Her duties alternated between military or police scouting and factory
work. For the two-week period which would end the next day, she had been
on "air patrol." This did not mean, as I first imagined, that she was
flying, but rather that she was on the lookout for Han ships over this
outlying section of the Wyoming territory, and had spent most of her
time perched in the tree tops scanning the skies. Had she seen one she
would have fired a "drop flare" several miles off to one side, which
would ignite when it was floating vertically toward the earth, so that
the direction or point from which it had been fired might not be guessed
by the airship and bring a blasting play of the disintegrator ray in her
vicinity. Other members of the air patrol would send up rockets on
seeing hers, until finally a scout equipped with an ultrophone, which,
unlike the ancient radio, operated on the ultronic ethereal vibrations,
would pass the warning simultaneously to the headquarters of the Wyoming
Gang and other communities within a radius of several hundred miles, not
to mention the few American rocket ships that might be in the air, and
which instantly would duck to cover either through forest clearings or
by flattening down to earth in green fields where their coloring would
probably protect them from observation. The favorite American method of
propulsion was known as "_rocketing_." The _rocket_ is what I would
describe, from my 20th Century comprehension of the matter, as an
extremely powerful gas blast, atomically produced through the
stimulation of chemical action. Scientists of today regard it as a
childishly simple reaction, but by that very virtue, most economical and
efficient.
But tomorrow, she explained, she would go back to work in the cloth
plant, where she would take charge of one of the synthetic processes by
which those wonderful substitutes for woven fabrics of wool, cotton and
silk are produced. At the end of another two weeks, she would be back on
military duty again, perhaps at the same work, or maybe as a "contact
guard," on duty where the territory of the Wyomings merged with that of
the Delawares, or the "Susquannas" (Susquehannas) or one of the half
dozen other "gangs" in that section of the country which I knew as
Pennsylvania and New York States.
Wilma cleared up for me the mystery of those flying leaps which she and
her assailants had made, and explained in the following manner, how the
inertron belt balances weight:
"_Jumpers_" were in common use at the time I "awoke," though they were
costly, for at that time _inertron_ had not been produced in very great
quantity. They were very useful in the forest. They were belts,
strapped high under the arms, containing an amount of inertron adjusted
to the wearer's weight and purposes. In effect they made a man weigh as
little as he desired; two pounds if he liked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account