Sector General 03 Major Operation by James White

Author:James White [White, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-08T05:43:41+00:00

The scout ship was criss-crossing above them in the tightest turns Conway had ever seen. Even with the ship’s gravity compensators working at full capacity Harrison must have been taking at least four Gs. On the ground the ship’s shadow whipped past and around them, trailing a long, bright yellow line of rolled-up leaves. The ground shook to the thunder of the tiny vessel’s jet and then, very slightly, it began shaking by itself.

“Harrison!”

The scout ship broke off the maneuver and roared into a landing behind them. By then the ground was already beginning to sag.

Suddenly they appeared.

Two large, flat metal disks embedded vertically in the ground, one about twenty feet in front of them and the other the same distance behind. As they watched each disk contracted suddenly into a shapeless blob of metal which crawled a few feet to the side and then suddenly became a large, razor-edged disk again, cutting a deep incision in the ground. The disks had each cut more than a quarter circle around them and the ground was sagging rapidly inside the incisions before Conway realized what was happening.

“Think cubes at them!” he yelled. “Think something blunt! Harrison!”

“Lock’s open. Come running.”

But they could not run without taking their eyes and minds off the disks, and if they did that they could not run fast enough to clear the circular incision which was being made around them. Instead they sidled toward the scout ship, willing every inch of the way that the disks become cubes or spheres or horseshoes-anything but the great, circular scalpels which something had made them become.

At Sector General Conway had watched his colleague Mannon perform incredible feats of surgery, using one of these thought-controlled tools, an all-purpose surgical instrument which became anything he wanted it to be instantly. Now two of the things were crawling and twisting like metallic nightmares as they tried to shape them one way and something else-which was their owner and as such had more expertise-tried to shape them another. It was a very one-sided struggle but they did, just barely, manage to hamper their opponent’s thinking enough to allow them to get clear before the circular plug of “skin” containing the drilling rig and other odds and ends of equipment dropped from sight.

“They’re welcome to it,” said Major Edwards as the lock slammed shut and Harrison lifted off. “After all, we’ve been taking specimens for weeks and it may give them something to think about before we broaden contact with shadow diagrams.” He grew suddenly excited as he went on, “With high-acceleration radio-controlled missiles we can build up quite complex figures!”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.