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diff --git a/old/68373-0.txt b/old/68373-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ddddfb1..0000000 --- a/old/68373-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,897 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Gently Orbiting Blonde, by John -Victor Peterson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Gently Orbiting Blonde - -Author: John Victor Peterson - -Release Date: June 22, 2022 [eBook #68373] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLY ORBITING -BLONDE *** - - - - - - The Gently Orbiting Blonde - - By JOHN VICTOR PETERSON - - Illustrated by ENGLE - - _Anti-gravity may be hard - to handle--but a woman - scorned is still harder!_ - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Infinity, April 1957. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -Maybe Helene's right in saying that I shouldn't tell exactly how our -living room became the training station for Space Satellite One. If I -don't, though, I'm afraid she'll let it slip out as a deep dark secret -to one of her tri-dielectronic bridge friends and it'll be all over the -Project as quickly as a pile past critical mass. It certainly wouldn't -help my reputation at the labs, especially if in the retelling the -facts should become distorted about Gladys, the gently orbiting blonde. - -Some of it was accidental, certainly, but didn't Wilhelm Roentgen get -brushed by the breeze of chance? - -I must have been on the right track, anyhow! - -I'll leave it to you.... - -It's true, I _do_ get absorbed in things. So it happened on the night I -was married. But I did, after all, carry Helene across the threshold. -Can I help it that, as I was fetching her a toast, I just happened to -glance up at the sun-chandelier in our cathedral-ceilinged living room -and got reminded of the Project and decided I just had to go down into -my lab in the basement and change one little bit of circuitry? When -you're working on something as elusive as anti-gravity, you've got to -seize upon every minute of inspiration. - -I told her I'd be right back and dashed downstairs. I guess I should -have kissed her first. I forgot. I'm sorry now. In a way. If I had, -maybe--But, let's face it, I forgot. - -You could ask old Ruocco, my psych prof. He always says I've -supernormal powers of concentration. - -There I was in the basement. One thing led to another. I rearranged the -circuitry on the psionic machine and found then that changes in the -gyrorotors were indicated. - -Something intruded vaguely on my mind but I ignored it, enmeshed as I -was in magnetostriction lines. This just might work! - -It didn't. My concentration was disrupted. I glanced at my watch. _Oi_! -I thought, _Helene!_ - -And my subconscious told me with sickening certainty that the near -disturbance I had had, had been the slamming of a door--of the front -door by someone on the way out. - -I went upstairs. Helene was gone, complete with pocketbook. Her valises -had been in the car and I saw from the living room window that she'd -taken that. - -She'd gone home to Mom, I guessed. She'd have no trouble getting off -the reservation; she had a nonsensitive job on the Project. Not like -me; I couldn't get pried out of White Sands by less than Presidential -order. - -It'd be hours before I could try visioing her. Mom's way up in -Connecticut, quite a hop even by jetliner. - -I sat on the chitchat bench, felt sorry for myself for a second and -then got concentrating on the starchart on the ceiling above the -sun-chandelier and decided that if man was to start exploring upward -I'd better continue my exploring downstairs. - -But I couldn't concentrate. I fiddled around rewiring the psionic -machine just to have something to do. - -The front door banged again with the loveliest, most satisfying -solid bang--and I dropped my soldering iron on a printed circuit and -something went _whoosh_ which wasn't just me going up the stairs. -Simultaneously a feminine scream came to meet me. - - * * * * * - -I went up the stairs but when I got to the top I -didn't--couldn't--stop. I kept going up, making climbing motions and -touching nothing at all until my head ricocheted off the curving -ceiling and I bounced down upon my contour chair. I didn't stop there -but bounced right back up again, vaguely aware that the recoiling chair -was slowly following me. - -During this time I was seeing considerably more stars than you'd see -from Palomar on a good clear night. - -The stars began to blink out of focus, and me in. And then, in the -midst of marveling over the undeniable fact that I'd discovered--well, -what about Roentgen?