Theodore Sturgeon

Name: The sky was full of ships
Author: Theodore Sturgeon

The sky was full of ships (1947)

Summary

“The sky was full of ships”, published in 1947, is a work by Theodore Sturgeon. It explores elements such as Sykes, transmitter and machines.

Quotes from The sky was full of ships (Theodore Sturgeon)

Theodore Sturgeon, The sky was full of ships (1947)

“ All that time the old man talked. It was mostly bragging about the job he'd done decoding the wire he had. It was mostly Greek to me.
"I have a record here," he says, swishin' his hunk of wire around, "of a phase of the industrial revolution in Central Europe that will have the historians gnashing their teeth. But have I said anything? Not me. Not Sykes!
"I'll have the history of mankind written in such detail, with such authority, that the name of Sykes will go into the language as a synonym for the miraculously accurate." ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Theodore Sturgeon, The sky was full of ships (1947)

“ He is real hoarse. "Kemp! They've been here!"
I began to get the idea. The lower chamber is empty. The upper one is full. The whole set-up is arranged to run off a new recording. And where is Sykes' thirty years' work?
He starts to laugh. I look at him. I can't take that. The place is too small for all that noise. I never heard anybody laugh like that. Like short screams, one after the other, fast. He laughs and laughs.
I carry him out. I put him down outside and go back in for my gear. I can hear him laughing out there and that busted-up voice of his echoing in the gulch. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Theodore Sturgeon, The sky was full of ships (1947)

“ Sykes studied that set-up for years before he figured the particular squiggle in that wire that would start that transmitter to sending. Where was it sending to? Why? Sure, he thought about that. But that didn't matter to him.
What was supposed to happen when the tape ran out? Who or what would come and look at it when it was all done? You know, he didn't care. He just wanted to read that tape, is all. Seems there's a lot of guys write history books and stuff. And he wanted to call them liars. He wanted to tell them the way it really was. Can you imagine? ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Theodore Sturgeon, The sky was full of ships (1947)

“ Sykes died, and after two years they tracked Gordon Kemp down and brought him back, because he was the only man who knew anything about the death. Kemp had to face a coroner's jury in Switchpath, Arizona, a crossroads just at the edge of the desert, and he wasn't too happy about it, being city-bred and not quite understanding the difference between "hicks" and "folks." ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Theodore Sturgeon, The sky was full of ships (1947)

“ He didn't answer that but mumbled a lot of stuff.
Something like this.
"They knew we'd reached the atomic age. They wanted to be told when. The transmitter did just that. They came and took the recordings and refilled the machine.
"They sealed off the room with something they thought only controlled atomic power could break into. This time the transmitter was triggered to human beings in that room. Your torch did it, Kemp—that three-hundred-years-in-the-future torch! They think we have atomic power! They'll come back!" ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Theodore Sturgeon, The sky was full of ships (1947)

“ He thought at first that maybe the transmitter was busted, but after a year or two of examining the machines without touching them he began to realize that there was a gear-train waiting by the tape where it fed through the gismo that crimped it.
This gear train was fixed to start the transmitter, see? But it was keyed to a certain crimp in the tape. In other words, when something happened somewhere on earth that was just the right thing, the crimper would record it and the transmitter would get keyed off. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Theodore Sturgeon, The sky was full of ships (1947)

“ The coroner stroked his stubble, a soft rasping sound like a rope being pulled over a wooden beam.
"We don't know about that, Kemp. Hmm. Why can't you get it through your head that nobody's accusing you of anything? You're jest a feller knows something about the death of this here Alessandro Sykes. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Theodore Sturgeon, The sky was full of ships (1947)

“ He would spend days in that cavern, staring at the machines. He didn't want to touch them. He only wanted to find out what they were doing there. One of them was running.
The big machine, the dumbbell-shaped one, was running. It didn't make no noise. Both machines had a little disk set into the side. It was half red, half black. On the big machine, the one he called the recorder, this here disk was turning. Not fast, but you could see it was moving. Sykes was all excited about that.
On the way out here, on the train, he spouted a lot of stuff. I don't know why. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Theodore Sturgeon, The sky was full of ships (1947)

“ I have a kid reads that kind of stuff, an' I never did like to see him at it. Believe me, he's a-goin' to cut it out as of right now. I think this Kemp feller needs a hangin'!"
"Now, Jed!" bellowed the coroner. "If we kill off this man we do it legal, hear?" The sudden hubbub quieted, and the coroner turned to the prisoner.
"Listen here, Kemp—somethin' jest occurred to me. How long was it from the time of the first atom blast until the time that room got sealed up?"
"I dunno. About two years. Little over. Why?"
"An' how long since that night you been talking about, when Sykes died?" ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Theodore Sturgeon, The sky was full of ships (1947)

“ It's that transmitter. The little red and black disk is turning around on it. I just stand there watching it. It only runs for three or four minutes. And then it begins to get hot in there.
I got scared. I ducked out of the hole and picked up Sykes. He didn't weigh much. I looked back in the hole. The cave was lit up. Red. The machines were cherry-red, straw-color, white, just that quick. They melted. I saw it. I ran.
The machines grew cherry-red, then straw-colored, and finally melted.
I don't hardly remember getting to the rope and tying Sykes on and climbing up and hauling him up after me. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Theodore Sturgeon, The sky was full of ships (1947)

“ So I laughed at him. I got in and started the car and laughed at him.
"Doc," I said, "we ain't goin' to be stopped now. Like the papers say, we're in the atomic age if it kills us. But we're in for keeps. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Theodore Sturgeon, The sky was full of ships (1947)

“ That was what went on all the way out there, to that place in the dry gulch where the cave was.
You wouldn't believe what a place that was to get to. How that old guy ever had the energy to keep going back to it I'll never know. We had to stop the car about twenty miles from here and hoof it.
The country out there is all tore up. If I hadn't already seen the color of his money I'd 'a said the heck with it. Sand an' heat an' big rocks an' more places to fall into and break your silly neck—Lord!
Me with a pack on my back too, the torch, the gas and a power supply and all. ”

Theodore Sturgeon

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Quotes from The sky was full of ships (Theodore Sturgeon)

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