文档介绍：Space Hounds of IPC (A Tale of the Inter-ary Corporation)
By Edward E. Smith
CHAPTER 1
The IPV "Arcturus" Sets Out for Mars-
A narrow football of steel, the Inter-ary Vessel
Arcturus stood upright in her berth in the dock like an egg in its
cup. A hundred feet across and a hundred and seventy feet
deep was that gigantic bowl, its walls supported by the
structural steel and concrete of the dock and lined with hard
packed bumper -layers of hemp and fiber. High into the air extended
the upper half of the ship of space-a sullen gray expanse
of fifty-inch hardened steel armor, curving smoothly upward to a
needle prow. Countless hundreds of fine vertical scratches marred
every inch of her surface, and here and there the stubborn
metal was grooved and scored to a depth of inches-each scratch
and score the record of an attempt of some wandering cosmic
body to argue the right-of-way with the stupendous mass of that
man-made cruiser of the void.
A burly young man made his way through the throng
about the entrance, nodded unconcernedly to the gatekeeper, and
joined the stream of passengers flowing through the triple doors of
the double air-lock and down a corridor to the center of the vessel.
However, instead of entering one of the elevators which were
whisking the passengers up to their staterooms in the upper half
of the enormous football, he in some way caused an opening
to appear in an apparently blank steel wall and stepped through it
into the control room.
"Hi, Breck!" the burly one called, as he strode up to the
instrument desk of the chief pilot and tossed his bag
carelessly into a corner. "Behold puter in the flesh!
What's all this howl and fuss about putation?"
"Ho, Steve!" The chief pilot smiled as he shook hands
cordially. "Glad to see you again-but don't try to kid the old
man. I'm simple enough to believe almost anything, but some things
just aren't being done. We have been yelling, and yelling loud, for
puters ever since th