Solution Manual for Biology The Dynamic Science, 4th Edition

Biology The Dynamic Science, 4th

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2
LIFE, CHEMISTRY, AND WATER

Chapter Outline
WHY IT MATTERS
2.1 THE ORGANIZATION OF MATTER: ELEMENTS AND ATOMS
Living organisms are composed of about 25 key elements.
Elements are composed of atoms, which combine to form molecules.
2.2 ATOMIC STRUCTURE
The atomic nucleus contains protons and neutrons.
The nuclei of some atoms are unstable and tend to break down to form simpler atoms.
The electrons of an atom occupy orbitals around the nucleus.
Orbitals occur in discrete layers around an atomic nucleus.
The number of electrons in the outermost energy level of an atom determines its chemical activity.
FOCUS ON APPLIED RESEARCH: USING RADIOISOTOPES IN MEDICINE
2.3 CHEMICAL BONDS AND CHEMICAL REACTIONS
Ionic bonds are multidirectional and vary in strength.
Covalent bonds are formed by electrons in shared orbitals.
Unequal electron sharing results in polarity.
Polar molecules tend to associate with each other and exclude nonpolar molecules.
Hydrogen bonds also involve unequal electron sharing.
Van der Waals forces are weak attractions over very short distances.
Molecules have characteristic geometries that determine their functions in the cell.
Bonds form and break in chemical reactions.
2.4 HYDROGEN BONDS AND THE PROPERTIES OF WATER
A lattice of hydrogen bonds gives water several unusual, life-sustaining properties.
The differing densities of water and ice.
The boiling point and temperature-stabilizing effects of water.
Cohesion and surface tension.
The polarity of water molecules in the hydrogen-bond lattice contributes to polar and nonpolar environments in
and around cells.
The small size and polarity of its molecules makes water a good solvent.
In the cell, chemical reactions involve solutes dissolved in aqueous solutions.
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 2.5 WATER IONIZATION AND ACIDS, BASES, AND BUFFERS
Substances act as acids or bases by altering the concentrations of H + and OH- ions in water.
Buffers help keep pH under control.
THINK OUTSIDE THE BOOK
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Learning Objectives
2.1 Explain the composition of matter in terms of elements and atoms.
2.1.1 Describe the elemental composition of living organisms.
2.1.2 Describe atoms, molecules, elements, and compounds.
2.2 Describe the basic structure of atoms.
2.2.1 Summarize the constitution and properties of atoms and their isotopes.
2.2.2 Illustrate the arrangement of electrons around an atomic nucleus.
2.2.3 Explain how electrons determine the chemical properties of atoms.
2.3 Compare the four major types of chemical bonds.
2.3.1 Compare ionic, covalent, and hydrogen bonds.
2.3.2 Discuss polar and nonpolar bonds and molecular associations.
2.3.3 Describe van der Waals forces.
2.3.4 Explain the role of chemical bonds in chemical reactions and determining molecular shape.
2.4 Illustrate the structure and properties of water.
2.4.1 Discuss the role of the hydrogen bond lattice in determining the properties of water.
2.4.2 Discuss how molecular polarity contributes to the properties of water.
2.5 Describe the constitution and properties of acids, bases, and buffers.
2.5.1 Compare acids and bases.
2.5.2 Describe the pH scale.
2.5.3 Discuss the role of buffers in biological systems.
.

Key Terms
element mass nonpolar covalent calories
matter weight bonds calorie
trace elements radioactivity polar covalent bonds kilocalorie (kcal)
atoms radioisotope polar associations heat of vaporization
molecules radiometric dating nonpolar associations cohesion
formula tracers hydrophilic surface tension
compounds orbital hydrophobic bilayer
atomic nucleus energy levels hydrogen bonds hydration layer
electrons shells van der Waals forces solution
protons valence electrons molecular geometry solvent
reactants
atomic number chemical bonds solute
products
neutrons cation concentration
chemical equations
isotopes anion atomic weight
water lattice
dalton covalent bonds Avogadro’s number
ice lattice
mass number electronegativity molecular weight
specific heat
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accessible website, in whole or in part.
mole (mol) reversible acidity buffers
molarity acids pH scale
dissociate bases acid precipitation

Lecture Outline
Why It Matters
A. All plants, animals, and other organisms are collections of atoms and molecules linked together by
chemical bonds.
1. Decades of research have confirmed that the same laws of chemistry and physics govern both living
and nonliving things.
2. Therefore, an understanding of the relationship between the structure of chemical substances and their
behavior is the first step in learning biology.

