James P Hogan. Inherit The Stars. Giant Series #1

our technical people and clue them in a little on how the scope

works-sorta like a teach-in. What d’you say-huh?”

Hunt laughed silently inside. Borlan had been complaining to

Forsyth-Scott for months that while the largest potential markets

for the scope lay in the USA, practically all of the know-how was

confined to Metadyne; the American side of the organization needed

more in the way of backup and information than it had been getting.

“You never miss a trick, Felix,” he conceded. “Okay, you bum, I’ll

buy it.”

Borlan’s face split into a wide grin.

“This UNSA character you were talking about,” Gray said, switching

the subject back again. “What were the examples?”

“Examples?”

“You said he gave some examples of the kind of thing he was

interested in knowing if the scope could do.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, lemme see, now. . . He seemed interested in

looking at the insides of bodies-bones, tissues, arteries-stuff

like that. Maybe he wanted to do an autopsy or something. He also

wanted to know if you could get images of what’s on the pages of a

book, but without the book being opened.”

This was too much. Hunt looked from Borlan to Gray and back again,

mystified.

“You don’t need anything like a scope to perform an autopsy,” he

said, his voice strained with disbelief.

“Why can’t he open a book if he wants to know what’s inside?” Gray

demanded in a similar tone.

Borlan showed his empty palms. “Yeah. I know. Search me-sounds

screwy!”

“And UNSA is paying thousands for this?”

“Hundreds of thousands.”

Hunt covered his brow and shook his head in exasperation. “Pour me

another scotch, Felix,” he sighed.

chapter four

A week later the Mercury Three stood ready for takeoff on the

rooftop of IDCC Headquarters. In reply to the queries that appeared

on the pilot’s console display screen, Hunt specified the Ocean

Hotel in the center of Houston as their destination. The DEC

minicomputer in the nose made contact with its IBM big brother that

lived underground somewhere beneath the Portland Area Traffic

Control Center and, after a brief consultation, announced a flight

plan that would take them via Salt Lake City, Santa Fe, and Fort

Worth. Hunt keyed in his approval, and within minutes the aircar

was humming southeast and climbing to take on the challenge of the

Blue Mountains looming ahead.

Hunt spent the first part of the journey assessing his office files

held on the computers back at Metadyne, to tidy up some of the

unfinished business he had left behind. As the waters of the Great

Salt Lake came glistening into view, he had just completed the

calculations that went with his last experimental report and was

adding his conclusions. An hour later, twenty thousand feet up over

the Colorado River, he was hooked into MIT and reviewing some of

their current publications. After refueling at Santa Fe they spent

some time cruising around the city on manual control before finding

somewhere suitable for lunch. Later on in the day, airborne over

New Mexico, they took an incoming call from IDCC and spent the next

two hours in conference with some of Borlan’s engineers discussing

technicalities of the scope. By the time Fort Worth was behind and

the sun well to the west, Hunt was relaxing, watching a murder

movie, while Gray slept soundly in the seat beside him.

Hunt looked on with detached interest as the villain was unmasked,

the hero claimed the admiring heroine he had just saved from a fate

worse than death, and the rolling captions delivered today’s moral

message for mankind. Stifling a yawn, he flipped the mode switch to

MONITOR/CONTROL to blank out the screen and kill the theme music in

midbar. He stretched, stubbed out his cigarette, and hauled himself

upright in his seat to see how the rest of the universe was getting

along.

Far to their right was the Brazos River, snaking south toward the

Gulf, embroidered in gold thread on the light blue-gray of the

distant haze. Ahead, he could already see the rainbow towers of

Houston, standing at attention on the skyline in a tight defensive

platoon. Houses were becoming noticeably more numerous in the

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