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Updated: August 20, 2024
He swerved to pass a clump of trees and brush. As he did three things happened. A small thrush started into the air off a branch, fluttered a moment, then fell to the snow. A white-clad figure appeared ahead, just at the next bend. And.... Thane wondered just what he was doing here ... why wasn't he on Proxima? He remembered school there at fun in elementary atomics....
It had a natural filth that clings to a cheap room, and a man-made, careless filth that would disfigure a Taj Mahal. It wasn't so much that things were dirty, it was more that nothing was clean. Pittsburgh was no longer a smokey city. That problem had been solved long before the mills had stopped belching smoke. Now, with atomics and filters on every stack in every home, the city was clean.
But the Lobby forces and the few cities held most of the real fighting equipment and they were ready to wait until Earth could send out unmanned rockets, loaded with atomics, which could cut through space at ten times normal speed. There were vague lines of battle, but time was the vital factor.
Then Taine's voice snapped: "Rocket crews, arm even-numbered rockets with chemical explosive warheads. Leave odd-numbered rockets armed with atomics. Report back!" Diane strained her ears for possible re-transmission of the Niccola's signals, which would indicate the Plumie's willingness to try conversation. But she suddenly raised her hand and pointed to the radar-graph instrument.
The range is too short for atomics." Baird felt curiously divided in his own mind. He disliked Taine very much. Taine was arrogant and suspicious and intolerant even on the Niccola. But Taine had been right twice, now. The Plumie ship had crept closer by pure trickery. And it was right to remove atomic war heads from the rockets. They had a pure-blast radius of ten miles.
Nor was there any question of power, for the Procyon's atomics did not drive the ship, but merely energized the "Chaytors" the Chaytor Effect engines that tapped the energy of the expanding universe itself. Thus, in less than six months, the Procyon had attained a velocity almost half that of light.
Inside there were signs of many refittings and overhauls, but the atomics were well shielded, and it carried a surprising chemical fuel auxiliary for the cabin size. Greg disappeared into the engine room, and Tom and Johnny left him testing valves and circuits while they headed down to the U.N. Registry office in the control tower. On the way Johnny outlined the remaining outfitting steps.
There is at least one more of these way stations. They don't run on atomics, need some kind of fuel, and they have to have new supplies every so often. Their head man can't understand why it isn't necessary for us to do the same." "Has he suggested that his techneers want a look at our motors, sir?" Hobart unbent a little. It was as if in that question he had read something which pleased him.
Six hours after he left them, he was back with a signed lease giving them the use of a scout-ship and fuel to take them out to the Belt and back again; the ship was in the Sun Lake City racks waiting for them whenever they were ready. "What kind of a ship?" Greg wanted to know. "A Class III Flying Dutchman with overhauled atomics and hydrazine side-jets," Johnny said, waving the transfer order.
Hunger was the inscription on the baker's shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomics in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.
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