they call the atmospheric pipefill from the crude-oil tanks. From the pipefill it goes on through every other process in the place: jet fuel, diesel fuel, virgin naphtha, you name it. All I'm doing is putting a false radiation charge in the metals of the pipefills. It will register like mad on a Geiger counter but it actually doesn't affect another thing. You're not going anywhere, so there is no reason not to tell you that Izzy has the device that nulls the wave."
He turned away and went back to work, and between him and the tug, they systematically did the same thing to every blessed oil refinery in the whole world.
It took a day and a half to cover them all.
Then Heller caught some sleep. We were over Canada now, having been everywhere else above the globe.
I crouched there thinking, what a strange thing to do. He wasn't actually destroying anything at all. It seemed very impractical to me. Certainly not an Apparatus textbook procedure. He might be a Royal officer, but he would certainly never qualify for a real organization like ours. No explosions! What an oversight!
Bathed and shaved and in fresh clothes, he came back to the flight deck. He fed the cat and then he fed me. He chained me back up to the pipe and sat down in the planetary-pilot chair. He buzzed Izzy and gave him a phone number and told him to ring it and, when he had the party, to hold the instrument close to the viewer-phone.
Izzy told the party that someone wanted to speak with them. He put the telephone where he had been told.
"This is Wister," Heller said.
"Oh! Oh, dear Wister—what a wonderful surprise! I will always be eternally grateful to you, you know."
MISS SIMMONS!
"And I will always remember you," said Heller. "Listen. I have something you will be very interested in. Did you know that every oil refinery in the world is registering as radioactive on Geiger counters?"
"NO!"
"Yes, it's a fact. I think you should get field teams out at once and check it. Every time you go near one of them a Geiger counter will click its head off!"
"GOOD HEAVENS!"
"Will you check that for me?" said Heller.
"Oh, good Lord! If that is true, Wister, the Antinuclear Protest Marchers in every land will rise in a howling storm!"
"That's what I hoped," said Heller. "Demonstrations everyplace."
"Oh, you'll have them, Wister. And thank you, thank you, thank you, you dear boy! THE (BLEEPARDS)!" She hung up.
"Oy!" said Izzy.
* "Yes," said Heller. "Double oy. The oil shares will go down like a rocket in reverse. When they get near bottom, sell. And use the cash for Maysabongo to exercise their contracts for every drop of oil in reserve in the U.S. Then in July, purchase every oil company in the world for a song."
"Oh, Mr. Jet, our every dream is coming true! I just hope Fate doesn't intervene."
"I'll try to see it doesn't," Heller said. "Bye-bye.
"Now I'll take care of the last small bit of this program and the mission will be done," said Heller.
"Done?" I cried aghast. "For Gods' sakes, what more could you do?"
"Oh, this last is just a little thing. The south pole has a tendency to wander over the sea. I have to give the globe a little tap to straighten up its rotation. Corky, take off for the planet Saturn now."
Saturn?
My head was in a whirl indeed.
All I could think of, really, was that he had just set motions in train which would utterly smash Octopus and all the other oil companies. Not even their massive control of news could quash the panic that would ensue. Rockecenter, unless I got loose, was through!
I reviewed how I could remedy this catastrophe. Actually all I had to do was get Rockecenter to put a satellite killer on to that umbrella device, bomb the Empire State Building, atom-bomb the Republic of Maysabongo out of existence and announce to the waiting world that their refineries were NOT radioactive. Yes, I could handle this.
But now for some mysterious reason we were heading for Saturn.
HOW COULD I GET LOOSE?
Chapter 7
Heller was
He turned away and went back to work, and between him and the tug, they systematically did the same thing to every blessed oil refinery in the whole world.
It took a day and a half to cover them all.
Then Heller caught some sleep. We were over Canada now, having been everywhere else above the globe.
I crouched there thinking, what a strange thing to do. He wasn't actually destroying anything at all. It seemed very impractical to me. Certainly not an Apparatus textbook procedure. He might be a Royal officer, but he would certainly never qualify for a real organization like ours. No explosions! What an oversight!
Bathed and shaved and in fresh clothes, he came back to the flight deck. He fed the cat and then he fed me. He chained me back up to the pipe and sat down in the planetary-pilot chair. He buzzed Izzy and gave him a phone number and told him to ring it and, when he had the party, to hold the instrument close to the viewer-phone.
Izzy told the party that someone wanted to speak with them. He put the telephone where he had been told.
"This is Wister," Heller said.
"Oh! Oh, dear Wister—what a wonderful surprise! I will always be eternally grateful to you, you know."
MISS SIMMONS!
"And I will always remember you," said Heller. "Listen. I have something you will be very interested in. Did you know that every oil refinery in the world is registering as radioactive on Geiger counters?"
"NO!"
"Yes, it's a fact. I think you should get field teams out at once and check it. Every time you go near one of them a Geiger counter will click its head off!"
"GOOD HEAVENS!"
"Will you check that for me?" said Heller.
"Oh, good Lord! If that is true, Wister, the Antinuclear Protest Marchers in every land will rise in a howling storm!"
"That's what I hoped," said Heller. "Demonstrations everyplace."
"Oh, you'll have them, Wister. And thank you, thank you, thank you, you dear boy! THE (BLEEPARDS)!" She hung up.
"Oy!" said Izzy.
* "Yes," said Heller. "Double oy. The oil shares will go down like a rocket in reverse. When they get near bottom, sell. And use the cash for Maysabongo to exercise their contracts for every drop of oil in reserve in the U.S. Then in July, purchase every oil company in the world for a song."
"Oh, Mr. Jet, our every dream is coming true! I just hope Fate doesn't intervene."
"I'll try to see it doesn't," Heller said. "Bye-bye.
"Now I'll take care of the last small bit of this program and the mission will be done," said Heller.
"Done?" I cried aghast. "For Gods' sakes, what more could you do?"
"Oh, this last is just a little thing. The south pole has a tendency to wander over the sea. I have to give the globe a little tap to straighten up its rotation. Corky, take off for the planet Saturn now."
Saturn?
My head was in a whirl indeed.
All I could think of, really, was that he had just set motions in train which would utterly smash Octopus and all the other oil companies. Not even their massive control of news could quash the panic that would ensue. Rockecenter, unless I got loose, was through!
I reviewed how I could remedy this catastrophe. Actually all I had to do was get Rockecenter to put a satellite killer on to that umbrella device, bomb the Empire State Building, atom-bomb the Republic of Maysabongo out of existence and announce to the waiting world that their refineries were NOT radioactive. Yes, I could handle this.
But now for some mysterious reason we were heading for Saturn.
HOW COULD I GET LOOSE?
Chapter 7
Heller was
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