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Updated: May 14, 2025
Slowing the rotors to permit the craft to rise, Tom guided the Sea Hound back to the surface. Then he reversed blade pitch for air flight and gunned the atomic turbines. The seacopter rose steeply above the billowing South Atlantic.
But the change would be infinitely less than trimming off the rotors' rims. If they spun the rotors and used an abrasive on the high side of the shaft as it turned.... "Going to have precession!" warned Mike. "Have to have a polishing surface. Quarter turn behind the cutter. That'll hold it." Joe only remembered afterward to be astonished that Mike would know gyro theory.
He realized that the co-pilot felt talkative. He explained: "Those crates I'm traveling with . The family firm's been working on that machinery for months. It was finished with the final grinding done practically with feather dusters. I can't help worrying about it. There was four months' work in just lapping the shafts and balancing rotors.
Captain Donnell's shrill whistle sounded, and he cupped his hands to call out, "The copters are here!" Alan watched the little squadron of gray jetcopters settle to the ground, rotors slowing, and headed forward along with the rest of the Crew. The copters would take them from the bare landing field of the spaceport to the Enclave, where they would spend the next six days.
The hot-jets had stopped firing and he could hear the whine of the cold-jet rotors. Then he could see Litchfield, dominated by the Airport Building, so thick that it looked squat for all its height, like a candle-stump in a puddle of its own grease, the other buildings under their carapace of terraces and landing stages seeming to have flowed away from it.
Each spun at 40,000 r.p.m. It had to be machined from a special steel to assure that it would not fly to pieces from sheer centrifugal force. Each was plated with iridium lest a speck of rust form and throw it off balance. If the shaft and bearings were not centered exactly at the center of gravity of the rotors five hundred pounds of steel off balance at 40,000 r.p.m. could raise the devil.
The discoveries they made would have appalled Joe earlier. Now he merely made notes of parts necessary to be replaced by new ones that could be had within the repair time for rebalancing the rotors. "This is sure a mess," said Haney mournfully, as they worked. "It's two days just getting things cleaned up!" The Chief eyed the rotors.
"Which means they must have figured out the missile's position as fast as our side did." "And they'll play rough to stop us from finding it," Arv added forebodingly. Within moments, the group clustered in the pilot's cabin felt a gentle bump as the Sea Hound settled on the submerged plateau. Tom relaxed at the controls but kept the rotors going so the craft would remain submerged.
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