Speaker 1: The Vortex Blaster by ee Doc Smith introducing Storm Cloud, who,
Speaker 1: through tragedy, is destined to become the most noted figure
Speaker 1: in the galaxy. The Vortex Blaster. Safety devices that do
Speaker 1: not protect the unsinkable ships that, before the days of
Speaker 1: Bergenholm and of atomic and cosmic energy sank into the
Speaker 1: waters of Earth. More particularly, safety devices which, while protecting
Speaker 1: against one agent of destruction, attract magnet like another and worse,
Speaker 1: such as the armored cable within the walls of a
Speaker 1: wooden house. It protects the electrical conductors within against accidental
Speaker 1: external shorts, but inadequately grounded, as it must of necessity be,
Speaker 1: it may attract an upon occasion has attracted the stupendous
Speaker 1: force of lightning, then fused volatilized flaming incandescent through the length, breath,
Speaker 1: and height of a dwelling. That dwelling's existence thereafter is
Speaker 1: to be measured in minutes. Specifically, four lightning rods, the
Speaker 1: lightning rods protecting the chromium glass and plastic home of
Speaker 1: Neil Cloud. Those rods were adequately grounded, grounded with copper
Speaker 1: silver cables. The bigness of a strong man's arm for
Speaker 1: Neil Cloud atomic physicist knew his lightning, and he was
Speaker 1: taking no chances whatever with the safety of his lovely
Speaker 1: wife and their three wonderful kids. He did not know.
Speaker 1: He did not even suspect that, under certain conditions of
Speaker 1: atmospheric potential and of ground magnetic stress, his perfectly designed
Speaker 1: lightning rod system would become a super powerful magnet for
Speaker 1: flying vortices of atomic disintegration. And now Neil Cloud atomic
Speaker 1: physicist sat at his desk in a strained, dull apathy.
Speaker 1: His face was a yellowish gray white, His tendoned hands
Speaker 1: gripped rigidly the arms of his chair. His eyes, hard
Speaker 1: and lifeless, stared unseeingly past the small three dimensional block
Speaker 1: portrait of all that had made life worth living. For
Speaker 1: his guardian against lightning had been a vortex manet. At
Speaker 1: the moment when a luckless White had attempted to abate
Speaker 1: the nuisance of a loose atomic vortex, that White died,
Speaker 1: of course, they almost always do, and the vortex, instead
Speaker 1: of being destroyed, was simply broken up into an indefinite
Speaker 1: number of widely scattered new vortices. And one of these
Speaker 1: bits of furious, uncontrolled energy resembling more nearly a handful
Speaker 1: of material rived from a sun than anything else with
Speaker 1: which ordinary man is familiar, darted toward and crashed downward
Speaker 1: to Earth through Neil Cloud's new house. That home did
Speaker 1: not burn. It simply exploded. Nothing of it in it
Speaker 1: or around it stood a chance. For in a fractional
Speaker 1: second of time, the place where it had been was
Speaker 1: a crater of seething, boiling lava, a crater which filled
Speaker 1: the atmosphere to a height of miles with poisonous vapors,
Speaker 1: which flooded all circumambient space with lethal radiations. Cosmically, the
Speaker 1: whole thing was infantasmal. Ever since man learned how to
Speaker 1: liberate intra atomic energy, the vortices of decease integration had
Speaker 1: been breaking out of control. Such accidents had been happening,
Speaker 1: were happening, and would continue indefinitely to happen. More than
Speaker 1: one world perhaps had been or would be consumed to
Speaker 1: the last gram by such luc atomic vortices. What of that?
Speaker 1: Of what real importance are a few grains of sand
Speaker 1: to an ocean beach five thousand miles long, one hundred
Speaker 1: miles wide, and ten miles deep, And even to that
Speaker 1: individual grain of sand called Earth, or in modern parlance,
Speaker 1: Sol three or Tellus of sal Or simply tell Us.
Speaker 1: The affair was of negligible importance. One man had died,
Speaker 1: but in dying he had added one more page to
Speaker 1: the thick bulk of negative results already on file. That
Speaker 1: Missus Cloud and her children had perished was merely unfortunate.
Speaker 1: The vortex itself was not yet a real threat to
Speaker 1: tell Us. It was a new one, and thus it
Speaker 1: would be a long time before it would become other
Speaker 1: than a local menace, and well before that can happen.
Speaker 1: Before even the oldest of ten tell Us loose vortices
Speaker 1: had eaten away much of her mass or poisoned much
Speaker 1: of her atmosphere, her scientists would have solved the problem.
Speaker 1: It was unthinkable that tell Us, the point of origin
Speaker 1: and the very center of galactic civilization, should cease to exist.
Speaker 1: But to Neil Cloud, the accident was the ultimate catastrophe.
Speaker 1: His personal universe had crashed in ruins. What was left
Speaker 1: was not worth picking up. He and Joe had been
Speaker 1: married for almost twenty years, and the bonds between them
Speaker 1: had grown stronger, deeper, truer with every passing day, and
Speaker 1: the kids it couldn't have happened. Fate couldn't do this
Speaker 1: to him, but it had, it could gone, gone gone,
Speaker 1: And to Neil Cloud, atomic physicists, sitting there at his
Speaker 1: desk in torn despairing abstraction, with black maggots of thought
Speaker 1: gnawing holes in his brain, the catastrophe was doubly galling
Speaker 1: because of its cruel irony, For he was second from
Speaker 1: the top in the atomic research laboratory. His life's were
Speaker 1: had been a search for a means of extinguishment of
Speaker 1: exactly such loose vortices as had destroyed his all. His
Speaker 1: eyes focused vaguely upon the portrait, clear honest, gray eyes,
Speaker 1: lines of character and of humor, sweetly curved lips ready
Speaker 1: to smile or to kiss. He wrenched his eyes away
Speaker 1: and scribbled briefly upon a sheet of paper. Then, getting
Speaker 1: up stiffly, he took the portrait and moved woodenly across
Speaker 1: the room to a furnace, as though en shrining it.
Speaker 1: He placed the plastic block upon a refractory between the
Speaker 1: electrodes and threw a switch. After the flaming arc had
Speaker 1: done its work, he turned and handed the paper to
Speaker 1: a tall man dressed in plain gray Leather, who had
Speaker 1: been watching him with quiet, understanding eyes. Significant enough to
Speaker 1: the initiated of the importance of this laboratory is the
Speaker 1: fact that it was headed by an unattached lensman. As
Speaker 1: of now, Phil, if its QX with you, the gray
Speaker 1: Lensman took the document, glanced at it, and slowly, meticulously
Speaker 1: tore it into sixteen equal pieces. Storm, he denied gently,
Speaker 1: not a resignation, leave of absence, Yes, indefinite, but not
Speaker 1: a resignation. Why it was scarcely a question. Cloud's voice
Speaker 1: was level, uninflected. I won't be worth the paper, I'd
Speaker 1: waste now, No, the lensman conceded. But the future's another matter.