2.1 The Organization of Matter: Elements and Atoms

A. There are 92 different elements occurring naturally on Earth, and more than 15 artificial elements have
been synthesized in the laboratory.
1. An element is a pure substance that cannot be broken down into simpler substances by ordinary
chemical or physical techniques.
2. Matter is anything that occupies space and has mass.
B. Living organisms are composed of about 25 key elements.
1. Four elements make up 96% of the weight of living organisms: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and
nitrogen.
2. Seven elements compose most of the remaining 4%: calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, sodium,
chlorine, and magnesium.
3. Trace elements are those that compose <0.01% of an organism.
4. The relative proportion of different elements in humans, plants, Earth’s crust, and seawater are quite
different from one another (Figure 2.1).
a. The differences in the proportions of elements in living organisms compared to those in Earth’s
crust and seawater reflect the highly ordered chemical structure of living organisms.
C. Elements are composed of atoms, which combine to form molecules.
1. Atoms are the smallest units that retain the chemical and physical properties of an element.
2. Atoms are identified by a one- or two-letter symbol (Table 2.1).
3. Atoms combine in fixed numbers and ratios to form molecules of living and nonliving molecules.
a. Oxygen is a molecule formed from the chemical combination of two oxygen atoms.
b. Carbon dioxide is a molecule of one carbon and two oxygen atoms chemically combined.
c. The name of the molecule is written in chemical shorthand as a formula using the symbols O 2 and
CO2.
4. Molecules whose component atoms are different, such as carbon dioxide, are called compounds.
a. Chemical and physical properties of compounds are different from the atoms that make them up.
b. Water (H2O) is liquid, while hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) are both gases.
c. Water (H2O) does not burn, while hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) are quite explosive.

2.2 Atomic Structure

A. All atoms consist of the same basic structure, an atomic nucleus surrounded by one or more electrons
(Figure 2.2).
1. The electrons may occupy more than 99.99% of the space, and the nucleus makes up more than
99.99% of the total mass.
B. The atomic nucleus contains protons and neutrons.
1. All atomic nuclei contain positively charged particles called protons.
a. The number of protons in the nucleus of each kind of atom is referred to as the atomic number and
specifically identifies the atom.
b. The smallest atom is hydrogen and has a single proton in its nucleus (an atomic number of 1).
c. The heaviest naturally occurring element is uranium and has 92 protons in its nucleus (an atomic
number of 92).

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accessible website, in whole or in part.
 Another random document
un-related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of After world's end
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: After world's end

Author: Jack Williamson

Release date: May 20, 2023 [eBook #70814]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Western Fiction Publishing Co. Inc,

1939

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFTER

WORLD'S END ***
 After World's End

By JACK WILLIAMSON

Author of "The Dead Spot," etc.

GREAT BOOK-LENGTH SUPER-SCIENCE NOVEL

Could the Earthmen ever win

against Malgarth, the Robot
monster? Was their only hope
Barry Horn, who had waked from
the age-long amnesic sleep of the
cosmic rays, and Dona Keradin, the
wonder-girl in the carbon crystal?

