Short Fiction by Poul Anderson (free ebook novel .txt) 📕

gas, and having to replace it from the cold stuff outside, would that account for the trouble we’re having?”

“No,” said O’Mallory dully. “We can’t figure out where the hydrogen’s disappearing to, and anyway it shouldn’t make that much difference. The energy output down there’s about what it’s supposed to be, you know.”

Gilchrist stood trying to think. His brain felt gelid.

But damn it, damn it, damn it, there must be a rational answer. He couldn’t believe they had blundered into an ugly unknown facet of the cosmos. Natural law was the same, here or in the farthest galaxy⁠—it had to be.

Item, he thought wearily. The pile was operating as usual, except that somehow hydrogen was being lost abnormally fast and therefore the pump had to bring in more from Triton’s air. But⁠—

—Item. That couldn’t be due to a leak in the heating pipes, because they were still at their ordinary pressure.

—Item. The gas in the pipes included some radioactive isotope. Nevertheless⁠—

—Item. It could not be hydrogen-3, because the pile was working normally and its neutron leakage just wasn’t enough to produce that much. Therefore, some other element was involved.

Carbon? There was a little methane vapor in Triton’s atmosphere. But not enough. Anyway, carbon-13 was a stable isotope, and the pile-room conditions wouldn’t produce carbon-14. Unless⁠—

Wait a minute! Something flickered on the edge of awareness.

Danton had buttonholed O’Mallory. “We were talking about using the battery banks,” he said.

The engineer shrugged. “And what happens after they’re used up? No, we’re keeping them as a last resort.” His grin was hideous. “We could get six or seven comfortable days out of them.”

“Then let’s have them! If you thumb-fingered idiots haven’t fixed the system by then, you deserve to die.”

“And you’ll die right along with us, laddybuck.” O’Mallory bristled. “Don’t think the black gang’s loafing. We’re taking the cold and the radiation as much as you are⁠—”

“Radiation?”

Faces turned around. Gilchrist saw eyes gleam white. The word rose in a roar, and a woman screamed.

“Shut up!” bawled O’Mallory frantically. “Shut up!”

Danton shouted and swung at him. The engineer shook his head and hit back. As Danton lurched, a man rabbit-punched O’Mallory from behind.

Gilchrist yanked Catherine away. The mob spilled over, a sudden storm. He heard a table splinter.

Someone leaped at him. He had been an educated man, a most scientific and urbane man, but he had just been told that hard radiation was pouring through his body and he ran about and howled. Gilchrist had a glimpse of an unshaven face drawn into a long thin box with terror, then he hit. The man came on, ignoring blows, his own fists windmilling. Gilchrist lowered his head and tried clumsily to take the fury on his arms. Catherine, he thought dizzily, Catherine was at least behind him.

The man yelled. He sat down hard and gripped his stomach, retching. Alemán laughed shortly. “A good kick is advisable in such unsporting circumstances, mi amigo.”

“Come on,” gasped Catherine. “We’ve got to get help.”

They fled down a tunnel of blackness. The riot noise faded behind, and there was only the hollow slapping of their feet.

Lights burned ahead, Vesey’s office. A pair of engineer guards tried to halt them. Gilchrist choked out an explanation.

Vesey emerged and swore luridly, out of hurt and bewilderment at his own people. “And we haven’t a tear gas bomb or a needler in the place!” He brooded a moment, then whirled on Jahangir, who had come out behind him. “Get a tank of compressed ammonia gas from the chem section and give ’em a few squirts if they’re still kicking up when you arrive. That ought to quiet them without doing any permanent damage.”

The chief nodded and bounded off with his subordinates. In this gravity, one man could carry a good-sized tank.

Vesey beat a fist into his palm. There was agony on his face.

Catherine laid a hand on his arm. “You’ve no choice,” she said gently. “Ammonia is rough stuff, but it would be worse if children started getting trampled.”

Gilchrist, leaning against the wall, straightened. It was as if a bolt had snapped home within him. His shout hurt their eardrums.

“Ammonia!”

“Yes,” said Vesey dully. “What about it?” Breath smoked from his mouth, and his skin was rough with gooseflesh.

“I⁠—I⁠—I⁠—It’s your⁠ ⁠… y-y-your answer!”

They had set up a heater in his laboratory so he could work, but the test was quickly made. Gilchrist turned from his apparatus and nodded, grinning with victory. “That settles the matter. This sample from the pile room proves it. The air down there is about half ammonia.”

Vesey looked red-eyed at him. There hadn’t been much harm done in the riot, but there had been a bad few minutes. “How’s it work?” he asked. “I’m no chemist.”

Alemán opened his mouth, then bowed grandly. “You tell him, Thomas. It is your moment.”

Gilchrist took out a cigarette. He would have liked to make a cavalier performance of it, with Catherine watching, but his chilled fingers were clumsy and he dropped the little cylinder. She laughed and picked it up for him.

“Simple,” he said. With technicalities to discuss, he could speak well enough, even when his eyes kept straying to the girl. “What we have down there is a Haber process chamber. It’s a method for manufacturing ammonia out of nitrogen and hydrogen⁠—obsolete now, but still of interest to physical chemists like myself.

“I haven’t tested this sample for nitrogen yet, but there’s got to be some, because ammonia is NH3. Obviously, there’s a vein of solid nitrogen down under the Hill. As the heat from the pile room penetrated downward, this slowly warmed up. Some of it turned gaseous, generating terrific pressure; and finally that pressure forced the gas up into the pile room.

“Now, when you have a nitrogen-hydrogen mixture at 500 degrees and 600 atmospheres, in the presence of a suitable catalyst, you get about a 45 percent yield of ammonia⁠—”

“You looked that up,” said Catherine accusingly.

He chuckled. “My dear girl,” he said, “there are two ways to know a thing: you can know it,