Speaker 1: I haven't said anything so far because to anyone who
Speaker 1: knew you and Joe, as I knew you, it was
Speaker 1: abundantly clear that nothing could be said. Two hands gripped
Speaker 1: and held for the future. Though four words were uttered
Speaker 1: long ago that have never been improved upon. This too
Speaker 1: shall pass. You think so. I don't think so, Storm,
Speaker 1: I know so. I've been around a long time. You
Speaker 1: are too good a man, and the world has too
Speaker 1: much use for you for you to go down permanently
Speaker 1: out of control. You've got a place in the world,
Speaker 1: and you'll be back. A thought struck the lensman, and
Speaker 1: he went on in an altered tone. You wouldn't, But
Speaker 1: of course you wouldn't. You couldn't. I don't think so,
Speaker 1: so no, I won't. That never was any kind of
Speaker 1: a solution to any problem, nor was it. Until that moment.
Speaker 1: Suicide had not entered Cloud's mind, and he rejected it instantly.
Speaker 1: His kind of man did not take the easy way out.
Speaker 1: After a brief farewell, Cloud made his way to an
Speaker 1: elevator and was whisked down to the garage into his
Speaker 1: big blue Di Kotynski sixteen special and away through traffic
Speaker 1: so heavy that front, rear and side bumpers almost touched.
Speaker 1: He drove with his wonted cool skill, even though consciously
Speaker 1: he did not know that the other cars were there.
Speaker 1: He slowed, turned, stopped, gave her the oof, all in
Speaker 1: correct response to flashing signals in all shapes and colors,
Speaker 1: purely automatically. Consciously, he did not know where he was going,
Speaker 1: nor care if he thought at all. His numbed brain
Speaker 1: was simply trying to run away from its own bitter imaging,
Speaker 1: which if he had thought at all, he would have
Speaker 1: known to be a hopeless task. But he did not think.
Speaker 1: He simply acted dumbly, miserably. His eyes saw optically, his
Speaker 1: body reacted mechanically. His thinking brain was completely in abeyance.
Speaker 1: Into a one way skyway, he rocketed along it, over
Speaker 1: the suburbs and into the Transcontinental super Highway. Edging inward,
Speaker 1: lane after lane, he reached the unlimited way. Unlimited, that is,
Speaker 1: except for being limited to cars of not less than
Speaker 1: seven hundred horse power in perfect mechanical condition, driven by registered,
Speaker 1: tested drivers, that speeds not less than one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five miles an hour. Flashed his registry number at
Speaker 1: the control station and shoved his right foot down to
Speaker 1: the floor. Now, every one knows that an ordinary Di
Speaker 1: Karinsky sporter will do a hundred and forty honestly measured
Speaker 1: miles in one honestly measured hour, But very few ordinary
Speaker 1: drivers have ever found out how fast one of those brutal,
Speaker 1: big souped up sixteens can wheel. They simply haven't got
Speaker 1: what it takes to open one up. Storm Cloud found
Speaker 1: out that day he held that two and a half
Speaker 1: ton juggernaut on the road wide open for two solid hours,
Speaker 1: but it didn't help drive as he would. He could
Speaker 1: not outrun that which rode with him, beside him and
Speaker 1: within him and behind him. For Joe was there, Joe
Speaker 1: and the kids, but mostly Joe. It was Joe's car
Speaker 1: as much as it was his babe. The Big Blue
Speaker 1: Ox was Joe's pet name for it, because like Paul
Speaker 1: Bunyan's fabulous beast, it was pretty nearly six feet between
Speaker 1: the eyes. Everything they had ever had was that way.
Speaker 1: She was in the seat beside him, Every deer, every sweet,
Speaker 1: every luscious, lovely memory of her was there. And behind him,
Speaker 1: just out of the eye corner visibility, were the three kids,
Speaker 1: and a whole lifetime of this loomed ahead a vista
Speaker 1: of emptiness, more vacuous, far than the emptiest reaches of
Speaker 1: intergalactic space. Damned nation. He couldn't stand much more of
Speaker 1: high Over the roadway. Far ahead, a brilliant octagon flared
Speaker 1: red that meant stop in any language. Cloud eased up
Speaker 1: his accelerator, eased down his mighty brakes. He pulled up
Speaker 1: at the control station, and a trimly uniformed officer a gesture. Sorry, sir,
Speaker 1: the policeman said, but you'll have to detour here. There's
Speaker 1: a loose atomic vortex beside the road up ahead. Oh
Speaker 1: it's doctor Cloud. Recognition flashed into the guard's eyes. I
Speaker 1: didn't recognize you at first. You can go ahead. Of course,
Speaker 1: it'll be two or three miles before you have to
Speaker 1: put on your armor. You'll know when better than many
Speaker 1: one can tell you. They didn't tell us they were
Speaker 1: going to send for you. It's just a little new one,
Speaker 1: and the dope we got was that they were going
Speaker 1: to shove it off into the canyon with pressure. They
Speaker 1: didn't send for me. Cloud tried to smile. I'm just
Speaker 1: driving around. Haven't my armor along? Even so, I guess
Speaker 1: I might as well go back. He turned the special
Speaker 1: around a loose vortex. Knew there might be a hundred
Speaker 1: of them, scattered over a radius of two hundred miles,
Speaker 1: sisters of the one that had murdered his family, the
Speaker 1: hellish spawn of that accursed number eleven vortex that that
Speaker 1: damnably incompetent bungling ass had tried to blow up into
Speaker 1: his mind. There leapt a picture wire's sharp of nomblen
Speaker 1: as he had last seen it, and simultaneously an idea
Speaker 1: hit him, like a blow from a fist. He thought,
Speaker 1: really thought, now, cogently, intensely, clearly. If he could do it,
Speaker 1: could actually blow out the atomic flame of an atomic vortex.
Speaker 1: Not exactly revenge, but by Klonzo's brazen bows. It would work.
Speaker 1: It'd have to work. He'd make it work. And grimly,
Speaker 1: quietly but alive in every fiber. Now, he drove back
Speaker 1: toward the city, practically as fast as he had come away.
