Fallen Star Read Free Page A

want you to go with the Second Western Polar Basin Expedition,” Ellen said. “You’ll act as historian for it, on behalf
     of the IGY; and after it’s over, you’ll also write a book about it for Artz. The expedition itself will probably pay you a
     small salary—we aren’t sure about that yet—and Artz will give you an advance on the book. Since you’ll be at the North Pole
     a while, you won’t have much need for spending money.
    “Now, if you do a good job on the Polar Basin book, I think we’ll have no trouble selling the IGY publications committee on
     hiring you to do the post-Year layman’s book. Artz will publish that too; and Pouch Editions will reprint both books. The
     total sum involved comes to fifteen hundred dollars in advance from Artz, plus four thousand from Pouch, plus whatever Commodore
     Bramwell-Farnsworth is willing to pay you as a salary. That won’t be much, I’m afraid, but it’ll at least be noticeable; the
     Commodore likes to do his exploring in style. Call it sixty-five hundred to seven thousand all told. Could you do it for that?”
    “Cripes!” I said feelingly. “I don’t know.”
    “I don’t blame you for being cautious,” Ellen added. “Considering that the total is conditional. If Artz doesn’t like the
     Polar Basin book, you’d be left with nothing but the one advance and the expedition salary.”
    “Oh, that doesn’t worry me,” I said truthfully. “I can handle the job—science writing is my business, and I know I can do
     it, just like a riveter knows he can rivet. But—the North Pole! I hate winter, Ellen. Let me think a minute. How long would
     I be away?”
    “About four months,” Ellen said, smiling, “Bramwell-Farnsworth thinks he’ll be ready to leave in late April, and with luck
     you ought to be back early in September. That isn’t so bad—you’ll miss the summer, but it isn’t like being stuck in Antarctica
     for two years. But it depends partly on the earth-satellite programme. If a satellite isn’t launched successfully by September,
     you may have to wait for thefirst successful shot. One of the expedition’s purposes is to monitor that shot over the Pole.”
    “I see. What else will they be doing?”
    “Quite a bit. There’s a lot we need to know. There’ll be fourteen in the party counting yourself, mostly oceanographers; also
     astronomers, a radiologist, a cryologist, and, of course, a meteorologist.”
    The roster made sense. The northern ice cap does not lie over a continent, as the Antarctic ice cap does; instead, it’s only
     a sheet floating on the surface of the Arctic Ocean, with no land under it at all. A fully equipped expedition there would
     need to take daily depth soundings, to record the fluctuations of the ice cap above the ocean bottom—a procedure that would
     not only yield valuable information for studies of gravity, but might also be a life-or-death matter for the expedition itself,
     providing new knowledge about the currents in the cold depths, and new knowledge of where crevasses in the cap could be expected
     to become numerous at various times of the year. The astronomer, of course, would track the earth satellite. The radiologist,
     working with him, would make cosmic ray observations and study the aurora borealis. The meteorologist would in part be there
     for the survival of the party itself, but he would also bring back data on the polar weather of immediate practical value
     to outfits like Scandinavian Air Lines, which run transport routes, and to the U.S. Air Force to boot. The cryologist, I supposed,
     would be interested both in charting ice movement and in studying the chemistry of everything in sight under conditions of
     permanent cold.
    “It sounds interesting,” I said cautiously. “Also somewhat familiar, Ellen. Wasn’t there some talk in the papers about this
     expedition last year? A name like Bramwell-Farnsworth’s sounds familiar at any time, of course, but——”
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