Criminals -- Fiction; Police -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
The suit had its limitations, of course. Lonnie could see out, but the
suit could also be seen. That required sometimes intricate advance
planning to offset. Also, occasionally, manipulating the field of the
grid to permit mechanical contact with the physical world was a trifle
cumbersome but never annoyingly so. All it took was a modicum of
step-by-step thought and some care not to leave a personal trace for the
quantum analyzer to pick up. No actual trouble. And, finally, Moglaut
had warned that the compact power unit pocketed on the left breast had a
half-life of only thirteen years.
That left Lonnie placid. He took the suit for granted and used it for
what it let him do.
When something more was needed, he was convinced his philosophy would
provide it.
He didn't waste time trying to determine whether possession of the suit
or previous experiences leading to his insistence on its development
brought into focus the third ethic of his philosophy: "Rules One and Two
are valuable and have their use. But when the chips are really down, _do
it yourself_!" Instead, he toddled about personally acquiring the
trappings of omnipotent royalty with little thought for the means.
* * * * *
But while he was about that business, the very limitations of the grid
suit furnished an unending challenge to Moglaut's genius. And out of a
sideline experiment incited by that challenge came the disarmer which
Jason greeted with such fruitless glee.
Fruitless because, of course, before turning the disarmer over to Lab
Nine and Pol-Anx, Moglaut devised a new, infinitely stronger, more
versatile power pack for Lonnie's suit. A power pack controlled by a
simple rheostat in the palm of the left-hand glove, but whose energy
derived from the electron-kinetic properties of pent and shielded
tritium. Not simple. In fact, solving the problem of penning and
shielding tritium in a portable package delayed the appearance of
Jason's disarmer two whole years.
That power pack and the reciprocating properties of the fields of the
grid suit itself made a dilly of a combination. Before, the
closed-plenum mesh kept Lonnie from leaving traces. Now, anything once
embraced within the palpitating fields of the grid moved with and how
the suit moved; not in accord with the natural laws of the surrounding
continuum. That neat new attribute took care of the cubic yard or so of
Diamond Throne.
And the ravenous tritium was malignant. Let any external power be
applied against the plenum and it would be smashed, hurled back full
force upon its source.
Jason had an undiagnosed example of that when he got only part of his
man back from the Valley of Kings.
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