The of m. r. gabriel, power design was not a corporation, but it did well for a one-man show. The office was a that Mike the Angel had to when he came in the next after having the night at a hotel. There was a mixed and of “Good morning, Mr. Gabriel” as he passed through. Mike gave the to each of them and was stopped four times for small he his way to his own office.
His was waiting for him. She was short, bony, and plain of face. She had a like an and the of a Ramsden calculator. Mike the Angel liked her that way; it complications.
“Good morning, Mr. Gabriel,” she said. “What the here?” She at the door and the of tape that still in on the floor.
Mike told her, and she to his without any of expression. “I’m very you weren’t hurt,” she said when he had finished. “What are you going to do about the apartment?”
Mike opened the door and looked at the inside. Through the of the window, he see the of the two-hundred-year-old Cathedral of St. John the Divine. “Get Larry Beasley on the phone, Helen. I’ve his number, but you’ll him under ‘Interior Decorators.’ He has the original plans and designs on file. Tell him to them out; I want this place up just like it was.”
“But what if someone else....” She toward the window and the beyond.
“When you’re through talking to Beasley,” Mike on, “see if you can Bishop Brennan on the phone and him to my desk.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
Within two hours were up the in Mike the Angel’s apartment, and the round, of Larry Beasley was walking around while his but brain estimates. Mike had also an agreement with the special doors would be into the leading up to the towers at Mike’s expense. They were to have of so that they be to with the Gothic of the church, but the would be by steel. Nobody would those in a hurry.
Since the room was a of activity and his office had a thoroughfare, Mike the Angel retired to his to think. He took with him the he had up at Old Harry’s the night before.
“For something that doesn’t look like much,” he said to the stack, “you have me a of a of trouble.”
Old Harry, he knew, wouldn’t be selling the things. In the place, it was illegal to in the of brains. In the second place, they were so difficult to get, on the black market, that the that came into Old Harry’s hands into the of his own shop. Mike the Angel had only wanted to borrow one to take a good look at it. He had read up on all the about microcryotrons, but he’d actually one before.
He had to be about microcryotrons. There was something definitely going on in Antarctica.
Nearly two years before, the UN Government, in the person of Minister Wallingford himself, had asked Mike’s firm—which meant Mike the Angel himself—to design the power drive and the for a spaceship. On the of it, there was nothing at all in that. Such jobs were for M. R. Gabriel.
But when the arrived, Mike the Angel had to wonder what the was going on. The William Branchell was to be on the surface of Earth—and yet it was to be a much larger ship than any that had been on the ground. Usually, an that large was in around the Earth, where the didn’t have to worry about pull. Such a ship landed, any more than an was beached—not on purpose, anyway. The and were taken up by smaller and the same way when the at her destination.
Aside from the energy to such a free of a planet’s surface, there was also the magnetic of the to consider. The drive to and if they were to cut through the magnetic of a planet.
Therefore, Question One: Why wasn’t the Branchell being in space?
Part of the answer, Mike knew, in the for the of Cargo Hold One. For one thing, it was huge. For another, it was insulated. For a third, it was like a for liquids. All very well and good; possibly someone wanted to a of cold or tea. That would be stupid, maybe, but it wouldn’t be mysterious.
The in the that Cargo Hold One had already been built. The Branchell was to be around it! And that didn’t with Mike the Angel’s ideas of the proper way to a spaceship. It was not the same as a around an oil in the middle of Texas, but it was close to Mike the Angel.
Therefore, Question Two: Why was the Branchell being around Cargo Hold One?
Which to Question Three: What was in Cargo Hold One?
For the answer to that question, he had one very good hint. The of the of Cargo Hold One was in the as being one-point-seven-two-six centimeter. And that, Mike to know, was the of a brain, which is 90 liquid and 10 and niobium, by volume.
He looked at the in his hand. It was a one-hundred-kilounit stack. The possible it were one hundred thousand. All it needed was to be in its of liquid to make the superconducting, and it would be to go to work.
A friend of his who for Computer Corporation of Earth had a once, using just such a stack. The was designed to play poker. He had in all the of play and added all the data from Oesterveldt’s On Poker. It took Mike the Angel one hour to out how to it.
As long as Mike played rationally, the machine had a edge, since it had a perfect memory and than Mike could. But it would not, not learn how to bluff. As soon as Mike started bluffing, the into a tizzy.
It wouldn’t have been so if the had nothing about bluffing. That would have it easy for Mike. All he’d have had to do was keep on in until the folded.
But the did know about bluffing. The trouble is that is illogical, and the had no to go by to judge Mike was or not. It to make its by chance, by Mike’s past performance at bluffing. When it did, Mike and it out fast.
That such in the that Mike’s friend had had to a week up the robot’s little mind.
