The Vortex Blaster | Page 7

was an enormous volume of air pouring
into that crater. It rushed in as ordinary air. It came out, however, in a
ragingly-uprushing pillar, as--as something else. No one knew--or
knows yet, for that matter--exactly what a loose vortex does to the
molecules and atoms of air. In fact, due to the extreme variability
already referred to, it probably does not do the same thing for more
than an instant at a time.
That there is little actual combustion is certain; that is, except for the
forced combination of nitrogen, argon, xenon, and krypton with oxygen.
There is, however, consumption: plenty of consumption. And what that
incredibly intense bombardment impinges up is ... is altered.
Profoundly and obscuredly altered, so that the atmosphere emitted from
the crater is quite definitely no longer air as we know it. It may be
corrosive, it may be poisonous in one or another of a hundred fashions,
it may be merely new and different; but it is no longer the air which we
human beings are used to breathing. And it is this fact, rather than the
destruction of the planet itself, which would end the possibility of life

upon Earth's surface.
* * * * *
It is difficult indeed to describe the appearance of a loose atomic vortex
to those who have never seen one; and, fortunately, most people never
have. And practically all of its frightful radiation lies in those octaves
of the spectrum which are invisible to the human eye. Suffice it to say,
then, that it had an average effective surface temperature of about
fifteen thousand degrees absolute--two and one-half times as hot as the
sun of Tellus--and that it was radiating every frequency possible to that
incomprehensible temperature, and let it go at that.
And Neal Cloud, scurrying in his flitter through that murky,
radiation-riddled atmosphere, setting up equations from the readings of
his various meters and gauges and solving those equations almost
instantaneously in his mathematical-prodigy's mind, sat appalled. For
the activity level was, and even in its lowest dips remained, far above
the level he had selected. His skin began to prickle and to burn. His
eyes began to smart and to ache. He knew what those symptoms meant;
even the flitter's powerful screens were not stopping all the radiation;
even his suit-screens and his special goggles were not stopping what
leaked through. But he wouldn't quit yet; the activity might--probably
would--take a nose-dive any instant. If it did, he'd have to be ready. On
the other hand, it might blow up at any instant, too.
There were two schools of mathematical thought upon that point. One
held that the vortex, without any essential change in its physical
condition or nature, would keep on growing bigger. Indefinitely, until,
uniting with the other vortices of the planet, it had converted the entire
mass of the world into energy.
The second school, of which the forementioned Carlowitz was the
loudest voice, taught that at a certain stage of development the internal
energy of the vortex would become so great that generation-radiation
equilibrium could not be maintained. This would, of course, result in an
explosion; the nature and consequences of which this Carlowitz was
wont to dwell upon in ghoulishly mathematical glee. Neither school,

however, could prove its point--or, rather, each school proved its point,
by means of unimpeachable mathematics--and each hated and derided
the other, loudly and heatedly.
And now Cloud, as he studied through his almost opaque defenses that
indescribably ravening fireball, that esuriently rapacious monstrosity
which might very well have come from the deepest pit of the hottest
hell of mythology, felt strongly inclined to agree with Carlowitz. It
didn't seem possible that anything could get any worse than that
without exploding. And such an explosion, he felt sure, would certainly
blow everything for miles around into the smitheriest kind of
smithereens.
The activity of the vortex stayed high, 'way too high. The tiny control
room of the flitter grew hotter and hotter. His skin burned and his eyes
ached worse. He touched a communicator stud and spoke.
"Phil? Better get me three more bombs. Like these, except up
around...."
"I don't check you. If you do that, it's apt to drop to a minimum and
stay there," the Lensman reminded him. "It's completely unpredictable,
you know."
"It may, at that ... so I'll have to forget the five percent margin and hit it
on the nose or not at all. Order me up two more, then--one at half of
what I've got here, the other double it," and he reeled off the figures for
the charge and the casing of the explosive. "You might break out a jar
of burn-dressing, too. Some fairly hot stuff is leaking through."
"We'll do that. Come down, fast!"
Cloud landed. He