"Campbell, John W Jr - The Double_Minds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Campbell John W Jr)

"The universal solvent. Anyway, it should get us out of here, I believe. I-"
With a soft clank, the large glass block disintegrated, and its contents spewed out over the metal table, and down the glass wall of the cell. The table had been in a corner, and the adjacent walls and floor were liberally flooded with the deluge. An intense, suffocating odor sprang up at once. Blake pulled his feet off the floor hastily, and looked in dismay at Penton.
"I thought it would," Penton sighed. "It does that." "What?"
"Be patient and we'll see. You are supposed to be recovering from a fatal illness. I've got to tell the guard it's according to plan."
The guard was already unlocking the door, for he had seen the deluge. Penton waved his hands.
"Keep out-the vapors-Blake must breathe the vapors!" The unsuspecting guard had the door somewhat open, but getting the said vapors himself, he promptly decided that Blake was welcome to them and departed.
"Look, Rod, they have just turned on the corridor lights!" explained Penton.
"Which reminds me to ask why you said even before we landed, that they didn't have electricity. Those may not be electric gas-glow tubes, but they're certainly one swell imitation."
Penton laughed. "Wrong, two out of two. I said they didn't have electricity before we landed because the instruments on the ship indicated no sign of electric or electromagnetic energy of any sort produced by man on the whole
planet. As for the lamps, electric gas-glow tubes are a poor imitation of them. Those are biological lamps. They use some kind of a bacterial ferment, and they turn them on by letting air into them. Notice how dark it is already? Small world turning rapidly on its axis, with a thin atmosphere. It will be dark in another quarter hour. Better pack your belongings, because, m' lad, we are going out."
"How? Did P'holkuun finally decide to throw in with us?"
"No, not yet, anyway. I didn't think he would until we got out of here on our own legs. P'holkuun isn't going to ask help from somebody who is tied worse than he is. But-he'll help plenty once we get out of here."
"Yes-but how? Don't tell me we can go out through those solid walls!"
"Yes, through the walls. It's dark enough now, I suppose. Rod, will you wield that hefty hoof of yours against the wall in the neighborhood of that table, while I obscure the window in the door? I would have a chat with our jailer. Don't shake the building, though. You should go right through the wall. Easy."
Blake moved the table. Penton's argument with the jailer was about something impossible, and very loud, but Blake paid little attention because of the way the wall was acting. The clear, hard glass was crumbling under his foot into sand. It broke out in great chunks, and crumbled as though his foot were a pile-driver. In utter surprise he felt his boot sink into the stuff-and through it! In almost no time, Penton had so annoyed the jailer that the man walked down the corridor to avoid Penton's voice, and Penton walked with Blake through the wall of the prison.
"Jupiter will rise in about two hours. When he comes up you won't need to be told, but you will need to be hidden," said Penton. "We appear to the local populace as inconspicuous as a pair of orangutans walking down Fifth Avenue arm in arm. And slightly less harmless. To them our build is the quintessence of horrible, brute strength.
"So when Jupiter's great bulk comes over the horizon, the reflected light is going to make us conspicuous, and not a
sight to calm the nerves of nice, old Lanoorian ladies. Further, thanks to P'holkuun's thoughts, I know that our ship is somewhere on the far side of the city. So come on. First we have to get away from this neighborhood."
n
THE DOUGHBALLS
TED PENTON SAILED over a twenty-foot wall surrounding the jail, and Blake found it easy to follow because of the satellite's low gravity.
"What"-he panted after a moment-"is the secret-of the wall-stop running-you fool-I'm winded."
"The air's too thin-to keep-it up," agreed Penton. In the darkness of a tiny alleyway they stopped. "The stuff I used was crotonaldehyde-an organic liquid-derivable from -alcohol. Works on the fact-that glass is not a true-solid."
Blake stared at him, panting.
"Yeah. Stone walls do-not a prison make-nor iron bars a cage. So what is it? That glass wall looked solid enough-it had me bluffed."
"Puffed, did you say? Glass is a liquid. Liquid got so cold it has turned stiff-past the gooey stage. Crotonaldehyde has the curious property of turning it solid. Long heating and cooling does it too, that's why kerosene lamp-chimneys used to get so fragile. Solid glass is extremely brittle and as strong as so much sand. When that stuff turned it solid it took all the strength out of it. We have to steal a car. Damn. No running or we will pant so loud they'll hear us a block away. They have cars. There ought to be one around here somewhere, and let us pray they haven't invented locks for 'em."