Speaker 1: If the Lensman was surprised at Cloud's sudden reappearance in
Speaker 1: the laboratory, he did not show it, nor did he
Speaker 1: offer any comment, as his erstwhile first assistant went to
Speaker 1: various lockers and cupboards, assembling meters, coils, tubes, armor, and
Speaker 1: other paraphernalia and apparatus. Guess that's all I'll need, Jeef
Speaker 1: Cloud remarked. Finally, here's a blank check. If some of
Speaker 1: this stuff should happen to be in usable condition when
Speaker 1: I get done with it, fill it out to suit,
Speaker 1: will you no, and the Lensman tore up the check
Speaker 1: just as he had torn up the resignation. If you
Speaker 1: want the stuff for legitimate purposes, you're on patrol business,
Speaker 1: and it's the patrol's risk. If, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: you think that you're going to try to snuff of vortex,
Speaker 1: the stuff stays here, that's final storm. You're right and wrong.
Speaker 1: Phil Cloud stated, not at all sheepishly. I'm going to
Speaker 1: blow out number one vortex with duo deck. Yes, but
Speaker 1: I'm really going to blow it out, not merely make
Speaker 1: a stab at it as an excuse for suicide. As
Speaker 1: you think, how the big Lensman's query was skepticism incarnate.
Speaker 1: It can't be done except by an almost impossibly fortuitous accident.
Speaker 1: You yourself have been the most bitterly opposed of us to
Speaker 1: all these suicidal attempts. I know it. I didn't have
Speaker 1: the solution myself until a few hours ago. It hit
Speaker 1: me all at once. Funny, I never thought of it before.
Speaker 1: It's been right in sight all the time. That's the
Speaker 1: way with most problems. The chief admitted, plain enough, after
Speaker 1: you see the key equation, Well, I'm perfect willing to
Speaker 1: be convinced, but I warn you that I'll take a
Speaker 1: lot of convincing and someone else will do the work,
Speaker 1: not you. When I get done, you'll see why I'll
Speaker 1: pretty nearly have to do it myself. But to convince
Speaker 1: you exactly what is the not variability snapped the older man.
Speaker 1: To be effective, the charge of explosive at the moment
Speaker 1: of impact must match within very close limits the activity
Speaker 1: of the vortex itself. Too small a charge scatters it
Speaker 1: around in vortices, which, while much smaller than the original,
Speaker 1: are still large enough to be self sustaining. Too large
Speaker 1: a charge simply rekindles the original vortex, still larger in
Speaker 1: its original crater. And the activity that must be matched
Speaker 1: varies so tremendously in magnitude maxima and minima, and the
Speaker 1: cycle is so erratic, ranging from seconds to hours without
Speaker 1: discoverable rhyme or reason, that all attempts to do so
Speaker 1: at any predetermined instant have failed completely. Why even Kinnison
Speaker 1: and Cartinge and the Conference of Scientists couldn't solve it
Speaker 1: any more than they could work out a tractor beam.
Speaker 1: There it could be used as a tow line on
Speaker 1: one not exactly cloud demured, they found that it could
Speaker 1: be forecast for a few seconds at least length of
Speaker 1: time directly proportional to the length of the cycle in question,
Speaker 1: by an extension of the calculus of warped surfaces. Humph
Speaker 1: the lensman snorted, So what what good is a ten
Speaker 1: second forecast when it takes a calculating machine an hour
Speaker 1: to solve the equations? Oh, he broke off, staring. Oh,
Speaker 1: he repeated slowly. I forgot that you're a lightning calculator,
Speaker 1: a mathematical prodigy from the day you were born, who
Speaker 1: never has to use a calculating machine, even to compute
Speaker 1: in orbit. But there are other things, I'll say, there
Speaker 1: are plenty of them. I'd thought of the calculator angle before,
Speaker 1: of course, but there was a worse thing than variability
Speaker 1: to contend with what the lensman demanded. Fear Cloud replied crisply.
Speaker 1: At the thought of a hand to hand battle with
Speaker 1: a vortex, my brain froze solid. Fear the sheer, stark,
Speaker 1: natural human fear of death that rob a man of
Speaker 1: the fine edge of control and brings on the very
Speaker 1: death that he is trying so hard to avoid. That's
Speaker 1: what had me stopped. Right. You may be right, the
Speaker 1: lensman pondered, his fingers drumming quietly upon his desk. And
Speaker 1: you are not afraid of death now, even subconsciously. But
Speaker 1: tell me Storm, please, that you won't invite it. I
Speaker 1: will not invite it, sir, now that I've got a
Speaker 1: job to do. But that's as far as I'll go
Speaker 1: promising I won't make any superhuman effort to avoid it.
Speaker 1: I'll take all due precautions for the sake of the job.
Speaker 1: But if it gets me, what the hell. The quicker
Speaker 1: it does, the better, the sooner I'll be with Joe.
Speaker 1: You believe that implicitly the vortices are as good as gone,
Speaker 1: then they haven't got any more chance than Boscone has
Speaker 1: of licking the patrol. I'm afraid so almost glumly. The
Speaker 1: only way for it to get me is for me
Speaker 1: to make a mistake, and I don't feel any coming on.
Speaker 1: But what's your angle, the lensman asked, interest, lighting his eyes.
Speaker 1: You can't use the customary attack. Your time will be
Speaker 1: too short. Like this and taking down a sheet of
Speaker 1: drafting paper, clouds sketched rapidly, this is the crater here,
Speaker 1: with the vortex at the bottom there. From the observer's
Speaker 1: instruments or from a shielded set up of my own,
Speaker 1: I get my data on mass emission maxima, minima and
Speaker 1: so on. Then I have them make me three duo
Speaker 1: deck bombs one on the mark of the activity I'm
Speaker 1: figuring on shooting at and one each five percent over
Speaker 1: and under that figure cased in neocarballoy of exactly the
Speaker 1: computed thickness to last until it gets to the center
Speaker 1: of the vortex. Then I take off in a flying suit,
Speaker 1: armored and shielded. Say about here, if you take off
Speaker 1: at all, you'll take off in a suit inside a
Speaker 1: one man flitter. The lensman interrupted too many instruments for
Speaker 1: a suit to say nothing of bombs, and you'll need
Speaker 1: more screen than a suit can deliver. We can adapt
Speaker 1: a flitter for bomb throwing easily enough q X. That
Speaker 1: would be better, of course. In that case, I set
Speaker 1: my flitter into a projectile trajectory like this, whose objective
Speaker 1: is the center of the vortex there see ten seconds
Speaker 1: or so away. At about this point, I take my
Speaker 1: instantaneous readings solve the equations at that particular warped surface
Speaker 1: for some certain zero time. But suppose that the cycle
Speaker 1: won't give you a ten second solution. Then I'll swing
Speaker 1: around and try again until a long cycle does show
Speaker 1: up QX. It will sometime sure. Then, having everything set
Speaker 1: for zero time, and assuming that the activity is somewhere
Speaker 1: near my postulated value. Assume that it isn't it probably
Speaker 1: won't be. The chief grunted. I accelerate or decelerate, solving
Speaker 1: new equations all the while, sure don't interrupt, so until
Speaker 1: at zero time the activity extrapolated to zero time matches
Speaker 1: one of my bombs. I cut that bomb loose, shoot
Speaker 1: myself off in a sharp curve, and zweet powie. She's out.