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Marvel Science Stories February 1939.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
We found the stranger, when we unlocked the bungalow after a week on the
lakes, seated at my big desk in the study. His face was an enigma of youth
and age. Lean beneath his long white hair, it was gray and drawn and
hollowed as if with an infinite heartbreak—and yet it smiled. His emaciated
hand, thrust out across the pile of loose yellow sheets he had written,
gripped an incredible thing.
Queerly lifelike, he was yet more queerly still.
"Why, hello!" I said.
And then, when he remained stiffly staring at that scintillating glory in his
rigid hand, we knew that he was dead.
His injuries, when we came to discover them, were dreadful as they were
inexplicable. All his gaunt, shrunken body—torso, neck, and limbs—
showed dark purple ridges. It looked as the body of Laocoön must have
looked, when the serpents were done. But we found no snakes in the
bungalow.
"The man was tortured," asserted the examining doctor. "By ropes, from the
looks of it, drawn mercilessly tighter. Flesh pulped beneath the skin. Grave
internal injuries. A miracle he lived as long as he did!"
For four or five days had passed, the doctors agreed, since the stranger
received his injuries. He had been dead, by the coroner's estimate, about
twenty hours when we found his body.
It is fortunate indeed for us all, by the way, that we had been together at the
lakes and that friends there were able to substantiate our mutual alibi.
Otherwise, in view of the incredible circumstances, ugly suspicion must
have fallen upon us.
"Death," ran the oddly phrased verdict of the coroner's jury, after we all had
been questioned, and the premises, the manuscript, and the stone examined,
"resulting from injuries sustained through the act of persons or things
unknown."
The stranger's life, as much as his death, remains a mystery. The sheriff and
the aiding state police have failed to identify him. The manuscript is signed,
"Barry Horn," but no record has been found that such a man is missing. The
medical examiners agreed that he was of contemporary American stock; but
they were mystified by the freaks of cell structure indicating extreme age in
a man apparently young.
His clothing, even, is enigma. Textile experts have failed to name the fine
rayon-like fibers of his odd gray tunic and the soiled, torn cloak we found
on the couch. The hard shiny buttons and buckle, like the bright pliant stuff
of his belt and sandals, have baffled the synthetic chemists.
The weapon we found in the yellow belt seems worth the study of science,
but no scientist yet has made anything of it. It looks like a big, queer pistol,
with a barrel of glass. Its mechanism is obviously broken, and my attempts
to fire it have proved unsuccessful.
How he came into the bungalow—unless in the strange way his manuscript
suggests—we have been unable to conjecture. For the house was securely
locked before we started to the lakes, and no fastening shows to have been
disturbed. A tramp, so the baffled sheriff argues, might break undetected
into an empty house—but, if anything seems certain about Barry Horn, it is
that he was not a common tramp.
The manuscript was written with my own pen, on paper he found in the
desk. The task must have taken him three or four days. The doctors seem
astonished that he was able to complete it. And it must have been a race
with pain and death, for the script is continually more hurried and uneven,
until, toward the end, it is barely legible.
The used dishes and empty cans on the kitchen table show that he found
several meals for himself—the last of which, evidently, he was unable to
eat, for the food was left untouched on the plate. A wrinkled rug lay with
his cloak on the couch, where he slept and rested.

