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The Answer
H. Beam Piper
This is a test
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eBook - ePub
The Answer
H. Beam Piper
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About This Book
In a post-apocalyptic experiment scientists have an intriguing plan, in the first installment of H. Beam Piper's excellent Terro-Human Future History series.
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For a moment, after the screen door snapped and wakened him, Lee Richardson sat breathless and motionless, his eyes still closed, trying desperately to cling to the dream and print it upon his conscious memory before it faded.
āAre you there, Lee?ā he heard Alexis Pitovās voice.
āYes, Iām here. What time is it?ā he asked, and then added, āI fell asleep. I was dreaming.ā
It was all right; he was going to be able to remember. He could still see the slim woman with the graying blonde hair, playing with the little dachshund among the new-fallen leaves on the lawn. He was glad theyād both been in this dream together; these dream-glimpses were all heād had for the last fifteen years, and they were too precious to lose. He opened his eyes. The Russian was sitting just outside the light from the open door of the bungalow, lighting a cigarette. For a moment, he could see the blocky, high-cheeked face, now pouched and wrinkled, and then the flame went out and there was only the red coal glowing in the darkness. He closed his eyes again, and the dream picture came back to him, the woman catching the little dog and raising her head as though to speak to him.
āPlenty of time, yet.ā Pitov was speaking German instead of Spanish, as they always did between themselves. āTheyāre still counting down from minus three hours. I just phoned the launching site for a jeep. Eugenioās been there ever since dinner; they say heās running around like a cat looking for a place to have her first litter of kittens.ā
He chuckled. This would be something new for Eugenio Galvezāfor which he could be thankful.
āI hope the generators donāt develop any last-second bugs,ā he said. āWeāll only be a mile and a half away, and thatāll be too close to fifty kilos of negamatter if the field collapses.ā
āItāll be all right,ā Pitov assured him. āThe bugs have all been chased out years ago.ā
āNot out of those generators in the rocket. Theyāre new.ā He fumbled in his coat pocket for his pipe and tobacco. āI never thought Iād run another nuclear-bomb test, as long as I lived.ā
āLee!ā Pitov was shocked. āYou mustnāt call it that. It isnāt that, at all. Itās purely a scientific experiment.ā
āWasnāt that all any of them were? We made lots of experiments like this, back before 1969.ā The memories of all those other tests, each ending in an Everest-high mushroom column, rose in his mind. And the end resultāthe United States and the Soviet Union blasted to rubble, a whole hemisphere pushed back into the Dark Ages, a quarter of a billion dead. Including a slim woman with graying blonde hair, and a little red...