Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: e-artnow
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
This carefully crafted ebook: "The Giant Atom" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. "The old quarry was an almost circular hole, a pit fully one hundred feet deep and with hewn walls that rose perpendicularly from the floor of the man-made crater. For a secret workshop the place had been ideally chosen. It lay high up in barren and sparsely wooded foothills in a section too poor to support so much as a rabbit. People rarely came there any more, now that the quarry was closed. There was no inducement—not even for game..." Malcolm Jameson (1891–1945) was an American Golden Age science fiction author whose writing career began when complications of throat cancer limited his activity as a naval officer. Drawing from his experiences of navy and warfare he gave a personal touch to all of his stories.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 157
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
The Giant Atom
Table of Contents
CHAPTER IAce in the Hole
The old quarry was an almost circular hole, a pit fully one hundred feet deep and with hewn walls that rose perpendicularly from the floor of the man-made crater. For a secret workshop the place had been ideally chosen. It lay high up in barren and sparsely wooded foothills in a section too poor to support so much as a rabbit. People rarely came there any more, now that the quarry was closed. There was no inducement — not even for game.
Which made the purring presence of the sleek automobile all the more inexplicable. But Steve Bennion knew perfectly well what he was doing. This old quarry some fifty miles up in the hills from the Bennion Research Laboratory belonged to him. He had spent a lot of solitary time up here, working privately on a project which he was exhibiting today for the first time.
Parking the car, Bennion assisted his lone companion out of the seat and led the way to the sheer edge of the cliff. He pointed downward toward the center of the abandoned quarry at what looked from here like a bronzed Easter egg resting on a giant ice-skate, within a stockade.
"There she is, Kitty," he said simply. "Inside that circle of dilapidated fencing. I screwed the last bolt home and made the final electrical connection yesterday. I wanted you to see her first."
Bennion's companion, a tall and unusually pretty girl, as deeply bronzed as he was; stared downward with widening brown eyes.
"Steve!" she exclaimed. "Not the completed space ship! You kept it secret while you worked on it?"
Steve Bennion smiled a trifle ruefully. "That's right," he admitted. "Now if we can just keep Bennion Research going for the few months necessary to perfect an atomic fuel — we'll be rich and famous in spite of General Atomics, Incorporated. At long last we can let the wedding bells ring out."
A shadow crossed the girl's face. She quickly tried to hide it as she moved closer, letting her arm rest against him.
"It's — it's wonderful, Steve," she murmured. "But I'm really afraid. You shouldn't have taken the entire last week off from your research work for Magnesium Metals. The bank has been calling up every day about that finance note."
"Oh, that," responded Bennion in quick relief. "They'll renew again. And as soon as we finish this job for Magnesium Metals we'll pay it off. Let's go down into the pit, Kitty. I can't rest until you've seen the first practical use for Anrad."
"How do we get down? Fly?" the girl asked, indicating the sheer drop.
Bennion laughed and stepped over to the car. From the baggage locker he took a boatswain's chair and a heavy coil of line. He led the way along the quarry edge to an old but sturdy derrick. In former days the derrick had been used to haul up the products of the quarry. Of late Bennion had used it to send down the plates and parts for the experimental space ship he had designed and built.
At the derrick he quickly rigged the bos'un's chair to the boom and rove his line through the end sheave.
"Ready," he cried. "Hop in, Kitty. Shut your eyes and have faith."
Aided by her employer and fiancé Katherine Pennell got into the seat for her descent into the quarry, but she didn't shut her eyes. She wasn't the eye-shutting kind. Instead, she was smiling like a gleeful and excited child, as Bennion swung her out over the abyss.
When she got out at the bottom, he made the upper end of the rope secure and then slid nimbly down it. A short brisk walk across the chip-strewn quarry floor brought them to the door of the fence. Bennion unlocked the padlock and took her inside the enclosure.
"She's a beauty," exclaimed Katherine, gazing up at the gleaming metallic vessel that had been erected within the frame of a launching cradle. The daylight was fading down here, but the fine, graceful lines of the ship were evident. The sheen on its special phosphor bronze hull plates glowed brightly.
"I've named her the Katherine, in honor of you," Bennion said, pleased with her delight over his handiwork, for he had spent all his spare time for three gruelling years in building the craft. "Climb that ladder and I will show you what it is like inside."