He must have rummaged for something in the medicine cabinet, for we

found that open, and a bottle of mercurichrome smashed on the bathroom
floor. He seems to have made no effort, however, to get medical assistance.
For my telephone was sitting, dusty and untouched, on the desk where he
wrote and died.
He surely perceived the end, for the page beneath his hand was the opening
of a will. Had he lived to complete it, his instructions might have cleared up
much of the monstrous riddle. He had written:
To Whom It May Concern:
I, Barry Horn, being lately returned out of Space and Time to
this my own beloved land and era, finding myself yet clear in
mind but unregretfully aware of approaching death, do make
this my last will and testament.
First I must offer belated apology to the Carridans, the relatives
of my dead wife Dona, for the long bitterness I felt toward them
because they took from me, I felt unjustly, my only son.
Second, to the unknown holder of this house, in repayment for
his unwitting hospitality while it was being written, I bequeath
this manuscript, with all rights thereto. I hope that it may be
published, so that men may know something of the splendors
and the dangers awaiting their race in the far-off future. So that
others, perhaps, may share something of the love I feel for Kel
Aran, the last man of Earth; and for those two great women,
equally beauteous—Dondara Keradin, the Shadow of the Stone;
and Verel Erin, the Stone's Custodian and Kel's brave beloved.
For those three are more to me than any others I have known,
save only Dona Carridan.
Third, to my sole son and child, Barry, upon his being released
from the too-jealous guardianship of his mother's relatives, I
bequeath my clothing and weapon and the large diamond block I
have with me, requesting that he read the narrative I have
written before making any disposition of the diamond, which
was the Stone of Dondara.
Fourth, as Executor of this Will, I do hereby appoint my old
friend and attorney, Peter—
At that point the last agony must have struck. The pen wandered away on
an aimless track, dropped from dying fingers. The attorney's last name, and
Barry Horn's instructions for finding his son, remain unknown.
Weird riddles enough! But the most astounding puzzle is the diamond
block. An incredible brick of water-white crystalline fire, four inches long,
it weighs eleven hundred carats—nearly half a pound! It is quite flawless,
save for that singular shadow which certain lights show in its pellucid core
—if that white ghost could be termed a flaw.
Such a stone is beyond price—but for the mutual support of jewel and
manuscript, it would be beyond belief. For, while the famous Cullinan
Diamond was far larger in the rough, there is no credible record of any cut
stone weighing even half as much. Dealers, skeptical of its description and
astonished by its reality, have been reluctant to set any valuation upon it.
"By the carat, millions!" cried one startled jeweler. "But I should cut up
such a stone, like a cheese, never! Vait for some prince to giff his
kingdom!"
We have hesitated, despite the request in the unfinished will, to publish this
manuscript, especially since so large a part of the mystery is still unsolved.
For it is sure to be received with skepticism in the scientific world, and its
acceptance elsewhere may endanger the safety of the diamond.
But all other efforts to find Barry Horn's attorney and his son have failed.
Publication holds the only remaining hope of clearing up the mystery and
establishing the ownership of the jewel. Any person knowing the
whereabouts of the younger Barry Horn, or the identity of his father's
attorney, is requested to communicate immediately with the publishers.
 I
The Rocket Astronaut

"Mought dis be of int'rest to yuh, suh?"

The advertisement was pointed out to me by a friendly elevator operator at
the Explorer's Club. Placed in the classified columns of the New York
Standard, for October 8, 1938, it ran:
WANTED: Vigorous man, with training and experience in
scientific exploration, to undertake dangerous and unusual
assignment. Apply in person, this evening, 6 to 10. Dr. Hilaire
Crosno, Hotel Crichton.
That sounded good. I had been in New York just twice too long. Always,
when I had come back from the long solitudes of desert or jungle, the first
fortnight on Broadway was a promised paradise, and the second began to be
hell.
I gave the grinning boy a dollar, stuffed an envelope with credentials,
downed another stiff peg of whiskey, and walked into the glittering
chromium lobby on the stroke of six. My inquiry for Dr. Crosno worked
magic on the supercilious clerk.
Crosno proved to be a big man, with huge bald head and deep-sunken, dark,
magnetic eyes. The tension of his mouth hinted of some hidden strain, and
extreme pallor suggested that, physically, he was near the breaking point.
"Barry Horn?" His voice was deep and calm—yet somehow terrible with a
haunting echo of panic. He was shuffling through my references.
"Qualifications seem sound enough. Your doctorate?"
"Honorary," I told him. "For a pyramid I dug out of the jungle in Quintana
Roo." I glanced at the room's austere luxury, still trying to size him up. "Just
what, Doctor, is your 'unusual assignment—?'"
Majestically, he ignored my question. Gray eyes studied me.
"You look physically fit, but there must be an examination." He checked a
card in his hand. "You know something of astronomy and navigation?"
"Once I sailed the hull of a smashed seaplane a thousand miles across the
Indian Ocean."
The big head nodded, slowly.
"You could leave at once, for an—indefinite time?"
I said yes.
"Dependents?"
"I've a son, four years old." The bitterness must have shadowed my voice.
"But he's not dependent on me. His mother is dead, and her people
convinced the courts that a footloose explorer wasn't the proper guardian for
little Barry."
Dona Carridan was again before me, tall and proud and lovely. The one
year I had known her, when she had tempestuously left her wealthy family
to go with me to Mesopotamia, had been the happiest of my life. Suddenly I
was trembling again with the terror of the plane crash in the desert; our son
born in an Arab's tent; Dona, far from medical aid, dying in agony....
"Then, Horn," Crosno was asking, "you're ready to cut loose from—
everything?"
"I am."
He stared at me. His long-fingered hands, so very white, were trembling
with the papers. Suddenly he said, decisively:
"All right, Horn. You'll do."
"Now," I demanded again, "what's the job?"
"Come." He rose. "I'll show you."
A huge, shabby old car carried us uptown, across the George Washington
bridge, and up the river to a big, wooded estate. A uniformed butler let us
into an immense old house, as shabby as the car.
"My library."
Guiding me back through the house, Crosno paused as if he wished me to
look into the room. An intricate planetarium was suspended from the
ceiling. Glass cases held models of things that I took to be experimental
rockets. The big man silently pointed out shelves of books on explosives,
gases, aerodynamic design, celestial mechanics, and astro-physics. Startled,
I met Crosno's piercing eyes.
"Yes, Horn," he told me. "You're to be the first rocketeer."
"Eh?" I stared at him. "You don't mean—outer space?"
I wondered at the shadow of bleak despair that had fallen across his
cragged, dead-white features.
"Come," he said. "Into the garden."

