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mechanical shape.
The Harriet Barne was finished. The first test, lifting her to three hundred
miles, turning her bow-up, and taking her another thousand miles, had been a
success. They brought her back and set her down in the middle of the crater.,
and began getting the supplies aboard. Kurt Fawzi, Klein Zareff, Judge Ledue,
Franz Veltrin and the others flew over from Force Command. Sylvie Jacquemont
came from Litchfield, and so did Wade Lucas, Morgan Gatworth, Lester Dawes,
Lorenzo Menardes and a number of others. Neither Conn's mother nor sister
ca-me.
"I don't know what's the matter with those two," Sylvie told him. "They always
seem to be scrapping with each other now, and the only thing they can agree on
is that you and your father ought to stop whatever you're doing, right away.
Your mother can't adjust to your father being a big Storisende businessman,
and she says he'll lose every centisol he has and both of you will probably go
to jail, and then she's afraid you will find Merlin, and Flora's sure you and
your father are swindling everybody on the planet."
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"Sylvie, I had no idea things would be like that," he told her contritely. "I
wish I hadn't suggested that you stay there, now."
"Oh, it isn't so bad, so far. Your mother and I get along all right when Flora
isn't there, and Flora and I get along when your mother isn't around.
Mealtimes aren't much fun, though."
His father came out from Storisende, looked the ship over, and seemed
relieved.
"I'm glad you're ready to get off," he said. "You know this hyperspace
freighter, the Andromeda? Some private group in Storisende has chartered her.
She's loading supplies now. I have a private detective agency,
Barton-Massarra, trying to find out where she's going. I think you'd better
get this ship off, right away."
"We have everything aboard, all the supplies and everything," Jacquemont told
him. "We can lift off tonight."
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XIII
THE SHIP lurched slightly. In the outside screens, the lights around, the
crowd that was waving goodbye, and the floor of the crater began receding. The
sound pickups were full of cheering, and the boom of a big gun at one of the
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file:///F|/rah/H.%20Beam%20Piper/Beam,%20Piper%20H%20-%20The%20Cosmic%20Comput
er.txt top batteries, and the recorded and amplified music of a band playing
the traditional "Spacemen's Hymn."
"It's been a long time since I heard that played in earnest," Jacquemont said.
"Well, we're off to see the Wizard."
The lights dwindled and merged into a tiny circle in the darkness of the
crater. The music died away; the cannon shots became a faint throbbing.
Finally, there was silence, and only the stars above and the dark land and the
starlit sea below. After a long while a sunset glow, six hours past on
Barathrum, appeared in the west, behind the now appreciable curvature of the
planet.
"Stand by for shift to vertical," Captain Nichols called, his voice echoing
from PA-outlets through the ship.
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"Ready for shift, Captain Nichols," Jacquemont reported from the
duplicate-control panel.
Conn went to the after bulkhead, leaning his back against it. "Ready here,
Captain," he said.
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Other voices took it up. Lights winked on the control panels.
"Shifting over," Nichols said. "Your ship now, Captain Jacquemont."
"Thank you, Mr. Nichols."
The deck began to tilt, and then he was lying on his back, his feet against
the side of the control room, which had altered its shape and dimensions.
There was a jar as the drive went on in line with the new direction of the
lift and the ship began accelerating. He got to his feet, and he and Charley
Gatworth went to the astrogational computer and began checking the data and
setting the course for the point in space at which Koshchei would be in a
hundred and sixty hours.
"Course set, Captain," he reported to Jacquemont,_ after a while.
A couple of lights winked on the control panel. There was nothing more to do
but watch Poictesme dwindle behind, and listen to the newscasts, and take
turns talking to friends on the planet.
They approached the halfway point; the acceleration rate decreased, and the
gravity indicator dropped, little by little. Everybody was enjoying the new
sense of lightness, romping and skylarking like newly landed tourists on Luna.
It was fun, as long as they landed on their feet at each jump, and the food
and liquids stayed on plates and in glasses and cups. Yves Jacquemont began
posting signs in conspicuous places:
WEIGHT IS WHAT YOU LIFT, MASS IS WHAT HURTS WHEN IT HITS YOU. WEIGHT DEPENDS
ON GRAVITY; MASS IS ALWAYS CONSTANT:
136
His father came on-screen from his office in Storisende. By then, there was a
30-second time lag in communication between the ship and Poictesme.
"My private detectives found out about the Andromeda," he said. "She's going
to Panurge, in the Gamma System. They have a couple of computermen with them,
one they hired from the Stock Exchange, and one they practically shanghaied
away from the Government. And some of the people who chartered the ship are
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er.txt members of a family that were interested in a positronic-equipment
plant on
Panurge at the time of the War."
"That's all right, then; we don't need to worry about that any more. They're
just hunting for Merlin."
Some of his companions were looking at him curiously. A little later, Piet
Ludvyckson, the electromagnetics engineer, said: "I thought you were looking
for Merlin, Conn."
"Not on Koshchei. We're looking for something to build a hypership out of. If
I had Merlin in my hip pocket right now, I'd trade it for one good ship like
the City of Asgard or the City of Nefertiti, and give a keg of brandy and a
box of cigars to boot. If we had a ship of our own, we'd be selling lots of
both, and not for Storisende Spaceport prices, either."
"But don't you think Merlin's important?" Charley Gatworth, who had overheard
him, asked.
"Sure. If we find Merlin, we can run it for President. It would make a better
one than Jake Vyckhoven."
He let it go at that. Plenty of opportunities later to expand the theme.
The gravitation gauge dropped to zero. Now they
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were in free fall, and it lasted twice as long as Yves Jacquemont had
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predicted. There were a few misadventures,- none serious and most of them
comic- For example, when Jerry Rivas opened a bottle of beer, everybody was
chasing the amber globules and catching them in cups, and those who were
splashed were glad it hadn't been hot coffee.
They made their second, 180-degree turnover while weightless. Then they began
decelerating and approached Koshchei stern-on, and the gravity gauge began
climbing slowly up again, and things began staying put, and they were walking
instead of floating. Koshchei grew larger and larger ahead; the polar icecaps,
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