"James P. Hogan - Giants 2 - The Gentle Giants of Ganymede" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

deduced the kind of electrical supply it was designed to work from. This had
enabled them to set up a suitable arrangement of transformers and frequency
converters. Today was the day they intended to switch it on to see what
happened.
Besides Hunt and Carizan, two other engineers were present in the
laboratory to supervise the measuring instruments that had been assembled for
the experiment. Frank Towers observed Canzan's nod of satisfaction as he
stepped back from the amplifier panel and asked:
"All set for overload check?"
"Yep," Carizan answered. "Give it a zap." Towers threw a switch on
another panel. A sharp clunk sounded instantly as a circuit breaker dropped
out somewhere in the equipment cabinet behind the panel.
Sam Mullen, standing by an instrumentation console to one side of the
room, briefly consulted one of his readout screens. "Current trip's
functioning okay," he announced.
"Unshort it and throw in some volts," Carizan said to Towers, who
changed a couple of control settings, threw the switch again and looked over
at Mullen.
"Limiting at fifty," Mullen said. "Check?"
"Check," Towers returned.
Carizan looked at Hunt. "All set to go, Vic. We'll try an initial run
with current limiters in circuit, but whatever happens our stuff's protected.
Last chance to change your bet; the book's closing."
"I still say it makes music." Hunt grinned. "It's an electric barrel
organ. Give it some juice."
"Computers?" Carizan cocked an eye at Mullen.
"Running. All data channels checking normal."
"Okay then." Carizan rubbed the palms of his hands together. "Now for
the star turn. Live this time, Frank -- phase one of the schedule."
A tense silence descended as Towers reset his controls and threw the
main switch again. The readings on the numeric displays built into his panel
changed immediately.
"Live," he confirmed. "It's taking power. Current is up to the maximum
set on the limiters. Looks like it wants more." All eyes turned toward Mullen,
who was scanning the computer output screens intently. He shook his head
without looking around.
"Nix. Makes a dodo look a real ball of fire."
The accelerometers, fixed to the outside of the Ganymean device standing
bolted in its steel restraining frame on rubber vibration absorbers, were not
sensing any internal mechanical motion. The sensitive microphones attached to
its casing were picking up nothing in the audible or ultrasonic ranges. The
heat sensors, radiation detectors, electromagnetic probes, gaussmeters,
scintillation counters, and variable antennas -- all had nothing to report.
Towers varied the supply frequency over a trial range but it soon became
apparent that nothing was going to change. Hunt walked over to stand beside
Mullen and inspect the computer outputs, but said nothing.
"Looks like we need to wind the wick up a little," Carizan commented.
"Phase two, Frank." Towers stepped up the input voltage. A row of numbers
appeared on one of Mullen's screens.
"Something on channel seven," he informed them. "Acoustic." He keyed a