Chapter 13 Chapter 12 The Untouchable Block

The "Golden Eagle" spacecraft landed at the southern end of the Star of Liberty. "We installed a small anti-gravity system," Ann O'Barian's voice was slightly tense, "just enough to anchor our equipment and place the nearby CT particles in safe orbits. Planets There's no air on board, so don't step out of the ship without a spacesuit on." "That's natural." Anders smiled slightly. "If you are studying CT, then you have to do it in the air, or you have to do it in a state of no air at all. However, thank you for your reminder. "

Ann snorted angrily.Anders leaned over to the telescope and saw that she had parked the spaceship beside a flat ground.On that flat ground stood a long strip of metal houses, painted gray and well camouflaged.So when he found it, he couldn't help being surprised. "Is that your metallurgical laboratory?" Ann still didn't answer.Anders looked outside again, and found that beside the house, there was another row of inflatable tents painted in camouflage colors.The small camp looked abandoned, but he couldn't help asking sternly: "How many of you are here?" "It's just old Mr. Drake now," Ann replied calmly. "Of course we'll hire some mechanics to build the house and the machines, but it's all done. Here comes Mr. Drake!"

Anders saw a man in a silver spacesuit approaching the spaceship.The phone on the ship rang.Anders picked up the receiver, and the hoarse voice of Jim Drake rang in his ears. "Hey! What do you want to do?" "Hello, Drake," Anders replied quickly, "We shipped what you needed for you, free of charge. Please don't use CT bombs against us until you find out who is our driver. I will open the main hatch and welcome you to the ship." Anders made an internal call to the watchman in the control room below, ordering the main hatch to be opened for a visitor. "Take him up in the lift," he added, "and I'll wait for him here at the bridge while he unloads his cargo."

At last Jim Drake was in front of them, tall and clumsy in his heavy spacesuit.Anders saw that two fingers were missing from his hand, and the other fingers were also bandaged.He looked at Ann, with deep-set blue eyes eerily similar to Rick's. "I-I'm sorry, Mr. Drake," Ann whispered. "We... I think we just played a game, and Colonel Anders won." "It's okay, Ann." The old man's eyes were full of kindness.He limped over to Ann and held her in his arms as if she were a child who was grieving, "You've never been in much trouble." "That's true," said Anders cheerfully. "We're here anyway. She can't help it. Although she is indeed guiding us, even if we disappear in the CT clouds, you still You'll meet someone like Van Falkenberg."

"My son mentioned you to me, Colonel." The old man looked at him and said, "He said you were a real engineer... You are here because he got you interested in my work here ?" "We're really interested in this," Anders said with effort, as if what he was going to say pained himself, "I've got information that you've been working on CT chassis illegally, so first I'd like to take a look at your All equipment." "You can't find any CT chassis." "Maybe." Anders found it difficult to face the honesty of the old man who seemed to have been hurt. "But we have reliable information that you have developed a CT chassis model."

"You came here to steal it!" Ann's face turned pale, "In this way, you can use the CT energy to help Interstellar Corporation enslave and exploit the asteroid people!" She turned to the old man tremblingly, and said eagerly: " Mr. Drake, don't give him anything!" "You're too prejudiced against Interstellar, aren't you?" Anders tried to smile at her, "After all, it was our engineers who came to build the nuclear reactors and anti-gravity drives for you so that you could live on those asteroids. " There was a mocking sneer in An's gray eyes.

"If you guys have such awesome engineers," she asked softly, "why don't you build your own lab and invent your own CT chassis?" "We have been working hard." Anders nodded solemnly. "Other forces in the trusteeship government are also working hard, but everyone has encountered the same problem. The two substances that build the CT chassis must be in contact—but cannot contact. Even an idiot would know that operationally safe CT chassis cannot be built. However, now we have found some CT artifacts..." "What?" Ann interrupted, completely confused. "What is a CT product?"

"Products made with CT substances." Anders frowned uncomfortably as he remembered the narrow passage, "If they were made by humans, then they must have used CT chassis. Even if these CT products are CT Biologically made, we still believe in the existence of a safe CT chassis." He turned abruptly to Drake, "What do you think about that?" "I don't think so," the skinny old man blinked in bewilderment, "We haven't made any CT chassis here." "Maybe you found a piece," Anders said, "when you and Munchie blew that CT planet out of its orbit, you found a site of a CT civilization on it, and in the ruins there, You found the CT chassis. Did you?"

"We didn't find any ruins." The old man shook his head in amazement. "I'm sorry, Colonel. I don't understand what you're talking about..." "I want to get that CT chassis." Anders interrupted him coldly, "I don't have extra time to play guessing games with you, but I don't want to be unreasonable. If you are willing to cooperate, I can promise you Get a fair deal from Interstellar." "Do you want us to sell things to you?" Ann shouted angrily. "Would you rather sell to the Martians?" Anders asked sarcastically. "Or the Moon people? Do you think they'd make better neighbors?"