The night had a frosty brilliance. Moonlight spilled over the trees and
neglected lawns; and Venus, westward, hung like a solitary drop of molten
silver. I stopped with a gasp of wonderment.
Weathered boards were stacked around the foundation of a dismantled
building. Upon the massive concrete floor, shimmering under the moon,
stood a tall bright cylinder. Bell-flared muzzles cast black shadows below.
A frail ladder led up its shimmering side, sixty feet at least, to the tiny black
circle of an entrance port.
"That—" A queer, stunned feeling had seized me. "That—"
"That is my rocket." The deep voice was ragged, choked. "The Astronaut."
His face was bleak with agony. "I've given twenty years of my life to go,
Horn. And now I must send another. An unsuspected weakness of my heart
—couldn't survive the acceleration."
The white lofty cylinder was suddenly a dreadful thing. There is a feeling
that comes upon me, definite as a grasping hand and a whispered warning.
Sometimes I have not heeded it, and always, in the end, found myself face
to face with death. Now that feeling said, There lies ghastly peril.
Slowly I turned to the tall pale man.
"I'm an explorer, all right, Crosno," I said. "I've taken risks, and I'm willing
to take more. But if you think I'm going to climb into that contraption, and
be blown off to the moon—"
The hurt on his gaunt bloodless face stopped my voice.
"Not the moon, Horn." A gesture of his long arm carried my gaze from the
mottled lunar disk, westward to the evening star. "To Venus," he said.
"First."
I caught my breath, staring in awe at the white planet.
"The range of the Astronaut," he said, "should enable you to reach there,
land, spend several months in exploration, and time your return to reach
Earth safely at the next conjunction—if you are very lucky."
His dark, magnetic eyes probed me.
"What do you say, Horn?"
"Give me a little while," I said. "Alone."
I walked out of the garden, and up through dark-massed trees to the open
summit of a little hill beyond. The autumn constellations flamed near and
bright above; yet I could hear crickets below, and a distant frog; could
sometimes catch a haunting flower-odor from the meadows.
A long time I stood there, gazing up at Venus and the stars. Earth, I thought,
had not been kind to me; life, since Dona's death, had seemed all weariness
and pain. Yet—could I leave it, willingly and forever?
Indecision tortured me, until I saw a shooting star. A white stellar bullet, out
of the black mystery of space, it flamed down across Cassiopeia and
Perseus; and somehow its fire rekindled in me that vague and yet intense
knowledge-lust that is the heart of any scientist.
But I couldn't understand the thing that happened then. It was a waking
dream, queerly real, that banished the sky and the hill. Standing in sudden
darkness, I saw a woman who lay sleeping in a long crystal box. Her slim,
long-limbed form was beautiful, and it seemed hauntingly familiar.
She seemed to wake, as I watched. She looked at me, with wide eyes that
were violet-black, and filled with an urgent dread. She half rose, in her thick
mantle of dark, red-gleaming hair. And her voice spoke to me from the
crystal casket, saying:
"Go, Barry Horn! You must go."
In another instant, the vision was ended. The soft night sounds and the
moonlight were about me again, and the autumnal breeze swept a cool
fragrance from the meadows. I caught a deep breath, and wrestled with
enigma.
The woman in the crystal had been, unmistakably, Dona Carridan!
Scientific training has left me little superstition. Walking back down the
hill, I wondered if I had been trying too hard to drown in alcohol my bitter
loneliness for her. It must have been hallucination. But her beauty and her
terror had been too real to ignore. I knew that I must go.
I went back to Crosno, waiting beside the rocket, and told him my decision.
But something caught my throat as I asked him, "When?"

