Part 19 (1/2)
They approached the halfway point; the acceleration rate decreased, and the gravity indicator dropped, little by little Everybody was enjoying the new sense of lightness, ro like newly landed tourists on Luna It was fun, as long as they landed on their feet at each julasses and cups Yves Jacquens in conspicuous places:
WEIGHT IS WHAT YOU LIFT, Mass IS WHAT HURTS WHEN IT HITS YOU
WEIGHT DEPENDS ON GRAVITY; Mass IS ALWAYS CONSTANT
His father came on-screen from his office in Storisende By then, there was a 30-second ti in communication between the shi+p and Poictesme
”My private detectives found out about the _Androe, in the Gamma System They have a couple of coe, and one they practically shanghaied away from the Government And some of the people who chartered the shi+p are members of a family that were interested in a positronic-equipe at the tiht, then; we don't need to worry about that anyfor Merlin”
So at hinetics engineer, said: ”I thought you were looking for Merlin, Conn”
”Not on Koschchei We're looking for so to build a hypershi+p out of If I had Merlin in ood shi+p like the _City of Asgard_ or the _City of Nefertiti_, and give a keg of brandy and a box of cigars to boot If we had a shi+p of our oe'd be selling lots of both, and not for Storisende spaceport prices, either”
”But don't you think Merlin's important?” Charley Gatworth, who had overheard him, asked
”Sure If we find Merlin, we can run it for President It would o at that Plenty of opportunities later to expand the thee dropped to zero Now they were in free fall, and it lasted twice as long as Yves Jacquemont had predicted There were a few misadventures, none serious and most of them comic--For example, when Jerry Rivas opened a bottle of beer, everybody was chasing the a thelad it hadn't been hot coffee
They htless Then they began decelerating and approached Koshchei stern-on, and the gravity gauge began cli put, and they alking instead of floating Koshchei grew larger and larger ahead; the polar icecaps, and the faint dappling of clouds, and the dark wiggling lines on the otherwise unifores becaan to see, first with the telescopic screens and then without nification, the little dots and specks that were cities and industrial centers
Then they were in atmosphere, and Jacquemont made the final shi+ft, to horizontal position, and turned the shi+p over to Nichols
For a moment, the scout-boat tumbled away froot on the lift-and-drive and steadied it, and pressed the trigger button, firing a green smoke bomb Beside him, Yves Jacquemont put on the radio and the screen pickups He could see the shi+p circling far above, and theaway from it Then he looked down on the endless desert of iron oxide that stretched in all directions to the horizon, until he saw a spot, optically the size of a five-centisol piece, that was the shi+pbuilding city of Port Carpenter
He turned the boat toward it, firing four reen smokes at three-second intervals The manipulator-boat started to follow, and the _Harriet Barne_, now a distant speck in the sky, began co closer
Below, as he cut speed and altitude, he could see the pock-ht lass roofs, the blunt conical stacks of nuclear furnaces and the twisted slag-flows, like the ancient lava-flows of Barathru stockholder in every bit of it, as soon as they could screen Storisende and get claih tower rose out of the lass-domed mushroom top That would be the telecast station; the ads were directly below it and around its base
He came in slowly over the city, above a spaceport with its e pits in a double circle around a traffic-control building, and airshi+p docks and warehouses beyond More steel s with rounded tops
shi+p-construction yards and docks; for the -stands of spaceshi+ps, like eight-and ten-legged spiders, waiting for forty years for hulls to be built on them A few spherical skeletons of shi+ps, a feith so close to thee they were And stacks of ravity lifters and construction ht rustless metal dulled by forty years of rain and windblown red dust
Theyhere to the very last, and then, when the evacuation elsewhere was co, piled into such shi+ps as were completed, and lifted away
The mushroo piled level on level, almost half a mile across He circled over it, saw an airshi+p dock, and called the _Harriet Barne_ while Jacque the manipulator-boat Rivas came in and joined them in the air; they hovered over the dock and helped the shi+p dohen she ca her into place
By the time Conn and Jacquemont and Rivas and Anse Dawes and Roddell and Youtsko and Karanja were out on the dock in oxygen hel and Nichols and Vibart and the others were co a couple of small lifters loaded with equip, at the end of the dock, was closed; when somebody pulled the handle, it refused to open That meant it was powered from the central power plant, wherever that was