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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] was when those other women were kissing him. You mustn't think," she added hastily, "that disturbed me. He'll go through quite a lot of it before he settles down." "Not necessarily," said Hedrock earnestly. "You'll have to resign yourself to the house of illusion but it has been my observation that a fair percentage of men emerge from such an experience hard as steel in some respects but rather weary of worldliness." He realized from her face that he had said enough. The groundwork for her future action was established. Results would follow in the natural course of events. He smiled a friendly smile. "That's all for now, Lucy. Don't let it get you down." Her image and his faded from the screen in a flash. Robert Hedrock glanced out of the door of his office several times during the next hour. At first the corridors seemed very busy. Gradually the activity died down and at last the corridor was clear. He acted now with decision but without haste. From a wall safe he took the micro-film plans of the time control machine-the one in the room where he had talked to the weapon shop councilors a little more than two hours before. He had requested Information Center to send them to him and they had done so without comment. There was nothing unusual in their compliance. As head of the coordination department he had access to all the scientific knowledge of the weapon shops. He even had an explanation as to why he wanted the plans in the event that he was asked. He wanted to study them, so his story would go, in the hope that some solution would suggest itself. But his reasons were private and his purpose personal. With the films in his pocket he headed along the corridor toward the nearest stairwav. He went down five flights and came to a section of the Hotel Royal Ganeel that was not occupied by the weapon shops. He unlocked an apartment door, went inside, and locked the door behind him. It was an imposing suite, as befitted an executive of the weapon shops-five rooms a a T T n n s s F F f f o o D D r r P P m m Y Y e e Y Y r r B B 2 2 . . B B A A Click here to buy Click here to buy w w m m w w o o w w c c . . . . A A Y Y B B Y Y B B r r and a tremendous library. He went straight to the library, closed and locked the door, then carefully examined the place for spying devices. There were none, which was what he expected. As far as he knew he was not under suspicion. But he never took unnecessary chances. Swiftly he held one of the rings on his finger against an ordinary looking electric socket. A loop of metal slid out. He inserted his finger into the loop and pulled. What happened in that moment was an ordinary enough weapon shop phenomenon. He was transmitted by a weapon shop matter transmitter a distance of about eleven hundred miles into one of his numerous laboratories. What was out of the ordinary about the action was that the presence of the transmitter was not known to the weapon shop council. The laboratory had for centuries been one of his many closely-guarded secret retreats. He decided that he could safely remain an hour. But that all he could hope to do in one night was to make another print of the microfilm. Building a duplicate machine would require many visits such as this. As it turned out he had time to make an extra print of the plans. Very carefully he put the additional copy into a vault filing case, there to join the tens of thousands of other diagrams and plans to which, over a period of several thousand years, he had given an AA priority. At the end of the hour, Earth's one immortal man, founder of the weapon shops, possessor of secrets unknown to any other living human being, returned to the library of his apartment in the Hotel Royal Ganeel. Presently he was back in his office, five flights farther up. CHAPTER XII LUCY RALL emerged from the government 'stat booth, and she was hurrying through an alcove when she caught a glimpse of herself in an energy mirror. She stopped. The outside lights beckoned. The sidewalks were aglow with a brightness that defied the night. But she stood there in front of the reverse image of herself and stared at her pale face and tensed eyes. She had always thought of herself as goodlooking, but the face that confronted her was too drawn to be pretty. She thought, "Is that what Mr. Hedrock saw?" Out on the street, finally, she walked uncertainly along. She had made her call from a booth in one of the gambling palaces and the flashing brilliance of the famous Avenue of Luck was unabated. Magic street still, alive with swarms of human moths fluttering from one light source to another. The lights themselves [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |