"E. E. Doc Smith - Spacehounds Of IPC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

but some things just aren't being done. We have been yelling, and yelling
loud, for
trained computers ever since they started riding us about every one-centimeter
change
in acceleration, but I know that you're no more an I-P computer than I am a
Digger
Indian. They don't shoot sparrows with coast-defense guns!"
 "Thanks for the compliment, Breck, but I'm your computer for this trip,
anyway.
Newton, the good old egg, knows what you fellows are up against and is going
to do
something about it, if he has to lick all the rest of the directors to do it.
He knew that I
was loose for a couple of weeks and asked me to come along this trip to see
what I
could see. I'm to check the observatory dataтАФthey don't know I'm aboardтАФtake
the
peaks and valleys off your acceleration curve, if possible, and report to
Newton just
what I find out and what I think should be done about it. How early am I?"
While the
newcomer was talking, he had stripped the covers from a precise scale model of
the
solar system and from a large and complicated calculating machine and had set
to work
without a wasted motion or instantтАФscaling off upon the model the positions of
the
various check-stations and setting up long and involved integrals and
equations upon
the calculator.
The older man studied the broad back of the younger, bent over his
computations, and a tender, almost fatherly smile came over his careworn face
as he
replied:
"Early? You? Just like you always were тАФ minus fifteen seconds on zero.
The
final dope is due right now." He plugged the automatic recorder and speaker
into a
circuit marked "Observatory", waited until a tiny light above the plug flashed
green, and
spoke.
"IPV Arcturus; Breckenridge, Chief Pilot; trip number forty three twenty
nine.
Ready for final supplementary route and flight data, Tellus to Mars."
"Meteoric swarms still too numerous for safe travel along the scheduled
route,"
came promptly from the speaker. "You must stay further away from the plane of
the
ecliptic. The ether will be clear for you along route E2-P6-W4I-K3-Ri9-S7-Mi4.
You will