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

THE IMMORTALITY SEEKERS
I
THE SECOND METAL
TED PENTON, of the team of Penton and Blake, regarded his companion, Rod Blake, and grinned. In the great audience hall below, twelve hundred of Callisto's scientists were assembling to hear the message of the visitors from space.
"Plenty has happened to us since Earth kicked us out for taking off some of the three hundred square miles of territory spang in the center of Europe in an atomic explosion. It's their own fault if they can't find us-outlawing research on atomic^power. It was obvious when we developed atomic power that we'd be the first men to reach the other planets. And nobody can follow to bring us back unless they accepted the hated atomic power and used it."
"One," interrupted Rod Blake, ticking it off on his finger.
"I learned the Martian language under the able, if painful, hypnotic teaching of a Martian master, old Loshtu. Two," -a second finger-"I learned the Lanoor language on Ganymede by your hypnotic teaching. Yo" are not a master of Martian telepathy, and it was more racking. There, we are now on Callisto and I may be blowed to the nine planets and twenty-odd moons of the Solar System before I let you teach me this language that way.
"Look at the scraps we've picked up for ourselves so far: an hour after we landed on Mars we were trying desperately to get away from Mars and their damned inhabitants, the thushol. Then we went to Ganymede, battled their glorious shleath and Lanoor, and got evicted. I won't go through that headache I always collect from learning a language via your hypnotism system if we are going to be here on Callisto a year or so. I can pick up the language normally in that time; so no hypnotism. Got it?"
Penton smiled beatifically.
"The Callistans will want a speech from you at that conference that is so swiftly assembling. Just because we've had bad luck on those last two trips-"
"If you think those Lanoor that were chasing us meant no more than bad luck when we left Ganymede, why did you exhibit such surprising speed? Me, with two sound legs, and I had all that I could do to keep up with a wounded one. They weren't wishing us bad luck; they were wishing to elongate the vertebrae connecting my cranium with the rest of me, or I'm badly mistaken. Very peevish about it, too."
"H-m-m, mildly so. But then, you must admit those shleath were enough to make anyone peevish," Penton pointed out judicially.
"No fault of ours. We were asked to overthrow the Sha-loor overlords, which we did. They should have had sense enough to keep those fifty-foot amoebas in check after that I'd have suggested turning that courtyard where they were into a sulphuric acid swimming pool, myself."
"No fault of ours, perhaps, but they wanted someone to blame, and we were handy. If the shleath had had the
decency to stay fifty-foot size something could be done. But now they are peeping their particularly unpleasant slime out of every rat-hole, crack and crevice in the whole city. Personally, I don't see what the Lanoor are going to do about it. The only cure I could see was to burn down the whole city-ray It out of existence. The damned things can go anywhere, through the tiniest crack; worst of all, no animal can fight them, they Just digest it."
Blake was staring down through the ornamental grille that separated their room from the great audience hall below. It was almost filled up.
"By the way, Penton, what are you going to tell that Callistan assembly?"
"Various things," Penton sighed. "I'll have to figure it out as I go along. I had a chance to talk with Tha Lagth, the old commander who brought us here, for only about five minutes. They have automobiles-we rode in one; wing-flapping, flying machines-we watched them as we came down in our spaceship. But what else they have, I can't make out. I know they don't have fire, since no normal fuel will burn in this atmosphere, so I brought some things to amuse them." Penton pulled some loose, metal scraps from a pouch he wore, and a small bottle filled with sticks of yellowish wax and a watery liquid.
"White phosphorous for one," guessed Blake, "but the metal has me stopped. Oh-magnesium. Yes, that would burn anywhere."
"Some of them may have seen a flame in a laboratory, under special lab conditions, but I don't think they saw any in open air. They do have ships-we saw them in the harbor down there-can see them now for that matter. Say, they must all be motor ships, but I wonder what kind of motors_Jthey use? This air wouldn't let even a Diesel engine run. Electric-but how do they generate power?
"Anyway, that's the trouble. I want to find out what they know before I go spreading all my cards. Somehow, we have to stay here long enough to get a stock of edible food. I wish we hadn't been so bright, moving all the stuff from
the ship into that apartment our friend P'holkuun gave us back on Ganymede."
"Yes," Blake said ironically, "oh Ambassador Plenipotentiary of Earth. How in the name of the wavering worlds will you support that claim?"