Speaker 1: With an expressive, sweeping gesture. You hope, the lensman was
Speaker 1: frankly dubious. And there you are, right in the middle
Speaker 1: of that explosion, with two duo deck bombs outside your
Speaker 1: armor or just inside your flitter. Oh no, I've shot
Speaker 1: them away several seconds ago, so that they explode somewhere else,
Speaker 1: nowhere near me, I hope. But do you realize just
Speaker 1: how busy a man you're going to be during those
Speaker 1: ten or twelve seconds. Fully Cloud's face grew somber. But
Speaker 1: I will be in full control. I won't be afraid
Speaker 1: of anything that can happen anything, And he went on
Speaker 1: under his breath. That's the hell of it. Q X,
Speaker 1: the lensman admitted, Finally, you can go There are a
Speaker 1: lot of things you haven't mentioned, but you'll probably be
Speaker 1: able to work them out as you go along. I
Speaker 1: think I'll go out and work with the boys in
Speaker 1: the lookout station while you're doing your stuff. When are
Speaker 1: you figuring on starting? How long will it take to
Speaker 1: get the flitter ready? A couple of days? Say we
Speaker 1: meet you there Saturday morning, Saturday the tenth, at eight o'clock.
Speaker 1: I'll be there and again. Neil Cloud and Babe the
Speaker 1: big Blue Ox hit the road, And as he rolled,
Speaker 1: the physicist mulled over in his mind the assignment to
Speaker 1: which he had set himself. Like fire, only worse. Intra
Speaker 1: atomic energy was a good servant, but a terrible master
Speaker 1: man had liberated it before he could really control it.
Speaker 1: In fact, control was not yet and perhaps never would
Speaker 1: be perfect up to a certain size and activity. Yes, they,
Speaker 1: the millions upon millions of self limiting ones, were the servants.
Speaker 1: They could be handled, fenced in, controlled. Indeed, if they
Speaker 1: were not kept under an exciting bombardment and very carefully fed,
Speaker 1: they would go out, but at long intervals. For some
Speaker 1: one of a dozen reasons, science knew so little fundamentally
Speaker 1: of the true inwardness of the intra atomic reactions. One
Speaker 1: of these small, tame, self limiting vortices flared novalich into
Speaker 1: a large, wild, self sustaining one. It ceased being a
Speaker 1: servant then, and became a master. Such flare ups occurred,
Speaker 1: perhaps only once or twice in a century on Earth.
Speaker 1: The trouble was that they were so utterly damnably permanent
Speaker 1: that they never went out, and no data were ever secured.
Speaker 1: For every living thing in the vicinity of a flare
Speaker 1: up died, every instrument, and every other solid thing within
Speaker 1: a radius of one hundred feet melted down into the reeking,
Speaker 1: boiling slag of its crater. Fortunately, the rate of growth
Speaker 1: was slow, as slow almost as it was persistent. Otherwise
Speaker 1: civilization would scarcely have had a planet left. And unless
Speaker 1: something could be done about loose vortices before too many years,
Speaker 1: the consequences would be really serious. That's why his laboratory
Speaker 1: had been established in the first place. Nothing much had
Speaker 1: been accomplished so far. The tractor beam that would take
Speaker 1: hold of them had never been designed. Nothing material was
Speaker 1: of any use. It melted. Pressers worked after a fashion.
Speaker 1: It was by the use of these beams that they
Speaker 1: shoved the vortices around off into the waste places, unless
Speaker 1: it proved cheaper to allow the places where they had
Speaker 1: come into being to remain waste places. A few, through
Speaker 1: sheer luck, had been blown into self limiting bits by Duodeck.
Speaker 1: Duodeca ply latimate the most powerful, the most frighteningly detinent
Speaker 1: explosive ever invented, upon all the known planets of the
Speaker 1: first galaxy. But Duodeck had taken an awful toll of life. Also,
Speaker 1: since it usually scattered a vortex instead of extinguishing it,
Speaker 1: Duodeck had actually caused far more damage than it had cured.
Speaker 1: No end of fantastic schemes had been proposed, of course,
Speaker 1: of varying degrees of fantasy. Some of them sounded almost practical,
Speaker 1: Some of them had been tried, some of them were
Speaker 1: still being tried. Some, such as the perennially appearing one
Speaker 1: of building a huge hemispherical hull in the ground under
Speaker 1: and around the vortex, installing an inertialless drive, and shooting
Speaker 1: the whole neighborhood out into space, were perhaps feasible from
Speaker 1: an engineering standpoint. They were, however, potentially so capable of
Speaker 1: making things worse that they would not be tried save
Speaker 1: as last ditch measures. In short, the control of loose
Speaker 1: vortices was very much an unsolved problem. Number one vortex,
Speaker 1: the oldest and worst upon Tellus, had been pushed out
Speaker 1: into the bad lands, and there, at eight o'clock on
Speaker 1: the tenth cloud started to work upon it. The lookout station,
Speaker 1: instead of being some such ramshackle structure as might have
Speaker 1: been deduced from the lensman's casual terminology, was in fact
Speaker 1: a fully equipped observatory. Its staff was not large eight
Speaker 1: men worked in three staggered eight hour shifts of two
Speaker 1: men each, but the instruments to develop them had required
Speaker 1: hundreds of man years of time and near miracles of research,
Speaker 1: not the least of the problems having been that of
Speaker 1: developing shielded conductors capable of carrying truly through five ply
Speaker 1: screens of force the converted impulses of the very radiations
Speaker 1: against which those screens were most effective for the observatory,
Speaker 1: and the one long approach to it as well had
Speaker 1: been screened heavily. Without such protection, no life could exist there.
Speaker 1: This problem and many others, had been solved, however, and
Speaker 1: there the instruments were every phase and factor of the
Speaker 1: vortex's existence and activity were measured and recorded continuously throughout
Speaker 1: every minute of every day of every year, and all
Speaker 1: of those records were summed up integrated into the sigma curve.
