Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition), April 1944 — page 5: what you’re looking at

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

RECOIL 3 thousands of miles per second at the turn- over. A meteor itself may be blatting along at fifty miles per second. Now a rifle, shoot- ing a projectile at a few thousand feet per second would be useless. You’d have the meteor in your lap and out of the other side while the projectile is making up its mind to move forward and relieve the pressure that is building up behind it due to the exploding powder. “I’ve designed an electron gun. It is a superpowered, oversized edition of the kind they used to use in kinescope tubes, oscillo- scope tubes, and electron microscopes. Since the dingbat is to be used in space, we can leave the works of the gun open and project a healthy stream of electrons at the offending object without their being slowed and dispersed by an impending at- mosphere.” “But that sounds like shooting battleships with a toy gun.” “Not so fast on the objections, gal,” said Franks. “I’ve seen a simple oscilloscope tube with a hole in the business end. It was burned right through a quarter inch of glass because the fellows were taking pix and had the intensity turned up high. The sweep circuit blew a fuse and the beam stopped on one spot. That was enough to puncture the screen.” “T see. That was just a small affair?” “A nine-inch tube. The electron gun in a» nine-inch kinescope tube is only about four inches long and three quarters of an inch in diameter. Mine, out there in the turret, is six feet in diameter and thirty feet long. I can fire out quite a bundle of electrons from a tube of that size.” “It sounds as though you mean business.” “I do. This is the right place to do re- search of that kind. Out here on Venus Equilateral, we’re in a natural medium for an electron gun, and we've the power re- quirements to run it. I can’t think of any place in the System that offers better chances.” | | “‘When are you going to try it out?” ““As soon as a meteor comes over the pike, as long as Warren says we're ready.” Jeanne shook her head. “I wish Chan- ning were here. Things are wild enough when you are both working on something screwball, but I could get scared something fierce at the thought of either one of you working without the other.” “Why?” “You two sort of act as balance wheels to one another’s craziness. Oh, don’t take that word to heart. Everybody on the Relay Station thinks the world of you two, myself included. Craziness in this case means a sort of friendly description of the way your brains work. Both of you dash off on tan- gents now and then, and when either one of you gets off the beam, the other one seems to swing the weight required to bring the lost one back to the fold.” “That’s a real mess of mixed metaphors, Jeanne. But I am going to surprise Don hairless when he gets back here and finds that ’'ve done what people claimed couldn’t be done. I’m going to be the bird whose bust sits in the Hall of Fame in between Edison, Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, S. F. B. Morse, and—” “Old Man River, Jack Frost, and Little Boy Blue,” laughed Jeanne. “ I hope it’s not a bust, Walt.” “You mean I should have a whole statue?” *“ I mean, I hope your dream is not a bust!” Jeanne left, with Walt right behind her. Franks did not remain at the desk, however, but made his way from the office level to the outer skin of the Relay Station by way of a not-often-used stairway that permitted him to drop to the outer skin. Above his head were the first levels of apartmental cubicles occupied by the personnel of Venus Equilateral. Out here, Walt had but a scant thickness of steel between him and the void of space. His pathway was strewn with pipe, cable, aid storage tanks. He passed a_long- forgotten project and paused to reminisce over the days when a meteor shower had caused them some concern by puncturing the skin twice. The installation of a sponge elastomer under compression in this space had been stopped when a brilliant astro- physicist proved to Channing—then a supervisor in the operations laboratory— that the chances of being dangerously punctured were practically nil, and that the actual puncturing had done nothing but make people uncomfortably leery. Then Franks came to a room built from outer skin to inner skin and about fifty feet in diameter. He unlocked the door with a key on his watch chain, and entered. Jim Warren was waiting for him. “Hi, ordnance expert. We’re ready as soon as they are.” *“How’s she working?” “J should know? We’ve been squirting ropes of electrons out to blank space for comiclooks (©