The ship rested at an angle, looking much like an airplane bomb, nose pointed up. Entry could be made through a port a little over half-way forward that led into the control room. Although she gave the impression of possessing tremendous power and speed, the ship was a tiny one, hardly exceeding forty feet. Therefore the climb was an easy one. Bennion waited at the foot of the ladder until the girl had reached the top. He gave one final proud glance toward the as yet useless driving tubes clustered about the sharp tail-tip of the tear-drop-shaped vessel. Then he climbed the ladder behind Katherine. He inserted another key and let her go in.
"It's even duckier inside," she remarked, surprised, as he snapped on the lights for her to see.
The room was circular and switch-boards and instrument panels lined the walls. Kitty noticed a cabinet where cooking could be done. Two spring-slung hammocks indicated where its two passengers would sleep. Overhead there were a number of optical instruments for observations of the stars that would be seen through the many round lucite ports that faceted the domed ceiling.
"Anrad?" she inquired, pointing at the black curtains neatly folded back beside each of the viewports.
"Yes. The first man to hop into space is likely to get a lot of surprises. We can't know what fierce radiation is loose up there above the screen of our atmosphere. I'm taking no chances. The material of those curtains is Anrad."
"Anrad" was their abbreviation of the fuller term Anradiaphane, a substance not unlike rubber in appearance and texture, though far different in its qualities. Its composition was their own well-guarded secret, for it was one of his more recent inventions of which Steve Bennion Was most proud. Anrad possessed the miraculous virtue of being able to stop the terrible Gamma rays far more effectively than even lead. A thin sheet of it, made into a garment, was a safer screen than clumsy and ponderous armor made of several inches of lead.
Bennion frowned momentarily. Mention of Anrad reminded him of unpleasant things. Given an incorrupt government, he would have patented this invention long ago. But sad experience had made him cagey. Three times before he had made application for patents on other important ideas and processes, only to have them rejected with the curt statement that the identical idea had been patented a day or so before by the powerful General Atomics Corporation.
Other independent research workers had had similar experiences — much too often to be explained away as coincidences, even if the great electronics combine did possess wonderful laboratories of its own and had many brilliant scientists oh its payroll. Thus Bennion had come to the conclusion that something was radically wrong with the Patent Office. This had driven him to secrecy and taught him to keep notebooks in cipher. For, ironically enough, he was actually paying to General Atomics exorbitant royalties for the privilege of using some of his own stolen inventions!
"Have a look below," he said, more soberly, trying to dismiss the subject from his mind. He lifted a trapdoor and showed her how to climb down.
Under the floor of the control room were the recoil cylinders that let the floor above spring back under sharp acceleration and thereby cushion the shock of the takeoff. Below them were storerooms, air and water recovery machines, and the spare fuel bins. Lowest of all was the motor room. Up into this chamber projected the butts of the driving tubes. On top of them was built a compact little cyclotron, actuated by its own motor. Its job would be — when suitable fuel was supplied — to start it into atomic eruption.
"Well, honey, you've seen it all," said Bennion at length. "Perhaps I have been too optimistic — building the ship before the final rocket fuel has been prepared — but I know that is merely a matter of time now."
"I hope you are right, Steve," the girl said earnestly. "But something worries me. I don't know why — or how. But I do, too! I've been wrong not to tell you before. But you've been acting so much like a kid at Christmas that I hated to spoil things. Steve, a car was driven out to the lab yesterday morning and stopped near the gates. Four men got out and studied the building for a long time through glasses. And they made a lot of notes."
Bennion frowned down at her troubled face. Then he smiled.
"So they spied, eh? And what did it matter? It will take more powerful glasses than any I know of to reveal what goes on behind our lab walls. Don't let it bother you."
"I wouldn't have — only one of those men was Farquhar," she admitted reluctantly.
"What?" ejaculated Bennion. "Come on! Let's get out of here!"
The name of Farquhar startled the electronic engineer. And with good reason. Farquhar was the vice-president and general manager of the greedy General Atomics Company. Whenever he showed a personal interest in a plant or a man, that plant or man was as good as gone. He was ever anxious to acquire brains as well as equipment and completed inventions — always on the cheapest terms.
