"Alan Dean Foster - Flinx 3 - Orphan Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

One-third of the way across the floor he halted before an imposing door of dun-colored metal, the
only break in o solid wall of the same material that closed off a spacious section of the cavern.
Using his tree hand while still staring at the thing in his other hand, he pulled out a small ring
that held several metal cylinders. He selected a cylinder, pressed his thumb into the recessed
area at one end of it, then inserted the other into a small hole in the door and shoved forward. A
complex series of radiations was produced and absorbed by the doorway mechanism. These passed
judgment on both the cylinder and the person holding it.
Satisfied that the cylinder was coded properly and that ifs owner was of a stable frame of mind,
the door sang soft acquiescence and shrank info the floor. Endrickson 'passed through and the door
noted his passage, then rose to close the gap behind him.
A not quite finished device loomed ahead, nearly filling this part of the cavern. It was
surrounded by an attending army of instruments: monitoring devices, tools in repose, checkout
panels and endless crates of assorted com- ponents.
Endrickson ignored this familiar collage as he headed purposefully for a single black panel. He
thoughtfully eyed the switches and controls thereon, then used another of his ring cylinders to
bring the board to life. Lights came on obediently and gauges registered for his inspection.
The vast bulk of the unfinished KK-drive starship engine loomed above him. Final completion would
and could take place only in free space, since the activated posigrovity field of the drive
interacting with a planet's gravitational field would produce a series of quakes and tectonic
adjustments of cataclysmic proportions.
But that fact didn't concern Endrickson just now. A far more intriguing thought had overwhelmed
him. Was the drive unit complete enough to function? he wondered. Why not observe the interesting
possibilities firsthand?
He glanced at the beauty in his palm, then used a second cylinder to unlock a tightly sealed box
at one end of the block beard. Beneath the box were several switches, all enameled' a bright
crimson. Endrickson heard a klaxon yell shrilly somewhere, but he ignored the alarm as he pressed
switches in proper order. His anticipation was enormous. With the fluid-state switches activated,
instructions began flowing through the glass-plastic-metal monoIith. For off on the other side of
the locked door, Endrickson cou!d hear people shouting, running. Meanwhile the drive's thermomdear
spark was activated and Endrickson saw full engagement register on the appropriate monitors.
He nodded with satisfaction. Final relays interlocked, communicated with the computermind built
into the engine. For a brief second the Kurita-Kita field was brought into existence. Momentarily
the thought flashed through Endrickson's mind that this was something that should never be done
except in the deep reaches of free space.
But his last thoughts were reserved for the exquisite loveliness and strange words locked within
the object he held in his hand. ...
Had the unit been finished there might have been a major disaster. But it was not complete, and so
the Field collapsed quickly, unable to sustain itself and to expand to its full, propulsive
diameter.
So, although windows were shattered and a few older buildings toppled and the Church of Santa
Avila de Seville's ancient steeple cracked six hundred kilometers away in downtown Valparaiso,
only a few things in the immediate vicinity showed any significant alteration,
However, Endrickson, The Plant, and the nearby technologic community of Santa Rosa de Cristobal


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(pop. 3,200) vanished. The 13,352-meter-high mountain at whose base the town had risen and in
whose bowels The Plant had been carved was replaced by a 7,200-mefer-deep crater fined with molten