Ann’s face turned pale, and the old Drake also froze. "Better sell us—whatever you have." Anders tried to smile. "High Commissioner Hood can keep you out of jail. I have the right to meet your conditions, maybe an exchange of CT chassis, maybe CT missiles .I might even get one of you a position in StarCorp." "Oh?" Ann said, "what's your promise worth?" "Better sell to us before we cancel the quid pro quo," Anders said mildly. An took a deep breath, intending to fight back.But the old man grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him.

"There's no need to fight, because we don't have anything to sell." He turned to Anders and shrugged. "We only have the one reactor we told Rick about last time." There was a glint of hope in his tired eyes , "If you're interested in it—" "I'm looking for a CT chassis." "You won't find it here." Old Drake's hoarse voice revealed deep weariness. "The best way I want to prove it is for you to check it out yourself." "Thank you, Drake." Anders breathed a sigh of relief, "For the sake of fairness, I will go with you alone. My subordinates are not allowed to follow me—give you three hours, is this enough time?" "It's enough time to show you why we can't build a CT chassis," said the old engineer wearily. Anders called Lieutenant Colonel Popov onto the bridge.Popov stared at Ann bewilderedly, and Ann's face turned red, and she took a big step back. "Lieutenant Colonel, you take command." Anders said, "I'm going to disembark for a while." Popov stood there, winking creepily at Drake.He had taken the old man as a spy for the Martians, and Liberty Star had become a secret military base.He asked eagerly: "But, Colonel, is your life safe?" "If I don't come back after three hours," Anders told him, "you send Mr. Omega to me with an armed search party. But until then, no one is allowed to leave the ship without permission, which is Order." "Yes, sir." Popov pretended to raise his wrist and looked at his watch, as if to keep the time firmly in mind, then he saluted awkwardly and sent them off the bridge. Walking in a bloated spacesuit is tiring and slow, but the anti-gravity drive device equipped on the spacesuit can lightly take them off the ground.Anders followed Drake and An into the tin house, and the situation inside surprised him. The floor of the room was deeply sunken, and the towering walls on all sides were painted white.One side of the brightly lit room was lined with many machines end to end, while the other side was empty, with a row of deep pits in the ground, which seemed to have been prepared for other machines.The old Drake walked towards the stalled production line along a passageway separated by white railings. Anders followed him and asked in a worried whisper: "CT?" Before Drake could answer, however, he had seen the giant old-fashioned uranium reactor with a small spaceship trimmed in red, the trademark of the Interstellar Corporation. "Matter." Old Drake's weary voice sounded in his ear. "It's all matter. This is just a model of the CT factory we plan to build—but we can't develop the CT chassis we need." Jim Drake waved toward the pits across the room. "It was supposed to be a CT factory there." Drake reached out and flipped the switch, and the line started.Anders felt a slight tremor under his feet.He saw the shining metal strip being spit out soundlessly from the automatic cutting machine, and a heavy plummet was beating soundlessly, and he couldn't help shivering. Anders knew that in the vacuum of space there would be no sound, but the complete silence suddenly frightened him. "You..." He tried his best to control his panic, "What are you producing?" "Nothing has been produced so far," old Drake told him, "but most of these machines have been produced with two or three sets we brought from Albania. And, these machines are still Build other machines. "what do you mean--?" "We only build models of CT equipment that we cannot manufacture. In other words, all the things we design and manufacture are just simulating the operation of CT factories. From ore separators to induction smelting furnaces to assembly equipment. remote control." "But your control panel has to be made of matter." Anders wanted to see the old man's face clearly in the helmet. "How do you plan to connect the two?" "Sensing," Drake replied patiently, "that way, there would be no need for the two substances to come into contact. We've devised an inductive relay to link the button to the switch. This is the physical part of our main transformer. " He pointed to a part made of thin iron sheets and insulating plastic next to the row of deep pits, "The induced current in the material part of the CT will use the energy generated by that old uranium reactor to run the whole plant-until we build some A CT reactor." "It's great!" Anders turned his head and carefully looked at the silently running machines. He couldn't help admiring the old Drake: "A lovely factory!" Jim Drake, however, stared gloomily at the hollows and the semi-finished transformer, not even his thick spacesuit concealing the pain of his failure. "We tried," came his faint voice, "but we failed." "Failure?" Anders replied. "You've built everything within a year of getting this planet—how can you think you've failed?" "This model factory took me nearly twenty years, not just a year," said Drake Sr. gravely. "Before we came here from Albania, we had completed and tested All the basic equipment, but there is no CT chassis needed for these equipment. Of course, we have to build this vacuum test room before we can solve the chassis problem, but even here we are still forced to give up.” "What Mackey said is different." Anders said deliberately coldly, "Let me see your CT machine." The old man turned to Ann wordlessly.Anders couldn't see the expressions on their faces, but he sensed a hostility. "Why don't you let him see that sledgehammer?" Ann said hoarsely, "Do people think we are building CT chassis?" "Then come with me, Colonel Anders." The old Drake calmly reached out and turned off the