Page 134 - The Perpetrations of Captain Kaga
P. 134
Reforming the World of Bolix
“That was a good move,” said Kaga. “Now I do need more
information about the odd inhabitants of this world. First of all, in
which regions of Bolix do the Surfoids live?”
Lugo extracted a global projection from the mound of papers on his
desk. “A rough census was taken by the exploratory mission, based
mainly on infrared satellite scans. Since the axis of rotation of Bolix is
inclined eighteen degrees to the ecliptic plane, the polar regions are
considerably colder than the tropics; so, as you might expect, the
entire Surfoid population is clustered between thirty-five degrees
north and thirty-five degrees south latitude.”
Captain Kaga took a blank sheet of paper from Lugo’s desk top and
drew two concentric circles on it. “This,” he said, “represents a cross-
section of Bolix taken on a great circle passing through the poles. I’ll
just mark in the area of Surfoid habitation…there. Okay. Now tell me
some more about the Innerite environment: what did your infrared
photo graphs reveal?”
Lugo shuffled through the stacks of paper for a minute, muttering.
“Where is that enhanced image…I know it’s under here somewhere.
Aha! Here it is.”
He pulled out a sheaf of computer-generated graphics and handed
them to Kaga, who looked at them a few moments, then said, “I can’t
read these things, Lugo. This is some kind of new technique, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes, excuse me. Well, the negatively curved geometry of the
inside of Bolix was projected onto this plane here—” he pointed to
one of the images, “—in sections, and the heat radiation is
trigonometrically magnified to adjust for the variable scale. Those
randomly-placed dots are kipitite outcroppings; the larger blurry
patterns are Innerite bases or roving bands of soldiers.”
Captain Kaga studied the pictures. “Hmm,” he said. “The PKU
report said that the drilling was done right on the equator. Is that true?
Good. So, on this photo the horizontal axis represents east-west and
the vertical axis north-south, right? Okay.”
Captain Kaga took his sketch of Bolix and drew in the area of
Innerite population. “Aha!” he said. “Just as I suspected. The Innerites
are fairly dense and heavy, are they not?”
“Yes,” Lugo replied. “A good bit of their body weight consists of
armor plate, and they don’t exactly float through the air.”
“That’s very good,” said Captain Kaga, “and I’ll tell you why. The
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