They covered six blocks before they saw a rounded, bulky lump in the road that was evidently an automobile.
"You drive, Rod," Penton said softly. "You are a better
driver than I, and a better mechanic. Can you figure it out?"
"Lord, help us, nol Is it electric? No. Steam? Compressed air? Gasoline? Diesel? How in blazes should I know? Where's the engine? Both ends look alike. I have never seen anybody drive one, and I don't even know which end is front. Is this one a steering lever, and-well, what's that other one back there? I-" the car jerked ahead suddenly.
"Oh," said Penton, "you do know how to start it."
Blake was too busy hanging on. He held the lever grimly in his hand, and pulled.
"What do I do to stop it?" He tried pushing the lever. The car showed capabilities of speed. He pressed in a different direction. The car stopped accelerating but by no means slowed down. The quite accidental fact that the road was straight helped. His foot felt feverishly for a brake pedal- and the car swerved aside into a pole.
"I think," said Penton, bending the door frame out of his way, "that they probably have a more comfortable, if no more effective means of stopping them. They can't have light poles everywhere. We had better hurry elsewhere. Someone will certainly investigate that crash. Anyway, the next car we try, you'll know they steer with their feet, and not try to jam on the brakes with the steering gear."
"The next one," said Blake clearly, "you will know they steer with their feet. And I'm going to take time out to find out how in blazes they work. I just took hold of that handle -and away she went. No starter-nothing!"
Six blocks away they found another car, not exactly like the first, but similar, seven seats instead of five. Blake looked at Penton.
Penton hesitated, and looked about him. Surrounding warehouses loomed, dark masses against a star-studded sky. A tiny, bright moon rode high in the sky, and lower was another, even smaller. Giant worlds, as large as the planet they rode, but millions of miles distant in Jupiter's titanic gravity field. But their light was enough to show dim alleyways and fences made of wire and some woven, fibrous rtuff.
"Right, Rod. Check the control system and let it go," Penton said softly.
Five seconds later Blake was in and after a few more moments of swift examination he started from the curb. The machine started with a swift, smooth rush, and the soft whirr of the blowers and pumps was the only sound from the engine. Rapidly Blake got the feel of the apparatus, the two steering pedals, the lever that controlled it's speed by increase or relaxation of pressure on the grip. Relaxed, it became a brake of fair power; squeezed, the car shot forward with amazing acceleration.
"All right. I have it now. We need lights, and I didn't figure them out. They must be in the dash control."
Penton worked swiftly over the dash with the aid of the hand flash he carried. Suddenly lights blazed on, and Blake sped on his way with more assurance.
Blake squeezed harder on the control, and the silent engine behind drove the car forward with a powerful, steady push. Rapidly, fully forty miles an hour, they cruised through the deserted district. The street that had led them straight toward their goal came to an end, and Blake hesitated at the curve, muttering at the inefficient brake system. Then he went right. Presently, on a more traveled street, he went left. More cars were about them.
As they headed toward the city, traffic became heavier, and Blake anxiously watched the system, trying to learn the rules of the road. They drove on the left, moving at a lively clip.
"They have traffic lights," said Penton quietly. "I just spotted the damn things. It's a block system, like New York's. See-way up ahead you can see that yellow light. That's stop. Red is go. We'll have to stop at this next block."
But traffic became heavier. Lights became confusing. And suddenly a bright flush crept over the sky, and almost immediately Jupiter loomed on the skyline. Five blocks later they were hopelessly caught in a traffic jam in the heart of the city. Drivers near them looked-and left. Beside them they had seen, driving a car, two monstrous, squat beings,
with great ropes and bundles of inhuman muscles. To them they appeared like horrible animals incredibly become intelligent.
Blake opened his door.
"All off here. Transfer. Last stop. We can't drive through those stalled cars, and somehow I don't think the drivers are coming back." Penton got out the other side, and silently they walked up the line of traffic. Behind them doors opened hastily, and feet scuttled away. Blake crept up beside the leading car, a gleaming, seven-passenger sedan, and rose abruptly at the driver's window. He looked quietly at the occupant. A gray-haired Lanoor stared back, and slowly his eyes closed. He shook his head and opened them very wide, then beat it.
Penton climbed in first, and Blake took the late occupant's seat.
"The lights have changed," Penton said. They made nearly fifteen blocks. Then they changed cars again, taking the first car in line-and a dozen glass bubbles of sleep-gas crackled around them. Blake leapt upward, to the top of a car, and crashed through into the seat. He settled back in sleep before he could extricate himself.