FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47  
48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   >>   >|  
nt magicians take up the Medical Art for a time. Surely one so skilled can also be a secretary, even to the great Dave Hanson? As to why I'm here--" She dropped her eyes, frowning, while a touch of added color reached her cheeks. "In the sleep spell I used, I invoked that you should be well and true. But I'm only a bachelor in magic, not even a master, and I slipped. I phrased it that I wanted you well and true. Hence, well and truly do I want you." "Huh?" He stared at her, watching the blush deepen. "You mean--?" "Take care! First you should know that I am proscribed as a duly registered virgin. And in this time of need, the magic of my blood must not be profaned." She twisted sidewise, and then turned toward the door, avoiding him. Before she reached it, the door opened to show a dull clod, entirely naked, holding up a heavy weight of nothing. "Your sample of sky," she said as the clod labored over to the desk and dropped nothing with a dull clank. The desk top dented slightly. Dave could clearly see that nothing was on the desk. But if nothing was a vacuum, this was an extremely hard and heavy one. It seemed to be about twelve inches on a side, in its rough shape, and must have weighed two hundred pounds. He tapped it, and it rang. Inside it, a tiny point of light danced frantically back and forth. "A star," she said sadly. "I'm going to need some place to experiment with this," he suggested. He expected to be sent to the deepest, dankest cave of all the world as a laboratory, and to find it equipped with pedigreed bats, dried unicorn horns and whole rows of alembics that he couldn't use. Nema smiled brightly. "Of course. We've already prepared a construction camp for you. You'll find most of the tools you used in your world waiting there and all the engineers we could get or make for you." He'd been considering stalling while he demanded exactly such things. He was reasonably sure by now that they had no transistors, signal generators, frequency meters or whatever else he could demand. He could make quite an issue out of the need to determine the characteristic impedance of their sky. That might even be interesting, at that; would it be anywhere near 300 ohms here? But it seemed that stalling wasn't going to work. They'd given him what they expected him to need, and he'd have to be careful to need only what they expected, or they might just decide he wasn't Dave Hanson. "I can't work on this stuff
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47  
48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

expected

 

dropped

 

stalling

 

reached

 
Hanson
 

deepest

 

prepared

 

brightly

 

pedigreed

 

equipped


couldn

 

alembics

 

experiment

 
suggested
 
unicorn
 
laboratory
 

smiled

 

dankest

 

determine

 

characteristic


impedance

 

meters

 

demand

 
interesting
 

careful

 

decide

 
frequency
 
generators
 

engineers

 
waiting

demanded
 

transistors

 
signal
 

things

 
construction
 

stared

 

watching

 
slipped
 

phrased

 

wanted


deepen

 
registered
 

virgin

 

proscribed

 
master
 

bachelor

 

skilled

 

secretary

 
Surely
 

magicians