Unto Him That Hath Read Online Free PDF Page A

ship began dropping smoothly, and came to an exact landing on her own. She even cut power and released the straps from his shoulders.
    He snapped off his mask, and ducked down and out of the little door, squinting through the darkness. "Back safe and sound," he shouted softly. "And after this, a comet will seem like an ox-cart."
    A flashlight picked him out, and Ouster's voice drifted out to him. "Come in here, Mike!"
    The tones were warning that something was up. But it was a totally inadequate warning for what the flashlight revealed.
    The end of the laboratory beyond was a complete wreck. There was no pattern, even, to the twisted, distorted shapes that lay there. It was as if a fire beyond any heat men had experienced had suddenly melted two sets of machinery into one, and yet had left parts of each untouched.
    Mike stared stupidly about.
    "The capacitor bank and dynamos have come home," Custer said, and his voice was almost a whisper. "I was just moving back when I saw it. They were just a ghost— then here they were, right in the middle of our equipment. Two objects, one space. The riddle is answered— they didn't explode. They just got out of each other's way, molecule by molecule. From the wind, I'd say the air got completely out of the way."
    He swept the beam around again. "A minute before you landed. I've been trying to think. Machinery heavier than the ship . . . didn't go as far ... maybe action and reaction not the same. . . ."
    But the torch was still centered on the foreground of the ruins, and his mind was clearly not on what he was saying.
    Mike took die flash, and began going over what he could of the rubble. Then he turned. "No. No control panel here. And that means that Dad—or whatever is left of him—didn't come back. Better get the few men we can trust completely to clear this mess out with arc cutters and clear it away."
    "I'll take care of it," Custer agreed heavily. "It looks as if we're washed up here, Mike. Most of our stuff is ruined between the explosion and this. And we can't work here, anyhow, if there's—more to come!"
    "The scientists and technicians can take what's left. And the readings on my flight and whatever they need from the Enigma. They'll know where to ship it. I suppose you'll have to go to Washington to arrange for it— one of us will, anyhow. . . ."
    His leg ached again, as if the toes were curled up tightly and he was resting his full weight on them. But there was no time to think of that. The mess had to be cleared away, space had to be left for anything that came
    back, or whatever it might do. He'd have to post guards here, and somehow make them keep watch without tellr ing the whole story.
    No wonder Pan-Asia was nearing the Rhine. They hadn't developed a time machine to curse them with false gifts.
    The same idea was in his mind, only greatly strengthened, when they met with those in Washington who knew of Project Swipe. At six hundred feet below street level, where most of the higher echelon actually met, even the best construction and air-conditioning had never overcome the cold and the dampness that was in spirit more even than fact. Mike's missing leg ached worse, and his thoughts were more bitter than ever.
    The assistant to the Secretary of Defense opened the business briefly. "So far, gentlemen, we've spent months of preparing, a great deal of effort concealing, and five weeks of actual operation of this project.
    The Dane Aircraft works have come to approximately a standstill— and you know the need for those planes as well as I do— because we've been forced to screen out most of the workers, and keep only a token staff there; since our contract guarantees normal operations, the tax-payers will have to foot that bill.
    We've also tied up most of the great research organizations of the Alliance this last month. And unless my preliminary information is false, the enemy has only failed to penetrate our security because there has been nothing to learn, not