machines that were running silently. "The hammer is on the other side of the planet, so as not to cause any accidents." He activated his spacesuit and flew up.Anders and Ann flew out the back door after him.When he first came out, Anders saw darkness in front of his eyes, and slowly he could see the jewel-like light of the stars in the sky.After half a circle, on the other side of the planet, they saw the CT sledgehammer. Anders expected to see a small, crude piece of equipment, but what lay under the metal canopy was a full three times larger than he had imagined.Those parts made of matter are well designed and well-crafted, but the hammer and cutting board are rough natural CT matter.There are some small signs hanging on the red railings around it, which read: Danger - CT! Anders quickly retracted from the railing, and he looked at the naturally formed anchors uneasily.Although he has spent several years working on the theoretical problems of using CT, he has never been closer to real CT matter.He couldn't help shaking. "It looks like iron," he said stupidly, "too much like iron on Earth." "As long as you don't touch it, it's almost the same as ordinary iron." Ann reminded him softly. "The hammer and the drill are the fragments we got from that CT asteroid." Old Drake calmly walked towards the shiny railing, while explaining patiently, "It was discovered by Mackey, just around the freedom In that CT cloud of stars, we dragged them here with magnets." Anders looked uneasily at the long, crumbling CT hammer and the larger anvil.He knew what would happen if matter touched them.When thinking of pulling them with magnets.He was numb all over. "This anvil weighs fifteen tons," the old Drake continued. "It is suspended in an inverse gravitational field, and is subjected to forces in six directions. There are wires that lead energy from our uranium reactor here." He pointed to a cable. "The hammer is also controlled by reverse gravity." He pointed to the vertical block and said, "There is a reversible reverse gravity system on the top of the device to control its lifting and falling." He turned slowly to face Anders. "That's it, Colonel. Can you make a CT chassis out of it?" Anders also thought it was impossible, but he just asked, "Is it really impossible?" "We can't do it anyway," Drake said. "What's wrong with the CT Hammer?" "Do you want to see it work?" Anders felt the danger, and he quickly retreated to Ann's side.It was easy to cause an accident here, and he knew how easy it would be to wipe out a human life with CT matter. "Are you scared?" An laughed softly, "How about letting me hold your hand?" He felt her hand take his own. "Okay," he said hoarsely, "let's see how it works." Drake stepped behind a baffle of lead and iron that was as useless as paper if something went wrong.He stood bent over the railing. The rough anchor slowly rose and hung silently in the air, but Anders had a sudden impulse to stop the demonstration.Finally, the hammer fell soundlessly on the anvil again.Ann touched his arm calmly and showed him all this. Anders watched, fear clutching his throat.The CT anchor bounced back and wobbled, and the anvil bounced up and down like a cork on water. "See how it works?" Ann asked softly. "You can use it to make—" But Anders didn't hear her, because he felt that the CT anvil had touched the shelf made of material next to it.He grabbed Ann by the straps of her spacesuit and yanked her backwards.Every muscle in his body tensed from the explosion he had neither time to feel nor see. But the explosion didn't happen. "Come on, Colonel!" Ann broke free and shook her head contemptuously, "Now you know we can't have a CT chassis, right?" "I...I think..." Anders tried to relax himself, "The anvil almost touched the shelf next to it!" "If it happens, the Star of Liberty will cease to exist." An said calmly, "You are safe wherever you are." "I'm sorry," Anders whispered tremblingly, "I think you're right." When he turned around again, Drake had stopped working on the CT hammer.The two CT anchors tremblingly returned to their original positions in the reverse gravitational field, unscathed. "No big deal, Colonel," he said calmly. "We've tried five times, and none of them blown up the Star of Liberty. However, you can see that it's all useless, because we can't get the jitter down." Anders nodded silently.Even at rest, these huge, untouchable blocks look terrifying.He couldn't help thinking that if there was such a job as a CT mechanic, then those brave people should enjoy high salaries. "Interesting." He nodded, trying to calm himself down. "Mr. Drake, this is very interesting. Now let's see if you did anything else." "Nothing, Colonel," Drake said mildly. "There's nothing that would interest Interstellar." "What happened to your CT reactor?" Anders stood up straight.Seeing that the dangerous CT hammer stopped vibrating, he became confident again. "Nothing to say." Drake shrugged. "When I saw that this CT hammer wasn't working, I tried to convert it into a CT reactor. I designed a small hole and used it to put the measured Earth's air stream blows on the anvil. I also designed a commutation field with cables. But as you already know, this option is not feasible. The resulting reactor is extremely unstable, and it is very dangerous-my son said yes Caused by impurities in natural CT iron." "There's no question about it," Anders said impatiently. "But where are your jets and cables?" "I dismantled them when I got back." Drake calmly waved his hand at the stationary CT hammer, "If the power supply line fails, those CT fragments will fall on them, so I think that when it happens That sort of thing used to take all that stuff down. As soon as Mackey came back, we put the two pieces of CT stuff back where they were." "Good idea." Anders nodded reluctantly, "but where's Mackey?" He stared straight in Drake's face. "Maybe you really don't have a developed CT chassis here, but didn't he find one?" "I hope so!" cried Ann eagerly, "but you're not going to find out anything from us."