FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25  
26   27   28   29   30   31   >>  
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thin Edge, by Gordon Randall Garrett This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Thin Edge Author: Gordon Randall Garrett Illustrator: John Schoenherr Release Date: January 6, 2010 [EBook #30869] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIN EDGE *** Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction December 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. THIN EDGE There are inventions of great value that one type of society can use--and that would, for another society, be most nastily deadly! BY JOHNATHAN BLAKE MAC KENZIE ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN SCHOENHERR * * * * * I "Beep!" said the radio smugly. "_Beep! Beep! Beep!_" "There's one," said the man at the pickup controls of tugship 431. He checked the numbers on the various dials of his instruments. Then he carefully marked down in his log book the facts that the radio finder was radiating its beep on such-and-such a frequency and that that frequency and that rate-of-beep indicated that the asteroid had been found and set with anchor by a Captain Jules St. Simon. The direction and distance were duly noted. That information on direction and distance had already been transmitted to the instruments of the tugship's pilot. "Jazzy-o!" said the pilot. "Got 'im." He swiveled his ship around until the nose was in line with the beep and then jammed down on the forward accelerator for a few seconds. Then he took his foot off it and waited while the ship approached the asteroid. In the darkness of space, only points of light were visible. Off to the left, the sun was a small, glaring spot of whiteness that couldn't be looked at directly. Even out here in the Belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, that massive stellar engine blasted out enough energy to make
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25  
26   27   28   29   30   31   >>  



Top keywords:

society

 

distance

 

tugship

 

asteroid

 

frequency

 
direction
 

instruments

 

Randall

 
Gordon
 

Project


Gutenberg

 

Garrett

 

information

 
carefully
 

transmitted

 
restrictions
 

swiveled

 

whatsoever

 
marked
 

radiating


finder

 

Captain

 

anchor

 

looked

 

directly

 

couldn

 

whiteness

 

glaring

 
blasted
 

energy


engine

 
stellar
 

orbits

 

Jupiter

 

massive

 

accelerator

 

seconds

 

forward

 

jammed

 

points


visible

 

darkness

 

waited

 
approached
 

checked

 

Proofreading

 
Distributed
 
Online
 

Sankar

 

Viswanathan