Part 27 (1/2)
”Gave the, yet”
”So we have to admit that Klem wasn't crazy after all What do you want e We have to assume that there erous, and we have to assume that Kurt Fawzi and his covey of Merlinolators are just before digging it up Your job is to see that whatever it is doesn't get loose”
The trouble was, if he started giving orders around Force Co man and become a half-baked kid, and one word from him and the older and wiser heads would do just what they pleased He wondered if the pro-Leibert and anti-Leibert factions were still squabbling; onize one side, he'din, first; Kurt Fahom he talked, was almost incoherent with excitement At least, he was reasonably sure that none of Kleer-happyin
The well, fifty feet in diaht down from the top of the mesa; as the headquarters had been buried under loose rubble, they'd had to vitrify the sides going down He let down into the hole in a jeep, and stood on the collapsium roof of whatever it was they had found It wasn't the top of the headquarters itself; the s showed that It was a druround penthouse And there they were stopped You didn't cut collapsiuan to see hoas going to be able to take charge here
”You haven't found any passage leading into it?” he asked, when they were gathered in Fawzi's--formerly Foxx Travis's--office
”Nifflheiore
”And we've been all over the ceiling in here, and we can't find anything but vitrified rock and then the collapsiu”
”Sure There are collapsium-cutters, at Port Carpenter, on Koshchei
They do it with cosmic rays”
”But collapsium will stop cos, yes A collapsium-cutter doesn't penetrate; it abrades Throws out a rotary bea-wheel, or a buzz-saw”
”Well, could you get one down that hole?” Judge Ledue asked
He laughed ”No The thing is rather too large In the first place, there's a full-sized power-reactor, and a aed protons and positive electrons, positrons Then, you have to bring them into contact with normal positive-allon barrel,about a hundred tons Then you have to have a pseudograv field to ienerator door that would lift ten shi+ps the size of the _Lester Dawes_ Then you need another fifty to a hundred tons of collapsiuhs three tons The rotary beaht, ”is about the size of a silver five-centisol piece”
nobody said anything for a few seconds Carl Leibert stated that Divine Poould aid them nobody paid one bearish since he had found nothing in the butte and Fawzi had found that whatever-it-was on top of Force Co the whole blasted top off, clear down to where that thing is,” Zareff said ”That'll take a year”
”Oh, no Maybe a couple of weeks, after we get started,” Conn told theet the stuff loaded on a shi+p and hauled here than it will to get that thing uncovered and opened”
He told them about the machines they used in the ironabout hoas going to take charge here He had just been unani man!” Carl Leibert cried ”At last, the Great Computer! Those who coeneration I will go to my cha a lot of praying lately,” Toone out ”He's moved into the chaplain's quarters, back of the pandenominational chapel on the fourth level down Always keeps his door locked, too”
”Well, if he wants privacy for his devotions, that's his business
Maybe we could all do with a little prayer,” Veltrin said
”Probably praying to Sam Murchison by radio,” Klem Zareff retorted
”I'd like to see inside those rooms of his”
He called Yves Jacquemont at Port Carpenter after dinner When he told Jacqueineer remarked that it was a pity screens couldn't be fitted with olfactory sensors, so that he could smell Conn's breath