"Joseph Green - Forgotten Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Joseph)

members leaped to emergency stations.
In the main cabin, the passengers had been crowding at the viewport, watching the
round globe that was Earth floating in the darkness of space. Now, their faces suddenly
pale, they looked about in fear.
Of the passengers, Jim Barry was the first to realize that danger threatened. He
grabbed his brother's arm.
"Into your seat, Ken!" he cried. "Strap in!"
And then, abruptly, the howling siren stopped. In the unexpected silence, the
passengers scrambled awkwardly toward their foam-pad seats. Some of them, not used to
the light gravity of the ship, stumbled and lost their footing. Frightened and helpless, they
drifted through the air until helped down to their seats by fellow passengers.
"What happened?"
"The emergency alarm-" someone muttered. "It went off!"
"We know that!" shouted an impatient voice. "But why?"
Suddenly the loudspeaker came to life and the voice of the pilot filled the room.
"Attention, please!" he called. "The alarm was triggered from Earth Spaceport. Our
orders are to orbit around .the Earth. A Space Guard patrol cruiser will come alongside. A
stowaway has been reported on board. That is all!"
An excited murmur ran through the passenger cabin.
Jim Barry turned to his brother with a sigh of relief.
"A stowaway! And I thought we were going to be space-wrecked!"
Ken smiled weakly. "So did everyone else-including me."
"We're not out of danger yet!" a stout, grey-haired man said with a solemn shake of his
head.
"What kind of danger are we in, sir?" Jim asked.
"Well, son," the stout man replied pompously, "stowaways usually crawl aboard through
the rocketubes and hide too close to the atomic engines. If they get a dose of radiation, they
are usually dead by the time we reach the Moon."
"I'm sorry for the stowaway," Jim said.
"Yes," the man continued. "But suppose he leaves his hiding place and mixes with the
passengers? He'd be as hot as an atomic pile and spread radiation sickness among us!"
"Dear me!" moaned a timid man. "Radiation sickness!"
A slow vibration shook the ship. The nose rockets were blasting quick stabs of flame,
turning the ship into an orbit around the Earth.
"We're in orbit now," announced the stout man. "I'm going to watch the Space Cruiser
come alongside."
Within minutes the passengers were once again crowding at the viewport, trying to
catch a glimpse of the approaching patrol ship.
Jim nudged his brother. "What do you say we have a look, too?"
"All we'll see is the backs of their heads," Ken replied with a glance at the crowded
viewport.
"There must be other viewports on the ship. Come on."
The brothers slipped out of their seats and made their way to the rear of the cabin. An
oval-shaped door opened into a narrow passageway. The magnetoes on their spaceboots
clicked loudly on the steel deck as they walked.
Jim was a year older than his brother and taller by several inches. He had a thin,
handsome face and a pair of mischievous eyes. His brown hair lay in an unruly mass on his
head.
Ken, the more serious-minded of the two, was stocky-with powerful shoulders and a
square, rugged face. His blond hair, cropped short, stood up like the spiky bristles of a