Lensman 04 Smith, E E 'Doc' Gray Lensman

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waste material is becoming scarce. It will take the substance of a fairly
large planet to produce that which you require. You have, perhaps, a planet in
mind which is to be used for the purpose?"
"Better than that. I have in mind the material of just such a planet, but
already broken up into sizes convenient for handling."
"Oh, the asteroid belt!" Thorndyke exclaimed. "Fine! Kill two birds with one
stone, huh? Build this thing and at the same time clear out the menaces to
inert interplanetary navigation? But how about the miners?"
"All covered. The ones actually in development will be let alone. They're
not menaces, anyway, as they all have broadcasters. The tramp miners we
send�at Patrol expense and grubstake�to some other system to do their mining.
But there's one more point before we flit. Are you sure you can shift to the
second stage without an accident?"
"Positive. Build another one around it, mount new Bergs, exciters, and
screens on it, and let this one, machines and all, go in to feed the
kitty�whatever it is."
"QX. Let's go, fellows!"
Two huge Tellurian freighters were at hand; and, holding the small framework
between them in a net of tractors and pressors, they set off blithely toward
Sol. They took a couple of hours for the journey�there was no hurry, and in
the handling of this particular freight caution was decidedly of the essence.
Arrived at destination, the crews tackled with zest and zeal this new game.
Tractors lashed out, seizing chunks of iron...
"Pick out the little ones, men," cautioned Kinnison. "Nothing over about ten
feet in section-dimension will go into this frame. Better wait for the second
frame before you try to handle the big ones."
"We can cut 'em up," Thorndyke suggested. "What've we got these shear-planes
for?"
"QX if you like. Just so you keep the kitty fed."
"We'll feed her!" and the game went on.
Chunks of debris�some rock, but mostly solid meteoric nickel-iron�shot
toward the vessels and the ravening sphere, becoming inertialess as they
entered a wide-flung zone. Pressors seized them avidly, pushing them through
the interstices of the framework, holding them against the voracious screen.
As they touched the screen they disappeared; no matter how fast they were
driven the screen ate them away, silently and unspectacularly, as fast as they
could be thrown against it. A weird spectacle indeed, to see a jagged fragment
of solid iron, having a mass of thousands of tons, drive against that screen
and disappear! For it vanished, utterly, along a geometrically perfect
spherical surface. From the opposite side the eye could see the mirror sheen
of the metal at the surface of disintegration; it was as though the material
were being shoved out of our familiar three-dimensional space into another
universe�which, as a matter of cold fact, may have been the case.
For not even the men who were doing the work made any pretense of
understanding what was happening to that iron. Indeed, the only entities who
did have any comprehension of the phenomenon-the forty-odd geniuses whose
mathematical wizardry had made it possible�thought of it and discussed it, not
in the limited, three-dimensional symbols of every-day existence, but only in
the language of high mathematics; a language in which few indeed are able
really and readily to think.
And while the crews became more and more expert at the new technique, so
that metal came in faster and faster-huge, hot-sliced bars of iron ten feet
square and a quarter of a mile long were being driven into that enigmatic
sphere of extinction-an outer framework a hundred and fifty miles in diameter
was being built. Nor, contrary to what might be supposed, was a prohibitive
amount of metal or of labor necessary to fabricate that mammoth structure.
Instead of six there were six cubed�two hundred sixteen�working stations,
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complete with generators and super-Bergenholms and screen generators, each
mounted upon a massive platform; but, instead of being connected and supported
by stupendous beams and trusses of metal, those platforms were linked by
infinitely stronger bonds of pure force. It took a lot of ships to do the job,
but the technicians of the Patrol had at call enough floating machine shops
and to spare.
When the sphere of negation grew to be about a foot in apparent diameter it
had been found necessary to surround it with a screen opaque to all visible
light, for to look into it long or steadily then meant insanity. Now the
opaque screen was sixteen feet in diameter, nearing dangerously the sustaining
framework, and the outer frame was ready. It was time to change.
The Lensman held his breath, but the Medonians and the Tellurian technicians
did not turn a hair as they mounted their new stations and tested their
apparatus.
"Ready," "Ready," "Ready." Station after station reported; then, as
Thorndyke threw in the master switch, the primary sphere-invisible now,
through distance, to the eye, but plain upon the visiplates-disappeared; a
mere morsel to those new gigantic forces.
"Swing into it, boys!" Thorndyke yelled into his transmitter. "We don't have
to feed her with a teaspoon any more. Let her have it!"
And "let her have it" they did. No more cutting up of the larger meteorites;
asteroids ten, fifteen, twenty miles in diameter, along with hosts of smaller
stuff, were literally hurled through the black screen into the even lusher
blackness of that which was inside it, without complaint from the quietly
humming motors.
"Satisfied, Kim?" Thorndyke asked.
"Uh-huh!" the Lensman assented, vigorously. "Nice!... Slick, in fact," he
commended. "I'll buzz off now, I guess."
"Might as well�everything's on the green. Clear ether, spacehound!"
"Same to you, big fella. I'll be seeing you, or sending you a thought.
There's Tellus, right over there. Funny, isn't it, doing a flit to a place you
can actually see before you start?"
The trip to Earth was scarcely a hop, even in a supply-boat. To Prime Base
the Gray Lensman went, where he found that his new non-ferrous speedster was
done; and during the next few days he tested it out thoroughly. It did not
register at all, neither upon the regular, long-range ultra-instruments nor
upon the short-range emergency electros. Nor could it be seen in space, even
in a telescope at point-blank range. True, it occulted an occasional star; but
since even the direct rays of a search-light failed to reveal its shape to the
keenest eye�the Lensmen-chemists who had worked out that ninety nine point
nine nine percent absolute black coating had done a wonderful job-the chance
of discovery through that occurrence was very slight.
"QX, Kim?" the Port Admiral asked. He was accompanying the Gray Lensman on a
last tour of inspection.
"Fine, chief. Couldn't be better�thanks a lot."
"Sure you're non-ferrous yourself?"
"Absolutely. Not even an iron nail in my shoes."
"What is it, then? You look worried. Want something expensive?"
"You hit the thumb, Admiral, right on the nail. But it's not only
expensive�we may never have any use for it."
"Better build it, anyway. Then if you want it you'll have it, and if you
don't want it we can always use it for something. What is it?"
"A nut-cracker. There are a lot of cold planets around, aren't there, that
aren't good for anything?"
"Thousands of them�millions."
"The Medonians put Bergenholms on their planet and flew it from Lundmark's [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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