United States or São Tomé and Príncipe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Norlaminian scientists have found out how to direct and control pure forces without using the cumbersome and hindering material substance...." He broke off as the record from the torpedo stopped suddenly and the operator's voice came through a speaker. "General Fenimol! Scoutship K3296, patrolling the detector zone, wishes to give you an urgent emergency report.
"Welcome to Norlamin, Terrestrials," the deep, calm voice of the astronomer greeted them, and Orlon in the flesh shook hands cordially in the American fashion with each of them in turn, and placed around each neck a crystal chain from which depended a small Norlaminian chronometer-radiophone. Behind him there stood four other old men.
But quick as he was, Seaton's flying fingers kept up with him, and before each torpedo disappeared through the ether gate there was fastened upon it a fifth-order tracer ray that would never leave it until the force had been disconnected at the gigantic control board of the Norlaminian projector. One flying minute passed during which seventy torpedoes had been launched, before Seaton spoke.
Epilogue The three-dimensional, moving, talking, almost living picture, being shown simultaneously in all the viewing areas throughout the innumerable planets of the Galaxy, faded out and the image of an aged, white-bearded Norlaminian appeared and spoke in the Galactic language.
Multiple headsets were donned, and from each of the Norlaminian brains there poured into the minds of the two Terrestrials a complete and minute knowledge of every possible application of the stupendous force-control banked in all its massed intricacy before them. "Well, that's some outfit!" exulted Seaton in pleased astonishment as the instructions were concluded.
The Norlaminian physicist, set up one integral, stepped upon a pedal, and a new red-topped stop precisely like the others and numbered in order, appeared as though by magic upon the panel at Seaton's left hand.
"And there speaks the Norlaminian physicist, and not my old and reckless playmate Richard Seaton." "Oh, I don't know I told you I was getting timid as a mouse. But let's not sit here twiddling our thumbs let's go places and do things. Whither away? I want a destination a good ways off, not something in our own back yard."
If that path is to be plotted it requires the solution of five simultaneous equations, each complete and general, and each of the fifth degree, and also an exponential series with the unknown in the final exponent, before the fourth-dimensional concept can be derived ... hm m m. No use we've struck something that not even Norlaminian theory can handle." "You surprise me." Crane said.
The meal over, the Earthly visitors were shown to their rooms, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. Norlaminian Science Breakfast over, Seaton watched intently as his tray, laden with empty containers, floated away from him and disappeared into an opening in the wall. "How do you do it, Orlon?" he asked, curiously. "I can hardly believe it, even after seeing it done."
So incredibly accurate were the calculations of the Norlaminian astronomer and so inhumanly precise were the controls he had set upon their bar, that, as they touched the ground after barely clearing the domed roof and he shut off their power, the passengers felt only a sudden decrease in acceleration, like that following the coming to rest of a rapidly moving elevator, after it has completed a downward journey.