we do," Jak chimed in. "There's so much yet you can teach us. Why, we've only begun learning most of the things we want to know."

Mr. Carver smiled up at his sons. "I'm always glad to tell you anything I can, Fellows. It's good to see you growing up, though." He turned his head to face Jon more directly. "What's that about a new system you rigged up so you can land and take off with only one switch?"

Jon explained, and the two were soon deep in technical talk of electronic relays and cells, and automatic switch-overs. Finally, Mrs. Carver came in with a tray of lunch for her husband, and told the boys their food was on the table.

"All right, you chaps, go and eat," Mr. Carver said. "I'll take another nap while you're out this afternoon. Then maybe I'll feel up to talking some more this evening, and going over these reports with you."

The second day later the boys finished their re-checking, and came back to the ship in midafternoon. Their father was again awake, and they went in to see him.

"We're all done here, Pop, so what say we go back to that fuel-metal cache and see about getting the stuff aboard?" Jon asked.

"I guess from all you've said that's the most important thing now," he agreed after a moment's consideration. "Only thing is, I've been wondering if you couldn't move me into the control room, and fix a couch for me there?"

"Sure, that's easy," Jak told him.

But Jon frowned in thought. "Yes, we can do it, but we'll have to figure out first how to fasten the cot down and then make some arrangement so you can stand any acceleration we may have to use."

"How about fixing the co-pilot's seat into a bunk?"

"Hey, that's the ticket!" Jon brightened. He ran out and soon was helping his mother gather blankets, sheets and pillows, and going with Jak to bring an extra mattress from the storeroom.

They set the seat to recline, and then while Mrs. Carver was making up the bed, the boys carried their father—a much lighter load now than when he had first been hurt—and put him in his new bed.

"Say, this is all right!" Mr. Carver exclaimed after Jon had lowered the co-pilot's visiplate so his father could look into it without distortion or neck-craning. "All the comforts of home." He grinned at his wife.

She stooped and kissed him. "Be sure and let us know any time you get too tired, though, Mr. C."

"I will, Honey," he assured her. "But actually, I'm so comfortable I don't see why I can't stay here as well as in bed, until the leg's strong enough to start getting up."

Everything else ready, he watched anxiously, then admiringly, as Jon started the tubes firing, balanced them and took them off with the throwing of his one switch. In his visiplate the elder man watched with intense interest the scenery over which they were passing—Jon had set course so they would go completely around this world of Two until they came to that desert. Mr. Carver made many enthusiastic comments about this splendid planet that now bore his wife's name.

"Yes, and Three's just as nice, only colder," Jon reported eagerly. "Folks who like cold weather can live there without too much trouble at all."

"It's funny, though," Jak declared with a frown, "that there's no protoplasmic life there at all. That we could find," he hastened to add.

"Lots of vegetation, though," Jon added. "That means the soil will be good for growing things, doesn't it?"

"It certainly sounds like it." His father smiled. "The colonists may have to adapt their Earth-seeds to fit, and probably bring their own worms and bees and so on. But they should be able to farm there. From your surveys, it appears there are plenty of minerals so they can start mines and factories of all kinds right away. Yes, this looks like a pretty good solar system."

"You bet, Pop. You sure picked a winner in this one," Jon's eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

"I had an idea, from the spectroscopic examinations we made 'way back there near Sirius, that we'd find it fairly good here. But, to be honest, I didn't dare hope it would be this good. To tell the truth, I was really more interested in that line which seemed to indicate that fuel-stuff, than I was in new planets for colonization, although we needed those, too, to make the trip pay off."

Before long they came above the beginning of that well-remembered desert, and Jon slowed and circled, preparatory to landing.

Jon kept his eyes upon his instruments, and when he saw they were close to the actual latitude and longitude, he killed the speed to their slowest cruising range, and their height to a few hundred yards. When he knew he was almost at the exact spot, he stared intently into his pilot's magnifying visiplate, at the same time keeping his fingers tautly on the landing switch.

Soon, in his plate, he saw the top of that cache cover in the nearing distance. He circled until he judged he could land close to it, then closed the switch.

Softly, easily, the space-yacht came in to a landing on the hard packed sand, and Jon shut off the power and put everything in neutral.

His father had wisely kept silent during this maneuvering, but now he let out his breath in a whoosh.