Speaker 1: This curve, while only an incredibly and senselessly tortuous line
Speaker 1: to the layman's eye, was a veritable mine of information
Speaker 1: to the initiate. Cloud glanced along the sigma curve of
Speaker 1: the previous forty eight hours and scowled for one jagged
Speaker 1: peak scarcely an hour old actually punched through the top
Speaker 1: line of the chart. Bad huh, Frank, He grunted plenty,
Speaker 1: bad storm, and gettin worse. The observer assented, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: wonder if Carlowitz were right, after all, if she ain't
Speaker 1: getting ready to blow her top, I'm as a brisky
Speaker 1: in Fontima's maiden aunt. No periodicity, no equation. Of course,
Speaker 1: it was a statement, not a question. The landsman ignored
Speaker 1: as completely as did the observer, if not as flippantly,
Speaker 1: the distinct possibility that at any moment the observatory and
Speaker 1: all that it contained might be resolved into their component
Speaker 1: atoms none whatever came flatly from Cloud. He did not
Speaker 1: need to spend hours at a calculating machine. At one glance,
Speaker 1: he knew, without knowing how, he knew that no equation
Speaker 1: could be made to fit even the weighted average locus
Speaker 1: of that wildly shifting sigma curve. But most of the
Speaker 1: cycles cut this ordinance here seven fifty one, So i'll
Speaker 1: take that for my value. That means nine point nine
Speaker 1: oh six kilograms of duo deck basic charge, with one
Speaker 1: five percent over and one five percent under that for
Speaker 1: alternates neocarballoy casing fifty three millimeters on the basic, others
Speaker 1: in proportion on the wire. It went out as you
Speaker 1: said it. The observer reported, they'll have him here in
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes. QX. I'll get dressed. Then the lensman and
Speaker 1: the observer helped him into his cumbersome, heavily padded armor.
Speaker 1: They checked his instruments, making sure that the protective devices
Speaker 1: of the suit were functioning at full efficiency. Then all
Speaker 1: three went out to the flitter, a tiny speedster really
Speaker 1: a torpedo, bearing the stubby wings and the ludicrous tail surfaces,
Speaker 1: the multifarious driving break king side top and under jets,
Speaker 1: so characteristic of the tricky, cranky but ultra maneuverable breed,
Speaker 1: but this one had something that the ordinary speedster or
Speaker 1: flitter did not carry. Spaced around the needle beak, there
Speaker 1: yawned the open muzzles of a triplex bomb thrower. More checking,
Speaker 1: the lensman and the armored Cloud both knew that every
Speaker 1: one of the dozens of instruments upon the flitter's special
Speaker 1: board was right to the hair. Nevertheless, each one was
Speaker 1: compared with the master instrument of the observatory. The bombs
Speaker 1: arrived and were loaded in, and Cloud, with a casually
Speaker 1: waved salute, stepped into the tiny operating compartment. The massive
Speaker 1: door flitters have no airlocks, as the whole midsection is
Speaker 1: scarcely bigger than an airlock would have to be rammed
Speaker 1: shut upon its fiber gaskets. The heavy toggles drove home
Speaker 1: a cushioned form closed in upon the pilot, leaving only
Speaker 1: his arms and lower legs free. Then, making sure that
Speaker 1: his two companions had ducked for cover, Cloud shot his
Speaker 1: flitter into the air and toward the seething inferno, which
Speaker 1: was loose atomic vortex number one. For it was seething,
Speaker 1: no fooling, and it was an inferno. The crater was
Speaker 1: a ragged jagged hull a full mile from lip to lip,
Speaker 1: and perhaps a quarter of that in depth. It was not, however,
Speaker 1: a perfect cone, for the floor being largely incandescently molten,
Speaker 1: was practically level, except for a depression at the center
Speaker 1: where the actual vortex lay. The walls of the pit
Speaker 1: were steeply, unstably irregular, varying in pitch and shape with
Speaker 1: the hardness and refractoriness of the strata composing them. Now
Speaker 1: a section would glare into an unbearably blinding white, puffing
Speaker 1: away and sparkling vapor. Again, cooled by an inrushing blast
Speaker 1: of air, it would subside into an angry scarlet, its
Speaker 1: surface crawling in a sluggish flow of lava. Occasionally a
Speaker 1: part of the wall might even go black, into pock
Speaker 1: marked scory eye, or into brilliant planes of obsidian. For always,
Speaker 1: somewhere there was an enormous volume of air pouring into
Speaker 1: that crater. It rushed in as ordinary, It came out, however,
Speaker 1: in a ragingly uprushing pillar, as something else. No one knew,
Speaker 1: or knows yet, for that matter, exactly what a loose
Speaker 1: vortex does to the molecules and atoms of air. In fact,
Speaker 1: due to the extreme variability already referred to, it probably
Speaker 1: does not do the same thing for more than an
Speaker 1: instant at a time that there is little actual combustion
Speaker 1: is certain, that is, except for the forced combination of nitrogen, argon, xenon,
Speaker 1: and krypton with oxygen. There is, however, consumption, plenty of consumption,
Speaker 1: and what that incredibly intense bombardment impinges up is is
Speaker 1: altered profoundly and obscurely altered, so that the atmosphere emitted
Speaker 1: from the crater is quite definitely no longer air as
Speaker 1: we know it. It may be corrosive, it may be
Speaker 1: poisonous in one or another of one hundred fashions, it
Speaker 1: may be merely new and different, but it is no
Speaker 1: longer the air which we human beings are used to breathing.
Speaker 1: And it is this fact, rather than the destruction of
Speaker 1: the planet itself, which would end the possibility of life
Speaker 1: upon Earth's surface. It is difficult, indeed, to describe the
Speaker 1: appearance of a loose atomic vortex to those who have
Speaker 1: never seen one, and fortunately most people never have. And
Speaker 1: practically all of its frightful radiation lies in those octaves
Speaker 1: of the spectrum which are invisible to the human eye.
Speaker 1: Suffice it to say, then, that it had an average
Speaker 1: effective surface temperature of about fifteen thousand degrees absolute, two
Speaker 1: and one half times as hot as the sun of Tellus,
Speaker 1: and that it was radiating every frequency possible to that
Speaker 1: incomprehensible temperature. And let it go at that a neil
Speaker 1: cloud scurrying in his flitter through that murky radiation riddled atmosphere,
Speaker 1: setting up equations from the readings of his various meters
Speaker 1: and gages, and solving those equations almost instantaneously in his
Speaker 1: mathematical prodigies, mind sat appalled for the activity level was,
Speaker 1: and even in its lowest dips, remained far above the
Speaker 1: level he had selected. His skin began to prickle and
Speaker 1: to burn, his eyes began to smart and to ache.
