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Each of these was in continuous interphone communication with his subordinates in other posts throughout the ship. Each viewplate had its phone connecting with its "eye machines" on the hull, the crews of which would switch from telescopic to normal view at command. There were, of course, many other viewplates at executive posts throughout the ship.
If there were any it did not kill, I knew they would be taken care of by the other balls in the string which would follow. I had to slow it up, however, near the head of the shaft to take my bearings; and a sea of evil faces, contorted with livid terror, looked at me from my viewplate.
The particular view which appeared on my own wall fortunately showed the east side of the dome viewplate and in one corner of my picture appeared the Executive Marshal himself. Although I was getting a viewplate picture of a viewplate picture, I could see the broad, rugged valley to the east plainly, and the relatively low ridge beyond, which must have been some thirty miles away.
Above and below the viewplate were the pointers and the swinging needles which indicated the speed and angle of vertical movement, the altimeter, the directional compass, and the horizontal speed and distance indicators. The manipulation of these levers I had found, with a very little practice, most instinctive and simple.
"She's there, and on time," grinned Russ happily. He tried more magnification. Could he He was tired, terribly, suddenly tired. He took his hands from the viewplate controls, relaxed, and dropped off to sleep. "What made me so tired wonder GOD!" He straightened with a jerk, and his hands flew to the controls. The view on the machine suddenly retreated, flew back with a velocity inconceivable.
The young man, for instance, might recline at his ease in his apartment near the top of the city, and for three or four hours a day inspect, through his viewplate and certain specially installed apparatus, the output of a certain process in one of the vast automatically controlled food factories buried far underground beneath the base of the mountain, where the moan of its whirring and throbbing machinery would not disturb the peace and quiet of the citizens on the mountain top.
It is true you have been able to resist our psychoanalysts and hypnotists, and so have no value to us from the viewpoint of military information, but as a philosopher, you have proved interesting indeed." He broke off to give his attention to a gorgeously uniformed official who suddenly appeared on the large viewplate that formed one wall of the apartment.
It was as though the side wall of my apartment had dissolved, and we looked into a large room or office which had no walls or ceiling, these being replaced by the interior surface of a hemisphere, which was in fact a vast viewplate on which those in the room could see in every direction. Some 200 staff officers had their desks in this room.
Another scanner came into action, and the viewplate was alive again. Arcot shot out a cosmic ray himself, and swept the Thessian with it thoroughly. For the instant he needed the enemy ship was blinded. Immediately the Ancient Mariner dove, and the automatic ray-finders could no longer hold the rays on his ship.
For an instant San-Lan sat as though paralyzed. Then he leaped to his feet, facing the viewplate. "Let me see you!" he snarled. Instantly the mountain view disappeared and the Intelligence Officer appeared again, this time looking a little frightened. "Where is Lui-Lok?" he shouted. "Cut him in on my north plate. The commander who loses his city dies by torture. Cut him in. Cut him in!"
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