"That's the neatest landing I ever saw," he told Jon admiringly. "That gadget of yours will make you a young fortune when we get it back to Terra."

Jon actually blushed with pleased embarrassment. "Aw, it's...."

But Jak interrupted him almost fiercely. "Don't go playing coy, Chubby. You know darned well it's wonderful."

"Sure I do." Jon laughed then, and the rest joined in. "But you'd have tromped on me if I'd been the one to say so." He turned quickly to face his father. "What do we do about this?"

"Ummm. My suggestion would be for you to put on your suit and go out and open those covers you told me about. Give me the analyzer first, and I'll study the stuff's emanations when you get it uncovered."

"I'll go out," Jak offered quickly. "You and Jon had better study it together. I don't know anything about it, but the kid does, and he'll be the one to handle it until you're well."

"Better take the jack—that cover's heavy, remember?" Jon said, and Jak ran out.

"I'd never have been able to do anything if it hadn't been for Jak's wiser advice," Jon said honestly as he brought the analyzer to his father from the instrument rack. "I'm apt to go off half-cocked, you know."

Mr. Carver looked fondly up at his wife, who moved quickly to his side, and put her hand against his cheek. "A couple of grand fellows you raised, Darling," he said softly.

"We raised, you mean, Mr. C." She smiled down at him. "They fight all the time, but when it comes to the pinch, they work together and I know they really love and admire each other very much."

Jon chuckled and spoke into the mike. "The folks are taking our good names in vain, Owl."

"Yes, I heard them," came back the elder boy's voice from the speaker. "If they only knew what we really think of each other," and then followed his attempt at a sneering laugh.

In their visiplates those inside the ship could see Jak, in his spacesuit, trotting awkwardly across the sand toward the cache. He carried the jack, and when he got there, used it to raise the heavy cover and throw it back. He jumped into the hole and took the cover off the smaller box. Then scrambled quickly out and ran some distance away.

"Shall I come back now, or wait here to cover it again?" he asked over his suit-sender.

"Maybe you'd better wait out there a few minutes," his father replied into the mike attached to his seat. "If we can't figure out something in a fairly short time, I'll tell you and you can recap the boxes and come back."

He busied himself adjusting the analyzer, and he and young Jon studied the lines carefully for quite a time. Finally the father roused.

"This is going to take a lot of study and work," he told his younger son. Then he spoke into the mike. "Better come back in, Jak." He turned his head again to face the boy with him. "Did you find a lead box, Jon?"

"No, sir, we haven't anything like that in our stores," Jon answered. "But there is quite a roll of lead foil. Can we do anything with that?"

"How much is there? And how thick is it?"

"The foil's twenty inches wide and about twelve feet long," Jon reported as he came back after a quick run to the storeroom to measure the foil. He had delayed a moment or two at the lock to help Jak out of his suit. "It's a thirty-second thick."

"Hmmm. That's not so good. Let's see. If we quadrupled it, that would give us an eighth ... no, that's not enough. Better take a piece and fold it to at least eight thicknesses, then go wrap it around a piece of that metal and bring it into the lock."

"That's not too much protection if the stuff's so strong, is it, Pop?"

"Well, double that, then. But I think it'll keep the rays off you long enough to bring it in—especially since you'll be in your suit, and if you put on lead-lined gloves."

"All right." Jon started out, then turned back. "What about the rest of it when we leave? Do we take it all with us?"

"No," slowly. "I doubt if anyone else would find it and steal it before we get back. On the other hand, the more we can take back with us, supposing we learn how to use it and it's as good as we think, the more we could get for it on Terra to give another immediate stake to come back."

"I have a thought, Pop. Why not just weld-fasten the whole big box it's now in to the outside of the ship, and make a small box that'll hold some to bring into the ship to experiment with?" Jon's eyes blazed eagerly.

"That's a thought!" Jak exclaimed, while their father answered more slowly, "Yes, I believe that could be done safely, especially if we put it back near the stern. Is the ship close enough so the lock servo-mechs can bring in the big box?"

"I don't think so," Jon answered after a searching look out of the port-window. "But with our suits on, Jak and I could carry it, couldn't we?"

"We've been close to the stuff several times for about as long as it'd take," Jak added, "and it doesn't seem to have hurt us any."

"Kind of a large box, isn't it?" Mr. Carver asked quizzically. "Might be sort of heavy."

The boys flushed, and Jon picked up his slide