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