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Five hundred people were picking themselves up from the floor, were trampling each other, milling around, being cast helplessly down as the great rocket-plane, its left wing but a broken stub, circled downward toward the Atlantic. The shouts of officers sounded and a loudspeaker blared. "Be calm," it kept repeating, and then, "There has been a collision. We have contacted a surface ship.
He also carried a belt radio, and as we approached he lifted the phone to his mouth and a loudspeaker on the combat car threw his voice at us: "All right, that's far enough, now. The first vehicle that comes within a hundred yards of this gate will be shot down." One man, and one combat car, against five thousand, with twenty-odd guns and close to a hundred machine guns.
Later he would see infrequent dome farms, but he could expect no more than two or three score of these in the entire long drive to Hesperidum. Dark slowed and entered the cloverleaf that took him onto the bypass expressway. Even as he did so, the radio crackled and the thin voice of the Chief sounded over the groundcar loudspeaker. "Attention, Phoenix," said the Chief intensely.
"I seek your grace to go below." The loudspeaker said no more, but after a moment the gate stirred and lifted into the ceiling. Happy went through it gratefully, and waddled down the gently sloping ramp. The gate descended behind him. Happy did not know whether Shadow had come through the open gate with him, but it didn't matter. Shadow could slip easily through the bars when he wished.
The tail hung down almost to the ground, the rocket hanging at an angle at its end. The loudspeaker voice said, "Stand by. Mark! Zero minus thirty." The bodyguard reached up and cut the rope! Rick saw the flying stingaree heading directly toward him, rising slowly, caught by the ground wind. He brought his spear gun into position and rose to his full height, snapping off the safety catch.
"For the love of Pete," shouted the loudspeaker beside him in volume to drown out the pilot's words, "are you sending this by short wave, or are you just yelling across to me? Calm down, you Irish terrier!" Then, before the pilot could reply, the voice from the silver and red patrol ship dropped into an exaggerated mimicry of the O'Malley brogue "And did yez say 'twas a freighter you had there?
"Yes, sir. One moment! It's calling, sir! Here it is ." There was a clicking, and then there came a voice which had the curious quality of a loudspeaker sound picked up and relayed through another loudspeaker. "Calling ground! Calling ground! Space-yacht Sylva reports arrival and asks coordinates for landing. Our mass is two hundred tons standard. Purpose of visit, pleasure-travel." A pause.
Now there was a sign in front which simply said MARSPORT LEGAL POLICE FORCE HEADQUARTERS. Then the jeeps had driven back to the rockets, gone on board, and the ships had taken off. Gordon glanced at his watch, finding it hard to believe it could have been done so quickly. But it was two hours after sundown. Now a car with a loudspeaker on top rolled into view a completely armored car.
Stay where you are, Lew," he bellowed into the unresponsive loudspeaker. "Jake White. Jake White's in four. Said I'd buy him a drink afterwards. Joke. He's a cocacola boy. Why can't you stay inside, Jake? Why can't you stay put?"
True, the loudspeaker, the microphone, and all other instruments made of ordinary matter had been burned off clean. They didn't even have to clean out the spaces where they had been recessed into the wall. At a temperature of ten thousand degrees, the metals had all boiled away even tungsten boils at seven thousand degrees, and all other normal matter boils even more easily.
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