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Soon there was a terrific explosion as the pent-up air of the planetoid broke through its weakening container, and the sluggish river of allotropic iron flowed in an ever larger stream, ever faster. "It is well that we had an unlimited supply of iron." Nerado tied a knot in his neck and spoke in huge relief.
Breathlessly, their eyes flicking back and forth from the solar clock to the magnascope, they waited for the red hand to sweep around. "Here it comes," said Tom excitedly. "One second two seconds three four five!" On the surface of the planetoid, giant mushrooming clouds appeared climbing into the airless void. One by one the reactor units exploded. Connel counted them as they blew up.
I have been wondering, and have been able to learn nothing about him; as you have said, such talk as this aboard the planetoid was impossible." "You needn't worry about being paid your price; that's one thing. If we live and that was part of the agreement, you know we will all get what we sold out for. You will become a belted earl. I have already made millions, and shall make many more.
There's a lot of gossip, that may or may not be true, but I know one very startling fact. Here it is. My great-great-grandfather left some notes which, taken in connection with certain things I myself saw on the planetoid, prove beyond question that our Roger went to Harvard University at the same time he did.
"Those waves are of some ultra-band, of a frequency immensely higher than anything heretofore known. Our screens should not have stopped them for an instant. It is a mystery that they have held so long, and certainly this single section will not be permitted to leave the planetoid without being destroyed." "There are many things you do not know, Mirsky," came the cold and level answer.
Unlike the bigger, more powerful battle cruisers, she could be landed directly on any planet with less than a two-gee pull at the surface. The really big babies had to be parked in an orbit and loaded by shuttle; they'd break up of their own weight if they tried to set down on anything bigger than a good-sized planetoid.
Now other artificial matter tools set to work at Arcot's bidding, and cut pieces from his huge masses of raw materials, and literally, quick as thought, built a great framework of them, anchored in the solid rock of the planetoid.
Three more of the frightful space-bombs had to be exploded in it it had to be reduced to junk before its terrible rays went out; Not a man in that great fleet had even an inkling of the truth; that those great vessels, those terrible engines of destruction, did not contain a single living creature: that they were manned and fought by automatons; robots controlled by keen-eyed, space-hardened veterans inside the planetoid so distant by means of tight, interference-proof communicator beams!
This ship would weigh a quarter of a million tons! That stuff is dense!" "Sure," agreed Arcot, "but we'll need the protection. With a ship like that, you could run through a planetoid without hurting the hull. We'll make the relux inner wall about an inch thick, with a vacuum between them for protection in a warm atmosphere.
In their quarters in the fourth section the three Terrestrials, who had watched with strained attention the downfall and absorption of the planetoid, stared at each other with drawn faces. Clio broke the silence. "Oh, Conway, this is ghastly! It's ... it's just simply perfectly horrible!" she gasped, then recovered a measure of her customary spirit as she stared in surprise at Costigan's face.
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