"Our thermocouple is hardly as big as a pin head, and you can guess what a job it is to run it to and fro over the tiny image of the planet. At points where radiation is strong enough, namely in the focal plane, the image itself measures but a few millimeters. When it is done in a terrestrial observatory, the tiny image also glimmers on account of the passage of the light through the atmosphere, so it is quite miraculous that measurement technique down there has advanced to the point where the required accuracy has been attained."
"You seem to imply," said Holt, "that we may anticipate improvements in work of that nature done from here."
"There's no doubt about it," assured Bergmann. "You have but to provide funds and scientific assistants, and induce the authorities to enlist the services of some of the more efficient research institutes to perfect our instrumentation. Then we'll be able to get readings up here on much of the data you'll require. Planetary examination presents one of the most difficult problems in measurement technique. But we can do much more than heretofore if we can tackle it with such means and resources as have been lavished on many industrial instrumentation efforts."
"If Operation Mars gets under way," said Holt, "you'll get what you need. I'm sure that Professor Hansen will concur in my request that you write an official memorandum for me on the procedure you would like to adopt. And here's a questionnaire covering everything I'd like to know about Mars, which I do not expect you to be able to fill in completely at this time, however.
"Please remember that every question that remains unanswered before we start is a source of danger to the whole enterprise, so put into your memo everything which might be important, even though there's no apparent immediate solution to some particular measurement problem. Include measurement methods which require original development, problems of that nature which you already face, and personnel and institutions you think should take part. Don't forget new instruments for this observatory, or anything which may facilitate the work. Give us an idea of how much time and how much money you'll need. Don't spare the horses, Mr. Bergmann. This is no place for economy drives."
Holt paused, noting Bergmann's gleeful face, for the latter was obviously overjoyed at the scientific windfall that had dropped at his feet. All his life he had yearned to probe the secrets of the Red Planet and here came the opportunity of a lifetime, free and unsolicited. Thoughts of applying then and there for a membership in the expedition raced through his mind, but to express them then he dare not… At that moment, Hansen broke in with, "Do come and have a look at your planet, Colonel. You'll be here for a couple of hours, and we can go into your further questions later. And I'll stay for some days and have plenty of time to look through the great eyepiece."
Bergmann and Holt unstrapped their chair belts and reached for the fireman's pole which took the place of stairs or corridors in the weightless interior of the observatory. Hand over hand, they floated themselves to a circular manhole located diametrically opposite the bay in which they had been landed by their busy bee. Bergmann opened the plate to admit them into the observation chamber, much after the manner used with the bee. After closing the doors, Bergmann took the wheel and pressed a switch which caused the chamber to slide out of the bay and into space. Opening the throttle moved the chamber towards the telescope structure floating at the end of its connecting line. As they approached the guide rails, Bergmann reversed the thrust momentarily and, with a metallic click, the chamber entered the rails and locked fast at their inner limit stop. The chamber had a hemispherical glass dome in whose center was a minuscule, swiveling telescope. Bergmann drew himself against it, turning it until it registered on Mars. When the latter was within his field of view, he threw a switch which audibly started electric motors somewhere in the fabric and ponderously the whole telescope structure, chamber, observers and all began to orient itself towards Mars. Now Bergmann fixed his eye to the ocular of the main 'scope.
"See what I'm doing?" he offered without looking away.
"I've got the idea," said Holt, "but I don't follow all the detail."
"The small sighting instrument is hung in gimbals which have sliding resistances or potentiometers as well call them, attached to the axes. Currents running through these are a measure of the angular difference between the instrument and the main tube. After the sighting 'scope has been bracketed on Mars, it is kept there by a light-sensitive cell, and two flywheels train the main 'scope until the two are parallel, thus bringing both 'scopes onto Mars. There comes our planet now, just sliding into the field of vision! Want to look?" Holt traded places with him and applied his eye.
There it was, a huge disk treble the size of the Moon! Its coloration, indescribable in its variety, well-nigh overwhelmed him for a time. He could see the famed south polar cap, almost blinding in its stark whiteness. There was the rim from the melting edge of which the ever-thirsty Martians were supposed to draw their pitiful water supply. Below were the red, yellow, and dark-green zones — the deserts and vegetative regions. The longer he gazed, the more detail registered with him.
Suddenly, there they were! The canals! A whole hemisphere was almost covered by their fine, filigreed network, each meticulously following the bold sweep of a great circle.
More and more seemed to appear from nowhere. What did they really mean? Here was no longer the Red Planet, but one like Joseph's coat. His it would be to plumb the distant mysteries by a dive into space deeper than any man had ever made.
Chapter 5 — The "Sirius" Returns
Holt left the observatory full of admiration for the work going on there, and for the various adjuncts available to him for preparing his plans. His new knowledge, reinforced by the almost neighborly feeling of his close-up view of Mars, had given him a better sense of where he was headed. The busy bee shot him back to Lunetta's artificial gravity where he spent hour after hour with Riley indoctrinating the latter with the full magnitude of the coming effort. Then the time for him to drop back to Earth rolled around, and leaving the comfortable cabin which had been assigned him, he made his way to the elevator door from which he would rise against Lunetta's centrifugal force to reenter the conical nose of the Sirius.
A tall officer stood by the elevator door, suitcase in hand. "Why, if it isn't Tom Knight, my old copilot of war days! I've been stuck in this doughnut for two weeks, and now I'm going to fly the Sirius back to Kahului. You riding?"
"Well, I was going to ride," said Holt, "But now I'm a copilot, unless you want me to spring rank on you.
Knight grinned, and ten minutes later, Holt took his place at Tom's right in the pilot's compartment. This was in the nose of the conical stump remaining after the release of the two enormous booster stages of the Sirius.