"Anderson, Poul - 1964 Nicholas Van Rijn 02 - Trader to the Stars 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

celerated several Gs, at least. It"s for quick getaways and
. . . and . . ."
"And you, with brains like fermented gravy and bana-
nas for fingers, went ahead and yanked it open.
Torrance felt himself redden "How was I to know, sir?
I must've applied less than half a kilo of force. Emergency
switches aren't hair-triggered, after all! Considering how
much it takes to move one of those control plates, who'd
have thought the switch would respond to so little?"
Van Rijn took a closer look. "I see now there is a hook
to secure it by," he said.- "Must be they use that when the
ship's on a high-gravity planet." He peered down a hole
near the center of the panel, about one centimeter in
diameter and fifteen deep.. At the bottom a small key pro-
jected. "This must be another special control, ha? Safer
than that switch. You would need thin-nosed pliers to
make a turning of it." He scratched his pomaded curls.
"But then why is not the pliers hanging handy? I don't
see even a hook or bracket or drawer for them."
"I don't care," said Torrance. "When the whole interior's
been stripped- There's nothing but a slagheap in the en-
gine room, I tell you, fused metal, carbonized plastic
. . . bedding, furniture, anything they thought might
give us a clue to their identity, all melted down in a jury-
rigged cauldron. They used their own converter to supply
heat. That was the cause of the neutrino flux Yamamura
observed. They must have worked like demons."
"But they did not destroy all needful tools and ma-
chines, surely? Simpler then they should blow up their
whole ship, and us with it. I was sweating like a hog,
me, for'fear they would do that. Not so good a way for a
poor sinful old man to end his days, blown into radio-
active stinks three hundred light-years from the vine-
yards of Earth."
"N-n-no. As far as we can tell from a cursory examina-
tion, they didn't sabotage anything absolutely vital. We
can't be sure, of course. Yamamura's gang would need
weeks just to get a general idea of how this ship is put
together, let alone the practical details of operating it.
But I agree, the crew isn't bent on suicide. They've got us
more neatly trapped than they know, even. Bound help-
lessly through space-toward their home star, maybe.-in
any event, almost at right angles to the course we want."
Torrance led the eay out."suppose we go have a more
thorough look at the zoo, sir,"he went on."Yamamura
talked about setting up some equipment...to help
us tell the crew from the animals!"

The main hold comprised almost half the volume of the
great ship. A corridor below, a catwalk above, ran through