Speaker 1: He knew what those symptoms meant. Even the flitter's powerful
Speaker 1: screens were not stopping all the radiation, Even his suit
Speaker 1: screens and his special goggles were not stopping what leaked through.
Speaker 1: But he wouldn't quit yet. The activity might probably would
Speaker 1: take a nose dive any instant. If it did, he'd
Speaker 1: have to be ready. On the other hand, it might
Speaker 1: blow up at any instant too. There were two schools
Speaker 1: of mathematical thought upon that point. One held that the vortex,
Speaker 1: without any essential change in its physical condition or nature,
Speaker 1: would keep on growing bigger indefinitely, until uniting with the
Speaker 1: other vortices of the planet, it had converted the entire
Speaker 1: mass of the world into energy. The second school, of
Speaker 1: which the forementioned Carlowitz was the loudest voice, taught that
Speaker 1: at a certain stage of development, the internal energy of
Speaker 1: the vortex would become so great that generation radiation equilibrium
Speaker 1: could not be maintained. This would, of course result in
Speaker 1: an explosion, the nature and consequences of which this Carlowitz
Speaker 1: was wont to dwell upon in ghoulish mathematical glee. Neither school, however,
Speaker 1: could prove its point, or rather, each school proved its
Speaker 1: point by means of unimpeachable mathematics, and each hated and
Speaker 1: derided the other loudly and heatedly. And now Cloud, as
Speaker 1: he studied through his almost opaque defenses, that indescribably ravening fireball,
Speaker 1: that as suriently rapacious monstrosity, which might very well have
Speaker 1: come from the deepest pit of the hottest hell of mythology,
Speaker 1: felt strongly inclined to agree with Karlowitz. It didn't seem
Speaker 1: possible that anything could get any worse than that without exploding,
Speaker 1: and such an explosion, he felt sure, would certainly blow
Speaker 1: everything for miles around into the smitheriest kind of smithereens.
Speaker 1: The activity of the vortex stayed high, way too high.
Speaker 1: The tiny control room of the flitter grew hotter and hotter.
Speaker 1: His skin burned and his eyes ached worse. He touched
Speaker 1: a communicator stud and spoke, Phil, better, get me three
Speaker 1: more bombs like these, except up around. I don't check you.
Speaker 1: If you do that, it's apt to drop to a
Speaker 1: minimum and stay there, the lensman reminded him. It's completely unpredictable.
Speaker 1: It may be at that, so I'll have to forget
Speaker 1: the five percent margin and hit it on the nose,
Speaker 1: or not at all. Order me up two more then
Speaker 1: one at half of what I've got here, the other
Speaker 1: double it, and he reeled off the figures for the
Speaker 1: charge and the casing of the explosive. You might break
Speaker 1: out a jar of burn dressing too. Some fairly hot
Speaker 1: stuff is leaking through. We'll do that. Come down fast.
Speaker 1: Cloud landed, he stripped to the skin, and the observer
Speaker 1: smeared his every square inch of epidermis with the thick,
Speaker 1: gooey stuff that was not only a highly efficient screen
Speaker 1: against radiation but also a sovereign remedy for new radiation burns.
Speaker 1: He exchanged his goggles for a thicker, darker, heavier pair.
Speaker 1: The two bombs arrived and were substituted for two of
Speaker 1: the original load. I thought of something while I was
Speaker 1: up there, Cloud informed the observers. Then, twenty kilograms of
Speaker 1: duo deck is nobody's firecracker, but it may be the
Speaker 1: least of what's going to go off. Have you got
Speaker 1: any idea of what's going to become of the energy
Speaker 1: inside that vortex when I blow it out? Can't say
Speaker 1: that I have. The lensman frowned and thought, no data.
Speaker 1: Neither have I. But I'd say you better go back
Speaker 1: to the new station, the one you were going to
Speaker 1: move to if it kept getting worse. But the instruments,
Speaker 1: the lensman was thinking, not of the instruments themselves, which
Speaker 1: were valueless in comparison with life, but of the records
Speaker 1: those instruments would make. Those records were priceless. I'll have
Speaker 1: everything on the tapes in the flitter, Cloud reminded, But
Speaker 1: suppose that the flitter stops one two or doesn't stop
Speaker 1: it Rather, in that case, your backstation won't be there either,
Speaker 1: so it won't make any difference. How mistaken Cloud was QX,
Speaker 1: the chief decided, we'll leave when you do, just in case. Again.
Speaker 1: In the air, Cloud found that the activity, while still high,
Speaker 1: was not too high, but that it was fluctuating too rapidly.
Speaker 1: He could not get even five seconds of trustworthy prediction,
Speaker 1: to say nothing of ten. So he waited as close
Speaker 1: as he dared remain to that horrible center of disintegration.
Speaker 1: The flitter hung, poised in air, motionless, upon softly hissing
Speaker 1: under jets. Cloud knew to a fraction his height above
Speaker 1: the ground. He knew to a fraction his distance from
Speaker 1: the vortex. He knew with equal certainty the density of
Speaker 1: the atmosphere and the exact velocity and direction of the wind. Hence,
Speaker 1: since he could also read closely enough the momentary variations
Speaker 1: in the cyclonic storms within the crater, he could compute
Speaker 1: very easily the coarse and velocity necessary to land the
Speaker 1: bomb in the exact center of the vortex at any
Speaker 1: given instant in time. The hard part, the thing that
Speaker 1: no one had as yet succeeded in doing, was to predict,
Speaker 1: for a time far enough ahead to be of any
Speaker 1: use a usably close approximation to the vortex's quantitative activity.
Speaker 1: For as has been said, he had to overblast rather
Speaker 1: than under if he could not hit it on the nose,
Speaker 1: to under blast would scatter it all over the state. Therefore,
Speaker 1: Cloud concentrated upon the dials and gages before him, concentrated
Speaker 1: with every fiber of his being and every cell of
Speaker 1: his brain. Suddenly, almost imperceptibly, the sigma curve gave signs
Speaker 1: of flattening out. In instant, Cloud's mind pounced simultaneous equations,
Speaker 1: nine of them, involving nine unknowns an integration in four dimensions.
Speaker 1: No matter, Cloud did not solve them laboriously, one factor
Speaker 1: at a time, without knowing how he had arrived at it.
