Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 98: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

96 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION paid a return visit to New Boston. It had been obliterated from the face of the planet a day earlier, with a loss of life which had not even been esti- mated. “We should wipe them out!” Calland’s idea completed itself. The man’s viciousness confirmed his de- cision. He added a few more grotesque strokes to the drawing on his note- book. “Pardon me, Mac, I’ve got to put a quick call through to a designing base.” Impressed, the engineer withdrew. While he was waiting for the call to go through Calland pulled another sheet of paper over to him and began carefully to draw, making mechanical notations along the side, glancing occasionally at the grotesque little sketch on the notebook. The energetic blonde appeared on the screen as the call went through. He said, ““Della, have you any faith in my judgment?” **Plenty.” *“There’s a rough drawing and de- scription I’m going to teleprint to the custom construction department. No matter how it looks, don’t call an idea conference to fix it up, just have them build it the way it is. When you see it, just say to yourself you have faith.” “Anything you design will look reasonable.” **Ha!”’ he said sinisterly, and cut the connection to make his next call to the construction department. After that call he made one to the head of the radar department request- ing transfer back to design base for work on a new weapon design. The request went through and was con- firmed with unusual speed. Four hours later he was given a telestat of his transfer papers. On the way back the video screen rang for him and Della’s face appeared on it. *“You’re insane,”’ she said. “Probably,” he smiled slightly. “Any reason why I shouldn’t sic the brain doctors on you and have you hospitalized?” She meant it, he saw. The question was a bad shock, for any such inter- ference would cause more delay than he felt he could stand. He had to explain the thing they were building. “It’s a blind,” he said. “A booby trap to keep the Furry scientists puzz- ling and distract their attention from the real weapon.” ‘“‘Hm-m-m,”’ she looked uncertain. ““Where’s this real weapon?” “Tl install it tomorrow when I get there. And alone. The blueprints Pll file with you in a sealed envelope, but there’s no point in the base having them until I test it and find out if it works.” “Tl back you up,” she decided, and looked at him quizzically, but switched off without asking anything. The next day when he landed at base he picked up a large box full of some kind of apparatus from the storage section of his workroom, trun- dled it in to the room where his new “weapon”? was waiting, built into a small sized commutercraft, and locked the door securely. Then he climbed into the craft and relaxed in the control seat with the Journal of Chemopsychic Research. At noon he took lunch from a corner of the box and ate it, and then took his temperature. At three o’clock he felt slightly dizzy and took his temperature again. It was a fever. He said, “I thought so,” and took some antifever pills and did not say anything else, because he had made up his mind about this long ago, but began loading the contents of the box on board the small spacecraft. Two hours later he was out in space. He set his course co-ordinates and began to unpack tools. The screen buzzed and when he cut conniicloooks.c© inl