--_discovered_ anti- or at least _null_-gravity, I -remembered (a) the door slamming and (b) the scream. - -I bounced off the ceiling, cartwheeled a bit, glanced off a picture of -a Viking rocket on the wall which took off on a trajectory of its own, -and then spun in my orbit and got a look at the blonde. - -Now, anyone under normal conditions would have taken a good look at the -blonde. I was, however, performing what is known in aeronautics as a -barrel-roll, and my viewing of the blonde was the sweeping scan of a -surveillance radar. - -Not that I hadn't seen the blonde before. I knew her well. Her name is -Gladys. She's the most gorgeously put-together creature at the Sands. -Most of the boys would ride bareback on a Nike if she gave them the -smile she was giving me then. - -Gladys was in a gentle orbit as nearly circular as that of Venus. Her -primary was the sun-chandelier. - -I thought then of another Venus. Only Gladys has arms. Her arms were -bare. In fact, a lot of Gladys was bare and there's a lot of Gladys, -all nicely proportioned, of course. The sunsuit's designer had -indubitably been inspired by a Bikini. - -I bounced off a sofa, which absorbed some of my inertia, and through -some frictional freak stopped my axial rotation. I went then into -an elliptical orbit grazing the chitchat bench at aphelion and the -chandelier at perihelion. - -The thought of Helene crossed my mind in a peculiarly guilty manner, -and I was rather glad at that moment that Gladys and I weren't on a -collision orbit. - -"Now that you've stopped pingponging," Gladys said, "you might tell -me how we're going to get out of this fix. And I don't mind behaving -like an electron but you might make like a positron and come a little -closer; it's getting cold in here! By the way, where's Helene?" - -I don't know why, but I told her. And maybe I did put on an aggrieved -husband act a bit, but who could blame me? - -"Oh, Bill, I'm sorry," she said throatily. "You're so attractive, so -fine. To think you've been snared by someone who doesn't appreciate -your worth, your handsomeness, your manly strength. Oh, why couldn't -you just have given poor little me a glance? After all, we've been -together in the Project Lab every day. I _know_ you, Bill, and I'm _so_ -sorry!" - -And she moved on, lovely, graceful in her gentle orbit, and my heart -swelled with recognition of her compassion. - -I started to make a self-effacing remark, stammered, and finally -changed my mind and asked, "But how did you happen to come here?" - -She sighed. "Business, I'm sorry to state. Jim O'Brien wants you at -the lab. Thinks he's on the track of anti-grav--and here you have it -already! Gee, Bill, it _is_ getting cold in here!" - -I hadn't noticed. - -Just then the thermostat did notice, and the air-conditioning unit cut -in. Warm air started to blow from the baseboard outlets. - -"Bill--" - -"Yeah," I answered, trajecting past the chitchat bench and wondering -if by stretching real hard I could reach it on the next trip round and -drag myself to it. Then, if it didn't come unplugged I could ground -(now _that_ was a silly thought!)--I could _stop_ myself and maybe work -out of the living room along the edge of the tacked-down carpet. - -"Bill, if Helene doesn't come back, do you think, maybe--" - -I thought, maybe. - - * * * * * - -Hey, was I imagining things or was my orbit changing? And was Gladys -smiling more warmly? - -Oh, oh! The air-vents were doing it, the air currents from them -pressing me into a more curving trajectory which would probably graze -Gladys' orbit. - -I was passing the chitchat bench. I flailed out for it, missed, and my -movement seemed to twist my trajectory even more. I looked at Gladys -and she was smiling warmly, welcomingly. I thought of Helene and felt -like a louse. An airborne louse. Without wings, like a louse should -be. You need wings to fly. If I'd had them I think I'd have flown. -Elsewhere. - -Sure, you can let your conscience be your guide but what can you do -when you're helplessly warped into a collision orbit with one of the -loveliest women in the world, a welcoming planet in a closed system of -your own peculiar manufacture? - -The visio started buzzing then and I wondered agonizingly if it were -Helene. On the other hand, it might be Jim O'Brien wondering why Gladys -hadn't come back. With no answer, he might come over, but I