Travelers of Space (Jerry eBooks) by Martin Greenberg

Author:Martin Greenberg [Greenberg, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jerry eBooks
Published: 2015-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

“When Albee and the others made that break, you noticed that the pentapods wasted no time in pursuing a man who was even slightly out of reach; they were able to reason with extreme rapidity even in a situation like that, and realized that they couldn’t catch him. A man would have tried, at least.

“Like everything else, this high-speed communication has its, disadvantages. These creatures could never have invented the telephone, any more than the Vegans could; and they’d have had the same difficulty with gadgets such as the telegraph. I don’t know anything about their written language, but it must be ideographic and contain, unless I underestimate their capacity for bringing order out of chaos, a perfectly appalling number of symbols. Who could make up a dot-and-dash code for that? The Orientals of Earth had the same trouble. That would interfere with the ‘evolution’ of communication devices.

“Their long-distance communication, therefore, must be purely visual transmission. We have seen the television screens in their office downstairs—ten feet square, enough to picture any of the creatures full length. I’m sure that they can’t broadcast their vision for two reasons: the Vegans say the ship always returns unexpectedly, and preparations are never made a few hours in advance of its arrival—as they would be if they could broadcast news of their approach. Also, there is no sign anywhere on this building of a beam type second-order projector, or even the loop of a general field broadcaster such as Art was making. The images are transmitted by wire, and only inside this building. That was the reason, Art, that I insisted on your making a visual transmitter. They would have no desire to copy a telephone unit. They have it now, they’ll have a full-size visual before that ship leaves; and their communications room is right below here, and should contain emergency accumulators in case the regular power goes.

“When the ship leaves, we wait a day. Then we collect the kitchen refuse, which Denham is accumulating, and pile it into the elevator to take outside—Leo, get that happy expression off your face—making the load big enough so that none of the guards can ride with us, though they don’t usually these days anyway. Just before we go, the stove will break down, and Denham will come kicking about it. Arthur will go back, tinker with the stove, remove the geletane tank now clamped to it and replace it with another, and toss the ‘used’ tank in with the rest of the waste. The elevator will descend one floor, and we will emerge with the tank open. We will run toward the office, which is just down the hall, in order to avert the effects of the geletane by activity, we will hold handkerchiefs over our faces to let the guards know we have gas, and hold their breaths. Two of us will enter the communication office, while the third will remain outside to destroy the door control. He can spend the rest of his time welding the door shut, until that welder gives out.

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