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

the A.C. passes through a set of rectifier plates which, by
looking at 'em, I'm sure must be copper oxide. They're
bare, behind a safety screen, though so much current goes
through that they're too hot to look at close up. It all
seems kind of primitive to me."
"Or else merely different," sighed Yamamura. "We use
a light-element-fusion converter, one of whose advantages
is that it can develop electric current directly. They may
have perfected a power plant which utilizes moderately
heavy elements with small positive packing fractions.
I remember that was tried on Earth a long while ago, and
given up as impractical. But maybe the Eksers are better
engineers than us. Such a system would have the ad-
vantage of needing less refinement of fuel-which'd be a
real advantage to a ship knocking about among unexplored
planets. Maybe enough to justify that clumsy heat ex-
changer and rectifier system. We simply don't know."
He stared head-shakingly at the wires he was soldering.
"We don't know a damn thing," he said. Seeing Torrance:
"Well, carry on, Freeman Betancourt. And remember,
festina lente."
"For fear of wrecking the ship?" asked the captain.
Yamamura nodded. "The Eksers would've known a
small craft like ours couldn't generate a big enough hyper-
force field to tug their own ship home," he replied. "So
they'll have made sure no prize crew could make off with
it. Some of the stuff may be booby-trapped to wreck itself
if it isn't handled just so; and how'd we ever make re-
pairs? Hence we're proceeding with the utmost caution.
So cautiously that we haven't a prayer of figuring out the
controls before the Adderkops find us.
"It keeps the crew busy, though.
"Which is useful. Uh-huh. Well, sir, I've about got my
basic apparatus set up. Everything seems to test okay. Now
let me know which animal you want to investigate first."
As Torrance hesitated, the engineer explained: "I have to
adapt the equipment for the creature in question, you see.
Especially if it's a hydrogen breather.
Torrance shook his head. "Oxygen. In fact, they live
under conditions so much like ours that we can walk
right into their cages. The gorilloids. That's what Jeri and
I have named them. Those woolly, two-meter-tall bipeds
with the ape faces."
Yamamura made an ape face of his own. "Brutes that.
powerful? Have they shown any sign of intelligence?"
"No. But then, would you expect the Eksers to do so?
Jeri Kofoed and 1 have been parading in front of the
cages of all the possible species, making signs, drawing
pictures, everything we could think of, trying to get the
message across that we are not Adderkops and the genu-