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

"Not a light -- not a sign of fields in operation." Kendall said, unconsciously speaking softly. "This thing is so tiny, that it may escape their observation in the fields of the T-247 and Pluto down there. It's our only hope."

"What happened? How in the name of the planets did they kill those men without a sound, without a flash, and without even warning us, or injuring us?"

"Neutrons -- don't you see?"

"Frankly, I don't. I'm no scientist -- merely ,a technician. Neutrons aren't used in any process I've run across."

"Well, remember they're uncharged, tiny things.

Small as protons, but without electric field. The result is they pass right through an ordinary atom without being stopped unless they make a direct hit. Tungsten, while it has a beautifully high melting point, is mostly open space, and a neutron just sails right through it, or any heavy atom. Light atoms stop neutrons better -- there's less open space in 'em. Hydrogen is best. Well -- a man is made up mostly of light elements, and a man stops those neutrons -- it isn't surprising it killed those other fellows invisibly, and without a sound."

"You mean they bathed that ship in neutrons?"

"Shot it full of 'em. Just like our proton guns, only sending neutrons."

"Well, why weren't we killed too?"

"Water stops neutrons," Kendall said. "Figure it out."

"The rocket-water tanks -- all around us! Great masses' of water -- " gasped Cole. "That saved us?"

"Right. I wonder if they've spotted us."

The stranger ship was moving slowly in relation to the T-247. Suddenly the motion changed, the stranger spun -- and a giant lock appeared in her side, opened. The T-247 began to move, floated more and more rapidly straight for the lock. Her various weapons had stopped operating now, the hoppers of the Garnell guns exhausted, the charge of the accumulators aboard the ship down so low the proton guns had died out.

"Lord -- they're taking the whole ship!"

"Say -- Cole, is that any ship you ever heard of before? / don't think that's just a pirate!"

"Not a pirate -- what then?"

"How'd he get inside our detector screens so fast? Watch -- he'll either leave, or come after us -- " The T-247 had settled inside the lock now, and the great metal door closed after it. The whole patrol ship had been swallowed by a giant. Kendall was sketching swiftly on a notebook, watching the vast ship closely, putting down a record of its lines, and formation. He glanced up at it, and then down for a few more lines, and up at it --

The stranger ship abruptly dwindled. It dwindled with incredible speed, rushing off along the line of sight at an impossible velocity, and abruptly clicking out of sight, like an image on a movie-film that has been cut, and repaired after the scene that showed the final disappearance.

"Cole -- Cole -- did you get that? Did you see -- do you understand what happened?" Kendall was excitedly shouting now.

"He missed us," Cole sighed. "It's a wonder -- hanging out here in space, with the protector of the T-247's fields gone."

"No, no, you asteroid -- that's not it. He went off faster than light itself!^'

"Eh-what? Faster than light? That can't be done-"

"He did it, I know he did. That's how he got inside our screens. He came inside faster than the warning message could relay back the information. Didn't you see him accelerate to an impossible speed in an impossible time? Didn't you see how he just vanished as he exceeded the speed of lightj and stopped reflecting it? That ship was no ship of this solar system!"

"Where did he come from then?"

"God only knows, but it's a long, long way off."