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which we
install the Bergs, tube-generators, atomic blasts, and other stuff we brought
along.
"But that native Berg is going to be a Class A Prime headache, and until
we get it
running it's going to be hell on wheels. The only way we can get away with it
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is to check
and re-check every thing and every step. Check, check, double-check; then go
back
and double-check again.
"Remember that the fundamental characteristics of this Nth space are such
that
inert matter can travel faster than light; and remember, every second of the
time, that
our intrinsic velocity is something like fifteen lights relative to anything
solid in this
space. I want every one of you to picture himself going inert accidentally.
You might
take a tangent course or higherùbut you might not, too. And it wouldn't only
kill the one
who did it. It wouldn't only spoil our record. It could very easily kill us
all and make a
crater full of boiling metal out of our whole installation. So BE CAREFUL!
Also bear in
mind that one piece, however small, of this planet's material, accidentally
brought
aboard, might wreck the Dauntless. Any questions?"
"If the fundamental characteristicsùconstantsùof this space are so
different,
how do you know that the stuff will work here?"
"Well, the stuff we built here before worked. The Arisians told Kit
Kinnison that
two of the fundamentals, mass and length, are about normal. Time is a lot
different, so
that we can't compute power-to-mass ratios and so on, but we'll have enough
power,
anyway, to get any speed we can use." "I see. We miss the really fancy stuff?"
"Yes.
Well, the quicker we get started the quicker we'll get done. Let's go."
The planet was airless, waterless, desolate; a chaotic jumble of huge and
jagged
fragments of various metals in a non-metallic continuous phase. It was as
though some
playful child-giant of space had poured dipperfuis of silver, of iron, of
copper, and of
other granulated pure metals into a tank of something elseùand then, tired of
play, had
thrown the whole mess away!
Neither the metals nor the non-metallic substances were either hot or
cold. They
had no apparent temperature, to thermometers or to the "feelers" of the suits.
The
machines which these men had built so long before had not changed in any
particular.
They still functioned perfectly: no spot of rust or corrosion or erosion
marred any part.
This, at least, was good news.
Inertialess machines, extravagantly equipped with devices to keep them
inertialess, were taken "ashore"; nor were any of these ever to be returned to
the ship.
Kinnison had ordered and reiterated that no unnecessary chances were to be
taken of
getting any particle of Nth-space stuff aboard Space Laboratory Twelve, and
none were
taken.
Since men cannot work indefinitely in space-suits, each man had
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periodically to
be relieved; but each such relief amounted almost to an operation. Before he
left the
planet his suit was scrubbed, rinsed, and dried. In the vessel's airlock it
was air-blasted
again before the outer port was closed. He unshelled in the lock and left his
suit
thereùeverything which had come into contact with Nth-space matter either
would be
left on the planet's surface or would be jettisoned before the vessel was
again inerted.
Unnecessary precautions? Perhapsùbut Thorndyke and his crew returned unharmed
to normal space in undamaged ships.
Finally the Bergenholm was done;.by dint of what improvisation,
substitutions
and artifice only "Thorny" Thorndyke ever knew; at what strain and cost was
evidenced
by the gaunt bodies and haggard faces of his overworked and under-slept crew.
To
those experts and particularly to Thorndyke, the thing was not a good job. It
was not
quiet, nor smooth. It was not in balance, statically, dynamically, or
electrically. The Chief
Technician, to whom a meter-jump of one and a half thousandths had always been
a
matter of grave concern, swore feelingly in all the planetary languages he
knew when
he saw what those meters were doing.
He scowled morosely. There might have been poorer machines built
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