doubted it. -Jim's a bachelor and somewhat of a hermit. - -Ah, missed on this go-round, but it was close. Gladys' smile told me -she was paying no heed to the buzzing visio at all. - -The sun-chandelier--I could reach it! I caught at one of its sunburst's -rays. It promptly snapped off, but the action had changed my orbit. - -Changed it--and how! Now I was in precisely the same orbit as Gladys -and gaining! She smiled back over her nicely rounded shoulder. It -wasn't fair! - -I hadn't heard a sound outside, what with the visio buzzing away like -mad, but the front door was suddenly opened and there was Helene -starting to come in, a big package in her arms. - -"Stay out!" I cried. "Don't come in, Helene!" - -I was a split second too late; her foot hit the null-grav area and she -was suddenly orbiting, her package tumbling off on a trajectory of its -own, her pocketbook a satellite beside her. - -Helene was startled, certainly, but not beyond speech. "Bill Wright," -she cried, "you're a beast! You bring me home on our wedding night and -leave me for your silly machine and without a single solitary drop -to drink in the servomech and I go out for something and come back -to find you flying after that blonde hussy!" She swept up around the -chandelier, her orbit grazing it at perihelion but apparently destined -to be far remote at aphelion. - -"But, dear--" I started. - -"Don't dear me!" she cried, and went out of my range of vision just as -I overtook Gladys and her outflung arms caught me painfully by the -neck. - -Which is when Helene's orbit mercifully turned out to be a collision -orbit with Gladys'--and she took Gladys away from me like a super-Nike -taking out a stratojet-bomber. They bounced against the ceiling. Gladys -took the impact. Rearward. Fortunately Mother Nature had been kind. - -Helene bounced away from Gladys. Strands of blonde hair went with her. - -"Dark roots!" Helene cried triumphantly. - -Gladys said a bad word. - -I conjectured. - -"Say," I said, but the girls were shouting. I yelled, "Hey!" - -They quieted but kept glaring balefully at each other and circled like -a couple of female wrestlers waiting--but wholly unable--to pounce. - -"We're in a pickle," I started. - -"_You're_ in a pickle," Helene corrected me. - -"Oh, stop it!" I said. - -"I didn't start it," Helene said. - -Logic! - -"Now, look," I said, "we've got to get down. If one of us could only -manage to grasp something that's fastened--the carpet, a window, a -doorknob--" - -I didn't finish; it was too painfully obvious that none of our orbits -took us that close to the finite boundaries of my null-grav living -room. Helene's, I noticed, was the closest. A germ of an idea came into -my mind as I observed that Helene's handbag was still in a tight orbit -around her. - -"Honey," I said. - -She raged at that and made futile fluttering motions as though she -thought she just might be able to fly. - -Perhaps formality was indicated. - -"Mrs. Wright," I tried. - -Gladys laughed and the irate Mrs. Wright, sweeping close to Gladys' -orbit at perihelion, made a vicious swipe which neatly tore away a -considerable portion of the upper part of Gladys' sunsuit, which -portion went fluttering away on a bat-like trajectory of its own. I -forgot the portion; the point of departure was more absorbing. - -Helene gasped and told me to concentrate on getting us down; but my -powers of concentration were rather difficult to influence since I was -in a fixed orbit and, like Mercury or old Luna, my face was turned -inward and Gladys' orbit was now considerably tighter than mine. - -"Well, do something, will you!" Helene cried. "At least, stop leering!" - -Now I'm a reasonable man even when befuddled by null-grav, so I tried -to forget about orbiting hemispheres and to attack the problem of -reaching terra firma. - -I closed my eyes, but promptly became so unoriented that I almost -became ill; so I opened them again and concentrated on my primary, the -sun-chandelier. - -The visio had stopped buzzing. I hoped that meant that Jim O'Brien--if -it had been Jim--had figured that something was amiss and was now -hurrying over in his Caddicopter. He could throw us a line and haul us -out. Then I threw that hope away. Jim's severely practical; and this -_was_ to have been my wedding night. - -Oh, well.... - - * * * * * - -Could one of us somehow reach the sun-chandelier and short it, thereby -shorting the machine downstairs? Mentally reconstructing the house's -electrical circuitry, I concluded that my lab was