When Kohonnes ScreamedFox, Gardner F. (Gardner Francis)
Science
When Kohonnes Screamed
Fox, Gardner F. (Gardner Francis)
Adventure stories; Science fiction
They urged their mounts to a faster pace. They clung to sweat-wet necks
and manes as the horses flashed their hocks above the roughly humped
ground. They went by one tall, metallic needle-tower after another. The
towers stood like rigid fingers against the horizon as they went on and
on.
Grim brooded above the whipping mane of his chestnut, "If the thing
that sends the change is a machine, then it would need the towers to
broadcast its force. It's limited in range, itself. The towers give it
a wide radius of effectiveness. Now the question is--what operates only
in a limited range?"
He thought of radio waves, but the ionized heaviside would throw
them around the planet. He shook his head, whispering, "Some sort of
wave-radio or energy."
Grim lifted his eyes to the next tower and scanned it. He growled, "If
I still had my disintegrator I'd try a potshot at those interlacing
wires on top of it. I bet that'd stop the Change. But without that--"
His mind raced as did the hooves of the chestnut. A scowl came and sat
on his face. Then, after a while, his eyes brightened. He whispered,
"It might work, at that--"
He reined in the chestnut; called to Tlokine, and headed for the
nearest tower. She stared at him as he swung down from the horses
and began to climb the tower, sliding fingers and toes into the tiny
slots between the interslanted metal beams. He went up and up until he
reached the round ribboned globe with the tiny wires inside it. It was
fastened to the tower by slotted bolts.
Using his belt-buckle as a screwdriver, he unthreaded the bolts, found
that the globe came away easily from the tower. It was composed of thin
alumisteel ribbons and wires of spiderweb thinness. He tucked it under
an arm and went backwards down the tower.
Tlokine said, "What are you doing?" when he knelt and fumbled at the
wiring setup.
He grinned, "This thing must broadcast vibrations of some sort. In some
manner, they cause the Change. If I could jam those vibrations in the
same way that a radio broadcast can be jammed--maybe there wouldn't
_be_ any Change to slow us down."
Tlokine looked back along the path they had come. She said, "Althaya
and her men will soon be here. You are wasting time, Grim Thorssen."
He shook his yellow-thatched head. "Not the way I figure it. Soldiers
marching in rhythmic steps across a bridge have been known to smash it.
That's why they break step all the time. It changes the pulse of the
vibration on the bridge. It jars--but does not destroy.
"Same way here. Ultrasonic vibrations can't be heard, but they can do
plenty of damage. They can kill frogs and tiny fishes. They can cause
heat and put out a flame--oh, and a hundred other things. But--if
the vibratory rate of those ultrasonic waves can be damped by other
wave-impulses--their usefulness is destroyed."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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