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"Scared of four children?" demanded Soames.
"You don't realize what newspapers are," Gail said with a trace of wryness. "They don't live by printing
news. They print 'true' stories, serials. 'True' crime stories, to be continued tomorrow. 'True'
international-crisis suspense stories, for the next thrilling chapter read tomorrow's paper or tune in to this
station! That's what's printed and broadcast, Brad. It's what people want and insist on. Don't you realize
how the children will be served up in the news? 'Creatures From Space in Antarctica! Earth Helpless!'"
She grimaced. "There won't be any demand for human-interest stories by Gail Haynes, telling about four
nicely-raised children who need to be helped to get back to their parents. The public wouldn't like that so
much.
"You'll see," Gail continued, "I'm very much afraid, Brad, that presently you and I will be the only people
in the world who don't think the children had better be killed, for safety. You did the right thing for us, in
not letting them signal to their families. But you don't need to worry about too much sympathy for the
children!"
"And I got them into it," said Soames, morosely.
"We did," insisted Gail. "And we did right. But I'm going to do what I can to keep it from being worse for
them than I can help. If you'll join me "
"Naturally!" said Soames.
He went moodily away. He was unaware of Gail's expression as she looked after him. She turned slowly
to the girl with her.
He found the other three children. They were the center of an agitated group of staff-members, trying to
communicate by words and gestures, while the children tried not to show disturbance at their vehemence.
A cosmic-particle specialist told Soames the trouble. Among the children's possessions there was a coil
of thread-fine copper wire. Somebody had snipped off a bit of it for test, and discovered that the wire
was superconductive. A superconductor is a material which has no electrical resistance whatever. In
current Earth science tin and mercury and a few alloys could be made into superconductors by being
cooled below 18° Kelvin, or four hundred odd degrees Fahrenheit below zero. Above that temperature,
superconductivity did not exist. But the children's wire was a superconductor at room temperature. A
thread the size of a cobweb could carry all the current turned out by Niagara without heating up. A
heavy-duty dynamo could be replaced by a superconductive dynamo that would almost fit in one's
pocket. A thousand-horse-power motor would need to be hardly larger than the shaft it would turn. It
would mean ...
"Let 'em alone!" snapped Soames. "They couldn't tell you how it was made, even if they could talk
English! Give them a chance to learn how to talk! They've had a bad time anyhow."
He took the boys and the other girl away. He led them to his own quarters. He whistled for his dog, Rex,
and showed the children how to play with him. They began to relax and enjoy the fun heretofore
unknown to them.
Soames left his quarters and held his head. There was much to worry about. For example, Captain
Moggs in Washington, there to pass on information perfectly calculated to bring about confusion. And at
the base itself a completely natural routine event took place to make the confusion twice confounded.
The director of the Gissell Bay base made his normal, regular, short-wave report to the scientific
organization which controlled and co-ordinated the base's activities and kept it supplied and equipped.
The Gissell Bay director was an eminent scientist. He talked comfortably to an even more eminent
scientist in the capital of the United States. Naturally, the static scream was mentioned in Washington. As
naturally, the discovery of a crashed spaceship came up. It was important. It should be reported. It was.
The Gissell Bay director went into details about the children and about the gadgets they'd selected to be
salvaged when they destroyed their ship. A complete account preceded Captain Moggs to Washington,
but not to the military. She was in charge of that angle. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]