Read Ebook: The happiness rock by Teichner Albert Adragna Robert Illustrator

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Ebook has 269 lines and 12816 words, and 6 pages

Illustrator: Robert Adragna

Release date: December 16, 2023

Original publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1963

THE HAPPINESS ROCK

Illustrated by ADRAGNA

It was a particularly good asteroid, a great jagged rock roughly four miles square on one side and two miles at its thickest. Within five minutes of sighting it they knew that its flatter side turned away from the sun more than seven times an Earth day. That meant they should be able to land for mineral specimens and still be off in time to avoid the heating phase for which they were not equipped.

"I'll go out," said Warrant Officer Cramer, a tan-skinned young man who was peering ahead even more earnestly than usual.

"I'm Captain of this tin crate so it's up to me," said Hartley. "Right?"

For a moment Hartley looked irritated, then his blue eyes twinkled with laughter. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't."

"I've never been on an asteroid and I've been a little nervous about it. I don't want to keep barrelling around space with that kind of a faze-factor bugging the back of my mind."

The great flat side had just turned into shadow and Hartley started to ease the ship down. He said, suddenly bitter, "With all my experience the only thing the political brass lets me captain is a two-man scouter. Consider my rank unpulled--it's all yours Will."

Cramer gave him an appreciative glance and put on his outside gear.

"Let the Boy Scout have the dirty jobs," Hartley muttered, a nervous sneer twisting one side of his mouth. He idly adjusted for the descent onto the sheared stone face and, once Cramer was in the exit chamber, exchanged a parting wave with him through the quartz window.

Suddenly a voice crackled in his ear. "You've been out fifty minutes, Will."

"It can't be!"

"Asteroid time's tricky when you're busy. How many chips you have?"

"About a dozen."

"How many do you want? Don't be such a glory boy, get in right now!"

As he pulled himself along the line and up through the hatch he realized that not only had he been undisturbed while on the rock but he hadn't even considered the possibility of becoming frightened! Pleased with himself, he closed the hatch door, raising the current in each magnetic lock to sealing maximum. As soon as the last bolt was sucked into place, his suit started decompressing while chamber pressure mounted in precise compensation. For a second he thought he saw a white speck eddy out of the specimen box attached to his belt but another did not follow. Anyway, suit vizors had a way of clouding up on the inside during chamber compression and that could play funny tricks.

After a while Hartley opened the door to the front cabin and helped him to his cockpit seat. "Sorry, old man," Cramer gasped happily. "Don't know why I did that."

It was surprising how undisturbed by the private joke Hartley looked. He seemed to be too abstracted for that. "Feeling all right?" he finally asked.

"Perfect!" Cramer grinned, greeting the galactic reaches with a wave of his hand. "Isn't it a beautiful universe? I think I could count all the visible light sources out there in ten minutes if I wanted to. No, I don't want to count anything but my blessings, I just want to look."

"Not from here, though. This rock makes its crazy wobble into sunlight soon and I'd rather be off it when the surface starts heating up."

Hartley eased the craft upwards, pulling her back a few dozen miles. Then he balanced the power exhausts into hover and took the specimen box from Cramer's belt. "You've got ecstasy of the space deeps, never can tell when that'll strike a man out there." He studied the little slate-blue chips inside. "You notice that white stuff, Will?"

"First thought it was just vizor clouding." He was thinking with extraordinary clarity even though he still felt wildly elated. "Seemed to happen after the temperature moved above water-freezing."

"Yeah. You did everything by the book, son, except the thing that justified your excursion in the first place. When you came in you merely forgot to seal the specimen box and set its cryogenic cell for deep freeze. Bringing the chips into human temperature range may have destroyed some of the specimen's value. Usually doesn't matter but in this case I wonder--"

"Gosh, that's awful! I'd be glad to go out again."

"No, you may have stupidly done a smart thing. But you'll really boggle it this time with the ecstasy clouding your mind."

"I'm thinking clearly, really I am."

"Can't be."

"Okay," he said, "test me. Give me some digits to multiply while you punch them on the computer."

"All right," Hartley muttered impatiently. "38,373 times 14,621 times 322. Satisfied?"

After a few seconds, "1-8-0-6-5-8-6-2-5-8-2-6."

Hartley pulled a strand of tape from the computer. "Repeat it slowly." Eyes widening, he followed the response on the tape. "You've got it right!"

"Satisfied? Seriously, though, it's nothing when you know the tricks. Old-time non-machine calculating was one of my hobbies when I was a kid."

"It isn't 'nothing.' Space ecstasy ruins a man's ability to think straight for hours. Plenty of bodies are still drifting around space because in the early days they neglected the proper safety checks." He stared through the magnifier at the asteroid, its flat face now glittering in sunlight. "Starting to feel the hangover headache?"

"No, just fine. Nick, I've never felt this good in my life!"

"We'll wait here an hour."

But after the hour was up Cramer was still grinning. "I'm ready to go out again," he said.

When the asteroid was back in position again they dropped to the surface. Cramer started up but Hartley held him back in his seat. "This time I do pull rank. I'm going out myself."

Cramer shrugged. "I'm in too good a mood to offer the slightest protest."

"Your mood's why I'm going." He put on his suit and went into the rear chamber. A few minutes later he disappeared outside.

"Everything okay?" Cramer radioed.

"Sure thing. I'll be right back. This stuff flakes off like mica, easy to handle when you know the angles of the fault lines."

A few minutes later he was on board again. "You sure were fast!" Cramer exclaimed.

"Get the comp-decomp going and don't chew so much fat."

"Okay." He activated the self-compensating cycle and watched his superior through the glass. There it was again, a few specks from the specimen box. He, too, had forgotten the standard operating procedure! Then later, as Hartley took off his helmet, a swarm of them ascended like angry midges to the ceiling. In a few seconds the Captain was laughing more relaxedly than Cramer had ever seen him laugh before.

When Hartley came into the cockpit he exclaimed, "Wonderful! There's something like mica in these rocks and the powder's all over in the schists." He went to a corner and pulled some things out of an equipment cabinet but his back blocked Cramer's view. Still facing away, he headed back into the exit chamber. "Go out again," he said.

"But, Captain, you won't know what you're doing!"

Hartley gave an airy wave. "You did, didn't you?"

"Yes but--"

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