THE COSMIC COMPUTER

Back Forward Menu

lived in airtight domes and generated their own oxygen. There had been
mines, and smelters, and blast furnaces and steel mills. And there had
been shipyards, where hyperships up to three thousand feet had been
built. They had all been abandoned when the War had ended; they were
waiting there, on an empty, lifeless planet. Some of them had been built
by the Third Fleet-Army Force during the War; most of them dated back
almost a century before that, to the original industrial boom. All of
them could be claimed under the Abandoned Property Act of 867, since all
had been taken over by the Federation, and the original owners, or their
heirs, compensated.

And there was the matter of selecting a crew. As an influential
non-office-holding stockholder in all the companies involved, Conn
Maxwell, of course, would represent them. He would also serve as
astrogator. Clyde Nichols would command the ship in atmosphere, and act
as first mate in space. Mack Vibart would be chief engineer at all
times. Yves Jacquemont would be first officer under Nichols, and captain