As Bullard sprang into action, he wondered how long the farce of imaginary disabilities would be kept up. Yet until the war game was called off he could touch none of the umpire-guarded valves or switches. He had to work with the disorganized residuum of the mighty ship's power. A new note of danger began to hum, warning him that whatever he was to do could no longer be postponed. Since the automatic controllers on the uranium feed lines were not operating, the acceleration was slowly picking up — when he wanted none at all he was getting more — and there was no way of cutting it off except manually.
He raised the tube room and found to his immense satisfaction that it was Benton, the rocketman, who was in charge there. Benton assured him there was no way to shut off the uranium flow other than by using the forbidden electrically controlled valves.
"Get pipe cutters, then, or Stilsons, and break the lines!"
"Aye, aye, sir."
Bullard knew that Benton knew that the uranium would continue to dribble out, wasting into the wake, but unless it was fed to the exact focus of the disintegrating inferno, it could not flare into the tremendous energy of exploding atoms. Once the supply was cut off, the quenching sprays would make short work of the bits still at the focal points.
An insistent call kept coming from the chemical locker, where the fire was supposed to be. The Polliwog there complained that the umpire would declare him burnt to a crisp unless some action was taken to subdue the fire. For a moment, Bullard hesitated. Actually, there was nothing inflammable in the chemical locker — except the fireworks flare the umpires had set themselves to add realism to their act — and consequently the compartment was not fitted with fire-fighting devices.
"Evacuate the storeroom," ordered Bullard. "Gather up all the Pollux men near you and transfer everything in it to the reserve magazine inboard of you."
"Aye, aye, sir," came the voice, relieved from his dilemma of having either to abandon his post or be roasted alive.
Bullard felt the lagging of the vessel as the acceleration ceased and knew that Benton had succeeded in breaking the atomic feed lines. It was a pity to have to waste power in that fashion, but it was unthinkable to continue longer on a power dive into Jupiter. The jet-deflectors were locked rigidly fore and aft and there could be no turning with those jets. He got Benton to the voice tube once more.
"What's wrong with the old rudder flaps over the liquid tube jets?"
"Not a damn thing, sir."
"Then warm up your tubes and let's get going — "
"Aye, aye, sir."
"And, Benton, when they've started spewing, flip 'er halfway around and shoot ninety degrees from the present course. You'll have to do that by local control — there is none for those old tubes in this sub-station."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Bullard felt better. He was devoutly thankful they had spared Benton for him. Benton was a man of parts. Shortly they would have this wildly careering warship under some degree of control. Then Bullard could proceed with some of the badly needed minor corrections. One thing that was a source of great annoyance was the all-pervading noise, much augmented by the shouts of his voice tube talkers. He decided to abandon the use of the archaic tubes and instead, employ the etherphones in their space helmets. It meant setting up a manifold party line, for the helmet phones were not selective and if everyone should start talking at once the result would be babel.
"Tell all hands," he directed the group of talkers in sub-CC, "to close their face plates and tune in on the etherphone. No one is to speak except in answer to me or to report an exceptional emergency."
The word was passed. Bullard, to check the efficiency of this means of communications, called the various parts of the ship in succession to receive their reports. There were a gratifying number of men still alive and at their posts, despite the wholesale slaughter of the officers. It was not until he checked on the chemical locker fire that he heard anything to disturb him unduly. All was going well until the wild laughter and silly words of the man in charge of the magazine rang in his helmet. Bullard snapped back harsh questions, and for answer got only maudlin ravings, interspersed with outbursts of giggling. The man was drunk — or something.
Bullard glanced sharply in the direction of the admiral and the knot of inspecting officers watching him from Plot. They, too, showed some signs of glee, several of them grinning vacuously. Pete Roswell was executing an awkward burlesque of the quilliota, a rather risque version of the time-honored muscle dance often seen in the cabarets of Ursapolis. A sudden anger surged within Bullard. Had they turned the inspection into an outright farce? A bad joke at his expense? As he stared indignantly at the group in Plot, he was further outraged to see Abel Warlock waggishly begin ripping the meter leads from their terminals. And — of all things — the admiral himself, was capering about madly, an absurd elfin smirk spread across his usually ultradignified features.
Again Bullard sharply challenged his man in the magazine. This time the voice that came back was more sober — almost penitent.
"Sorry, sir — had a crazy dream, I guess. But it was awfully funny, sir." As he talked his voice grew even more sober and more contrite. "And sir, I ought to tell you — the umpires have passed out. They're lying around all over the place — "
A funny dream! Umpires dropping unconscious! Bullard lost not a second. With a bound he left sub-CC, headed for the trunk leading down to the magazines.
He fought his way through the smoke of the flares, passed through the half-emptied chemical locker and into the reserve magazine. Dimly he saw his magazine keeper bending over several limp forms on the deck. Bullard paused to examine the smoke bomb but was convinced that it was not the cause of what was wrong. It was a standard product — a mixture of luciferin with a little strontium salts, giving at once, a ruddy flame and considerable quantities of smoke, yet without much heat. Its fumes were neither intoxicating nor hypnotic.
He saw that much of the miscellaneous assortment of chemicals that had been stowed in the locker were now standing about the floor of the magazine, but all of them were ordinary substances and not regarded as hazardous. There were barrels of various salts and carboys of acids, but none of those were broken. On top of the pile stood three roundish flat crystal flasks of nearly black liquid. He recognized them as containers of an iodine solution — also harmless.
Before going to assist his man in reviving the stricken umpires, Bullard opened his face plate by a tiny crack and took a cautious sniff. Ah! That sickly sweetish odor was strangely familiar. And as a queer ringing in his ears began he snapped his helmet shut and fumbled for his oxygen valve. He kept a firm grip on his consciousness; he knew that in a second his momentary giddiness would pass, for the whiff he had had was nothing more noxious than nitrous oxide. But where was the N2O coming from, and how much of it was there?
He sprang to the bin holding the ammonium nitrate. To the eye it was normal, yet his reason told him it must be the source of these fumes. He moved closer to it and was suddenly aware of a warm spot between his shoulder blades. It was as if he had stepped in front of a firebox door. He wheeled to see the source of the heat, and saw — only the three flasks of iodine, and behind and beyond them the lazy smoke of the dying flare.
His bewilderment left him with a rush. The situation was transparently clear. The iodine flasks, shaped as they were, were acting as focusing lenses for the infrared rays from the smudge bomb, concentrating its weak heat until it was plainly perceptible. Under the influence of that mild heating, the ammonium nitrate had begun to break down and give off the nitrous oxide fumes. Now he understood the lunatic behavior of the magazine man before he shut his face plate, and why the umpires were lying unconscious about the place. He flung himself at the iodine lenses and dashed them to the deck. Then he leaped to the atmospheric control valves on the bulkhead and stepped up the amount of oxygen entering the compartment. He called to Benton in the tube room and ordered him to hook up the storage batteries hitherto held in reserve, and put power on the blowers. He must clear the magazine of the "laughing gas."