But what would be the purpose of a brain as as the one in Cargo Hold One? And why a around it?
Like a pig on an spit, the problem over and over in Mike’s mind. And, like the pig, the time came when it was done.
Once it is set in operation, a properly brain can neither be off dismantled. Not, that is, unless you want to all of the data and you’ve into it.
Now, the Computer Corporation of Earth had a giant-sized brain. (Never mind why—just suppose.) And they wanted to take it off Earth, but didn’t want to all the data that had been into it. (Again, mind why—just suppose.)
Very well, then. If such a brain had been built, and if it was necessary to take it off Earth, and if the data in it was so that the brain not be off or dismantled, then the thing to do would be to a ship around it.
Oh yeah?
Mike the Angel at the and asked:
“Now, tell me, pal, just why would anyone want a brain that big? And what is so about it?”
The said not a word.
The phone chimed. Mike the Angel the switch, and his secretary’s appeared on the screen. “Minister Wallingford is on the line, Mr. Gabriel.”
“Put him on,” said Mike the Angel.
Basil Wallingford’s came on. “I see you’re still alive,” he said. “What in the last night?”
Mike and told him. “In other words,” he ended up, “just the of JD we have to put up with these days. Nothing new, and nothing to worry about.”
“You almost got killed,” Wallingford pointed out.
“A miss is as good as a mile,” Mike said with inanity. “Thanks to your phone call, I was as safe as if I’d been in my own home,” he added with illogic.
“You can to laugh,” Wallingford said grimly. “I can’t. I’ve already one man.”
Mike’s vanished. “What do you mean? Who?”
“Oh, nobody’s killed,” Wallingford said quickly. “I didn’t that. But Jack Wong his car over yesterday at a hundred and seventy miles an hour, and he’s up with a leg and a arm.”
“Too bad,” said Mike. “One of these days that will kill himself racing.” He Wong and liked him. They had together in the Space Service when Mike was on active duty.
“I not,” Wallingford said. “Anyway—the I called you on last night. Can you those for me?”
“Sure, Wally. Hold on.” He the and for his as Wallingford’s vanished. When the girl’s came on, he said: “Helen, me the on the William Branchell—Section Twelve, pages 66 to 74.”
The discussion, after Helen had the papers, less than five minutes. It was a of out some cost estimates—but since it had to do with the Branchell, and with Hold Number One, Mike he’d ask a question.
“Wally, tell me—what in the is going on there at Chilblains Base?”
“They’re a spaceship,” said Wallingford in a voice.
It was Wallingford’s way of saying he wasn’t going to answer any questions, but Mike the Angel the hint. “I’d of that,” he said dryly. “But what I want to know is: Why is it being around a brain, the like of which I have before?”
Basil Wallingford’s widened, and he just for a full two seconds. “And just how did you come across that information, Golden Wings?” he asked.
“It’s right here in the specs,” said Mike the Angel, the of papers.
“Ridiculous.” Wallingford’s voice toneless.
Mike he was in too now to out. “It is, Wally. It couldn’t be hidden. To the stresses, I had to know the of the of Cargo Hold One. And here it is: 1.726 gm/cm³. Nothing else that I know of has that exact density.”
Wallingford his lips. “Dear me,” he said after a moment. “I keep you’re too for your own good.” Then a slow spread over his face. “Would you like to know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise,” Mike said.
“Fine. Because you’re just the man we need.”
Mike the Angel almost the knife his ribs, and he had the that the person who had him in the was himself. “What’s that to mean, Wally?”
“You are, I believe, an officer in the Space Service Reserve,” said Basil Wallingford in a smooth, too voice. “Since the Engineering Officer of the Branchell, Jack Wong, is up in a hospital, I’m going to call you to active to replace him.”
Mike the Angel that knife twist—hard.
“That’s silly,” he said. “I haven’t been a ship’s officer for five years.”
“You’re the man who designed the power plant,” Wallingford said sweetly. “If you don’t know how to her, nobody does.”
“My time hour is a great deal,” Mike pointed out.
“The of pay for a Space Service officer,” Basil Wallingford said pleasantly, “is by law.”
“I can being called to duty—and I’ll win,” said Mike. He didn’t know how long he play this game, but it was fun.
“True,” said Wallingford. “You can. I admit it. But you’ve been what the that ship is being for. You’d give your left arm to out. I know you, Golden Wings, and I know how that mind of yours works. And I tell you this: Unless you take this job, you’ll out why the Branchell was built.” He forward, and his large in the screen. “And I never.”
For Mike the Angel said nothing. His was like that of some Grecian god the Universe, or an Eternity. Then he gave Basil Wallingford the of his full, smile.
“I capitulate,” he said.
Wallingford to look impressed. “Damn right you do,” he said—and cut the circuit.
