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button on the control board. Jan could hear a faint humming sound, and when
Curtoni held the sphere close to a vertical metal ring secured to the bench it
sprang from his hand and hung, suspended, in the center of the ring. There
were other rings mounted close together down the length of the bench. When
Curtoni pressed a second button
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logy%20(UC).txt there was a whistling sound and a flash and the sphere
vanished. A loud crack echoed from the other end of the compartment as it
crashed into the thick plastic sheet, hung there and dropped to the deck.
"Linear accelerator," Jan said~ "Just like the ones on the Moon."
"Exactly the same. The large Lunar models take containers filled with ore and
shoot them right out of the Moon's gravity, to the Lagrange satellite colonies
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Harrison, Harry - To the Stars Trilogy.txt processing. As you see a magnetic
field is created in the first electromagnet ring.
It suspends the iron sphere. Then, when the series of electromagnets are
activated, they act as a linear motor, moving the sphere along faster and
faster until it shoots out of the far end." He turned and picked up a larger
sphere that nestled comfortably in his hand.
"This seems to be the most practical size we have discovered by trial and
error. It weighs a little under three kilograms, which is almost exactly six
pounds in one of the more archaic systems of measurement. When I was
researching this project I was helped a good deal by early ballistic texts
that dealt with muzzle velocities and like terms. I was fascinated to find out
that primitive sea battles were actually fought with solid shot of just this
weight. History has many lessons for us."
"How far have you gone with the project?" Jan asked.
"Four deep spacers have been converted to cannon ships. This is one of them.
Named after one of the earliest theoreticians of the science who made such
incredible drawings of his weapons. Leonardo da Vinci. We have loaded these
ships with hundreds of thousands of cannon-balls which have been forged in
space from satellite iron.
Most easily too. The specified mass of molten iron is released in free fall,
whereupon its surface tension forms it into a perfect sphere. The secret
weapons run the length of the ships and project from each end. The entire ship
is rotated to aim the cannon, with aiming and firing controlled by the
navigation computer. It all works well except for one small fault."
"What's that?"
"Bugs in the control circuitry. The spheres must be launched within
microseconds of each other to be effective. But we haven't been able to do
this yet."
Jan threw the cannonball back onto the bench and smiled. "Let me see your
documentation and your diagrams and I'll do my best to get rid of your bugs."
"Instantly! You will win this war for us yet!"
Seventeen
"The fruit is ripe for harvesting," the old man said. "The longer we leave it
the more we will lose."
"There are a lot more important things you can lose," his daughter said. "Like
your head, maybe. Come on, Tata, the others are all waiting."
The old man sighed with resignation and followed her out to the kibbutz truck.
He was the last one to arrive and the others pushed over to make room for him
on the crowded wooden benches. The firebox had been loaded with resinous pine
logs an hour earlier so there was a good head of steam. As soon as he had the
signal that they were all aboard, the driver opened the throttle and they
moved out. Past the buildings where the lights still burned warmly and down
the winding lane through the orchards and out onto the main road. They drove
in darkness, but the smooth surface was easy to see in the dim light from the
starfilled sky.
They crossed the Syrian border a little after midnight, the transponder in the
truck answering the request from the detection circuits with its
identification code; the computer in Tel Aviv made a note of its departure.
Just before they reached El
Quneitra the truck turned in to a deep wadi that wound back from the road. The
darkness was intense between its high walls and the driver felt his way along,
stopping suddenly when a light blinked ahead. There were camels waiting here
and murmured guttural greetings as the passengers disembarked. The driver
waited in the cab as they went by, some of them reaching up to pat his arm,
others murmuring a few words. When they had all vanished in the darkness he
reversed out and drove the truck back to the empty buildin~s of the kibbutz,
reaching there just before dawn.
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He was the volunteer who was staying on.
"Like a city of the dead when I came through on the way here," the painter
said. 'A
very frightening proposition to one of any imagination at all. Streets empty
of children, only a few vehicles moving, one or two other pedestrians. It was
dusk and the lights were coming on in the houses which at first I found very
cheering. That is until I looked into the windows of one as I passed and saw
that it was empty. It was the computers doing it, and I felt even more
uncomfortable. Hold that corner of the stencil tight, if it's not asking too
much, Heimyonkel." He swung the spray gun back and forth with practiced skill.
"When do you go?"
"Tonight. The family is already out."
"Kiss your wife for me and tell her to think of a lonely bachelor in her
dreams, alone and preparing for destiny among the shadowy hangars of Lod
Airport."
"You volunteered."
"So I volunteered. That doesn't mean I have to be laughing with joy does it?
All right, take it down."
The painter stepped back and admired his work. On both swelling sides, and the
wings, of the Anan-13 heavy transport the six-pointed star of Israel had been
painted over. In its place was a starkly black cross.
"Symbolic, and not too nice," the painter said. "If you read history, which
you don't, because you're a yould, you would recognize that cross. Do you?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]