Part 20 (1/2)
”Port Carpenter; we're in the ,” Conn told him He talked for a while about what they had found and done since their arrival ”Have you an extra viewscreen, fitted for recording?”
he asked
Five and a half ht here”
He leaned forward and away from the coave the wave-length combination ”Ready to receive”
”This is about all we have, now Viee took co in, fro them ”We haven't sent in any claims yet I wasn't sure whether I should make thee”
”Don't bother sending in anything to the Clai you want to clai file the”
”What? Another one?”
His father nodded, grinning ”Koshchei Exploitation & Development; we've hts to the whole planet, like the old interstellar exploration companies did before the War, but since you're the only people on the planet, we can co to one side, at the other screen ”Great Ghu, Conn! This place of yours all together beats everything I ever dug, Force Co would you say it is? More than ten miles in radius?”
”About five or six Ten or twelve ht, then We'll just clai you're in, now, and the usual ten-mile radius, the same as at Force Command We'll claim the place as soon as the co else you can get views of”
They set up a regular radio-and-screen watch after that Charley Gatworth and Piet Ludvyckson, both of ere studying astrogation in hopes of qualifying as space officers after they had a real spaceshi+p, elected theave them plenty of time for study Jerry Rivas and Anse Daho a systematic search They looked first of all for foodstuffs, and found enough in the storerooms of three restaurants on the executive level to feed their own party in gourh in the erators and freeze-bins full of etables fresh after forty years That surprised everybody, for the power units had gone dead long ago Then it was noticed that they were covered with collapsiu that would stop cosmic rays was a hundred percent efficient as a heat insulator
Co in, the first day, Conn had seen an al above the domes and roofs of Port Carpenter in the distance
He saw it again on screen from a pickup atop the central tower As soon as the party was comfortably settled in the executive apartments on the upper levels, he and Yves Jacqueineer, found an aircar in one of the hangars and went to have a closer look at her
She had all her collapsium on, except for a hundred-foot circle at the top and a nus around the sides Yves Jacqueo
”They always put the you find or don't find inside As soon as the skeleton's up they put the armor on, and then build the rest of the shi+p out froh the airlock openings, but it holds things together while they're working”
They put on the car's lights, lifted to the top, and let down through the upper opening It was like entering a huge globular spider's web, globe within globe of interlaced girders and struts and braces, extending from the center to the outer shell Even the spider was ho tiny at the very middle
”Why, this isn't a shi+p!” Vibart cried in disgust ”This is just the outside of a shi+p They haven't done a thing inside”
”Oh, yes, they have,” Jacqueht toward the shi+ines in--Abbott lift-and-drive, Dillingharav, power reactors, converters, everything They wouldn't have put on the shi+elding if they hadn't They did that as soon as they had the outside arot that far,” Retief said
”They didn't need her They'd had it; they wanted to go ho to finish her, not with any fifteen men,”
Retief said ”One man has only two hands, two feet and one brain; he can only handle so much robo-equipment at a time”
”I never expected we'd build a shi+p ourselves,” Conn said ”We caet a few claiet a real gang together”
”I don't knohere you'll find them,” Jacqueht all to be graduate engineers
We can't do this job with farood shi+pyard men out of farm-tramps on Barathrum”
”And what'll you do for supervisors?”
”You're one General superintendent Mack, you and Schalk are a couple of others You just keep a day ahead of your ht”