Off the Beam
By GEORGE O. SMITH
Illustrated by Orban
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Astounding Science-Fiction, February 1944.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Thirty hours out of Mars for Terra, the Solar Queen sped along hersilent, invisible course. No longer was she completely severed fromall connection with the planets of the inner system; the trick camsthat controlled the beams at Venus Equilateral kept the ship centeredby sheer mathematics. It was a poor communications system, however,since it was but a one-way job. Any message-answering would have to bedone thirty hours later when the ship made planetfall, and the regularterminal office of Interplanetary Communications could be employed.
In spite of her thirty hours at 2-G, which brought her velocity toeleven hundred miles per second, the beam-director cams did theirjob well enough. It was only in extreme cases of course-changing tododge meteors that the beams lost the ship; since the cams were notclairvoyant, there was no way to know when the autopilot juggled thecontrols to miss a bit of cosmic dust. The cams continued to spear thespace through which the ship was supposed to pass according to thecourse constants.
What made this trip ironic was the fact that Don Channing was aboard.The beams had been bombarding the Solar Queen continually ever sinceshe left Mars with messages for the Director of Communications. Inone sense, it seemed funny that Channing was for once on the end of acommunications line where people could talk to him but upon which hecould not talk back. On the other hand it was a blessing in disguise,for the Director of Communications was beginning to paper-talk himselfinto some means of contacting the Relay Station from a spaceship.
A steward found Channing in the salon and handed him a 'gram. Channingsmiled, and the steward returned the smile and added: "You'll fix theseships to talk back one day. Wait until you read that one—you'll burnfrom here to Terra!"
"Reading my mail?" asked Channing cheerfully. The average spacegram wasabout as secret as a postcard, so Channing didn't mind. He turned thepage over and read:
HOPE YOU'RE WELL FILLED WITH GRAVANOL AND ADHESIVE TAPE FOR YOUR JUMPFROM TERRA TO STATION. SHALL TAKE GREAT DELIGHT IN RIPPING ADHESIVETAPE OFF YOUR MEASLY BODY. LOVE.
ARDEN
"She will, too," grinned Don. "Well, I'd like to toss her one back, butshe's got me there. I'll just fortify myself at the bar and think up afew choice ones for when we hit Mojave."
"Some day you'll be able to answer those," promised the steward. "Mindtelling me why it's so tough?"
"Not at all," smiled Channing. "The problem is about the same asencountered by the old-time cowboy. It's a lot easier to hit a man ona moving horse from a nice, solid rock than it is to hit a man on anice, solid rock from a moving horse. Venus Equilateral is quite solidas things go. But a spaceship's course is fierce. We're wobbling a fewmilliseconds here and a few there, and by the time you use that arc toswing a line of a hundred million miles, you're squirting quite a bitof sky. We're tinkering with it right now, but so far we have come upwith nothing. Ah, well, since the human race got along without electriclights for a few million years, we can afford to tinker with an ideafor a few months. Nobody is losing lives or sleep because we can't talkto the bo