[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Maximillian immediately pivoted preparatory to blocking the captain s exit.
 I m sure our host will take good care of us, said Pizer hastily, guessing
what Holland was up to.  After all, the good doctor indicated he wanted his
guests properly treated.
 Don t worry about me. Holland spoke confidently to the threatening mass of
Maximillian.  I ll find my way. Be back soon, Charlie. Make sure you get
every-thing we might need.
 Will do. Pizer reached up and boldly tugged at one of the giant s arms, an
arm which could have lifted half a dozen men off the deck without effort. It
did not move. Pizer didn t expect that it would, but Maximil-lian would note
the gesture.
 We need primary and secondary demand oxygen pressure valves, with attached
microputer units. And a decent ECS proportion flow controller.
Holland was out the door and turning up the cor-ridor they had come down,
walking with the easy air of a man who had all the time in the world. But he
was sweating.
Maximillian moved half a meter toward the door, then stopped, obviously
confused as to how he should proceed.
 Max, Dr. Reinhardt told you to requisition the parts for us. Let s get
cracking. I m as anxious as you are to get out of here.
Still moving uncertainly, the huge mechanical turned away from the door.
Extending a limb, he plugged himself into the inventory. Lights flashed on the
arm. Corresponding lights began to blink on within the rows of shelving. A
drawer popped open, then a second, each occurrence matched by a distinctive
musical tone.
  Way to go, Max.  Way to go. Pizer managed to conceal his relief.
While Pizer busied Maximillian with the long list of parts requests, Vincent
sidled off to one side, hovered near the desk.  I see by your markings that
you re from the old Two-Eight. General Services, right? Where you originate
from on Earth . . . Amsterdam? Kuala Lumpur? All the factory jobs from Lumpur
called their serial run the tin cans, and proud of it. How about you?
It was as if the older robot simply didn t have au-dio-reception capability.
From its markings and body style Vincent knew that was absurd. But it
Page 45
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
continued to act as if it were completely deaf. It whined away down the
nearest aisle of shelving, attending to chores which doubtless included
maintaining the room and its functions. Lights flashed erratically on
Vincent s torso, the nearest he could come to non-verbally expressing
frustration.
What in the Unitary was wrong with the old cousin. . . ?
7
THE air car had transported them rapidly down the length of the Cygnus, far
past the dock where the Palo-mino lay berthed in emptiness.
They emerged into a corridor, left the car. Reinhardt led them into a large
chamber filled with the most complex instrumentation McCrae had yet seen on
the ship. A steady hum came from somewhere nearby, a whisper of great forces
and energies held in check.
The consoles lining the walls were of a peculiar design. In places she clearly
recognized units that were outmoded on Earth by the twenty years that had
passed. Elsewhere were components and devices whose purpose she could not
decipher. And then there were hybrid instruments that combined very old,
discarded aspects of space-going technology with a sophistication superior to
anything she had ever seen.
The entire room was a mixture of the outdated and the ultramodern. It looked
like a witch doctor s hut lined with masks and dead animals on one side and a
unitized, free-state diagnostic computer on the other.
 Once left to myself, Reinhardt was telling them,  I had a great deal of time
to explore ideas that previ-ous endeavors, such as overseeing the construction
of the Cygnus, had forbidden me. My isolation provided the time, and the
Cygnus s laboratories the means, for much extensive research. So I became
obsessed with repairing the engines because all the experts were con-vinced
they could not be repaired, and tremendously frustrated when I was eventually
forced to agree with them. He smiled meaningfully, his hands conducting his
words.
 That is, they could not be made to function in the accepted sense, in the way
they had been designed to function. So I was forced to experiment with
concepts that had lain long dormant in the back of my mind.
 Frank McCrae helped, until he died. Then I worked on alone with the
computers, with all the power of the Cygnus s vast mental resources to aid me.
The result was the achievement of one of man s greatest dreams, a dream
attainable only in free space. I have discovered how to isolate and draw
usable power from the reaction of matter and anti-matter.
Their expressions revealed their shock, and he was pleased.
 Yes, I know many scientists consider such an ac-complishment beyond the power
of our physics, con-sider it impossible. They were correct. It is impossible .
. . without the assistance of a stabilizing field analo-gous to the one that
bends gravity around the Cygnus and keeps us from being sucked into the black
hole. So we see at work again the marvelous serendipity of science, where one
discovery leads to another far greater.
He turned to face McCrae.  It was in the mining of an asteroid for sufficient
mass to power the new en-gines that your father was killed.
He moved to a long viewport, halted there and ges-tured below it. They moved
to look.
Below was the largest open area they had yet en-countered on the Cygnus. Four
large, sealed, massive shapes glowed faintly with their individual auroras.
They were the ship s supralight engines, but different now. They had been
altered. Reinhardt s mechanical workers had done an admirable job.
 I could give you the output of those engines in ergs, or gigawatts, or any
Page 46
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
other set of measures you chose. I will simply tell you, without exaggeration
or boastfulness, that there is enough energy capacity down there to supply all
of Earth.
His listeners seemed impressed, so he forged ahead.  The seemingly insoluble
problem with matter-anti-matter energy production on a practical scale was
never in the releasing of the energy but in the finding of a means to contain
the reaction safely so it would not spread. My null-g field provided that. It
was all very simple, really. First it is demonstrated that such a field is
possible. Then the engines are modified to gen-erate a variation of said
field. They produce enough in-itial power to maintain this field within
themselves and contain the matter-anti-matter reaction. This new source of
power in turn produces a far more powerful field which surrounds the ship and
enables it to hold its position against the attractive force of the black
hole. You see, one discovery thus complements the other. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • moje-waterloo.xlx.pl

    •