Venus was overhauling Earth in its orbit, he said, approaching inferior

conjunction. His calculations were based on a start at three the next Sunday
morning.
"Four days," he said. "Can you be ready?"
I said I could. And there was oddly little to do. I packed and stored a few
possessions, called on my attorney, and then went back to study the controls
and mechanism of the rocket.
The greatest danger, Crosno said, would be from the Cosmic Rays. They
would penetrate the rocket. He made me take a drug to guard against them.
"It was compounded for me by a great radiologist," he told me. "A
modification of the Petrie formula. The base of it is uranium salts. The
activity of that should neutralize the cosmic radiation."
The stuff was a greenish liquid. He injected it into my arm, twice daily. The
only apparent effect was a feverish restlessness. I was unable to sleep,
despite a mounting, crushing fatigue.
On the last night, when all was tested and ready, Crosno sent me up to my
room. But the torture of that insomnia drove me to slip out of the house. I
walked for many hours across the slumbering countryside. The world slept
beneath a gibbous moon. Far off, a train rumbled and whistled. A dog
barked in the distance. The air was spiced with autumn. A slow dull regret
rose in me that I must leave all this—all the Earth.
I thought of Dona, dead. Suddenly my bitterness toward her people seemed
a childish, petulant thing. I wanted to make peace with them. For Dona's
sake, and little Barry's. I wanted to find a telephone, and call them, and talk
to little Barry.
But it was long past midnight—too late to wake the child. I recalled that
strange dream, hallucination, whatever it was, of Dona in the crystal box.
And a sudden breathless eagerness turned me back to Crosno's place. He
was waiting about the rocket, alarmed by my absence.
"I couldn't sleep," I told him. "That damned drug—"
"I was afraid—" he said anxiously. "You've just ten minutes."
I climbed the spidery ladder, pulled myself through the small round man-
hole into the cramped tiny control room, and screwed the airtight plate into
position behind me. Outside, Crosno dived into a sand-bagged shelter.
Trying to forget that I was sitting on enough high explosive to blow me to
kingdom come, I kept my eyes on an illuminated chronometer. My hands
were cold and trembling on the three levers connected to the three rocket
motors. At last the needle touched the hour, and I pulled the firing levers.
The sound was the shriek of a million typhoons. The rocket drove upward
like a giant sledge. I could see the hurricane of fire spread blue against the
dark ground. It covered Crosno's shelter.
Then all the Earth was whisked downward. Enduring that hell of deafening
sound and battering force, I held the three levers down for seeming
eternities. At last the velometer showed eight miles a second—enough to
escape the gravity of Earth—and I shut off the motors.
A strange peace filled the tiny room. The silence and the apparent want of
motion—for I had no sense of the rocket's terrific velocity—cradled me in
delicious comfort. I set out to discover my position and course.
The moonlit Earth became visibly a huge round ball, floating amid the stars,
slowly receding. The moon was a queer globe of harsh light and blackness,
drifting beside my path. The Sun came finally into view from behind the
Earth, so intolerably bright that I slid the metal screens over the ports
toward it.