Speaker 1: He knew the answer, just as the Pousinian or the
Speaker 1: Rigellian is able to perceive every separate component particle of
Speaker 1: an opaque three dimensional solid, but without being able to
Speaker 1: explain to anyone how his sense of perception works. It
Speaker 1: just is, that's all anyway. By virtue, of whatever sense
Speaker 1: or ability it is which makes a mathematical prodigy what
Speaker 1: he is. Cloud knew that in exactly eight and three
Speaker 1: tenth seconds from that observed instant, the activity of the
Speaker 1: vortex would be slightly, but not too far under the
Speaker 1: coefficient of his heaviest bomb. Another flick of his mental trigger,
Speaker 1: and he knew the exact velocity he would require. His
Speaker 1: hands swept over the studs, his right foot tramped down
Speaker 1: hard upon the firing lever, and even as the quivering
Speaker 1: flitter shot forward under eight Telurian gravities of acceleration, he
Speaker 1: knew to the thousandth of a second how long he
Speaker 1: would have to hold that acceleration to attain that velocity.
Speaker 1: While not really long in seconds, it was much too
Speaker 1: long for comfort. It took him much closer to the
Speaker 1: vortex than he wanted to be. In fact, it took
Speaker 1: him right out over the crater itself. But he stuck
Speaker 1: to the calculated course, and at the precisely correct instant,
Speaker 1: he cut his drive and released his largest bomb, then
Speaker 1: so rapidly that it was one blur of speed. He
Speaker 1: again kicked on his eight g's of drive and started
Speaker 1: to whirl around as only a speed straw or a
Speaker 1: flitter can whirl practically unconscious from the terrific resultant of
Speaker 1: the linear and angular accelerations. He ejected the two smaller bombs.
Speaker 1: He did not care particularly where they lit, just so
Speaker 1: they didn't light in the crater or near the observatory,
Speaker 1: and he had already made certain of that. Then, without
Speaker 1: waiting even to finish the whirl or to straighten her
Speaker 1: out in level flight, Cloud's still flying hand darted towards
Speaker 1: the switch, whose closing would energize the Bergenholm and make
Speaker 1: the flitter inertialless too late, Hell was out for noon,
Speaker 1: with the little speedster still inert. Cloud had moved fast too.
Speaker 1: Trained mine and trained body had been working at top
Speaker 1: speed and in perfect coordination. There just simply hadn't been
Speaker 1: enough time. If he could have got what he wanted
Speaker 1: ten full seconds or even nine, he could have made it.
Speaker 1: But in spite of what happened, Cloud defended his action
Speaker 1: then and thereafter. Damn it all, he had to take
Speaker 1: the eight point three second reading another tenth of a
Speaker 1: second and his bomb wouldn't have fitted. He didn't have
Speaker 1: the five percent leeway he wanted, remember, and no he
Speaker 1: couldn't wait for another match either. His screens were leaking
Speaker 1: like sieves, and if he had waited for another chance,
Speaker 1: they would have picked him up, fried to a greasy
Speaker 1: cinder in his own lard. The bomb sped truly and
Speaker 1: struck the target in direct central impact, exactly as scheduled.
Speaker 1: It penetrated perfectly. The neo car balloy casing lasted just
Speaker 1: long enough that frightful charge of duo deck exploded, if
Speaker 1: not exactly at the center of the vortex, at least
Speaker 1: near enough to the center to do the work. In
Speaker 1: other words, Cloud's figuring had been close, very close, but
Speaker 1: the time had been altogether too short. The flitter was
Speaker 1: not even out of the crater when the bomb went off,
Speaker 1: and not only the bomb, for Cloud's vague forebodings were materialized.
Speaker 1: And more, the staggeringly immense energy of the vortex merged
Speaker 1: with that of the detonating duo deck to form an
Speaker 1: utterly incomprehensible hole. In part, the hellish flood of boiling
Speaker 1: lava in that Devil's cauldron was beaten downward into a
Speaker 1: bowl by the sheer stupendous force of the blow. In part,
Speaker 1: it was hurled abroad in masses, in gouts and streamers,
Speaker 1: and the raging wind of the explosions front seized the
Speaker 1: fragments and tore and worried them into bits, hurling them
Speaker 1: still faster along their paths of violence. And air so
Speaker 1: densely compressed as to be to all intents and purposes
Speaker 1: of solid smote the walls of the crater, smote them
Speaker 1: so that they crumbled, crushed outward through the hard packed ground,
Speaker 1: broke up into jaggedly irregular blocks, which hurtled screamingly away
Speaker 1: through the atmosphere. Also, the concussion wave, or the explosion front,
Speaker 1: or flying fragments, or something struck the two loose bombs,
Speaker 1: so that they too exploded and added their contribution to
Speaker 1: the already stupendous concentration of force. They were not close
Speaker 1: enough to the flitter to wreck it of themselves, but
Speaker 1: they were close enough so that they didn't do her
Speaker 1: or her pilot a bit of good. The first terrific
Speaker 1: wave buffeted the flier while Cloud's right hand was in
Speaker 1: the air, shooting across the panel to turn on the berg.
Speaker 1: The impact jerked the arm downward and sideways, both bones
Speaker 1: of the forearms snapping as it struck the ledge. The
Speaker 1: second one, an instant later, broke his left leg. Then
Speaker 1: the debris began to arrive. Chunks of solid or semi
Speaker 1: molten rocks slammed against the hull, knocking off wings and
Speaker 1: control surfaces. Gobs of viscous slag slapped it liquidly, freezing
Speaker 1: into and clogging up jets and orifices. The little ship
Speaker 1: was hurtled hither and yon in the grip of forces.
Speaker 1: She could no more resist than can the floating leaf
Speaker 1: resist waters of a cataract. And Cloud's brain was as
Speaker 1: addled as an egg by the vicious concussions which were
Speaker 1: hitting him from so many different directions and so nearly
Speaker 1: all at once. Nevertheless, with his one arm and his
Speaker 1: one leg, and the few cells of his brain that
Speaker 1: were still at work, the physicist was still in the fight.
Speaker 1: By sheer force of will and nerve, he forced his
Speaker 1: left hand across the gyrating key bank to the Bergenholm switch.
Speaker 1: He snapped it, and in the instant of its closing,
Speaker 1: a vast calm piece descended blanket like for Fortunately, the
Speaker 1: berg still worked, the flitter and all her contents and
Speaker 1: appurtenances were inertialless nothing material could buffet her or hurt her.
Speaker 1: Now she would waft effortlessly away from a feather's lightest
Speaker 1: possible touch. Cloud wanted to faint then, but he didn't quite. Instead, foggily,
Speaker 1: he tried to look back at the crater. Nine tenths
Speaker 1: of his visiplates were out of commission, but he finally
Speaker 1: got a view good. It was out. He wasn't surprised.
