"Heinlein, Robert A - Sixth Column" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

"Oh, no!"
"No? Why not?"
"Well, we could, but when we got through it wouldn't look like much-and I don't know how we would roof it over. What I intended to do was to use the Ledbetter effect not just for cutting or quarrying, but to make-transmute-the materials I want. You see, granite is principally oxides of silicon. That complicates things a little because both elements are fairly near the lower end of the periodic table. Unless we go to a lot of trouble and get rid of a lot of excess energy-a tremendous amount; darn near as much as the Memphis power pile develops-as I say, unless we arrange to bleed off all that power, and right now I don't see just how we could do it, then-"
"Get to the point, man!"
"I was getting to the point, sir," Wilkie answered in hurt tones. "Transmutations from the top or the bottom of the periodic scale toward the middle give off power; contrariwise, they absorb energy. Way back in the middle of the last century they found out how to do the first sort; that's what atom bombs are based on. But to handle transmutations for building materials, you don't want to give off energy like an atom bomb or a power pile. It would be embarrassing."
"I should think so!"
"So I'll use the second sort, the energy-absorbing sort. As a matter of fact I'll balance them. Take magnesium for instance. It lies between silicon and oxygen. The binding energies involved-"
"Wilkie!"
"Yes, Sir?"
"Just assume that I never got through third grade. Now can you make the materials you need, or can't you?"
"Oh, yes, sir, I can make them."
"Then how can I be of help to you?"
"Well, sir, it's the matter of putting the roof on and the size. You say a thirty-foot over-all dimension is no good-"
"No good at all. Did you see the North American Exposition? Remember the General Atomics Exhibit?"
"I've seen pictures of it."
"I want something as gaudy and impressive as that, only bigger. Now why are you limited to thirty feet?"
"Well, sir, a panel six by thirty is the biggest I can squeeze out through the door, allowing for the turn in the passage."
"Take 'em up through the scout-car lift."
"I thought of that. It will take a panel thirteen feet wide, which is good, but the maximum length is then only twenty-seven feet. There's a corner to turn between the hangar and the lift."
"Hmm-Look, can you weld with that magic gimmick? I thought you could build the temple in sections, down below here, then assemble it above ground?"
"That was the idea. Yes, I suppose we could weld walls as big as you want. But look, major, how big a building do you want?"
"As big as you can manage."
"But how big do you want?"
Ardmore told him. Wilkie whistled. "I suppose it's possible to give you walls that big, but I don't see any way to roof it over."
"Seems to me I've seen buildings with that much clear span."
"Yes, of course. You give me the services of construction engineers and architects and heavy industry to build the trusses needed to take that span and I'll build you as big a temple as you want. But Scheer and I can't do it alone, even with pressors and tractors to do all the heavy work. I'm sorry, sir, but I don't see an answer."
Ardmore stood up and put a hand on Wilkie's arm. "You mean you don't see an answer yet. Don't get upset, Bob. I'll take whatever you build. But just remember-This is going to be our first public display. A lot depends on it. We can't expect to make much impression on our overlords with a hotdog stand. Make it as big as you can. I'd like something about as impressive as the Great Pyramid-but don't take that long to build it."
Wilkie looked worried. "I'll try, sir. I'll go back and think about it."
"Fine!"
When Wilkie had gone Ardmore turned to Thomas. "What do you think about it, Jeff? Am I asking too much?"
"I was just wondering," Thomas said slowly, "why you set so much store by this temple?"
"Well, in the first place it gives a perfect cover up for the Citadel. If we are going to do anything more than sit here and die of old age, the time will come when a lot of people will have to be going in and out of here. We can't keep the location secret under those circumstances so we will have to have a reason, a cover up. People are always going in and out of a church building-worship and so forth. I want to cover up the 'and so forth.'"
"I understand that. But a building with thirty-foot maximum dimensions can cover up a secret stairway quite as well as the sort of convention-hall job you are asking young Wilkie to throw up."
Ardmore squirmed. Damn it-couldn't anyone but himself see the value of advertising? "Look, Jeff, this whole deal depends on making the right impression at the start. If Columbus had come in asking for a dime, he would have been thrown out of the palace on his ear. As it was, he got the crown jewels. We've got to have an impressive front."
"I suppose so," Thomas answered without conviction.
Several days later Wilkie asked permission for Scheer and himself to go outside. Finding that they did not intend to go far, Ardmore gave permission, after impressing on them the need for extreme caution.
He encountered them some time later proceeding down the main passage toward the laboratories. They had an enormous granite boulder. Scheer was supporting it clear of walls and floor by means of tractors and pressors generated by a portable Ledbetter projector strapped as a pack on his shoulders. Wilkie had tied a line around the great chunk of rock and was leading it as if it were a cow. "Great Scott!" said Ardmore. "What y' got there?"
"Uh, a piece of mountain, sir."
"So I see. But why?"
Wilkie looked mysterious. "Major, could you spare some time later in the day? We might have something to show you."
"If you won't talk, you won't talk. Very well."
Wilkie phoned him later, much later, asked him to come and suggested that Thomas come, too. When they arrived in the designated shop room everyone was present except Calhoun. Wilkie greeted them and said, "With your permission, we'll start, Major."
"Don't be so formal. Aren't you going to wait for Colonel Calhoun?"
"I invited him, but he declined."
"Go ahead then."
"Yes, sir." Wilkie turned to the rest. "This piece of granite represents the mountain top above us. Go ahead, Scheer."
Wilkie took position at a Ledbetter projector. Scheer was already at one; it had been specially fitted with sights and some other gadgetry that Ardmore could not identify. Scheer pressed a couple of studs; a pencil beam of light sprang out.
Using it as if it were a saw he sliced the top off the boulder. Wilkie caught the separated portion with a tractor-pressor combination and moved it aside. He set his controls and it hung in air; where it had been the stone was flat and of mirror polish. "That's the temple's base," said Wilkie.
Scheer continued carving with his pencil beam, trucking his projector around as necessary. The flat top had now been squared off; the square was the summit of a four-sided truncated pyramid. That done, he started carving steps down one side of the figure. "That's enough, Scheer," Wilkie commanded. "Let's make a wall. Prepare the surface."
Scheer did something with his projector. No beam could be seen, but the flat upper surface turned black. "Carbon," announced Wilkie. "Industrial diamonds probably. That's our work bench. O. K., Scheer. " Wilkie moved the detached chunk back over the "bench"; Scheer carved off a piece; it turned molten, dripped down on the flat surface, spread to the edges and stopped. It now had a white metallic sheen. As it cooled Scheer nipped each corner, then, using one pressor as a vise to hold it firmly to the boulder and another as a moving wedge, he turned each corner up. It was now a shallow, open box, two feet square and an inch deep. Wilkie whisked it aside and hung it in air.