"Well"-his friend grinned-"Earth gave us a royal send-off the last time we visited-all the big guns firing in our honor."
"Probably it was an accident they left the shells in when they fired 'em," Blake grunted. "I suppose you are playing on the fact that they can't check up on you?"
"But more immediately important, how about these Cal-listans? You swore up and down that they were ari honest, gentlemanly race. But how sure are you?"
Penton nodded toward the closet on one side of the room, where the shimmery bulk of his spacesuit hung.
"I discarded that suit. They don't understand mental telepathy any more than we did before the Martians gave us practical lessons-even if unpleasant ones. They can't mask their thoughts, therefore, and I know what sort of ideas old Tha Lagth had while meeting us and bringing us here. He's a nice, old fellow, and all that brusque, efficient, military air of his was due to the fact that he was half scared of doing the wrong thing.
"What is the proper formula for greeting the first ambassador of an alien planet? Who should attend to it? Using uncommon good sense, the old fellow figured visitors from a foreign world called for the whole constellation of scientists instead of politicians. More power to him. The premier will undoubtedly horn in, but I thank Tha Lagth for his kindly thoughts."
"I don't mind your discarding the spacesuits," Blake objected, "half so much as I regret that the only holsters we had for the UV guns and the disintegrator pistols were part of the spacesuits. I just like that nice, rhythmic, bump-bump-bump of a dis gun when I am on planets unknown. It makes me feel very much as though I really owned the
place. Which isn't so far from the truth when you have one of those ray guns on tap."
Penton shrugged.
"A dis gun puts that potential ownership In the realm of academic questions. If you have to prove it, there is nothing but dust left to own when you reach the Q.E.D. stage. Anyway, prepare to meet the assembled bright-lights of the Cal-listans intellectual world. Here comes Tha Lagth."
Blake turned with a sigh.
"I'm glad you'll have to do all the talking as Earth's ambassador. But look, can't you do that thought-projecting stunt so I can follow, even if-"
"Even if you won't take the trouble to learn the language?" Penton grinned. "I suppose I'll have to."
"Welcome, Tha Lagth," said Penton, smoothly shifting into Callistan. "The scientists are assembled?"
"Yes, Earthmen. If you are ready-" The old warrior looked at them with friendly dignity.
Seated before that audience of twelve hundred Callistans, they found Penton's guess confirmed. The premier was an unusually tall man, even among the eight-foot Callistans, with gray-white hair and a jet-black beard clipped in a style strongly reminiscent of the ancient Assyrian custom.
He was pointing out the immense importance of this occasion-historic moment-two world's civilizations-the benefits of both. The director of the Sharl Technical University rose and explained the historic moment-two world's sciences- the benefits of both. Starn Druth, the most eminent scientist of Callisto, walked slowly up to the platform, an old, shaky man, his skin wrinkled with advanced age. But his speech was sharp, clever, and avoided the obvious. Penton listened with interest, and realized that the old body carried a keen, youthful mind.
Starn Druth remarked that inevitably the available supplies of chemical elements on two worlds would differ in important, perhaps vital, ways.
"There is," he pointed out, "an element which theory has
shown to be of immense importance. It exists in small quantities in the sun, but has never been found here, to our regret. Our planet is light, and has lost nearly all the hydrogen, the helium and the other light atoms it originally had when the worlds cooled from creation. The heavier worlds may well have retained these elements in small but available quantities. This-"
At the back of the huge hall, a man stumbled in, a man in the green-blue uniform of the Air Force. He was panting for breath, wildly excited. Despite the efforts of the attendants who rose to stop him, he ran down the aisle shouting.
Tha Lagth rose to his feet and stepped forward sharply.
"Halt!" he roared. "What is the reason for this intrusion?"
"Commander-Commander-the ship. Their ship is made of the Second Metal!"
With a single, mighty roar, the assembly came to its feet. Tha Lagth stopped abruptly, and looked to old Starn Druth. The scientist stared in sudden triumph at his colleagues.
"I said it! The heavy world retained the Second Metal!" But no one heard his-voice in the clamorous shouting. Tha Lagth had taken up the gavel, and was pounding vigorously at the resonator on his desk. Slowly its sharp, piercing note struck out through the babble to quiet the hundreds of Cal-listans. Gradually they relaxed in their seats.
"Now, messenger," said Tha Lagth at length, "what was found?"