"02 - Islands of Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Campbell John W Jr)

ISLANDS OF SPACE

Copyright, 1956, by John W. Campbell, Jr. Copyright, 1930, by Experimenter Publications, Inc.

An Ace Book, by arrangement with the author. All Rights Reserved

Cover by McKeon

Also by John W. Campbell in Ace editions:

THE BLACK STAR PASSES (F-346) THE MIGHTIEST MACHINE (F-364)

Printed in U.S.A. .

PROLOGUE

IN THE EABLY PART OF THE Twenty Second Century, Dr. Richard Arcot, hailed as "the greatest living physicist", and Robert Morey, his brilliant mathematical assistant, discovered the so-called "molecular motion drive", which utilized the random energy of heat to produce useful motion.

John Fuller, designing engineer, helped the two men to build a ship which used the drive in order to have a weapon to seek out and capture the mysterious Air Pirate whose robberies were ruining Transcontinental Airways.

The Pirate, Wade, was a brilliant but neurotic chemist who had discovered, among other things, the secret of invisibility. Cured of his instability by modern psychomedical techniques, he was hired by Arcot to help build an interplanetary vessel to go to Venus.

The Venusians proved to be a humanoid race of people who used telepathy for communication. Although they were

determined. "Dr. Arcot, Mr. Fuller is here. My orders are to check with you on all visitors,"

Arcot nodded. Send him up. But from now on, I'm not in to anyone but my father or the Interplanetary Chairman or the elder Mr. Morey. If they come, don't bother to call, just send 'em up. I will not receive calls for the next ten hours. Got it?"

"You won't be bothered, Dr. Arcot."

Arcot cut the circuit and the image collapsed.

Less than two minutes later, a light flashed above the door. Arcot touched the release, and the door slid aside. He looked at the man entering and said, with mock coldness:

"If it isn't the late John Fuller. What did you do-take a plane? It took you an hour to get here from Chicago."

Fuller shook his head sadly. "Most of the time was spent in getting past your guards. Getting to the seventy-fourth floor of the Transcontinental Airways Building is harder than stealing the Taj Mahal." Trying to suppress a grin, , Fuller bowed low. "Besides, I think it would do your royal i highness good to be kept waiting for a while. You're paid a couple of million a year to putter around in a lab while honest people work for a living. Then, if you happen to stub your toe over some useful gadget, they increase your pay. They call you scientists and spend the resources of two| worlds to get you anything you wantЧand apologize if they! don't get it within twenty-four hours.

"No doubt about it; it will do your majesties good to

wait."

With a superior smile, he seated himself at the table and shuffled calmly through the sheets of equations before him.

Arcot and Wade were laughing, but not Robert Morey. With a sorrowful expression, he walked to the window and! looked out at the hundreds of slim, graceful aircars that' floated above the city.

"My friends," said Morey, almost tearfully, "I give you the great Dr. Arcot. These countless machines we see have come from one idea of his. Just an idea, mind you! And

who worked it into mathematical form and made it calculable, and therefore useful? I did I