"E. E. Doc Smith - Lensman 7 - Masters Of The Vortex" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

any more than they could work out a tractor that could be used as a tow-line on one.'
'Wait a minute!' Cloud protested. 'They found that it could be forecast, for a length of time proportional to the length of the
cycle in question, by an extension of the calculus of warped surfaces.'
'Humph! I said a usable formula!' the Lensman snorted. What good is a ten-second forecast when it takes a GOMEAC
twice that long to solve ... Oh!' he broke off, staring. -
'Oh,' he repeated, slowly. 'I forgot for a minute that you were born with a super-GOMEAC in your head. But there are other
things.'
'There were. Now there are none.'
'No?'
'NO. I couldn't take such chances before, and I'd've tied myself up into knots if I did. Now nothing can throw me. I can
compute all the elements of a sigma curve in nothing flat. A ten-second prediction gives me ten seconds of action. That's
plenty.'
'I see.' Strong pondered, his fingers drumming softly upon his desk. Lensmen did not ordinarily use their Lenses on their
Lensless friends, but this was no ordinary occasion. 'You aren't afraid of death any more. But you won't invite it? And do
you mind if I Lens you on that?'
'Come in. I'll not invite it, but that's as far as I'll go in promising. I won't make any superhuman effort to avoid it. I'll take
all due precautions, for the sake of the job, but if one gets me, what the hell?'
'QX.' The Lensman withdrew from Cloud's mind. 'Not too good, but good enough. What's your plan? You won't have time
for the usual method of attack.'
'Like this.' Cloud found a sheet of drafting paper and sketched rapidly. 'There's the crater, with the vortex at the bottomтАФ
there. From the sigma curve I estimate the most probable value of the activity I'll have to shoot at. Then I select three
duodec bombs from the hundred or so I'll have made up in advanceтАФone on the mark, one each five percent over and
under the mark. The bombs, of course, will be cased in neocarb-alloy thick enough for penetration. Then I take off in a
shielded armored flying suit, say about here ...'
'If you take off at all, you and your suit will be inside a flitter,' the Lensman interrupted. 'Too many instruments for a suit,
to
say nothing of bombs, and you'll need heavier screen than a suit can put out. We can adapt a flitter for bomb-throwing
easily enough.'
'That'd be better, of course. QX, I set my flitter into a projectile trajectory toward the center of disturbance. Twelve seconds
away, at about this point here, I take my instantaneous readings, solve the equations of that particular warped surface for
some definite zero time....'
'But s'pose the cycle won't give you a ten-second solution?'
'Then I'll swing around and try again until a long-enough cycle does show up.'
'QX. It will, sometime.'
'Sure. Then, having everything set for zero time, and assuming that the activity is somewhere near my assumed value...'
'Assume it isn'tтАФit probably won't be.'
'I accelerate or decelerate...."
'Solving new equationsтАФdifferential equations at thatтАФall the while?'
'Certainly. Don't interrupt so. I stick around until the sigma curve, extrapolated to zero time, matches one of my bombs. I
build up the right velocity, cut that bomb loose, shoot myself off in a sharp curve, and Z-W-E-E-TтАФPOWIE! She's out.'
With an expressive, sweeping gesture.
'You hope.' Strong was frankly dubious. 'And there you are, right in the middle of the damndest explosion you ever saw.'
'Oh, no. I've gone free in the meantime, so nothing can touch me.'
7 hope! But do you realize just how busy you are going to be during those ten or twelve seconds?'
'Yes.' Cloud's face grew somber. 'But I'll be in full control. I won't be afraid of anything that can happenтАФof anything that
can happen. From my standpoint, that's the hell of it.'
'QX,' The Lensman decided, 'You can go. We'll iron out the kinks as we go.'
'We?'
'I'll be in the lookout shack with the boys, at least on the first ones. When do you want to start?'
'How long will it take to fix up the flitter?'