Speaker 1: He had been quite confident that it would be. It
Speaker 1: wasn't scattered around either. It couldn't be, for his only
Speaker 1: possibility of smearing the shot was on the upper side,
Speaker 1: not the lower. His next effort was to locate the
Speaker 1: secondary observatory where he had to land, and in that too,
Speaker 1: he was successful. He had enough intelligence left to realize
Speaker 1: that with practically all of his jets clogged and his
Speaker 1: wings and tail shot off, he couldn't land his vessel
Speaker 1: inert Therefore he would have to land her free, and
Speaker 1: by dint of light and extremely unorthodox use of what
Speaker 1: jets he had left in usable shape, he did land
Speaker 1: her free, almost within the limits of the observatory's field,
Speaker 1: and having landed, he inerted her. But as has been
Speaker 1: intimated his brain was not working so well. He had
Speaker 1: held his ship inertialis quite a few seconds longer than
Speaker 1: he thought, and he did not even think of the
Speaker 1: buffetings she had taken as a result of these things. However,
Speaker 1: her intrinsic velocity did not match anywhere near exactly that
Speaker 1: of the ground upon which she lay. Thus, when the
Speaker 1: cloud cut his Bergenholme, restoring thereby to the flitter the
Speaker 1: absolute velocity and inertia she had had before going free,
Speaker 1: there resulted a distinctly anti climatic crash. There was a
Speaker 1: last terrific bump as the motionless vessel collided with the
Speaker 1: equally motionless ground and storm cloud vortex blaster went out
Speaker 1: like the proverbial light. Help came, of course, and on
Speaker 1: the double. The pilot was unconscious and the flitter's door
Speaker 1: could not be opened from the outside, but those were
Speaker 1: not insuperable obstacles. A plate already loose was sheared away.
Speaker 1: The pilot was carefully lifted out of his prison and
Speaker 1: rushed to base hospital in the meat can already in attendance,
Speaker 1: and later in a private office of that hospital, the
Speaker 1: gray clad chief of the Atomic Research Laboratory sat and waited,
Speaker 1: but not patiently. How is he, Lacy, he demanded, as
Speaker 1: the Surgeon General entered the room. He's going to live,
Speaker 1: isn't he? Oh? Yes, phil definitely yes, Lacey replied briskly.
Speaker 1: He has a good skeleton, very good. Indeed, the burns
Speaker 1: are superficial and will yield quite readily to treatment. The
Speaker 1: deeper delayed effects of the radiation to which he was
Speaker 1: exposed can be neutralized entirely effectively. Thus he will not
Speaker 1: need even a Philip's treatment for the replacement of damaged parts,
Speaker 1: except possibly for a few torn muscles and so on.
Speaker 1: But he was smashed up pretty badly, wasn't he. I
Speaker 1: know that he had a broken arm and a broken leg,
Speaker 1: at least simple fractures only entirely negligible, Lacey waved, aside
Speaker 1: with an airy gesture such small ills as broken bones.
Speaker 1: He'll be out in a few weeks. How soon can
Speaker 1: I see him? The Lensman physicist asked. There are some
Speaker 1: important things to take up with him, and I've got
Speaker 1: a personal message for him that I must give him
Speaker 1: as soon as possible. Lacy pursed his lips. Then you
Speaker 1: may see him now, he decided. He is conscious, and
Speaker 1: strong enough. Not too long, though, Phil fifteen minutes at most.
Speaker 1: QX and thanks, and a nurse led the visiting lensman
Speaker 1: to Cloud's bedside. Hi stoop, he boomed, cheerfully, stop being
Speaker 1: short for stupendous, not stupid. Hi Chief, glad to see
Speaker 1: somebody sit down. You're the most wanted man in the galaxy,
Speaker 1: the visitor informed the invalid, not accepting even Kimball Kinnison.
Speaker 1: Look at this spool of tape, and it's only the
Speaker 1: first one. I brought it along for you to read
Speaker 1: at your leisure. As soon as any planet finds out
Speaker 1: that we've got a sure enough vortex lower outer, an
Speaker 1: expert who can really call his shots, and the news
Speaker 1: travels mighty fast, that planet sends in a double urgent
Speaker 1: class a prime demand for a first call upon your services.
Speaker 1: Serious four got in first, by a whisker, it seems,
Speaker 1: but Aldeburhon two was so close a second that it
Speaker 1: was a photo finish. And all the channels have been
Speaker 1: jammed ever since. Canopus, Vega, Rigel, Spika. They all want you,
Speaker 1: everybody from Alsakan to Vandemarin back. We told them right
Speaker 1: off that we would not receive personal delegations. We had
Speaker 1: to almost throw a couple of pink haired Chicolidorians out
Speaker 1: bodily to make them believe that we meant it, and
Speaker 1: that the age and condition of the vortex involved, not
Speaker 1: priority of requisition, would govern QX. Absolutely. Cloud agreed, that's
Speaker 1: the only way it could be. I should think, so
Speaker 1: forget about this psychic trauma. No, I don't mean that,
Speaker 1: the Lensman corrected himself hastily. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: The will to live is the most important factor in
Speaker 1: any man's recovery, and too many worlds need you too
Speaker 1: badly to have you quit now, not I suppose, so,
Speaker 1: Cloud acquiesced, but somberly. I'll get out of here in
Speaker 1: short order, and I'll keep on pecking away until one
Speaker 1: of those vortices finishes what this one started. You'll die
Speaker 1: of old age, then, son, The Lensman assured him, we
Speaker 1: got full data, all the information we need. We know
Speaker 1: exactly what to do to your screens next time. Nothing
Speaker 1: will come through except light, and only as much of
Speaker 1: that as you feel like admitting. You can wait as
Speaker 1: close to a vortex as you please, for as long
Speaker 1: as you please, until you get exactly the activity in
Speaker 1: time interval that you want, you will be just as
Speaker 1: comfortable and just as as though you were home in bed.
Speaker 1: Sure of that, absolutely, or at least as sure as
Speaker 1: we can be of anything that hasn't happened yet. But
Speaker 1: I see that your guardian angel here is eyeing her
Speaker 1: clock somewhat pointedly, so I'd better be doing a flit
Speaker 1: before they tossed me down a shaft. Clear Ether, Storm,
Speaker 1: clear Ether Chief. And that is how storm Cloud atomic
Speaker 1: physicist became the most narrowly specialized specialist in all the
Speaker 1: annals of science. How he became storm Cloud Vortex Blaster,
Speaker 1: the galaxy's only vortex blaster. And of the vortex Blaster
Speaker 1: by E. E. Doc Smith