He gazed at the glowing, contracting-expanding swirling darting things for a few minutes, then turned away.
“The most beautiful, the most awe-inspiring, the most hideous.”
He made the circular sign again, though Burton thought that this was more than a blessing. He caught intimations of a prayer for salvation and for stiffening of his determination.
When they got to the control room, the Ethical immediately set about working at the console on the revolving platform. After five minutes, he sent Goring into a cabinet. There his measurements were made by beams. Loga put more data into the computer, finishing in an hour.
He waited for a few seconds before punching another button. He left the platform and limped to a large energy-matter converter. The others crowding behind him, he opened its door. The parts of a suit of armor were on the floor. Loga picked them up and threw them to those outside the cabinet. They put these on Goring and, when they were done, he looked more like a robot than an armored knight. The addition of the backpack, his air supply, made him resemble an astronaut.
Except for the narrow but long window in the front of the globular helmet, the suit was made of the gray metal. Though thick, it weighed only nine pounds.
“The window isn’t as resistant as the metal,” Loga said. “And the beams will cut entirely through the metal if they’re applied to one spot for more than ten seconds. So keep moving.”
Goring tested the flexibility of the shoulder, wrist, finger, knee, and ankle joints. They gave him as much mobility as he’d need. He ran back and forth and leaped forward and sidewise and backward. Then he practiced with the beamer until he knew its full capabilities. His armor removed, he ate again. After Hermann had gone to an apartment to sleep, Loga took a chair off to a floor below sea level. He returned in an hour in a two-man research submarine which floated in the air.
“I didn’t think of this until a couple of hours ago. This will help him get through the initial defenses. But he’ll have to go on foot after that. The entrances won’t be wide enough to admit the vessel.”
During his absence, the others had been busy attaching beamers to the sides of the coffin-shaped clean-up robots and drilling the holes needed for passage of cables. Loga installed video equipment and trigger mechanisms. Then he programmed navigational boxes and installed them.
Burton went to wake up the German but found him on his knees praying by the bedside.
“You should’ve slept,” Burton said.
“I used my time for something better.”
They went back to the control room where Hermann ate a light meal before learning the route and the operation of the submarine. Loga showed him how to remove the old module and insert the new. The latter was a piece of the gray metal the size and shape of a playing card. Though it contained very complex circuits, its surface was smooth. One corner was nicked with a V, indicating that that end was to be inserted into the recess of the assembly. The code number was in bas-relief, and the card was to be put in with the code-side up.
“What could go wrong with a module like that?” Frigate said.
“Nothing,” Loga said. “If it’s inserted properly. I suspect human error. If the card was put in upside down, the circuits would operate properly. But every time there was a voltage surge, one of the circuits would be slightly damaged. There aren’t many surges, but over a long period of time the damage would be cumulative. The error would have been noticed long ago—if the technicians hadn’t been dead.”
He put the card inside a metal cube and attached it to a leg-piece of armor just above the knee.
“All he has to do is press the inset button in the cube, and the magnetism will be canceled. The cube is thick enough to withstand many shots from the beamers.”
All of Goring’s armor was put on him except the globular helmet. Loga poured out the yellow wine into exquisite goblets brought from his apartment. He lifted his high and said, “To your success, Hermann Goring. May the Creator be with you.”
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