Thrice already had Steve Bennion been cheated of the just rewards for his work. Now, one of the few surviving independent research engineers, Bennion thought of that overdue bank note. One of General Atomics' favorite tricks was to catch a man in a neat financial trap and then give him the choice of ruin or going to work for the monopolistic company that wrecked him.
More deeply concerned than he wanted his secretary and assistant to know, Bennion hustled her out of the ship and down the ladder. Hastily padlocking the heavy fence door behind him, Bennion left the girl to follow and bounded across the quarry in great leaping strides. By the time Katharine reached the waiting sling chair, he was almost at the end of his feverish overhand climb up the rope to the top of the pit. Without waiting for a breather, he began hauling her up.
Within two minutes they were careening down the rough mountain trail, heading back toward the laboratory at a furious and dangerous speed.
"When I came up here with you today," the girl explained breathlessly, "I left Billy on guard at the gate. I instructed Mike not to leave the office until we got back. They would die for you, Steve. Please, why the great hurry?"
Bennion laughed shortly, harshly.
"You don't know that pirate Farquhar like I do, Kitty," he said grimly. "No, danger of Billy and Mike having to die for me. Those General Atomic burglars are too smooth to do things in such a clumsy manner. Their strong-arm squad is made up of clever lawyers and grasping bankers. I thought I was preparing an ace in the hole in building the Katherine, and I may have been asleep on a more important job."
The car was on the paved road now, and the going was smoother. Bennion's foot was pressed hard against the accelerator, and the car fairly roared down through the foothills.
"Oh!", exclaimed Katherine faintly. Then: "If things do get bad, Steve, could we get together another stake by selling the little space ship?"
"No!" he shouted fiercely. "Nobody could use it without proper fuel, and those leeches have drained my brains long enough. I'll destroy the Katherine with my own hands before I'll let those bloodsuckers go crawling around through her. We can't afford to let General Atomics have the Katherine. They must never know, even that she has been built! The Katherine is ours alone; I won't even proceed with my fuel research as long as she is in jeopardy!"
Thirty minutes later they roared around the last curve and came into view of the research laboratory. What they saw sent a foreboding chill through their hearts!
CHAPTER II Whipsawed
Several cars and trucks were parked before the plant gate, and that stood wide open. Most of the vehicles displayed the arrogant trademark of General Atomics, but two of them were police cars. Several policemen were guarding the gate, and, overalled strange workmen swarmed in and out of the building.
Bennion brought his car to a screaming stop and leaped out. He strode over to the nearest policeman.
"What is going on here?" he demanded.
The cop shrugged, but pointed to a typewritten notice wired to the fence. Bennion gave it only a glance, for its heading told him what it meant. The document was entitled, "Notice of Execution Of Foreclosure and Dispossess." Bennion stormed past the grinning guards and into his own front yard. Four men on ladders were affixing a sign over the door of the laboratory. The sign said, GENERAL ATOMIC CORPORATION — BRANCH PLANT 571-A. Coming out the door was Mr. Price, the assistant cashier of the bank. Price tried to avoid Bennion's angry glance, but could not, so instead he sheepishly tried to explain.
"You mustn't blame us for this, Mr. Bennion," he whined, "We had no choice. After your last renewal the bank examiner ordered us to get rid of your note. So we sold it to one of the big city banks. General Atomics must have bought it from them. I swear — "
"Save your breath," interrupted Bennion bitterly, "though you might have told me sooner."
"It would only have worried you," said the other. "We knew you didn't have any money and couldn't do anything about it, anyway — "
Bennion planted a hand against the man's chest and shoved him out of his way. He was licked and he knew it, but that did not compel him to be polite to liars and hypocrites. Then he was face to face with his real adversary.
Farquhar, massive and overbearing, was the next to step out the door.
"Ah, Bennion," he declared with an oily smile, "I've been expecting you. Although your mortgage was a blanket one, covering as it did land, buildings, equipment and furnishings, we do not want to make things hard for you. I'll give you a few minutes to gather up any strictly personal belongings you and your most delightful secretary may have left behind."
Bennion stopped dead in his tracks and looked the man over with boiling scorn. He never wanted worse to sock a man, but he restrained himself. Farquhar was perhaps fishing for it, and he had witnesses and cops around him by the dozen. So Bennion took firm hold of himself.
