Part 17 (2/2)
”And Conn Maxwell, I suppose, will be an influential non-office-holding stockholder?”
”That's right Just like in L E & S”
XII
He found Jerry Rivas and Anse Dawes and a score of work a survey and inventory of the spaceport Captain Nichols and four of the original crew of the _Harriet Barne_, who had shared his captivity a the pirates, had stayed to take care of the shi+p And Fred Karski, with one gun-cutter and a couple of light airboats, was keeping up a routine guard All of them had heard about the formation of Alpha-Interplanetary when Conn arrived
The next day, Yves Jacque froineers and construction men whom he had recruited around Storisende More workers arrived in the next few days, including a number who had already worked on the shi+p as slaves of the Perales gang
It didn't take Conn long to appreciate the problems involved in the conversion Built to operate only inside planetary at and narrow, like an old ocean shi+p; e submarine spaceshi+ps, either interplanetary or interstellar, were always spherical with a pseudogravity system at the center This, of course, the _Harriet Barne_ lacked
”Well, are we going to make the whole trip in free fall?” he wanted to know
”No, we'll use our acceleration for pseudograv halfway, and deceleration the other half,” Jacquemont told him ”We'll be in free fall about ten or fifteen hours What we're going to have to do will be to lift off froned for, and then ree turn after we're off-planet, with our lift and our drive working together, just like one of the old rocket shi+ps before the Abbott Drive was developed”
That meant, of course, that the after bulkheads would become decks, and explained a lot of the oddities he had noticed about the conversion job It i stowed so as to be secure in either position, and nothing placed where it would be out of reach in either
Jacquee of the work on the shi+p herself
Chief Engineer Vibart, with a gang of half-taught, self-taught and untaught helpers, went back to working the engines over, tearing out all the safety devices that were intended to keep the shi+p inside planetary atines so that they could be swung into line with the drive engines There was a lot of cybernetic and robotic equipational equipment, that had to be made from scratch Conn picked a couple of helpers and went to work on that
From time to time, he was able to snatch a few minutes to read teleprint papers or listen to audiovisual newscasts from Storisende
He was always disappointed There was much excitement about the new interplanetary co People weren't interested in getting hypershi+ps built, or opening theabout all the things now in short supply that could be produced there They were talking about Merlin, and they were all positive, now, that so found at Force Coe that the giant computer was somewhere off-planet
Rodney Maxwell flew in from Storisende; he was accompanied by Wade Lucas, who shook hands cordially with Conn
”Can you spare us Jerry Rivas for a while?” Rodney Maxwell asked
”Well, ask Yves Jacquee of operations As an influential non-office-holding stockholder, I'd think so He's only running around helping out here and there”
”We want hi us about Wade and I are for to act as broker for L E & S in getting rid of medical stores nobody in the coet for it”
Wade Lucas began to talk about how desperately sonostic equipue to ask Lucas whether he thought that was a racket, too Lucas must have read his ood this would do,” he said ”I wouldn't have spoken so forcefully against it if I had I thought it was nothing but this Merlin thing--”
”Aaagh! Don't talk to me about Merlin!” Conn interrupted ”I have to talk to Kurt Fawzi and that crowd about Merlin till I'm sick of the whole subject”
His father shot hi at hie the subject:
”I see Len made you a suit out of that ing the coat out behind with a hip-holster”