A long time I searched for Venus, which also had been hidden when I
started. Bright, tiny point, I could hardly realize that it was another world,
rushing toward our rendezvous with a speed greater than my own.
I was fumbling for sextant and slide rule and tables, to try to discover and
correct the direction of my flight, when I first perceived the prickling of my
flesh. A queerly painful feeling, burning through every tissue.
It must be the Cosmic Rays, I knew; those intense, space-pervading
radiations from which the Earth is shielded only by miles of atmosphere.
Perhaps I hadn't taken enough of Crosno's drug. With numbed hands I
found the little hypodermic clipped to the wall, shot another heavy dose into
my arm.
"No sleep now," I muttered wearily. "Not for a million miles!"
And I reached again for the sextant. For the white point of Venus was
incredibly tiny, and thirty million miles away. The slightest deviation, I
knew, would carry me thousands of miles wide of the target—perhaps to
fall into the merciless furnace of the Sun.
But a queer, deadly numbness had followed the prickling. I felt a terrible
sudden pressure of sleep. All the accumulated fatigue of those sleepless
nights and days poured over me resistlessly.
I knew it wouldn't do to sleep—not until the course of the Astronaut had
been calculated and corrected. A delay of minutes, even, might be fatal.
With dead hands I struggled to adjust the sextant, fighting for life itself.
But the instrument slipped from my fingers. The drug, I thought. Some
reaction with the Cosmic Rays; an effect that Crosno had not anticipated.
Missing ... Venus ...
I slept.
 II
The Conquest of the Stars

Uranium is a strange element, slightly understood. Its atom is the heaviest

known. It is the mother of a dozen others, even of magic radium. For its
radioactive atom breaks down to form a chain of other elements, but so
slowly that only half the mass is consumed in six billion years.
The uranium salts in that drug must have been responsible for my sleep.
At first there was only blank darkness.
Then out of it spoke a low, clear voice, terribly familiar—the voice of Dona
Carridan and of the woman in the crystal box—calling urgently:
"Barry! Wake up, Barry Horn."
Then, out of trembling awe, I came back to a queer sort of subliminal
awareness. Something I had never experienced before, it was the sort of
perception that might be possessed by a truly disembodied mind—yet I had
an odd feeling that it came to me through the voice that had called.
I remember reading of Rhine's famous experiments in "parapsychology." It
must have been some phenomenon of what he calls extra-sensory
perception, independent of nerves and sense-organs, even of distance and
time, that came to my sleeping brain.
It was a thing of thought alone. I was aware of my stiff body, slumped
awkwardly over the controls of the silent, hurtling rocket. But the rigid
flesh seemed no more real, no more a part of me, than the run-down
chronometer or the cold rocket muzzles.
It was nothing of feeling or hearing or sight, and I knew that it was guided
by another mind. Gradually it spread, an expanding sphere of awareness. It
went beyond the rocket. I perceived Venus, and knew that indeed I had
missed it.
The Astronaut was plunging toward the Sun!
Filled with an oddly vague alarm, I made a dim effort to move my body,
long enough at least to correct the course of the rocket. But that proved
altogether hopeless. And I soon forgot all danger, in the wonder of this new
perception.
For I had missed Venus!
Crosno, I knew, had allowed eighty-nine days for me to reach intersection
with its orbit. But already the cloud-shrouded globe of it had flashed back
beside me, fleet as a silver shadow.
Three months gone!
The next instant, I thought, the rocket would strike the Sun! No, its original
momentum carried it by. Yet the star of day filled an enormous fiery circle.
The rocket flung about it like a stone on a string. Then, like the stone when
the string breaks, it hurtled outward again into space.
The incredible truth came slowly to me—
The Astronaut was now a comet!
Some freak of celestial mechanics, while my numb hands slept on the firing
levers, had flung it into an elliptic orbit. A sealed vault flying in the void,
like the fabulous coffin of Mohammed, it was destined to flash again
around the Sun, recede, drop again ... forever!
All that cycle happened, with the thought.
Years, I knew, had passed. Time was rushing by me like a river. I could
sense the swift rotation of the planets, their deliberate orbital swing, even
the northward drift of the whole solar system. And yet again I was amazed
by the range and vividness of this new intuition.
For, thinking of Crosno back upon the Earth, I suddenly could see his place
beside the Hudson, as clearly as if I had been floating above the trees. The
old house was shabbier than ever, sagging. Behind it stood a tall white
monument, upon which I read: Hilaire Crosno, 1889-1961.
Sixty-one!
Already it was twenty years and more since I had left the Earth. And it
seemed the merest instant! For a moment I was stunned. Then I wanted