"I'll be out of here in five minutes," he said. "But get this, Farquhar. You haven't seen the last of me."
"Why, of course not, my dear boy," exclaimed Farquhar. "Naturally you are excited how, and a little disgruntled. But I do expect to see you again. After you have cooled off we want you to know General's latchstring is always out. You can keep on running this laboratory if you like and without the pain of worrying over expenses. We take care of those and pay you a good salary, too."
Bennion did not bother to answer that. Followed by the girl, he just walked by the man. Inside the office they were treated to a still more disgusting revelation of General Atomic's methods. A photostat machine had been set up and a gang of operators were busily photographing the pages of Bennion's diaries and notebooks. Not that it made any real difference, for Bennion had long known of their practice and was prepared for it.
His file cases — even the locked ones marked "Special and Confidential" — had been carefully stuffed with harmless and meaningless records of routine laboratory. His real records he kept in his head, or else in the four or five compact notebooks that he and Kitty never failed to keep on their persons. And even those were in a cryptic code of their own devising, and the key to that they carried in their heads. The only item of real value still in the laboratory was the roll of blueprints covering the construction of the Katherine.
It took Bennion only a moment to dig that out and have it firmly in his hand. It had been left on a table in a workroom in full sight all the time. But no one had molested it, for the outside was plainly marked, "Plan for New Heater Unit to be Installed in Watchman's shack at the Gate." Farquhar's spies were hunting for bigger game. Meanwhile Kitty had packed a brief case with a few things from her own desk. After a brief word to their former employees, there was nothing to do but go.
"Where to?" asked Kitty, taking the wheel. She had refused to let Bennion drive, knowing his furious mood. She did not relish road travel at a hundred and more miles an hour.
"To Northburg. I'm taking you home to your father. There are also some matters I want to talk over with him."
It was late at night when the car rolled through the tree-shaded streets of Northburg, the sleepy town that was the home of Northburg Tech. It drew up before the rambling brick house where Dr. Pennell lived. He was the director of the Institute of Electronics and had been Bennion's beloved and respected teacher. He met them at the door, for they had stopped long enough to phone him they were coming.
The two men sat until late in the library, talking.
"You are up against a hard proposition, Steve," Dr. Pennell was saying. "There are some government jobs, but they are poorly paid and the work is dull routine. I would gladly give you a professorship here, but you couldn't stand that, either. A year ago our trustees accepted a fifty-million-dollar endowment from General Atomics and since then we've been their pawns."
"But surely, there must be a few independent labs still operating?" said Bennion, savagely. "I simply must find a place where I can work on the atomic fuel for the rocket."
Pennell stared at the rug. That was not an easy question to answer. There were a few, to be sure, but they were run by men of mediocre caliber and he knew that they would not want to have under them a man of Bennion's brilliance.
"There is Elihu Ward's workshop," ventured the old man after a long pause, "but I hesitate to recommend it. I know little or nothing about the man or what he is doing, but rumors reach me. I understand he is playing with the transmutation of elements. One report even has it that he is scheming to construct elements of higher atomic number than Uranium."
"Pretty ambitious," remarked Bennion. "Why, a man who would monkey with elements up in the nineties and hundreds might set the world afire. My own belief is that if such elements exist at all, they are in blue dwarf suns. Who is this guy?"
"Hallam, one of your classmates, is with him. And young Carruthers. They seem contented enough."
It was Bennion's turn to stare at the rug. The old man's recommendation was only lukewarm, but Ward might be an out. Bennion had to have a job, and quickly, for he must start saving money for the new stake.
"I'll take a shot at it," he announced abruptly, snapping out of his reverie. "Where is his place?"
"It is on a high hill near the Catskills, not far from the town of Foxboro. But I had better give you a letter. They say he is a hard man to see."
Foxboro was the next stop, the bus conductor told him, many hours later. Bennion started. He had been daydreaming again. Half his thoughts were behind him with his loyal Katherine Pennell. Just before that last passionate embrace of farewell he had entrusted her with his secret notes and blueprints.
Now he was clean of anything that would be of value to a competitor except for the undersuit he carried tightly rolled into a small package. That was a union suit of Anrad, complete with head hood. He brought it along to ensure his own personal safety. In this new place he might bump into radiations too powerful for standard lead suits to shield.