on a separate circuit. - -_Hey! I am confused_, I thought. Helene's handbag! I'd thought of it -before. Of course! Women carry all sorts of things. - -"Helene," I said, "do you have a squeeze bottle in your bag? Perfume or -hair spray or deodorant, maybe?" - -"Bill Wright, if you think for one minute that I'm going to--" - -"Have you?" I cut in. - -She spluttered. "Perfume," she finally said grudgingly. "Though with -that eau-de-whatever Gladys is wearing, I should think--" - -"Oh, stop it! Now will you please get the perfume out!" - -She did; then she went wandering off to aphelion in her orbit and -momentarily out of my line of sight. When she came back toward -perihelion with the chandelier, I said, "Now, look, wriggle around a -little axially if you can--" - -That did it. Helene exploded into a verbal nova. "You lecherous beast!" -she cried. "It isn't enough for you to dally with this shameless blonde -hussy on our wedding night. Not enough for you to float along looking -like a blissful ogling ogre, making mental mockery of your wedding -vows. No, you--you BEM!--you have to ask your meek and retiring, your -quiet and unassuming, your defenseless and self-effacing wife to act -like a bumping and grinding burlesque queen!" - -And my meek, retiring, quiet, unassuming, etc., wife went on -etcetera-ing ad practically infinitum. - -When swiftly trajecting Helene's tirade paused for lack of words and/or -breath, I said meekly above the gently orbiting blonde's chuckles, "But -I was only trying to get us out of this mess. I wanted you to perform -a slight axial rotation so that you could aim your--er--posterior -at the cellar door when you next reach aphelion near it. Do you -understand?" - -"No," she said, but did manage by some completely feminine and to me -quite incomprehensible maneuvers (girdle girding procedure, maybe?) to -twist ninety degrees axially. - -"When I say 'go,' squeeze the spray bottle," I directed, "and keep -squeezing it hard and keep it pointing straight away from your -longitudinal axis." - -"My _what_? Now, look, what do you think you'll accom--" - -"Wait!" I cut her off. "For every action there's an equal and opposite -reaction, right? I hope you'll widen your orbit when the reaction sets -in." - -She was nearing aphelion. "Go!" I cried. - -She did squeeze the spray bottle, and kept squeezing it quickly and -strongly, but so far as I could judge her orbit wasn't effected one -whit. Something was accomplished, however, that made our situation more -desperate: those little droplets of potent perfume proceeded to bounce, -scatter, splatter and ricochet all over the place. The scent spread. -Overpoweringly. - -"And _you_ talked about _my_ perfume!" Gladys cried and began to giggle -again. - -My gaze wandered toward the lovely albeit space-happy blonde. - -"Bill!" Helene cried as she swept across my line of sight. She looked -like an avenging angel, a very lovely one. She made me feel humble and -contrite; I went dutifully back to the problem. - - * * * * * - -It seemed rather hopeless. Both Gladys and I were orbiting nearly -parallel to the floor in what I was calling the plane of the ecliptic. -My brief encounter with the chandelier had twisted me into the plane as -had Gladys' unfortunate but exhilarating encounter with my irate bride. - -Helene's orbit was still tilted from the plane, like Pluto's, and was -curiously elliptical like a comet's. Currents created by the allegedly -draftless air-conditioning system must have caused and must be -maintaining the ellipse. Being a newcomer to our tight little system, -Helene also still had considerable orbital speed whereas air resistance -would soon bring Gladys and me to a midair stop, probably in inferior -opposition. I knew what Helene would think of that. - -I decided we couldn't do anything individually or jointly unless an -outside agent were introduced or full advantage taken of something -already present. - -We had cosmic debris, for sure: the flipflopping chaise longue which -was in a tight orbit near the peak of the cathedral ceiling; the -framed picture of the Viking rocket (could I ever use a little of -_its_ thrust now!) fluttering close to the flapping torn part-away of -the sunsuit down below the plane of the ecliptic; and the big package -Helene had brought. The last suddenly proved to be on a collision orbit -with Gladys, curving in then to bump against her derriere. Reaching -back swiftly she caught it like an errant salesman's hand. I waited -expectantly. - -"Wonderful!" she commented. "Wonderful!" And pulled out a bottle of -Scotch. I watched in fascinated, gleeful anticipation as she unscrewed -the cap, and moved the bottle up toward celestial north to reach a -normal drinking position. Naturally the contents promptly departed; -then splashed against the arch of the ceiling and went into a thousand -odd orbits, of which many made moist contact with my own. The -perfume-Scotch combination--_yoicks!