"Eshbach, Lloyd Arthur - Overlord Of Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eshbach Lloyd Arthur)

OVERLORD OF EARTH
by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach

When man finally achieves world peace, what will he do about Andrev?--Startling
feature-length future-science novelet!
Will men in their growing wisdom finally realize the stupidity of International
slaughter and forget the so-called art of war? But when and if they do, might
even then an Andrev appear--a master killer who might have discovered the secret
of physical immortality and have lain in a hidden crypt for centuries, a product
of an earlier, more violent day who waited patiently for the time when he would
find matured mankind an easy prey for his bloodthirsty villainy?


CHAPTER I
KERRY KORD crouched in utter blackness, sensing rather than seeing the other
eighteen men in the belly of the glider. Only Glenn Bodey, squatting at his
back, strapped with him in the two-man parachute, could he definitely identify.
Minutes before, the motor of the giant tow-plane had been killed, and Kerry knew
that the fleet of twenty-five gliders must be in the vicinity of the "Overlord's
Throne."
Inhaling deeply, Kerry touched the emergency 'chute release with his left hand
and his Ghormley automatic with his right. A matter of minutes now. Despite
rigid self-control, he could feel his heartbeat quicken, and a constriction high
in his chest made breathing difficult. He rose to his full six-foot height; felt
Bodey's broad form rising with him.
"Cold up here," the latter growled heavily. "I could do with a little heat."
"It'll be warmer shortly," Kerry commented. "much warmer--very shortly."
That was how it had been since their take-off from their hidden base in the
ruins of New York City--small talk--trivial complaints--leading up to indirect
admission of the tension that gripped all of them.
Soon the waiting would be ended. Soon they would actually attack the stronghold
of the world dictator-- the self-styled "Overlord." Soon they would know whether
they would live or die--whether humanity would remain enslaved or would be free.
In his mind's eye Kerry again saw the final assembly of The Remnant. Saw
grim-faced, gray-clad hordes stalking through dank tunnels, littered with the
silt and rubbish of decades, to meet in what had once been the terminus of a
vast net of subway tubes, the heart of the transportation system of Earth's
greatest metropolis. The Remnant of earth's freemen--the comparative few of all
mankind who refused to yield to Andrev, the Overlord--had chosen instead to live
almost as beasts among the ruins of once mighty cities.
He saw again the close-packed, waiting thousands facing the high platform upon
which had stood the Chief, Janothan Hardinger, stiffly erect in the trim, gray
synthane of The Remnant, sharply visible in the beams of a battery of
floodlights. Behind him had sat the Ten, the scientists, councilors and
strategists of The Remnant. And all about the platform, in motionless rank upon
rank, arranged with military precision, had stood five hundred men in lustreless
black--Kerry Kord among them.
He heard again the final ringing words of the Chief. "We need not die--and we
shall not die! Men will again be free! Our plans have been made; our