FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   >>  
ldn't be as if trouble had been anticipated at just this time. The squad ship steadied. Sergeant Madden looked with pleasurable anticipation back to where the ship had come out of overdrive and lingered for twenty-four seconds. Willis had moved the squad ship from that position, but the sergeant had left a substitute. The small object he'd dropped from the ejector tube now swelled and writhed and struggled. In pure emptiness, a shape of metal foil inflated itself. It was surprisingly large--almost the size of the squad ship. But in emptiness the fraction of a cubic inch of normal-pressure gas would inflate a foil bag against no resistance at all. This flimsy shape even jerked into motion. Released gas poured out its back. There was no resistance to acceleration save mass, which was negligible. A sudden swirling cloud of vapor appeared where the squad ship's substitute went mindlessly on its way. The vapor rushed toward the space-marker. A star appeared. It was a strictly temporary star, but even from a quarter-million-mile distance it was incredibly bright. It was a bomb, blasting a metal-foil flimsy which the electronic brain of a missile-rocket could only perceive as an unidentified and hence enemy object. Bomb and rocket and flimsy metal foil turned together to radioactive metal vapor. Sergeant Madden knew professional admiration. "Thirty-four seconds!" he said approvingly. The Huks could not have expected the appearance of an enemy just here and now. It was the first such appearance in all the planet's history. They certainly looked for no consequences of the seizure of the _Cerberus_, carefully managed as that had been. So to detonate a bomb against an unexpected inimical object within thirty-four seconds after its appearance was very good work indeed. "Hm-m-m," said Sergeant Madden, "we've nothing more to do right now, Willis. We'll go back to that hunk of ice you spotted comin' in, and wait for the _Aldeb_." Patrolman Willis obediently set the hop-timer and swung the squad ship to a proper aiming. He pressed the overdrive button. His manner, like that of Sergeant Madden, was the manner of someone conducting a perfectly routine operation. * * * * * "If my son Timmy were with me on this job," said Sergeant Madden, "I'd point out the inner meaning of the way we're going about handling it." He reposed in his bucket-seat in the squad ship, which at that moment
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   >>  



Top keywords:

Madden

 

Sergeant

 

Willis

 

seconds

 
flimsy
 

object

 

appearance

 

resistance

 

manner

 

emptiness


appeared

 

rocket

 

looked

 
overdrive
 
substitute
 
unexpected
 

detonate

 

inimical

 

meaning

 

reposed


thirty

 

carefully

 

expected

 
planet
 

seizure

 

Cerberus

 
consequences
 
history
 

handling

 
managed

approvingly
 

proper

 
aiming
 

Patrolman

 
obediently
 

pressed

 

button

 
routine
 

perfectly

 

conducting


operation

 
moment
 

bucket

 

spotted

 
marker
 

inflated

 

surprisingly

 

swelled

 
writhed
 

struggled