Power Play by Ben Bova Read Free Book Online

reassured.
    For nearly an hour the technicians fussed and tinkered with the rig while Rogers chatted amiably and Jake wondered if he would live through an explosion. Precisely fifteen minutes before one the door from the parking lot banged open and Tim Younger came striding through. His boots were scuffed dusty brown, his jeans faded, his shirt wrinkled. He had a wide-brimmed, flat-crowned cowboy hat pulled down over his narrowed eyes.
    Christ, Jake thought, all he needs is a six-gun strapped to his hip.

TRIAL RUN
    Barely nodding at Jake, Younger asked, “We ready to run?” as he stepped into the control booth.
    “Just about,” said Rogers.
    Jake watched, fascinated, at the play of personalities. Rogers might be the physicist who laid out the underlying concepts of the MHD generator, the man who designed the big rig, but Younger was the guy in charge here. The technicians followed him around like puppy dogs as he left the control booth and walked slowly around the apparatus, checking every inch of it, every wire and connection. Rogers remained in the control booth with Jake. They were both spectators now.
    Finally Younger pushed his hat back on his head and nodded, satisfied.
    “Okay,” he said to the technicians. “Let’s fire her up and see what she can do.”
    “You’ve run this rig before, haven’t you?” Jake asked Rogers, almost in a whisper.
    “A couple dozen times.”
    “He acts like it’s the first time they’ve tried it.”
    With a wry little smile, Rogers said, “For Tim it’s always the first time.”
    Younger came back into the control booth, faithfully trailed by the six lab-coated technicians. All of them male, Jake noted. The booth suddenly felt crowded with all of them jammed in, uncomfortably warm, despite the air-conditioning. Jake could smell the acrid tang of perspiration, and somebody had bathed himself in a heavy, musky aftershave.
    “Power on the bus,” Younger said, his hat pushed far back on his head. His tone was flat, subdued, but four of the technicians began flicking switches as if their lives depended on it.
    “Fuel feed ready,” said one of them.
    “Oxygen feed ready.”
    Younger said, “Magnet?”
    “Up and running. Full strength.”
    “Separator?”
    “Ready.”
    Younger scanned the control panel, left to right, then looked through the thick glass partition at the rig, sitting silently before them.
    “Start fuel feed.”
    Jake heard a slithering, grating sound: pulverized coal sliding down a chute.
    “Fuel feed on.”
    “Start oxygen feed.”
    “Oxy on.”
    “Igniting burner,” Younger said, pressing a stiffly extended finger onto a square red button.
    The technician’s reply was lost in a roar like a rocket taking off. The building rattled. Jake’s hearing blanked out, the noise was so intense. Clapping his hands to his ears, he turned enough so that he could see the gauges on the wall behind them. Dials were ratcheting upward.
    Rogers was grinning broadly, hands pressed to his ears. A couple of the technicians had donned earphones; the rest covered their ears against the immense, bone-jangling noise. Younger stood like a statue, though, staring at the rig as it roared with the throats of a million dragons. The seconds stretched. Jake saw that the technicians also stood frozen at their posts, gaping at the MHD generator through the quivering glass partition. He himself stood rooted, frozen, nailed to the floor by the sheer overwhelming power of the generator’s roar. The MHD generator was unchanged to his staring eyes; Jake could see no flame, no motion at all except the trembling insistent vibration that made the very air shake and rattled his eyes in their sockets. His breath caught in his throat.
    Then Younger stabbed the same finger at the same red button. The noise shut off abruptly. The vibrations stopped. All the gauges ran down to zero. Jake cautiously took his hands off his ears. Everything sounded muffled; Jake felt like his head was underwater.