_ - -"Glad," I said. - -"Oh, it's _Glad_ now!" Helene burst. - -I ignored her. - -"Glad, get the package in your hands like a basketball--" - -"Yes, conceal your shame!" Helene cut in acidly. - -"Will you stop it?" I cried. "Now, Glad, listen, aim it toward my -orbit. Lead me a little--there, that ought to do it. Now when I count -down to zero give it a shove. Ready? Three, two, one--_zero_!" - -It was dead on! - -I looked in the bag, hoping to find a newly charged carbonation unit -for the servomech bar. I didn't, but I found something else! - -"Helene," I said, "I love you!"--and I drew forth the loveliest magnum -of champagne you'd ever hope to see. - -"But, Bill," Helene cried, "that's to celebrate our wedding night!" - -I appreciated the present tense but said nothing, working on the wire -which bound the cork. - -"Bill, remember what happened to the Scotch," Gladys warned me. - -I ignored them both, thinking furiously. It _had_ to be Helene! She -would sweep to the apogee of her cometlike orbit near the cellar door -again in seconds. I shook the magnum as violently as I could. Its cork -went whooshing off on a ricochet romance with the Scotch cap. The freed -and deeply disturbed champagne blasted off straight for the most remote -point in Helene's orbit--and Helene was there! On target! - -I went whirling backward with the reacting magnum against my chest, -bounced against a wall, smacked against the chandelier, flipflopped -a few times and found myself orbiting directly below Gladys. I -re-oriented myself with some effort and found by twisting my head -sharply that I could see the results of the improvised jet blast: -Helene, drenched with champagne, stood in gravity on the cellar stairs. - -"Dear," I ventured, "just go down and ease off on the rheostat; that'll -cancel this out gradually and let us down easily." - -She made a spluttering noise and went downstairs. - -I made a quick survey for a possible safe touchdown area just in case -Helene inadvertently cut the power too fast; chances were good that -we'd hit one of the several sofas. - -Gladys and I were celestially north of the chitchat bench when Helene -completely killed the null-grav. The bench, with visio, suffered -complete collapse; it wasn't meant for sitting down on from twelve feet -up. Especially with a blonde dropping immediately into one's lap. Lucky -for me both were nicely padded. - -"I'm sorry, Bill," Gladys said, _September Morn_-ing, and hurrying, -dishevelled and forlorn, out the front door. I heard her car start up -as Helene came up from the basement. - -I ruefully surveyed the shattered visio amid the other debris. - -"Null-grav," I said. "Real null-grav. Jim's got to know--but the -visio's ruined. I've got to go out and call him." - -"Oh, no, you don't!" Helene burst. "Null-grav _and_ Jim O'Brien can -wait until tomorrow!" - -She kissed me tenderly then. - -"How right you are," I said, getting re-oriented fast. - - * * * * * - -Now you must excuse me; I've got to degravitize the living room. -They're due here for training in a few minutes--the Satellite One -Cadets. I worked out a keyer that remotely controls the null-grav's -rheostat; it's calibrated to permit creating any sub-gravitational -effect from one G down to null-G. Those boys are really getting trained. - -Someday I'll duplicate the null-grav over at the Project--Jim O'Brien -and I have nearly got the circuitry licked--and we'll have the living -room all to ourselves. Jim and his blushing bride--Gladys--come over -almost every evening after the Cadets are through. We play null-grav -polo, orbital chess and some other games we've adapted. Our favorite, -though, is "Pick Your Planet" where we take turns imitating the orbit -of one of Sol's planets, planetoids, moons or visiting comets, and -pantomiming other clues. - -Funny, but most often Helene or Gladys chooses Venus. With them, poor -cold old Pluto's out. - -Women are funny that way. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLY ORBITING -BLONDE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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