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Rip looked through the thick port beside him and saw the distinctive blue glow of a nuclear drive cruiser sliding sternward toward the platform. "Wave your eye stalks at that job," Flip said admiringly. "Wonder what it’s doing here?" The space platform was a refueling depot where conventional chemical fuel rockets topped off their tanks before flaming for space.
No cruiser could survive an atomic explosion within five hundred yards, and the Connie would have to get closer to the nuclear charge than that. Dominico reported that the bomb had been dismantled. Rip went to it and examined the raw plutonium, being careful to keep the pieces widely separated. This particular bomb design used five pieces of plutonium which were driven together to form a ball.
What's coming up now is just small debris from the nuclear blast. When the shock-waves get down far enough to crack things open, the gas'll come up, and then steam and ash, and then magma." "Well, even this was worth staying over for," the girl said, watching the screen. "You going on to Ullr on the City of Canberra?" Lourenço Gomes asked.
While we have no precedent that would enable us to gauge the consequences of an extensive nuclear war it seems reasonable to assume that it would further fragment an already fragmented European continent. The heavy burdens of militarism which western civilization is presently carrying, have unbalanced budgets, which lead to inflation and to onerous burdens of debt and taxes.
Now, in nuclear drive ships, the same word was used for the moment when power was cut off. Words interested him. He started to mention it to Koa just as the telescreen lit up. An officer’s face appeared. "Send that Planeteer officer to the commander," the face said. "Tell him to show an exhaust." Rip called instantly to the safety officer. "Where’s his office?"
For a few heartbeats he almost called Koa and told him to wait that extra minute, to explode the nuclear charge at 2306, at the very last second. But even Planeteer chronometers could be off by a few seconds and he couldn’t risk it. His men had to be given some leeway. The decision made, he put his mind to the problem. There must be some way out. There must be! He surveyed the asteroid.
Tell me honestly, gentlemen, what would you have thought of Astro, a Venusian, if he had acted any differently than he has? If he had taken an oath he does not believe and groveled at our feet? No, gentlemen, to kill this proud, freeborn Venusian would be a crime. Tell me, Astro, do you have any skills?" "I can handle nuclear materials in any form."
Cooperation with the Soviet Union serves the cause of peace, for in this nuclear age, world peace must include peace between the super powers and it must mean the control of nuclear arms.
Rip sent in his recommendations for promotions, and looked over the last nuclear crater to see why the blast had started the asteroid spinning. The reason could only be guessed. The blast probably had opened a fault in the crystal, allowing the explosion to escape partially in the wrong direction. Once the course was corrected, Rip calculated the position for the final nuclear charge.
Under the political pressures backed by the human horror of all nations, the nuclear disarmament act of the U.N. had given to the U.N. the power of inspection of any country or any manufacturing complex anywhere in the world; inspection privileges that overrode national boundaries and considerations of national integrity, and a police force to back this up a police force comprised of men from every nation, the U.N. Security Corps.
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