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long, long coil."
"How long will that operate?" asked Warren in Anlo-Raonii.
"About ten minutes on maximum load," replied Thaen.
"What if there is no iron?"
Thaen pointed his device at the wall of stone, and pressed the release. A
sheet of blue flame appeared, and spread hi widening ripples, some ten feet
across. The wall began to smoke slightly.
"Pure electricity when the magnetic field isn't needed," said Putney.
"What range?" asked Warren.
"About a. quarter of a mile in air, for this. Nearly twenty miles in space,
but it isn't very effective against a man more than four miles off. The rings
spread too much.
"The other is effective half a mile hi air, and fully effective up to nearly a
thousand in space. It re-condenses on striking its objective. The big weapons
are effective nearly 100 miles in space. But the electricity is not very
useful, unless it can be discharged destructively to some other object."
"How do you store that energy?" asked Warren.
Thaen shrugged. "We do not know. Only we know that under certain conditions,
which we can achieve, metal plates can be put up against each other, and
packed under enormous pressure, and yet they are insulated so that even
thousands of volts will not discharge during weeks of time. A gas is first
forced in under pressure. The metal plates put in position carefully, free of
holes and cracks and lumps, and great pressure is applied. After that they
will hold several horsepower-hours. Great batteries of these drive our ships.
The magnetic beams are used to pull them through space, since planets are
magnetic. In air, tiny points along the edges of the wings throw the
electricity off, and drive the ship forward,, or backward, or hold it in the
air."
"What a gang! They must have some sweet condensers, Putt. Think of getting
condenser plates so close together-perhaps only one or two molecules apart-and
still have a dielectric strength capable of resisting thousands of volts!
There are things in heaven and earth-! Horatio, and so forth. I never dreamt
of a condenser like that-condensers capable of running those huge ships at
thousands of miles an hour." He turned to Thaen. "Have the enemy these
storage-devices?"
"No," smiled Thaen. "They have no spies, so cannot learn how they are made. To
take them apart, at once destroys them, and all trace of their manufacturing
processes. The gas escapes. They have analyzed it, but find only hydrogen and
helium mixed. That is all we find. A scientist stumbled on the device by
accident. It ruined his experiment, because he put hundreds of horsepower into
a furnace, trying to make the two gases combine between the metal plates, due
to a terrific arc. The power went in. Little heat developed. He thought he was
successful, and the gas had absorbed the energy. He was very much afraid to
break the circuit, for he feared the gas was unstable, and would blow up. He
broke it from a long distance-and nothing happened. So he went back to
investigate. Luckily he had used a voltage of but a few hundred, and the
discharge through his body merely curled him up in a corner." Warren grinned.
It probably did, he thought. "And then," Thaen continued, "he published his
discovery. We also make bombs of them. You saw in the picture. Charged
condensers are hurled as shells. When the plates are broken apart, they burst
with stupendous force."
"Oh-they would," said Warren. "You have atomic energy?" asked Putney. "How is
it derived?"
Thaen scowled in disgust. "It is a disappointment. We had known of it for many
raenth. Knew it existed. Vast energy. When we learned the Bay-Raonii had it,
we trem-
bled. It is worthless, for it is no better than coal, or oil. It simply burns
Page 107
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
atoms, and they give off terrific heat. The apparatus weighs tons. The heat is
generated inside a great spherical boiler containing mercury which stops the
rays and the flying particles swiftly, and is boiled. The heat runs turbines
and generates power. The mercury is gradually transformed to heavy, useless
gold, which dissolves in the mercury, and then is gradually built up till the
stuff clogs the boilers and apparatus dismally, and must be scraped out
laboriously, for the blasted stuff won't dissolve in acids. Usually the
mercury is distilled off, and the boiler thrown away. Our mercury supplies are
being used up all too rapidly. In ten raeth we will be helpless, unless we use
gigantic boilers and empty zinc. Mercury atoms are heavy, and stop the
radiation quickly. Other elements would allow it to pass and injure men. It is
bad enough as it is."
Warren smiled in amusement. "Putt-that's rather good. Hear him cuss that gold?
It is useless. Melts easily; soft, heavy, clinging." He turned to Thaen. "What
do you use it for, if at all-the gold I mean."
"Oh, it does have one use. Other substances are as good, however. It can be
made into very thin sheets, and is an excellent conductor. For condensers
where weight does not matter, we use it. Aluminum works better for airplanes
and hand-weapons, however, for it is far lighter."
"Thaen, have a great quantity of stuff brought-rock, scrap metal-even
discarded boilers and old gold-and piled there." He pointed to a spot in the
cavern floor.
Thaen departed instantly. In a few seconds Warren was in the control room. A
set of forces set to work, and in thirty seconds, a hollow ten feet deep and
twenty across appeared in the rocky floor of the cavern. The first load of
scrap appeared within two minutes, on a large truck-plane. Warren lifted it
with forces, closed an opaque wall of force about it, and set certain
fieldrcontrols. The Flame behind him whirred gently, and a small hole opened
in the bottom of the sphere of force. For an instant a terrible glare beat out
that illuminated the vast cavern with a harsh glare. Then a spurting, tumbling
stream of white-glowing vapor shot out to meet a cloudy patch of mist, and
from the mist a steady, beating rain of shining liquid globules fell to
collect rapidly in a pool in the hollow he had made. Warren set some more
controls carefully, and went outside.
A crowd of men had gathered already, more were streaming in swiftly from
barracks about the hangar cavern. Thaen met him as he stepped from the ship.
"But-but, Wah-ran, you are making tons of mercury-that requires far vaster
energy than we have ever possessed. Yet your machine is small. How can you get
more energy than the energy of the atom?"
Warren smiled. "I will tell you later. Now see-that slanting plane of colored
light? It is like a funnel. Tell that truck-ship to dump his load of scrap
there."
Thaen snapped something to a man nearby, who ran off toward the circling [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]